Under the Dome and Chihuly and Other Photos - The Catalyst!, 2nd Anniversary of IWSG, ROW80, and Project August

n honour of the two year anniversary of the Insecure Writers' Support Group, I've got lots of photos to share!

Because, of course, what better way to deal with our insecurity than by taking a day off once in a while and, most importantly, not feeling guilty about it!

September's co-hosts for IWSG, along with Ninja Captain Alex, are:

Chemist Ken
SL Hennessey
Michelle Wallace
Joylene Nowell Butler

If you don't already participate and would like to, sign up to the linky-link here so others don't miss your posts!

And now, photos!

Would you believe I had never heard of artist Dale Chihuly before this August? Then I visited his travelling exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts...

 

I know you can't read this; it's the story of a piece that was lost during trans-Atlantic shipment...

...and here is the recreated piece! Made especially for the Montreal exhibit.

Factoid: Chihuly visited Montreal's Expo back in 1967! 

This piece, which spans the length of a the ceiling in the exhibition room

(and they give you cushions so you can lie down and look up at it), is called Persians

I think I enjoyed the boats best

This guy looks like he's peering at his own reflection

While I was at the museum, I couldn't resist revisiting some of my favourite Canadian painters:

Emily Carr - War Canoe, Alert Bay

Emily Carr, Community House

This one's a short piece about a local group of painters from about the 1920s - one of them, Ethel Seath, used to teach art classes at my high school! (many years before my time, though)

Lawren Harris - Morning, Lake Superior

Sculptures, looking out a window on the west. I love that cow!

Tom Thomson - Northern Lights

He might be a wee bit hard to spot, but this was a cardinal I saw one morning

Sort-of-close-up

And now for something completely different: my first metal show!

The Catalyst are a great local band who've just signed a new singer, and we went to their new-singer-new-album-forthcoming party at the famous Montreal venue Foufounes Electriques:

Spider!

Uh-oh, why's it sideways? Band poster!

Soundcheck!

View from the backstage dressing room

Live!

View, outside, of the church visible from the dressing room

Then there was a lovely weekend trip, in New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine:

Entering Cambridge, Mass...

...yes, I got excited by a street sign, because it features in an Amanda Palmer song called Massachusetts Avenue!

Wish we could have stayed in Cambridge long enough for a meet-up with Theresa!

Lake George, NY

A Turkish restaurant at Lake George!

Very yummy, I'd highly recommend the Ali Baba!

Carnival and flags at Lake George

Bridgton, Maine, whose claim to fame is being the setting of Stephen King's Under the Dome

Distances from Bridgton to various cities

Uh-oh, she's sideways!

I snuck a photo of this lady after she told us a story of Stephen King met her twins -

and used them as characters in The Shining!

We drove past this lot while leaving the town and, based on the sign, decided it must be Big Jim Rennie's lot

Bookstore!

King - and Rowling - at the bookstore!

It was a bit scary driving past the town border sign - that's where the edge of the dome came down!

After the scariness, it was time for some real relaxation (though I did get some editing done at this very spot!), at Boothbay Harbor, Maine:

All these views are from our hotel porch!

Darn, sideways!

This was in the morning, looking out the door

I love the honour system at their bookstore/library:

any book off the porch is 25 cents, and if they're closed, you just drop the money into a coin box!

McSeagull's

My first ever shark burger!

Me!

Not sure if you can see the moon in this photo...

An older view... The footbridge was built in 1901

A 19th Century captain's retirement home

There was fog on every road in Vermont and Maine in the mornings!

Red's Eats is a very popular place, with lines going round the block, and traffic backed up for miles!

Love the fact that this sign is so large and that it doesn't even say cemetery or graveyard,

and that the place doesn't even have a name...

This is a lovely bay on Southport Island

Rachel Carson lived on Southport Island for a while in the 1950s...

This house is directly across the road from that lovely bay. It is for sale. I want it.

The problem? It costs a million dollars...

A sign about the New Hampshire White Mountains School of Art. I've seen some of the paintings of this school before, without realising it was all part of the same movement!

View of the White Mountains

Then back home and to catch up with editing!

I've been shifting my ROW80 goals as I go (love this feature of ROW80!) and have completed almost all the short story and essay-writing work so that I'm left with one item:

Type 1,000 words per day to have Captive of the Sea ready for printing and further edits by the time NaNoWriMo comes along.

I'm really excited by the story I hope to draft during this year's NaNo.

Any new stories that you're excited by?

Do you have vacation photos or must-visit blogs for IWSG?