Fashion: Show or shopping? You get both. Twiss and Weber are hosting a pop in shop, and The Weight is Over show will feature casual, work, swim wear and more!

Food: Westboro’s got an Easter Food Market down on Churchill this Saturday, with hot cross buns, chocolate bunnies, sausages and more. Pull together a terrific feast!

Loud music: Pretty Little Death Machine is down at Avant Garde Bar Friday, while Hunter Valentine and The Ecstatic stop by Mavericks to shake things up.

Local music: Space-pop local band The Yips are releasing an EP on Friday night, alongside Teenager and Average Times. If you come to The Yips show having been at the Roberta Bondar show prior, you get half price entry! Also that night? Bob Loblaw rocks out at Cafe Dekcuf, while out at the Black Sheep, The Peptides celebrate their latest album.

Quiet music: Find a bit of sanctuary on your Friday lunch hour with this classical concert.

Soul music: Catch the nine-piece, three horn deep Soul Motivators at the Mercury Lounge, where they’ll be celebrating their EP release on Friday. Lance Baptiste will also stop by to get your groove on!

Indie music: Tall Trees is at Raw Sugar on Sunday, opening for progressive rockers Bend Sinister from Vancouver.

Music in someone’s living room: Saturday night house concert with The Roofhoppers, a Toronto-based acoustic chamber trio.

Karaoke: Of the hip-hop sort, specifically – Babylon’s hosting this tonight.

Photography and music: The School of Photographic Arts Ottawa is hosting a night of images and music, to raise money for the Youville Centre. They’ll also have a raffle, so you can win great prizes!

Burlesque: Capital Tease takes over the stage at Barrymore’s on Saturday night for the second edition of Back to the Grind.

Comedy: The Black Irish Pub hosts stand up comedians on Friday, while the Hintonburg Public House lets you tell your funnies with their open mic on Sunday.

Films, of the Latin American sort: The 17th annual film festival continues this weekend, with several award winning, thoughtful films you’ll not want to miss.

The Tango: Yes, it takes two. All levels welcome at this tango fiesta, for the lessons and the party.

Personal finance: Get prepared for when you don’t have to slog away at a day job.

Storytime: Mark reads from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, discusses the Mark Does Stuff empire, and reads terrible romance novels and fan fiction live at Raw Sugar Cafe on Saturday.

For those of you with very specific passions, particularly bands named after provincial capitals: Whitehorse is at the NAC this weekend, the joint project of Melissa McClelland and Luke Doucet.

And lastly: missed St Patty’s day fun? Make up for it with some authentic Irish music!

It’s a pretty great weekend music-wise. We’ve got Evening Hymns tonight at Mavericks, and then tomorrow, east coast music fans can stop and see Jenn Grant, while southern Ontarians can see some of their own with Cuff the Duke. David Usher is also in town, and Sienna Dahlen is releasing her new album at GigSpace. North Wind: Flying Down Thunder + Rise Ashen will be at Mercury Lounge, and the Atomic Rooster will host a few angry suburbanites. The Souljazz Orchestra is playing two shows across the river, not far afield from where Loon Choir and Inlet Sound will stop by the Black Sheep.

The Ottawa International Storytelling Festival starts tonight with the theme of Naked Narrative, and we’ve got two tickets to give away for their two shows on Saturday! Leave a comment below with your favourite read-aloud story by noon on Friday (Nov 16), and we’ll randomly choose a winner then.

In other story-related events, there’s The Night Circus (based on this book) happening down in Old Ottawa South, and Grounded is featuring funny stories with comedians on Friday night. The LGBT Film Festival continues all weekend long, too, and the Media Democracy Conference kicks off Friday night, featuring one of our own.

The Vintage Clothing Sale is this weekend, too – note that the location has changed! And if you’d rather see men wearing less, not more, clothing, this fundraiser is for you.

What else is on your list this weekend? Screen printing? A bit of kink? Sampling maple syrup? Let us know below!

