I have a spot between my eyebrows that gets a crease in it, and I don't seem to be able to do anything about it. Actually, it's more of a dent than a crease. And red. And when I say it "gets a crease" it would now be more accurate to just say it has a crease, because over the past year or so it has become a permanent feature of my facial expression. I know that it means I'm subtly knitting my eyebrows together, but I can't seem to figure out how to properly relax my face so that it goes away.
Meditating used to do it, and it was the only thing that would do it. In fact, the dent used to be a sure sign that it was time for me to meditate, because I had unconsciously become unconscious, letting my mind push me around while believing that the reverse relationship held. I came to think of the dent as the mark of the beast — my false self taking me over and fooling me into thinking it was my true self. I also thought of it sometimes as my third eye closing because I was no longer in tune with the present moment and my infinite connections to the rest of the universe. Not that I really believe in the third eye, which is supposed to be the centre of clairvoyant perception, but the symbolism always seemed kind of interesting.
So it's a little upsetting to see it there all the time. I try to accept it, since I know you can't fight resistance by resisting it. And meditating does still help somewhat. But the thing is, it's actually kind of painful. I'm going around pretty much all the time now with a mild stress headache. I've been looking on the internet, trying to figure out what can be done about this condition, but all I find is vanity-based stuff about preventing wrinkles and looking younger. I honestly don't care about that, although it does worry me that I might appear perpetually angry to others. What's that quote about every man eventually getting the face he deserves? I think that's supposed to be by the age of fifty. I don't know if I believe that anyway — seems a little mean. What about disfigured people? Or Gary Coleman?
Anyway, does anyone have any suggestions or personal knowledge about what can be done? Right now it's burning and pounding. I feel like a sense of humour is probably an important ingredient in the remedy, so I keep repeating my favourite Groucho Marx joke in my head, like a mantra: Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. No luck, but at least I'm having fun imagining what the life cycle of a time fly might look like, and how museum guards might keep them away from the arrowhead collections.
Saturday, November 07, 2009
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Seamus Self-Promotion
Another Lodge show tonight. Come one, come all! This one featuring full sensory apparatus.
Here's a video I made for the song we were playing in the video in the last post, using footage from that very video plus some creepy educational films by Jean Painlevé about octopi. If you like it, I recommend his Science Is Fiction Criterion Collection DVDs.
Sunday, November 01, 2009
Hali Happowe'en
The Lodge played an early show last night (Hallowe'en) at Tribeca. It was a really tough one because we couldn't see or hear each other or our own instruments, but I think we pulled it off OK. Plenty of people came out in full costume, there were three other great bands including Dub Sabbath who blew everyone's minds with their reggae druid metal and smoke machine, and the whole thing was just a lot of fun. Alison put together a great "Scary Tyler Moore" outfit — no one knew who she was.
Afterward, we wandered around downtown some, and I was happy to see that there were loads of adults in really imaginative costumes, all having a good time and being very friendly. None of this doctor and semi-pornographic nurse stuff you usually see. Wish we had some photos of the Smurf, Rainbow Brite, head in a box, and Animal from the Muppets to show you, and especially of the hilarious "hot cops" from the burrito place at the end of the night. Great timez. Now I can't wait to see the photos from my sister's infamous annual party.
Afterward, we wandered around downtown some, and I was happy to see that there were loads of adults in really imaginative costumes, all having a good time and being very friendly. None of this doctor and semi-pornographic nurse stuff you usually see. Wish we had some photos of the Smurf, Rainbow Brite, head in a box, and Animal from the Muppets to show you, and especially of the hilarious "hot cops" from the burrito place at the end of the night. Great timez. Now I can't wait to see the photos from my sister's infamous annual party.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Egg Nog II
We were over in Dartmouth today rounding up stuff for Hallowe'en costumes and the streets are lined with "Season's Greetings" and "Happy Holidays" banners. Then we went to the Superstore to get a pumpkin and they'd already gotten rid of them all. I knew we were in trouble when a guy passed me on my way in with a couple of containers of egg nog in his arms.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Egg Nog!
And Christmas lights! At the Superstore. No joke. I don't know how long they've been there, but as far as I can remember this is the earliest I've ever seen them out. I think their goal is to just have a permanent Christmas aisle — makes life so much simpler.
Happy holidays, everyone.
Happy holidays, everyone.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Welcome to Neverland
We went to see Where the Wild Things Are last weekend, and something's been bothering me about it ever since. Don't get me wrong — I liked it, I think. At least, I mostly enjoyed it. It's very beautiful and fantastic like the illustrations in Maurice Sendak's book for children, and the dialogue and story movement are quiet and spare like the book's text. The complex themes of childhood rebellion and escapist fantasy are covered complexly. You really feel/remember what it's like to be a young, angry child who just wants everyone to be how he wants them to be and to let him be who he wants to be.
I guess what's bothering me is that the book was written for children to relate to, and the movie is obviously aimed more at adults — specifically fashionable young adults who don't want to grow up. The tone throughout is wistful and bittersweet. It's directed by hip rock video and indie arthouse director Spike Jonze, includes many recognizable "intelligent television" stars as the titular wild things, was cowritten by McSweeney's editor and hipster-fiction darling Dave Eggers, and is near relentlessly drenched in an indie rock soundtrack by people from the Arcade Fire and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The monsters are all made by Jim Henson's people and the title is written in the Freaks and Geeks font. It's a nostalgia trip for people like me, in other words, and I'll admit I took the bait willingly.
