Patricia Sands

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The Wireless Generation – could this be you?

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For a few weeks now you may have noticed me talking on Twitter or Facebook about a documentary project being prepared for Sundance called The Wireless Generation.

Here’s the skinny on it.

“ABOUT THIS FILM

The internet has changed everything. Not just how we work, but where. Working from home in the US has increased dramatically in recent years and they estimate that by 2016, 63 million Americans will work from home at least part time (Source: 2011 Forester Research).

We wanted to look at the edges of this movement, the people who are not just working from home and keeping the status quo, but those who are taking this new freedom — the opportunity to choose to live anywhere without having to consider workplace location — and what happens next.

If you shift your life from being centered around where you to work, to being centered around how you want to live, what happens?  Where would you go if you could go anywhere in the world?”

Drew and Christine Gilbert’s website is here. I hope you find the time to go and get to know them. Christine’s posts are often hilarious in their honesty and her ability to go with the flow no matter where they happen to be living.

Their dedication and professionalism to this project is serious and I truly believe the subject matter is such an authentic representation of how opportunities are changing in our world for people who have the right set of circumstances to take their work wherever they please.

Check out their Facebook page and send them a photo of you wherever in the world you are working on your laptop. At the very least it’s an inspiration to dream big if travel is your passion.

One of our sons is working on his laptop right now from France. I wrote most of my soon-to-be-published (yippee!! – sorry, just lost it there for a sec – it will still be a few months) next novel from France last summer after beginning it in Florida and finishing it here in Toronto.  A 20-something and a 60-something as part of the Wireless Generation in our family! Love it!

You may well be doing the same thing or thinking about it. If you can make it work, why not? This documentary is about some folks who ARE making it work. It’s interesting, relevant, and a story that should be told. Please help support this by passing the word around. They are doing brilliantly on Kickstarter and with just six days left to jump on board every little bit helps. Got $5 to spare?

 http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/almostfearless/the-wireless-generation?ref=card

Is this a dream of yours or have you already made it happen? Does it even appeal to you? How are you following your dreams? 

Forgive a little shameless self-promotion here, but I’m following my dream too! The Bridge Club is the Book Of The Day on eReaderNews today. If you can pop over and like their page and tweet it up a storm, that would be magnifique. Thanks. Here’s the link:

Alright! TBC is up on eReaderNews. Here’s the tweet and if you have time to like the Facebook page that would be SO appreciated! Thanks a million. Feel free to add your own comment or hashtags.

Book Of The Day-The Bridge Club –http://ereadernewstoday.com/book-of-the-day-the-bridge-club/6717389/ A book club favourite! #women #life #bookclubs

Christopher Plummer – still hot at 82!

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On Saturday we drove to Stratford, Ontario, home of the renowned Stratford Shakespeare Festival.  A quick hour and a half from Toronto through rolling farmland, once you leave the craziness of Highway 401,  the summer schedule offered each year never fails to please. There is always something for everyone and on many occasions a production has carried on to Broadway.

Stage and screen actor (and academy award winner!) Christopher Plummer has performed in Stratford most seasons since his first big role as Henry V in 1956. When we know he is confirmed for a play there, we dash to get tickets before they sell out.

This year he is appearing for a limited number of dates in a fantastic one-man performance, “A Word Or Two”, which he describes as a celebration of language and the words that have influenced him from childhood throughout his life. Plummer worries that language  is “fast vanishing from our midst”.

In an interview Plummer said, “Each decade there are poets and prose writers who have influenced me.”

As he takes us on a fascinating literary journey through his 82 years, his superb theatrical talents carry us along on a magical ride. I couldn’t begin to write about it as well as the well-known (and my favourite) Toronto theatre critic, Richard Ouzounian and I repost below his review from The Toronto Star.

Theatre Review: Bow gratefully to Christopher Plummer in A Word or Two

Published on Thursday August 02, 2012

DAVID HOU PHOTO/DAVID HOU PHOTOChristopher Plummer loves to entertain and there is charm and laughter a-plenty in A Word or Two.
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By Ouzounian, RichardTheatre Critic

A WORD OR TWO

 (out of 4)

Written, arranged and performed by Christopher Plummer. Directed by Des McAnuff. Until Aug. 26 at the Avon Theatre. 1-800-567-1600

STRATFORD, ONT.—You don’t review a show like Christopher Plummer’s A Word or Two, which opened Thursday night at the Stratford Festival. You simply bow gratefully, say “Thank you, Mr. Plummer,” and urge everyone reading this to buy tickets as rapidly as possible.

Have you ever wanted to know what it would be like to spend 90 minutes in the company of the finest actor of his time, hearing a dazzling store of literary gems while gaining an insight into the man? Well, that is what’s in store for you in this silky smooth, yet deceptively moving piece.

The premise is simple. Plummer will tell us about his life through the books, plays and poems he has loved and performed during his life.

Against a gravity-defying stack of books, courtesy of Robert Brill, lit with care by Michael Walton and accompanied by wonderfully subtle music by Michael Roth, this 82-year-old national treasure starts as Louis Carroll’s “Aged, Aged Man” and proceeds to take us on a whirlwind tour of his fascinating existence and the authors who have accompanied it.

The miracle is watching the dexterity with which Plummer shifts accents, postures, aged and moods in the flickering of an eye.

