First Snow

First snow in Ottawa this morning.  It's so beautiful.  I love the way fresh snow muffles the sounds of the city.

View from my balcony this morning

My plants don't care that it's winter.  This orchid is blooming anyways :)

Centretown Movies Web Design Contest!

Hi kids!  An organization that I hold near and dear is having a web design competition!  See details below:
Centretown Movies is an outdoor film festival in centretown, Ottawa. Every summer, we show movies in Dundonald Park with pay-what-you-can admission. Centretown Movies (CM) is a completely volunteer-based event and all donations are spent on paying the associated costs like license fees and equipment maintenance.

As part of an effort to improve and expand our operation, we would like to invite all community members, artists, designers, students, and others to participate in a web design contest for Centretown Movies.

Prize
The selected designer will receive $100 and a Centretown Movies T-shirt.

Submission Guidelines

• Your design should reflect the main principles of CM which are movies, community, and use of public spaces for healthy/cultural recreation.
• Your design should provide the information available on the current website, but you may include other content and information.
• Your design should avoid depending on special web technologies, as much as possible.
• You may submit a website wireframe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Website_wireframe) or the URL/files for an actual site.
• All submissions (files or URL to the designed sites) must be emailed to info@centretownmovies.org

Important Dates
Submission deadline: January 1, 2012
Notification of results: January 15, 2012

Copyright
CM will own the selected design and reserves the right to modify it for actual implementation. The designer will be credited in a manner decided by CM. All other designers will retain the ownership of their submissions.

Leslie Feist: Metals

Not long after the album's release on October 4th of this year, I purchased Leslie Feist's newest album, Metals.  I blog about it only now, more than a month after, because I had to let it sink in.  Metals has been in an endless spin on my turntable ever since I got it & I have to say: I love this album.

It's so different from her previous albums, but it's so Feist.  The vocal harmonization on Bittersweet Melodies gives me goosebumps... & I can just picture a crowd of friends swaying in unison & singing along to the la la la parts.  The lyrics to Comfort Me ring so true to me. A Commotion is another of my favourite tracks because of it's Andrew Bird-esque arrangement.  I'm not sure if she's using violins through the Janus Horn (a spinning phonograph style speaker) to get the effect, but it sure sounds like it - sounds like awesome.  Potential hipster anthems include: Graveyards and Comfort Me.

Stream the ablum here.

I'll be attending her show at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa on Monday, December 5th, 2011 & so should you.  Tickets are still available. I'll let you know if it's as good as her Reminder tour :)

Bitch & Switch

Trans CanEAUda

A very good friend of mine, Karine, has embarked on a journey that most outdoor enthusiasts would consider unfathomable. On April 30, 2011 at approximately 3:00PM EST, Karine and 5 of her close friends began a 7000 km canoe expedition that will take them from Ottawa North West to Inuvik in (hopefully) just under 6 months. WHY? You make ask… each one of the adventurers has their own personal reason for participating in such an epic feat of willpower and physical endurance, but as far as I can tell, it’s all about passion for activism and raising awareness about the importance of artic watershed conservation.

The group is encouraging donations and memberships to two non-for-profit organizations, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society and Ottawa Riverkeeper, which work towards cleaner and healthier watersheds.

For more information about this amazing project or to see where the gang is paddling right now, check out this Website, available in both official languages, by clicking here.

Leif Vollebekk

If Jeff Buckley were not dead and grew up in Ottawa, he would be Leif Vollebekk. I attended an intimate show last night at Raw Sugar Cafe and Leif did not disappoint: his vocal range gives me goosebumps and his lyrics are comfortable and familiar. Since the release of his first album, Inland, is songs have evolved beautifully. He has even created a rock (guitar) version of his song 1921 since have has discovered that he cannot produce a piano wherever he tours. It was quite fantastic. He hopes to record another album this Fall and tell me he has plans to press vinyl, resources willing. I'm all over that! Check him out. Sponsor him even. He's ever-so-talented and needs support!

Photo credit to J B Hildebrand, misappropriated from Myspace.

Umi Café

Found at 610 Somerset St. W, in Chinatown, Umi serves delicious fairly traded organic coffees and gastronomical delights to please the most discerning palettes. The front stoop is often crouded with all manner of fixie riding hipsters. This quaint coffee shop also boasts exciting events, such as vegan bake sales, live music, tarot card readings and seed exchanges. The atmosphere is young, energetic and hip. Local artists are often featured on the brightly coloured interior walls. Last time I visited, I chatted up the co-owners, who were getting dirty out back in their beautiful community garden. All in all, Umi Café is a most fantastic place to kick back and relax with a steaming cup of joe.

