The Minto Suite Hotel is hosting a free showing of The 11th Hour this Saturday (June 21st) at dusk (which they’re estimating at 8:50 pm) in the parking lot at Slater and Lyon. The movie will be projected against the wall of a building. Refreshments will be available for a donation. All proceeds will go to The David Suzuki Foundation. Bring a lawnchair. (This event is weather permitting.)
arts and culture
Archived Posts from this Category
June 17, 2008
Event: Free Outdoor Environmental Movie in Centretown
Posted by greenlivingottawa under Ottawa, arts and culture, climate change, energy, health, media, reduce1 Comment
April 10, 2008
Inspired by Odjig
Posted by greenlivingottawa under Ottawa, arts and culture, flora and faunaNo Comments
I took my lunch hour at the Museum of Civilization the other day, and spent my time at the Daphne Odjig exhibit. Daphne Odjig is a First Nations woman who was born on Manitoulin Island in Ontario and who went on to become one of the most influential Canadian Artists of her time. The exhibit covers 40 years of her career as an artist and contains 95 prints ranging from the political to the intimately personal. She has a lyrical and ultimately optimistic eye and I highly recommend a trip to see this exhibit before it ends on April 20th. ”Daphne Odjig: Four Decades of Prints” provides an inspiring vision of humanity in harmony with the more-than-human world. A vision that is sorely needed.
BTW, although it is a special exhibit, it is free with a regular admission ticket.
January 23, 2008
A Greener Way to Watch DVDs: Zip.ca
Posted by greenlivingottawa under 100-mile, Ottawa, arts and culture, household, media, reduce[4] Comments
I have a friend who owns over 1,000 DVDs. He bought most of them second-hand, or through one of those buying clubs, but even if he paid an average of $10 a pop that’s a lot of money to have invested in things that clutter up your house. He hasn’t even watched them all.
We do own a few DVDs, but we only buy them if we’ve seen them already and think they’re worth watching more than once. Mostly we borrow them through Zip.ca.
Renting or borrowing is a great way to reduce the number of things you own and to decrease your ecological footprint. Alex Steffen of World Changing holds up product-service systems, “the substitution of access for ownership,” as one important pathway towards a more sustainable future. In his post, he uses the American company Netflix as an example of a thriving product-service system. Not only does Netflix allow people to watch videos without owning them, it also uses the postal system to circulate them. So instead of people driving their cars to the video store, they are delivered by mail carriers who are coming around your neighbourhood anyway. (See also articles by Treehugger and Ask Pablo.)
The Canadian version of Netflix, Zip.ca, is a homegrown Ottawa company. While they now have several warehouses across the country, they started out in a warehouse in the suburb of Nepean. I still get all my DVDs from the Ottawa warehouse (you can tell by the address on the return envelope), which means that they aren’t traveling that far to get to and from my house. Recently Zip.ca have become even more environmentally-friendly by making all their envelopes out of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified paper.
We have been Zip.ca members for about three years now. We’ve never had cable or satellite or even good regular tv reception so we watch DVDs way more often that we watch regular tv. I knew I was going to write this post, so I did a bit of looking around in Zip’s vast collection and a found a number of “green” videos: An Inconvenient Truth, Who Killed the Electric Car, A Crude Awakening, to name a few. I even got The Sacred Balance out so I could blog about watching it. However, I have to confess that I ended up leaving David Suzuki lying on the bookshelf while I binged on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. What can I say, every once in a while I get the urge to watch vampires get a good ass-kicking and I indulge that urge in the greenest way I can.
December 21, 2007
Day 7: Library books, a gift of reading with no strings attached
Posted by greenlivingottawa under Ottawa, arts and culture, books, waste reduction[2] Comments
by guest blogger, Eloise Collison:
A few years ago my partner and I came up with a better way to buy books, and give great Christmas gifts to each other.
We wanted some last minute, no packaging, truly recycled gifts so we borrowed books from the Ottawa Public Library.
You can “shop” on-line, search your favorite subjects and be as frivolous as you like. Use the on-line catalogue to reserve your books, or browse the shelves at your local branch. You’ll quickly come up with a pleasantly hefty stack of books to give to your favorite book lover.
