Two Ideas

How's this for an idea: Just as folk festivals have main stages (concerts by single acts) and workshop stages (gatherings of groups of banjo players, say, from several main stage acts), why not try something similar at literary festivals. In addition to their regular readings, three or four poets, for instance, would appear onstage together, talking about poetry matters. The degree of exchange would vary, as it does at folk festivals, from a succession of individual presentations to all sorts of instant collaborations, harmonies, accompaniments.

Here's another one: I've been spending afternoons in the City of Regina Archives, looking through all kinds of stuff relating to the development of the Hillsdale subdivision of south Regina 50 or so years ago. "Are you finding what you want?" the Archivist asked me yesterday. "Don't know what I want, for sure," I told her, "but I'm finding lots that's interesting." Thinking of that conversation this morning as I rode home from the grocery store, I thought it might be fun to pick five addresses in south Regina, and do some kind of longitudinal study of their inhabitants. Track down the people, track down the stories.