We need places to exercise our brains as well as our bodies
Column appeared in Fort McMurray Today April 7, 2006.
Gimme Some Grammar
By MICHAEL HALL
Today staff
I’ve got a ticket to see Stuart McLean’s Vinyl Café Saturday night. I’m really looking forward to the show.
In a story today on Page E1, McLean told reporter Paula Ogonoski he was astounded that someone drove 3 1/2 hours to see his show. I can easily top that — my wife and I drove from Fort McMurray to Kamloops, B.C. a couple of years ago to see the Vinyl Café. I was ticked off when, during the show, McLean asked for hands in the audience from the person who drove the farthest. He ignored my hand and gave a book to a lady from Prince George, B.C.
If he reads this he’ll have a better story to tell.
We were there in Edmonton’s Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium last November, too.
If you don’t have a ticket, call the Keyano box office right now. It’s a family-friendly evening of music, humour and sentimental stories. You’ll leave feeling good about yourself and the world.
This will be the first time the CBC personality will bring his musicians and stories up Highway 63. I hope both Friday and Saturday shows are sold out to show him that we appreciate they made the trip.
I also hope it’s a sellout to help drive home the need for an additional performing arts space in Fort McMurray.
I had high hopes for the Keyano College Sport and Wellness Centre. A big gym is part of that new building, and one original concept was for it to be a multi-purpose room: you could hold large banquets there, and set up a stage for performances, too. The plan, I was told, was that the room would include hardware for lights and sound, and there would be some sort of acoustic treatment so sound wouldn’t reverberate like it does from the walls of Thickwood Arena.
That dream is done. Rising costs are the culprit.
The new, ultra-expensive MacDonald Island expansion? Don’t even think about it. Athletics (and the public library) only.
Well, the topic came up again this week. With the Oilsands Rotary Music Festival back, the lack of performing spaces is acute. Again.
Although I got some heat from the organizers when I previously wrote about this, please hear me out.
My dream is the same as theirs. More spaces.
They want them for the children involved in the festival. I want them for me and all of the other McMurrayites who believe the arts are a key part of quality of life.
Our goal is the same. Our reasons are different.
Work with me, people!
I don’t disparage the need for recreation facilities, too. I think the arts should be given some consideration, that’s all.
It’s clear it will never be equal.
With a couple of high-profile jocks on council — Phil Meagher and Sheldon Germain — I worry about the lack of balance. I see it in the huge dollars being spent on athletics in Fort McMurray — almost $150 million in the next few years.
From where I sit, the total being spent on edifices for the arts is zero.
Council got bogged down into a debate of what culture is Tuesday. Jim Carbery rightly noted that aboriginal culture is different from how others would define the term.
Focus on the arts. All types of culture can easily be accommodated without stereotyping.
Arts is the key. Visual, performing, recorded, live. A big room with seats and a stage will fill the bill.
Should a performing arts space hold a thousand people? Twenty-five hundred? Five thousand? I don’t know.
There’s a study underway right now by municipal officials with its focus on what arts (sad to say, I think they’re focusing on culture) facilities are needed. I am not encouraged.
I’ve seen studies come and go with no change, apart from big cheques being written to consultants.
To paraphrase a line from Jerry Seinfeld, Wood Buffalo knows how to do a study. Officials just don’t know how to implement a study.
Before the 2004 election, there was huge pressure from a limited number of sports groups and all candidates quickly agreed to support a new 52-metre pool.
I don’t condemn them; I’m in awe of their lobbying expertise and the power they wield.
Where is the support for a new arts facility? Am I the only person Fort McMurray who wants to see it?
I wonder sometimes.
Keyano Theatre is good, but small. And it’s constantly booked. The Recital Theatre is booked, too, but it’s too small to support touring artists. Thickwood Amphitheatre is too small. Thickwood Arena is acoustically bad, and it’s an oven in the summer.
In the absence of any public pressure, the study now underway will sit on a shelf, gathering dust.
Like the downtown traffic study, if there is no lobby group, or no champion on council, Fort McMurray will be a utopia for those who sweat, but a wasteland for those who prefer exercising their brains.
Mayor Melissa Blake has boasted the new MacIsland will be the best in Alberta.
Great. What does that do for me?
