Dogwood Dell Offers a Family Fourth and Fireworks
Pack a picnic, grab a blanket and bring the entire family to the City’s annual free Fourth of July celebration and fireworks extravaganza presented by the Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities on July 4 at Dogwood Dell in Byrd Park.
The program will begin at 5 p.m. with Susan Greenbaum performing on the Dell stage. This much-loved local singer/songwriter never fails to
City Pools Closed; CarMax Basketball Games Cancelled
Due to the inclement weather, all City outdoor public pools are closed for the remainder of the day today, Monday, June 25. In addition, the City’s youth CarMax basketball games scheduled for this evening at Pine Camp have been cancelled.
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P Think Green - Please do not print this email unless necessary
Tonight's Movie in the Park Cancelled
The Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities has cancelled tonight’s Movie in the Park due to inclement weather. The movie, “Thor,” was to be held on the lawn of the department’s T.B. Smith Community Center on Ruffin Road.
The next movie is scheduled to be held on June 29 at 8:30 p.m. at the Broad Rock Sports Complex located at 4801 Old Warwick Road. For the complete
Samuel's Italia hat
From I Went To Albania
We’ve just come out of the museum. We’ve seen a Chinese tank and exquisite Orthodox icons. Photographs of Zog – and a partisan jacket with a bullet hole. Embroidered traditional costumes – and a section of the communist border fence. The lists of people Hoxha had killed...
And in the corner of every room, an assistant sitting at a desk with a Bakelite telephone and an ashtray. It’s a museum where you can smoke ... And then, in the gift shop, Sam notices something. He’s lost his baseball cap. The Bakelite telephones start ringing – and before you know it every assistant in the museum, every curator of Illyrian artefacts, every expert in bourgeois reactionary monarchists is up on their feet. They’ve squashed out their fags, and they’re advancing through the priceless exhibits. They’re like lines of Highland beaters flushing pheasants from the heather... Even the woman at the front desk has abandoned her post to shout at the gardener – who’s weeding the treads of the Chinese tank in the yard – and get him looking for my son’s baseball cap. Everyone in the museum has dropped everything to look for my son’s baseball cap. Imagine the National Gallery grinding to a halt while the entire staff go in search of a Japanese tourist’s daughter’s friendship bracelet. They won’t give up until ... Ah, here it is. Here’s the baseball cap. Found underneath a sofa ...
The thing is, it’s like this everywhere we go. It’s as if everybody’s expecting us. I get the feeling the gunmen in Durrës would understand this better than we do.
'I Went To Albania' was first performed during Ferment at Bristol Old Vic. It's currently in development with Ferment and director Andy Burden.
Summer in Vermosh
As I've previously mentioned on this blog, I'm returning to Albania next month to work on the summer programme of the Balkan Peace Park Project (http://balkanspeacepark.org/), working with young people in the northern community of Vermosh to create a community play in two weeks and see it performed at the end of the programme. Vermosh is six hours' drive from the city of Shkodra, in the so-called Accursed Mountains, very close to the border between Albania and Montenegro. Three-four pages of photographs by someone who drove from Shkodra to Vermosh a couple of years ago are posted on the web here: http://www.panoramio.com/user/2518574?comment_page=8&photo_page=14
There are also photographs from the 2007 Vermosh Summer Festival on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aLnIHA8OX8
And you can find out how to support our trip here: http://www.justgiving.com/Tom-Phillips5
Top five municipal fountains (eastern Europe)
1. Kosice, Slovakia
A superb example of the genre: elaborate light and water patterns apparently choreographed to a soundtrack of Chopin etc in front of the most easterly (and one of the largest) Gothic churches in Europe. And the focus of both the daily promenade and civic pride - Kosiceans watch it with an avidity which can mean flippant tourists blocking the view by taking photographs are met with disapproving looks, tongue clicks and hisses - as, indeed, they probably should be.
2. Saranda, Albania
Currently under repair, as this photo shows (the man in the suit is Saranda's mayor, Stefan Cipa, who's engaged in trying to prevent the transformation of a rather lovely south Albanian port into a Costa del Sol-style tourism-ruined hell hole). Like Kosice's, this one behaves according to an elaborate rhythm - although without the musical soundtrack - and also provides a focus for the evening promenade or xhiro. The multi-coloured, all-singing, all-dancing fountain in Tirana's Rinas Park is more obvious as a watery spectacle, but personally I prefer this one. Go here http://www.balkaninsight.com for more on the 'tourist threat' to Saranda.
3. Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina
Not far from the WW2 eternal flame in central Sarajevo is this other memorial - to the children who were killed during the siege in the 1990s - which is, perhaps, all the more effective because at first it appears to be just another bit of municipal fountain whimsy until you read the plaque and realise what it commemorates. The incongruity of its serious purpose opposite a huge complex of shiny glass-fronted shops and cinemas only adds to its poignancy as a memorial.
