There was a big, windy rainstorm here on Friday, and now we seem to have no telephone service. A bit disconcerting, but at least there's still power, internet, and cable... If anyone's been trying to call us in the past couple of days, that's what's up. UPDATE 3/01: It's working again. Not sure what the problem was, but it came back on last night.
Yesterday, after brunch at the Good Food Emporium with our friends Jill and Rebecca, we went for a scenic drive to Lawrencetown Beach. We got out to admire the powerful waves, then continued along the Cole Harbour Road up the eastern shore, where I grew up. The scenery was bleak and beautiful, and it brought back a flood of surprising memories and emotions, some of them pretty grim. Their intensity grew as we continued east through Seaforth and Grand Desert, peaking when the road ended at Lakeview Elementary, the school where I finished third grade when my family first moved out that way.
When we got back, I wrote a long blog post about the trip and my memories. Its general theme was loss of innocence, and it made the point that there is something mystical and dark about the natural and cultural beauty of Nova Scotia's eastern shore, as it embodies a certain amount of violence, death, and even possibly evil. The post was frankly way too severe for general consumption, and also not very well written. And it didn't make it clear that both my childhood and our afternoon drive were enjoyable despite the gloomy undercurrent. Or, rather, the gloom was included as part of our enjoyment.
So instead of a sloppily analytical essay, here are a few haiku which I think give a much more accurate picture of the afternoon. I know I said I wouldn't inflict more haiku on you, but really, if you saw the alternative, you'd thank me.
Clouds after a storm —
The ocean reaches for them,
Salt in the cold air.
Crow in a dead tree
By the road watches our car
Go over the hill.
White ship on black waves:
The front end is supposed to
Go under like that.
Out on the icy
Salt marsh, four Canada geese
Burying their heads.
Sunday, the paint on
My old elementary
School peels in the wind.
It was actually Saturday, but it felt more like a Sunday. Poetic licence.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Quiet Freakout
One of the most annoying things about popular internet relationship-destroyer, Facebook, is that sometimes there is actually some pretty cool stuff on there, but of course you can't access it without, as my friend Carol says, "drinking the purple Jesus juice." Our old friend Peter, for instance, has been making downloadable mix tapes and posting them on his Facebook page, account, or wall — whatever you techno kids call it. Each one represents a certain genre or theme or mood, and they come with nice cover art. Peter has really good taste in music, so I was glad that Alison, being an unabashed Facebooker, has been able to email me the download links, along with descriptive text.
All this is to say that, having enjoyed many of these things (except possibly the all-Bruce-Cockburn one, and even that had some nice surprises), I've been inspired to make my own mix-tape-for-the-world. Here it is:
The Other Woman
An alternate title for this mix might be That's a Dealbreaker, Ladies!, because for each of these songs, you will know at least one person who would not be able to sit through its entirety. Here are the freaky, folky femmes from the wrong side of the music industry. To be fair, some of them have been quite successful, but they're all unique in some love-it-or-hate-it kind of way. I happen to love them all, and my aim here is to convince you to feel the same.
Most of the arguable oddity comes in a subdued, understated package, though a few of these gals do occassionally let loose with some actual wailing. And mostly it's the voices that will drive your closed-minded friends to press the eject button. But in some cases it has more to do with the non-white-Anglo cultural origins of the music. I'd like to point out that the inclusion of these latter cases in a mix of ostensibly "weird" or even "annoying" music does not mean that I am a racist — just that I think your friends are.
All this is to say that, having enjoyed many of these things (except possibly the all-Bruce-Cockburn one, and even that had some nice surprises), I've been inspired to make my own mix-tape-for-the-world. Here it is:
The Other Woman
An alternate title for this mix might be That's a Dealbreaker, Ladies!, because for each of these songs, you will know at least one person who would not be able to sit through its entirety. Here are the freaky, folky femmes from the wrong side of the music industry. To be fair, some of them have been quite successful, but they're all unique in some love-it-or-hate-it kind of way. I happen to love them all, and my aim here is to convince you to feel the same.Most of the arguable oddity comes in a subdued, understated package, though a few of these gals do occassionally let loose with some actual wailing. And mostly it's the voices that will drive your closed-minded friends to press the eject button. But in some cases it has more to do with the non-white-Anglo cultural origins of the music. I'd like to point out that the inclusion of these latter cases in a mix of ostensibly "weird" or even "annoying" music does not mean that I am a racist — just that I think your friends are.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Hi-Q
Ever since rereading Franny and Zooey and Raise High the Roof Beams, Carpenter I've been meaning to check out the Japanese poet Issa, especially as translated by R. H. Blyth, since both/all those stories recommend him/them so highly. Well, I finally got around to it on the weekend and had my mind immediately expanded in the pleasantest of ways.
