Month: February 2012

La Vida Rock Gym update

The results are in, and we’re happy to announce that we will be hosting a special two-hour open gym time for families during the week of February vacation!

When: Tuesday through Friday, Feb. 21-24, 11:30am-1:30pm

Where: The La Vida Rock Gym at Gordon College (255 Grapevine Road, Wenham)

What: Open climbing time, we’ll have a few staff to help belay and lead games & activities

Who: Everyone! We don’t have any age limits, but we recommend ages 6 to adult

Cost: Regular open gym rates – $10/day pass (valid for regular evening hours too). Or purchase a 20-visit family membership for just $95! Discounts for affiliates of Gordon College and Gordon-Conwell.

Mention Good Morning Gloucester and get $2 off your day pass!

Parents and students 14 and older can also sign up to take a belay class this week: Monday, Feb. 13, 8-10pm or Saturday Feb. 18, 4-6pm. Cost is $10, sign up at rockgym@gordon.edu.

Check out our website for more info about our programs: www.gordon.edu/rockgym

FORUM TO ADDRESS AFTERMATH OF AFGHAN WAR
How U.S. pullback will affect Pakistan & South Asia

Hi Joey,
I hope you’re well and that 2012 is off to an excellent start.
The next Cape Ann Forum is upon us, and we appreciate your coverage of forum events in goodmorninggloucester very much.  On Sunday, February 26 at 7:00 p.m. Professor Zia Mian of Princeton will continue our focus on Pakistan.  Professor Mian was originally scheduled to speak in December but had to travel to Pakistan on short notice; we are so pleased he was able to reschedule his talk so promptly.

Please note the new location for the forum, at the Unitarian-Universalist Church at the corner of Church and Middle Streets, Gloucester.  As always, the forum is free and open to the public.

The Cape Ann Forum will host Princeton-based peace and security expert Zia Mian on the topic "After Afghanistan: The United States, Pakistan & the imperiled future of South Asia” on Sunday, Feb. 26 at 7 p.m. at the Unitarian-Universalist Church at the corner of Church and Middle Streets, Gloucester. The event is free and open to the public.

Since 9/11 the United States has focused heavily on Pakistan’s critical role in the war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas, investing billions of dollars in the effort with decidedly mixed results. The U.S. pullback from Afghanistan has already begun, with as many as 30,000 troops to be out by September and with Afghan forces slated to take over much of the fighting in 2013—a timetable that has sparked criticism from Republican presidential candidates and promises to be an issue throughout the coming presidential campaign.

Among the questions Mian will address are: What will the end of the American presence in Afghanistan mean for Pakistan? Can it overcome the many crises it faces, from an Islamist insurgency to a runaway nuclear rivalry with India? And how will its future be shaped by the emerging great-power contest between the United States and China?

The director of the Project on Peace and Security in South Asia at Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security, Mian teaches at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. His research interests include security policy in South Asia with a focus on nuclear weapons and nuclear energy issues.

Mian, a physicist, is the editor and co-editor of several books, most recently Bridging Partition: Peoples Initiatives for Peace Between India and Pakistan (2010). Previous books include Between Past and Future: Selected Essays on South Asia by Eqbal Ahmad (2004) and Out of The Nuclear Shadow (2001). He has also worked on the documentary films “Crossing the Lines: Kashmir, Pakistan, India” and “Pakistan and India under the Nuclear Shadow,” and he serves on the board of the Eqbal Ahmad Foundation.
Professor Mian was scheduled to speak in December but had to postpone his talk to travel to Pakistan. His presentation will draw on his impressions from that trip, as well as his extensive scholarship. Meanwhile, the venue for the program was changed from City Hall to the church due to problems with the sound system, according to Forum organizers.

The Cape Ann Forum was organized shortly after the 9/11 attacks to increase public understanding of international issues. The all-volunteer organization has sponsored 66 forums since then.

Future forums will feature Woman’s World founder Meredith Tax on “Challenging global fundamentalism: Building a secular, feminist alternative” (March 18) and Harvard international relations expert Steven Walt on “The Twilight of the American Era” (May 13).

