On July 17, The Chieftains are performing in Charlottetown, produced by the Confederation Centre of the Arts, on something called the “Outdoor Plaza - ATV Mainstage.” I had the good fortune to run into Confederation Centre CEO David Mackenzie this morning here in Mavor’s and we had a good chat about the concert.

The “Outdoor Plaza - ATV Mainstage,” it turns out, covers a large swath of Charlottetown’s downtown core, up and down Queen Street and along Grafton. The tentative plan is to erect a fence around this area, closing off the affected streets, and limiting access to the area to ticket holders during the late afternoon and evening. Tickets are $28 before July 7 and $35 after that. The stage itself is to be mounted in front of the CIBC bank building, with the audience set out onto the street and the Centre’s plaza.

I mentioned some misgivings about putting a chunk of downtown Charlottetown behind a “pay wall” — taking public space out of the public realm and making it only accessible to people who can afford to pay for access (and offering it up to ATV to wrap their brand around). This has always been my problem with the Festival of Lights on the waterfront: setting aside their acoustic assault on the neighbourhood, for almost two weeks they take our local public park out of commission.

To his credit, David took my concerns seriously, and we had a good talk around how the Centre might work to mitigate the problems the concert is going to create for downtown residents. I suggested, for example, that a simple note from David explaining the concert details, the rationale for holding it, and so on, dropped in the mailbox of residents in the Centre’s neighbourhood might be a good idea.

Now I must admit that I’m a lot less worried about this concert than I am about the “insert hit rock band of the moment” concerts on the waterfront; that’s a simple, entirely subjective aesthetic judgement. I like The Chieftains and I think it’s a good idea to have them come to Charlottetown. And I know that to afford that, the Centre needs a big audience, the kind of audience they can’t shoehorn into the main stage. And I think that having art happen outside, in public view, is a good idea. I think the Centre should bust out of its walls more often.

At the same time, I think carving out a large important chunk of public space — space we’ve all paid, with our tax dollars, to construct and maintain — and saying to a family of four that they need to come up with $112 to participate in the cultural life of that public space is problematic. It doesn’t feel right.

Of course public spaces are set aside for private events all the time — the Winnipeg Folk Festival, for example, takes over Birds Hill Provincial Park. The New Bedford Summerfest takes over their entire downtown. You could argue that the Confederation Centre itself is a piece of public infrastructure with a pay wall around it — we’ve all got to pay to go inside and see Anne of Green Gables.

So, in other words, I come down on both sides of this issue. The Centre is talking about the concert internally this week, and going forward to City Council shortly. If you’ve got thoughts on the issues, I’d love to hear them (you can add comments to this post), and I’m sure David would value them as well.

Criticism never stings as much as when it comes from those you love. In this case Catherine, who was following my nascent attempts at podcasting on the road, told me that my podcasts sounded like the audio equivalent of my father’s travel diaries (which are famous in our family for including entries like “7:34 a.m. - Had a pee”). In other words, I prattled on.

Upon hearing this review from Catherine I realized that all my pronouncements about the value of criticism, about how how artists and actors should be able to separate “the art” from “the self” and use criticism as objective feedback to better themselves was, well, deluded. Or at least overly optimistic.

Honest creation is the self. So hearing “your art sucks” is hard to differentiate from “you suck.” But we can try.

At this point I have three choices: claim that I wasn’t prattling at all (hard), claim that prattling was the point (tried, didn’t work), or take her comments to heart and prattle less. I’ll try number three.

Thanks Catherine. I love you.

New Hampshire Business Review picked to the Judcasting story in an article titled Meet N.H.’s trend-setting podcaster: ‘Yankee’ magazine (article behind registration wall). Here’s a sample:

If you were looking for a New Hampshire example of podcasting, that buzz-worthy, supercool paradigm-shifter, where would you look?

Somewhere new, somewhere hip, somewhere edgy. Somewhere like … Yankee magazine.

Yankee magazine?!?!

That’s right: As far as I can tell, one of the very first regular podcasts in New Hampshire was launched in mid-May by that Dublin-based home to all things old-timey.

I was tickled when I discovered this, and even more tickled when I realized that the podcast distributes “Jud’s New England Journal.” These journals are the monthly musings of Editor-in-Chief Jud Hale Sr. — who, at age 72, is about 71 years older than podcasting itself, and who once started a column with the anti-buzz philosophy “In New England, old is good while new is, at best, suspect.”

You can subscribe to Jud’s podcast on YANKEE’s website.

