It’s The Music For Me

I first listened to the cantata Carmina Burana in my music history class at Canadian Mennonite University in 1971. My professor was Dr. Henry Engbrecht and I remember being so taken with the unique sound of Carl Orff’s composition.

On Sunday afternoon we went to see the Royal Winnipeg Ballet perform Carmina Burana in a work choreographed by Mauricio Wainrot. While the dancers were excellent and the visual effects were stunning it was still the music that was the highlight of the show for me.

Photo from the Royal Winnipeg Ballet Instagram

The music for the performances last week was provided by the Prairie Voices and Winnipeg Boys Choirs and the soloists were soprano Andrea Lett, tenor Nolan Kehler and baritone Matthew Pauls. They were accompanied by members of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra.

Although I was at the ballet I did close my eyes several times just to appreciate the marvellous music. And no I wasn’t sleeping as my husband suspected.

Some of the music from Carmina Burana has become very popular. It has been featured in movies like Excalibur and Cheaper by the Dozen. It’s also been the background for Domino’s Pizza ads and ads for Gatorade and has popped up in television series like Glee, How I Met Your Mother and The X Factor.

Photo by Daniel Crump from the Royal Winnipeg Ballet website

On the Royal Winnipeg Ballet site you can access the translation of the Latin words to the text and the songs are about the coming of spring, passionate love, drinking and gambling and how fate and fortune direct our lives. But I don’t think it’s the text that makes the music so popular, rather it’s the driving rhythms and the simple catchy melodies.

Photo by Daniel Crump from the Royal Winnipeg Ballet website

I’ve learned that Carl Orff always meant his work to be performed with dance and theatrical elements and the effect of the powerful music combined with the outstanding dancers of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet was terrific.

But for me, the music was the highlight of the show.

Other posts……….

Don’t Sing Along

International Music Day

In Praise of Church Organists

10 World Heritage Sites

Tomorrow is the International Day for Monuments and Sites. It is a day to appreciate the monuments around the world that help us understand history, culture or the natural world. Here are ten such monuments and sites I’ve visited. They are all UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

The 2,700 mile Great Wall of China is the longest human made structure in the world. Its construction began in 300 BC. and it was repeatedly rebuilt and modified over the years. Its purpose was to protect China from nomadic northern tribes. It became a World Heritage Site in 1987.

Masada is an ancient stone fortress built by King Herod between 37 and 31 BC and located on a very high rocky mesa in Israel, above the Dead Sea. It is a 840 acre complex with well preserved ruins that are evidence of the history of ancient Israel and the courage of its people during a Roman siege in 73 AD. It became a World Heritage Site in 1966.

Chichén Itzá on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula was a powerful centre of commerce and government for the Mayan people from 600 to 1200. Its most important role, however, was that of a sacred city, a place of worship and ritual. It became a World Heritage Site in 1988.

The Taj Mahal in Agra India was built by the emperor Shah Jahan in the mid 1600s as a tomb for his wife Mumtaz Mahal. It is considered a jewel of India’s rich history and attracts some 8 million visitors a year. It became a World Heritage Site in 1983.

The Collosseum is an amphitheatre in Rome Italy and is one of the few mostly intact structures from the Roman Empire. It is a monument to the architectural and engineering prowess of ancient Rome. Construction of the Collosseum began in 70 AD. It could hold 50,000 spectators and was famously used for gladiator combat. It became a World Heritage Site in 1980.

The Serengeti National Park in Tanzania which encompasses some 1.5 million hectares of savannah, boasts one of the most impressive nature spectacles in the world, the annual migration of two million wildebeests plus hundreds of thousands of zebras to find pasture and water. The park is also home to many endangered animal species. It became a World Heritage Site in 1981.

