This is my fourth year as Artistic Director and Executive Director for the festival. I first volunteered for the festival in the late nineties, when I got stuck as a parking attendant for hours without water or any clear sense of what I was supposed to be doing.  Since then, I’ve coordinated Healing Arts and the Club Crawl, eventually taking on the positions I’m in now.

The festival is run by a small, dedicated, and hard-working group of volunteers, many of whom have been with the festival for years and work, month after month, year-round to bring together three great days in late August.  We’ve made a lot of changes to the festival in the past 4 years, changes I’m very proud of because they’ve made the festival infinitely better, and infinitely easier to run.  We’ve tightened up, planned carefully, and created a strong foundation for considered growth.  But change always angers people, especially when they see it as negatively impacting themselves.

Last year, when I proposed that we cut the Club Crawl, it was not the first time I’d argued that it was a waste of effort that reflected poorly on the festival as a whole.  Originally conceived as a fundraiser for the festival, the Club Crawl rarely worked as such, generally losing money despite our best efforts.  In my opinion, it was a clusterfuck; paying artists a pittance to play in venues unsuited for live music, running technicians ragged as they dealt with jury-rigged gear and practically no switch-over time.  Venue owners didn’t feel they were getting a good deal, either, and as a result, often dropped out or screwed us in some way at the last minute.  The final straw, for me, was when one of our funders praised the festival as a whole but suggested in strong terms that the Club Crawl didn’t live up to the standards they expected as a baseline for paid, professional artists.  I agreed, and either argued persuasively to the Board of Directors or just browbeat them (they may want to comment on which) into axing the Club Crawl for 2009.

I have to admit I was completely taken off guard by the anger from several local artists.  What I saw as a shitty gig or tokenism they (I guess) saw as inclusion. And I’m sorry they felt that way; it reflects poorly on local audiences and venues that a $50 gig with no real soundcheck is considered okay for a skilled artist who’s been playing for years.  I know it’s a lot harder to get into the festival now than it was in the past, because there are fewer slots.  But I think it’s important for any publicly-funded arts organization to treat artists with respect, and part of that respect is to create opportunities that operate at a professional standard – decent pay, decent playing conditions.  Another facet of that respect is to set the bar high and encourage the community to reach it.

My philosophy for booking has always pretty much been the same, from my very earliest days as a promoter, through my MoHo days, to now.  I book great professional artists who are good to work with, and I pay them as well as I can and ensure they work in decent conditions.  My resources are limited and I’m bound by the conditions of my funders, and this means that, if I’m going to follow my own ethical code, I book fewer artists, but better gigs, than we’ve done in the past.

In addition, we receive funding from the terrific Arts Presentation Canada program, run by the Federal government, whose purpose is to increase diversity at festivals, and who stipulate that their funding should be used to book artists from out-of-province as well as emerging and culturally diverse acts.  I see this as an opportunity to introduce Peterborough artists and audiences to the sounds and ideas that are happening across the country, but it also means that there are fewer slots for local artists than in the past.

I’m extremely lucky because I book a free festival, so I don’t have to worry about a draw – every year, 7000-9000 people come regardless of who’s playing.  Personally, I prefer to support emerging acts in any case, and I really don’t like the idea of blowing half or more of my artistic budget on the last two acts of the night.  But it also means that we miss out on those tasty admissions fees that can make up a third or more of a festival’s funding.  The idea of fencing off the festival area and charging admission has been bruited about, but none of the current Board are comfortable with the idea of changing 21 years of tradition in such a fundamental way – we like the festival free and accessible.  So we do our best with the funding we receive, and I think we do a pretty damned good job.

There are so many things I wish for the Peterborough Folk Festival - good god, how I’d love to expand and do three days in the park, to rebuild that concrete stage with a proper proscenium and offices and dry storage underneath,  and re-terrace the hill.  How I’d love for us to own our own sound gear, to build some permanent platforms in the park, and to do weekly concerts throughout the Summer and a Winter series.  I want to draw in the communities of new Canadians in Peterborough and become relevant to them, and I’d like to see more participatory workshops where our audience get to learn how to do things.  I want to see fewer and fewer cars in the parking area, and more and more people arrive on foot or via transit/canoe/bicycle. I want to see an increasingly diverse crowd of people enjoying the kind of music they can’t hear anywhere else in the City.

My dreams always outstrip my abilities, and our finances.  I am constantly disappointed by what I was not able to achieve in any given year.  But by consistently setting the bar higher for ourselves, we reach a little higher every year, and do better.  It’s hard work, but I think we can’t ask any less of ourselves than we ask of our community.  And I think that, if we don’t ask for high standards from our community, we tacitly encourage unprofessional-ism and sloppy work.

Join us, August 27 – 29, 2010, as we try to reach a little higher than we have before; there will be mistakes, absolutely, and things that don’t quite make the grade.  But there’s a spirit of sweetness, or openness, and a sense of community that you won’t find elsewhere.  Moments of beauty that you can share with friends and family, great music, delicious food, and fabulous crafts.  For all the heartache I’ve occasionally felt over the PFF, the end is always worth it.

This year I intend to step down at Executive Director of the Peterborough Folk Festival; if you’re interested in the job (it’s primarily a volunteer position, involving grant writing and administrative work, but comes with a small honourarium), you can get in touch with me and we’ll talk about it.