My ears, used to hearing Danish, were extra attuned to street conversation today as I walked the streets of Charlottetown. Here are two excerpts that, between them, offer a representative slice of the everyday conversation of Islanders:

Guy One: How’s she going?

Guy Two: Oh, same old…

Guy One: I hear yah.

Woman: Isn’t Shane’s mother you father’s sister?

Man: Who’s Shane?

A friend of Olle’s is looking for an entertainer for the Copenhagen to Oslo ferry.

I have a client in New England who’s looking to contract with a Mac networking guru: they’ve got a large installed base of Macs connected to PC/Mac local network, and need assistance in solving networking, file sharing and other related issues. If you can help, please contact me for details.

I’ve rebuilt the blogroll page for this site. I took advantage of new Applescript capabilities in NetNewsWire 2.0 that let me:

tell application "NetNewsWire"
  export subscriptions to file "blogroll.opml" with including groups
end tell

This lets me reflect the categories I use in NetNewsWire on the blogroll page.

I’ve also update the blogroll with a bunch of new blogs I discovered through reboot 7.0.

In a CBC report about parking kiosks, Charlottetown city councillor George Trainor made an odd comment:

He said the city’s website will soon have a place for citizens to put their comments in writing. Trainor said stopping a councillor on the street won’t help. “I don’t want to talk to them on the street. I want to talk to them on the computer or put it on paper or something.”

When we use technology as an intermediating crutch like this, we remove its essential human element. If you don’t want to be stopped on the street, get off city council: it’s your job to get stopped on the street.

Olle, a new friend from reboot 7.0, recorded some thoughts before reboot. I told him he should put the audio online. So he did. Olle’s got a great podcasting voice. And postboot he’s keen to wear more unisex clothing.

The City Bike project in downtown Copenhagen is one of the greatest assets that a visitor can take advantage of, yet many visitors I met in the city seemed confused by the protocol, perhaps spurred on by disbelief that the system actually works, and is free.

So here’s a quick guide to how to become a City Bike user.

First, locate a City Bike rack with a bike attached to it. These are located all over downtown Copenhagen — there are reported to be more than 100 of them. They tend to be located in high-traffic tourist-centric areas, so you’ll find them in front of Metro and train stations, at museums, and at the edge of many parks. The telltale sign of City Bike is a metal rack about 3 feet off the ground with chains attached every couple of feet. Obviously you’re looking for a rack that has one or more bikes attached to the chains!

The key to City Bike, literally, is a 20 Kroner coin. This is about $4.00 Canadian or $3.25 US as I write. Don’t worry: you’ll get this all back when you return the bike.

City Bike Stand with an available bike.

A 20 Kroner coin, the “key” to the bike.

Before you bother to “check out” the bike with your coin, give it a basic going over: check that there’s a chain and tires, check that the tires have air in them, check that the wheels are affixed to the bike and that the frame isn’t bent. These bikes take a beating, and I ran about 50% at getting a good bike during my week in the city.

Once you’re ready to proceed, insert the 20 Kroner coin into the bottom of the black orb attached to the handlebar post. What you’re trying to do is to pop out the metal clip on the top of the orb, so, depending on how all the components are fitting together, you may need to push and wiggle a fair bit. Eventually the metal clip should pop out, and the bike is yours.

Insert the coin into the bottom of the orb.

The metal clip should pop out.

Give the bike another run-through before you do any serious riding: look for wobbles, rattles, or anything else unusual.

Before you head out, note the boundaries of the City Bike area on the map that’s mounted on the front of the bike: this shows you where you’re allowed to ride the bike (there are rumours of steep fines for “violators”).

You’ll find Copenhagen a very bike-friendly city, with special bicycle lanes on most streets, and special bike traffic signals at most intersections. And you’ll find lots of fellow cyclists out riding, which, if you don’t live in a bike-friendly city, takes some getting used to. Watch what other cyclists are doing to get a handle on the routines for stopping, making left turns, passing and so on.

When you want to stop and get off the bike for a while you have two choices. If you’re not near a City Bike stand, you risk someone leaving with your bike, either to ride it somewhere else, or to use it to retrieve the 20 Kroner coin. If you’re near a City Bike stand you can “return” the bike, retrieve your coin, and return later, gambling that your (or another) bike will be ready for you.

The greatest thing about the City Bike program over renting a bike, other than price, is that you can get a bike where and for as long as you need it. For example I got up in the morning, grabbed a City Bike, rode downtown, left the bike walked around, ending up down at the harbour ferry, sailed up the harbour, grabbed another bike, parked the bike and visited a museum, grabbed another bike and rode back downtown, where I took the Metro back to my hotel.