Introvert or extrovert: Wildfire Winter Salon discussion

Our discussion of shyness yesterday at the Wildfire Winter Salon #2, launched from a reading of a section of Elizabeth Hay's Late Nights On Air (pages 112-114), shifted into talk about introverts and extroverts. It was suggested that introversion was different from shyness; shyness is the fear of negative judgement while introversion is a preference for less stimulation. I came out as an introvert and something interesting happened as we read definitions of the words "introvert" and "extrovert" in dictionaries. I say dictionaries because Wildfire potter Sarah Beck also runs a used book store, so she had many dictionaries in her storage area and we started reading definitions from around 1904, when introversion was then not connected to psychology and there was no definition of extroversion at all, to the 1920s when definitions began to consider personality but without judgement of traits, on to 1954 when extroverts seemed to be considered the norm and introverts were beginning to get a bad rap, on to 1981 where an introvert was defined as unsociable and reserved and an extrovert sociable and unreserved and finally the 1990s when introverts were described as self-centred and narcissistic -- pretty darn negative -- and I began to feel uncomfortable for "coming out" as an introvert but stood by my declaration.

One of our participants remarked that she'd read an article of an interview with Susan Cain, author of The Power of Introverts: A Manifesto for Quiet Brilliance in Scientific American in which Cain states, "In our society, the ideal self is bold, gregarious and comfortable in the spotlight," and goes on to suggest our schools, religious institutions and workplaces are designed for extroverts and encourage group work believing creativity and productivity come from a gregarious place. She says, "Introverts are to extroverts what American women were to men in the 1950s -- second-class citizens with gigantic amounts of untapped talent." The article goes on to make a case for what she calls the "differently social." Here is the article for you to look at yourself.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-power-of-introverts

And here is another article on introversion by Jonathan Rauch called "Caring for Your Introvert: the Habits and Needs of a Little Understood Group" from Atlantic Unbound that supports the idea that introverts are a misunderstood and often oppressed group. Just click on the site below to read the entire article:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/03/caring-for-your-introvert/2696/

Wildfire Winter Salon Co-op

Last winter I began a literary discussion group I called Bits of Books on Friday. I'd pretty much stopped writing and I'd dropped out of my wonderful book group for a variety of reasons. I soon found myself a bit bereft and most especially missed talking about books with thoughtful friends. Because I needed something close to home and my friend Sarah Beck had decided to open her shop Wildfire Pottery and Used Books on Friday afternoons, I asked if I could use her cozy upstairs for meetings and she agreed. During the week I'd gather short readings or a group of poems by different writers, usually centred around a theme -- fathers, humour, food (a very successful meeting) -- and I'd copy and send out the readings in an email. At the beginning of each meeting we'd read the pieces aloud, a part of the meetings I came to thoroughly enjoy, then we'd talk. And talk and talk and talk. It was grand!

This year I'm back to work on my novel and don't have the time to gather readings every week so decided to see if the old group would share the work with me. And so the Wildfire Winter Salon Co-op was born. This is the Wiki definition of a salon:

A salon is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine taste and increase their knowledge of the participants through conversation. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to please or to educate" ("aut delectare aut prodesse est"). Salons, commonly associated with French literary and philosophical movements of the 17th and 18th centuries, were carried on until quite recently, in urban settings, among like-minded people.

We met for the first time last week to discuss poems by William Stafford, whose deceptively accessible and beautiful poems are some of my favourites. (I'll reproduce some of the poems for you below.) I particularly like how he writes about the natural world.

This week Marion Thompson is going to be our "inspired host" and she's leading a session on shyness, taking a reading from Giller Award winner Elizabeth Hay's wonderful novel, Late Nights On Air.

Here are two Stafford poems about coyotes, with apologies to anyone who knows the poems and knows the format of the second one, Coyotes, and knows that the footstep section is formatted to look like a coyote track. I offer them because after the tragic death of a young woman who was attacked by coyotes in Cape Breton Highlands National Park, there was and continues to be much talk and too many meetings about coyotes, and a great deal of fear has been generated about them. These poems place coyotes in their world, and in ours.

Outside

The least little sound sets the coyotes walking,
walking the edge of our comfortable earth.
We look inward, but all of them
are looking toward us as they walk the earth.
We need to let animals loose in our houses,
the wolf to escape with a pan in his teeth,
and streams of animals toward the horizon
racing with something silent in each mouth.
For all we have taken into our keeping
and polished with our hands belongs to a truth
greater than ours, in the animal´s keeping.
Coyotes are circling around our truth.

Coyote

My left hind-
foot
steps
in the track of my right
fore-
foot
and my hind-right
foot
steps
in the track of my
fore-left
foot
and so on, for miles-
Me paying no attention, while
my nose rides along, letting
the full report, the
whole blast of the countryside
come along toward me
on rollers of scent, and-
I come home with a chicken or
a rabbit and sit up
singing all night with my friends.
It's baroque, my life, and
I tell it on the mountain.
I wouldn't trade it for yours.

