My friends Bill Coleman (see here) and Laurence Lemiuex are staging a performance of Bill’s piece for orchestra, choir and dancers, Convoy PQ. 17, on June 6, 2004 in Montreal. Details on their website.

Bill’s father Joe Coleman is a survivor of PQ. 17, a World War II supply convoy that ran from North America to Russia. On July 5, 1942, his freighter, the Bolton Castle went down, with eleven other vessels, the victim of German bombing after the convoy’s escorts were withdrawn. He escaped with his life, into one of two lifeboats. Bill’s piece is a requiem for the convoy, and an homage to his father and his comrades.

Convoy PQ. 17 runs one night only, on the 60th anniversary of D-Day, June 6, 2004, at the Centre Pierre Péladeau in Montreal. Tickets are on sale now.

Because Province House was built by the same man who built our house (and was designed by his brother), because Bill Reid, from whose family we bought the house, was a clerk of the Legislative Assembly, and, well, because it’s right next door (I once gave directions to our house as follows: “Stand on the water side of Province House. Face the water. Turn to the left. If you were to shoot a canon through the buildings you see, you would hit our house.”), we have something of a proprietary feeling towards the chamber.

Indeed every time I watch Question Period on cable, I get a small tingle in my spine, knowing that much democracy is rambling around so close.

If you haven’t been watching Cable 10’s broadcast of Question Period for a while, you should really tune in: it is rollicking good fun now that there’s an opposition. Last night, for example, there was a very well played — on both sides — back and forth between Richard Brown and several cabinet ministers. And Carolyn Bertram seems to be hitting a good mix of “embarrass the Government” and “working for my constituents” questions.

If it’s the opposition’s duty to watch the government, it’s our duty to watch the opposition.

Faced with mounting deficits, and light traffic at the betting windows of Island race tracks, Provincial Treasurer Mitch Murphy today announced plans to begin selling crack cocaine in Summerside and Charlottetown.

“The additional revenue that crack sales provides will allow us to significantly improve the infrastructure at the Charlottetown Driving Park and Summerside Raceway,” Murphy said on the steps of the Legislative Assembly.

While critics say that the sale of crack cocaine, which they claim is a powerfully reinforcing psychostimulant, will lead to social and health problems, Murphy dismisses these complaints. “Crack is in widespread use in major cities across North America,” Murphy said, “and it would be irresponsible of us not to tap into the potential new revenue source.”

Using funds from the sales of crack, the grandstand of the Charlottetown Driving Park will be rebuilt, a new restaurant and lounge will be constructed, and an underground network of 200 specially constructed “crack dens” will be housed in the area under the grandstand. “Crack users have been crying out for a central, clean, well-lighted place to practise their craft; we’re simply answering that call,” explained Murphy.

Construction of the crack facilty is expected to start after Old Home Week in August, with the crack fully available in early 2005.

ImageWell is a fantastic little OS X utility that eases the process of uploading images to a server. It’s the OS X weblogger’s best friend. I’ve been using the soon-to-be-released version 2 for the last week, and it’s even better. Highly recommended.

Rob points out the striking similarity of the guy in this comic to yours truly. Eerie.

Because Johnny and I can connect to the Internet with our laptops almost anywhere, we need a way to allow us (but only us) to send email through our mail server. Alas setting this up is something that appears to require a lot of mystical incantations. Until I read this extremely helpful document that documents the simple three or four steps required to turn on SMTP authentication under RedHat Linux.

Perry and Susan Williams were kind enough to invite us out to their place in St. Catherine’s this evening for what Perry termed a “combination house party and commercial shoot.”

Perry is one of the rungs in the wheel that is Hedgerow, a new Island singing and storytelling supergroup, the others of which are Allan Rankin, Alan Buchanan and Brad Fremlin.

Hedgerow will be performing at the Nils Ling Centre for the Performing Arts in Stanley Bridge this summer, and because they’re fresh out of the gate, they needed footage of enthusiastic followers to paste into a television commercial.

Allan, whose praises I have sung here before, is a superb singer-songwriter whose songs about the Island perhaps best capture both its specialness and its fragility. And Alan, who has sometimes appeared across a great gulf from me (but who is no doubt a better man than any corporation would ever allow him to be) is a consumate storyteller. Perry and Brad work their musical magic into the background in a way that seems effortless and casual even as you know that it’s demanding and highly skilled.

While what we saw tonight was something of an unpolished gem, it was good stuff, and once it gels, it will be great stuff.

A friend of mine — a new Islander — remarked last week at the irony that many of the projects that Island tourismocrats engage in to attract people to PEI in fact work to erode that about the Island that is special and interesting and attractive to visitors in the first place, as if being outselves wasn’t simply interesting enough. Projects like Hedgerow — “distilled” Island culture served live — while not quite as unvarnished as a midwinter night at he BIS, are about as far from Nickelback-on-the-Water as you can get. What Perry and Allan and Alan and Brad are saying is, in essence, “this is an interesting place: let us tell you something about it.” That’s a laudable activity, and worthy of support and encouragement.

By the way, any event at the Williams Compound is bound to be a learning experience about their extended family, of which there was much evidence this evening. New information I gleaned tonight: Alan Baker (who I worked with briefly on a Rob Paterson-led hullabaloo several years ago) is married to Perry’s sister Lily. Who knew? I also met Bonnie MacEachern’s neighbour, and we reminisced about the Goodwill Ave. pesticide tussle related here.

Oliver was left in the able hands of Ann’s daughter Cassady. Who was named after Neil.

Enough information for one day. Off to bed to prepare for Day Two of the “experiencing a small slice of what life is like every day for Catherine tour.” Catherine, by the way, spent the day experiencing the joys of Little Italy in New York. She and Joy are off to the theatre tomorrow night and, before that, to this. I am appropriately jealous.

Catherine flew off to New York City this morning, leaving Oliver and I to fend for ourselves for the first time in a long time. So far we have managed to keep care of each other, and are eating, washing, etc. as required. We even brushed our teeth this morning!

Catherine just phoned and said the weather in New York is beautiful.

Must go and read Bear on a Bike.

A reminder that Taken, the digital exhibition that knocked my socks off, closes on Sunday at the Confederation Centre. You should really try to get over and see it today or Saturday.

Back in the mid- to late-1980s, I was a member of a graphic design movement I will call “Times + Helvetica.” It’s not really proper to call this a movement, of course, but I will anyway. This movement turned out a lot of logos, ads, posters and magazine pages the chief design effect of which was the cunning mixture of Times and Helvetica. Like this:

The latest example of my own work that uses this technique is the logo I designed for ISN in the mid-1990s, a perverted-by-ISN, badly-kerned version of which you can see here.

This morning in the mail there was a piece from Conservative candidate Darren Peters that rather effectively uses this same technique. Everything old is new again, I guess.

Policies and personalities aside, Darren has established a strong presence in the political graphic design horse race. We’ll have to see what his opponents come up with.