Is there something wrong with revisiting classic children's literature for purely nostalgic purposes? Not necessarily. I often go back to Through the Looking Glass and the Winnie the Pooh books to marvel at some of the more astounding passages, and I could still watch The Wizard of Oz at least another two hundred times. I actually was reading a few chapters of Anne of Green Gables just the other day, reminding myself how well-constructed and touching it is, despite the awful brand it has become since its publication.
But those works were all created for the enjoyment and illumination of children, and when I enjoy or re-enjoy them as an adult, it is on those terms. The children's-story-for-adults, on the other hand, aims to bring out the child within the adult that she has forgotten about, and this can be problematic. It's very easy, if the author of such a work is not careful, to slip into escapist nostalgia whose only point can be to temporarily distract its audience from the reality of the adult world, in favour of a glorified childhood world that never actually existed.
Sure, there are coming of age tales where we are reminded of lessons learned long ago, and how painful those lessons may have been. That format is perfectly valid for reorienting ourselves as adults by reexamining important pieces of the histories that have brought us here, and I guess that's probably the most charitable way to interpret a film like WWTA.
The problem is, though, that the main character in the book and the film doesn't really learn any lessons. He spends the majority of the story in a world of his own imagination, inhabited by characters who obey his own kid logic about how the world should be. Any conflicts that arise are resolved in a purely fantastical way where the childish ego is restored and nothing is learned about relating to real, independent others. It's kind of like a reverse Curb Your Enthusiasm in that way. And while it's a common complaint that Hollywood movies serve only as fantasy for lazy-minded adults, this one goes one step further in being childhood fantasy that is not even realistically appealing to adults except indirectly through the remembering of what their desires used to be, before they found out how the world really works.
As pure fantasy for children, without much in the way of lessons or moral issues raised, the book still works, because it is a beautiful and relatable creativity pump. It serves as a springboard for kids' imaginations, and shows them that it is understood and accepted in this world that they will use those imaginations for all sorts of incredible purposes, selfish and otherwise. They can feel safe, in other words, dreaming their kid dreams and escaping into their kid worlds, and can see that such escapism could eventually lead to a wonderful gift to others, called art, such as the book they are currently looking at.
It's hard to see how creating a film version of the same story for people who have presumably already read this story and learned its lessons, and who are furthermore too experienced in the ways of the world to be given the same kind of license with respect to escapism, could serve the same purpose.
It could be claimed that this movie is not really for adults, but merely includes elements (such as the indie rock soundtrack) that adults would like so that they're more apt to enjoy it with their children. This was the argument our friend Kasia gave in defense of the film immediately after we saw it (which, in retrospect, was not a great time for me to bring up these concerns because it made me sound like I was criticizing my friends for having actually enjoyed themselves, which I definitely was not). She compared the strategy to that
of Sesame Street, which we all agree is or at least used to be great. They would often throw jokes and pop culture references in that only adults would understand, as a little treat for the parents who responsibly watched the show with their kids, rather than just plopping them down in front of it.
But I don't quite buy the argument. For one thing, we all went to see this movie — in fact had waited for it to come out with some anticipation — and none of us has any kids. I can't really imagine having the same reaction to a Sesame Street movie, unless it was one of those post-modern, ironic film versions of TV shows that are popular now — the kind that are more a winking reference to the original than a loving re-creation of it. And if I heard of anyone my own age who had no children but made sure to catch Sesame Street every day, I'd probably think he was a little bit creepy.
For another thing, children are apparently not huge fans of this movie. Parents who have taken their young kids to see it report that the latter are mostly bored. Maybe that's more of a criticism of the general state of children's cinema now, with its fast-cut, action-packed sensory overload that leaves nothing to the imagination and spoils young attention spans for quality storytelling. Maybe. Or maybe the two complaints (i.e. 1. adult cinema is taking the concept of fantasy too far, to the point of infantilizing its audience, and 2. children's cinema is making children prematurely unimaginative) are really two sides of the same problem, which is that the line between adult and children's fiction is being erased.
Think about it. We all watch pretty much the same stuff now. How many of the last Pixar animated children's stories were actually made for children? And if they were, why do my friends keep telling me I have to see them? On the other hand, how many of the recent big budget action films allegedly for adults had a story that wasn't so simplistic any five-year-old could easily explain it to you? How many of those were not based on a comic book? Edward Scissorhands was the first movie I saw that gave me this vague, creepy feeling that could be summed up by the question, "Why is the fairy tale format being used unironically in movies for adults?" But it's probably been going on longer than that.
And it's not just happening in movies, either. The Harry Potter books are considered acceptable literature for a receptionist to read on her lunch break. Political satire on television has to be served up in the form of cartoons like The Simpsons and South Park to get anyone to pay attention to it.
And on the Disney channel, shows for children are all about preteens trying desperately to attract members of the opposite sex before the actresses who play them have a chance to make a pop record that is as ubiquitous as it is infantile, marketed by posing half naked on magazine covers for the adoration of their prepubescent fans and titillation of those fans' fathers.
