Glebe Report

On New Year’s Day my husband and I strolled past a parked BMW SUV. It was idling. Presumably they wanted to stay warm while waiting. But despite the moderate weather and being dressed in winter wear, they idled.

Chickpeas, a scratch kitchen that makes falafels and hummus, recently opened in the Glebe. Walking into the restaurant, you are welcomed by aesthetic arrangements of hanging plants, along with the fresh smell of falafels and vibrant greens being made before your eyes.

The Booth Street complex site has seen much more activity in recent weeks than it has in many years. Fences started going up around the property, with staging activities continuing to take place.

The story of humanity and the story of wheat have intertwined for 70,000 years, since we first left Africa where there was no wheat and came to western Asia where it flourished in the form of a wild grass.

Across movie screens, audiences are awestruck by Thor wielding his mighty hammer, stunned as flying cars dart at lightning speed through the skies. But before Thor’s hammer and flying cars appeared on the big screen, they were merely concepts visualized and illustrated by the creative masterminds of entertainment – concept artists. Glebe resident Poe Gour, creative spirit behind Collabo Café, is one of these masterminds.

In the December 2019 issue of the Glebe Report, my letter to the editor (“Aberdeen Square naming rights cannot be sold,”) contends that the sale of the naming rights for Aberdeen Square was not allowable. It appears that my interpretation of the legal agreement was incorrect. But here’s why I erred.

When it comes to grocery shopping, I recently started realizing how much plastic I was recycling every week. I also started finding that a lot of businesses right here in the Glebe were very accommodating to customers who bring in their own containers.

My grandfather, Napier Smith, went to China as a missionary in 1916 and ended up in the First World War as part of a little-known operation to send more than 80,000 Chinese labourers across Canada in sealed trains on their way to help the war effort in Europe. Smith is among the missionaries, soldiers and Chinese featured in a new book, Harry Livingstone’s Forgotten Men: Canadians and the Chinese Labour Corps in the First World War, by Dan Black.

We asked you to drive your poems to the limits! We invited you to explore the notion of extremes: highs and lows, ups and downs, inside or outside, joy or sorrow, solo or together. In the throes of dead winter, contemplate hot and cold, or delve into the in-between – what’s found in the grey between black and white, in the pause between racing and standing still.

Following up on her list in the October 2019 Glebe Report, here is a synopsis of some of the mysteries and thrillers that librarian Sylvie Chartrand of the Sunnyside library has read recently.

Photographs increasingly shape how we see and share our worlds. As a result some fear for the future of fine art photography. Personally, I am exhilarated by photography’s irrepressible presence in both everyday life (Facebook, Instagram etc…)and in new and revitalized ways.

The Glebe Report’s film reviewers Paul Green and Lois Siegel give you their take on a contemporary Montreal version of Antigone, and the documentary For No Good Reason, featuring the British artist Ralph Steadman.

On February 28, Seventeen Voyces will bring Giacomo Carissimi’s oratorio Jephtha to life under the direction of Kevin Reeves. Rounding out the program, are works by two of Carissimi’s Baroque contemporaries – Claudio Monteverdi’s Magnificat for 6 Voices and Antonio Caldara’s Magnificat for 16 Voices. This promises to be a special evening.

When she walked or rode her clunky bicycle down the streets of the Glebe, Marty Hamer would stop to chat with folks of all ages whose name and story she would remember because she was an astute observer and listener with a keen emotional intelligence.

As 2020 made its entrance, plant pathologists all over the world had an added reason to raise their glasses: the United Nations General Assembly has declared 2020 International Year of Plant Health.