STELLLLLAAAAA!

A marvellous visit yesterday to a most original woman - Stella Walker makes a living painting, teaching music, and singing in synagogues. She has a rich operatic voice and is learning to sing cantorial music, but she's also extremely funny, does a lot of comedy - and is a fantastic painter to boot. She and Nancy White are putting together an evening of music and comedy, called "PLEASE GOD MAKE IT STOP!"

(NINETY LONG MINUTES WITH NANCY WHITE & STELLA WALKER)

With pianists Bob Johnston and Waylen Miki and guests Mike O'Hara and Beth Kaplan

Featuring: A Cardboard Box. Introducing: A Can of Sprats.

Saturday, February 20 at 8 p.m. Doors open at 7.

Women's Art Gallery,

23 Prince Arthur, Toronto

(TTC St. George Station)

General admission $15 shmoozers $12 losers

(Please bring your 2008 tax return for our accountant.)

These two women together will be uproarious. As you can see, yours truly is on the bill ... Nan and Stella asked if I would do a reprise of the humiliating cheese tray story I told at Nancy's birthday party (which is on this site as a podcast.) I get in free in return for my five minutes; now that's a deal, 85 minutes of laughter in return for five minutes of humiliating story.

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Today's quotes:

"All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world." E.B. White

"[Books like Ulysees and Metamorphosis] showed me that it was not necessary to demonstrate facts: it was enough for the author to have written something for it to be true, with no proof other than the power of his talent and the authority of his voice." Gabriel Garcia Marquez

And here, Spalding Gray talks about his "auto-fiction," a blend of fact and fiction:

"I am not anti-fiction. Some of my favorite writers write fiction. I am just more comfortable with the experience of grounding myself in my actual personal history. Staying with the actual is not only a confirmation of my life but through the constant retelling of the story it is often a way into personal insight. I know I have lived when I have told you my story ... We try to make sense of what happens to us and of who we are in terms of stories. For me, meaning only exists in a story."

And for me too, Spalding. "I know I have lived when I have told you my story." That's why you made such great, haunting art out of your life. And that's why I will take five minutes of the audience's time, one Saturday in February, to tell them about my humiliating experience with a cheese tray.