Swap restraint, symphony and storms

Today is a day of fearsome storms here in Montreal, we can hear the roof and all the old French doors shaking and moaning in our 100 year old apartment building, and the sound of the odd car squealing, moaning and sliding in the street. This afternoon I dragged 2 garbage bags full of secondhand clothes, including some hot 80’s tops with snap crotches (hand me downs I’ve never been able to rock, personally) up the street to the sweet local indie craft boutique, Wooden Apples, where Marilis and Tessa were hosting today’s clothing swap.

With moments to go pre-swap when I arrived, they were calmly organizing piles of cute clothes being brought in in bags by an amazing stream of stylish people in a small workshop room inside the beautiful Wooden Apples store on Parc ave, south of St Viateur. Though the crowd promised piles of free, stylish goodies I dragged myself away back out into the growing storm. I have enough clothes for now! I must not accumulate! Check out pictures from the last swap these amazing ladies organized at Wooden Apples!

Clothing swaps have been my downfall in the past, I tend to get a little joyfully carried away and come home with lots of fixer-upper projects. Today I showed new found restraint and came home instead to work on a grant and, my reward for mature restraint, watch Project Runway, which I unabashedly adore ever since Worn editor lent it to me umm 2 days ago. I love to watch designers work, in particular I love how a designer needs to be deeply considerate and humane to make real humans happy, and it’s interesting to watch people learn that while making beautiful or ugly things and talking truthfully about being gay. It was a small bit painful to give away some bags of materials I had thought of using at one point to make clothes, but I’m also glowingly glad to have some space back in my bedroom, and in my brain, which is glad to be blogging instead!

Speaking of blogging - At this very moment, with the dark storm shaking down heaps of new snow, my music composer friend is having a web design lesson with Elran right behind me so she can update her website, and it makes me happy to think of more artists empowered in their connection to the web.

If you are under heaps of snow tonight or otherwise staying home, I suggest you check out
this Explore the Symphony podcast with the National Arts Centre Orchestra’s Marjolaine Laroche and music journalist, Jean-Jacques van Vlasselaer. A pleasure for a dramastormy evening, or anytime of seeking a little emotional solace and inspiration:

http://podcast.culture.ca/explore/feed/20410