Glebe Report

One of the saddest losses of the forced isolation of COVID-19 has been group music making. For musicians and music lovers alike, the inability to share their experience with peers and the community is a deprivation with detrimental mental health and other negative outcomes.

Have pen, will travel. For the Glebe Report’s May Poetry Quarter, we asked for poems that revealed the good, the bad and the ugly of your traveller selves. Where have you travelled or wish you had gone or still wish to go, if only in your mind? We sought poems that captured your adventures as you roamed the landscape of your special places. Here are the poetic tales you brought back.

Although, with the cancellation of the 2020 Glebe Art in Our Gardens and Studio Tour, artists cannot host guests in their gardens and studios this summer, they are still busy creating art and are inviting visitors to take a virtual tour of their work.

Southminster United Church and the Master Piano Recital Series are responding to social isolation with a six-part, live-streamed Sunday Piano Series on Sundays at 3 p.m. from May 10 through June 14.

This month, Paul Green reviews the “delightfully atmospheric” 1947 French film Quai des orfèvres, and Lois Siegel reviews the recent American documentary Crip Camp, set in a summer camp for disabled kids in the Catskills in the 1970s.

This month in film, a review of the film Kalifornia by Lois Siegel, and the French film Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Portrait de la jeune fille en feu) reviewed by Paul Green.

Choral music and group singing are of interest to an increasing number of people. This month, Bob Brocklebank tells the story and Glebe origins of the Bytown Voices, and Janice Manchee gives a first-hand account of what it’s like to sing Bach in the Rideau Chorale.

This month, Robin Gallagher of the Sunnyside library provides a roundup of titles on sewing to guide and inspire your sewing projects, and Clyde Sanger reviews Aging: the Best Alternative, a book of poetry by Pat McLaughlin.

This month the Glebe Report’s film reviewer Paul Green brings us his take on the 2019 French film Les Misérables, set in the powder-keg banlieues of Paris, and Lois Siegel reviews The Boys & Girl From County Clare, an Irish film from 2003 with lots of traditional Irish music.

Although Christmas may be over, “you’d still better watch out” if you visit the National Gallery of Canada this January 25. Why? Because there be monsters. Beautiful monsters! The monsters will creep off their canvasses that day and come to life in a one-time performance in the gallery’s auditorium, featuring the Glebe’s own Ottawa Baroque Consort and hosted by master-storyteller David Brennan.

Film reviews this month are Rocketman, a biopic about Elton John, by Lois Siegel, and Parasite, a parable or social satire on class relations in contemporary South Korea, by Paul Green.

Frank Johnson has a review of David Chernuishenko’s new climate change novel, Burning Souls, and the Sunnyside branch of the Ottawa Public Library has recommendations for exploring the natural world through reading this summer.

For your summer theatre fix, we have articles on the Company of Adventurers, the local young-people’s Shakespeare troupe; A Company of Fools, who are doing Romeo and Juliet; and Odyssey Theatre and its Spanish masterpiece.

Looking for recommended reading for your children? Ildiko Sumegi has reading suggestions highlighting Black History Month, and Caitlin Giffin has an array of non-fiction suggestions from the Ottawa Public Library.

Before school was out in June, the Glebe Report got in touch with local high schools to see if there were any fledgling writers willing to take their first flight of fancy with us. We asked them to write a short story of any kind, on any theme, as long as it relates in some way to the Glebe – as setting, character, plot, whatever.

The following four stories were submitted by Grade 12 students in Debra Palmer’s Writers’ Craft class at Glebe Collegiate Institute.

Open call for poetry submissions for poets in the Glebe neighbourhood and surrounding areas. The Glebe Report monthly community newspaper will begin publishing a number of poems as a regular feature, four times a year, beginning in the fall 2015. The feature, to be called “Poetry Quarter”, will be curated by JC Sulzenko, Glebe poet, author and educator.

We are interested in receiving submissions of poetry from: adults, teens 14 to 17 (high school students), or children 9 to 13 (about grades 4 to 8). We are open broadly to submissions from poets who live, work, study or volunteer in the Glebe or its close neighbouring communities.

Summer 2015 marks the fifth anniversary of the revival of the Glebe Art in Our Gardens and Studio Tour, which will be held on the weekend of July 4 and 5. Momentum has been building over the past five years, bringing attention to local artists and attracting many visitors to our neighbourhood for this highly anticipated event. Although there are many art tours in our region, it is always special to meet your talented neighbours and support their work.