For some reason, I've never paid much attention to haiku, which is weird because I went through a huge Zen phase in high school and a huge Kerouac phase a little later. I think the blame for my lack of interest rests on the way haiku is taught in North American English classes, as if it's little more than a formal constraint on the number of syllables. They usually mention nature in there too, but that's about it. It's too bad, really, because the 5-7-5 syllable thing is a constraint which works in Japanese much better than in English. Most English haiku writers, and almost all translators of Japanese haiku into English, actually ignore that rule completely.
Much more important is the idea of the poem being very short and pithy, capturing a particular moment as observed by the poet, but eschewing any extra value judgment that the poet's mind might try to impose on that moment. It should be dry as a bone, drawing the reader into the same perception that caused the poet to write it, before it got all tangled up with extra-perceptive stuff like thoughts and emotions. It's a very unromantic form in that way, so maybe not particularly apt for Valentine's Day, but then again who cares whether Hallmark is pleased with my reading habits?
The poems bear some resemblance to jokes too, though they're not usually funny, as such. But the required pithiness, along with the prevalence of homographs in the Japanese language, often leads to puns or subtler double meanings. And there's also a sort of set-up and punchline aspect to it, with the third line generally surprising the reader or revealing an unexpected aspect to the moment that deepens our understanding of the first two lines. Kind of like the whack on the back with a stick that can sometimes bring about satori in Zen meditation. There's a really good article about the connections between Zen and haiku here, if you're interested.
Having thus hopefully convinced you that it's worth the brief time it'll take, here for your reading pleasure and general enlightenment are a few of Issa's/Blyth's haikus.
It's not a big deal—
the poppy and I
are both alive.
The spring day lasts
a little longer
around water.
The temple bells stop—
but the sound keeps coming
out of the flowers.
The older we get,
the more easily tears come
on a long day.
The world of dew
is the world of dew,
And yet, and yet—
(That last one was written when his two-year-old daughter died. He had a pretty unlucky life. Which is why he became such a great poet? Who knows?)
Having primed myself with such extraordinary fare, I started seeing the world through the eyes of a haikuist, and two immediately came to me. They're more Basho than Issa, and they seemed to want to be in the 5-7-5 format, so I let them. Sometimes I'm a traditionalist.
Winter morning light,
the cat asleep on my legs—
a truck rumbles by.
All the fat sparrows
are sitting in the same tree.
Here comes another.
I'll be very happy if they keep coming, though I won't continue to inflict them on you.
For some reason, I've never paid much attention to haiku, which is weird because I went through a huge Zen phase in high school and a huge Kerouac phase a little later. I think the blame for my lack of interest rests on the way haiku is taught in North American English classes, as if it's little more than a formal constraint on the number of syllables. They usually mention nature in there too, but that's about it. It's too bad, really, because the 5-7-5 syllable thing is a constraint which works in Japanese much better than in English. Most English haiku writers, and almost all translators of Japanese haiku into English, actually ignore that rule completely.
Much more important is the idea of the poem being very short and pithy, capturing a particular moment as observed by the poet, but eschewing any extra value judgment that the poet's mind might try to impose on that moment. It should be dry as a bone, drawing the reader into the same perception that caused the poet to write it, before it got all tangled up with extra-perceptive stuff like thoughts and emotions. It's a very unromantic form in that way, so maybe not particularly apt for Valentine's Day, but then again who cares whether Hallmark is pleased with my reading habits?
The poems bear some resemblance to jokes too, though they're not usually funny, as such. But the required pithiness, along with the prevalence of homographs in the Japanese language, often leads to puns or subtler double meanings. And there's also a sort of set-up and punchline aspect to it, with the third line generally surprising the reader or revealing an unexpected aspect to the moment that deepens our understanding of the first two lines. Kind of like the whack on the back with a stick that can sometimes bring about satori in Zen meditation. There's a really good article about the connections between Zen and haiku here, if you're interested.
Having thus hopefully convinced you that it's worth the brief time it'll take, here for your reading pleasure and general enlightenment are a few of Issa's/Blyth's haikus.
It's not a big deal—
the poppy and I
are both alive.
The spring day lasts
a little longer
around water.