Goldstein, now on tour promoting his latest book, I’ll Seize the Day Tomorrow, is most famous for his radio show WireTap, which airs on CBC Thursday nights and Sunday afternoons, for his work on the PRI radio show, This American Life and for a weekly column which he writes for the National Post. Wire Tap, if you’ve never heard it, is a prime example of post laugh-track comedy that reflects on the world while simultaneously poking fun at it. It wallows in the comedic and absurdist dilemma of existential angst: trying to make sense of a world which is essentially void of meaning and in which our destiny is death. While evident are glimpses of what one might call “seriousness,” said moments are deeply entrenched in a jovial self-mockery which might, as Goldstein reflects on his style of humour, “get at a greater truth.”

A recent episode titled “The World Upside Down” features Gregor (a reoccurring character) berating Goldstein for being one of the last to congratulate him on the birth of his son, an eloquent, existential monologue on the purity of the unborn, and a conversation with a one Laura Kraft, whose uncontrollable eye-rolling leads to her eye-balls physically flipping 180, causing her vision to appear upside-down. It’s a rollicking ride—half an hour very well spent.

Goldstein, looking just a tad squeamish at the podium, says, “Thank you. Thank you,” while the audience splashes him with a hearty round of applause. He begins reading the first of three stories which he’ll share from I’ll Seize the Day Tomorrow. A large projection in the centre of the stage shows cartoon images by Arthur Jones which brilliantly accompany the story Goldstein tells of his family coming together to celebrate the birth of his niece. The audience roars with laughter at the reading, howls at the drawings. The piece both makes fun of and celebrates the particular lunacy of his family as seen through his eyes–a theme which runs through the entirety of the book.

The audience loves the stories that he reads, and though I’ll surely be mocked for my gushy and mushy insinuations, there’s an air of warmth in the room, something almost religious about the experience that has nothing to do with the fact we’re in a house of God and everything to do with the simple fact that shared laughter is a wonderful thing.

I note, as I sit on my wooden chair among the others in the space, that the laughter, which does in fact rise in swells that accompany the cadence of the words and the patterns of the story, is also quite personal. A huge and grizzly guffaw screams out from the back. A wild, airy giggle flits through the air long after a joke has passed and the topic has changed. In short, good humour opens spaces for all kinds of perspectives and interpretations. Everyone is laughing together, yet in their own way, and at their own time. There is not one singular joke to get. No one is being instructed as to which thing is meant to be funny or ironic.  David Foster Wallace, who in a 1990 essay titled “E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction” noted the suffocating and futile irony prevalent on television, might have been pleased at the fact that a greater spectrum of comedy and irony now wanders around our media saturated world.  It takes a certain kind of humourist – not to be confused with a stand-up comedian (Goldstein makes this clear and would consider the act “terrifying”) – to pull this off.

Speckled through the self-deprecating stories are philosophical insights—sound cultural reflections. And while it’s possible to critique Goldstein for somehow exploiting his family for laughs (this question is asked), the topic illuminates a sensitive and genuine side to his character. The goal of his work is not the humiliation of others. “I’d feel terrible if that happened,” he says. He goes on to tell the audience how nervous he was that his sister might be offended at the story which he’d just previously shared with the audience. Goldstein’s humour, ultimately, is celebratory of the pain that life causes us, the conflicting tangle of emotions we feel in any given situation, and that these events which cause hurt and confusion can in fact be commemorated with a good dose of laughter. In short, it celebrates the complexity of being human, helps make the at-times unbearable, bearable.

His effort to be “live” at this event is case in point.

Like Goldstein, comedians like Louis CK, Tig Notaro, Marc Maron (to name just a few) work in a similar strain, taking comedy to places where we can laugh in a somehow more deeply cathartic way, transgressing the dangerous and banal rehashing of trite stereotypes or empty schadenfraude.