The city of Dubrovnik in Croatia, often called The Pearl of the Adriatic, is known for its stunning architecture and was an important centre for Mediterranean sea power beginning in the 1300s. It suffered from a massive earthquake in 1667 but has still managed to preserve many of its Gothic, Baroque and Renaissance buildings. Much of the old city including the wall around it was declared a World Heritage Site in 1979.

The Genbaku Dome now known as The Hiroshima Peace Memorial was the only structure left standing in the area where the first atomic bomb exploded on 6 August 1945. It has been preserved in the same state as immediately after the bombing. It serves as a stark symbol of the most destructive force ever created and expresses the hope for world peace and the ultimate elimination of all nuclear weapons. It became a World Heritage Site in 1996.

Angkor Wat in Siem Reap Cambodia is a Hindu-Buddhist temple complex located on a four hundred acre site. The Guinness Book of World Records considers it as the largest religious structure in the world. Built between 1122 to 1150 it eventually became almost lost in the jungle until it was rediscovered by a French explorer named Henri Mouhot in 1860. It was designated a World Heritage Site in 1992.

Banff National Park is in Alberta Canada. It has unbelievable views of the Rocky Mountains and some of the world’s most beautiful lakes including Lake Louise a popular skiing destination. Established in 1885 it is Canada’s oldest national park. It became a World Heritage Site in 1984.

Other posts………

Visiting the Great Wall

Visiting the Taj Mahal at Dawn

Remembering Hiroshima

Graves Around the World

In a graveyard we visited in a small village in France last month, I noticed many of the graves were full of little plaques and ornaments. I thought they must be attached to the graves but they were not.

They had simply been placed on the stones and left there. There were messages inscribed on them to the deceased.

Different family members must have placed the plaques there because the same woman might have a plaque on her grave recognizing her as a grandmother, aunt, wife and mother.

There were also porcelain flowers, animals, people and birds and images related to the dead person’s hobbies or interests. I had never seen anything quite like it.

An interesting thing about graves I photographed in Kyoto Japan were these wooden markers called sotobas placed around the grave. Written on them were the names given to the deceased after they died and sutras- Buddhist sayings or holy writings.

I stand beside the tombstone of Daniel Peters in the Nikolaipol Cemetery Ukraine

In Ukraine, I noticed many of the Mennonite tombstones had anchors on them including my great-great grandfather’s.

I read an article about the anchor images on Mennonite gravestones in Ukraine. They were a sign that the people who died had anchored their lives in their faith.

My husband Dave is in one of the family burial rooms in the catacombs in Rome where some seven million people were interred between the second and fifth centuries.

Hiking in the mountains in Hong Kong we came across this enclosure with funeral pots in a small abandoned village. Dead people’s remains were in each pot. It was a very different kind of grave.

When we were on a walk along the ocean in Victoria British Columbia I noticed this grave marker for famed Canadian author Carol Shields. She spent the last three years of her life in Victoria and this plaque marks the spot where her family scattered her ashes into the ocean.

In Cambodia, I visited the Killing Fields where the skulls of some of the more than a million people who were killed during the violent Pol Pot regime in the 1970s are displayed as a visceral reminder of that genocide.

When we were in Agra in India we visited the Taj Mahal where the emperor Shah Jahan and his wife Mumtaz Mahal are buried. What an elaborate, beautiful and massive memorial it is.

This is Galileo’s ornate grave which we visited in The Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence Italy. It is actually Galileo’s second resting place.

His body was moved to this more prominent burial site a hundred years after his death when he was no longer an outcast from the Roman Catholic Church which had exiled him for his heretical scientific ideas.

I think there is much to learn about history, culture, science, religion, societal change and family beliefs by visiting graves and burial sites.

Other posts………

Visiting the Taj Mahal at Dawn

The Catacombs Myth and Reality

Cambodia Revisited

Two-Spirit- A Term That Originated in Winnipeg

You’ve probably heard the term Two-Spirit before. A workshop I attended yesterday helped me to understand it better and I learned it had first been used by a woman from Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Dancers at a Two-Spirit PowWow at the University of Saskatchewan in 2018. Photo from the Toronto Star

According to TransCare British Columbia a provincial health care authority, Two-Spirit is a term used in some Indigenous communities to reflect understandings of gender roles and gender and sexual identities in their culture. The term has spiritual connections as well.

