On the DEWLine 2.0: Dwight Williams

This was taken during the spring 2019 edition of the Ottawa International Writers Festival. Kate's in the middle.

Go have a look if you like!

https://secure.flickr.com/photos/dwight_ew/sets/72157646508442951

You'll probably see me with camera at hand over at the Knox Presbyterian Church this afternoon. There's a couple of events at the Ottawa International Writers Festival I've agreed to cover today, and I've got to get out the door shortly about that.

See you later...

Still working on picking photos for uploading re: WritersFest. Today, it was Jacob Berkowitz and The Stardust Revolution, John Ralston Saul and Dark Diversions and Jonathan Goldstein's I'll Seize the Day Tomorrow.

Yes, that Jonathan Goldstein from This American Life and Wiretap, depending on which side of the border you live and listen to the radio on. That man's got his dead-pan voice and facial expression style down cold. And he still had them - and me - laughing. By design. Different style from what Jian Ghomeshi was doing last night, but that's alright. It should be like that.

My feet are sore. I'd been standing on them - backpack firmly strapped on - for much of the evening before getting home about twenty minutes ago.

I can safely say that the evening was worth the pain, though.

Spent much of the late afternoon and early evening at Knox Presbyterian Church, having done more of that volunteer photography stuff with the WritersFest crew. First up was Mario Beauregard from Montréal, in town to discuss his new book Brain Wars. The tone was, to be honest and fair, more academic than anything, complete with slideshow via computer/projector. Lots of discussion of whether or not materialism as a way of thinking about neuroscience was worth anything anymore, courtesy of quantum physics, or so it seemed to me.

Later on was the main event: Jian Ghomeshi.

If you listen to CBC Radio One, you'll already know him as host of Q, that channel's arts/culture talk show airing Monday thru Friday at 10 AM as a rule. If you're of a certain age range and lived in Canada at a particular timeframe, then you'll certainly recall his musical career as part of the band Moxy Früvous.

Tonight, though, he was wearing his author's hat. He's got a book out, 1982, about life as he understood it and lived it at age 14 in the Toronto suburb of Thornhill, and so far as he knew at the time, his family was the only one of Iranian ancestry - they moved to Canada by way of London, England - in the neighbourhood.

Also, he was a David Bowie fan, and was, from time to time, dressed accordingly.

Not quite a recipe for complete social isolation, but it could have gone either way for a while there.

So Ghomeshi was on fire tonight as a guest speaker and interviewee, and he had good help from CBC Ottawa's TV News anchor Lucy Van Oldenbarneveld. I'm sure the WritersFest people will have either podcast or video up somewhere sooner than later, and I'm sorting through the pix I took tonight of both the Beauregard and Ghomeshi sessions to see which ones are ready for Flickr.

More on other stuff as time allows...

If memory serves, this will be his second visit to town for WritersFest:

http://www.jmdematteis.com/2011/04/blame-canada.html

Lots of little things here and there:

Another installment of Street Names under my byline is up at Spacing Ottawa. At this rate, there should be enough material for a smallish book in...oh, about ten years. Maybe a little sooner.

james_nicoll asks how nerdy it is to...."crack out a 3d map of the local stars to chart the movement of space fleets in an SF novel?" I answered "one" on a scale of one to ten. Your light-distance will vary, of course.

For fans of the Legion of Super-Heroes, there's a leadership election in progress. Deadline for your e-ballots is November 10th. One hopes that DC will keep the domain name of "legionelection.com", as I hope that Paul Levitz will want to try his hand at writing after-the-fact coverage of any debates between the candidates...which ranks include all active members as of the declaration of the election. (And can we have text features again, please?)

Planning to do some photography at WritersFest again tomorrow. Events of particular interest involve William Gibson and Ottawa Citizen columnist Dan Gardner.

Cognitive dissonance abounds re: US infrastructure funding, apparently.

Item One

I hear John Baird trashed one of my favourite recently-built Ottawa landmarks, the Corkstown Footbridge, as a waste of money compared to fixing up the sewage system. He openly slammed City Hall's sense of priorities in building the thing.

Gee, Mr. Baird. Personally, I think those particular city-directed tax dollars were in fact well spent. The people who use it are saving themselves money on cars, gas, and lung-related healthcare down the line, near as I can tell. And I like using it myself at least two or four times a week on average, despite neither living nor working that far inside the Greenbelt. Consider this my "thank you" to Ottawa City Hall for that decision being taken as it was.

Item Two

Last night, after taking in the first installment of the old BBC documentary/science/tech show Connections with the Ottawa SF Society, I went over to the Mayfair Theatre to watch Terry O'Reilly and Mike Tennant speak at the Writers Festival. It was one of the Festival's Big Idea sessions, kicked off by the book and radio show that got Messrs. O'Reilly and Tennant into the building in the first place: The Age of Persuasion.

I've spoken here about the radio show before at some length, having been pleased, entertained and enlightened over the last few years. The show I saw last night was true to form, and with some value added by the company of CBC Ottawa host Laurence Wall for good measure.

Terry and MIke? Thanks again!