it’s for the girls who cut their hair, and the ladies who refuse to shave
it’s for everyone who has ever been brave
it’s for the time you didn’t behave

it’s for those who remain hopeful when hope seems lost
it’s for my first year women studies prof
hell, all my patient first year professors, my true hearts,
my midnight confessors, for all the dressers
I’ve ever found at the curbside
and all the things that have saved my backside

it’s for the Michigan Womyn’s Festival founding foremothers
my tranny sisters and brothers
the straight-but-not-narrow
all my ex-lovers
the crunchy granola hippies who dance
aviators, horse back riders, gals who wore pants
before pants were something a proper lady should wear
it’s for the bleeding hearts, and the ones who care
and the ones that march and the ones that fight
the people who bother to write
a letter to the editor, who stand up to their managers
the union organizers, the city counsellors
it’s for everyone that dares and everyone that speaks
for those who listen, for those who can’t sleep
and those who can’t rest
for those who are trying their best
for the freaks and the punks, the misfits and the nerds
for everyone who ever contributed words
and meanings
to the Oxford English Dictionary
for those who know they will never marry
for the rebels and the genderqueers and polyamorous
for my grade 11 boyfriend who drove a VW bus
for the outlaws, and the in-laws who got over their misgivings
and attended their first same sex wedding
for everything with wings

it’s for the radical thinkers and the babies in incubators
for second-chancers, and the morris dancers
for those whom, given the choice, always chose “other”
it’s for Stephen Lewis and all the grandmothers
for the fearful who took to the streets anyway
for the artists who keep going even though it might never pay
for those who light the way
for those who made it through another day without a drink
for all those who think
for anyone who chooses to get things done
for the catholic priests who are handing out condoms
for the improvisers, and the bathhouse raid committee organizers
and the war tax resisters and the brave fighters
for those who go to serve in anyway they can
for the ones who were shot down and for those ran
for those who defied their orders, for the doctors without borders
the single mothers, the sperm donors and the Henry Morgentalers
the crisis phone line callers
for those who refuse to give up and refuse to give in
who won’t shut up
who know it’s not about whether you win
or you lose
but about the scope of your dream and your right to chose
an opinion and your right to change your mind
for those who are kind
it’s for those who hold fast
and for those who are outcast
or downcast, for those who can’t move very fast
for the flags at half mast
for the tired organizers and the ones who outlast
and all those who have already past
this one is for you

this one is for you

this one is for you

to

wield.

Stephen Harper is back in his seat, the election proves only that we need a better system for accurately representing the real opinions of the people.  Next up:  what will happen south of the border?

I am doing a lot of writing, working on the bicycle show, which has its next performance next weekend in Ottawa at the Storytelling Festival.  Reading and researching and writing like a mad woman.   I bought a crazy new guitar.  It hasn’t been initiated to the stage yet, but it will soon, since i’m having a mad love affair with it and have to show it to the world soon.   But now is the season of drinking tea and cooking new creative things in my home.

Had a predictably sleepless and music-filled weekend at the annual OCFF conference, great fun and so many new discoveries of wonderful music. Penguin Eggs has published my poem, “This One is For”, in their fall issue. Played a beautiful show at the Church of the Holy Trinity a couple weeks ago, the most wonderful acoustics of anywhere I’ve ever played.  That’s where the Cowboy Junkies recorded that first album - and no wonder.  I will organize another show here before long.

Off to keep writing things about bicycles, and drink a cup of coffee to ward off the increasingly skimpy temperatures.

The blood transfusion gave him enough renewed energy to have a last visit with us in the morning, which we’re so grateful for. He didn’t appear to be in pain, just exhausted and weak, and so happy to be with us. An amazing gift to get to be with him right to the end.

I feel like this little ball of fur taught me such an incredible amount about love, in such a profound and simple and direct way. I’ve never been attached to a pet in the way i was to Amos, though there have been others animals in my life over the years. Amos was the first dog that Suzie and I had together, and he became a part of our family from the first moment we brought him home. He had such a special spirit. I never really knew it was possible to love a little creature so much. He made my heart bigger.

We adopted him when he was five years old, from this great organization called Pugalug. We had the amazing experience of watching him come into his own as only a rescued dog can: over the two years we had him, he transformed from being a pretty timid and submissive little pug to being confident and playful and friendly to strangers and other dogs. He loved little kids, and kids loved him. Especially our nephew Kai.

