THE WEEKLY EH?! // October 10th, 2023
This week's highlight of FIVE things happening in the Kimberley/Cranbrook area + FOUR other items of some locals' interests.
Hi!
Welcome to the 10/10/23 edition of ‘THE WEEKLY EH?!’ newsletter!
Here’s Five Things
Since The 95EH Events Calendar gets updated with Kimberley AND Cranbrook area events on the regular (and it’s FREE for anybody to get their local events listed, just visit moun.town/events for the simple details), I like to do a weekly HIGHlight of FIVE things happening FOR the current week every Tuesday… and on that note:
THING #1: Let’s start off with something that happened yesterday (Monday, October 9th)—which was the Firehall Kitchen & Tap’s Free Community Turkey Dinner—because it deserves a shout-out for being a heart-warming local event that’s just nice to know exists (especially with some of the heaviness going on in the world right now)… even though it’s too late for you to actually attend ‘Firehall Turkey Day’ this year if you’re only finding out about it now (as this newsletter gets sent out on Tuesdays, and Turkey Monday has already come & gone).
So consider this a reminder of why it’s important to have the url “moun.town/events” burned into your brain (or bookmarked on your browser) for easy return visits, as my weekly Tuesday newsletters can only shoutout so many things + new events often get added for the current week after I’ve sent out the latest newsletter, so it’s not a bad idea to get in the habit of popping over to The 95EHEvents Calendar whenever you find yourself wondering about whether there’s anything happening today/tonight.
Thankfully, the CBC was able to help get the word out BEFORE the event actually happened… but that’s why they’re the pros (local clip starts around the 12:24 mark if it doesn’t go there automatically)!
THING #2: And now for an event that hasn’t happened yet, the KORE Outdoor Rec-Tech Summit is being held October 11th-13th at the Kimberley Alpine Resort’s Conference Centre (and is Canada’s second-ever conference dedicated to the outdoor rec-tech manufacturing and product design sector). “Industry thought leaders and speakers will be giving presentations throughout the event and anybody interested in outdoor rec-tech manufacturing and product design in British Columbia, Alberta, Pacific Northwest and the U.S. Western States are invited to attend." Visit the KORE website for more event details and/or watch this video from last year to get a taste of some of what this summit brings to town:
THING #3: The International Fly Fishing Film Festival (IF4) — “the world’s leading fly-fishing film event, a curated collection of stories showcasing the pursuit of wild spaces and peaceful places where fish seem most willing, the water appears in its purest form and our community connects”—returns to our mountown area with a screening at Centre 64 on Friday, October 13th (doors open at 6:30pm; film begins at 7pm). Check out the trailer below + jump over to flyfilmfest.com to check out this year’s films & more!
THING #4: Fancy a big book sale this weekend? Of course, that’s a redundant question, especially when we both now know that The Friends of the Cranbrook Public Library are having a Harvest Book Sale on Friday (3pm to 5pm; Friends' members only) + Saturday (10pm to 4pm; open to public) + Sunday (12pm to 2 pm; Book Bag Sale) at the Cranbrook Public Library 📚 “Stock up on great reads for the fall with the Friends’ Harvest Book Sale in the Manual Training School Meeting Room! Many different genres and types of materials will be available to suit every mood and taste!”
THING #5: The 2nd annual ‘Spirit Rock Scrambler - Bouldering Comp’ is happening Saturday, October 14th at Spirit Rock Climbing Center on the Platzl! “Don't be afraid of the word ‘competition’ — this is a fun, casual comp that's meant for youth and adults of all abilities. It's a super welcoming atmosphere with tons of prizes from our sponsors including random draws!”
Of course, there's always more than Five Things happening in any given week, so don't forget you can punch -> moun.town/events <- into any browser window at any time and be magically taken away to THE 95EH EVENTS CALENDAR… where you can see all the other Kimberley/Cranbrook events happening this week and beyond 👍
+ Four Ehs
And because there’s always more going on than just the local area events that get added to The 95EH Events Calendar, here’s 4 other things that are proving to be top of mind for at least one local area person:
EH #1: A friend recently brought up how my hankering for expressing personal opinions about societal topics deemed “too controversial to say publicly” by those who may feel required to maintain the appearance of a polite & moral status quo (despite all the overt “impoliteness” & “immorality” on display in our world, often coming from the very things we’re told not to talk about publicly, coincidentally)—Y’KNOW, BRINGING UP STUFF EXACTLY LIKE THAT—is likely making it harder for me to get people (especially some businesses/organizations) to feel comfortable publicly supporting the non-controversial work I do (ie. like signing on for ‘Mutually Beneficial Employment’ to help support the work that goes into running a local events calendar, or even just sharing stuff I do to their own platforms/networks and saying stuff like “hey… you should check out / follow this interesting online thing a local area person is doing!”).
And I get that concern. It’s actually something that’s been pointed out before + it’s something I’ve been able to intuit as not always working in my favour ever since the early days of letting “controversial” personal opinions cross over into the local 95EH world.
But, the things is, I don’t believe we address any of our most serious issues if we don’t actually talk about them. If we don’t challenge our ignorance (mine and yours and theirs and ours), if we don’t challenge the narratives that someone else is more than willing to have us absorb as our own opinions, we’re going to eventually lose the ability to ever grab hold of the wheel on this thing. And, not sure if you noticed, but the colonial/imperial ‘supremacy’ mindset that’s been driving humanity for centuries has never been headed down a path that’s very good or just for the majority of living things on this earth (check the history books or the 24/7 news channels for supporting evidence if you haven’t already arrived at a similar conclusion).
