Monday, June 29, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
RIP, MJ (& FF)
I kind of can't believe Michael Jackson has died, even though it felt a little like he'd died a long time ago. That poor miserable guy. I hope he found some kind of peace with himself before the end. Not to be morbid or cynical, but in addition to feeling bad I also wonder what will happen to the publishing rights to all those Lennon-McCartney songs. Will they just be turned over to Sony in toto?
Meanwhile, unrelated icon of my youth Farrah Fawcett gets completely upstaged. As I didn't know either of these people personally and didn't have any strong emotional connection to their work, neither of their deaths should really affect me any more than any anonymous death I might hear about in the news. But of course they do, because they both figure largely in the shared, ridiculous history of my generation. Condolences to their families, friends, and fans.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Gobo's First Long Road Trip
We also went to PEI one weekend. Did I already tell you that? Probably not.
It was for Alison's birthday. We went to visit our friends Joan and Jason, who are expecting a baby any day. Joan's actually pregnant, so the expectation is not completely groundless.
We left on Saturday morning. Alison drove Gobo. Instead of the main highway which takes you pretty much all the way east back into Halifax before backtracking northwest up toward New Brunswick (figure a), we took a more scenic route (figure b) which is fewer miles but takes a little more time due to lower speed limits. It was worth it because that road was beeyooteeful, with cows and brooks and meadows and willow trees all up and down its windy length.
Ali needed to take a break once we got across the bridge.
Eventually, we got to J&J's house, which is in a nice little neighbourhood not far from downtown Cha'town. They put us up and fed us and showed us the sights and generally played the perfect hosts. We had some fantastic curry and chips in a British pub that night and played some Yahtzee before bed. The next day was spent wandering around. First we went to a park on the waterfront.
Then Alison and I walked around and got lost downtown, trying not to look like tourists.
We probably weren't too successful. There was a really great second-hand bookstore full of beautiful books on which it was a good thing we didn't have much money to spend. Lots of Maurice Sendak stuff and Japanese art books, in particular. At least in the one section I had a chance to look in before we decided we were just torturing ourselves and got out of there. But I also found On the Road on tape, read by Matt Dillon, which I just had to buy for the trip back.
Instead of Yahtzee that night, we figured out how to play a card game called Casino that Alison had played as a child. It's kind of weird. I'm still not sure whether I like it. Alison was immediately good at it.
The following day was Monday, but I'd taken it off work so we could drive back at our leisure. Which we did, after a warm goodbye to the J's. The bridge was closed for a few hours for an international bike race, so we had to wait in that weird little "Main Street, USA" type tourist area on the PEI end of it, where we ate some truly horrible grilled cheese sandwiches fried in rancid butter and served with a mountain of freezer-burned McCain french fries.
Once we got over the bridge, though, everything was fine. The sun came out and we had a long but pleasant drive back with Matt Dillon telling us all about Dean Moriarty's romantic escapades and the truck beds full of hitchhiking farm boys. We took the scenic route again and stopped for an ice cream cone just before home. Wish I'd bought that book of Japanese prints. Maybe when we go back later this summer to visit Jenny & Tom & MacKenzie...
It was for Alison's birthday. We went to visit our friends Joan and Jason, who are expecting a baby any day. Joan's actually pregnant, so the expectation is not completely groundless.
We left on Saturday morning. Alison drove Gobo. Instead of the main highway which takes you pretty much all the way east back into Halifax before backtracking northwest up toward New Brunswick (figure a), we took a more scenic route (figure b) which is fewer miles but takes a little more time due to lower speed limits. It was worth it because that road was beeyooteeful, with cows and brooks and meadows and willow trees all up and down its windy length.
Ali needed to take a break once we got across the bridge.
Eventually, we got to J&J's house, which is in a nice little neighbourhood not far from downtown Cha'town. They put us up and fed us and showed us the sights and generally played the perfect hosts. We had some fantastic curry and chips in a British pub that night and played some Yahtzee before bed. The next day was spent wandering around. First we went to a park on the waterfront.
Then Alison and I walked around and got lost downtown, trying not to look like tourists.