For more information, go to the Forum’s Web site at www.capeannforum.org.

The Cape Ann Shakespeare Troupe is presenting the premier of the new four hundred year old comedy, "Closets", by Nat Segaloff and inspired by Ben Jonson’s 1606 satirical comedy, "Volpone". "Closets" is set in the present day gay community of West Hollywood , with the protagonist, Julian, feigning impending death, but unlike Volpone (the fox), not to get expensive gifts from his friends with the promise to be named sole heir, but to test their loyalty. Vying for Julian’s favor are his ex-wife, Sharon, his ex-lover, Brendan, and the straight friend who got away, his college roomate, Charles. Add to the mix, Calvin, a gay escort hired to be Julian’s valet, Paolo, Brendan’s butch new toy boy, and Adam, Charles’ son  who’s not sure which side of the closet he’s on, shake well and serve up a laugh cocktail.

"Closets" directed by Joseph Stiliano will be performed March 8, 9, 10, 16, & 17 at 8 PM, March 11 & 18 at 3 PM at the Gorton Theatre (home of the Gloucester Stage Company) 267 East Main Street. Tickets are $15, general admission; $10, student; $5, 18 and under are available at the door or reserved at cast2008@prodigy.net . Parental discretion is advised. More information available at capeannshakespearetroupe.blogspot.com or Facebook.

Since I haven’t  been getting out much now that I am in the throes of a mad creative period which I don’t want to interrupt, I thought I’d share another new piece.  Whenever I go through a creative quantum leap, I always end up leaving this planet for a bit.  This is from my most recent sojourn into the outer realms.  In addition to being a wall art piece, it also serves as a little display shelf for small collectibles (pretty rocks, shells, pieces of meteors, etc.).  This is one of a whole collection of three dimensional pieces where I get to be a designer and constructor of displays as well as a painter.  I am so loving it.  There has to be something in the water here because I am not smoking anything funny – honestly.

E.J. Lefavour

www.khanstudiointernational.com

with Anu Garg

Apollonian

(ap-uh-LOH-nee-uhn)

I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone. -Edith Cavell, nurse and humanitarian (1865-1915)

Hi Joey, 

My girlfriend (laura) and I just visited Gloucester and some of Cape Ann for the first of I hope many times. Its just an amazing and new landscape for both of us to experience, having just relocated here from Nashville we are in awe of Cape Anns beauty. Laura is a writer and I am a photographer. We have been traveling together and collaborating on travel and essay projects for the last year. We took this photograph overlooking Rafe’s Chasm on the morning of our visit, on our way into town.Fred Bodin encouraged us to submit it to you for possible inclusion in your blog. We would be honored if you would consider it! We love Gloucester and intend to haunt there often.

Regards Jeff

Laura wrote;

Wherever Jeff and I travel, we make friends. We make friends with people and we make friends with places: the places through the people who are their ambassadors and the people that give the places their character and spirit. This photo is of us at Rafe’s Chasm on our first morning in Gloucester, greeting the sea that is the port city’s power and sovereignty. To our left, the ancient Atlantic is surging up in a cleft and then lowering itself, again and again, in the richest dark green you could ever dream to see, veined with white froth and deepening to black. The twisty pale woods are behind us.

We must have made a good impression on the ocean because Gloucester welcomed us: the friendly folks hanging around the entrance of the Saint Peter’s Club; Fred Bodin at his historic photo shop, the prints a lovely counterpoint to his narration of the city’s history; Bob Ritchie at Dogtown Book Shop, who not only sold us lovely books about birds and codfish but told us the stories of the books themselves; Geno Modello with his Saturday-afternoon Dory Shop crowd, cooking sausage on his great iron stove, wood shavings everywhere from the gorgeous hull he is shaping, who gave us a Shipyard Ale and shared the inside skinny on The Perfect Storm. At the old-school Pilot House Jeff burrowed into a fish-and-chips and I had a big vegan spaghetti. It was a perfect day.

Everything wants us to come back. Everything in us wants to come back. Good morning, Gloucester! We love you.

~ Laura Marjorie Miller