Loose Ends

Finally, here is the Joni Mitchell song I was raving about a few posts ago. I had to create a new Castpost account to get it to work.

I forgot to mention yesterday that it seems Neuseiland will be playing a show soon. Tim's coming down from Toronto for a visit, and there's been talk about an April 13 gig, though I don't believe anyone has actually set anything up yet. Hmm, someone should probably do that... Well, we'll see what happens. Looking forward to seeing Tim, at least.


I feel today like I'm coming down with a cold. I bought some Cold-FX, so I should be OK, but say a prayer to the pagan god of your choice for me. If I come down with this flu that seems to have knocked out my entire family, and then have to play the Junos, there's gonna be hell to pay for the Ontario contingent. OK, chances are slim that I would actually have contracted the virus via some indirect and circuitous route traceable to one of them, but you never know.

The other thing I forgot to mention is that we went to Mitchell Wiebe's art opening at The Speakeasy on Saturday night. He had all sorts of great new material up, which I wish we could afford to purchase some of. We had just been saying the other day that we hadn't seen any of his recent paintings in a long time, so it was nice to see what he's up to. I guess you could say it's a continuation in the same vein he's been working for years, but you'd be using a pretty broad definition of the word "vein" in that case. He's always full of surprises, both funny and fear-inspiring.

- Andrew

We've been busy little bees.

Holy cow, it's been over a week since my last real post. I realized it because we did laundry again today and made some really nice sock balls. The excellent and inexpensive, hippy-run, mostly vegan restaurant above and beside the laundromat has closed down because I guess they didn't pay the rent. Sigh. Stupid, disorganized hippies. I asked the laundry guy about it and he said the building owners will be reopening it in about two weeks with all new staff, because those people were "a bunch of gypsies." When I laughed nervously at that, he said they were seriously disgusting pigs. I guess we can say goodbye to the refritos and Grateful Dead every Sunday morning.

Coincidentally, there was also a Joni Mitchell special from a few years ago on TV tonight. It was really good. Sorry I never could get that song from a couple of posts back working. None of our Castpost files were working, so I removed some, and now the YouTube video from that post doesn't work either! The internet's all screwed up, man.

I guess quite a lot has been going on since last we one-way communicated. Alison's whole photography gear deal got changed again, with the guy deciding he does want to hang onto most of his equipment except for one digital camera, so Cuba is now back on. I've taken the week of April 24th off. Also, the same guy has decided to sell his laptop, so Ali will be purchasing a pretty new G4 12" iMac! Very exciting. I'll have this beautiful G3 tower all to myself, muah ah aaaaahhh.

Rehearsals for the Junos have gotten underway, and it's sounding pretty sweet. I'm going to go in on my lunch hour every day this week to keep running through it with Charles and Rich until it's like Happy Birthday to us. It'll be the most practiced minute-and-a-half piece of music ever. Dress rehearsal is Friday. Incidentally, it was Charles's birthday yesterday and we went over for some cake and socializin'. His daughter Ava carried the cake in to him while we all sang the HB song as slowly as humanly possible. It was some cute, I tell ya.

We looked at an apartment today that's right under that of our friends Krista and Keith. It's gorgeous, and we're definitely going to take it unless the landlady decides to jack up the rent, even though it's currently more than twice as much as what we're paying here. We can afford it, and it has a nice back yard with gardens, a sunroom, a gas stove, and washer and dryer. Plus, there's plenty of storage space and it's right under the K's. A short hop from the Common too, for convenient access to softball games in the summer.

Oh yeah, that's another thing. I don't think I already told you this. My friend and softball teammate, Jen, ran into Alison on the street awhile ago, and described this dream she'd recently had wherein she was the coach of a little league softball team. She said she woke up so happy that she realized it was something she really wanted to do. But the thought of coaching a team all by herself was a little daunting, so she immediately thought of getting me to do it with her. When Ali told me about it, I thought it was one of the best ideas I'd heard in a long time, and couldn't believe it hadn't occurred to me before. So now Jen has put the call in to some guy who's in charge of such things, and we're just waiting to hear what can be done. One possible problem is that neither of us has a car. But we do both live really near the Common, so if all the games took place there... I really hope it happens; I'm quite psyched about the possibility.

Anything else? Hmm, I think that's about it. What more do you want out of a week? I spent about four days synthesizing the sound I needed on my keyboard for this Juno performance. There was a lot of random feeling around in the dark, not knowing whether I was getting closer or farther from the guide track Graeme had laid down, and it really had me pulling my hair out until I realized that the key was to make it sound like a rubber band being plucked. After that, I narrowed in on it pretty quickly and got it honed exactly how I wanted it. I'm glad I did, too. It's a very versatile sound, based on one of Kraftwerk's key signature timbres.