We probably weren't too successful. There was a really great second-hand bookstore full of beautiful books on which it was a good thing we didn't have much money to spend. Lots of Maurice Sendak stuff and Japanese art books, in particular. At least in the one section I had a chance to look in before we decided we were just torturing ourselves and got out of there. But I also found On the Road on tape, read by Matt Dillon, which I just had to buy for the trip back.
Instead of Yahtzee that night, we figured out how to play a card game called Casino that Alison had played as a child. It's kind of weird. I'm still not sure whether I like it. Alison was immediately good at it.
The following day was Monday, but I'd taken it off work so we could drive back at our leisure. Which we did, after a warm goodbye to the J's. The bridge was closed for a few hours for an international bike race, so we had to wait in that weird little "Main Street, USA" type tourist area on the PEI end of it, where we ate some truly horrible grilled cheese sandwiches fried in rancid butter and served with a mountain of freezer-burned McCain french fries.
Once we got over the bridge, though, everything was fine. The sun came out and we had a long but pleasant drive back with Matt Dillon telling us all about Dean Moriarty's romantic escapades and the truck beds full of hitchhiking farm boys. We took the scenic route again and stopped for an ice cream cone just before home. Wish I'd bought that book of Japanese prints. Maybe when we go back later this summer to visit Jenny & Tom & MacKenzie...
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Happy Father's Day!
This is my dad at the scenic end of a hike along Cape Split we took at Thanksgiving last year. Coincidentally, Ali and I are going to hike Cape Split today with some friends. Hope you've got something nice planned too, Dad.
[Hmm... OK, I just found out it's not Father's Day. Weird. I'm sure at least three people told me it was. Oh well, happy Father's Day in advance.]
Saturday, June 13, 2009
El to the Oh to the Dee Gee Ee
OK, I'm into this one-subject-per-post idea. This one's about The Lodge. There have been a couple of shows in the past little while — one an all-ages show at the Mic Mac Canoe Club in Dartmouth and the other at the Bus Stop Theatre in Halifax for adults only. They were both pretty loud and fairly scrappy. Neither as much fun for me as the previous show we'd played at the Foggy Goggle, where the crowd was super into it and five separate people mentioned Joy Division in talking to me about my bass playing afterward. That one was the official CD release show, although it wasn't really advertised as such so we only actually sold two CDs. I heard someone accidentally bought one of the other bands' CDs, thinking it was ours — that's how disorganized our marketing was.But now we've got a show coming up this Friday with The True Love Rules. That's the band Dave Marsh has put together to perform his own material. He's the drummer from the Joel Plaskett Emergency, and one of the drummers from the Super Friendz. His songs are fantastic. Should be a real good show, with lots of people our own age whom we actually know in attendance.
I put some The Lodge CDs in a local book store for sale today. We'll see if anyone buys any. They probably wouldn't know anything about the band out here in Wolfville, although anyone who works with me might make the connection. People also might be inclined to pick it up if they've read the latest Exclaim! magazine. Maybe I'll just randomly distribute some of those around town, lying on tables and benches open to the relevant page. Somebody's gotta give these hippy singer/songwriter/amplified-flappy-stringed-acoustic-guitar-strummers a run for their money.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
A Voice from Beyond the Grave
Another thing I did recently is quit Twitter. I'd been considering it for a long time, but something or other would always drag me back in. It's weird how guilty I felt about it. I guess there were quite a few people that I don't really have much contact with otherwise, which was why it was appealing in the first place. But I just can't get into this whole computer-as-social-venue thing. I think computers are pretty bad for society in general, in that they put us in a headspace where we become almost necessarily oblivious to our surroundings — a pattern that's already way too easy for humans to fall into anyway — and keep us there with a near infinity of potential diversions. It's one thing to (over)work that way, and to be (over)entertained that way, but when we start having to relate to each other that way too, well, there's just something a little creepy and Matrix-y about it.
Plus, having my work and entertainment and friendships all overlap and interrupt each other every three minutes is just way too distracting. I was losing my powers of concentration and starting to feel totally insane whenever the design I'd stopped thinking about to find an appropriate font I'd stopped choosing to respond to an email I'd stopped reading to look up an insignificant fact got interrupted by someone in another city telling me and all their other followers that their coworkers suck and they are just about ready to gouge their own eyes out. Basically, people just probably shouldn't converse when they're on a computer, as they are in a less-than-human state.