W.H. Auden’s Herod, presented here as the epicene brother of Truman Capote? Check. The “Song of Solomon,” rendered with the full-blooded passion of a Renaissance lover? Got it.

But then there’s his more subtle, almost invisible transformations. He’s well into Robert Frost’s amazing “Birches,” before you realize that he’s truly turned into a New England farmer, crusty yet friendly all at once.

He gives us a simple selection from Shakespeare, but makes sure it’s memorable. A Hamlet blazing with the need to act, but frustrated his inability to commit and an Othello who suddenly sees the dazzling downward spiral his jealousy has taken him on.

Plummer loves to entertain and there is charm and laughter a-plenty in this piece, but there’s an interesting thing to note near the top.

He performs speeches by both the devil and Don Juan from Shaw’s epic Man and Superman. While the “good” Don Juan is persuasive, Plummer is even more convincing as the devil. You come to realize, in fact, that he’s most comfortable on the dark side.

And I wouldn’t trade a single moment of the final sequences where Plummer looks at death with curiosity, apprehension and — finally — acceptance.

All of this is in the final speech from Cyrano de Bergerac, where Plummer dances with the devil, fences with the dark master, defies Lucifer and stands up for the graces he believes in, doing all of this with elegance, grace and a joyous bilingual delivery of the lines.

You owe it to yourself to see A Word or Two, just for the experience of that speech, a great artist with great material still at the height of his powers.

“When comes such another?” asks Marc Antony of Caesar. I would say the same about Christopher Plummer. This only runs until Aug. 26. See it while you can.

What live theatre have you attended lately? Or maybe you have performed in something yourself … like our talented  friend, writer and blogger, Amy Shojai! Have you ever seen any live performances by Christopher Plummer? If you have the opportunity, grab it!

Pass me another tissue please

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I’ve been wiping tears from my eyes all week with the Olympics under way. Every time there is a medal presentation and the winners emotionally respond to their national anthem, so do I.

Do you only choose certain events to watch in the Olympic Games? I watch more television during the Olympics than any other time and every sport suddenly seems to be interesting … even weight-lifting. Seriously. Part of the reason is the great job the networks do presenting the personal stories of many of the athletes. The journeys so many athletes and their families experience on the way to participating in the Games offer valuable life lessons for all of us to hear.

The Canadian coverage is presenting many of these inspiring stories in a feature called “The Difference Makers with Rick Hansen”. I simply keep a box of Kleenex nearby. I know I’m going to need it. My post today is not just to celebrate those athletes, it’s also to say a few words about the amazing Rick Hansen.

I’m sure there are few Canadians who do not instantly recognize his name but many of you in other parts of the planet may not know of him … and you should.

In 1957, at the age of 15, Rick was thrown from the back of a pickup truck on his way home from a fishing trip. A spinal cord injury left him paralyzed from the waist down. Fate has a strange way of impacting life.

Rick was inspired by teachers, coaches and family as he came to terms with his injury and set new goals from new dreams. He went on to become one of Canada’s most decorated Paralympic athletes.

In 1985, Rick and a handful of friends set out from a parking lot in with a dream. The plan was for Rick’s team to accompany him as he wheeled though 34 countries around the world in order to raise awareness of people with disabilities and raise money for research. The Man In Motion World Tour was born.

Rick describes the beginning of the tour with his own terrific sense of humour.

“The first memory that always comes back is the miracle that allowed us to even start the whole thing,” said Hansen laughing during a recent phone interview. “We were so young and naive and full of that optimism that anything can happen and we had no idea what we were going to encounter.

I think that was a prophetic moment when we left the Oakridge Shopping Centre parking lot and we drove the motorhome that had my wheelchair on top in a box on straight into the overpass, because the motorhome was over height. It was in front of these 200 well-wishers who probably didn’t think I could do it either. ’Yeah this guy is going around the world in a wheelchair and he can’t even get out of the parking lot.’”

Read more: http://www.theprovince.com/news/rickhansen/Rick+Hansen+shines+spotlight+Canadian+difference+makers/6656122/story.html#ixzz22M7FJkNc

They did indeed get out of the parking lot after making an adjustment or two and spent the next 26 months wheeling more than 40,000 km in countries around the globe. Awareness of their quest grew as time passed and media exposure increased. When Rick and his team arrived back home in British Columbia in 1987, his personal journey into making a positive difference in the lives of others had really only just begun. It has never stopped.

The Rick Hansen Foundation was established and has leveraged the $26 million raised during the original Tour to more than $245 million in investments toward spinal cord injury research, rehabilitation and quality of life initiatives.

Rick Hansen truly is a role model and inspiration. He is not only a dedicated athlete, proud Canadian, and one of the most recognizable men in our country and  but also a person who exemplifies the idea of paying it forward. There’s no one better to introduce the wonderful personal interest stories we are seeing during the Games.

Please take a few moments to visit his website. There’s even a page where you can send an online Rick Hansen medal to someone who inspires you. How cool is that?

Do you get emotional when you watch the Olympics? Is there an athlete in this year’s Games whose story has stood out above others and particularly touched you?

The logo on this page is courtesy of the Rick Hansen website.

Happy Canada Day!

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It’s a beautiful day in Toronto. I’m hoping you have the same weather wherever you are celebrating across our great country. Enjoy this wonderful video narrated by Tom Brokaw that first aired during the Vancouver Olympics in 2010. It does our country proud!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV_041oYDjg&feature=related