It is important to remember that terms and roles and understandings about Two-Spirit people are specific to individual Indigenous nations.

Before colonization, Two-Spirit people were included and respected as valued members of many Indigenous communities and often took on important roles as healers, matchmakers, ceremonial leaders, and counsellors.

The erasure of Two-Spirit people was part and parcel of the religious and value belief systems brought by the colonizers who condemned any kind of gender or sexual diversity. This led to homophobia and transphobia in many Indigenous groups which often forced Two-Spirit people to leave their home communities which meant they left their families, land and culture as well.

Increasingly the role of Two-Spirit people in Indigenous communities is being recognized and reclaimed.

Photo of Myra Laramee from the Magazine UMToday in 2021 when Myra was given a distinguished alumni award by her alma mater

The term Two-Spirit was created in 1990 at an international Indigenous gathering for gay and lesbian individuals. It was held in Winnipeg.

The speakers at the workshop I attended yesterday told us the designation Two-Spirit was proposed by Myra Laramee an Anishinaabe woman who said the name came to her in a dream. Myra is currently teaching at the University of Winnipeg.

Often letter designations for inclusive recognition of gender and sexual minorities like 2SLGBTQIA+ begin with 2S. The 2S stands for Two-Spirit.

Now I have a better understanding of what those letters mean and why they are important.

Other posts……..

A Rollicking Read and a Rollicking Interview

Memorable Final Day

Storied Land- Metis, Indigenous People and Mennonites

Do I Need to State My Personal Pronouns?

We are getting new identification tags at my place of work and we have the option to have our preferred pronouns on the tag. Would we like to be referred to as she/her, he/him, they/them or in some other way?

I realize that for some people particularly in the transgender or non-binary communities this is important. But should someone like me who is cisgender, which means I identify with the sex assigned me at birth, list my personal pronouns as well?

I’ve been reading about this to learn more as I decide whether to have my preferred pronouns she/her listed on my name tag.

I have discovered that listing my pronouns can be a way for me to show I’m aware that pronouns are important and I understand that we all need to be thoughtful about the pronouns we use to address others.

Stating my pronouns on my employment badge can send a message that I don’t assume someone’s pronouns but rather I respect the idea that people should be addressed in the way they see themselves and choose to be seen.

Sharing my pronouns can normalize the practice so those who are in the gender diverse community don’t have to feel like they are in the minority when they do so.

Displaying my pronouns is also a way to show gender-marginalized people that I am an ally. By putting my pronouns on my identification badge I can send a message to trans or non-binary people that they are in a safe space when they are with me.

I did read a number of articles however, by both people in the 2SLGBTQ+ and cisgender communities, that say no one should feel pressure to publicly share their preferred pronouns. It is up to each individual to decide what they feel comfortable doing.

I’ve decided I do feel comfortable having my pronouns listed so that’s what I’ve decided to do.

I will be the first to admit I often struggle with getting people’s pronouns straight in conversation especially if a person’s pronouns change and I have to refer to them in different ways than I did before. Perhaps clearly displaying pronouns can help us all to be more respectful and mindful of one another’s choices.

Other posts………

Pride in Steinbach Isn’t Something New

Proud of the New Words in Canada’s National Anthem

Many Women Are Pastors But Our Language Still Excludes Them

Museum Photo Day

Did you know that today, the third Wednesday in January is Museum Photo Day? The idea for it came from a woman named Mar Dixon who lives in London and manages a website about museums and art galleries.

