arts & entertainment

If you’re on Somerset Street in Ottawa’s Chinatown before June 8, drop by the Oriental Charm Gift Shop (653 Somerset Street West) and check out the interactive twitter-enabled light boxes: One of the highlights of this year’s festival is an interactive lighting display by [ The Latest Artists ](http://www. ...

On May 16 and 18, several of Ottawa’s major museums are offering free admission as part of Internional Museum Day. For a great round-up, check out Apartment613 . And for more about Ottawa museums, check out our Ottawa Museum Guide . ...

It’s the night before March Break beings - do you know what you’re doing with your kids yet? Here are nine links to help: 1. Check out [ 40 (mostly) free family fun ideas ](http://danigirl.ca/blog/2008/05/21/40-mostly-free-family-fun-ideas/) from [ Postcards from the Mothership ](http://danigirl. ...

Jamine the Yoga Teacher tells the story of some Lowertown neighbours who are upset about chalk drawings her kids made on the sidewalk . Here’s an excerpt: They told me to clean it off. I told them to " ...

Check out Justin Wonnacott’s " images of public art from the nation’s capital “. A great collection of photos of art that you may or may not have noticed around the city. I’ve always wondered about that deer in front of the Manulife building . ...

It’s become a yearly tradition: every year around this time DaniGirl from Postcards from the Mothership posts her annual list of Eastern Ontario Christmas parades . The earliest is November 14 in Kanata and the latest is in Kilaloe on December 12. ...

This post is an extension of a few Tweets from earlier today from @OttawaStart It was six years ago today that the power went out across Ottawa and eastern North America on August 14, 2003. Once the power (and internet) was back on, I asked OttawaStart readers to share their stories – tonight I looked them up again and it made for some interesting reading. ...

The Ottawa Citizen is doing live coverage of the KISS show at Bluesfest tonight and doing a pretty good job of conveying the atomsphere down there. They’ve got a kind of crowd-sourced-stream-of-consciousness thing going. It’s just like being there, but way quieter and a lot textier. ...

[ ](http://ottawastart.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/Drew-27s-Birthday-2009-and-more-170.jpg) Today we went to check out Merveilles de sable (Wonders of Sand) at Lac-Beauchamp in Gatineau. Good citizens of Gatineau, you’ve been keeping this a secret for far too long. We had a blast – and can’t believe that we haven’t heard of this before. ...

Check out this unintentionally hilarious “no juggling allowed” sign. The text says “No busking / Amuseurs publics interdits. There were several of these downtown on Canada Day near Rideau and Sussex. Only in Ottawa! The photo is from @mWare who posted this to twitpic . ...