4. Brasov, Romania
Aesthetically, it's probably not one of the greatest, but the square it's in (overlooked by the famous 'black church' - so-called because it was nearly burnt down) has a gloriously relaxed atmosphere, to which this piece of optimistically angular watery architecture only adds (in a strange sort of way). It also acts as a magnet for every tourist in town: a perfect place to spot people hurriedly leafing through their copies of the Lonely Planet/Rough Guide to Romania.
5. Mostar, Bosnia & Herzegovina
The siege of Mostar and the destruction of the famous bridge commemorated in fountain form in a park just off the former 'front line' and overlooked by gutted buildings. It's also a way off the tourist trail - possibly because its ambiguity sits uncomfortably. This bridge, after all, still has a gap in the middle.
Department's Freedom Fest Starts Tonight!
Celebrate freedom as the City of Richmond recognizes the emancipation of enslaved Africans and celebrates African-American cultural life in the city today with a variety of events and programs through June 22. The schedule of events is as follows:
FRIDAY, JUNE 15
Book Signing & Jazz Reception (Free)
5 – 8 p.m. at Elegba Folklore Society's Cultural Center, 101 East Broad Street,
FRIDAY, JUNE 15
Book Signing & Jazz Reception (Free)
5 – 8 p.m. at Elegba Folklore Society's Cultural Center, 101 East Broad Street,
More on 'Recreation Ground' the book
Namely, the info to be found at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Recreation-Ground/186966448096514 where you'll also find a sample poem and other comments.
Recreation Ground is the first full-length poetry collection by Tom Phillips, published by Two Rivers Press in 2012. ISBN 978-1-901677-85-0, 56 pp., £7.95. Cover design by Nadja Guggi with illustrations by Peter Hay. Text design by Nadja Guggi
Description
Tom Phillips’ first full-length collection navigates terrains which range from Eastern Europe, Australia and the Home Counties to his own back garden in Bristol.
From the different perspectives these vantage points offer, it unearths connections between chance meetings and ‘big history’, family stories and the state we’re in. It also looks at poetry itself as a ground on which to recreate–and negotiate with–one thing that nobody can change: the past.
‘In Tom Phillips’ work, the world is unsettlingly close, whether the poem is set in his home town or at the other end of Europe. Other times, too, are alongside in the present, and echoes of conflict or loss disturb the surfaces of life, which are nonetheless carefully, caringly observed in these intelligent and watchful poems.’-- Philip Gross
‘The landscape of Tom Phillips’ poetry is an “unexpected geography” within the contours of which we are reawakened to recognition that meaning amid a world of war and confusion is to be discovered in the unchanging nature of small things.’-- Ian Brinton
‘Those who have followed Tom Phillips’ steady progression over nearly thirty years value him as, in some real sense, the quietly spoken voice of a generation.’-- Tony Lewis-Jones
From the different perspectives these vantage points offer, it unearths connections between chance meetings and ‘big history’, family stories and the state we’re in. It also looks at poetry itself as a ground on which to recreate–and negotiate with–one thing that nobody can change: the past.
‘In Tom Phillips’ work, the world is unsettlingly close, whether the poem is set in his home town or at the other end of Europe. Other times, too, are alongside in the present, and echoes of conflict or loss disturb the surfaces of life, which are nonetheless carefully, caringly observed in these intelligent and watchful poems.’-- Philip Gross
‘The landscape of Tom Phillips’ poetry is an “unexpected geography” within the contours of which we are reawakened to recognition that meaning amid a world of war and confusion is to be discovered in the unchanging nature of small things.’-- Ian Brinton
‘Those who have followed Tom Phillips’ steady progression over nearly thirty years value him as, in some real sense, the quietly spoken voice of a generation.’-- Tony Lewis-Jones
The Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2011
The Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2011 is now available to view here. The report consists of country/economy profiles and data tables in Part One; in Part Two, there are a number of interesting articles, as follows:
- The T&T Competitiveness Index 2011: assessing industry deivers in the wake of the crisis
- Crisis Aftermath: pathways to a more resilient travel and tourism sector
- Tourism development in Advanced and Emerging Economies: what does the T&TCI tell us?
- Premium Air Travel; an important market segment
- Hospitality: emerging from the crisis
- Investment: a key indicator of competitiveness in travel and tourism
- Green Growth, Travelism and the Pursuit of Happiness
- A New Big Plan for Nature: opportunities for travel and tourism
- Assessing the Openness of Borders
Pools to Open Saturday!