While Jonathan reflects on his hopes to continue progressing Wire Tap into new territory – the latest episode was a conscious effort to be “scary” – I, like many in the sold-out venue, will be listening along. But, for now, we’ll read, as I did last night.

Page 69 from I’ll Seize the Day Tomorrow:

I don’t think my grandfather even knew how to use a fast-food drive-through speaker,’ I say. ‘I was once with him when he tried to order at Wendy’s. He started yelling for boiled eggs in all directions. Didn’t even bother to roll down the car windows.’

Our grandfathers could have no more predicted this world than we can predict the world of our grandchildren.

You can find the full schedule of plays online here. Happy Fringing!

In a bit of a retro mood? You’re in luck – Pressed Cafe has teamed up with a few Apt613 editors to bring you Saturday morning cartoons. Revel in the mellow days of yore when all you had to do was get up, eat breakfast, and settle in front of the telly, before all of these grownup chores took over. Although being older does have its merits – it means you can head over to Dom Polski and buy cool vintage items for your wicked apartment at the Idle Hands Craft and Vintage Sale.

If you’d rather play outside, head up to the Hill to help break the largest boot camp ever world record. Sure, you might sweat a bit, but your name could go down in history! Channel that energy into dancing at the Kitchen Party down at the Rochester Pub Friday night. At SAW Gallery on Friday, you can meet the photographers who have taken the images for CIPHERS, their latest exhibit, and can stick around for extra dancing and crafting with Spins and Needles later that night.

To check out new and emerging local film talent, head to JumpstART’s screenings of works from the latest participants in their video mentorship program. Local musical talent can be found down at the Elmdale Tavern, with a triple bill of Ottawa’s finest. Ottawa’s own Marc Adornato manages to be in three places at once (perhaps he’s a time traveler in addition to being an artist?) with his new show that launches this Friday night.

For a bit of an intimate music scene, Faraway Neighbours will be playing a house show tonight. PS I Love You will be dropping in from nearby Kingston on Friday, along with Army Girls. The Digmobile will be parking at the Mercury Lounge, while music and poetry lovers can get their fill with Ian Keteku, Moe Clark, and Brandon Wint. And Ottawa Explosion is kick starting their festival (the music portion of which starts Wednesday) with a bit of funny-bone tickling at Ottawa Comedy Explosion this Saturday night. For you country lovers, Lucky Ron is hosting his annual hoedown out at the Black Sheep all day Sunday. The Sheep also has Sunparlour Players and Matt Barber rounding out their weekend headliners.

What else is missing from this list that must be seen, heard or experienced this weekend, Ottawa?

Mavericks is hosting a night of local and American punk tonight, with Pianos Become the Teeth, Constraints, Sparrows and more. On the other end of the spectrum, the Owl Eyes Project and Dynamite Motel will be at the Elmdale, and it’s the First Annual Woodsmoke Bluegrass Jamboree.   Down at the Bronson Centre Friday night, Young the Giant and Walk the Moon will be putting on a rockin’ show, and down at Zaphod’s The Sonic Defense returns after a bit of a hiatus. Bluestone releases their new album on Saturday, while Little City with James Blackburn and Faraway Neighbours will be at the Avante Garde Bar. It’s Stars on Vinyl night at Raw Sugar, too, and The Mighty Popo will be out at the Black Sheep. Zaphod fans? Get yourself psyched for a week-long celebration of their 20th anniversary – it all starts Sunday with a Dog Days Afternoon.

If you’re missing shorts weather (and goodness knows this weather has us wishing for spring), you’ve got a few options: first, it’s Seedy Saturday, so you can start dreaming about your garden’s delicious crop. It’s also the launch of Lend Your Leg, a fundraiser by Mines Action Canada that involves rolling up your pant leg in solidarity with landmine victims. Already planning your summer outfits? Fill up your wardrobe with a few snazzy tshirts – we’ll be down at Urban Craft selling ours all day Saturday.