My husband Dave with a statue of Henry the Navigator at the Maritime Museum in Lisbon, Portugal

Dixon decided to initiate a one-day crowdsourced event that would promote awareness of all the great stuff housed in museums. The first Museum Photo Day was held in January 2014. Since then museums around the world have joined in the online campaign. People are encouraged to post pictures on social media of themselves with items on display in museums and art galleries they have visited.

I decided to join in the fun with some museum and art gallery photos we’ve taken on our travels.

With a beautifully designed kaleidoscope at the Kaleidoscope Museum in Kyoto, Japan

With my infant son in front of a stagecoach at the Western Development Museum in Saskatoon

Dave on a throne from the TV series Game of Thrones in a museum housed in a monastery on Lokrum Island in Croatia

Here I am in the stocks on display at a museum in Prague, Czech Republic

Dave with his head in a dinosaur mouth at the Sydney Museum in Sydney Australia

With Van Gogh’s Starry Night at the Museum of Modern Art in New York

Dave with Grant Wood’s American Gothic at the Chicago Art Institute

With the artwork Pensamiento or Thought at the Nahualli Art Gallery in Merida Mexico

Meeting a Drysdale sheep on display at the Agrodome museum in Rotorua New Zealand

Dave with Mina Miller Edison at the Thomas Edison Museum in Fort Meyers Florida

With Hopi dancers at the Heard Museum in Phoenix Arizona

At the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Museum in Hong Kong

Dave with a samovar in playwright Anton Checkhov’ house in Yalta Ukraine. The house called White Dacha has been turned into a museum.

With Aphrodite at the Nelson Atkins Museum in Kansas City

With a statue of dissident artist Ai Wei Wei at the Art Gallery of Ontario

It was fun to go through old photos to find these museum and art gallery images. At a time when travelling is difficult if not impossible it made me glad we saw so much of the world while we still could and made me realize the important role museums and art galleries play in perserving the history and culture of places.

Other posts…….

Getting Up Close and Personal With A Famous Inventor

Remembering Yalta

All in the Family

Have You Played Wordle?

I read about the online word puzzle Wordle from an article in the New York Times on Monday. It was created by an engineer from Brooklyn named Josh Wardle for his partner Palak Shah. Palak loves word games so during one of the pandemic lockdowns, Josh set this one up for her. Palak enjoyed it so much Josh decided to share it online so others could play.

You get six tries to figure out a five-letter word and after each try, you are told which of the letters you guessed are in the word and whether or not they are in the correct position.

I’m not great at word games. I’ve never beat my husband Dave at Scrabble in almost fifty years of marriage and as he flies through the New York Times crossword puzzle every Saturday I struggle to finish the simpler one the Winnipeg Free Press carries on the same page.

So…….. I wasn’t sure Wordle would be for me. I tried it on Monday and Tuesday and didn’t even come close to guessing the word of the day. But…….when I tried it this morning I SOLVED IT !!

Part of the appeal of Wordle is you only get to play it once a day. When you are done a timer tells you how many hours it will be till a new puzzle is posted.

There are 12,000 five-letter words in the English language but Josh and Palak have figured out which are the 2,500 most common ones and those are the words being used on Wordle.

During this new pandemic phase when I am not socializing and spending most of my time at home WORDLE is going to be a neat way to start my day!

I did take a screenshot of my winning solution to today’s puzzle but then I realized if I inserted it into this post that would mean you couldn’t play it. So give it a try and let me know if you solved it!

Other posts………..

A Puzzling Achievement

Learning A New Word

Extra Crispy

Aunt Olly

Olly Penner

We didn’t have Sesame Street, Paw Patrol, or Blues Clues when I was a kid. We had Aunt Olly. Olly Penner hosted a program on the radio station CFAM for kids called Children’s Party and I was a devoted fan in my childhood.

Like many families in the late 1950s and early 1960s, we didn’t have a television and along with thousands of other children from all over western Canada and the central northern United States I sat near the radio every afternoon while Aunt Olly read stories like Tall Fireman Paul, Big Red or Johnny Appleseed and played funny songs like I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly and There’s a Hole in the Bucket.