What I consider the greater crime, however, is the culture of wear-down that perpetuates this cycle.  How many terrific, smart, passionate people get so worn down by the demands, expectations, disappointments, losses, and low-income of a career in the community and non-profit sector that we lose them after a few years, with a net loss to the community of invaluable experience, momentum, and expertise?  As people interested in the health and vibrancy of our community, it’s poor behaviour to demand that our volunteers and employees sacrifice their own to the cause.

Whenever I hear the adjective “tireless” applied to a community worker, hear jovial references to their round-the-clock presence at the office, see their time and work undervalued, I worry about the future of the organization they work for.  It’s a process of attrition, a death by a thousand cuts.  The fall may be slow, but it’s inevitable.

A community’s greatest asset is its skilled workers; protect yourself, and the important work you do, by avoiding the pitfalls.

I’ve given this a lot of thought, having been involved in the community sector a long time, and often fallen into the traps described above.  As paid staff, volunteer, and Board member, I’ve both asked too much and been asked too much.  There’s not a mistake on this list I haven’t made myself, sometimes over and again.  So, as much to remind myself as to educate anyone else, here are seven strategies for making a positive difference in both your own life, and that of the community!

1. Know why you’re joining the organization.

Yes, it looks good on a resume to say you sat on a Board of Directors or volunteer, but are you prepared to do the work?  To pay close attention to the financial spreadsheets?  To ask questions, and challenge more established people when you have doubts or concerns? To do more than to merely show up?  Sitting there mouth closed and eyes glassy does no one any good, whether you’re a ticket-taker or a member-at-large.

2. Know you have the time to devote to the organization.

You see something you feel is important, and you want to help, and before you know it you’ve committed yourself to a major role without stopping to see if there’s room in your year for another commitment.  Too many times we spread ourselves too thin to be of any use to anyone, and achieve less because we aim for more.

3. Understand and share the goals of the organization you’re joining.

An argument about what route to take from here to Toronto is resolvable, but when they want to get to Toronto and you want to get to Mumbai, there’s no way to reconcile except by force.   There can be as many goals in any given organization as there are people and ideas; read the bylaws, vision, mandate and goals of the organization and find out when those were last reviewed and how often they’re referred to by the Board.  If the group hasn’t looked at them in a few years, or they seem unfocused or unreasonable or don’t represent the current organization or your own goals, steer clear.

4. Be honest and upfront; provide and review information.

By supporting your information and experience with confidence, and being familiar with the issues at hand, you clear the way for reasonable debate and informed decision-making.  The habits of making decisions in the heat of the moment, folding to peer pressure, charismatic persuasion, or the desire to avoid responsibility or confrontation can become endemic to an organization and pretty much always result in poor leadership and bad management.

5. Be firm in defence of your own time, health, and sanity.  Be firm in the defence of other people’s time, health, and sanity.

As an employee, be sure that your understanding of your hours and your boss’/Board’s understanding of your hours is firm – most non-profits expect their staff to work more than they’re being paid for, or demand more than is possible in the time available, which is a certain recipe for burnout.  As a volunteer, particularly a Board member, make sure that what you and other volunteers are asking of each other and your employees is reasonable and conforms to existing labour laws (you’d be surprised at how many community organizations have no clue about employee rights).  Steer your organization towards a stable working environment; try to find ways to offer benefits, decent pay, and reasonable expectations to employees.

6. Choose your battles carefully; outline your strategy to the people you work with.

Organizations, like individuals, are likely to over-extend themselves.  Is it more important to run a fund-raising event or write a grant?  Which items of your programming are most essential and important and which are continued due more to tradition or habit than demonstrable impact?  Is the org accomplishing what it exists to do? Assess the work you’re doing, and try to focus on the  strategies which best support the goals of the organization.  Withdraw from commitments or programming which take more than they give back, even if it means a loss of funding.  Consult with your team, create a strategy, and maintain a dialogue so that everyone involved in the organization and served by it can access and understand the choices that are being made.

7. Monitor your own engagement.

Sure, you started out passionate, committed, and invested, but that was then.  Have your goals changed since you’ve gotten involved with the organization?  Do you find yourself less interested in this work than you were?  Do you think your time would be better spent elsewhere? Don’t feel guilty about withdrawing if you’re no longer engaged in the work; some people can sustain 25 years of interest and passion, but they’re in the minority.  Change when you need to.

John and Saskia working on the music for The Three Penny Opera

Tonight is the opening night of the Max’s Cabaret production of The Threepenny Opera, and I’m on tenterhooks – I’m playing Mrs. Peachum, and I’m simultaneously excited and nervous.  Max’s Cabaret always takes me outside of my comfort zone, and this one is no exception – playing a mother, singing a soprano part, in a comedic role.  Add to that the whirlwind of any MC show, the unconventional setting (Kubo Lounge), high heels and stockings and last-minute changes, and you’d think it would be a recipe for disaster.  But Max’s shows always pull together, and create a evening of theatre and music unlike any you’re going to see with any other company.

I’ve been an actor pretty much my whole life; The first audition that I recall was when I was 11 or 12, for the Peterborough Theatre Guild’s Production of The Miracle Worker.  I have one vivid memory of being on stage with a bunch of other kids, trying to act like I couldn’t see and accidentally making eye contact with the woman playing Helen Keller (who also wasn’t doing a very good job of pretending to be blind).  I didn’t get the part, though my Mom took me to see the play, and it made a huge impression on me.  We had always been a theatre-going family, and were lucky enough when I was young to have two strong theatre companies in our area and a lot of other theatre besides.  There was a lot of inspiration around.