Anyway, maybe I just got upset in this case because this was a work I actually cared about, and because, as I said, I mostly enjoyed the film and even found it quite moving in places. I mean, if they can get guys like Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers and even Maurice Sendak himself to play into this line-blurring, and make it into a reasonable stance for thoughtful young adults to take way before they should be duped by nostalgia for their childhood, then how long can childhood as a real, distinct cultural phenomenon have left?
I guess what's bothering me is that the book was written for children to relate to, and the movie is obviously aimed more at adults — specifically fashionable young adults who don't want to grow up. The tone throughout is wistful and bittersweet. It's directed by hip rock video and indie arthouse director Spike Jonze, includes many recognizable "intelligent television" stars as the titular wild things, was cowritten by McSweeney's editor and hipster-fiction darling Dave Eggers, and is near relentlessly drenched in an indie rock soundtrack by people from the Arcade Fire and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The monsters are all made by Jim Henson's people and the title is written in the Freaks and Geeks font. It's a nostalgia trip for people like me, in other words, and I'll admit I took the bait willingly.Is there something wrong with revisiting classic children's literature for purely nostalgic purposes? Not necessarily. I often go back to Through the Looking Glass and the Winnie the Pooh books to marvel at some of the more astounding passages, and I could still watch The Wizard of Oz at least another two hundred times. I actually was reading a few chapters of Anne of Green Gables just the other day, reminding myself how well-constructed and touching it is, despite the awful brand it has become since its publication.
But those works were all created for the enjoyment and illumination of children, and when I enjoy or re-enjoy them as an adult, it is on those terms. The children's-story-for-adults, on the other hand, aims to bring out the child within the adult that she has forgotten about, and this can be problematic. It's very easy, if the author of such a work is not careful, to slip into escapist nostalgia whose only point can be to temporarily distract its audience from the reality of the adult world, in favour of a glorified childhood world that never actually existed.
Sure, there are coming of age tales where we are reminded of lessons learned long ago, and how painful those lessons may have been. That format is perfectly valid for reorienting ourselves as adults by reexamining important pieces of the histories that have brought us here, and I guess that's probably the most charitable way to interpret a film like WWTA.
The problem is, though, that the main character in the book and the film doesn't really learn any lessons. He spends the majority of the story in a world of his own imagination, inhabited by characters who obey his own kid logic about how the world should be. Any conflicts that arise are resolved in a purely fantastical way where the childish ego is restored and nothing is learned about relating to real, independent others. It's kind of like a reverse Curb Your Enthusiasm in that way. And while it's a common complaint that Hollywood movies serve only as fantasy for lazy-minded adults, this one goes one step further in being childhood fantasy that is not even realistically appealing to adults except indirectly through the remembering of what their desires used to be, before they found out how the world really works.
As pure fantasy for children, without much in the way of lessons or moral issues raised, the book still works, because it is a beautiful and relatable creativity pump. It serves as a springboard for kids' imaginations, and shows them that it is understood and accepted in this world that they will use those imaginations for all sorts of incredible purposes, selfish and otherwise. They can feel safe, in other words, dreaming their kid dreams and escaping into their kid worlds, and can see that such escapism could eventually lead to a wonderful gift to others, called art, such as the book they are currently looking at.It's hard to see how creating a film version of the same story for people who have presumably already read this story and learned its lessons, and who are furthermore too experienced in the ways of the world to be given the same kind of license with respect to escapism, could serve the same purpose.
It could be claimed that this movie is not really for adults, but merely includes elements (such as the indie rock soundtrack) that adults would like so that they're more apt to enjoy it with their children. This was the argument our friend Kasia gave in defense of the film immediately after we saw it (which, in retrospect, was not a great time for me to bring up these concerns because it made me sound like I was criticizing my friends for having actually enjoyed themselves, which I definitely was not). She compared the strategy to that
of Sesame Street, which we all agree is or at least used to be great. They would often throw jokes and pop culture references in that only adults would understand, as a little treat for the parents who responsibly watched the show with their kids, rather than just plopping them down in front of it.But I don't quite buy the argument. For one thing, we all went to see this movie — in fact had waited for it to come out with some anticipation — and none of us has any kids. I can't really imagine having the same reaction to a Sesame Street movie, unless it was one of those post-modern, ironic film versions of TV shows that are popular now — the kind that are more a winking reference to the original than a loving re-creation of it. And if I heard of anyone my own age who had no children but made sure to catch Sesame Street every day, I'd probably think he was a little bit creepy.
For another thing, children are apparently not huge fans of this movie. Parents who have taken their young kids to see it report that the latter are mostly bored. Maybe that's more of a criticism of the general state of children's cinema now, with its fast-cut, action-packed sensory overload that leaves nothing to the imagination and spoils young attention spans for quality storytelling. Maybe. Or maybe the two complaints (i.e. 1. adult cinema is taking the concept of fantasy too far, to the point of infantilizing its audience, and 2. children's cinema is making children prematurely unimaginative) are really two sides of the same problem, which is that the line between adult and children's fiction is being erased.
Think about it. We all watch pretty much the same stuff now. How many of the last Pixar animated children's stories were actually made for children? And if they were, why do my friends keep telling me I have to see them? On the other hand, how many of the recent big budget action films allegedly for adults had a story that wasn't so simplistic any five-year-old could easily explain it to you? How many of those were not based on a comic book? Edward Scissorhands was the first movie I saw that gave me this vague, creepy feeling that could be summed up by the question, "Why is the fairy tale format being used unironically in movies for adults?" But it's probably been going on longer than that.
