An ant found crawling in my linen drawer is enough to remind me how not cool I am with sharing space with certain other creatures on the planet who have as much right to be here as I do. In theory, I believe there are far too many of us humans on the planet and we should be doing our best, as the most “advanced” species, to look after the others and not just take over their space willy-nilly, as we have been for aeons. Then there’s the reality that I’ve been a city girl all my life and deep...
The Sedentarian’s Dilemma
July 1, 2019June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
What do you do when the activities you enjoy the most involve sitting in a chair? I’ve talked about this before on my blog, about how hard I find it to keep up an exercise routine. I’ve attempted various types that never lasted. My longest success was probably yoga and even that was interrupted by a five-year gap in the middle and has now been shelved again for the last five years or so. My current “exercise routine” involves going to Groove class once a week (twice if my schedule permits), which is a lot of fun, but is not...
Ravelry: A hotbed of Craftivism*
June 30, 2019June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
Recently Ravelry put their foot down about members using their platform to spread hate speech and support white supremacy, in the form of Donald Trump and his administration. From now on nobody is allowed to express their support of DJT or white supremacy. As their New Policy statement says: “We cannot provide a space that is inclusive of all and also allow suppport for open white supremacy. Support of the Trump administration is undeniably support for white supremacy.” It came as a surprise to me, since I am not a member of many forums or groups on Ravelry so I...
Perspective (Part 3 about Aging)
June 6, 2019June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
The old adage goes, “Youth is wasted on the young.” (I thought it was Oscar Wilde, but after a tiny bit of googling I found out it was more likely George Bernard Shaw, which you can read about here.) I’ve always loved that quote and admired the wit behind it. It evokes so much in a few words, and it says a lot about perspective. That quote reminds me that the condition of being young, which most of society reveres and some older people talk about with nostalgia, goes largely unappreciated by everyone while going through it. Are young people...
Aging ain’t all bad
May 12, 2019June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
I thought I’d do a short series on aging since it’s on my mind lately. There are obvious downsides to it (check my previous post here), but there are many upsides and I thought I’d do a couple of posts focusing on those. Most of us know the downsides, but if I remember being young correctly, the positives weren’t as obvious. Maybe if we have a frank discussion about it, the young folks won’t be quite as fearful of the aging process. The first positive aspect of being, let’s say, older than fifty, is that the things that mattered so...
Upping my Blogging game, and some thoughts about aging
May 9, 2019June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
I’m a complete amateur when it comes to web design, I admit it. However, I’m trying to make my website better and it seems that everything I try is met with resistance. All I get is the circle of death. The problem is I’m such a know-nothing that I don’t even know where to start to figure out why things don’t work. Am I doing something wrong? Is it a compatibility issue? Is it a problem with the plugin? Who knows? Not me! Don’t even know how to frame the questions. Anyway, I assure you that I want my website...
A cold spring day’s thoughts
April 29, 2019June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
Section I, about the news With a title like that, I’m sure you won’t be surprised to hear that I’m not feeling super today. I’m getting sick of cold, rainy spring days, and the sunshine this morning only made the return of the clouds that much more painful and unwelcome. The fact that my house is not under six feet of water is certainly a bonus, but I feel guilty thinking of those who are going through the horror of losing their belongings to flooding right now all over the province. Beyond the local trials people are enduring, the ones...
Where I answer some comments
April 28, 2019June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
Despite not wanting to give my detractors much credibility, I’m tempted to answer a couple of the comments made after my original post about sexism in Vienna. I’m not going back to read them, because, ugh, but a few of them have stuck in my mind, so I thought I’d talk through them and hopefully shoot them full of holes. One person commented, and I’m paraphrasing, “Well, despite the (so-called) sexism of the Vienna Philharmonic’s policies, they’re still a great institution, and they still give wonderful concerts so it hasn’t hurt them, and by and large the public doesn’t care.”...
Welcome to The Vomitorium
April 13, 2019June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
That is, the internet. My friend wrote those words to me (with slightly different punctuation) after my last blog post which you can read here, if you didn’t catch it. It went viral… or the equivalent of viral in my tiny corner of the blogging world. I was surprised by both the positive and negative attention it got. It gave me a taste of what really popular bloggers get on a daily basis, to say nothing of what serious activists must face! It was a post about what I saw as inequality and sexism in the Vienna music scene, and...
Musings on sexism in the music scene of Vienna
March 29, 2019June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
Recently, I was on tour with the OSM (L’orchestre symphonique de Montréal) and we had a few days in Vienna. Vienna is a beautiful city with scads of musical and other cultural activities available any day of the week. I didn’t plan anything in advance, and I was not all that drawn to the idea of going to hear the Vienna Philharmonic, though it is one of the most iconic orchestras in the world. However, it did occur to me (and I suggested it to my husband, Dave, who liked the idea) that if we could take in some chamber...