Musical Notes!

On November 20th, it was hard to find a place to stand at The Regent Pub. Hands were moving and toes were grooving in time to the Mocking Shadows, a seven piece band from Calgary. The Shadows have an impressive tour list that includes performances with BB King, Tragically Hip, Jann Arden, ZZ Top and Trooper. Judging by the diversity of the famous names they’ve travelled with, it was no surprise to see a mixed audience the night they performed. From old to young, Marmot to J Crew, everyone in the room found something in common that night.

For more details, go to their website at www.mockingshadows.com.

Scene It

I always feel so lucky to be watching The Best of the Banff Film Festival amongst some of the same scenery shown on the screen. Sometimes I think I could leave the theatre right then and do that stuff. If I wanted. Except for I will never jump off a cliff.

There’s something about what Mom used to say: don’t run with knives, don’t swallow marbles and don’t, for the love of all things holy, parachute off a cliff in your skis. The trouble these days is the klepto-focus on what makes one person better than the other so they can be filmed or photographed. What about good, old fashioned ice skating or walking in the parks? I’d like to see some footage on that. They could call it Extreme Ice Skating to make it sound more exciting. In any case, aside from there being a bit too much Nepal stuff and no water sports yet again, I laughed until I cried at some of the shorter films and left feeling good. (Most likely because I don’t jump off cliffs.) For information on the festival, go to www.banffcentre.ca/mountainculture

[Summer 2005 Article]