In art news, tomorrow at Fall Down Gallery catch the Prints & Inks Silkscreening Show – our friends at Spins and Needles will be on hand to help you try your hand at silkscreening, and there will be new prints from a wide range of local artists. I have Issues starts tonight, and it’s also First Thursdays Art Walk – brave that snow and head to Fritzi Gallery for a professional tour to kick off your West Wellington adventure. Down at Shanghai on Friday, it’s the vernissage of Daniel Martelock’s latest show. The Diverciné Film Festival starts tonight, bringing a variety of French film to the city for the next ten days.

Poetry lovers will likely already be attuned to VerseFest‘s goings on – their line up of poets and slam artists will bring in fans of all ages. Sure, you’ve already missed hearing Dennis Lee, but you can head out for the first-ever international Poetry Summit Sunday night.

What else is happening, Ottawans?

Since the audience was mainly made up of parents, teachers, and class peers, there was an improv culture that any newbies in the house had to be privy to, such as counting down with hand gestures, jazz hands, and shouting out skit suggestions loudly. Each shout was met with a smile or burst of laughter from the teen actors who all donned matching t-shirts (or even matching pajama bottoms) while attempting to develop skits of humour or tragedy within four minutes.
It was surprising to see the caliber of their performances in the musical component, where a team had to mime Buster-Keaton style to a chosen live-music genre. A standout was ‘Thriller in a museum’ performed by a young violinist from Lisgar who had perfected the Psycho-soundtrack.

Having been part of a team way back in high school myself, the hours of method training and creative exercises were obvious as All Saints High School’s team expertly demonstrated in their manner of jumping between ideas yet keeping them connected. Their assigned theme of “old and new” was hilarious to watch and they had used a “channel-changing” method where new ideas were presented for about 10 seconds until “flipped” to the next. No coaches or teachers were onstage, so the teams’ approach styles were truly chosen independently.

The show sort of lagged during the serious “life event” theme, though you could have heard a pin drop when Carine Wilson’s skit of “not-getting-your-driver’s-license,” because of the emotional intense mood it built. The light-hearted sketches were definitely a crowd-favourite.
Kudos to all of the teams in working together to create background objects like two-people snakes on a ‘lost island’ or team members becoming an elevator. The energy and total commitment to these scenes was very admirable and to anyone who has struggled to think on their feet, the clever wit of these teens would put you to shame. The close-knit team dynamic from each group has come from hours of exercise practice after school.

One note: this was a very family-friendly event so to anyone who enjoys stand-up comedy or traditional improv a la Second City or Groundlings-style, it was very wholesome. No jokes of a sexual nature, no cursing and only one fart joke marked the evening. The teams were very supportive of one another high-fiving everyone after each sketch.

Overall, All Saints took the night with 1128 points, beating runner-up Canterbury by almost 40 points. The two schools, along with third-place Lisgar, will go on to the Canadian finals in April, which is also taking place at the NAC. Find out more at www.improv.ca.

Well, Ottawa, we’ve almost made it through to March. And there’s plenty going on to help celebrate those babysteps we’re taking towards spring…

If the warm weather this week wasn’t enough to dispel those Suckuary vibes, Doldrums Winter Music Festival is for you. Raw Sugar, Cafe Dekcuf and the Rainbow have teamed up to bring you a songwriters’ circle featuring some of Ottawa’s best acoustic acts, shows with New Teeth and Ornaments, and a Sunday evening variety show with everything from psychobilly to gypsy jazz. If you need a little bit of New Orleans in your life after Mardi Gras this week, Drumhand will be at Mercury Lounge as part of the UP & UP concert series tonight. You can also catch The Creepshow‘s punk stylings at Mavericks, while east coast rocker Mark Bragg will take the stage at Zaphod’s. If you missed The Wooden Sky at FolkFest last summer, now’s your chance – you’ll also get a sneak peak at the songs soon to be released on their new album. Poor Young Things will be at Zaphod’s Friday night – or you can be part of a live recording with Johnny Mac and Heather down at Irene’s. Saturday? Get out and celebrate Johnny Cash’s birthday at the Elmdale, or if you’d rather talk tunes, head over to  Carleton for a symposium on social justice and music. Emma-Lee and Harlan Pepper will grace the stage at the Black Sheep Inn that night, channeling a little old school folk rock and alt-country.

