Voices in the Park, a benefit concert for the Sarah McLachlan School of Music, is coming up on September 15th. The school provides free after-school music education for underserved and at risk children who face challenging cultural, social and economic circumstances.
TELUS is the presenting sponsor of Voices in the Park and is also offering up donations to the school through “Vote to Give”. Visit the Vote to Give website and watch the student video then vote on which of three songs presented should be performed by the students on the Voices in the Park stage. For each vote, TELUS will donate $5 to the school.
Voices in the Park takes place in Stanley Park this September with confirmed acts including Sarah McLachlan, Bryan Adams, Stevie Nicks, Jann Arden, Hedley, The Boom Booms, Grammy Award winning producer Chin Injeti, along with a special appearance by former president Bill Clinton. Tickets are currently on sale starting at $85.
Follow Voices in the Park on Twitter and Facebook for more information.
Be not afraid this Saturday as the seemingly undead take to the streets of Vancouver — it’s just the 5th annual Vancouver Zombie Walk. It’s a march for all ages and all who would like to participate, sidle, limp, and moan their way through downtown streets.
Meet at the Vancouver Art Gallery steps by 3:00pm on Saturday, August 18, 2012. The walk will then depart at 4:00pm and head down Robson toward Denman. It will turn left on Denman and continue to English Bay ending at the A-Maze-Ing laughing statues.
Be sure to be appropriate zombies, refraining from vandalizing property in any way or smearing “blood” on anything along the march, aside from yourselves. There may be young ones participating but do your best not to scare unsuspecting children along the way.
The Zombie-A-Go-Go at Sanctuary @ Club 23 West after party is free for zombies before 10:00pm. There’s also an after party at The Cellar on Granville, presented by Vancouver Makeup FX for $25 in advance, $30 at the door. Full information about the event and the parties is available on the Facebook Event Page.
Zombie walks have been around for the last decade in various cities around the world. The first on record was in Sacremento, California in 2001 and the world record was set in 2006 when 894 participated in Pittsburgh’s first “Walk of the Dead”.
For more zombie action, check out Thrill The World Vancouver, which is the annual Thriller dance for a cause in October.
Cirque du Soleil performances dazzle audiences around the globe and Quidam’s cast features 52 world-class acrobats, musicians, singers, and characters.
Young Zoé is bored; her parents, distant and apathetic, ignore her. Her life has lost all meaning. Seeking to fill the void of her existence, she slides into an imaginary world—the world of Quidam—where she meets characters who encourage her to free her soul.
Quidam will be in Abbotsford from August 29 to September 2, 2012 with evening performances and there will be matinées on Friday (August 31st), Saturday (September 1st), and Sunday (September 2nd). The only other tour stops in BC for this mesmerizing production are in Kelowna, Kamloops, and Victoria.
Production photo courtesy of Cirque du Soleil
Tickets are currently available starting at $45 for adults, $36 for children (12 and under), and $40.50 for military, seniors, and students. A limited number of Premium tickets are also available for all performances.
I also have a pair of tickets to give away for opening night on August 29th. Here’s how you can enter to win:
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RT to enter to win tickets to see Cirque du Soleil’s #Quidam in Abbotsford from @Miss604 http://ow.ly/d03Ej
I will draw one winner at random from all entries next Wednesday, August 22, 2012 at 12:00pm. Follow Cirque du Soleil on Twitter and Facebook for more information about touring productions like Quidam.
The Abbotsford Entertainment & Sports Centre is located at 33800 King Road in Abbotsford, BC. Update The winner is Sadie!
Mykelti Williamson, known best for his role as “Bubba” in the Academy Award-Winning Forrest Gump, is currently in Vancouver filming a movie for the Lifetime network. I had the chance to catch up with him to talk a bit about his current project, and a lot about his new venture into the spice business.
“I love Vancouver, it’s a very pretty city to me,” Williamson told me while on a lunch break on set. “The people are always nice and I’ve been coming here thirty years and I’ve only met one rude person — in thirty years.”
