Thinking Big About What’s Possible Spur – Ottawa Style

Spur, a national festival of politics, art and ideas, launches in Ottawa, May 8-10. Spur will bring together today’s most provocative thinkers, scholars, artists, activists, journalists and entrepreneurs, from across Canada and beyond, to identify important issues of our time and chart a course for change. Spur 2014 festivals have been held in Winnipeg (March 20-23), Toronto (April 3-6) and Calgary (April 25-27). After Ottawa (May 8-10), Spur moves on to Vancouver (May 22-25). The topics are nationally relevant and locally nuanced, bound together by the common theme of Signal vs. Noise: finding meaning in a saturated world: With 2.5 quintillion bytes of data created every day in places like newsrooms, labs and trading floors, how do consumers filter through the noise and focus on the trends and issues that really matter? Individual event tickets for the 8 Spur Ottawa events range from $10-$20 (festival passes are available for $100). Tickets and information: spurfestival.ca, @SpurFest, facebook.com/SpurFestival. Spur is the first festival of its kind in Canada: nationwide, multi-partisan, and solutions-oriented. It offers a unique mix of cultural conversations large and small, including debates and panel discussions, readings and artistic performances, walking tours, late night literary cabarets, and more. Spur is like a live event magazine with each debate, conversation, film screening, literary reading or tour a section that allows you to enter the magazine at your own pace, or according to your own likes, but all tying back to the central theme or editorial. Spur was founded in 2013 by the Literary Review of Canada and Diaspora Dialogues. Helen Walsh, founder and Festival Director, says “Spur aims to provide opportunity for people to explore, together, topics or issues that may be provocative, informative, infuriating or just plain fun. We want to ask what would make this a better city, country or world in which to live. As a society, we’re inundated with daily news of what’s wrong. Spur wants to ask what’s possible.” Spur Ottawa 2014 Signal vs. Noise programming includes (subject to change): Thursday, May 8 In Conversation: Heather O’Neill 7:00 pm Knox Presbyterian $15 / $10 students We don’t like books; we fall in love with them, as it was with Heather O’Neill’s debut novel, Lullabies for Little Criminals – the Canada Reads winner that so viscerally reconciled the world of heroin addiction with childhood wonder and innocence. With her highly anticipated second novel, The Girl Who Was Saturday Night (out this month), O’Neill sits down to share her thoughts on growing up, living, and writing in Montreal. The Language of Politics 8:30 pm Knox Presbyterian $15 / $10 students The four most commonly used words in the English language from 2011 serve as a time capsule of public interest. They are, in order: occupy, deficit, fracking, and drone. What happens to language as it goes from mundane use to charged political debate? How do political insiders create buzzwords and craft messages that resonate with the public? The host of CBC’s Power and Politics, Evan Solomon, sits down with pollster and political strategist Dimitri Pantazopoulos, Toronto Star journalist Susan Delacourt, and former principal secretary to the leader of the official opposition in Canada, Brad Lavigne, to discuss the how, why, where and who of writing the language of politics. Programmed in partnership with CBC’s Power and Politics. Friday, May 9 Media and the Rhythms of Democracy 7:00 pm National Archives $15 / $10 students Journalist Paul Wells hosts a conversation on the state of the media and its effect on the rhythms of democracy. The Panel Show 9:00 pm National Archives $15 / $10 students Knock knock. Who’s there? Does it matter? With a well-timed delivery, you’ll be laughing regardless! Join us for a night of guaranteed mirth as Ned Petrie and David Tichauer host an evening with some of Canada’s wittiest and most incisive minds, including Meg Fraser from hit the satirical Twitter handle (and now book) @Stats_Canada; comedian, actor and writer Ron Sparks; and well-known actor and writer Brian MacQuarrie. Saturday, May 10 Oot and Aboot: Finding the Signal 11:00 am National Archives $15 / $10 students Get a unique look at the nation’s capital with this “Signal vs. Noise”-themed walking tour, suitable for both young and old, small and tall. Part historic walkabout, part “coffee crawl” of the city’s best java joints, get a high-energy personal introduction to past events in the city that made news, as well as the people that shaped it – traces that remain all around today, if you know where to look. Ottawa’s most knowledgeable and lively chronicler, Phil Jenkins (An Acre of Time), guides participants from hotspots like the site of D’Arcy McGee’s assassination, which sent waves of shock through the nation; to the Ottawa Citizen’s birthplace; the back entrance to the Press Club, with its fifty-plus years of furtive entrances and exits; and the origins of Canada’s first long-distance radio broadcast, aired from the Chateau Laurier. In Conversation: Rivka Galchen 2:00 pm Knox Presbyterian $15 / $10 students Brilliant, complex, original: the work of Canadian-born writer Rivka Galchen is as unpredictable as it is intriguing. Atmospheric Disturbances, Galchen’s first novel, was translated into 20 languages and awarded the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. She was named one the New Yorker's Top 20 Under 40 Fiction Writers. In conversation with long-time writer and editor Marni Jackson, Galchen discusses her new book, American Innovations, and why short stories are so notoriously difficult to write. Economy and Geopolitics: The World in Seven Years 4:00 pm Knox Presbyterian $15 / $10 students How will the balance of economic power shift in the coming years? How big will China’s influence grow to be? As a senior economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Armine Yalnizyan has particularly keen insight into the current and future state of the economy and the politics that surround it. Join her to tackle the puzzle that is politics, power and money for the year 2021. Programmed in partnership with HarperCollins, The World in Seven Years series invites prominent Canadian and international thinkers to put a stake in the stand about where the world will be in seven years. Too distant a time to be narrow, too proximate to be vague, this lecture series is an opportunity to address the serious issues facing our world in a robust, solutions-oriented approach. Signal, Verse, Noise: The Purdy Show 8:00 pm National Archives $15 / $10 students “All I have is wine and laughter.” - Al Purdy One night only: a special evening of music, comedy and poetry, featuring Bruce Cockburn, in support of The Al Purdy A-Frame Restoration Campaign! Performers include Steven Heighton, Rivka Galchen, Marni Jackson & Maggie Huculak, and Douglas Gibson. Hosted by Anne Fenn. Co-programmed with The Al Purdy A-Frame Association and Harbour Publishing. Four special programs run across all cities: In Seven Years, a solutions-oriented look at the issues facing our changing world; Books and Brunch, intimate readings and discussions with Canadian novelists; Literary Cabarets, a nighttime performances and readings by Canada’s most talented innovators; and Young Leaders, fostering an on-going and active network of young Canadians who will write our country’s future. The theme of Spur 2014 is Signal vs. Noise. Programming revolves around the central question of how to convene a collaborative conversation in the “big data” era. Every day – in newsrooms, trading floors, laboratories – we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data. So much so that 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone. With so much information being created, how do we wade through it all to determine which issues need exploring and chart a course for change? Spur 2014 will tackle this issue in each of the five cities, recruiting Canadians to help distinguish the signal from the noise. About Spur: Spur is a festival of politics, art, and ideas and is a catalyst for change in Canada. Through nationally relevant and locally nuanced discussions, presentations and performances, the festival seeks to spur its participants to action on issues affecting Canadians. Feisty, multi-partisan, forward-looking, and solution-driven, this national railway of ideas will provide Canada with vital new cultural infrastructure for the 21st century. Founded in 2013, the festival has already grown from three to five Canadian cities, with plans for further expansion across the country. Spur prides itself on its community partnerships, cultural connections and a focus on accessibility and diversity. Ottawa media contacts: Marcia McClung marcia@spurfestival.ca 647-284-7428 Holly Tran holly@spurfestival.ca 416-944-1101 ext 363