The temple bells stop—
but the sound keeps coming
out of the flowers.
The older we get,
the more easily tears come
on a long day.
The world of dew
is the world of dew,
And yet, and yet—
(That last one was written when his two-year-old daughter died. He had a pretty unlucky life. Which is why he became such a great poet? Who knows?)
Having primed myself with such extraordinary fare, I started seeing the world through the eyes of a haikuist, and two immediately came to me. They're more Basho than Issa, and they seemed to want to be in the 5-7-5 format, so I let them. Sometimes I'm a traditionalist.
Winter morning light,
the cat asleep on my legs—
a truck rumbles by.
All the fat sparrows
are sitting in the same tree.
Here comes another.
I'll be very happy if they keep coming, though I won't continue to inflict them on you.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
The Original Buffy
In between watching every episode of Saturday Night Live from the 1979–80 season (we rented the DVD box set) and hiding in my bed from mean old February, I find myself listening to a lot of folky women with crazy voices lately — Karen Dalton, Sybille Baier, Joni Mitchell, Vashti Bunyan, Joanna Newsom, ... I think I feel a mix tape brewing. Anyway, I just "discovered" this one today — "Vampire," from Buffy Sainte-Marie's Illuminations album of 1969. I guess I never realized how awesomely freaky and psychedelic she was. I'll have to check out more of her catalogue.She may not fare as well against the titular baddy, but I'll take this Buffy over Sarah Michelle Gellar's any day.
Sunday, February 07, 2010
Good Enough for Now
OK, it's debugged and up for all the world to see, thanks to a very nice free site that shows you what any web page will look like in different versions of Internet Explorer. Don't know what I would have done without that. I was about to install Windows on my Mac and reboot every time I wanted to check my work. Would have been an absolute nightmare.
So take a look, if you wouldn't mind: www.focusdesign.ca. Bookmark it, and you'll even get a nice little icon beside it in your favourites.
If you're on Internet Explorer 6 or lower, I think there will still be some weirdness — light-coloured boxes behind images and some frames that don't sit exactly the way they're supposed to. But I'll tackle that later. Three different versions of the same website for different browsers is close enough for jazz, at least for tonight. Again, please let me know if you notice anything really untoward. Like not being able to view the work samples, which is only the entire point of the site in the first place... Ai yi.
UPDATE: Now available for IE 6! Anything lower, I think I'm gonna have to say screw it. You've gotta draw the line somewhere. I could easily spend the rest of my life pushing pixels around.
So take a look, if you wouldn't mind: www.focusdesign.ca. Bookmark it, and you'll even get a nice little icon beside it in your favourites.
If you're on Internet Explorer 6 or lower, I think there will still be some weirdness — light-coloured boxes behind images and some frames that don't sit exactly the way they're supposed to. But I'll tackle that later. Three different versions of the same website for different browsers is close enough for jazz, at least for tonight. Again, please let me know if you notice anything really untoward. Like not being able to view the work samples, which is only the entire point of the site in the first place... Ai yi.
UPDATE: Now available for IE 6! Anything lower, I think I'm gonna have to say screw it. You've gotta draw the line somewhere. I could easily spend the rest of my life pushing pixels around.
Friday, February 05, 2010
Finally!
Today I am a webmaster! My self-promotional website's up and accepting visitors. (My professional one, I mean.) I just finished it and made it live today. Check it out here.
Working on a Mac, I haven't had a chance to view it on a PC, so if anyone notices anything weird going on, please let me know. But take it easy on me, 'cause this is the first time I've ever put together a website myself, and I'm kind of proud of my rickety little baby held together with chewing gum and arbitrary negative margins.
Have I mentioned that I hate web programming? So frustrating!
UPDATE: Ugh. It looks terrible on Internet Explorer! I basically have to redo the whole thing a different way for that one particular browser, because it's such a piece of Microsoft junk. I'll let you know when it's back up again for universal viewing. If you're innarested.
Working on a Mac, I haven't had a chance to view it on a PC, so if anyone notices anything weird going on, please let me know. But take it easy on me, 'cause this is the first time I've ever put together a website myself, and I'm kind of proud of my rickety little baby held together with chewing gum and arbitrary negative margins.
Have I mentioned that I hate web programming? So frustrating!
UPDATE: Ugh. It looks terrible on Internet Explorer! I basically have to redo the whole thing a different way for that one particular browser, because it's such a piece of Microsoft junk. I'll let you know when it's back up again for universal viewing. If you're innarested.
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