If your mother sent in a request, Aunt Olly would also wish you a Happy Birthday over the air and even tell you where your Mom had hidden your present.

I remember hurrying home from school and sitting down at the table with the snack Mom had ready for me and listening to Aunt Olly.

Photo from the CFAM radio website of Aunt Olly and her sidekick Gus

In 1989 I was on the staff of the magazine The Mennonite Mirror and was assigned to write a feature story about Olly Penner for the magazine. I was excited to have the chance to interview my childhood idol.

I found out that not only had Olly done a children’s program for CFAM she had also hosted a variety of other shows like Ladies First, Hints for Homemakers, The Garden Show, and Social Calendar. She co-hosted the radio station’s morning show with anchor Jim McSweeny for 13 years.

Remember this was a time when most women did not work outside the home, something Olly Penner was criticized for by some radio listeners. She said the support of her husband Vic who was the editor of the Altona newspaper The Red River Valley Echo but was often referred to by the public as ‘Aunt Olly’s husband’, made it possible for her to keep up with all her radio station commitments which included many public appearances.

She also found time to write a regular newspaper column, publish a cookbook, and be an active participant in several community organizations, all while raising two sons.

Children’s Party souvenir from Greg Lindenbach

The day I interviewed her she showed me the thousands of fan letters she had received from children. Many had sent her photographs and drawings and I recognized some of the names.

But Olly also had fan mail from adults; grandparents who enjoyed her show, farmers who listened to her while driving their tractors, recent immigrants who said they were learning English by listening to her, and parents who said they got their children to behave by threatening to take away the privilege of listening to Children’s Party.

She even had a fan letter from a clergyman who said he’d ‘fallen in love with her voice’.

Olly Penner

Olly retired in 1987 and when I interviewed her in 1989 she was already a grandmother and was enjoying traveling with her husband and spending more time with her family. Olly Penner died in 2015 at the age of 86. She had a legion of fans at a time when media programming aimed specifically at children was a rarity.

The full original article I wrote for the Mennonite Mirror can be accessed on page 4 of the May/June 1989 issue.

Other posts………

Radios Good and Evil

What a Woman!

My Childhood Reading Heaven

Why Do People Collect Things?

Mom with one of the Royal Doulton Figurines she loved to collect

My mother-in-law Anne, collected Royal Doulton china figurines. She loved beautiful things and she had a curio cabinet in her living room where she kept her Royal Doultons.  Each woman in our family received one after her funeral. In this picture, Mom is holding a figurine called Fair Lady which she received as a Christmas gift.  It was the one I inherited as a keepsake. 

Note seashells on furniture cushions, seashells on the coffee table and seashell picture frames underneath the coffee table

Many people collect things. On a trip to Mexico, we visited a woman who collected seashells and items connected with seashells. One room in her house was exclusively for her seashell collection. There were seashells from all over the world everywhere. The room was furnished with couches and chairs with a seashell pattern on the upholstery. There were lamps with shades covered with shells. Sculptures made of shells and books about seashells sat on the tables. Family photos in seashell- encrusted frames lined the shelves. Even the business card the woman gave me was decorated with a photo of a large shell.

My mother collected buttons in this button box

People have a natural tendency to collect things. Seashells may not be their passion but whether its coins, stamps, postcards, spoons, buttons, or more bizarre things like teabags, chocolate bar wrappers or traffic signs we human beings seem inclined to be collectors. Dr Steve Anderson, a neurologist at the University of Iowa says our need to collect may harken back to an earlier point in our evolution, since many animals hoard things, especially food.

According to Susan Pearce, author of the book Interpreting Objects and Collections one in three North Americans collects something. There are many different kinds of collections and collectors.