-- mhall@fortmcmurraytoday.com
© Copyright 2006, Fort McMurray Today.
Gimme Some Grammar
By MICHAEL HALL
Today staff
I’ve got a ticket to see Stuart McLean’s Vinyl Café Saturday night. I’m really looking forward to the show.
In a story today on Page E1, McLean told reporter Paula Ogonoski he was astounded that someone drove 3 1/2 hours to see his show. I can easily top that — my wife and I drove from Fort McMurray to Kamloops, B.C. a couple of years ago to see the Vinyl Café. I was ticked off when, during the show, McLean asked for hands in the audience from the person who drove the farthest. He ignored my hand and gave a book to a lady from Prince George, B.C.
If he reads this he’ll have a better story to tell.
We were there in Edmonton’s Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium last November, too.
If you don’t have a ticket, call the Keyano box office right now. It’s a family-friendly evening of music, humour and sentimental stories. You’ll leave feeling good about yourself and the world.
This will be the first time the CBC personality will bring his musicians and stories up Highway 63. I hope both Friday and Saturday shows are sold out to show him that we appreciate they made the trip.
I also hope it’s a sellout to help drive home the need for an additional performing arts space in Fort McMurray.
I had high hopes for the Keyano College Sport and Wellness Centre. A big gym is part of that new building, and one original concept was for it to be a multi-purpose room: you could hold large banquets there, and set up a stage for performances, too. The plan, I was told, was that the room would include hardware for lights and sound, and there would be some sort of acoustic treatment so sound wouldn’t reverberate like it does from the walls of Thickwood Arena.
That dream is done. Rising costs are the culprit.
The new, ultra-expensive MacDonald Island expansion? Don’t even think about it. Athletics (and the public library) only.
Well, the topic came up again this week. With the Oilsands Rotary Music Festival back, the lack of performing spaces is acute. Again.
Although I got some heat from the organizers when I previously wrote about this, please hear me out.
My dream is the same as theirs. More spaces.
They want them for the children involved in the festival. I want them for me and all of the other McMurrayites who believe the arts are a key part of quality of life.
Our goal is the same. Our reasons are different.
Work with me, people!
I don’t disparage the need for recreation facilities, too. I think the arts should be given some consideration, that’s all.
It’s clear it will never be equal.
With a couple of high-profile jocks on council — Phil Meagher and Sheldon Germain — I worry about the lack of balance. I see it in the huge dollars being spent on athletics in Fort McMurray — almost $150 million in the next few years.
From where I sit, the total being spent on edifices for the arts is zero.
Council got bogged down into a debate of what culture is Tuesday. Jim Carbery rightly noted that aboriginal culture is different from how others would define the term.
Focus on the arts. All types of culture can easily be accommodated without stereotyping.
Arts is the key. Visual, performing, recorded, live. A big room with seats and a stage will fill the bill.
Should a performing arts space hold a thousand people? Twenty-five hundred? Five thousand? I don’t know.
There’s a study underway right now by municipal officials with its focus on what arts (sad to say, I think they’re focusing on culture) facilities are needed. I am not encouraged.
I’ve seen studies come and go with no change, apart from big cheques being written to consultants.
To paraphrase a line from Jerry Seinfeld, Wood Buffalo knows how to do a study. Officials just don’t know how to implement a study.
Before the 2004 election, there was huge pressure from a limited number of sports groups and all candidates quickly agreed to support a new 52-metre pool.
I don’t condemn them; I’m in awe of their lobbying expertise and the power they wield.
Where is the support for a new arts facility? Am I the only person Fort McMurray who wants to see it?
I wonder sometimes.
Keyano Theatre is good, but small. And it’s constantly booked. The Recital Theatre is booked, too, but it’s too small to support touring artists. Thickwood Amphitheatre is too small. Thickwood Arena is acoustically bad, and it’s an oven in the summer.
In the absence of any public pressure, the study now underway will sit on a shelf, gathering dust.
Like the downtown traffic study, if there is no lobby group, or no champion on council, Fort McMurray will be a utopia for those who sweat, but a wasteland for those who prefer exercising their brains.
Mayor Melissa Blake has boasted the new MacIsland will be the best in Alberta.
Great. What does that do for me?
-- mhall@fortmcmurraytoday.com
© Copyright 2006, Fort McMurray Today.
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