Civic Pride

Nothing much to see here. We are good. Winter's doing its thing. Alison's been taking some yoga classes. I'm teaching my old friend Alain how to play guitar. On Wednesday I'm going to a private high school's career fair to talk to some kids about how to be a graphic designer (drop out of school, get your friends to show you how to do graphic design, charge outrageous amounts to stay home and sit in front of a computer in your pajamas). The Lodge has a rare show coming up next week.

And there's been skating. That's probably the most exciting thing. The city built a huge speed skating oval on the Commons for the Canada Winter Games, and the public is allowed to use it until the competitions start. For free! And they even have skates for you to borrow. Modern skates. For free!

I had this idea that I'm a terrible skater and should probably never try it again, from having gone out a few years ago with my friend Meg and a rusty old pair of skates I bought from someone on Kijiji for five bucks or something. It was a painful and humiliating time — no fun at all. I remembered that I was never very good at it as a kid, and convinced myself that I was even worse at it as an adult.

But everyone on the Commons looked like they were having such fun, and there was such a huge range of ability going on, that I just had to try again. And I'm so glad I did, because it turns out having a decent pair of skates makes all the difference. Alison and I both skated around and around in the windless snow for an hour or so with Meg and a couple of her friends, to the blaring music of a local radio station that I would normally despise, but somehow it seemed just fine that night. Then we had some hot chocolate and a greasy, sugary thing called a "Beaver Tail."

I wish I had footage of the actual experience to show you, because you'd see both of us holding hands, wobbling around, and grinning goofily like a couple of little kids. But I don't. This is pretty much what the scene looks like, though. Sometimes I think this city's pretty great.

Well, This Is Just Really, Really Weird

Maybe you'll like it. There are no cats in it, though.

Writing Is Dead; Long Live Pictures of Cats!

Oh yeah, I've got you internet people sussed now.

I Got a New Laptop...

with a camera in it! Here's a little movie made from little photos taken with the built in camera. I didn't intend to string them all together later, but Andrew suggested it! And then we added music. hehehe

This Is the Kind of Thing I've Been Talking About

Why does the pope have anything at all to say about scientific, causal explanations of events? Because he sees Christianity as a religion about belief, and he wants to keep it that way. If your religious practice is not about how you personally experience the world, but about what you believe is or is not — actually and inarguably — the case in it, you will side with others whose beliefs agree with yours and against those who disagree. And that kind of thinking is the only thing that keeps an antiquated but powerful institution like the Catholic Church going.

So we find His Holiness swooping in after the scientific community has found the most verifiable explanation of a matter, in order to give their work his redundant blessing and tack a little rider onto the end, based on nothing but his desire to maintain the status quo. "Good work there, boys. Oh, and by the way, God is responsible for what you discovered, because I decree it."

In this case, however, he's revealed his ignorance of the principle he's ostensibly endorsing, because the really interesting feature of the Big Bang is that it can't properly be said to have a cause. The Big Bang, by definition, created not only all the matter that makes up our universe, but time itself. There was no time before it. Cause and effect, along with all other principles by which we know our universe to work, break down when we look back to that moment. That's what makes it a "singularity."

So God is here being credited with a logical impossibility. I know He's supposed to work in mysterious ways, but logically impossible ways seems to go a bit far. It reminds me of the medievals wondering whether His omnipotence should cover crazy cases like making a stone so heavy that He can't lift it.

Another way to look at it is to say that whatever might have happened before the BB, assuming it even makes sense to talk about such a time, is irrelevant to us because once the BB happened, time and space started over. It created a completely clean slate. So from this point of view, if God did cause the universe to come into existence, He destroyed Himself in the process and no longer has any effect on it. Of course, the same principle applies if it was created by Satan or a mischievous kid with a chemistry set. The true cause can never be known, but fortunately it makes absolutely no difference to anything.

Twenty Ten Ten

I hope everyone's holidays were pleasant and cheery. Alison and I had such a nice time seeing folks in Toronto over Christmas. Thanks so much to all the loved ones we got to be with, and apologies to those we had to snub this time around.

Now it's back to the usual routine in a new year, and time for the annual roundup of the last year's best albums. Or at least the ones that made it into my consciousness and stuck around long enough for me to fall in love with them. I feel like it's a good crop this year, possibly better than the last couple. Just look at the cover artwork, for example. Have you ever seen a more tantalizing display of colour and imagery?

Instead of audio samples, this time around I've included links to YouTube "videos," which are in most cases just a still image of the album cover set to the soundtrack of one of the album's songs. It's a lot easier (and more legal) for me this way, and sometimes even gives you something to look at while you're checking out the tunage.

As usual, the top ten list is in no particular order. OK, well, it's actually in alphabetical order, but that's just to make sure no favouritism snuck in anywhere. I love all these records like children, and could never possibly pick a favourite. So that means we start with the ubiquitous...

Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
It's less dramatic than their previous albums, and that somehow makes it better. Like they're not trying quite so hard now. The songs are good enough that they can be delivered in a low-key way so that you want to hear them again immediately, instead of just feeling exhausted. Some of it even sounds a bit like old Springsteen, which normally for me wouldn't be a virtue, but it works great here.
Sample

Best Coast - Crazy for You
There's been this 2010 trend of lo-fi garage-poppy girl groups coming from California. I heard Dum Dum Girls first, and really liked the sound. This band is a bit slicker than them, and already loved by seemingly everyone on the planet, so maybe that makes it not quite as legit. And I would definitely feel cooler including a band named after a Talk Talk song on this list. But the songs on this album just get so stuck in my head — and the stickiness is so enjoyable — that I'd be the worst kind of posing hipster if I didn't just bite the bullet and go along with the crowd on this one.
Sample

Caribou - Swim
Alison and I went to see Caribou in June when he/they played at The Paragon. I was worried that it probably wouldn't be as great as when we saw him/them in 2005 at The Marquee (same club, different name), because I was still unconvinced of this album's merits. I had liked Andorra so much because of the way Dan Snaith had broken out of the limits of electronica by playing real drums and having multi-parted melodies and even singing. So when he decided to make Swim a more dance-oriented album, it just sounded to me like an excuse for regression. But watching a band perform all the songs live really turned me around. He's still got tons of catchy and creative ideas; he's just emphasized the beats more and gotten more meticulous about the production.
Sample

Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest
Still processing this one, as I just finally picked it up last month. The sound of this band's a bit hard to pin down, frankly. But I know the album belongs on here because every time I listen to it I'm surprised by how much more I like it than Microcastle. Which I loooooved.
Sample

Julian Lynch - Mare
Another sound that's hard to describe. Some of it's kind of like Eno, some sounds a bit like quieter Animal Collective, and some is nothing like either of those things. Definitely subdued, almost ambient sometimes, but there's also lots of tricky stuff going on in there. This guy is an ethnomusicology major and seems to be able to play just about any instrument. For the first few weeks we had Mare on the iPod in the car, every time it came on we'd both ask simultaneously, "What is THIS?" because the songs just went so well with whatever the scenery happened to be. Now we'll recognize it, but it's still on there and it's still just as intriguingly pleasant.
Sample

Janelle Monáe - The ArchAndroid
Here's the real surprise find of the year. It's pretty removed from the usual rocks I look under for new music (R&B? American pop? Huh?), but luckily my old friend Carol tipped me off about it, and I'm so grateful. This woman is super cool and all over the place musically. I can hear some James Brown, Prince, and Stevie Wonder in there, but there's also a lot of theatrical, musical music, as well as classical, folk, and psychedelic touches. And the whole thing is a science fiction concept album in two "suites," each introduced by an unapologetically orchestral overture. Plus, she can sing like nothing you've ever heard. If this sample video doesn't knock your socks off, you must have argyle permanently tattooed on your ankles.
Sample

Joanna Newsom - Have One on Me
Joanna Newsom just keeps ratcheting up the ambition with every new album. Three discs! And not a weak spot. If you already hated her, this one might not exactly turn you around. But if you were sort of on the fence — like maybe if that voice were just a LITTLE less screechy and unpredictable in its Lisa Simpson flights of fancy, you might feel a bit more charitable toward her admittedly gorgeous songs — I'd say go ahead and give it a try. There's definitely a new, mellower tone there, although you couldn't really say her singing's any less kooky. And the songs themselves are, of course, stellar.
Sample

The Radio Dept. - Clinging to a Scheme
There were a couple of songs on the Marie Antoinette soundtrack that made me unable to concentrate on the visuals temporarily because they sounded so dreamy. They were both by these guys. I'd been looking for an album ever since, and I guess one existed, but I could never find it. Then this new one showed up in April. Luckily, it's all as hazy and sunny and achingly pretty as I'd been hoping.
Sample

Tame Impala - Innerspeaker
I don't know how many people I recommended this album to over the course of 2010. A lot. It's heavy. It's catchy. It's psychedelic and Australian. It was mixed by Flaming Lips producer, Dave Fridmann. The singer sounds like John Lennon. If that's not enough to convince you to hit the "Sample" link, I don't know what else I could possibly say.
Sample

Wild Nothing - Gemini
Yet another band I'd never heard of before this year. Somebody's definitely spiked the zeitgeist, and I'm not complaining. Wild Nothing are something like Radio Dept. in their dreaminess, but maybe a bit more literal in their '80's revivalism. I feel only the mildest twinge of guilt at seeing nothing wrong with that. "Live In Dreams" has been on every mix CD I've made in the past six months. It makes my heart hurt in the best possible way.
Sample

Honourable Mentions:
Sufjan Stevens - The Age of Adz
Daft Punk - Tron: Legacy Original Sountrack
Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Before Today
Robyn - Body Talk
Dungen - Skit I Allt