Friday, August 15, 2008

Fair use music


A friend--John Mascarelli--pointed us to FreePlayMusic.com, a website full of all sorts of free-to-use (with attribution etc.) soundtracks and sound effects. It's an excellent resource for classrooms and multimedia projects, so we thought we'd post a link to it here, too.

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Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Call for Papers: Canadian Association for Study of Discourse and Writing -- May 24-26, 2009, Ottawa



The Canadian Association for the Study of Discourse and Writing/ Association canadienne de redactologie (CASDW/ACR; formerly Canadian Association of Teachers of Technical Writing/L’Association canadienne de professeurs de rédaction technique et scientifique) invites you to submit proposals for its international conference at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, from May 24-May 26, 2009.

With the conference theme “The Territoire/Places of Writing Studies in Higher Education: Canadian and International Perspectives,” we invite proposals that help us identify, interrogate, and illuminate the various locations—physical, administrative, and intellectual—that shape our identities and practices as researchers and teachers of writing.

The theme also echoes the recent name change of our association to reflect the growth of our field and the rich diversity of the work undertaken in Writing Studies, including genre studies; rhetorical theory; composition studies; engineering communication; business communication; writing in digital environments; writing centre theory and practice; writing in the disciplines; professional, technical, and scientific communication, and more.

Please see the complete call for proposals on the Association's English language web site or its French language website

Saturday, August 02, 2008

Great night in Gander with the Great Big Sea



It's not widely known outside of Newfoundland, but once upon a time the town of Gander, in Central Newfoundland, had the largest airport in the world, with 10 runways. It's also not widely known outside of Gander that in the days after 9/11 scores of thousands of stranded air travellers were welcomed into the homes of Gander folk, and cared for, while the sorry mess was slowly brought back to some kind of normality. Newfoundland is a fabulous place, where the lifeworld is still well and truly intact; where commodification has not yet run its riotous ways; where people still have a grip on the kind of everyday quality a life can have. Hard, but true. And Gander is the very core of Newfoundland. There is nowhere more Newfoundland than Gander.

Today is Gander's birthday, and as part of the celebrations the city is throwing a three day music festival.

Tonight's proceedings ended with a stunning two hour performance by one of Newfoundland's greatest contemporary gifts to the world of music, the band beloved of Russell Crowe, Newfoundland's pride and joy, the Great Big Sea.

It was a fabulous show, a memorable night, a night that made it good to be alive. Great Big Sea have never strayed from the lifeworld. Their roots are deep in the harbours, the fishing grounds, the Newfoundland banks, the great big sea that supported this mighty island before the cod were fished out. Great Big Sea are steeped in the spirit that has kept this land alive through hard times, and that have kept its people true to the art of living honest lives.

It's a privilege to be here.

To Bob, Alan, Sean, Chris and Murray: thanks for a great night and so much spirit. And to Newfoundland, may your future be as bright as your heart is big.

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