That first audition didn’t put me off; I liked the bright lights, and the teamwork, and the challenge, and I was an observant kid.  I got better at auditioning, and every role was an opportunity to become a better actor.  Throughout high school I was in play after play – Miranda in The Tempest, Rosalind in As You Like It, Sandy in The Crackwalker.  I spent a blissful  Summer at the 4th Line Theatre playing Kathleen Collins in The Cavan Blazers, my first paid role at 16, riding my motorcycle to work through the Millbrook hills.   It’s easy to gloss those memories and just focus on the successes, but the truth is that I was super-invested, and for every good role I got I’d spend hours viciously dissecting my performance, re-living mistakes in rehearsals, and critiquing what I was doing in the harshest terms.  If I didn’t get a role, or got one that wasn’t great, I’d be depressed for days, sometimes weeks.  I mean, it was high school, and I was a standard-issue melodramatic teenager (in a high school arts program, no less), so those highs and lows were exaggerated.  But everything else was secondary to theatre, and I was driven to be better.

Kait Dueck in rehearsal as Jenny

When I got into college for theatre, I was pretty excited; the idea of learning from professionals, of working with people who were as committed and driven as I was, was irresistible.  Coming from a high school jam-packed with artists who were smart, talented, and committed, I expected the same thing would be true of college.  But I was wrong.  The teaching staff were mostly (with some notable exceptions) embittered, nasty, and overbearing.  They seemed convinced that the only work we could hope to get was in tv commercials, and focused more on our Canadian dialects than on theatre skills.  Some of the other students were great, and very smart and talented, but they were in the minority.  All of my tremendous energy and passion ran me head first into a brick wall.  By Christmas I knew I wanted to leave, but I toughed out the second semester in misery and was booted out after first year.

When I came back home, I felt like I had been kicked out of theatre, permanently.  The whole experience was so awful, and having never considered a future outside theatre, I was completely lost.  I didn’t audition for anything; I went to university and got an English degree, which I enjoyed, but it was a pale sort-of enjoyment in comparison to the thrill of theatre.

I recently read Russell Brand’s My Booky-Wook; he was also kicked out the theatre school (though for wildly different reasons), and he says that  ”all the best people get thrown out of art or drama school.  They should go ‘Right, now you’re expelled.  Now get out and stay out… Pssst.  Not really, come round the back, this is the real school for the creative people who can’t be conditioned.’”  I’m not sure that I believe that all the absolute best people are the ones who get kicked out; I know a few great actors who actually graduated from theatre school.  But I wish someone had told me, at 20, that it made no difference.  And that my experience at theatre school was not reflective of the world of professional theatre as a whole.

It’s taken me years – more than a decade – to really come back ’round to theatre again.  Of course, I did do some theatre during that time, but I’m not very proud of much of that work – too convinced that I wasn’t qualified to give a good performance, my acting lacked the skill, timing, and expressiveness that I had built so painstakingly in high school.  Like most arts, theatre is a muscular skill, and when you stop practising you lose it.

That's me, performing in the Max's Cabaret 10th Anniversary - photo by Matt O'Sullivan

Recently I realized that the only thing stopping me from doing theatre was my certainty that I’d been kicked out of all theatre for all time.  This week, with the thrill and terror of an opening night looming over me, I’ve felt like my veins were full of champagne.  The camaraderie of the cast, the unpredictable beauty of Weil’s music, and the stunning headpieces by costume designer Mel McCall are all a tremendous joy.  That, and the risk – I could fall flat (literally, since I haven’t tried to sing soprano since high school), I could fall over, I could forget everything in the rush of adrenaline – is filling me with the kind of anticipation I never feel anywhere else.

I wish I could give seminars to people who’ve been recently booted out of art school – or out of anything that was a part of their mental path on the road to their goals.  I want to reach out and tell people “Fuck it – Find a way!” Would I have realized my goals if I hadn’t let that setback affect me so hugely?  If I had dived right back in and dedicated myself to theatre completely? Who knows.  I’ve made a lot of mistakes, and that wasn’t the worst of them.  And since I can’t go back and shake the 20-year-old I was and tell her to defy the people who’d rejected her, I move forward.  I was a better actor at 20, but I have more experience now, and therefor more potential as an actor.  All I have to do is work, and dream, and get through this beautiful, terrifying opening night tonight.

What: The Threepenny Opera presented by Max’s Cabaret
When: Thursday April 15 (9pm), Friday April 16 (9pm), Sunday April 18 (8pm), 2010
Where: Kubo Lounge, 413 George Street North, Peterborough ON
How Much: $15

You can tell that Nana really loved the excitement and danger of the war years, since she rarely tells stories about anything else.  She  she dated plenty of men, she moved frequently with her family, the bombs fell and the fires raged and aircraft came crashing down.  The Edwards were a very eccentric and theatrical family; Nana Billie, my great-grandmother, was a confirmed flirt and a great hand at cards.  Papa Horace, my great-grandfather, was an aircraft mechanic and had served in World War I; when he eventually moved to Canada, he worked on the Avro Arrow.  Great-Aunt Pam was a dancer, and toured in shows around England.

This video was shot in about 2001; I’ve done a series of interviews with her, and I’m aiming to get them online over this year.

Cynthia Dowdall – Warbride
Part I

My grandmother (Nana) Cynthia Dowdall talks about WWII and her experiences as a British-Canadian Warbride. She has lived in Canada since the late 40s, and has never been back home to England.