Modern art will go nowhere if everyone insists on supporting dead artists. Forget the gallery, go for a walk in the park, support the arts industry by buying art from an artist who is breathing, an artist who might just create something next week thinking about the conversation they had with you in the grass. Bring the kids, bring the dog, run around, don’t be afraid to touch things, pretend it’s not the gallery, because it’s not. These are real artists in the real world, to whom you can talk, not just read about on plaques. And it’s not just for grown-ups, because kids can learn about art too.

Eats, beats and grilled meats. That’s what will be cooking up at TD Place July 11 when Canadian DJ Skratch Bastid rolls into town with a busload of beats, burgers and big name DJs for an all-day outdoor dance party. There are also tons of local shows happening at music joints in the Glebe this summer.

Irene’s Pub has music every Thursday through Sunday with bands like Ottawa rockers Small Black Dog hitting the pub July 3. Ottawa soft rock kings PleasureCraft will be bringing all the “yacht rock” the Glebe can handle when they cruise into the pub July 11. So pick up a pair of festival shoes, a decent backpack, a good water bottle and just spend your time strolling through the Glebe this summer; there will be lots to see – and hear.

February may be the coldest month, but duck into Roast’n Brew to warm up and take a look at Bhat Boy’s new series Nuns Having Fun and Sylvia Williams’ first solo show North of 49 with Antlers. The Glebe Community Centre is also showing “Four Legs Good … II,” an exhibit of paintings by Gwendolyn Best and Ellen Schowalter. Be sure to check out this awesome timelapse of Glebe painter MaryAnn Camps producing her work large-scale triptych “Saturday Night” (the video is in the article), and don’t miss out on the 10th annual Great Bowls of Fire, a fundraising event for the Ottawa Food Bank, organized by the Ottawa Guild of Potters.

Having grown up in Saskatoon, Zmud says, “It takes a while for a Prairie girl to feel at home, but the Glebe has done that for me.” Although she came to Ottawa in 2000 to study at Carleton University, she then went to Toronto and back to Saskatchewan, where she taught political studies at the University of Saskatchewan. But in 2006 she decided that Ottawa was a better place for her music and the Glebe turned out to be the perfect spot.

Our community is home to numerous artists, practicing in a multitude of mediums. There are wonderful studios, cafes, galleries, and gardens that showcase these creations. Art events are happening well into autumn — read about the upcoming Art of Imagination Day and Glebe Fine Art Show — and don’t forget to check out photos from this summer’s Garden & Studio Tour and New Art Festival.

Summer festivals are still happening in Ottawa! Don’t miss out on the awesome lineup at the Arboretum Festival (August 18-23), and be sure to check out the 11th annual House of PainT celebrations. Punk rock has a new home in the Glebe at the House of Targ, where you can also indulge in perogies and play a little pinball. It’s not too late to pick up a new skill (or polish up an old one) — St Giles Presbyterian Church is hosting “sight-singing” classes, which resume in September, so sign up soon!

by Joachim Moskau
To “face the music” gets a new twist at St Giles Presbyterian Church in the Glebe. Organist and passionate choir master Desmond Hassell has launched a tutorial avalanche to teach all comers, young or old, rich or poor, the surprisingly simple basics of singing a song straight off the printed score. The philosophy is simple – even Mozart, Verdi and Bach began with “do-re-mi.”

By Liz McKeen
The first thing you should know is, the Arboretum Festival is not held at the Experimental Farm’s Arboretum – so don’t go to the Farm expecting anything but lovely trees.

The annual House of PainT Festival is a free outdoor hip-hop festival that features the best in Canadian urban arts and culture, showcasing graffiti, breakdancing, DJs and MCs from across Canada. This year’s festival, now in its 11th year, will take place from September 4 to 7 in Brewer Park and under the massive, concrete Dunbar Bridge (where Bronson crosses the Rideau River, next to Carleton University.)

By Erin Bender Kerbel
When an old arcade machine was dropped off in Ottawa musician Paul Granger’s rehearsal studio four years ago, he never imagined it would lead to the creation of a popular music venue and pinball bar. The Targ arcade game, given to 40-year-old Granger by a friend, ended up being a hit at the studio, where over 25 local punk bands rehearse. “All the bands started playing Targ when they came to rehearse,” said Granger. “Then one of my friends stopped by and saw the machine, and he owed me a couple months of rehearsal time so he gave me a pinball machine instead of paying me.”

Summer is here! Sit back and relax on the beach with one of these great books.

In this month’s Arts and Profiles articles, Elsa Cattelan solves the ‘Naked Room’ mystery at Glebe Collegiate Institute, David Casey interviews author Denise Chong, and we are pleased to announce the 2014 edition of the Glebe Studio and Garden Tour!

Glebe Art in our Gardens and Studio Tour July 5 & 6, 2014 The New Art Festival Central Park, June 21-22, 2014