After catching The History Boys last week at The Arts Club Granville Island Stage, I have to agree wholeheartedly with Jon from Beyond Robson who wrote, “the play is easily the most intellectually engaging thing I’ve seen on a Vancouver stage in years, and is almost flawlessly delivered by director Dean Paul Gibson and his cast and crew.”
The cast of the Arts Club Theatre Company’s production of The History Boys. Photo by David Cooper.
For those who may not have already deduced, I love history and for that matter, I loved history class. From AP European History to Canadian Studies, I ate it all up in high school. In The History Boys, classmates at the all-boys school are clever, intelligent and incessantly witty while their teachers attempt to mold them into perfect Oxbridge material. Oxbridge being a mashup of Cambridge and Oxford, as the play is set in England.
Mrs. Lintott: And you, Rudge? How do you define history?
Rudge: Can I speak freely without being hit?
Mrs. Lintott: You have my protection.
Rudge: How do I define history? Well it’s just one f’ing thing after another.
The passionate debates, the laugh out loud and groan-worthy humour, and yes, even the pantless scenes were all priceless. Matter of the heart, matters of art, and talk of Auden, Orwell and Hardy – I was so inspired by The History Boys that I went to my bookshelf (parted the frames that held our lovely wedding photos) and dusted of The Return of the Native, Far from the Madding Crowd, and Jude the Obscure.
Hector: The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – that you’d thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you’ve never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it’s as if a hand has come out, and taken yours.
It’s also worthy to note the production value of the play, the stage setup and the music. If you’d like to check out this Tony Award winner for yourself, it will be showing until October 25th on Granville Island. Tickets are available online or at the box office.
Mondays and Tuesdays are my big writing days where I prepare my contributions for E!Online as well as HockeyStars. A big part of my new ventures into the realm of self-employment is freelance blog writing. Our company, sixty4media, offers tutorials, training, setup, coding, themes, podcasts, screencasts etc. but we can also find the right person to create your content. If that person happens to be me and you’d like me to write (transparently) about topics you’d like me to cover, feel free to drop me a line.
Now down to the link fest for this Monday morning, or as I like to call it, “one week til turkey day”.
Gary from Bluefur has some great tips and links with regards to self-employment, freelance, and working for the man in his latest “In the Sphere” post: Salaries and Millionaires.
I just wrote about the Twitter for Business over on the sixty4media blog.
Twitter can be professional and also productive, as with any service you need to know when to ignore all of the noise and find out how this powerful tool can work best for you. [sixty4media]
Vancouver’s own “Interesting” event will be taking place October 24th. This premiere event, held around the world, “is a multi-disciplinary conference for and by the curious and creative minds of Vancouver. Speakers come from a host of backgrounds such as sciences, academia, marketing, technology, art, and more.” Additional information is available on the Interesting Vancouver site and you can register through the Eventbrite page.
Last week Liz Strauss, a leader in blog and social media consulting for business, named me as one of her “Successful and Outstanding Blogs” of the week (which is very cool). At Blog World Expo a few weeks ago she made the following comment with regards to PR companies only contacting the high-rollers of the blog realm: “The thing I know about bloggers is that if you talk to them and they’re little bloggers, they grow – and they become bigger bloggers.” She also noted, “I want a relationship, not a one link stand,” when it comes to building blogger relations.
Yesterday our morning workout turned into a 2 hour power-walk in and around Stanley Park.
I packed a camera with me since it had been a while since I was able to check back on the restoration progress in the park and more specifically, I wanted to see how the Merilees Trail looked now [see Update from April 2008].
Merilees Trail – April 2008
Picnic time along the Merilees trail – October 2008
The “Siwash bunker” has new access; we no longer have to scale, jump, or crawl across roped bridges to take in the great views from the top.
The Prospect Point parking lot is now relocated away from the cliff (where they clearcut all those trees) with plenty of room for tour buses and paid parking.
The clearing at Prospect Point – January 2008
Where the road used to be at Prospect Point – October 2008
Hollow Tree looks like it’s in its worst shape yet. The tree behind it has been cut down, there are more cables wrapped around it and two pillars holding it up at the front and quite frankly it looks hideous.
The Hollow Tree – April 2008
The Hollow Tree – October 2008
I didn’t get the chance to follow up on “my spot” on the sea wall that I’ve been tracking over the last few years but John said it still hasn’t been repaired.
For a bit of back-story… in December of 2006 a great wind storm tore through they city’s most prized natural wonder and it’s been in a rebuilding and replanting phase ever since (you can browse John’s archives or mine for coverage of the storm in 2006). My photos of the park are available in my Flickr set.
Local mobile technology company, Handi Mobility, just launched Translink‘s new “Next Bus” service for the iPhone.
“Every second person coming to TransLink’s mobile site uses the iPhone, so we had to create an amazing experience for these early adopters. Our goal is to make commuting even better – by providing complete schedule information, alerts, GMail-style favourites and transit maps.
The next release will provide additional features – we’re going to add the Buzzer, rider feedback and location-based functionality.” [From Igor at Handi Mobility]
NextBus is a free download for the iPhone that will be available in the iTunes app store at the end of the month and you can also access features by going to m.translink.ca from your mobile device (that URL also appears when you use Translink’s text service).
Local mobile technology company,