Working on it gave me a whole new respect for those guys. They really knew what they were doing -- you'd never just stumble upon this sound, because if you change it a little bit in almost any direction, it becomes completely wrong. Actually, I noticed that you can hear that sound slowly evolve with each consecutive album, starting with Autobahn. They don't quite have it yet on that one -- it still sounds a little cartoony -- but by Trans Europe Express it's very solid and they make significant use of it. I don't know if this is a coincidence or not, but I believe Autobahn is also the last album on which they used flute, converting themselves into a purely electronic band. It's as if they said, "Screw the flute, we've got rubber bands now."

I also had this flash of realization/memory that when I was very young I used to enjoy hooking elastic bands around bureau handles and other things to make "guitars". I could listen to and experiment with that sound all day long. Maybe that early musical experience unconsciously influenced my adolescent love of Kraftwerk! I'm now planning a recording involving actual rubber bands. My dream is to put together a full rubber band band. Maybe the drummer could play balloons.

So, in conclusion: no more hippies or expensive camera gear; Junos, laptop, Cuba, little league, and moving are all a go; Joni Mitchell and rubber bands rule. Have a nice week.

- Andrew

Yeah, this is REALLY boring! Who made it up?

Rules:
1. Go into your archive.
2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to it).
3. Find the 5th sentence (or closest to it).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.

Boring, boring result:
And not only not want to do it, but regularly act in an unhealthy way, based on my not wanting?

More Morbid Reminiscence

I'm obsessed lately with this Joni Mitchell song from the 70's. About a week ago, I started waking up with it in my head every day, and it's a pretty freaking complicated tune, so you can't just go around humming or whistling it when that happens. Believe me, I tried. I've heard it said that when you have a tune stuck in your head you should put it on and listen to it all the way through, because it's just your brain trying to work out how the whole thing goes and once it's heard the actual song it'll lay off. Well, so I did that and it actually brought me to tears. I don't think I've ever heard such a succint, rich, universal expression of the sadness and hope that is the human condition: It's a lonely life and, what's worse, you have no one to blame but yourself. But you are also the only one with the ability to turn it around. Very buddhist, actually.

Anyway, that didn't work at all and now it's almost always in my head. I remember going through about a year of this with the album Heijira back in the early 90's. Hopefully this one will be a little more short-lived. Yesterday morning I forced Ali to sit down and listen to it, and immediately burst into tears again. Enjoy:

[Well, I can't get this stinkin' thing working. Something's gone terribly wrong with Castpost. It was Down to You, off Court and Spark. You should go listen to it. Everyone has that album, right?]

And, in case the short glimmer of blue skies at the end was not enough upliftingness for you, here's a really nice piece of nostalgia I discovered on a pretty great site called YouTube. The ending's different from what I remember, but Ali tells me there were a few different ones. Just as well -- that handful of powder stands out as one my sadder childhood memories. Love those sweeping shots from within the contraption.


- Andrew

Laundering Money

Of course there's lots of craaayzee shenanigans going on as always, but I only want to quickly mention a couple of things:

1. We did our laundry tonight, as we do about once a week, and I think I noticed something very interesting, which no one ever talks about. I believe it is a general fact of human nature that everyone likes packing up the socks. The rest of the folding is a huge pain in the ass, but I'll do it willingly because I know when I get through it I'll be let at that pile of socks just waiting to be paired up and made into tidy little balls. Why is that such a gratifying activity? My theory is that it makes us feel incredibly intelligent to know we can successfully find the right match for each one, like kids playing the memory game, and then earn the reward of creating an entirely new thing out of the two matches. And I think this is a universal truth. Please correct me if I'm mistaken, though.

Speaking of hosiery, we were wondering on the weekend, due to a misleading crossword clue, whether "hose," as in stockings, is singular or plural. You can't say, "I am wearing a hose," right?

2. It's looking like we're probably not going to take that Cuba vacation after all. Alison's been trying to get a bank loan to buy all this photographic equipment at a good rate from a guy she knows well, but they won't go for it because she has no credit history. No history is good history, I say, but they don't see it that way. So I guess we'll have to use our savings to cover it. Which is a very worthy thing to be spending our savings on; it just means we won't have enough for a big whoop-dee-doo trip after all. We'll probably figure out some kind of cottage rental or something instead, and save the whoop-dee-doo for later.

I don't think that was actually the second thing I was going to mention, but for the life of me I can't remember what it was. I am very tired and definitely shouldn't stay up to watch The Office, but that's exactly what I'm going to do because I don't see enough of people acting like insensitive boobs to comic effect during the day.

- Andrew

Performance

Hey, folks. Don't feel much like blogging this evening. Just finished doing a bunch of freelance and brought-home design work, and now I'm trying to get to bed. But here's an illustrated depiction of my solo show on Thursday night.






