Police laying out plans to keep people safe this long weekend
CP24's Courtney Heels reports from Woodbine Beach ahead of the Victoria Day long weekend.
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Toronto seniors make stand-up comedy debut, proving laughter is the best medicine
When Alan Wang took the stage for his stand-up comedy debut Thursday, the senior citizen says the bright stage lights were nerve-recking. For his routine, Wang says he shared his experience job hunting as an immigrant, where he was advised to move to Ontario for more opportunities. "I say, 'How would I do that?' And they say, 'Get a car!'" Wang was one of five seniors who performed at the Comedy Bar's sketch night for seniors, titled Die Laughing. The show was an exclusive, one-night event with sets lasting around five minutes — and was meant for more than just laughs, said Marie Minimo, production and communications coordinator at Mammalian Diving Reflex, the theatre performance company that organized the event. "Ultimately, the goal is to highlight the importance of seniors sharing their stories, as well as give them a space to feel empowered," said Minimo. To prepare for their show, seniors participated in an eight-week workshop with Tamara Shevon, a comedian teaching stand-up for almost six years. Each set was inspired by personal instances because "it's harder to forget something that you have already lived through," Shevon said. Shevon says she loves the program because it gives her an opportunity to help people achieve new goals regardless of what stage of life they are in. "It's not something that's restricted to age. You can do things for as long as you want to," Shevon said. Workshops were held once a week for around two hours, and aimed to teach skills to get participants out of their comfort zones. For Wang, learning the "right" jokes was a challenge because he rarely watched stand-up comedy and says he often did not understand other people's jokes. "I'm Chinese. What we find interesting or funny is not what people here find funny," Wang said. Shevon taught the seniors how to add punch lines and anecdotes to help tie their sets together and make them humorous for the audience. One concept that Shevon taught was social acupuncture, where small instances of social discomfort are created as an intentional stressor to facilitate genuine connection. As an example, seniors were encouraged to interact with strangers on the street to gain confidence as many had never been on a stage before. Moe Ismail: School teacher by day, comedian by night 3 years ago Dean Rogers, another participant, dressed up as Santa for his set. He focused on making puns, a skill he learned from his grandfather. "I've got a little bit of acting in my blood and comedy in my blood. And I can do puns," said Rogers. The audience included many family members cheering in support as the seniors took the stage. Wang describes the event as a once- in-a-lifetime experience: "Like climbing Mt. Everest."
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an hour ago
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Southern Alberta's lesser-known music history saved by Calgary Cassette Preservation Society
Arif Ansari and Arielle McCuaig look at some of the 500 albums that will soon be added to the Calgary Cassette Preservation Society's online archives. Arif Ansari has been part of Calgary's music scene for decades and in 2006 saw a need to archive some of southern Alberta's lesser-known bands. Soon after, the Calgary Cassette Preservation Society was born. He began with cassette tapes from the 1980s and '90s in his own collection and says the medium was a popular way for local musicians to get their music out to listeners. 'Because of the nature of the format, it's one which degrades,' said Ansari. 'It's one which is kind of disposable, and so the reason why preservation of those became important was because a lot of those tapes were just lost; people, especially friends who had through moves or because they played the tapes to death just didn't have them anymore, and so that's really what this project is recovering.' Friends and music lovers have shared their cassette collections from the '80s and more recent recordings with him to add to the archives. Over the years, he's also gathered records and CDs to include. So far, Ansari has uploaded more than 2,600 cassette recordings into the online archive. 'I'm up to date with cassettes, but the LPs are a bit more work because there's a lot more manual intervention with those things,' he said. 'There's about another, I'm going to say, 500 LPs and about 800 CDs that are waiting to be added to the archive and a thousand gig posters as well.' It's a big task, but it's something Ansari is passionate about. 'I enjoy this so much,' he said. 'It's a way of getting obsessive about something, which is always fun, to get obsessive about something, but it's also a way of giving back to the community and creating something which I think is really important for the people that played in the bands, the families of the people that played in the bands and people who are just really curious and were fans of those bands.' Arielle McCuaig shares that music passion with Ansari. She's on the board of directors for the society and enjoys exploring its website. 'All this music is available for you to listen to for free,' she said. 'You can follow the links to find out what these other artists did and what other bands they were in and what kind of scene they're a part of; it's all very cool for any sort of music (lover) like myself.' McCuaig says without the society and dedicated work by Ansari, much of this music would be lost forever. 'I think it's important in a place like Calgary, where the arts and culture is not super supported and it's never been a hub for arts and music within Canada,' she said. 'A lot of our bands are never going to make it to the next level and big notoriety, big fame or anything, so it's important that we document stuff that is happening so we can keep encouraging people even if they're not making it to the next level. There's amazing stuff happening, and there always has been, and no one's going to care to document it except for the people that care about Calgary.' 'If I hadn't started this project, there are a bunch of tapes that I think would be completely lost to time,' said Ansari. 'There are tapes which I have one of just a handful of copies that are left, and so they would be sitting maybe on someone's shelf, and I don't think the people that have it on the shelf would have the time, energy or resources to put it up on the internet.' You can learn more about the society at
