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Understanding the female psyche

Whistler Reads book club hosts discussion with author of The Female Brain

How many men can’t figure out women?

Well here is your chance to open the book on the female psyche.

The Whistler Reads – The Village Book Group is hosting a discussion with Dr. Louann Brizendine about her book, The Female Brain on Thursday, Nov. 1 at 7 p.m. at The Durlacher Hof B&B, at 7055 Nesters Road.

The book explores how the female brain is built differently than men’s brains and how hormones guide female social and sexual behaviours and such things as nurturing and aggression.

Learn about the eight stages Brizendine breaks female life maps into at this community book club meeting.

Brizendine, now a neuropsychiatrist at the University of California, is a Yale graduate and former faculty at Harvard Medical School. She founded the Teen Girls’ Mood and Hormone Clinic in California and has been featured in everything from O Magazine and The New York Times to Good Morning America and 20/20.

Whistler Reads hosts a book club meeting every eight weeks, often bringing in authors or guest speakers to discuss the book of the month. The non-profit group aims to motivate new readers and challenge seasoned ones to insightful roundtable discussion.

The Female Brain is available at Armchair Books in Whistler. Whistler Reads members receive a 10 per cent discount.

To register for the free group, call Whistler Reads founder Paula Shackleton at 604-907-2804. Admission is $5 at the door to cover refreshments.

 

Reel Alternatives wraps up fall season with The Devil

The documentary Shake Hands With The Devil will share the horrific struggles of General Romeo Dallaire on Nov. 7 at 7 and 9:30 p.m. at Village 8 Cinemas.

The last fall film of the Whistler Film Festival Society’s Reel Alternative series was described as, “Wrenching,” by Geoff Pevere of the Toronto Star . “A solidly absorbing documentary. The film is part therapeutic personal exorcism and part passionate humanitarian indictment. It uses the lingering trauma of one man as a way of opening on larger questions of global indifference and responsibility.”

Within 100 days in 1994 more than 800,000 men, women and children were brutally killed (many of them horrifically hacked to death with machetes) in the African country of Rwanda.

Canadian Lieutenant General Romeo Dallaire was assigned by the United Nations to deal with the problem, but was never given the manpower or resources and couldn’t stop the genocide.

After 10 years of reliving the horrors, and an attempted suicide, Dallaire wrote about his pain in the book, Shake Hands With The Devil .

The Canadian documentary production company, White Pine Pictures, and director Peter Raymont took up Dallaire’s story and followed him on his first return trip to Rwanda in April 2004, the 10th anniversary of the Rwanda genocide.

Shake Hands With The Devil, starring Roy Dupuis is a riveting character study of a man torn between duty and conscience as he witnesses one of history’s most horrific tragedies.

Shake Hands With The Devil has won numerous awards, including Best Documentary at the 2007 News and Documentary Emmy Awards, the World Cinema Documentary Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival and the Best Documentary Jury Award at the Philadelphia Film Festival.

Tickets are $8.50 or $6.50 for Whistler Film Festival Society members.

 

A quarter of a century of arts to celebrate

The Whistler Arts Council celebrates its 25th anniversary with Our Whistler: Honouring Our History on Saturday, Oct. 27 at 6 p.m. at the Four Seasons Resort.

More than a dozen local legends will share their Whistler stories at the storytelling gala and dinner, which includes live entertainment from EMI recording artist Ali Milner, an art showcase by Isobel MacLaurin and the honouring of 25 Whistlerites who have passed on, but have left a lasting legacy.

This tell-all evening will unearth Whistler’s lesser-known historical points, spanning everything from how Whistler came up with its bed unit formula to how Whistler’s first bank was towed away in the middle of the night.

The reception begins at 6 p.m. followed by dinner at 7 p.m. and storytelling at 8:15 p.m.

Advance $125 tickets are now on sale. (A $100 tax receipt will be issued per ticket.)

Funds raised will support Whistler Arts Council events. Tickets are on sale at whistlerartscouncil.com or by calling 604-938-9221.