The department will open its outdoor swimming pools for the summer on Saturday, June 16, at noon. It is free to swim at all City pools, and trained lifeguards are always on duty.
Pool hours are from 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. on weekdays, from noon to 5 p.m. on Saturdays and from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sundays. In addition, adult and family swim hours are from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays.
Second Chance Of Life
Darleen Dreamer
"Gender: Female
Age: Adult
Fitness: None
Weight: Boney
Sub Type: Human
Traits: Loves The Outdoors, Family-Oriented, Friendly, Hopeless Romantic, Clumsy
Darleen was Darren's wife and Dirk's mother. (she has no bio)"
Sims 3 Exchange Download
MediaFire Download
Skip Broke
"Gender: Male
Age: Adult
Fitness: Fit
Weight: Boney
Sub Type: Human
Traits: Flirty, Good Sense Of Humor, Daredevil, Friendly, Schmoozer
He was Brandi's husband and Dustin and Beau's father. (has no bio)"
Sims 3 Exchange Download
MediaFire Download
Earl E Demise
"Gender: Male
Age: Young Adult
Fitness: Normal
Weight: Boney
Sub Type: Human
Traits: Neurotic, Commitment Issues, Party Animal, Unlucky, Family-Oriented
He was Olive Specter's ex-fiance. (he has no bio)"
Sims 3 Exchange Download
MediaFire Download
Elena Martin
"Gender: Female
Age: Adult
Fitness: None
Weight: Boney
Sub Type: Human
Traits: Loves The Outdoors, Family-Oriented, Friendly, Hopeless Romantic, Clumsy
Darleen was Darren's wife and Dirk's mother. (she has no bio)"
Sims 3 Exchange Download
MediaFire Download
Skip Broke
"Gender: Male
Age: Adult
Fitness: Fit
Weight: Boney
Sub Type: Human
Traits: Flirty, Good Sense Of Humor, Daredevil, Friendly, Schmoozer
He was Brandi's husband and Dustin and Beau's father. (has no bio)"
Sims 3 Exchange Download
MediaFire Download
Earl E Demise
"Gender: Male
Age: Young Adult
Fitness: Normal
Weight: Boney
Sub Type: Human
Traits: Neurotic, Commitment Issues, Party Animal, Unlucky, Family-Oriented
He was Olive Specter's ex-fiance. (he has no bio)"
Sims 3 Exchange Download
MediaFire Download
Elena Martin
"Gender: Female
Age: Young Adult
Fitness: None
Weight: Thin
Sub Type: Human
Traits: Loves The Outdoors, Hopeless Romantic, Unlucky, Good, Family-Oriented
She was Andrew's wife and Jacob's mother. (she has no bio)"
Etokas Cho
"Gender: Male
Age: Young Adult
Fitness: Ripped
Weight: Boney
Sub Type: Human
Traits: Athletic, Family-Oriented, Unlucky, Handy, Brave
He was Vivian's husband and Estu's father. (he has no bio)"
Hugh Thanasia
"Gender: Male
Age: Young Adult
Fitness: Normal
Weight: Boney
Sub Type: Human
Traits: Flirty, Great Kisser, Clumsy, Dislikes Children, Frugal
He was Olive Specter's 2nd husband. (He has no bio)"
Lyla Grunt
"Gender: Female
Age: Adult
Fitness: None
Weight: Boney
Sub Type: Human
Traits: Commitment Issues, Dislikes Children, Brave, Flirty, Snob
She was Buzz Gunt's ex-wife and Tank, Ripp and Buck's mother...(she has no bio)"
Malcolm Landgraab III
"Gender: Male
Age: Adult
Fitness: Normal
Weight: Boney
Sub Type: Human
Traits: Charismatic, Born Salesman, Ambitious, Unlucky, Workaholic
He was Malcolm Landgraab IV's father and Margaret's husband. (he has no bio)"
Olivia Riley
"Gender: Female
Age: Young Adult
Fitness: Normal
Weight: Boney
Sub Type: Human
Traits: Unlucky, Flirty, Handy, Genius, Clumsy
She was Timothy's wife and Sally's mother. (she has no bio)"
Margaret Landgraab
"Gender: Female
Age: Adult
Fitness: Trim
Weight: Boney
Sub Type: Human
Traits: Ambitious, Snob, Perfectionist, Unlucky, Schmoozer
She was Malcolm Landgraab IV's mother and Malcolm III's wife. (She has no bio)"
The problem with titles
As the plethora of poems with such illuminating titles as 'Untitled' or 'Sonnet' seems to suggest, coming up with a title constitutes something of a struggle for even the most hardened of poets. Paradoxically, I've been suffering from the opposite problem of late - loads of titles have been suggesting themselves but with no poem to go with them. Hence the blank or only partially filled spaces where 'Blues for my Home Town', 'Snail Weather', 'The Comfort of Railway Stations', 'Are you Sure you Want to do that?' and 'Gestures of Independence on Dogger Bank' might be. I'm not complaining. I'm just intrigued. Did Ashbery think of 'Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror' before he wrote the poem or afterwards?