Amos made us laugh all the time: the little dance he would do before meals, working himself into a frenzy of excitement for food; his weird sneezes and noises and snorts, especially the “snort of love” that he would give when you’d rub his chest in a certain place. The sighs of satisfaction, the way he like to rest his chin on something when he slept….I could probably write all day about all his little Amos-ness. He was a lot of dog, a lot of love and a lot of personality wrapped up in a small package.

Good bye Amos, our little friend, truly and deeply missed.

Given the choices of who else to vote for, and strategic voting, etc, it’s not easy to make a decision about how to make your vote count.   Here’s a little link i found interesting, if you are thinking environmental issues:  www.voteforenvironment.ca

I feel lucky to live in a riding with a truly amazing MP, Peggy Nash, who i want to see stay in office. Go Peggy!

Speaking of Peggy’s, here’s a link to a good article about Harper and his position on the arts (that artists are a bunch of fancy - elite-party-going-wine-sipping whiners) by Margaret Atwood.

And here, Toronto friends and colleagues who run a political theatre event The Wrecking Ball, have posted some really inspired writing by Wajdi Mouawad, head of the French NAC.  Also scroll right down to see his incredible “Open Letter to Prime Minister Harper”.

See you at the polls…

Also known as “Two Wheeled Words”,  this show is still a work in progress, but it’s starting to take shape.  Brad Hart plays the bicycle and other percussion, Dave Celia on guitar and “pedals”, and me on the mic with a spoken word / song “cycle”:   a series of pieces that riff on bicycling, cycles and “spin”:  as in advertising and consumerising and how gender and fashion and resistance and bike thieves and the first woman to cycle around the world in 1894 all fit together…

On Saturday Sept 20, I performed excerpts from it, as part of the amazing Bicycle Powered Dance Party with Mr. Something Something, at the Evergreen Brickworks Sustainablity Fair.   It was awesome:  we had 10 bike generators set up, and people peddled to power the sound system, and it worked like a dream.

I gave the material a second spin on Wednesday, Sept 24, in Toronto at the Tranzac Club, as part of the Girls with Glasses series of Wednesday’s-in-September variety shows we hosted.

Next up:  The Ottawa Storytelling Festival, on November 8th at 4 pm at the National Library.

After that, I will spending some more time developing the piece as part of the Buddies in Bad Times Theatre playwrights unit;  the show will definitely get a spin at several music festivals this summer, and hopefully have a proper run at Buddies next year.     Stay tuned!   If you’re interested in knowing more about it, or having this show come to your town or event…send an email to bookings@evalynparry.com

thanks to the Ontario Arts Council Word of Mouth Program, and the Toronto Arts Council Music section for their financial assistance in helping me develop this project

This week, on Augst 7, the SummerWorks Festival opens in Toronto — a festival of independent theatre and music which i have been involved in over the years (it’s where Clean Irene & Dirty Maxine premiered, and won the jury prize — so of course i have sweet associations..). This year, i am taking part in the festival with three different things, all of which i am pretty stoked about:

Number one! The festival is doing a music series this year for the first time, so on August 15th, I am playing (with band) as the opening act for Rock Plaza Central.

Number two! I am directing a show by my friend Morgan Jones Phillips, called The Emergency Monologues. It is all about his experience working as a paramedic in Toronto for the last 5 years — and his stories are AMAZING. you will pee your pants laughing, and be horrified and amused and amazed.

Number three! I am acting in The Pastor Phelps Project: a fundamentalist cabaret. Speaking of horrified, amused and amazed….I play Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of Pastor Fred Phelps, and a leader of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas: the hate-mongering, homophobic church who picket AIDS funerals and dead soldiers funerals…who will apparently be in attendance at the opening of the show this Thursday, picketing at our production (!) en route to Alberta where they’ll be picketing at a production of the Laramie Project. See their press release: 20080801_pastor-phelps-project-toronto

Check out the media frenzy that has happened since we discovered the Westboro Baptist’s intention to picket the show:  The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, CityTV, Global TV all covered it…and then they didn’t show (The Toronto Sun reports).

Come check out the live action: the show takes place in the back room of The Cameron House, August 7-17 www.summerworks.ca