But so it was still a really hard decision to make, and I felt bad for all my friends I was deserting. Honestly, it's probably the closest thing to committing suicide you can do without actually hurting yourself. I felt it necessary to apologize and tell everyone it wasn't their fault; I just didn't want to exist in this environment anymore. I thanked them all for their many kind words totaling fewer than 140 characters; said I hoped to see them in some other, better medium; and then I pulled the plug.
I actually left a note too, via Twitpic, the site that lets you post pictures which show up as links in a Twitter "tweet". But I didn't realize that as soon as I deleted my account the picture would be deleted too, so it actually only existed in cyberspace for a couple of seconds. Here's what it looked like:
I predict it becomes THE cultural icon of this year.
Plus, having my work and entertainment and friendships all overlap and interrupt each other every three minutes is just way too distracting. I was losing my powers of concentration and starting to feel totally insane whenever the design I'd stopped thinking about to find an appropriate font I'd stopped choosing to respond to an email I'd stopped reading to look up an insignificant fact got interrupted by someone in another city telling me and all their other followers that their coworkers suck and they are just about ready to gouge their own eyes out. Basically, people just probably shouldn't converse when they're on a computer, as they are in a less-than-human state.
But so it was still a really hard decision to make, and I felt bad for all my friends I was deserting. Honestly, it's probably the closest thing to committing suicide you can do without actually hurting yourself. I felt it necessary to apologize and tell everyone it wasn't their fault; I just didn't want to exist in this environment anymore. I thanked them all for their many kind words totaling fewer than 140 characters; said I hoped to see them in some other, better medium; and then I pulled the plug.
I actually left a note too, via Twitpic, the site that lets you post pictures which show up as links in a Twitter "tweet". But I didn't realize that as soon as I deleted my account the picture would be deleted too, so it actually only existed in cyberspace for a couple of seconds. Here's what it looked like:
I predict it becomes THE cultural icon of this year.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
More Apple Blossom
The next day was the parade. It was really long and really great. We drove to Kentville to watch it with our friends Jen and Andy. All one and a half hours of it. With cheeseburgers and fries courtesy of the Lions Club. (Cheese on the side for some reason.) There was some rain again, but again it didn't put a damper on things. Just made them damper. Ha.
There were tons of homemade floats, Apple Blossom princesses, marching bands, Sparklettes, and of course Shriners. And pretty much everyone for miles around came out to line the sidewalks and sometimes step unceremoniously into the revelry. Sure felt like a celebration.
P.S. NDP got in in our riding, and it's looking like Nova Scotia has an NDP majority government! Whoa.
There were tons of homemade floats, Apple Blossom princesses, marching bands, Sparklettes, and of course Shriners. And pretty much everyone for miles around came out to line the sidewalks and sometimes step unceremoniously into the revelry. Sure felt like a celebration.
P.S. NDP got in in our riding, and it's looking like Nova Scotia has an NDP majority government! Whoa.
Monday, June 08, 2009
Rock, Valley Style
Every day I mean to get on here and tell you about a million different things, and every day I don't get a chance to and the running total of things I have to tell you about increases. So here's ONE THING that happened recently. I'll tell you another one tomorrow.
Two weekends ago was the Apple Blossom Festival here in Annapolis Valley. Very big deal. Everyone comes down from the mountains to watch the parade and take part in the festivities. We have some photos of the parade, but I haven't had a chance to choose and adjust a batch yet. The night before the parade, Friday, was the fireworks. We drove out to Kentville to check them out. It was threatening to rain but they said they'd be having them anyway.
There was a big baseball field with a small truck trailer on it and a large crowd of people sitting on the shallow slope facing it. Young, old; sobre, messed up; inbred, legally conceived... it was a pretty broad spectrum of humanity. The trailer was like a container that a big rig would pull, but was completely open on one side. It was the stage for Dirty Deeds, an AC/DC cover band. We had missed Dressed 2 Kill, the KISS cover band, but it didn't matter because Dirty Deeds blew our minds.
