Blog Archives

Dixon Exhibition

10/27/2013

Dixon Minutes Before Exhibition Opens

My partner Ken Dixon recently produced an exhibition, which opened at William Campbell Contemporary Art Gallery in Fort Worth, Texas on October 19 and will remain through November 16. Titled 3 Short Stories & 12 Options, the collection is comprised of "fifteen large-scale, mixed media pieces completed over the past year and inspired by Dixon's decades-long fascination with the Texas Hill Country and northeastern United States. A visual convergence of art, science, and culture, the collection explores themes of order and disorder on both macro and micro levels within the environment. Additionally, Dixon addresses the role of technology in art and nature as he intermingles digital imaging with painting and collage." Needless to say, I couldn't be happier for his continued success.
Please click on the link to Campbell's gallery to find out more. I've also placed a link to the gallery in my sidebar, should one need to locate it later rather than sooner. If you will be in the DFW area in the next few weeks, stop in and take a look!
Below are photos from the opening festivities.

Oh, Canada 2

10/15/2013

Friday, October 4, 2013

QUÉBEC

The day begins cloudy and misty with tiny drops of rain—not enough to dampen the pavement. I eat breakfast in the Bibliothèque, a small café in the Capital Hill Hotel, sitting next to a few others in our group, and we enjoy chatting about our trip so far.

We take our motor coach into the province of Québec, where French is the official language. Even so, it seems that if locals realize you’re from America, they gladly speak French—especially, it seems, if you’re a Texan.

In the cloudy, cool weather people chat quietly on the trip to Québec City. I think the autumn weather contributes to our being subdued—no vitamin D from the sun to help perk us up. The land seems as flat as West Texas but with hedgerows here and there, stands of trees occasionally breaking up the fields. Golden stalks past their prime stand stock-still in the wind.

Québec City

The walk through old Québec City seems like a dream—a Disney-like stroll that just happens to be real. Hearing people speak French. Smelling the different foods. The four cities we’re visiting may be a well-kept secret from the rest of the world—accounting for nearly fifteen million of Canada's thirty-five million inhabitants.

Saturday, October 5, 2013

We begin our second day by eating at The Sugar Shack (cabane à sucre), Érablière Le Chemin du Roy, an all-you-can-eat proposition in any language, all topped (if you wish) with wonderful, wonderful maple syrup produced on the very premises!

Kathryn, Old QC Guide

Our second day in Québec City, we engage a step-on guide whose mother was a Texan that married a Canadian. Her speech is more like a stand-up routine, which makes her quite easy to listen to. Even though I’ve seen all the streets the night before, a friend and I hike down and take the Funicular, a hill-hugging elevator, back to the top.

Bridge from Montmorency Falls to Île d’Orléans

In late afternoon we travel to Montmorency Falls before taking the bus over the bridge to the Île d’Orléans located in the St. Lawrence River. As our guide has told us in the morning, Île d’Orléans enjoys a micro-climate that allows a year round growing season.

Once on the island, we make our way to Le Moulin de Saint-Laurent Restaurant where we enjoy a pre fixe dinner in which we are given a selection of several entrées. I select fillet of pork with apple in an apple cider sauce, and it is très magnifique! For dessert, I opt for the maple sugar pie, which calls to mind a chess pie but with a sweetness all its own.

I work in my journal and edit photos until 11:30.

Sunday, October 6, 2013

MONTRÉAL, Québec

I’ve only slept six-and-half hours, but I don’t seem to need any more than that. I eat breakfast at the Cosmos Restaurant in the Hôtel Classique of Québec City. And then we board our motor coach once again.

MONTRÉAL, Québec

A rainy day, not heavy, but a cumulative misty rain that is still very very wet! It lifts long enough for us to stop at Montréal’s Expo ’67 site for a photo op. Mel takes a group picture that appears on his website, page three. It is a bit cold and windy—our first “bad” weather since leaving Texas nearly a week ago.

The afternoon tour by the step-on guide, Angelina, is not as good as the others we’ve had. Perhaps she is limited by the rain. She walks entirely too fast, and she doesn’t seem to care. In spite of this, we enjoy seeing the Notre Dame Basilica in Old Montréal.

In the evening I go out on my own with the intention of doing some Christmas shopping at the huge underground shopping area, but many of the shops are closed. The ones that are open hold little interest for me. Montréal’s underground world of subways and multi-layered malls is fascinating. And in winter they are almost a necessity as people move cozily about the city underneath the streets like ants.

I slog back to our Holiday Inn in the rain resigned to eating alone, but some friends happily intercept me at the hotel restaurant and we share a meal.

Everyone is in bed early because we must be at Pierre Trudeau Airport tomorrow for a 7:30 flight! Thanks once again to Peter Laverty of Seniors Are Special at UMC for planning and executing such a great trip. I believe everyone made at least one new friend.

MORE PHOTOGRAPHS

Flags

Flora

Fauna

Art

People Watch

Signs

Patterns

Foliage

Nikon Color Sketches

Marian Szczepanski, Guest

10/13/2013

Many thanks to Dick for inviting me to introduce myself and Playing St. Barbara, my debut novel, to you, his faithful readers.

Inhabiting Time That's Not Mine

If I’d known it would take eight years to write my debut novel, I probably wouldn’t have attempted it.

Inspired by my family background—I’m the granddaughter of immigrant coal miners—I set the story in southwestern Pennsylvania coal country. Playing St. Barbara takes place from 1929 to 1941, a time marked by rampant xenophobia and violent strikes. Since mining literature typically focuses on miners, I chose a different approach. My story chronicles the secrets and struggles of a miner’s wife and three daughters.

