Category: Creativity

The Kids Should See This…

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I’m a big fan of the aggregator site Kottke.org.

Almost daily, well weekdays anyways, it offers up an eclectic slice of the internet curated by its founder, Jason Kottke.

A recent posting reminded me of a real gem of a web resource for families called The Kids Should See This, an amazing collection of videos for families and kids.

There’s a category to cover every interest from art to music & DIY to claymation.

The whole site is worthy of your attention but here are three to get you started…

A piece of a glacier breaking off and flipping, the colourful mating display of a Tragopan Pheasant and the incredible skills of rola-bola artist, Bernard Hazen.

Enjoy!

Meanwhile, at the Burlington Performing Arts Centre…

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Carisa on stage performing magic as her elegant alter ego Lucy.
Carisa Hendrix as Lucy Darling. Photo credit: from artist’s website, link below.

I didn’t know about this event until the other day but my boosterism, like “the show,” must go on!

Have mentioned Carisa Hendrix, better known by her alter ego Lucy Darling, previously on this blog. Neat person, wonderful performer. (See related links at bottom of this post. You’re in for some treats if you do.)

Well, turns out she’s appearing at the Burlington Performing Arts Centre in Burlington, Ontario, on October 29/21. A magical addition to their fall schedule and a wonderful live entertainment choice for those in Southern Ontario. Also a live stream entertainment possibility for those further afield regardless of time zone.

BPAC has ticket options for in-person attendance or via live stream at home. Vaccination requirements for in-person patrons; see the BPAC website link above for details.

Great night out, or, great night in!

Search Engine Magic?

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I’m a regular visitor to Reddit, the online aggregator site, although my ‘subreddits’ tend to be quite limited; magic, local stuff, photos, videos and a few more. There’s zillions of subreddits covering just about any field of interest you can imagine. You can go down a lot of rabbit holes with, let’s say, decidedly mixed results…!

Clicked a YouTube video link on Reddit the other day called Google It Like A Pro. It’s about the way high end computer coders use some of the many refinements available for the Google search engine to improve search results. Made a few notes while watching. One of these refinements I found useful was to narrow the searched date range using a couple of periods between the dates. For example, if you want to search for stuff between 2017 and 2019 you would add 2017..2019 to your query.

So, just for fun, I used Owen Anderson Magician 2017..2019 as a search. Among the results was this link in the Wellington Advertiser about the OWoW Festival. I have previously mentioned this festival on my blog but I had not seen this local media photo before. Sharing it here for fun.

Ontario Week of Wonder Magic Festival inspired audiences in Fergus

The video is about 5 minutes long. It has 10 tips to better use search engines. These tips apparently work on other search platforms too. A couple of them were above my pay grade but you’ll probably find at least one nugget that’ll save you its 5 minute length. Hope it helps.

More with Lucy Darling

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In October 2019 I was part of the Ontario Week of Wonder magic festival in Fergus, Ontario. Great little festival!

At OWoW I met Carisa Hendrix. Carisa performs a wonderful character act as her charming and cheeky alter ego, Lucy Darling.

Shortly after the pandemic lockdowns began she shared a lovely high quality video of her full length show, “Indulgence,” as performed at the Chicago Magic Lounge.

I did a blog post about this online treat last year.

During lockdown Lucy, er, Carisa, deftly pivoted to virtual shows for online audiences with her capable castmates, Miranda Allen & Richard Lee. Now, as things slowly get back to ‘normal,’ she’s released their final virtual collaboration for all to enjoy.

Runs about 50-ish minutes. For adults. Kids won’t appreciate the wit and skill, but if you’re a little older and looking to change-up your usual streaming choices…

The frame below should play but here’s the YouTube link as well. Enjoy!

I Miss My Library Friends…!

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In a typical summer I’ll do 25-50 library magic show gigs across Southern Ontario for Summer Reading Club programs.
Alas, CV-19 put the kibosh on that for both 2020 & 2021. March Break next year is likely ♫ doomed ♫ as well but here’s hoping for Summer 2022!
The other day, browsing in a thrift shop, I found this groovy mug. Cost me a loonie and made me think of all my library friends. Sending them good cheer with fingers crossed that we’ll be back to (nearly!) normal for Summer 2022! Stay safe all!

Light blue mug decorated with retro library book borrowers record card theme design.

BTW, there was info on mug bottom so should you wish to get your own visit:
https://outofprint.com/collections/library/products/library-card-blue-mug
(Or keep an eye out in your local thrift shop!)