And it's not just happening in movies, either. The Harry Potter books are considered acceptable literature for a receptionist to read on her lunch break. Political satire on television has to be served up in the form of cartoons like The Simpsons and South Park to get anyone to pay attention to it.
And on the Disney channel, shows for children are all about preteens trying desperately to attract members of the opposite sex before the actresses who play them have a chance to make a pop record that is as ubiquitous as it is infantile, marketed by posing half naked on magazine covers for the adoration of their prepubescent fans and titillation of those fans' fathers.Anyway, maybe I just got upset in this case because this was a work I actually cared about, and because, as I said, I mostly enjoyed the film and even found it quite moving in places. I mean, if they can get guys like Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers and even Maurice Sendak himself to play into this line-blurring, and make it into a reasonable stance for thoughtful young adults to take way before they should be duped by nostalgia for their childhood, then how long can childhood as a real, distinct cultural phenomenon have left?
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Boy, Was That the Right Decision
It seems someone else is having trouble getting back payment out of Sherman Hines. Sounds like it's a lot more money than what he owes me, but it also sounds like he hasn't said outright in their case that he's not going to pay them. I hope that means they'll eventually get what they're owed. [Oops. I stand corrected. See her Oct. 16 post.] I've got the government working on my case, so I figure sometime within the decade I'll see my three hundred bucks.
Thursday, October 08, 2009
All the Clouds Turn to Words
I feel like I have to post something in order to keep everyone up to date, but really, I can't think of anything worth telling you about. Life has been all working days and semi-lame movie nights for awhile now. I think the colder weather is making us not want to do much — it's that time of year where every day is cold and rainy with wet leaves everywhere and you just want to stay inside all the time. Plus our apartment's been kind of cold, so there's definitely some hibernation vibes going on.
We did drive into Wolfville last weekend for a walk on the dykes and to pick out a pumpkin. Alison's got some pictures of that around somewhere... I'll see if I can find them. Oh, here we are.
Acadia's been a real good client for me since I left. Well, they're giving me a lot of work, anyway. The paying part they're not so great at. I had to get a little tough with their accounts payable department. Worked, though. But I've been doing lots of jobs for them, including one big recruitment booklet that had been left unfinished the entire time I worked there. We've finally got it just about wrapped up, and I think it's going to be quite a portfolio piece, if I do say so myself. Everyone's really happy with it.
I think they interviewed some designers the other day to fill my vacant spot, so the work from them will probably soon be slowing down. I'll have to diversify the old client base if I'm going to keep some sort of steady income. This week things are less insane than they have been, so I've been able to work on registering my business and developing a logo. It's going to be called "Focus Design," with the tagline "Be understood." Business cards first, and then I'll have to get some kind of website up, which I've never done before. Should be an interesting learning experience.
Wow, this stuff is super boring. I'm sorry, but it's kind of all I've been thinking about lately. The Lodge have a few shows coming up, including possibly one on Hallowe'en, which could be very fun. And we've also been recording a split 7" record with another band called Bloodsport. Two new Lodge songs. There're a few other new ones in the works too. I wish we could work on rehearsing and writing songs all the time, but we're all so busy it seems we barely even have time to email each other about upcoming plans.
I'm supposed to be working on an album's worth of my own stuff, which I would put out through the same guy who put out the Lodge album, but I seem to have zero time and even less inclination to sit down and throw that together. I'm using drums as the convenient stumbling block (Who would play them? How would I record them? Would we have to figure out the drum parts before recording the rest of the song, rather than recording as I write, which I would prefer to do?) but really I probably wouldn't even need real drums on most of the stuff I'd be putting together, and it's really just a matter of setting aside like an hour a day for awhile to work on it slowly until it's done. Most of what I've been listening to lately is pretty ambient, because it's easiest to work to. I saw a great documentary on Kraftwerk and electronic music, and downloaded (no money for music purchases just yet — the wishlist grows daily) the first Popol Vuh album, which I highly recommend. It's pretty and vastly spacious like their other records, but this one is mostly just Moog synthesizer, rather than the elaborate 
instrumentation they would later get into. I've been entertaining the idea of putting out a record called Green World that would be a prequel to Eno's Another Green World. That would be a nice restricting creative scenario that would allow me to make the kind of ambient-but-songy music I'd like to work on. I guess there's a fair amount of drums on that record, though... Phil Collins, actually!
Hope everyone's ready for a nice Thanksgiving weekend. We got our Tofurkey and sweet potatoes last night. There were no mushrooms left at the grocery store, though, so I'll have to try and find some today. Now that's what I call a concrete, realistic goal.
We did drive into Wolfville last weekend for a walk on the dykes and to pick out a pumpkin. Alison's got some pictures of that around somewhere... I'll see if I can find them. Oh, here we are.
Acadia's been a real good client for me since I left. Well, they're giving me a lot of work, anyway. The paying part they're not so great at. I had to get a little tough with their accounts payable department. Worked, though. But I've been doing lots of jobs for them, including one big recruitment booklet that had been left unfinished the entire time I worked there. We've finally got it just about wrapped up, and I think it's going to be quite a portfolio piece, if I do say so myself. Everyone's really happy with it.
