Profile: Todd MacLean

by Jane Ledwell

Todd MacLean (photo: Alanna Jankov) Everything in life is about community. It’s a continuous chain of community,” says Todd MacLean, whose community activities range from playing keyboards in the rock band English Words to writing about musical performances for The Guardian to working on his wife Savannah Belsher-MacLean’s fashion magazine, Panache. We are chatting on Victoria Row, a street that Todd’s brainchild, the Nigwek street festival for an organic PEI, will soon transform into a celebration of music and organic food under the banner that “something good is growing.”

“[Arts and] culture fuel community. It enhances community, and makes it more beautiful. It inspires community. It’s how we can get up in the morning and face another day,” he says. Just recently, Todd and Savannah moved to rural PEI to a home with “four or five different views of the Pinette River.” In the morning, they see the sun rising over fields of ripening  wheat. “I literally get chills watching the  wheat harvest, “ Todd says. “I have strong emotion connected to food and its production.”

Talking Bands
by Luke Arbuckle

Boxer the Horse If you were to ask a Charlottetown local which band to see this summer, they would likely have Boxer the Horse near the top of the list. If you were to ask a visitor to the Island which band they best remember, their answer would likely be the same.

Letters From Wingfield Farm

by Ivy Wigmore

Walt Wingfield has left his gig as a Bay Street stock broker. Disenchanted and seeking to simplify his life, he buys a farm in Persephone Township. As so often happens when we try to simplify, complications ensue. There’s an ironic and laconic strain of humour that seems to pervade rural areas. In Dan Needles’ Letters from Wingfield Farm, the ideological clash between our stock broker and the citizenry of Larkspur provides excellent fodder for that strain of comedy, as Walt and his new neighbours seek to understand each other.

Works by the late Erica Rutherford auctioned for scholarships

by Ann Thurlow

Erica Rutherford at her Pinette home in the late 1990s A show and auction of work by Erica Rutherford will be held October 2 to 8 to raise funds for the Erica Rutherford Memorial Scholarship. It will be open to young Islanders embarking in accredited programs in fine arts, theatre, dance, writing or filmmaking and will be administered by the PEI Council of the Arts.

My Pregnant Brother

by Ann Thurlow

Marcella Hazan, the wonderful cookbook writer, has a terrific recipe for chicken. Two ingredients: chicken and lemon. As she puts it, you just let the food and the oven do all the work.

I thought about this recipe as I was thinking about My Pregnant Brother, the Victoria Playhouse’s midsummer offering. What playwright and actress Johanna Nutter has is a terrific story. And was she also has is the good sense to sit back and let that story do most of the work.