A happening 24 hours in Halifax

Yesterday afternoon Neil and Rebecca returned to St. John's for a week of high-level math and family fun. Almost as soon as they left the peninsula I put myself in extrovert mode and started attending a series of public performances.

I started things off with a nice comedy show.

Several weeks ago I noticed that our neighbourhood blues bar, Bearly's, plays host to a weekly Wednesday night comedy show called Laughter Burner. What made me really want to give this show a shot was that it is hosted former Stop Podcasting Yourself guests, Dylan Rhymer and Ben Mills.

After several weeks of conflicting squash sessions, I was finally able find myself free on a Wednesday evening last night. Not only was I free, but I was also able to talk Jeannette into attending the show with me. At about 8:00 we made our way over (as that was the advertised starting time), though it turns out that we were there quite a while before things started. Actually, I am pretty sure that we were the first people there for the show (though there were a few others in the bar for standard bar related activities). Fortunately we were able to pass the time with a friendly discussion about the qualities of the actors who have portrayed James Bond and the relative merits of their portrayals of James Bond.

The show, which consisted of a number of short acts puntucated by draws for crappy prizes, was great. Aside from the hosts, we were also both particularly taken with the final act of the night, Peter White, a fellow sufferer of kidney stones. Though neither Jeannette nor I was lucky enough to win one of the sets of sub-par prizes (which always include a sample of cheese), we were both convinced that the show was worth our time and worth visiting again. Hopefully we will be able to make it again next week (or at least to another show in the near future).

Much to my surprise, the live performance theme was continued today when I met Jeannette (who provided the following photos) for lunch and we happened upon a jazz band performing next to the ferry terminal. After a few minutes we started to get the sense that the band we were seeing, 6:20 Jazz Lab from Mobile Alabama, was something of a religious group. The emphasis on spirituals was quite striking, as was the fact that the band had a "drama department." It seems that the drama side of the group was used to provide either dancers or costumed characters to match the theme of the song.



Based on some Googling, I got the sense that this band is in town for a number of Christianity-themed performances. Unfortunately I couldn't find a proper website for them, or a real explanation about what they were doing on the waterfront today.

Alongside this group, and seemingly somehow related to them, was former major leaguer Bernie Carbo. At the time I had no idea who Bernie Carbo was, or why he might be manning a personal appearance stand next to the Halifax harbour.



After I returned to the apartment I was able to learn that Carbo, most famous for his pinch hit home-run for the Boston Red Sox in game 6 of the 1975 World Series tied the game and preceded Carlton Fisk's game-winning 12th inning home run, suffered from a number of addictions before finding solace in Christianity. It seems that Carbo, after becoming a hairdresser, now spends much of his time with church related activities.

While hunting down information about Carbo and the 6:20 Jazz Lab I happened to swing by the TD Halifax Jazz Festival website and see that there was a free Klezmer performance at 2:30 this afternoon by the Halifax group Der Heisser. Because I didn't have anything scheduled for this afternoon I decided that I would try to swing by the jazz festival main tent and take in some of this show. Though I didn't stay for the entire show (it was a little hot for me), I did really enjoy the part of the show that I saw.

These three performances were really quite useful as I was once again able to confirm that I am really only interested in seeing performances that are indoors and that have proper seating. Having to brave anything less than ideal conditions really impedes my ability to enjoy a performance. That being said, I am considering attending another free jazz festival performance tomorrow afternoon.