In this video, shot in 2001, I (Candace Shaw) am sitting to the left of the screen, and my mom, Lynn Shaw is sitting in the next room. She’s the voice that’s subtitled. Since we shot this video, Nana has had a stroke, and mostly rolls around the house in her wheelchair.

The photos are family pictures: the first is my Great-Aunt, Pamela Edwards (Nana’s sister), and her friend Joyce; both were dancers, and this photo was taken in London, England. The second photo is my Grandfather, (Papa) John Dowdall; I think this picture was taken in Noelville Ontario. The third photo is Nana with Tony Stetchison; I don’t really know who he is, though I imagine she dated him. I’ll ask sometime.

The photo at the end of the video is l-r Nana Billie (Wilhelmina Edwards, my great-grandmother), friends Dorothy and Gordon, and Nana Cynthia.

The song (which I have used without permission) is ‘Honeymoon Hotel’ by Alice Faye.

So it’s not news that the big guys, be they record labels or tv stations or newspapers or media conglomerates, have lost their game and can’t seem to get it back.  Talking to an acquaintance who works on the fringes of a major record label, I hear the same worn-out melodrama – piracy is ruining everything.  I was surprised that anyone still thinks so; certainly, none of the musicians I’ve spoken to seem to be worrying about piracy – in fact, most of the smart ones are giving songs away for free.  The more I look around, the more I see the big labels and the media that serves them as impediments to success, unless the planets align and you happen to be one of the slender minority of mega-stars that they’re willing to push.

That model – a few large corporations controlling the major distribution outlets for all culture – is fairly recent.  And like any system that relies on too little diversity, it’s hugely vulnerable as the world around it shifts and develops.  Just as nature develops new and nasty diseases to attack factory farms, human technology develops to attack factory culture.  Old media have managed to keep a stranglehold on the mainstream through a number of new technologies, but perhaps (a girl can dream) their slow-moving monoliths are no match for the flexibility and adaptability of the internet.  

Conan O’Brien, as part of his exit deal, agreed to stay off tv for a few months while Fox consolidates its audience for a renewed Jay Leno Tonight Show, a move that makes sense in the old media paradigm.  They don’t want Conan mocking them from a platform like The Daily Show, or stoking the furnaces of the internet love/hate machine.  They want to slow his momentum in the only way they know how; by keeping him off of the airwaves.  But while he can’t appear on television, Conan’s not about to sit and stew; he’s got the momentum of the internet behind him, and he’s channelling it into a terrific idea -  a live tour.

I’m not excited because I want to go to these shows myself – I’ve never been a fan of big-venue shows, and I can’t seeing myself queuing with a gazillion other people for the chance to see a tiny Conan O’Brien be funny at a distance of several parking lots.  But I think it’s exciting, because it’s so smart,  so progressive.  In this brave new world, you can only really sell what can’t be easily controlled or duplicated by a third party – essentially, yourself, your physical presence, the things you’ve worked on with your own hands.

I know I’ve gone on about this before, but it excites me.  North America has spent a good couple of decades huddled in our homes in front of glowing boxes, and while I love tv and the internet, they’re never, ever going to get close enough to touch my love for live performance.  As someone who goes out and sees a lot of shows, be it theatre, dance or music, I know I’m in the minority, and I think it’s a damn shame.  I believe humans crave connection; we’re herd animals, and anyone who’s ever been to (or run) a good music venue or  festival can attest that the music is only about a quarter of the equation, the hook that gets people interacting in a space together.  I think that, as a culture over the past 30 years, we’ve forgotten how much we crave and are inspired by face-to-face interaction.

So to see a tv star with the sort of name recognition of Conan O’Brien setting himself up to be with his fans in live, physical spaces around the world, it fills me with hope.  I think we’re going to be seeing a lot of this sort of thing in the future, as bigger stars start to pull away from old-media ideas and conditions and start moving into the future – a future where those large, central cultural clearing-houses crumble and make way for smaller, regional groups that can connect with the world with fewer resources.  Watching OK Go leave EMI this week, and Conan hit the road for a live tour, it seems like a great time for those of us who long for diversity in our culture, who don’t love the monoculture of the big media outlets, and who understand the importance of the experience of live art.

It is, honestly, an exciting time to be down at the grass roots, a hopeful time to be an artist.  We don’t get a lot of that, so I’m going to celebrate.

Okay, I have a lot of theories, and I try the patience of my long-suffering friends by expounding on them, often over whiskey (neat), sometimes while one or another of those long-suffering friends keeps me from plunging sideways into a bonfire or through a coffee table.  Even when generously marinated in Ireland’s finest, I exhibit perspicacity and blarney than amuses more often than it angers.  At least, that’s how I choose to  remember it in the clear light of day.  It is the only explanation for my continued rescue from the fate that awaits those who are unrestrained in both consumption of whiskey and expression of half-baked opinions, though perhaps I should give more credit to the kind natures and loving hearts of my friends.

But this is one pet theory I’ve cherished for almost a decade, and I think it’s ready for the slightly more public forum of the world wide web.  I’m not sure the world – and, in particular, Canadians – are ready for this; it’s controversial, it’s going to inflame strong opinions and, no doubt, passionate debate.  So, before I go on, I implore you to keep it civil in the comments.

My friends in the United States may not be aware of this, but in Canada, ‘north’ is a place the is completely subject to interpretation.  To some people, mostly Torontonians, I live in the north, even though I’m actually more eastish in relation to them.  To me, Sudbury and North Bay is the real, no-foolin’ north (it even says so in the name), and Thunder Bay has true northiness.  But what I rarely stop to consider (and I think my southern Ontario neighbours are with me on this one), is that most of Canada is north of all of the places I’ve named, and that actually none of them are even north of the 49th parallel.  Kapuskasing mocks the northiness of Thunder Bay, and Nunvavut sits secure in the knowledge of being the northest of us all.

