Local Arts

'Tis the season for all book publishers to inundate the reading public with new titles, especially books that will make great gifts.

The 2005/06 Coast Recital Society (CRS) season gets underway Sunday, Oct. 16, with a concert by one of classical music's top string quartets.

Sechelt artist Jane Ford arrived in war torn Bosnia, part of the former Yugoslavia, at Easter this year. The border crossing guard glanced at her passport wearily without meeting her eyes, apparently tired of having yet more foreigners arrive.

Two hundred hand blown glass bottles will soon be bobbing in the waters off Barkley Sound catching the Pacific currents to Alaska or even Japan.

Alan Bennett's award-winning series of solo pieces, Talking Heads, introduces us to a varied bunch of appealing characters. Last year, Driftwood Players presented two of these pieces, Bed Among the Lentils and A Cream Cracker Under the Settee.

The joke in the woodworking community, attributed to woodturner Gary Kelly, runs like this: you can always recognize a true lignophile or wood-lover.

Music industry consultant Graham Way of Tandem Music Group hasn't lived on the Coast very long, but he's already amazed by the great musical energy here.

There are not too many events at which a music fan can enjoy, for example, three different bass players performing, all in one day, each with their own style. Except, of course, at the Pender Harbour Jazz Festival, now in its ninth year.

When I told a jazz fan I wanted to see pianist Doc Fingers at the Garden Bay Pub during the Pender Harbour Jazz Festival, he gave me a tip: "Go Sunday night for the wrap up," he whispered. "That's when he jams with other musicians. It's a real party.

Two Canadian Plays, Eh? opened at the Heritage Playhouse in Gibsons a week ago to less than a full house.