The world's biggest snow globe is coming to Mississauga City Hall.
You remember those little plastic globes that you used to get at Christmas, filled with pastoral winter scenes and fluttering, fake snow that you activated by turning the globe upside down?
Well, Ontario's Tourism Ministry surely remembered and they capitalized on the notion last year by creating a touring infomercial in the form of a 20-ft. diameter, two-storey high globe that appears at municipal community events to promote tourism in the Province.
The giant snow globe features live actors under the bubble who demonstrate typical winter activities such as snowmobiling, cross-country skiing and sitting at an outdoor café, sipping Niagara ice wine (Kittling Ridge Forty Creek Canadian whiskey seems like a much wiser choice to ward off the cold.)
The globe was just in New York and was a bit hit with local bloggers. "What a great concept. This globe is marketing genius," gushed Jamie Rhein at www.gadling.com.
The globe even got some TV time on Good Morning America when it was ensconced in New York's Bryant Park last month.
The globe will be one of the key attractions at the upcoming My Mississauga WinterWorld event, a new two-day gathering aimed at families that hopes to attract crowds to the civic square in February, as the musical concerts there have done in the past two summers.
Nicole Mora, MyMississauga coordinator, says the winter gathering for families and kids was added to the current activities (the tree-lighting ceremony, New Year's Eve and New Year's levee event) in response to resident requests.
On Sat. Feb. 9, from 5-9 p.m., there will be a live DJ to skating. On Sunday, from 1-5 p.m. there will be loads of children's activities, with an international flavour to the event, featuring a variety of food vendors.
The local stop, which happens to be in the riding of new Tourism Minister Peter Fonseca, is one of six in the province this winter.
Obvious question: If you plunk a giant snow globe down on the civic square, does it mean citizens will demand a shake-up at City Hall?
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Funny how former Mississauga City councillors keep turning up in odd places in the news.
A story in today's Simcoe Reformer tells us that former Ward 9 Councillor Ted Southorn has a new job: as a greeter at the new Wal-Mart in the southwestern Ontario town.
"Southorn, one of four greeters at the store, says he has enough money he doesn’t have to work but came to Wal-Mart because he wants to remain active with people," says the story. "'You can only read so many books in a day," he says.
Ted hasn't lost his sardonic edge either. "This is my comeback," jokes Ted Southorn, a retired salesman and four-time city councillor from Mississauga who moved to Simcoe with his wife a few years ago. "Next week, I will be president. They have a very fast career path here."
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If you enjoy female jazz singers, as I do, then the Oscar Peterson Tribute Concert on Valentine's Day is shaping up remarkably well.
Bill King and Ron Duquette added Molly Johnson to the lineup today. A wonderful singer, with a laconic style who can swing or sway with a ballad, Johnson is a huge star in France but not as well known in Canada as she should be.
In his review of the Oscar: Simply The Best concert at Roy Thomson Hall Sunday, Toronto Star entertainment writer Martin Knelman criticized the "glaring omission" of not including Johnson, who was sitting in the guest section. That prompted the proactive Duquette to call her up and add her to a powerhouse lineup that already features up-and-coming Sophie Milman, supple and swinging Port Credit singer Carol McCartney and Mississauga native Shannon Butcher, whose first CD will be out later this year.
Oscar, of course, was a more-than-fair singer himself. Maybe that's what made him such a brilliant accompanist to the likes of Audrey Morris, Anita O'Day and the incomparable Ella Fitzgerald.
Tickets, $40 and $30, go on sale at LAC next Monday.