William Stafford

Sundance Film Festival: Bear 71 buzz

I should have been more patriotic and told you a bit about the buzz around the NFB Bear 71 documentary. It was premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 20th as one of four interactive documentaries.

Here's what the Sundance site says about Bear 71:

Jeremy Mendes and Leanne Allison’s poignant interactive documentary about a bear in the Canadian Rockies illuminates the way humans engage with wildlife in the age of networks, satellites, and digital surveillance. Audiences from around the world can use their smartphones to become part of an interactive forest environment rich with bears, cougars, sheep, deer, and people as they follow an emotional story of a grizzly bear tagged and monitored by Banff National Park rangers.

30-minute narrative starts at the top of every hour

This installation will launch in a special ticketed event/reception on Friday, January 20 at 8:00 p.m. at New Frontier.

Additional credits:
Web Designer: Aubyn Freybe-Smith
Sound Designer: Josh Stevenson
Web Writer: Jennifer Moss
Installation Programmers: Vincent McCurley, Steve Lindenberg, Darren Ortiz, Jam3
Project Managers: Janine Steele, Vanessa Fukuyama

And here's Bear 71's entry on the Sundance site. While you're there, you can have a look at what else is happening. Click on the site below:

http://filmguide.sundance.org/film/120021/bear_71

Bear 71: the life of a grizzly bear, an NFB documentary

Found an interesting article in Maclean's this week about a NFB documentary called Bear 71 that uses trail camera footage spread across an interactive map of Banff National Park to track the life of a tagged grizzly bear and her cubs. You can follow Bear 71 to various favourite locations and also click on other trail cameras to watch footage of elk, foxes, a cougar, deer, ravens etc, and if you put your webcam on you can even keep track of yourself. I didn't have my webcam on but there were two other people visiting the site who did have theirs on and they appeared to be as into the site as I was. So make sure you have your mouse handy (or use direction keys). I was slow to get going on the interacting bit, spent the first few minutes listening to the narration of Bear 71's story expecting pop-ups, then realized I should be busy clicking on various cameras and marked sites while listening. Once I got the hang of it, I was mesmerized. The documentary is 20 minutes long but I stayed longer to view the marked sites I'd missed.

So when you have a little bit of time to sit and watch, I recommend you give this a go. Just click on the site below, get your mouse ready and enjoy:

http://bear71.nfb.ca/#/bear71

And for those of you who don't read comments, here's one from Jen Moss with a little more info and a way you can be more involved with Bear 71:

Thanks for your thoughtful summary Susan. And if anyone is interested - they can actually take part in the Titter 'goings on' at Sundance around the bear 71 launch by searching twitter for #bear71.

More whale bone: a shoulder blade, we think

Honey & I had a lovely little walk to retrieve a piece of bone I discovered while walking the shore with my friend Bonnie last week. Heavy as... well, all get out. Andy thinks it might be a shoulder blade to the whale backbone my niece Emily found several weeks ago -- it was very close to where she found the spine. Andy had an exchange with a marine biologist, Andrew Hebda, at the Science Museum in Halifax. Here's what he had to say about the backbone (so far we haven't found a skull):

Hi Andy

Tricky to confirm to species, but, yes it is from a whale.

You have the cervical (neck) vertebrae (including the axis and Atlas ) - in cetaceans they are always fused together. If the bones are fairly solid (an adult individual), then it is most likely from a Pilot whale (blackfish / pothead). (I compared the image to the one we have in the collection). A bit big for dolphins, porpoises and Beluga.

If a head turns up, would be easy enough to confirm

Any idea as to when it beached? Might be able to track back through reported strandings in the area.
Cheers

Andrew

A Hebda
NSM Collections

January walk to visit the Lazarus maple

I'm back to work on the novel, The Lazarus Maple, and after a good morning at the computer and an afternoon chatting on the phone with dear family, I decided to take a late afternoon hike with Honey to visit the grand old sugar maple that inspired the book title. The blustery morning had given way to a grey but balmy afternoon and at the end of our walk, the setting sun appeared from behind the clouds in a glory of light. Here are some photos of the magnificent tree locked to the bank of the brook with its amazing root system. And there are some other photos of our path to the tree and home again. You can click on the photos to enlarge them.

North Shore & District Volunteer Fire Department Annual Lobster Supper and Secret Santa Exchange

Our local volunteer Fire Department hosts a fundraising lobster supper to bring in the New Year. After the event, the fire-folk stay on to exchange secret Santa gifts. Here's a group shot of those who attended, and a few candid shots of Indian Brook Santa John Roberts, his trusty Tarbot Elf Amy MacInnis and their happy crew. To those of you whose pictures do not appear, I apologise; it is a failure of my photographic skills, not of your lovely faces.

You can click on the photos to enlarge them.