We're taking a break this week to celebrate the holidays, but the JamesBay.org Blog will be back in the new year with a steady stream of content for and about the people of James Bay.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for reading our blog, wish you a safe a happy holiday season, and offer best wishes for the coming year.

- - James Bay Culture Blog #9 - -

ON THE SIDEWALK by Jack Kerouac

Fig. 10-A Jack Kerouac & William Burroughs sit under a ringed Uranus.

Everything is back. 1950s American counter-culture celebrities are a part of everything -- so they're obviously back as well. And you'll never guess where? (Looking at the title of this article is cheating!)

Read more

A U R A L

P L E A S U R E S

The original album cover for the 1970s classic BREAKFAST IN JAMES BAY featuring Ogden Point's own Dick Danger

The Ogden Point Cafe (just follow the beach -- you'll find it) is now featuring regular live music 530-7pm every Wed-Sat.

Sorry about the title of this piece. I took "oral pleasure" (appropriate for a cafe, no?) and fused it with "aural" to indicate musical appreciation. I assure you there is absolutely no subliminal perverse content in this title. It could be misleading. I know. I'm sorry. But, heck, at least it's a short title. NEW OGDEN POINT LIVE MUSIC EVENINGS was just too much for me to get my mouth around. ()

I stopped in a few nights ago to hear pianist Diane Taylor. She provided a marvelous, cozy backdrop for a warm drink and a pleasant conversation at the ocean's edge.

Drop by and check it out.

(And do try to put some money in the musician's tip jar.)

Yours,
me.

PS - Stay tuned to this blog in the weeks to come for a full-length Ogden Point story -- "WHO IS DICK DANGER?"

This is a continuation of my series on the construction of the British Columbia Legislature, right here in James Bay. If you are interested and would like to read more, you will find links to the previous installments at the end of this post.

By 1893 Architect Francis Mawson Rattenbury had work on the legislature's foundation well underway and was polishing up the plans for the second phase, when he suddenly entered a competition on a $1,000,000 contract to design the new capital building in Washington State. Controversy erupted immediately. What if Rattenbury won the contract? How could such a young and inexperienced architect manage two such large contracts without neglecting either one or the other. But then what if he didn't win? Wouldn't that reflect poorly on Rattenbury and the BC Legislature: The work of a second rate architect on a second rate public building?

Read more

Wednesday, November 26 2008
The First of the New Weekly Spoken-Word Nights
@ the James Bay Coffee House & Bookshop

My reading was the first of the evening. I gave a profanity-laced diatribe against Stephen Hawking and the general presumptions of 20th Century physics. What the heck was I thinking??? Those few who could even follow my high-speed spew of bizarrely juxtaposed phraseology still had no idea why I would be ranting contemptuously against a brilliant professor dying of ALS.

Fortunately, the night moved on. Other people gave wonderful performances showcasing the wide variety of interpretations of "poetry." The latter half of the evening was devoted to Adam... a cyborg. His eye-sight failing slowly, this accidental photographer and inadvertent poet gave a very personal and, at times, quite insightful reading from his pamphlet-book: JAMES BAY IS A WARM BLANKET.

I'm an arch-enemy of poetry but even my cold heart was touched... a little.

(NOTE - These evening have been deactivated for the Holidays. Look for their triumphant return in early January.)