Category Archives: VA

WELCOME LIZ

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lizEvery other year on my annual tour of Scotland I divert for a couple of days to Ireland. Specifically we drive up the beautiful Northeast coastal route to the Giant’s Causeway and thence to Ballyeamon Barn.

The barn is located in one of the stunning Antrim Glens that radiate back from the coast, and is attached to the home of Liz Weir. Liz is a highly regarded, internationally famous professional storyteller. She purchased a run-down farm house and steadings with help from the European Union some 20 years ago, and has worked hard to turn it into a comfortable hostel-cum-performance space where she provides hospitality to walkers, tourists, and storytelling and traditional music enthusiasts, among others.

We first got to know her when my wife introduced me to the world of storytelling; Liz had booked her for one of the festivals she ran, and they got on like a house afire. Liz subsequently attended our wedding in Auchtermuchty, Scotland and we’ve been working with each other off and on ever since, from Belfast to Dublin and across to the States, including my Scottish tour going to Liz’s storytelling barn on even years.

Which brings me neatly to why I have the greatest regard for Liz.

She is a brave woman! She involved herself in the Irish peace process when bombs and shootings were the order of the day, when it would have been easy to say (as the recently ennobled Australian Director of the Edinburgh International Arts Festival did) “we need to keep politics out of the arts.”

Liz worked both sides of the conflict with her particular branch of the arts to bring them together, using music and stories to raise awareness of a common humanity and shared values. In the process, of course, the vested interests on each side had her on both their hit-lists. Liz’s agenda wasn’t non-political – not by a long chalk. Her political message? This has gone on too long and there are bad folks on both sides who are taking everyone for a ride. Enough is enough!

So Liz is one of my real living heroes and we could do with a lot more like her.

If you would like to meet her and spend time with her I can offer you two opportunities – she will be appearing at a house-concert here at the bookstore this coming Monday (Sep. 9th) at 7 pm ($8/$5unwaged). Or can join my 2015 tour at the end of June and experience the the hospitality of Ballyeamon Barn.

Slainte Mhath Liz Weir and lang may yir lum reek!

Things not to do in a Small Town

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In a small town, you don’t flip anyone off for bad driving, ever. The other driver will guaranteed turn out to be your child’s Sunday School teacher, your dentist, or your boss’s spouse.

In a small town, you don’t announce on Facebook that you’ve been diagnosed as diabetic, then try to pick up cupcakes at the grocery deli. The clerk will refuse to sell them to you unless you can prove they’re for someone else’s birthday. And you can’t lie about the birthday, because the grocery deli women know EVERYONE’s birthdays. By heart.

In a small town, you can’t buy cheap wine as a gift. Everyone shops at the same wine store.

In a small town, when you admire clothing someone else is wearing, you don’t ask where they got it; you know it came from either the expensive boutique at the top of the hill, or the thrift store on the corner, because Walmart doesn’t sell it. So don’t ask.

In a small town, if you’ve already eaten when you realize you’ve forgotten your wallet, odds are good you’re going to know at least two other diners who will bail you out–just in case the restaurant owner won’t wait for you to pay next time you’re in.

In a small town, you don’t forget your wedding anniversary, since the local florist makes courtesy calls two weeks before.

In a small town, it is unwise to hold a yard sale. Everything you want to get rid of was a gift from someone else, who will attend or have a relative attending. This is why God invented eBay.

In a small town, walking for exercise requires prior planning; distributing a flyer before you start your new regimen can avoid hurt feelings later, when you wave your neighbors and fellow church members away as they stop to pick you up.

In a small town, when you hand the clerk a hundred dollar bill, she doesn’t stroke it with a counterfeit detection pen.  Instead she checks the serial number, laughs, and says, “Yep, ends in 003. I gave this to Judy at the diner last week.”

In a small town, you don’t lock your doors at night — except in August. That’s zucchini season.