Dark Tourism
This morning, a BBC article highlights the rise in popularity of genocide memorials around the world. This short film by Philip Stone aims to answer the question why people are compelled to visit disaster sites. He has also written a new article entitled 'Dark tourism and significant other death: towards a model of mortality mediation'. It's published in the Annals of Tourism Research (2012, Vol 39, No 3, pp.1565-1587); here's the abstract
'Dark tourism and the commodification of death has become a pervasive feature within the contemporary visitor economy. Drawing upon the thanatological condition of society and a structural analysis of modern-day mortality, this paper establishes theoretical foundations for exploring dark tourism experiences. The study argues that in Western secular society where ordinary death is sequestered behind medical and professional façades, yet extraordinary death is recreated for popular consumption, dark tourism mediates a potential social filter between life and death. Ultimately, the research suggests that dark tourism is a modern mediating institution, which not only provides a physical place to link the living with the dead, but also allows a cognitive space for the Self to construct contemporary ontological meanings of mortality.'
'Recreation Ground', the book, approaches. Updates, reactions, reviews and details of launches and other events will be posted here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Recreation-Ground/186966448096514
Webinar : 2012 Creative Tourism
2012 Creative Tourism Webinar: Continuing The Global Conversation
Streamed live on Thursday, June 28, 2012
Europe 3:00 p.m. Central European Time
Can’t join us for the live session?
Visit www.creativewebinar.org where the archived video will be available by July 15, 2012Webinar : Making the case for culture and sport
Making the case for culture and sport - how to use the local profile tools
Free CASE webinar: How to use evidence to support local sport and cultural policy making
Date: Thursday 28th June, 12:00 pm - 12:50 pm
Audience: Aimed at local authority colleagues but useful for policy makers in the culture, sport and heritage sectors
Presenters: James Doeser (Arts Council England) and Alan Dovaston (Sport England)
The webinar will provide:
• an introduction to the Culture and Sport Evidence programme (CASE)
• an overview of the Sport England Local Sport Profile Tool;
• an overview of the Culture and Heritage Profile Tool;
• practical ways to use the CASE tools to support advocacy and policy development
The webinar is free but places are limited. To book your place, please email alison.scammell@fastdawn.co.uk.
Festival of Arts Kicks Off Sunday, June 10
The department will kick off its 56th Festival of Arts season on Sunday, June 10, at 8 p.m. with Orquesta Tropikiimba and the Salsa Youth Orchestra heating up the evening on the Dogwood Dell stage.
Tropikiimba plays Afro-Latino music that’s guaranteed to get people on their feet and dancing. Salsa, Timba, Bolero, Danzon, Cha Cha, Merengue, each distinctly different style is more
Free Movies in the Parks
The department will kick off its series of free family movies, Movies in the Park, on Friday, June 15, at 8:30 p.m. with a showing of "The Muppets” in Byrd Park. The movie will be shown on the lawn beside Fountain Lake, which is located beside the 500 block of South Boulevard.
The series will continue through Aug. 17 with free PG rated or PG-13 rated movies in parks around the city every
Single Parents
Broke Household
"Created: 02/06/12
English
Residents: 3
Funds: §18,000
"Brandi was left to raise two boys alone following her husband's suspicious poll ladder accident.
With Dustin acting out, can Brandi teach young Beau to make the right choices in life?"
"Created: 02/06/12
English
Residents: 3
Funds: §18,000
"Brandi was left to raise two boys alone following her husband's suspicious poll ladder accident.
With Dustin acting out, can Brandi teach young Beau to make the right choices in life?"
Dreamer Household
"Created: 02/06/12
English
Residents: 2
Funds: §17,500
"Darren is pursuing his dream of being a artist, while his son Dirk hits the books,
And Darren may have found his muse, but will his creativity be enough to win Cassandra's affection?"
Cho Household
"Created: 02/06/12
English
Residents: 2
Funds: §17,000
"Vivian finds being a single Mum challenging. Work is demanding and when she gets home
Etsu wants all of her attention. Vivian still wants to find true love again. She wonders
if she can find time to spend time with that nice man down the hall."
Riley Household
"Created: 02/06/12
English
Residents: 2
Funds: §17,500
"When Timothy Riley moved to Belladonna Cove he wanted to start a new life and make a solid future
for his daughter. Then, he met Vivian Cho and now hopes they can join forces. He thinks Sally would
enjoy having a little sister."
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