I think they interviewed some designers the other day to fill my vacant spot, so the work from them will probably soon be slowing down. I'll have to diversify the old client base if I'm going to keep some sort of steady income. This week things are less insane than they have been, so I've been able to work on registering my business and developing a logo. It's going to be called "Focus Design," with the tagline "Be understood." Business cards first, and then I'll have to get some kind of website up, which I've never done before. Should be an interesting learning experience.
Wow, this stuff is super boring. I'm sorry, but it's kind of all I've been thinking about lately. The Lodge have a few shows coming up, including possibly one on Hallowe'en, which could be very fun. And we've also been recording a split 7" record with another band called Bloodsport. Two new Lodge songs. There're a few other new ones in the works too. I wish we could work on rehearsing and writing songs all the time, but we're all so busy it seems we barely even have time to email each other about upcoming plans.
I'm supposed to be working on an album's worth of my own stuff, which I would put out through the same guy who put out the Lodge album, but I seem to have zero time and even less inclination to sit down and throw that together. I'm using drums as the convenient stumbling block (Who would play them? How would I record them? Would we have to figure out the drum parts before recording the rest of the song, rather than recording as I write, which I would prefer to do?) but really I probably wouldn't even need real drums on most of the stuff I'd be putting together, and it's really just a matter of setting aside like an hour a day for awhile to work on it slowly until it's done. Most of what I've been listening to lately is pretty ambient, because it's easiest to work to. I saw a great documentary on Kraftwerk and electronic music, and downloaded (no money for music purchases just yet — the wishlist grows daily) the first Popol Vuh album, which I highly recommend. It's pretty and vastly spacious like their other records, but this one is mostly just Moog synthesizer, rather than the elaborate 
instrumentation they would later get into. I've been entertaining the idea of putting out a record called Green World that would be a prequel to Eno's Another Green World. That would be a nice restricting creative scenario that would allow me to make the kind of ambient-but-songy music I'd like to work on. I guess there's a fair amount of drums on that record, though... Phil Collins, actually!Hope everyone's ready for a nice Thanksgiving weekend. We got our Tofurkey and sweet potatoes last night. There were no mushrooms left at the grocery store, though, so I'll have to try and find some today. Now that's what I call a concrete, realistic goal.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Token Update
Still working away like crazy. No time to talk. BPY had their softball playoffs yesterday. We won the first game, against the Bluenose Breakers, in a surprise 15–10 upset after two extra innings. In the second regular inning the score was 9–2 against us, so it felt pretty great to fight back so hard and prevail in the end. After that, we didn't even care that the Spacecats beat us into the ground. There was an end-of-the-season party at Steve's place.
Meg and KC's band, Bad Vibrations, as mentioned in the last post, rocked the rocks and blew some minds out at Peggy's Cove. Meg's drumming is so fantastic and right-foot-assured that her new nickname is "The Kick."
Gotta go watch The Amazing Race that we missed last night now.
Meg and KC's band, Bad Vibrations, as mentioned in the last post, rocked the rocks and blew some minds out at Peggy's Cove. Meg's drumming is so fantastic and right-foot-assured that her new nickname is "The Kick."
Gotta go watch The Amazing Race that we missed last night now.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Random Facts
It's starting to get cold here. The Lodge are going out for a big sushi dinner tomorrow night. Last weekend was our friend Krista's 40th birthday. I am so busy with freelance work I have no time to put my own marketing materials together. Alison and I have been watching TV interviews with John Lennon and Yoko Ono from the '70's. Dick Cavett is a good listener and charming host. Tom Snyder was neither. Sherman Hines has decided he doesn't feel like paying me for the two days I worked for him. Moby Dick is worth starting over from the beginning if you've gotten three quarters of the way through it and put it down for an extended period. A new film version of MB is being made here. David Foster Wallace killed himself over a year ago now. We went to a mediocre lecture about him at the library with our friends Ron and Kristina. On Thursdays we're taking a yoga class from our friend Gillian in her house. Last night I dreamed I was playing Scrabble with Neil Diamond. The night before, I dreamed I was walking around Montreal with Noam Chomsky. Tomorrow we're going to see our friends Meg and KC in their new band at an outdoor show in Polly Cove. Softball playoffs start the next day. I want to call my new business Fin Design. There's a goldfish pond in our backyard. I have to meet a new client now.
Friday, September 11, 2009
I'm Feeling Unlucky
Google has giant new buttons. With a giant search box and giant text. It's gross. I hate it. Please express appropriate disgust here.
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
Cancon on the Beach
I wanted to make a little right-hand column playlist out of this idea, but it's not working out with any of my song selections. I guess Canadian=obscure as far as iLike is concerned.
The thing is, we went camping a couple of days ago, at Thomas Raddall provincial park on the south shore, near Liverpool. It was beautiful and great to be out in the woods. The air got intensely cold at night, though, and it was hard to stay warm enough. Add to that the fact that we were using only thin yoga mats as padding between us and the rocky ground, and you've got a night full of crazy dreams punctuated by long bouts of staring into the blackness.
But so anyway, that was fine, and the campfire and hike in the morning warmed us up. We also went to one of the three beaches the park boasts, thinking we might go swimming, but there were no waves and it wasn't hot enough for that idea to seem refreshing. After we left the park, we drove to Carter's Beach in Port Mouton — and I know I keep digressing a lot but I simply have to tell you that it's pronounced muh-TOON, even though there's no way any English OR French person could possibly derive that pronunciation from that particular string of letters — which beach we'd been told is possibly the most beautiful in all of North America. Which caused us to temporarily wonder whether Hawaii is in North America, since it's part of the USA, but then we realized that continents, unlike countries, are not political areas but geographical ones, effectively dividing the world into its major land masses. Except then what's up with Europe and Asia? How does that division work?
