Watch This: Still Standing in Small Town Canada

3 people laughing in a barn loft with dried plants hanging above them — Rogersville, New Brunswick.

“When you grow up in a small town in Newfoundland, you see that people have a sense of humor about hard times. I turned that into a career and hit the road.”

That bit of narration begins, and perfectly encapsulates, the premise of the CBC TV series Still Standing. It’s kind of a mix of travel show, stand-up comedy special, and small town documentary.

Think Corner Gas meets Rick Steves, and you’ll be on the right track.

Brick storefronts in a small town. — Maple Creek, Saskatchewan.

“Now I’m on a mission to find the funny in the places you least expect it – Canada’s struggling small towns. Towns that are against the ropes, but still hanging in there, still laughing in the face of adversity.”

Continue reading “Watch This: Still Standing in Small Town Canada”

August 14, 2019October 7, 2019

Shahrazad and the Power of Stories

I’ve been thinking about Shahrazad the storyteller.

In the frame story of The Thousand and One Nights, a sultan has been forcing a new person to marry him every night and killing her in the morning. To stop the deadly cycle, Shahrazad (also spelled “Scheherazade”) volunteers to be his next bride.

That night, she begins weaving a tale so compelling that the sultan decides to wait on killing her in order to hear the rest. Night after night, she keeps telling stories. Wild, fantastic stories. Stories within stories. Stories with plot twists and cliffhanger endings. Stories that keep the sultan on the edge of his seat for so long that he never does get around to killing her.

She saved herself through her stories. With only her words and her wit, she also saved the rest of the kingdom in the process.

Of all the characters between the pages of The Thousand and One Nights, the actual hero is Shahrazad.

September 24, 2018September 24, 2018

Wonder

“Travel and magic both have the ability to deliver this cataclysmic death blow to any sense of certainty that you have.”

-Nate Staniforth

One of the best kept secrets about adulthood is that adults don’t have all the answers.

We’re just better at faking it, as if imagination and curiosity were beneath us. As if childlike wonder was only for children.

But it’s good for all of us to remember our actual place on this vast and baffling planet, to sit back to appreciate the beauty of everyday magic, to marvel at what we can’t explain.

I loved how the thread of wonder ran through a recent episode of the podcast You Made It Weird.

In their 2-hour-plus conversation, comedian/host Pete Holmes and his guest, magician Nate Staniforth, talked about the things that challenge your assumptions about reality – like traveling or having children or seeing a really good magic trick.

You can close yourself off, or you can open your arms to the mystery and be amazed at what unfolds.

A final thought from Nate Staniforth:

“Wonder is such a slippery, ephemeral experience. You can’t bottle it up and keep it. And if you could, it wouldn’t be wonder. So the idea is not to find it once and then say ‘I’ve got it,’ but it’s to keep looking for it.”

PodRec!

A podcast episode recommendation for you – hopefully, the first of many!

You Made It Weird
August 15, 2018
guest: Nate Staniforth