So, to simplify; people think we’re all north in Canada, we think we’re all north, and everyone north of each of us thinks everyone south of them is the southiest.  Add to that the idea that being a southern Canadian is like having cooties forever, and then being a southern Ontarian is like cooties to the power of infinity.  We’re lame.  We’re not aware of how lame we are, but everyone else in Canada knows it like they know where you get a double-double and where you buy a two-four.

But the North, oh that mystical place of story and song, ski-doo and caribou; it gets into the blood of the Southerners that go there and sits as an ever-present longing to go back to the North.  I see the far-off look in the eyes of my friends, and I know they’re thinking about the North.  Their voices get soft and their expressions get dreamy.  And in my heart, I think I get it, how a country can be so alien to your experience and yet feel so much like home.

I’ve never been to the North, but I’m with them in spirit.  Except for one thing.

Moose.

For a long time, I didn’t believe in moose; I thought they were the emperor’s new clothes.  Yeah, I’ve met people who say they’ve seen moose (mostly musicians, and you know how they are).  Hell, I even been told I’m eating moose (tastiest figment of someone else’s imagination ever).  But for a long time I figured it was like the Blarney Stone; originally a joke played on the British oppressors by the subjugated Irish, it turned into a fine way to make a punt.  I thought that what the Blarney Stone was to the Irish, the moose was to Northerners; a wink and a nudge, and a bit of a laugh at the expense of gullible Southerners.  Yes, I’ve seen pictures, but I’ve also seen footage of the moon landing in 1969 and the Fiji mermaid.  And if that’s not enough to tell you that there are complex and nefarious conspiracies at work to manipulate us daily, then please remember that Keanu Reeves had an acting career.

After a time, I realized that this was bigger than just some fun at the expense of Southerners.  There are pictures everywhere.  The moose has become almost as recognizable a Canadian icon as the beaver.  Thousands of people claim to have seen moose majestically tramping across the northlands.  It didn’t take me too long to put two and two together – and when I did, I was more disturbed and unsettled than ever.  Since then, I’ve made it my mission to ensure that whenever the topic of the moose is broached, I try to make sure people know the truth.

So brace yourselves: moose aren’t animals.  They’re robots.  Developed in secret by CSIS, moose patrol our northern borders spying on the activities of the Russians, the USA, and any other unCanadian activities hovering around our northernmost border.

Think about it!  How perfect a defense system that masquerades as a relatively harmless mammal?  Who watches the moose?  Besides naturalists, I mean.  But look for yourselves – the way they move, almost too graceful.  The awkward construction of their bodies.  Those giants antlers!  Are there more perfect antennae to send and receive communications?  Did nature make an animal with a satellite dish on its head?  I think not.

But Candace, I hear you saying, moose have been around for thousands of years, they are in many parts of the world, and have been a part of indigenous cultures as food/clothing/etc.  Exactly!  Now you’re starting to grasp the scope of this vast Canadian Conspiracy!

You see, CSIS aren’t just some bumbling bunch of sweet Canadian semi-spies; they’re a dazzlingly powerful and surprisingly technologically advanced super-power, seamlessly controlling the fate of the world via time travelling moose robots.  When you begin to consider, the pieces of the puzzle fit together perfectly.  How is it possible that Canada, with its abundant natural resources and pot-smoking, free-loving socialist hippie health care has been allowed to stand relatively unmolested for so long?  You can see that over the past 200 years the United States have been eyeing up our true north strong and free like a frat boy gazing at a fresh keg.  How has a country with the world’s largest standing army held off on a second invasion?

I’ll tell you why: they’re afraid of our moose-robots.  Last time they crossed our borders with expansionist intentions, we whupped ‘em.  We burned the original White House down and pushed their troops back all the way to New Orleans.  If you don’t think the moose-robots played a part in that, you’re buying in to the Federalist agenda to deceive, inveigle and obfuscate.  Why else would such a great country appear so much on the national stage as a pack of buffoons or, at best, your pot-smoking middle brother who lives in your parent’s basement, breaking up family fights but otherwise kinda lounging?

It’s all a ruse; far from being one of the most peaceful nations on earth, Canada is in fact the puppetmaster.

Even Stephen Colbert, himself a high-ranking NSA official, paid homage to our mighty moose-robots recently during his time at the Vancouver Olympics.  Let me tell you, they’re scared, torn between fear and desire.  The look at our tasty fresh water, our rolling acres of pot and lumber, our beautiful gay weddings and our thrilling ice hockey and they want a piece of that action.  Who wouldn’t?  Only one thing is stopping them: only one thing is saving this country from invasion.  And so, while I disapprove of their secrecy, I have to tip my hat to the clever tactics of those CSIS super-spies.  Your average Canuck can sleep peacefully in his or her bed at night, kept safe by our sleepless patrols of robot moose.

Despite my healthy respect for the skill it’s taken to pull off this massive ruse, I’m still dedicated to the truth.  And now you know, friends: pass it on.  Don’t be duped.