It was very low-key and quiet. Pretty intense, actually. I've kind of figured out that I don't really like playing solo and that the only people I would just as soon see play solo as with a band are Billy Bragg, Joni Mitchell, and Thelonious Monk. I'll probably think of others later. But anyway, I might want to try it one more time with an mp3-player loaded with backing tracks, to see if that's any more fun. Lest you think it didn't go over well, though, it did. All twelve audience members had a real nice time.

We went to see the Super Friendz last night, which was fantastic, as one would expect, and Mike O'Neill opened for them with his new band, i.e. drummer, which was also fantastic and a rare treat as he hasn't performed live in some time. Good to see him in top form and enjoying himself. The show was at the Grawood, which is a really weird student bar at Dalhousie. Loud, dark, and kind of unpleasant. Cheap beers, though.

Hope everyone had a nice weekend. We had incredibly warm weather for this time of year, and spent a lot of time walking around in it. Now I'm tired and must rest my corporeal form. Have a nice night!

- Andrew

What Have I Done?

Yesterday, at the coffee shop I visit at least once a day, the guy behind the counter told me he has a solo acoustic show coming up there on Thursday and asked me if I could do an opening set for him. He knows I play music, y'see, although I think that's pretty much the extent of his knowledge about the subject, so it was pretty nice of him to just invite me sound unheard. So I said (gulp) yes! Now I have to come up with enough songs I know how to play and figure out how to play them in a solo vein. I'm actually kind of excited about it; gonna throw some oldies into the mix. And it'll be good practice embarassing myself in front of people for the upcoming Junos.

On the weekend, Ali and I got to catch up with a bunch of people we haven't seen in a long time due to winter hibernation. There was a party on Friday night which was pretty mellow and really nice, and then on Sunday we went for a walk in the park with Charles and Kelly, their two little girls, Lee Anne, and her dog. I feel like I never spend any time with Charles anymore, but I guess we'll be hanging out a fair amount in preparation for the aforementioned J-awards. Alison brought her new digital camera along but couldn't get it working. However, we figured it out back at home and did a quick experimental series. Enjoy.

One more thing: if you ever feel like laughing uncontrollably, ask Alison to do her rendition of this year's Oscar winner for best song, It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp. I swear it's even funnier than the original.

- Andrew

Ketchup

Hey. Long time no blog. How's it going? Here too.

I guess we've been pretty busy, as usual. Mostly it's been the fun kind of busy, though. Last weekend we went bowling with Meg and her sister, Litsko. It was really a blast. I had been bragging about what a great bowler I am and the first four balls I bowled all went in the gutter. I gradually worked my way back up to my own standards, though. The beer may have helped. We had to wait a long time to get a lane, so there was a bit of an intersibling air hockey tournament. And I don't know why we're squishing poor Meg's head in the last photo here. She didn't even win.





We also went to a dance party the same night, in the space that is soon to become the store of our friends Sherry and Jay. That was a lot of fun, at least until Joe the de facto DJ blew out one of the speakers and started playing the same terrible tracks over and over again and wouldn't let anyone else on the stereo. We left pretty soon after that, but I guess people were there until around 5:30 or 6. Sheesh!

This week at work has been super hectic, but at least Meg's back. However, someone was also fired so it's pretty much as busy as when she was on vacation. These random firings seem to always happen right after we've hired someone new, and for some reason always just as Meg gets back from vacation. Weird, spooky, and very very sad.

Speaking of vacation, Ali and I are trying to plan one for around the end of April. We want to go to some kind of all-inclusive resort in a warm place for a week, figuring it'll be cheaper at that time of year. Anyone got any suggestions of where to go? (Please don't say Mexico.) I'm thinking Cuba would be pretty cool...

I am, by the way, definitely going to be playing with Rich at the Junos. So everybody set your VCR's to record on Sunday, April 2nd at 8:00 pm Atlantic Time (7:00 Eastern). Don't forget to put a tape in! Or that the VCR has to be turned off. That's the one that always gets me. Also, I think that's the day we start Daylight Savings, so don't even ask me to figure that out.

I've hardly had any time for reading lately, but when I have it's been spent on The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Klay by Michael Chabon. You may remember that I was saving that one like a compulsive weirdo until I'd finished some other, less immediately gratifying works, but I finally gave in about a month ago. It's incredibly rich and funny and emotionally compelling and just a really really great read. Two adolescent cousins in the thirties, one a recent American immigrant from Czechoslovakia, and the other a fatherless latent homosexual, invent a superhero called The Escapist, modelled on Houdini, and start a comic book early in the history of the form. Meanwhile, the Second World War looms. That's the plot, anyway, but the reason to read the book is the writing, which is warm and generous, witty and unassuming. In summary, me like.

That's 'er fer now. Going to scarf down some pizza and watch an episode of The Larry Sanders Show before working on some freelance design. Take care, cheerio, etc.

- Andrew