And since I have a blog and a newsletter and social media accounts (ie. platforms with an “audience”), and since I believe we all need to start normalizing our need to express & address blatant societal hypocrisies/contradictions more as they continue to systemically effect all of our abilities to live a contented life together on this interconnected planet of finite resources—because it is okay to have & share opinions (as long as you remember that it’s okay for others to do the same and you don’t melt into a pile of self-defensive goo as soon as someone disagrees with your hopefully-always-evolving worldview)—I feel it’s important for me to keep attempting to walk the line between being a guy that goes “hey… here’s a bunch of fun/positive things” most of the time and a guy that goes “hey… here’s a serious issue more of us, including myself, need to try to be more consistent on” every now & again (and hopefully one day it will be all “hey… here’s a bunch of fun/positive things” that I am sharing).
So the best I can promise is that I will continue to try and get better at how I communicate my thoughts on “controversial” topics as they come up + I will always remain open to openly discussing anything I’ve taken the time & consideration to try and communicate publicly (although please note that the majority of my ‘politics’ and ‘religion’ is rooted in “treat others how you would want to be treated, and stand up / speak up for others being treated how you would not want to be treated, if / however you can”… and I really hope that’s not considered too controversial of a position to try and stay inconveniently consistent on).
EH #2: For an example of the “hey… here’s some fun/positive things” that I try to spend most of my time putting out into the universe via the medium of blahg’n: the Kimberley Chamber of Commerce and I, through an act of ‘mutually beneficial employment’, have teamed up to introduce a local area Q&A series called 'LOCAL INTRODUCTIONS on MOUN.TOWN — and because it only seems fair that I should have to answer the 5 questions that other participants will be asked to answer too, I did the first Q&A myself, which you can check out in full OVER HERE.
EH #3: And not to be that “hey… here’s a serious issue more of us, including myself, need to try to be more consistent on” guy so soon already — BUT — how heavy and dark and chaotic and concerning and draining is the situation in Gaza/Israel/Palestine?
Personally, my overall take on wars steeped in histories of oppression and vengeance and righteousness, or just wars in general, is covered by the Buddha’s old saying of “Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule." (ie. otherwise it’s eye for an eye until everybody is blind) — HOWEVER — I also am very much aware of how the mainstream narrative quickly sets out to frame the horribleness as “unprovoked” attacks and one-sided “terrorism”, and that does a real injustice to the much more messy story of colonialism/imperialism that’s been taking place over there (for example, it’s worth noting that a UN report declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territory ‘apartheid’… which is a word we all hopefully remember as being horrible from South Africa’s recent dark past).
But I am not informed enough to comment on Middle East conflicts in depth, so I will share this ‘The World Ignores Palestinian Civilians’ article from Joshua P. Hill’s Substack that I resonated with + this Dan Mangan Instagram post that I related to + this podcast episode from The Red Nation (the coalition behind The Red Deal book I was recommending in a previous newsletter that touched on my thoughts on “reconciliation”), as the sobering discussion between Nick Estes and Ali Abunimah tells the current Israel/Palestine story thru an Indigenous perspective/experience, which is not the viewpoint often pushed out to settler nations (but hopefully it’s a viewpoint that Canada’s National Day for Truth & Reconciliation has made more Canadians more determined to seek out and listen to and reflect on).
EH #4: Ok… how about we close on something a bit more “hey… here’s some fun/positive things”, eh? Luckily, I have just the thing, as up at the KEGG.CA community garden, one of the gardeners also happens to be a talented artist (shoutout Elaine Rudser, sock monkey extraordinaire), and her wonderful KEGG garden mural was hung up last week! It looks even better in person, especially if you get up close to see all the little details, so go swing by the garden to have a look the next time you’re up in townsite (it’s where the old swimming pool used to be)!
And to close on a related note, I’ll paraphrase something I heard Jack Kornfield say in podcast conversation to Duncan Trussell about not becoming overwhelmed by the overwhelmingness of all of the world’s problems and the way that our individual actions can feel so small & futile in comparison (a clip you can hear at the 22:20 mark of this digital mixtape if you fancy, below is just how I’ve remembered the advice) :
“It’s not up to you to save the whole world, that would be hubris — BUT — it is a reality that you are only in control of your own actions/intentions… so focus more on tending to the parts of the garden that you can reach yourself (and you’ll probably find there’s more than enough to work with/on there).”
Just keep in mind that the ‘garden’ can be both metaphorical AND literal :)
Of course, there’s always more ‘eh?!’ to share than the 4 EHs that came to my mind while putting together this week’s newsletter, so please make sure to follow 95EH on the Facebook & Instagram & Tumblr (especially if you ever frequent the highway 95/a/eh area IRL where these URL signals are getting relayed from). And for more Jeremy/HI54-specific stuff, you can also follow @HI54LOFI on the Instagram & Twitter & Facebook.
Because, hey… there’s a lot of stuff going on out there, eh?!
Until next week…
Please feel free to reach out to ‘hey@95eh.ca’ if you have any questions, comments, ideas and/or schemes — and if you think you know anybody else that might enjoy receiving this weekly newsletter about “some locals’ interests” in the highway 95/a/eh area, please feel warmly encouraged to send them a link so they can have a think about signing up too!
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Jeremy // HI54LOFI