So we went to Carter's with our swimming trunks and towels, and it was, in all fairness, quite beautiful. We couldn't even see all of it because you had to wade across a medium-deep stream to get from one section to the other, but there was a lot of bright white sand sheltered by gorgeous grassy dunes and descending into a clear azure pool the likes of which are usually only found behind high-priced tropical hotels. However, there were again no waves. I don't know why waves make a swim in the ocean so much more appealing as a prospect, but they do.
Then we noticed that a) there was no one else swimming, and, perhaps more tellingly, b) all the little kids at the other end of the beach with their youthful determination and their high insulating-fat-to-body-mass ratios were running full speed into the water, getting in just above their knees, hesitating, and running back out at least as fast, flailing their arms in a sort of panicked, shocked, and also disappointed way. A toe into the edge of the old crystal blue confirmed that there was no way in hell we would be approaching even that level.
So, we sat in our foldable Canada Day chairs (red with Canadian flags on the back, bought at Canadian Tire) and looked out at the icy water and the dense, scruffy evergreens populating its rocky shores, and I started thinking about what a different experience the beach may be to Canadians than it is to Americans. Our childhood television heroes are not the tanned and lovably spoiled youth of Beverly Hills 90210, but the nature-wise, pensive old scavengers of The Beachcombers. We have no Beach Boys singing about fun in the sun with their California Girls. Instead, a soundtrack to the Canadian beach would be a list of sad, introspective, and somewhat lonely songs:
Neil Young - On the Beach
Now I'm livin' out here on the beach
But those seagulls are still out of reach
Jane Siberry - Mimi on the Beach
If they pull you away from your bleaching pink surfboard
And stretch you across the wind
You'll make no sound
Martha and the Muffins - Echo Beach
On Echo Beach waves make the only sound
On Echo Beach there's not a soul around
The Inbreds - Whitecaps
Well I went to sleep
On the ocean floor
And I began to weep
My tears washed up onto the shore
Pukka Orchestra - The Cherry Beach Express
My ribs are broken and my face is in a mess
And my name on my statement signed under duress
The Super Friendz - Ocean Death Song
Remember when we walked along the sand
The castles washed away
Bruce Cockburn - Planet of the Clowns
As the waves roar on the beach like a squadron of F16's
Ebb and flow like the better days they say this world has seen
Gordon Lightfoot - Triangle
The mermaids have all gone to Davy Jones' ball
And it seems their first trip was their last
They had so much fun they don't wish to return
To the beach where they lay all day long
Sloan - The N.S.
We're following signs to the sea
So take your time
If you're leaving before me
And say goodbye
Honeymoon Suite - Wave Babies
When they lie with their tops undone
Cold water means a little bit of fun
OK, maybe that last one is a little more American in nature. Can anyone think of any others I'm missing?
The thing is, we went camping a couple of days ago, at Thomas Raddall provincial park on the south shore, near Liverpool. It was beautiful and great to be out in the woods. The air got intensely cold at night, though, and it was hard to stay warm enough. Add to that the fact that we were using only thin yoga mats as padding between us and the rocky ground, and you've got a night full of crazy dreams punctuated by long bouts of staring into the blackness.
But so anyway, that was fine, and the campfire and hike in the morning warmed us up. We also went to one of the three beaches the park boasts, thinking we might go swimming, but there were no waves and it wasn't hot enough for that idea to seem refreshing. After we left the park, we drove to Carter's Beach in Port Mouton — and I know I keep digressing a lot but I simply have to tell you that it's pronounced muh-TOON, even though there's no way any English OR French person could possibly derive that pronunciation from that particular string of letters — which beach we'd been told is possibly the most beautiful in all of North America. Which caused us to temporarily wonder whether Hawaii is in North America, since it's part of the USA, but then we realized that continents, unlike countries, are not political areas but geographical ones, effectively dividing the world into its major land masses. Except then what's up with Europe and Asia? How does that division work?
So we went to Carter's with our swimming trunks and towels, and it was, in all fairness, quite beautiful. We couldn't even see all of it because you had to wade across a medium-deep stream to get from one section to the other, but there was a lot of bright white sand sheltered by gorgeous grassy dunes and descending into a clear azure pool the likes of which are usually only found behind high-priced tropical hotels. However, there were again no waves. I don't know why waves make a swim in the ocean so much more appealing as a prospect, but they do.
Then we noticed that a) there was no one else swimming, and, perhaps more tellingly, b) all the little kids at the other end of the beach with their youthful determination and their high insulating-fat-to-body-mass ratios were running full speed into the water, getting in just above their knees, hesitating, and running back out at least as fast, flailing their arms in a sort of panicked, shocked, and also disappointed way. A toe into the edge of the old crystal blue confirmed that there was no way in hell we would be approaching even that level.