The Wakefield International Film Festival continues, with a screening of Putin’s Kiss. Film buffs will also be very aware that this is Oscar weekend – and the Mayfair is once again rolling out the red carpet for Ottawans to watch the awards in style. There will be another big bash this weekend too – this one will put the ART in party, with Lemonjellow hosting.

We’ve got a wide variety of spoken word events over the next few days. The Canadian Improv Games have already kicked off, and last all weekend, and the 4C’s Showcase features Brandon Wint and Amelia Leclair. The Vagina Monologues will take place over at the Bronson Centre Friday and Saturday, while Friday night’s Once Upon a Slam will have Alan Shain front and centre. Sense-Say, the 2011 champion, will stop by Capital Slam Saturday night.

What else have you got going on, Ottawa?

Kelp Records is all about that this weekend, with their annual Winter Warmer down at the Dom Polski. They’ll have beer, they’ll have food, they’ll have music. What more can you ask for? Dancing? That’ll likely happen, although it’s guaranteed down at Timekode. If a key ingredient of your weekend is crafts, Spins and Needles’ February Monster Party is for you. Before all that, though, tonight The Queers and The Ataris will be down at Mavericks. Friday, Good2Go will be at the Atomic Rooster, while Matt Ouimet and Andrea Simms-Karp will take the stage at Irene’s. The Winter Warmer has a bunch of competition for your attention on Saturday, with The Peptides playing their poppy tunes, hardcore band Hunter City Madness is having their farewell show, Amos the Transparent launches a new cd at Ritual, motown geniuses The Hornettes are having an anti-Valentine’s day bash, and Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra brings their experimental sound out that night. Oh yeah – we’re throwing a little party on Saturday, too. Nat Baldwin of the Dirty Projectors wraps things up Sunday at Raw Sugar, where the coffee has been proven to thaw Ottawans out.

There are other ways to keep warm, though, besides bopping about to catchy tunes. Like mixing vodka and art in a classy cocktail combination that’s sure to make your walk home toasty. Cozying up at the movies is another good option – and you’ve got your pick of Pipe Dreams (an environmental film), Zombie Night in Canada (no hockey there), and three award-winning Turkish films: Yol, Umut and Zavallilar.

Fall Down Gallery shows off the winners from #MiOttawa, an Instagram photography exhibit – they’re also guaranteeing good fish and music at the opening. Preturnatural’s Kinesthesia wraps up at St Brigid’s this weekend, with the artist stopping by to explain her work on Friday night. The A B Series continues, with music/poetry ensemble GEODE performing some of their creative pieces. A few laughs always works to warm up a cold crowd, so Cracking up the Capital should be a hot spot Saturday night.

What else is going on? Skateboarders are out to prove their intelligence with a book exchange, and Ottawa Fashion Week wraps up with an after party at Babylon. The undercurrents theatre festival has its last few shows this weekend – check out Ryan Saxby’s interview with Patrick Gauthier of undercurrents below.

Anything else happening, Ottawa?

Photo courtesy of allthecolors from the Apt613 flickr group

The kids are all going wild for Shit Girls Say, the latest meme to start replicating itself across the net. Yesterday the popular series of YouTube videos spawned yet another iteration, this time on twitter. The #ShitOttawansSay hashtag hit the Ottawa twitterverse a big way, launching what was probably the largest inside joke sharing fest the city has ever seen.

Open File has collected and organized many of the tweets, which you can see here, but we couldn’t resist sharing some of our favourite ones here on the site. The following are Apartment613′s picks for the best of #ShitOttawansSay.

]]> http://apt613.ca/the-best-of-shitottawanssay/feed/ 2