Listen even more deeply.

This Wednesday, January 28, and every Wednesday from now until the end of White, GD Maxwell and Scott Pass promise to blow your eardrums and your minds with Turn Up Winter : The Concert Series.

Max argues that music is a principal Muse for all creative folk.

And if that’s not justification enough, consider that Millennium Place has one of the most incredible and under-utilised sound systems in the entire valley. Claims Max, “It’s not just loud, it’s crystal clear and capable of shaking those growing calcium deposits off our ski-aching bones.  Coupled with lovingly-engineered soundtracks, kaleidescopic images and some of your favourite music, or at least music that should be among your favourites if you claim to like music at all, these concert films will warm you up on a cold winter’s night.”  

Add to the equation a revolving line-up of classic concert flicks, starting with Jonathan Demme’s film Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense, two sittings each night (7pm and 9pm), and a $10 entry fee (or $8 if you’re with Club Shred), and you get a fine night’s entertainment for about the price of a pint.

Max argues, and you know he can argue the rough tongue off a cat, “Fact is, nobody is doing stuff as cutting-edge as David Byrne and the Heads were doing then.  This film/concert will blow your mind.”

Join the house of happy, rockin’ people.

What you smoke beforehand is your business.

Exercise 4. Get lovey-dovey

The Walrus magazine provides a great assignment for this week’s Virtual Boot-Camp. 

After all, the love story is the simplest narrative known. It’s the story we all know instinctively. Boy sees girl. Boy wants girl.  Boy gets girl. 

Of course, the variations are endless. Girl wants girl. Boy doesn’t know how to get girl. Happily ever after is thwarted by a dozen things. Girl loves work and has no room for boy, girl or other… Boy discovers his true love is his dog, just as dog dies from nasty, twitching, rabid pox.

Still, in the beginning, was the love story. And the love story started, often, with a letter.

So. 500 words. A love letter. By Valentine’s Day. Send it to the Walrus. Let them see how drenched we are in passion, longing, and all things requited and un… out here in Whistler.

The winning love letter will be announced on March 1, 2009. The letter that wins the judges’ hearts will earn a $1,000 GRAND PRIZE, as well as another $1,000 in prizes from Deutsche Grammaphon. The letter will also be published on the Walrus website.

Runners-up prizes include:

A ROMANTIC GETAWAY weekend for two
A LOVE LETTER FROM BIGFOOT, written by Graham Roumieu
Your love letter PUBLISHED for all to read on the Walrus website
Signed copies of Four Letter Word
Prize packages from DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON

Now there’s incentive.

Get writing.

Tell stories. Listen deeply.

Dianne Dunn and Angela Prettie are coordinating a workshop on non-violent communication at Myrtle Phillip on Tuesday, February 10, from 7pm to 9pm.
Admission is by donation.

Non-Violent Communication or Compassionate Communication follows the footsteps of Ghandi, and is based on the work of Dr Marshall Rosenberg, teaching people to speak and listen from the heart, in the hopes of trading conflict for clarity.

Peaking on PEAK OIL

“Read this book, be entertained, be ashamed, and then do something to stop the insanity.”  

Thomas-Homer Dixon, author of The Upside of Down

Join the Council of Canadians and the Community Foundation of Whistler on Monday, January 26, at the Whistler Library’s Community Room.

At 7pm, award-winning Canadian investigative journalist, Andrew Nikiforuk, author of Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent, will be joined by Kim Needham of the Climate Project Canada, to give you some insight into whether you should be building a greenhouse, windmill and stockpiling spare bicycle parts, NOW.

Admission by donation, with proceeds going to the Community Foundation of Whistler’s Environmental Legacy Fund.

Assignment List

Looking for a writing project?

Here’s what’s on the books:
You have one week to compose a poem on the theme of listening, or togetherness, for the RMOW’s Poet’s Pause project.

You have just under one month to celebrate the great icon of Whistler – the chairlift – with a one act play. It’s easier than it sounds. It’s just “noodling around with dialogue” as GD Maxwell has said.  Write your own Chairlift Revue. It’s the funnest research you’ll ever do. 

Finally, you have just five days to order in your special supplies of Bundaberg Rum, Vegemite, Timtams or Violet Crumbles, and memorise all the words to I Love A Sunburnt Country, for an authentic Australia Day celebration…

Vicious Boot-Camp presents Exercise 3

Feeding the Seed, the Green Circle creative writing class that starts Jan 28, is sold out. If you missed out, contact the Vicious Circle and let them know you’re into taking part in the second round.  There’s also talk of taking the tour on the road, up the road to Pemberton. 

In the meantime, get some virtual training under your belt.

Here’s exercise 3.

It’s said that every seven years, all of our cells are replaced, and we are essentially new beings.