His recent television credits include playing Brian Hastings, head of CTU in 24 and Ellstin Limehouse in Justified. However even before television, and film (he also had roles in Con Air, Waiting to Exhale, and more) and even before Forrest Gump, he loved to cook.
“I’ve been making seasonings and sauces for quite a few years, since I was a kid in fact. It was one of the things people have always been telling me to do – to put those on the market.” Williamson launched his Bubba Style seasonings and spices back in March of this year and runs the business with his wife, Sondra. They have three different seasonings available and Williamson says that in about a month they’ll have about four more.
The brand name “Bubba Style” is actually a tribute to a term of endearment – calling someone Bubba. “Every Bubba that I’ve met can cook and so my brand is more than an homage to Forrest Gump, my brand is for all the Bubbas I’ve met as a result of the movie.”
“I’ve got something called Fry Bubba Fry, which reminds people of Run Forrest Run. Bubba doesn’t run — but Bubba can fry.”
Williamson, who even has an Uncle Bubba, described Bubba Style as being not as heavy as Southern style and not as complex as Cajun style. “Bubbas like to do things in a very simple way. Clean, wholesome, down to earth, not fancy. Just clean-tasting, down-home cooking, that’s Bubba Style.”
He explained that other seasonings on the market may have 160mg to 380mg of sodium per serving but Bubba Style only has 10mg. “I don’t believe that you have to use as much salt to make [food] taste good.” You can use the seasonings as a rub for grilling but they’re also good for stews, chicken, pasta, and any other way you want to add flavour to your meal.
Partial proceeds from Bubba Style also support two causes that are close to Williamson’s heart. Save Africa’s Children, an offshoot of the ministry at his family’s church, and United Cancer Advocacy Action Network and the outreach of Rachel Shur, a survivor who has dedicated her life to helping other families who are going through what she went through.
“It’s not just about making money for selfish reasons, but we want to be blessed so we can be a blessing to other people.”
Mykelti Williamson’s Bubba Style spices and seasonings are available in a few locations in California but otherwise only online at the moment. After launching in the spring they are still building up the website to offer products. I haven’t tried them out for myself yet but I was assured that “with shrimp, it’s just to die for.”
Williamson‘s Vancouver-filmed “A Narrow Bridge” is due to air on Lifetime in February 2013 and also features Toni Braxton and David Julian Hirsh.
Rounding the Stanley Park Sea Wall the photo opportunities are abundant. North Shore and city scenes, forest trails, ocean wildlife, balanced rocks on boulders, sunsets, and more. Perched on the Western tip of the peninsula, Siwash Rock might just be one of the most photographed hunks of stone in the City and as such, it’s today’s Vancouver Icon.
About 32 million years ago, a volcanic dike formed in the sedimentary rock that forms the foundation of the park (sandstone and mudstone). Magma was forced to the surface through a fissure in the Earth’s crust creating the basalt stack, which is more resistant to erosion that the softer sandstone cliffs. Siwash Rock is the only such sea stack in the Vancouver area. [Source: Wilderness on the Doorstep: Discovering Nature in Stanley Park]
To the Squamish First Nation Siwash Roch is Skalsh or Slah-kay-ulsh. According to E. Pauline Johnson’s “Legends of Vancouver” it is a young man who was turned to stone, as an honor. Its plaque reads: “Indian legends tells us that this 50 foot high pinnacle of rock stands as an imperishable monument to “Skalsh the Unselfish,” who was turned into stone by “Q’uas The Transformer” as a reward for his unselfishness.
” From far trans-Pacific ports, from the frozen North, from the lands of the Southern Gross, they pass and repass the living rock that was there before their hulls were shaped, that will be there when their very names are forgotten, when their crews and their captains have taken their long last voyage, when their merchandise has rotted, and their owners are known no more. But the tall, grey column of stone will still be there – a monument to one man’s fidelity to a generation yet unborn – and will endure from everlasting to everlasting.” [Source: Legend of Siwash Rock]
![Siwash Rock at Stanley Park [Explored]](http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7213/7270169188_bbd5658ba7.jpg)