I’d never attempted a historically based narrative, but the prospect didn’t daunt me. I’d started out as a journalist, so I was used to asking questions, tracking down facts. Every novel requires some degree of research. How hard could it possibly be?

What I failed to consider was the fact staring me in the face: I wasn’t alive from 1929-1941. Consequently, everything had to be researched.

I was sure that if I cut corners, it would show in the writing. Even readers who knew nothing about mining would sense I hadn’t done my homework. I needed to learn everything I could about Depression-era mining technology, labor history, immigration trends, as well as fashion, diet, car models, entertainment, slang—in short, I needed to write with the authority of someone who had been alive from 1929-1941.

I amassed a small library and worked my way through it. I visited historical and labor archives. I studied vintage photographs. I explored Pittsburgh’s old German neighborhood. I watched a host of old movies—a repository of clothing styles, period interiors, and popular figures of speech. Replete with knowledge, I began writing, only to stop time and again to look up a salient detail online. What did a 1930s wedding gown look like? How much did ground beef cost in 1929? What was happening in Europe during the spring of 1941?

I resolved every last detail in the story would be authentic, from the cover image on the May 1941 issue of Screen Guide magazine, to the real-life county sheriff whose insubordination led to county-wide martial law, to the Lincoln quote on the H. C. Frick Coke Co. pay envelope.

However, I must confess I cut it close in Chapter 15. “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?” (from Disney’s 1933 film The Three Little Pigs) was released just the day before a deputy whistles it.

I met Marian while we were both residents at Arkansas's Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow several years ago. I'm inspired by both her persistence and her debut novel, Playing St. Barbara, now out from High Hill Press and available from a number of sources. I urge you to check it out at www.marianszczepanski.com. Even after this post drifts to the bottom of the screen, readers will be able find a link to Marian's novel on my blog sidebar. Best of luck, Marian! RJ

Oh, Canada!

10/11/2013

A Trip to Ontario and Québec

The Seniors Are Special Program at University Medical Center in Lubbock, Texas, recently sponsored a Fall Foliage trip to eastern Canada. The four major cities we visited were Toronto, Ottawa, Québec City, and Montréal. Below I present a short journal and a number of photographs from that trip. We had a great time!

Monday, September 30, 2013

TORONTO

Toronto's CN Tower

Flying in and staring out a jet window, one can see a land that is reminiscent of England: long acreages of green landscaping, a huge car park that has been set aside in the center city, instead of having scores of smaller ones scattered about like dominoes. There are so many high rises, yet they seem to be arranged in a certain order—implying that home ownership might not be for everyone. Later, our tour guide Mel will tell us that the city is encouraging people to live closer to the center of the city in high rises, rather than extending the urban sprawl any further. The trip has been arranged by SAS director Peter Laverty of UMC, and he does an inspired job.

We arrive at our hotel in late afternoon. At dinner on the seventeenth floor of the Primrose Hotel, we meet our tour director, Mel Brand, of Cosmos Tours. After a fine meal on the seventeenth floor, Mel hands out our key cards. We never have to check in or check out as individuals—just hand over our cards at check-out time. Our luggage is delivered to our doors within in hour, so we can clean up and change clothes if we wish. In the evening we are on our own to explore Toronto. The Canadians are especially warm and welcoming, even if we don’t speak French!

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

NIAGARA FALLS

The falls are an incredible sight, and the weather perfect. I saw the falls as a child from the American side, and my mother took black-and-white photos with a box camera! Perfect day, almost on the warm side. There are many tour buses, indicating that one would not want to be here in the summer. Mel is a fine tour guide, more like a teacher or guru. His years as a flight attendant for Air Canada serve him well. Patience! He deflects irrelevant or unanswerable questions with ease and grace, and you hardly realize he’s done so.

In the afternoon we take a tour of Toronto’s major landmarks: City Hall, the University of Toronto, and the CN Tower. In the evening, we dine at the top of the Tower.

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

KINGSTON

As we follow the St. Lawrence River, our motor coach stops at one of those tourist traps that actually turns out to be quite pleasant, a place called the Big Apple, and there is . . . a huge red apple on the lawn. Inside, we encounter all kinds of apple products.

In Kingston some of us have fish and chips for lunch and sit outside, where it is actually quite warm in the sunshine. Locals tell us were at the best place in town for fish and chips. They aren’t wrong.

In the afternoon we take a boat trip among the St. Lawrence Islands National Park (also known as Thousand Islands). Again, even on the boat in that breeze, we are quite comfortable in shirt sleeves or light jacket. The boat is crowded with camera-happy tourists (we among them, but at least we don’t overtake the boat).

Thursday, October 3, 2013

OTTAWA

A very pleasant morning as we are given a tour of the Parliament grounds. Then we are off to the Canadian Museum of Civilization and the Canadian War Museum. The museums remain open Thursday nights from four to eight, for free, but I do not have time to go back.

We also visit the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Stables, where we watch a few male and female Mounties walk their horses.

In the afternoon, we take a boat ride along the Rideau Canal, a very pleasant outing for a sunny autumn afternoon.

UPCOMING POSTS
MONDAY: GUEST BLOGGER MARIAN SZCZEPANSKI WILL SHARE HOW SHE CAME TO WRITE HER NEW NOVEL, PLAYING ST. BARBARA—NOW OUT FROM HIGH HILL PRESS.

AND FINISH READING MY POST AND CHECKING OUT PHOTOS OF MY RECENT TRIP TO EASTERN CANADA! THANKS FOR READING.