I think those first few years I must have been a bit weird; assigned a drug with a name that implied it would work (Effexor – now with even more effex!), I found I’d traded one kind of miserable for another, though it was a more bearable misery.  I wished for a switch to flip, a miracle, a fixer.  I wished (oh, I still do) that they could find my depression and cut it out where it lies. We tried different drugs, different doses, and eventually I found that what really helped was Omega 3-6-9 capsules and exercise, and everything improved dramatically after that.

But lingering at the back of my mind is the fear that I’ll slip, or that the Omega’s effects will wear off and I’ll be back where I started or worse.  I’ve read the literature; Clinical Depression is theorized to essentially scar your brain, making it easy to fall back into the chasm you’ve hauled yourself out of.  I don’t mind being sad sometimes, but that unvarying sameness of depression isn’t sadness.  It’s hard to describe, but it’s not the same as being sad.  I look back at it with a horror that motivates me now to ensure I never go back there.

So I turned to a section of the bookstore heretofore ignored; the self-help section.  Ugh, I know.  I’ve read books on clearing your clutter with Feng Shui and the science of happiness; I’ve done The Artist’s Way thrice (differently useful each time).  I’ve read acres of text on a variety of  subjects, from recovering from mental blocks to overcoming addictions.  Because, much as Depression is a medical condition, it’s also a habit, an addiction, a way of living.  The familiar, comforting awfulness of depression is a security blanket – a certainty – where the world of overall happiness and possibility is a terrifying no-man’s land.  It’s the Devil I know; it’s the lover I can’t quite get over.

Reading Russell Brand’s My Booky Wook, I see that the techniques employed to overcome drug and sex addictions are the same techniques, differently framed, that I find in The Artist’s Way, which makes perfect sense. I also see that once he cleared up his issues and began seriously working on them and his addictions, his focus was freed up to work on success, and he achieved that in a relatively short time. Not that he hadn’t been having successes before that; you generally don’t get handed tv shows. But he’d always kinda been a fringe fuckup until he got himself in hand.

Positive thinking comes off as hocus-pocus and silliness, as does a lot of this self-help stuff, I know. But I think it’s often in the wording, and in the way the basic concepts are described. And also in the scorn of people whose half-attempts lead inevitably to failure; you can’t discount the contentedly miserable, and how much they try to ensure that other miserable people stay cosily with them.

Breaking addictions and habits, overcoming fears and blocks, often has to do with figuring out (without all the noise and obligations and sense of unworthiness and whatever other garbage you’ve got screaming around in your brain) what it is you want, and making plans to move forward in that direction.  And then going there.  And that’s positive thinking in a nutshell.  It’s not magic, it’s not some massive Secret.  It’s just that if you intend to do something, you’re much more likely to do it than if you put off thinking about the future and never really take steps to do anything in particular.  I can wish to win the lottery all day, but if I don’t go buy a ticket, I certainly won’t win.

I’ve dug up the foundations and poked around a fair amount, and now I know what the structure of my life rests on, where I can build safely and what needs to be stripped back down and rebuilt from scratch. So onwards to the ongoing, serious, simple work.

I’ve been playing Wii a fair amount over the past month; the games are interesting and fun and fairly encouraging, and the language of the movement is a challenge without being impossible. But the main focus of the games almost across the board is balance and posture, which I find interesting. It was also one of the first things we learned at theatre school; one of the few useful things I came away with. For years, I’d destroyed shoes and screwed up my joints because I walked on the outside of my feet, and our Movement teacher corrected me, and I practiced the hell out of that. Everyday, walking to and from school, I’d be working to correct my posture, walk on the three balance points of my feet. I think that’s why people get an impression of confidence from me; I still walk with good posture and control. But it took months, and a hundred thousand tiny shifts every day, until walking that way became habit.

My mind is the same as my posture; I tend to mentally walk the wrong way, see things in the worst light, avoiding making plans if the future seems too scary or uncertain or full of possibilities to contemplate. When I allow my mind to unbalance itself like that, focus too much on fear, it becomes unstable, bowed over, and next thing you know I’m crowd-sourcing bad advice and making panicky decisions and accepting overwhelming volunteer commitments. I fall off the path I ought to be walking, meander and flail all over the goddamn place, end up with very little progress once I finally find my way again. For all my hard work, I’m never much closer to my ultimate goals. But that’s starting to change. I’ve become much better at catching myself lately, and correcting my mental posture. Catching those dark, negative thoughts and renegotiating them; remapping the future with every tiny shift in thinking.

But again, it takes a hundred thousand tiny shifts every day, and constant vigilance, and sometimes when I’m tired or something bad happens I relapse and have to start all over again. But even though it often feels like I’m landing back at the beginning, in reality, I’m creating muscle memory; I’m learning how to stay focused, balanced, happy. It gets easier every day, and every failure is steps closer to success than the last failure.

I doubt I’ll ever get to a point where I don’t have to make corrections. But that’s expected; I’m human, and perfection is unattainable. Success is in the attempt, not the conclusion.

In the Christian church, suicide is generally considered a sin, but I think that the act itself is not the thing that is the sin. The real sin is despair; loss of hope, the end of attempting to succeed. I’m sure a Christian would say, the lack of faith in god, which is despair, but as a semi-pretty-much-non-believer, I’m going to say it’s the lack of faith that things can change and that you have the power to change them.

If you look around right now, we are living in an age where change is happening at great speed. I won’t say unprecedented speed; no student of history can say that word without irony, and I’m not sure I believe that there’s been a time when change wasn’t a constant. But we are living in an age of change, and we are very aware of it, and it is unstable and a little terrifying, if you’re inclined to look on it that way. And sometimes I do, and wonder what’s the point in say, going back to school, if nothing I learn will be relevant by the time I get out?