Try writing a series of descriptions of yourself, starting now, and going back every seven years, imagining that with each seven year leap, you are completely fresh and rebooted. A new character. Describe them…

Boot-Camp Exercise 2

If you’re coming late to Virtual Boot-Camp, here’s a quick catch-up.

1. The Quest for skill or expertise requires 10,000 hours. No time to waste, Alice. Better get started now.

2. Push-ups are good. Moving your pen is better.

3.  Exercise 1 was simply to get you used to being the master of someone’s fate. It’s the great writerly powertrip.

Now you’re caught up. We’re still warming up. Stretching. Getting the blood flowing. Building up to cliff hucking and other finesse-y moves.

So, you’re wondering where to start? 

This week, try clustering. Gabriele Lusser Rico writes in her book, Writing the Natural Way, “Clustering is a nonlinear brainstorming process akin to free association… It’s a writing tool that accepts wondering, not-knowing, seeming chaos, gradually mapping an interior landscape as ideas begin to emerge.”  It’s a great tool to use for a launching pad.

Take the topic “listening”. Or “togetherness.”  They’re the themes for the RMOW’s call for poetry, due January 28. 

Grab a scrap of paper, pick one topic, and get messy. Use “listening” or “togetherness” as the nucleus, then start spidering out, as your brain associates things with the topic. See what strange fruit clusters might appear… Once you’ve exhausted all the associations you can, start on a fresh page and start writing a poem on the same topic. When you’re done, send it to Kevin McFarland, a Parks Planner with a poetic heart. He’ll be stoked.

Whistler writers attain global domination. Or at least, great local press.

Stella Harvey tells Holly Fraughton at the Pique that the new Feeding the Seed workshop, the green circle creative writing classes offered by the Vicious Circle from January 28, is for those closeted writers who said, “What I really need is an assignment!”

Kevin Damaskie, Whistler’s 2020 Sustainability Coordinator says the Vicious Circle of pain and perseverance has scripted a wonderful chapter in Whistler’s journey towards a diverse economy and a thriving learning and cultural sector. Read his piece and see if you can count how many literary puns he’s managed to cram into 500 words.

Social media and blogging WordCamp comes to Whistler

WordPress bloggers are hosting a WordCamp conference on social media and blogging in Whistler, on Saturday, January 24.  You’ll bump into several members of the Vicious Circle, as well as a host of experts on new media.

The Play’s the Thing

GD Maxwell is scouting for talent, or balls, or a little of both.

If you’ve lived in Whistler for more than a few days, you’re sure to have spent some quality time riding a chairlift. Sure to have had or witnessed some interesting conversations – the kinds of things that only get said when you’re dangling in the air from a cable with a motley mishmash of friends/lovers/strangers.

So why not offer up a few words for the humble chairlift?

Max is looking for submissions for this April’s Chairlift Revue, a performance of one-act plays that will take place at the TELUS World Ski and Snowboard Festival, April 17-26, 2009. 

10-12 minutes. Subject matter is wide open. Characters can range from one to a gondola-full. Deadline, February 15. Drop Max a line for more info at maxandmarlene at telus.net.

Read Ski Press editor in chief and Chairlift Revue contributor, Jules Older’s account of last year’s Revue, with its grand finale surprise marriage proposal, here.

Reminder! Whistler issues call for poets.

Don’t forget the January 28 deadline to submit poems on the theme of listening, or togetherness, for the Resort Municipality of Whistler’s Public Art project. Download the terms of reference here.

Hello maggots, welcome to boot-camp

So you’ve always wanted to write? or you’ve been wishing you had more time to write?

Well, welcome to the Virtual Vicious Boot-Camp, where there’s no whining, no excuses, (and no boots, actually. It’s virtual, remember?)  Just one exercise landing in your lap every week, to get your creative self all juicy. (You can do the 20 push-ups before or after you do the exercise. Your choice. You have until Sunday to complete your task, before the next exercise comes scudding in to your in-box.  If you’d like to share the fruits of your labour, and there isn’t a real person handy, feel free to post it in the comments section.)

Exercise One.

The New Year is freshly cracked. The planets are aligned and the astrologers have made their predictions for the year. If you read your horoscope for 2009, you may have been told to expect hot sex, home renovations, and exciting travel plans in the months to come.

Exercise One at Boot-Camp is just geared at getting the hand moving, shutting the internal editor up (that was the voice calling you a maggot), and getting flirty.

So, here goes. Craft a horoscope. 150 words. It could be straight up, an earnest imitation of the form. Or you could write it as if you’re a mama-to-be, waiting for her belly to drop, and imagining the personality and fate of the little seedpod inside. How about a generic horoscope that you could send in lieu of New Year’s greetings to all those people you forgot to send a Christmas letter to? Or you could be an astrologer crafting a message specifically for the eyes of the boy who just broke her heart…

Pick up pen. Move pen on page. Write until you can write no more. Then, 20 push-ups.

That will be all, maggots.