So, we sat in our foldable Canada Day chairs (red with Canadian flags on the back, bought at Canadian Tire) and looked out at the icy water and the dense, scruffy evergreens populating its rocky shores, and I started thinking about what a different experience the beach may be to Canadians than it is to Americans. Our childhood television heroes are not the tanned and lovably spoiled youth of Beverly Hills 90210, but the nature-wise, pensive old scavengers of The Beachcombers. We have no Beach Boys singing about fun in the sun with their California Girls. Instead, a soundtrack to the Canadian beach would be a list of sad, introspective, and somewhat lonely songs:
Neil Young - On the Beach
Now I'm livin' out here on the beach
But those seagulls are still out of reach
Jane Siberry - Mimi on the Beach
If they pull you away from your bleaching pink surfboard
And stretch you across the wind
You'll make no sound
Martha and the Muffins - Echo Beach
On Echo Beach waves make the only sound
On Echo Beach there's not a soul around
The Inbreds - Whitecaps
Well I went to sleep
On the ocean floor
And I began to weep
My tears washed up onto the shore
Pukka Orchestra - The Cherry Beach Express
My ribs are broken and my face is in a mess
And my name on my statement signed under duress
The Super Friendz - Ocean Death Song
Remember when we walked along the sand
The castles washed away
Bruce Cockburn - Planet of the Clowns
As the waves roar on the beach like a squadron of F16's
Ebb and flow like the better days they say this world has seen
Gordon Lightfoot - Triangle
The mermaids have all gone to Davy Jones' ball
And it seems their first trip was their last
They had so much fun they don't wish to return
To the beach where they lay all day long
Sloan - The N.S.
We're following signs to the sea
So take your time
If you're leaving before me
And say goodbye
Honeymoon Suite - Wave Babies
When they lie with their tops undone
Cold water means a little bit of fun
OK, maybe that last one is a little more American in nature. Can anyone think of any others I'm missing?
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
Nintendo Jazz
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Back in the Saddle
Welp, we've made the move and are becoming nicely settled in our beautiful new apartment, thank you very much. We moved on the hottest day of the year, loading the U-Haul by ourselves at the Wolfville end.
Luckily, our friends Mike, Cliff, and Jesse helped us make light work of it at this end. The place is full of sunlight and storage space; has a big kitchen, high ceilings, a big deck, and hardwood floors; and is in a really pleasant little neighbourhood at an arm's length from the hubbub and hipsters of downtown. OK, maybe there are a few hipsters around...
Alison and I each have our own office. There's still a fair amount of stuff to be put away or on the walls, and we need a few more shelves, but so far it's working out really, really well. I've been getting a decent amount of design work to do from quite a few different sources, some of whom are telling their friends about me. On Friday I went back to Acadia to do a day's worth of little jobs for them onsite, at freelance rates, and pick up the files I'll need to finish off a couple of big projects I'd started before I left. There's barely been time, but I've also been trying to work on branding my own business so I can get some business cards out there, a website, etc. That's the real fun part.
On my first official day of freelancing, I set up my desk and computer and sat down to work on a couple of newspaper ads. Only the iMac wouldn't start up. I tried everything, but I couldn't get anything to appear on the monitor — not even a sad face or a little hard drive with a question mark on it. A trip to the local Mac store revealed that the RAM needed to be replaced. So, a hundred bucks and a few hours later it was working fine again. But that was quite a scare. I've since burned everything important on the hard drive onto discs.
Another little unexpected cost has been Buster, whose left eyelid started looking all swollen a week and a half ago. When we took him to the vet's, they discovered a large scratch in his cornea. To find it, they had to put drops of blue stuff in his eye and then shine something like a laser pointer into it. He wasn't very happy about being in there to begin with, so there was an episode wherein the vet and her assistant had to grab the screaming and spitting Tasmanian Devil off the floor, wrap him tightly in a towel, and put one of those lampshade collars around his neck. Somewhere in there he knocked out one of his lower front teeth. They gave us a tube of goo to put in his eye three times a day for a week, charged us 150 dollars, and told us if it didn't work he'd have to have eye surgery. Plus they strongly suggested we have his teeth properly cleaned and extracted where necessary. We thought about the thousands of dollars this would all cost in order to keep a fourteen-year-old cat alive who knows how much longer, decided a toothless Buster is not such a big deal, and crossed our fingers that having him hate us three times a day over the eye drops would solve that particular problem. Luckily, it appears to have worked. I.e. his eye seemed to us to be better and when we took him back into the vet she charged us another 85 dollars to tell us that his eye seemed to be better.
Since being back there've been band practices, some recording, softball games, a rock show taken in, a couple of decent movies rented (Wise Blood, Waiting for Guffman), and plenty of hanging out with pals. Two hurricanes in there too, but nothing very spectacular. Next weekend The Lodge play their first show in awhile. I can walk or bike everywhere I need to go. I randomly run into people I know all over the place. And the Commons was not even completely ruined by Paul McCartney and KISS. There's a reason why I love this town.
P.S. Here's some photos of our Maine vacation. It was pleasant as hell.
Luckily, our friends Mike, Cliff, and Jesse helped us make light work of it at this end. The place is full of sunlight and storage space; has a big kitchen, high ceilings, a big deck, and hardwood floors; and is in a really pleasant little neighbourhood at an arm's length from the hubbub and hipsters of downtown. OK, maybe there are a few hipsters around...
