We are suddenly swamped at the Gazette offices this summer — yet the season has not even officially begun. Our inboxes are bulging with invitations. I know I sound like I’m bragging. I know this sounds like a fun thing. It is a fun thing. We love it. But when you are having trouble even opening the invites, never mind clearing space on the calendar to attend the opening, the lunch, the launch, the garden party, auction, unveiling, dinner, lecture, runway show, fundraiser, and celebration this week, it’s not so fun. 

We are letting people down. Missing important occasions.

Never mind AI. Grok, or Gemini, or Alexa, or Whatever has started summarizing my emails for me. Can someone please just invent Hermione’s timepiece from the Harry Potter series. That would be genuinely useful, worth every penny of all the billions and trillions hallucinating FinTech guys are pouring into a technology that “reads” the already perfectly legible emails in my inbox. 

Never mind my news stories. But I digress.

Hermione had a special clock she used to turn back time. She set it to repeat the past hour or two so she could attend more classes. I think about that timepiece just about every day. I’m not so virtuous as Hermione. I would set that clock back just so I could watch another hour of Black Doves on Netflix. 

Or read another chapter of our very own international bestseller Vicki Delany’s More than Sorrow, a crime thriller set in Waupoos. It moves back and forth between the first Loyalist settlers in Fifth Town and the present. First published in 2011, it has just been re-released. It is unputdownable. Timepiece or no, I stayed up till 1am to finish it last week. I suffered all the next day. Worth it.  

But back to the present problem, the too many things to do in the County. Feeling overwhelmed, I turned off all my “notifications” the other day and sat down to organize the next few issues of the paper, which feature, variously, County Stage’s new theatre festival, the Picton Fall Fair Book, the Jazz and Chamber and Biglake music festivals, and the second season of CAFF, the new County Adaptation Film Festival. Not to mention the shows and openings at the art galleries — Hatch, Oeno, Melt, Blizzmax, Andara, and, of course, County Arts. 

Yes, it’s summer in the County. “Tourist season,” we call it? Why not Art Season? Consider what is happening here in the next month alone:

Evert Rosales launches a summer long art exhibition at Merrill House July 3, just one element of an art extravaganza at the inn, which now styles itself a House of Culture. Films will screen every evening in the gazebo. A book club meets monthly in the drawing room to discuss classics by Evelyn Waugh and Virginia Woolf. Lectures and symposia in Bar Atlas will consider themes such as Living in Harmony with Nature, or Beauty. 

Prince Edward Community Theatre stages The Legend of Georgia McBride at Mount Tabor this weekend and next, a not-to-be-missed show we review on page 9. After that, the County Stage Company launches its first ever theatre festival in July. Its Scripts and Sips series is at The Grange of Prince Edward June 27; it previews songs and scenes from the season’s shows: Bittergirl, Flowers, and Snow White. 

CAFF presents a special 8pm screening at The Regent Theatre June 25 of The Penguin Lessons, a teaser to the full three-day film festival the last weekend of September. CAFF brings into view the writing that goes on behind the scenes to turn a novel or short story into a film. The Penguin Lessons is set in the middle of the Argentinian coup d’etat of 1976, which established a military dictatorship. It follows an English teacher at a fancy boys boarding school and, of course, a penguin. 

A key scene involves an activist being kidnapped by the authorities at a political protest. Clearly a film for our moment. 

Speaking of writers and writing, Books and Company is hosting a series of visiting writers this spring, including Guy Favriel, whose bestselling historical novel, Written on the Dark, we review in next week’s issue. Mr. Favriel gives a reading and talk at The Royal Hotel’s Barlow Room on 20 June. 

Local novelist Peter Blendell, who wrote Glenora Crossing (2017), launched Deep County at Blizzmax Gallery last month, one of the many events we missed, though we are delighted to read the book. 

Larry Tayler will be Writer-in-Residence at Macaulay House this summer. He’ll be ensconced in the resplendent dining room at Macaulay every Wednesday afternoon, writing a gay romance novel, and welcomes visitors.

The 2nd Annual Art in the County Art Symposium is on Saturday 22 June. Nicole Collins considers “Time as Material in Art,” Michelle LaValee discusses “Indigenous Ways and Curation in the Institution,” and a conversation with Jim Bravo on mural-making, “From Laneways to Libraries,” rounds out the afternoon. The 32nd annual Art in the County juried exhibition and sale takes place June 27-July 13.

In the galleries, Hatch presents the series By Canadians. The first, running now, features Julie Himel, Paul Sloggett, and Pamela Mayhew. Mad Dog presents Shores and Skies by Celia Sage, opening 21 June. Andara Gallery’s Botanica exhibition and sale features encaustic paintings by Andrew Csafordi. Mile Murtanovski’s show at BlizzMax, Escape the Robots!, features paintings by a human being. Oeno Gallery’s Summering opens Saturday 14 June; its annual outdoor sculpture garden party is 5 July. Local artist Deborah Root’s politically engaged paintings feature in the show, and she gives an Artist Talk at Oeno on June 18. For a discussion of her work, see page 9.

As for music, well, that’s hard to keep up with here, too, all year round. Base31’s Sergeants Mess Hall offers the Born Ruffians on June 14, Joel Plaskett on June 22, and Ron Sexsmith July 4. Music at Port Milford present a varied program 19 July entitled “Catharsis,” featuring select chamber works performed by the school’s faculty at St. Mary Magdalene. Singer Michael Berube is in concert at The Andrew June 5th with the Brian Legere Quartet and Gord Sheard. A not-to-be-missed event is Biglake’s 26 July fundraiser, “Silent Film in the Barn,” which features Buster Keaton’s 1926 classic, The General, with improvised piano accompaniment by classical star Ilya Poletaev.

I have to stop here. I’ve run out of not just time, but space. I will close by noting one thing: the County’s arts scene is beyond striking. It has not been devised to attract tourists, or to make money. It’s what happens when writers, painters, actors, directors, teachers, musicians, you name it, congregate in one place, able to do their thing, for its own sake, and know that people will want to attend. They do it for themselves, and for those they know will appreciate it. The County’s great strength is not just its artists, but its audiences, who offer a wonderful feedback loop: support and appreciation are all art needs to thrive. 

As the County casts about for ways to spend its tourist tax, I suggest directing a steady stream to the arts here, all of them. None of these festivals, launches, or lunches makes any money, but they are the reason many of us are here, and many more are on the way. They make this place sing.