If you really are working last minute, then browsing is the best bet. If you are organized enough to shop early you can even order your favorite music cds and movie dvds.
This year my partner is getting two Carl Hiaasen mysteries, an author he hasn’t tried before. There’s no risk giving books this way. If he’s read the book, or finds it dull after a few pages, he can just pick something else from the decadent stack of books under the tree.
I also picked up Daniel Ichbiah’s book “Robots” a history of…well…robots and other really geeky things. It’s perfect. It’s the kind of book I could never really afford, and this way I won’t feel guilty looking at it gathering dust on the coffee table come June. In mid-January, after we’ve renewed it a few times, it goes back to the library.
I’m also giving him “Stories from the Bow Seat: the Wisdom and Waggery of Canoe Tripping” by Standfield and Lundell. Another large, lavishly illustrated book, meant to encourage him to finally go on that week long canoe camping trip we’ve been talking about.
To really get that “try all the chocolates in the box” feeling, I try to get a little of everything:
* Biographies…I don’t often reread biographies, so I don’t have any qualms about returning them. Last year I picked “Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood”, by Oliver Sacks. The choices here are endless…how about Frida Kahlo, Isaac Newton, Condoleezza Rice? (maybe not.)
* Non-fiction… Last year’s choice was “Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time”
by Dava Sobel and this year it’s the history of the Halifax explosion with “Curse of the Narrows: The Halifax Disaster of 1917” by Laura M. Mac Donald
* Cooking…If you‘ve had it with cooking by December 25th, this is a great way to inspire your partner to take a turn. From Vegan to Vietnamese, there are so many possibilities to choose from. This year I picked up “Sushi American Style” by Tracy Griffit and “the Naked Chef Takes Off” by Jamie Oliver. Even my 16 year old likes to cook with Jamie Oliver, the recipes are healthy, all made with his trademark pared down technique.
I enjoy receiving library books too, this year I’m hoping for a new knitting book, or maybe some nice fat gardening books, to help me get through the next snowstorm.
I confessed to the staff at the library that we have been giving their books to each other for the last few years. I thought I might get some odd looks, but this year the librarian reminded me in early December that I should think about placing my orders…and that she couldn’t wait to see what I was going to pick!
December 17, 2007
Day Six: The Gift of Learning
Posted by greenlivingottawa under 100-mile, Ottawa, arts and culture, waste reduction[2] Comments
Okay, I’m shamelessly recycling a graphic from a previous post. But this season is always so crazy busy and I went and made myself the goal of 12 posts before Christmas and it’s December 17th and I still have 7 to go. So you’ll have to forgive me.
This is yet another post about thingless gifts. I have to do a range of posts on the topic otherwise everyone on my list will be able to figure out what I’m getting them. Today’s post is on giving lessons as presents. I don’t believe there is any other type of gift that is as free of packaging waste and as certain to contribute to the local economy as lessons are.
Again, if you have talent and teaching skills, you might want to give the gift of a lesson with you as instructor. Otherwise there are a vast range of public and private institutions and individuals who teach everything from tennis, to singing, to drumming, to dancing, to yoga, to painting, to sculpture, to accounting. You name it, there is something for everyone out there, even that person on your list that you dread shopping for because it is so hard to think of anything that would please them.
In fact, there are far too many schools out there to list all of them. However, here are a few ideas to inspire you…
- If that person on your list is musical, but you’re not really sure which instrument she would like to learn to play, give her a gift certificate to the Ottawa Folklore Centre.
- If that person on your list is artistic, but you’re not sure whether he’s into pastels, watercolours, or mixed media sculpture, give him a gift certificate to The Ottawa School of Art.
- Rama Lotus Yoga Studios offers passes that allow people to take whatever class suits them at whatever time.
The Ottawa Folklore Centre, 1111 Bank Street, Ottawa, Ontario, K1S 3X4, 613 730-2887
The Ottawa School of Art, 35 George Street, Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 8W5, 613 241-7471
Rama Lotus Yoga, 340 Gladstone Avenue, Ottawa, Ontario, K2P 0Y8, 613 234-7974
