The first quiz consisted of a QR code containing a link to a Google map that showed a marker in a building by the edge of a little lake in Kitchener, Ontario. To win the book, a player needed to find a way to crack the code (as with a camera phone loaded with a free QR code reader) and then leap to the Google map and find some way to identify the building. Not too tricky, but a good warmup round to encourage readers to have a crack at QR decoding and to take a peek at a custom Google map. Using online maps for navigation is nothing new for most people, but fewer know that it's pretty easy and fun to design your own maps and to make them available to others. This can be very handy for all kinds of things, including pointing out an interesting feature, indicating a route or a trail, or really anything where you want to have a personalized and enduring online record of some piece of geography, large or small. If you're interested in that sort of thing -- and loads of people seem to be these days -- it isn't very hard to find a kajillion specialized applications for doing everything from travel blogging to geo-tagging photographs. I've mentioned a few of them in these pages.
But there was another reason for my having chosen the site that I did for the answer to the first quiz. The building in question is one of my most beloved landmarks in my adopted home town of Kitchener. The
Boathouse is a tiny little dot of a blues club sitting on the shores of an artificial lake in Victoria Park. There are all kinds of reasons to love this place. One of the biggest is that it has been a frequent haunt of
Mel Brown, an extraordinary musician who helped to build the Kitchener area as a hub of blues music. When it comes to blues, Kitchener definitely punches above its weight, and Mel Brown is one of the reasons for this. Brown played here a lot on Sunday afternoons for not a lot of money but a lot of fun. On the notorious Saturday referred to in the quiz, funeral services were held for him in Kitchener, and some of the revellers ended up here listening to another great local band named
Daddy Long Legs.
But there's more. There's just something about this little room containing not much more than a rickety kind of stage, a hole-in-the-wall kitchen, a bar about the same size as the one my dad had in his basement rec-room and seating for about 30 people. When you walk through the door, especially if you already know something about the history of the place and the incredible musicians who have played there, you're taken aback. It doesn't look like much. But yet at the same time, you're suffused by a subtle kind of ease. Once through the door and settled into a semi-comfy chair (if you're one of the few to get one), you just don't ever want to leave. I don't get to go to the Boathouse as often as I'd like to, but every time I slide into one of their seats and settle into a night of music appreciation, gazing out over the little lake, sipping a fine glass of beer, I find myself wondering why I don't spend a lot more time there. It's a place I want to be. It's a place entirely associated with positive emotions for me. I love it there. It seemed fitting to me that I open this little contest with a story about a place that I love, because parts of my book are about exactly these kinds of ideas -- what is it about such places that draw us? Of course, there's the music and the very generous and fun manager, Kevin. But I think it also has to do with the style, the appearances, and the shapes of the space. It's a room that somehow resonates with its purpose and its memories. And that's worth thinking about.
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