The earrings I bought in Ukraine

Some collections are souvenirs. I collect earrings from the places we visit on our travels. My sister and her husband have a collection of traditional painted masks from many of the countries where they have travelled. 

Some collections are gifts. For years my brother gave my mother a china plate every Mother’s Day with a message or saying about mothers on it. He hunted through antique stores and curio shops, often for weeks, until he found a unique plate and a design. 

Some collections are of practical use. A couple who were our teaching colleagues in Hong Kong collected Starbucks coffee mugs from every place they visited. 

Our friend Rob collects military memorabilia. Photo by Jordan Ross/The Carillon

The desire to learn new things can also be the impetus behind a collection. Dave and I have a friend who collects military artefacts. He has uniforms, machinery, vehicles, sheet music, maps, books, flags and photographs. His collection has helped him learn a great deal about military history. 

Some people collect things because of their monetary value. I used to work with a woman who collected Barbie Dolls. She assured me someday she would sell her collection and make a mint of money.

Our son in a shirt he received as a gift from our friend who collects Superman items

Susan Pearce says there are some collections which she terms ‘magic’. There is no rhyme or reason for collecting them but they have a certain appeal or attraction for the collector. I imagine this might apply to the collection of snow globes my brother used to have or a friend’s large collection of Superman memorabilia

Collections can remind us of positive experiences and important people in our lives. They can help us learn new things. They can be practical or magical. Collections can enrich our lives.

If you enjoyed this blog post you might also like………

My Mom’s Button Box

Earrings and Tombstones

Among the Birch and Pine

 

 

 

 

The Great Canadian Nanaimo Bar

Cookbook on display at the Nanaimo Museum

Legend has it that in the 1930s the women of Nanaimo British Columbia started putting a sweet chocolate square in the lunch buckets of their miner husbands. The recipe for the square first appeared in the 1952 Nanaimo Hospital Women’s Auxilary Cookbook under the title Chocolate Square. In 1953 the recipe was reprinted in Vancouver’s Edith Adams Cookbook and named Nanaimo Bars.

I did a little digging into the history of the Nanaimo Bar because it is currently at the heart of a social media controversy. It started when the New York Times put the above post on Instagram. It created a great hue and cry from Canadians who said the AMERICAN newspaper had falsely represented the dessert which a 2006 National Post poll had found to be CANADA’S favourite confection. The New York Times kitchen had made the base of the Nanaimo Bar too thick. The chocolate icing should not have been rippled but according to some Canadian critics “smooth as newly Zambonied ice.”

My Nanaimo bars on a plate I inherited from my grandmother Annie Jantz Schmidt

I didn’t think I had ever made Nanaimo bars before, so after reading about the controversy I decided to try. I used the recipe of fellow children’s writer and popular Winnipeg food blogger Harriet Zaidman. I think my bars turned out pretty well thanks to Harriet’s great photos and instructions. My husband said he could tell they were made with love.

Canada stamp featuring a Nanaimo bar

I have learned some cool facts about Nanaimo bars………

• They served Nanaimo bars for dessert at the White House the night Michelle and Barack Obama hosted Justin and Sophie Trudeau at a state dinner in 2016.
• The city of Nanaimo’s mascot is a walking Nanaimo bar named Nanaimo Barney.
• On an episode of Master Chef Canada contestants had to make a dish inspired by Nanaimo bars.
• In 2019 Canada Post issued a stamp featuring a Nanaimo bar
• Different locations in and around Nanaimo serve maple bacon, peanut butter and deep-fried Nanaimo bars, Nanaimo bar spring rolls, Nanaimo bar waffles and cheesecake and Nanaimo bar coffee and cocktails.
• Nanaimo bars were a huge hit at Expo 86 in Vancouver and are a popular sales item on BC ferries.
• Nanaimo bars have their own entry in the Oxford Dictionary

Other posts…….

More Than A Cake- It’s a Memory

Chocolate is Essential

Cooking Up A Storm in the Yucatan