Maybe I'm just starving for rock out here in the land of two-strummed-acoustic-guitars-and-a-hippy-playing-bongos bands, but I thought these guys put on an excellent show. Most of the songs they did were from Brian Johnson era DC, so the lead singer wore a sleeveless jean jacket and a flat cap. He maintained a passable Australian accent throughout and had Johnson's shriek/rasp down to a T. Later in the show there wasn't much in the way of pitch left in his voice, but that didn't exactly spoil the illusion. He did an all right Bon Scott too. "Angus Young" played every solo note for note on an unlit platform in front of the trailer and got the head-bob and duckwalk just right. The other three guys were just fine.
There was a very crummy light show which looked even crummier on the back wall of the "rockquarium," but went well with the french fries and rain. Yes, it did eventually rain, sending us home before the fireworks began. But we stayed for all of Dirty Deeds's set. The people on the hill seemed oblivious to the fact that there was even a band playing, despite the deafening tinniness of the sound at that distance. Probably a good thing, considering the large number of children and the complete inappropriateness of most of the lyrical matter, not to even mention the in-between banter. But those down in front around the bleachers were pretty into it, so we went down and head-banged with them. Towards the end they did "TNT," which made me very happy. The young ones seemed to really enjoy "Whole Lotta Rosie," disturbingly enough.
The fireworks wouldn't have lived up to the excitement of that scrappy show, so we booted it back to our car at the edge of town as soon as the last song was over. But we could hear them popping and see the tops of them behind us as we walked and sang in the rain, and that made it just a perfect night.
Two weekends ago was the Apple Blossom Festival here in Annapolis Valley. Very big deal. Everyone comes down from the mountains to watch the parade and take part in the festivities. We have some photos of the parade, but I haven't had a chance to choose and adjust a batch yet. The night before the parade, Friday, was the fireworks. We drove out to Kentville to check them out. It was threatening to rain but they said they'd be having them anyway.
There was a big baseball field with a small truck trailer on it and a large crowd of people sitting on the shallow slope facing it. Young, old; sobre, messed up; inbred, legally conceived... it was a pretty broad spectrum of humanity. The trailer was like a container that a big rig would pull, but was completely open on one side. It was the stage for Dirty Deeds, an AC/DC cover band. We had missed Dressed 2 Kill, the KISS cover band, but it didn't matter because Dirty Deeds blew our minds.
Maybe I'm just starving for rock out here in the land of two-strummed-acoustic-guitars-and-a-hippy-playing-bongos bands, but I thought these guys put on an excellent show. Most of the songs they did were from Brian Johnson era DC, so the lead singer wore a sleeveless jean jacket and a flat cap. He maintained a passable Australian accent throughout and had Johnson's shriek/rasp down to a T. Later in the show there wasn't much in the way of pitch left in his voice, but that didn't exactly spoil the illusion. He did an all right Bon Scott too. "Angus Young" played every solo note for note on an unlit platform in front of the trailer and got the head-bob and duckwalk just right. The other three guys were just fine.
There was a very crummy light show which looked even crummier on the back wall of the "rockquarium," but went well with the french fries and rain. Yes, it did eventually rain, sending us home before the fireworks began. But we stayed for all of Dirty Deeds's set. The people on the hill seemed oblivious to the fact that there was even a band playing, despite the deafening tinniness of the sound at that distance. Probably a good thing, considering the large number of children and the complete inappropriateness of most of the lyrical matter, not to even mention the in-between banter. But those down in front around the bleachers were pretty into it, so we went down and head-banged with them. Towards the end they did "TNT," which made me very happy. The young ones seemed to really enjoy "Whole Lotta Rosie," disturbingly enough.
The fireworks wouldn't have lived up to the excitement of that scrappy show, so we booted it back to our car at the edge of town as soon as the last song was over. But we could hear them popping and see the tops of them behind us as we walked and sang in the rain, and that made it just a perfect night.
Monday, June 01, 2009
So much going on...
We've had a really busy week! I was back and forth 3 times to Halifax this week, plus there were a few trips to Kentville, an AC/DC tribute band, fireworks, a parade, an Apple Blossom Queen (and many, many princesses), and even a Lodge show thrown in there. And we went on a little exploration trying to find Lumsden Dam, where apparently the swimming is good. Here's a glimpse of the serenity we felt while looking.
More to come...
- Ali
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