Music for Tourists

Chris Garneau is exquisite. He's certainly not "grindcore" as a first glance at the top of his myspace page might have you believe. Listen to Castle Time. Mr. Garneau has such a wonderful delicate voice. His songs are simply, starkly, beautifully arranged with piano, cello, light percussion (& sometimes accordion). I'm inspired by his cellist, Eleanor Norton. I've been meaning to pick the instrument up for years.

I discovered him in 2007 (Monday, July 25th) when he played with Xiu Xiu and Fucked Corpse at Babylon in Ottawa. I have a pretty sweet "Music for Tourists" tote bag from that show, which proudly carries my groceries from time to time.

He's from Brooklyn (so is Xiu Xiu... I assume that's why they played together). Apparently there's much wonderful music in Brooklyn! Also home to another of my favourite groups, As Tall As Lions (who I saw perform in Sydney, Australia, of all places).



I'll leave you with one of my favourite Chris Garneau lyrics from his song, Relief:
Nose to nose, eyes all closed

Fisheye

I rented a fisheye lens (Canon FD 15mm/f2.8) from the lovely folks at Headshots for the week. Here's a photos that I took of some gelato (it had a tragic death, to my gastric delight, shortly after this capture).




I'm having so much fun with this lens! I wish I could afford my own, but alas, I cannot. Someday. Did I mention I have a Flickr account? Well, I do. There will be many more photos from my fisheye adventures posted there.

So Good

frankie

After an eight month stint in Australia in 2008, I came back with in injured line of credit and an intense love for frankie, a by-monthly dose of ric-rac splashed pages of magazine bliss. Every two months, I anxiously make my trek to Mags & Fags to pay an exorbitant amount of money for this publication (two months in arrears) & it's worth every penny.

Nestled in it's glossy pages are elloquently written articles of substance (scattered with cusses), definitely Australian vintage-inspired fashion, exceptional photography, DIY crafts, home decor, & music; all arranged around the scribblings of the issue's featured artist.

First

Hello

I'm a long-time listener, first time caller to the blog-o-sphere. I've been thinking a lot about starting a blog over the years, but could never think of a theme to write about frequently & worried that no one would read my blog. I've realized that it doesn't matter. Most of the blogs I appreciate are totally random & I see this as an outlet for ideas & creativity. If no one else reads it, at least I wasn't wasting my time on facebook!

A little about me:
My name is Genevieve (anglicized nickname: Genna), a young woman at the ripe age of 22. I've lived in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada my whole life. I have a love/hate relationship with this city. The more I travel, the more I experience, the more I realize how lucky I am to have grown up in a community that breeds such diversity & acceptance. The city is nearly a million, but feels like a village. I never pay for Bridgehead coffee. I see someone I know around every corner. It's bitterly cold in the winter, & swelteringly humid & hot in the summer. I can see the stars clearly from my back yard on a clear night & white-tailed dear have eaten every tulip bulb I've planted in the fall. The government offices block out the sun on the sidewalks downtown, but their employment keeps the city's economy from crashing during times of recession.
I live in a happy little bubble where everything bad in the world seems detached & far away, yet protests & politicians are at my doorstep.
& I love it.
I also love contrast filters (for developing black & white photos in a dark room); unnecessary scarves; vocal harmonies; vegan baking; big socks; hot yoga; sleeping in (although I'm finding it difficult to sleep past 9:00 these days); bamboo knitting needles; & being in love. I could go on, but many more things about me will become evident through my posts (I don't want to give away all my secrets in the first post)!

How I See This Blog:
As you may (or may not) have suspected, the title of my blog "Land of Gawk" is a tribute to a Montreal band that I'm really into right now: Land of Talk. Ah, Montreal... what a great city to have as your neighbour. I chose the word "gawk" as it means "to stare stupidly" which is what I image most people will do should they happen to stumble across my internet ramblings. "Gawk" can also mean "to rubberneck" which is apt, given the traffic situation in this lovely, urban-planning nightmare of a city I live in. It can also mean "an awkard or foolish person" as I can be. I'm probably going to use this blog as a place to collect ideas & creativity. I see myself posting photo projects, shows from around town, interesting links, home decor, recipes... just anything I gawk at really.
& most of my entries will be much, much shorter than this one. Promise.

I'd like to find other Ottawa bloggers to swap ideas with. So if you like my blog, & you live or blog about Ottawa, contact me.

Thanks for reading.
-Genna