But the shift I make, when I starting talking to myself like that, is to see this as an exhilarating opportunity. I have maybe a good 40 years left in my life to play a part in the massive and wild changes that are happening around the world; changes in technology, in society, a brave new world. The longer I wait to jump in, the less time I have. If I was 80 today, it would still be the right time. If I was 10, it would be the right time. The right time is whatever time it is.

Things will happen, good and bad. Planes will fall from the sky, romances will flare and die, joints will ache and the weather will turn. That stuff’s all going to happen whether I’m happy or sad, passionately involved or fearfully crouching on the sidelines or wearily turning away from it all. The only things I have control over are my thoughts and actions, and they are mine, and I have faith I can change them; I know I can. I’ve done it a hundred thousand times.

Until recently, I’ve never been one for making resolutions, but I like a fresh start as much as the next person, and I’ve found that, as Emerson says, the world makes a path for the man who knows where he is going. So here are my goals for 2010.

Move out of Peterborough

Anyone who knows me well knows I’ve been in this city for too long; I would probably be happier some place where I neither cared nor had seen so much.   We’ve had good times, for sure: from the PCVS Integrated Arts Program, Cavan Blazers, Emergency 3, the Theatre Guild and The Tempest to the MoHo, the PAU, and the PFF, I’ve had nearly twenty years or arts-related triumphs and tribulations.  I’m looking for a fresh slate, something less comfortable and familiar, more challenging.

Keep Learning

Part and parcel of the desire for challenge is the desire to expand and develop my abilities; there are so many things I want to learn, including conversational French, banjo, Bhangra dance, and CSS.  I want to hone my Photoshop, video editing, ukulele, singing and acting skills.  I’m even thinking about going back to improv (pretty much the only facet of theatre I disliked).

Say ‘No’

No, I won’t work for free on a project I have nothing personally invested in; no, I won’t waste time flipping channels and watching programs I’m not interested in; no, I won’t allow other people’s issues to harsh my mellow; no, I won’t allow other priorities to coopt my projects; no, I won’t waste time with toxic people; no, I won’t volunteer for a major role in anything except my own life; no, I wont’ be content with what other people think I should be happy with.

Embrace Change

We’re living in a time of large, sweeping changes to things we think of as institutions, and it can be really overwhelming and intimidating.  I want to remember that whatever happens, I am best prepared if I ride change instead of fighting it.  We’re standing in the middle of brand new opportunities, things we’ve never seen before, and the potential for anyone with a creative mind to have great success.

Surround myself with people whom I admire

I’m actually pretty good at this already, but it bears repeating; the people in my life whom I love and admire are generally the people who most support my own goals and inspire me to reach further than I think I’m able.

Love Money

I know, we artists are supposed to be like, all about the art, man, and it’s wrong to love money, because money is the root of all evil.  But I get the impression a lot of that is bunk; I don’t have to love money more than I love, say, my ethics, but a little love for money could really change my life in positive ways.

Be Prepared

It was the slogan in Brownies, and it’s my slogan now; be ready, be on your toes, expect the best.  I know all that think-positive stuff sounds like silliness (I’ve got an article brewing about that, too), but I’ve missed opportunities that might have lead to incredible things because I wasn’t ready to move at the moment.  To be balanced and prepared is to be ready for opportunity, whenever it comes.

Have Regrets/Fail/Be less safe

I know that one of my favourite petite Frenchwoman sang non, je ne regrette rein, but for me, I think regret is inevitable and failure is a symptom of trying.  Neither of these are bad things, and if I put a lot of energy into trying to make sure I never fail and have no regrets, building a bubble of safety around my life, that’s energy I could be using to actually pursue my goals.  And I’m not talking about stupid stuff, like driving drunk or having loads of unprotected sex with strangers; I’m talking about taking artistic and personal risks, and finding ways to pursue my dreams even when I’m not entirely comfortable.

I’ll probably come up with more, but right now I’ve got to dash and catch a train; Happy New Year to you all!

So that was mid-October, and now I know one Christmas song all the way through, so I thought I’d share it with you.  I recorded it last night at about 2am, just as I was getting ready for bed after finishing up last-minute Ecksmassiness, and it took me about seven takes to get the lyrics right.

Anyway, enjoy, and I hope your morning has been as lovely as mine!

I had a number of very bad, stressful Christmases a few years ago; school, money, relationships, friends,  family issues, everything kind-of just piled on while I was in university, and I couldn’t seem to work my way out from under it to recapture the loveliness, the excitement, the sparkle that I used to always be able to access despite the inevitable garbage.  I was certainly snarky at Christmas’ expense during those years; I felt like it was a season that ought to be awesome, but whose loveliness was ruined by passive-aggressive guilt, personal tragedy, greed and people-related misery.  I’d consider moving to another country to avoid it all, or getting drunk around mid-December and staying well-and-truly blitzed until January 5 or so.  These options seemed pretty reasonable.

Slowly I’ve worked my way back to liking the season, though it took a long time.  I’m almost prepared to be the kind of person who says ‘I love Christmas!’
Perhaps without the exclamation point.
But the way I did it was by taking it back, and creating my own traditions that became somewhat inviolable; ‘tradition’ is a word that gives other people pause.  It’s harder when you’re a single person with no kids of your own, but even so, tradition is a buffer between me and the desires of other people.

Many years ago, a friend started calling it ‘Ecksmas’ – something I latched onto quickly as the appropriate name for my holiday, the kind of secular greenery-gifts-food-friends-family holiday that many people of my generation celebrate.  ‘Ecksmas’ is great – everyone knows what you’re talking about, and which traditions you’re probably into.  It implies nothing about your beliefs or your religion, though it usually speaks to the tradition you descend from. It gives a lot of information in one tidy little word.  And for me, Ecksmas is tremendously personal.

It embraces friends of many faiths, as well as those without particular faith -  we’re not celebrating the birth of a prophet in the middle east two thousand years ago; we’re celebrating the smell of pine and baking, the crisp cold air outside and the warmth and cosiness inside.  We’re celebrating getting together, and traditions which bring people in fellowship together in the physical world. We’re celebrating the birth of children, marriages, new ventures, and successes though they may have come at any time over the past year.  We’re comforting each other over losses and griefs, acknowledging the absences in the circle.  We’re celebrating a definition of family that has nothing to do with shared blood.

My own personal Ecksmas season starts at the time of year when the sun begins to set around 6pm.   The early dark and bright city lights always feels festive to me; more so if there’s snow, but I don’t need it to get into the spirit.  I listen to Christmas music – usually the old stuff, Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra.  Sam’s annual and much-anticipated Christmas CD arrives, and I cringe through some tracks (memorably the duet by Ozzy Osbourne and Jessica Simpson) and find new favourites.

I used to feel a huge weight of self-induced guilt over receiving Christmas cards and never sending any myself, so a few years ago I decided I was going to get over my endless procrastination and actually start sending them.  I’ve surprised myself by making this an annual Ecksmas tradition, and one which I really enjoy.   Last year I finally knuckled down and made myself a database with everyone’s mailing address, and printed labels with a holiday theme, which is sort-of nerdy, cheesy and Martha-y, all at once.  On the one hand, my Ecksmas cards probably impair my ability to appear cool in the eyes of my acquaintances, but on the other, I think people like getting them, and no one really thinks I’m all that cool anyway.

I do a lot of baking, which helps warm up the house and makes it smell wonderful.  It’’s hard to resist my Ginger Cookies or Snickerdoodles or Apple Pie fresh from the oven.  I know that advertising has given us all the impression that baking is hard, but I’m still always surprised (and gratified!) at the level of praise and glee that the prospect of home-baked goods inspires in people.  Seriously, go try one of those recipes (or some of the others I’ve posted, all of which are Shaw-kitchen tested), and then take the results to a gathering – unless you’re at the annual Cretans and Jerkfaces Christmas Party, people get very excited.  Also, it is good for the soul to bake things from scratch with your own hands.  No matter how busy I get, I always set aside at least a few hours here and there to set aside my other concerns and meditate over a warm oven.  And my Ecksmas week tradition of making croissants (from scratch! It’s easy!) to eat while we open presents is entering its third year; I hope not to burn them this year.

My sisters and mom and I traditionally cut our own live trees, a tradition that most people forgo in favour of a fake tree, which looks to me like another piece of junk you have to store all year in order to use it for a couple of weeks.  I love tramping through a field and arguing over the perfect tree, taking turns sawing it and then squabbling over whether or not it’s too tall as we haul it back to the car.  This year we tried a new place, Mackenzie’s Tree Farm near Indian River, and it was terrific – not a great tree selection, but we got a hayride, hot chocolate and doughnuts around a fire, we saw lots of friends there, and we came back with a tree that, as per tradition, has been declared the best tree we’ve ever had.  It may be ridiculously tall and possibly prone to leaning to one side in a way that seems a little dangerous, but we’re all very happy with it.

Of course there are always lots of parties and gatherings and live music at this time of year, but the two events I really look forward to are the weekend at my Aunt and Uncle’s place in Collingwood, and Sam’s Life Day Party.  Collingwood is a ski town, and last year we did a little downhill skiing for the first time as well as enjoying the outdoor hottub and fabulous food and hospitality at the Flynn’s with others from the Dowdall clan.  Sam’s Life Day party is always a blast – we put the Star Wars Christmas Special from 1979 on in the background and eat drink and get merry at the expense of Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, and the ghost of George Lucas’ dignity.  It’s always a good time.

It’s easy to get drowned in the obligations and expense that December seems to bring, but I try my best to carve out spaces for myself amongst the noise and bother, places where I can find hope and peace and joy amongst the people I love.  I’ve been pretty good at it the last couple of years, sailing (though sometimes on stormy seas, I’ll admit) through an Ecksmas of my own shaping, that sits a bit apart from the things other people would like me to do.  I know that there are a hundred obligations, traditions that have outlived their time, guilts and stresses that intensify and relationships that strain to the breaking point.  I still deal with a lot of that.  Sometimes, you have to put your foot down and perhaps even hurt a few feelings, bruise a few egos, in order to maintain a space for yourself in the midst of it all; I know I’ve had to.  The work is ongoing, probably life-long, to keep Ecksmas a time that I enjoy, mostly, instead of a time I dread and despair over.  But I promise you all, from someone who has often spent the entire month of December with teeth clenched in grim determination to survive the season without committing a felony, that it’s possible.  Probably.  I’m not talking stress-free blissful perfect happiness; that’s a silly, advertising-induced pipe dream.  Just a dialing-down, an added sweetness, a sense of perspective on what could be instead of what is.  Loving the best of the season, and trying to neutralize the worst.

So a very Merry Ecksmas from me and my family (and our cats!) to all of you; I hope that you find joy, and love, and happiness in moments around this season.