Alison and I each have our own office. There's still a fair amount of stuff to be put away or on the walls, and we need a few more shelves, but so far it's working out really, really well. I've been getting a decent amount of design work to do from quite a few different sources, some of whom are telling their friends about me. On Friday I went back to Acadia to do a day's worth of little jobs for them onsite, at freelance rates, and pick up the files I'll need to finish off a couple of big projects I'd started before I left. There's barely been time, but I've also been trying to work on branding my own business so I can get some business cards out there, a website, etc. That's the real fun part.
On my first official day of freelancing, I set up my desk and computer and sat down to work on a couple of newspaper ads. Only the iMac wouldn't start up. I tried everything, but I couldn't get anything to appear on the monitor — not even a sad face or a little hard drive with a question mark on it. A trip to the local Mac store revealed that the RAM needed to be replaced. So, a hundred bucks and a few hours later it was working fine again. But that was quite a scare. I've since burned everything important on the hard drive onto discs.
Another little unexpected cost has been Buster, whose left eyelid started looking all swollen a week and a half ago. When we took him to the vet's, they discovered a large scratch in his cornea. To find it, they had to put drops of blue stuff in his eye and then shine something like a laser pointer into it. He wasn't very happy about being in there to begin with, so there was an episode wherein the vet and her assistant had to grab the screaming and spitting Tasmanian Devil off the floor, wrap him tightly in a towel, and put one of those lampshade collars around his neck. Somewhere in there he knocked out one of his lower front teeth. They gave us a tube of goo to put in his eye three times a day for a week, charged us 150 dollars, and told us if it didn't work he'd have to have eye surgery. Plus they strongly suggested we have his teeth properly cleaned and extracted where necessary. We thought about the thousands of dollars this would all cost in order to keep a fourteen-year-old cat alive who knows how much longer, decided a toothless Buster is not such a big deal, and crossed our fingers that having him hate us three times a day over the eye drops would solve that particular problem. Luckily, it appears to have worked. I.e. his eye seemed to us to be better and when we took him back into the vet she charged us another 85 dollars to tell us that his eye seemed to be better.
Since being back there've been band practices, some recording, softball games, a rock show taken in, a couple of decent movies rented (Wise Blood, Waiting for Guffman), and plenty of hanging out with pals. Two hurricanes in there too, but nothing very spectacular. Next weekend The Lodge play their first show in awhile. I can walk or bike everywhere I need to go. I randomly run into people I know all over the place. And the Commons was not even completely ruined by Paul McCartney and KISS. There's a reason why I love this town.
P.S. Here's some photos of our Maine vacation. It was pleasant as hell.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Life: Faster than the Speed of Blog
I just can't keep up. We did the Maine trip. It was fabulous. I'll have to show you some pictures sometime.
Then I started my new job working for Sherman Hines. I worked out of his home office for the first two days, taking care of emergency rush work until we could figure out what stuff we needed to take to the new location in Halifax. Then yesterday I quit. Seriously.
It just wasn't the job for me. More production-oriented than I'd imagined, and even the design I would be able to do would all be based on previously done stuff that I really didn't like the looks of. Plus the files were all in a giant, systemless mess, the software was all out of date, the computer I was using was very slow, and I realized that I just don't like photo correction and cataloguing work enough to do it all day, every day. There was some other stuff too, involving work-style clashes and taxidermy. But mostly it just felt like a huge step backwards all of a sudden.
So I had a little breakdown and called Alison saying, "I think I've made a HUGE mistake!" and she very kindly said, "You don't have to do any job that's going to make you feel like this. You can just take on freelance work like you wanted to do before you got the Acadia job and before you got this job." So that's what I'm doing. Crazy, hey? This adventure just keeps on getting more adventurous.
I've already got a few jobs lined up, and more contacts promising me work, so I think I can do this. I spent yesterday wandering around Halifax, spreading the word, and then this morning emailing and phoning people. I suddenly feel less ambivalently excited about the move and more just plain happy. Everything about Halifax was inspiring to me yesterday, and I feel just as good about the decision today.
Of course, it would be nice to have some guaranteed income for awhile, especially as we seem to have built up a fairly heavy debt over the past year. But what good is debt if you can't multiply it cavalierly with no idea how or even whether it will ever get paid off? This is my new adult attitude I'm working on. What do you think? I may even get a cell phone.
And now, back to taping up cardboard boxes and stuffing them full of crap. We pick up the U-Haul truck tomorrow evening and move everything Saturday. Wish us luck! (Gulp.)
Then I started my new job working for Sherman Hines. I worked out of his home office for the first two days, taking care of emergency rush work until we could figure out what stuff we needed to take to the new location in Halifax. Then yesterday I quit. Seriously.
It just wasn't the job for me. More production-oriented than I'd imagined, and even the design I would be able to do would all be based on previously done stuff that I really didn't like the looks of. Plus the files were all in a giant, systemless mess, the software was all out of date, the computer I was using was very slow, and I realized that I just don't like photo correction and cataloguing work enough to do it all day, every day. There was some other stuff too, involving work-style clashes and taxidermy. But mostly it just felt like a huge step backwards all of a sudden.
So I had a little breakdown and called Alison saying, "I think I've made a HUGE mistake!" and she very kindly said, "You don't have to do any job that's going to make you feel like this. You can just take on freelance work like you wanted to do before you got the Acadia job and before you got this job." So that's what I'm doing. Crazy, hey? This adventure just keeps on getting more adventurous.
I've already got a few jobs lined up, and more contacts promising me work, so I think I can do this. I spent yesterday wandering around Halifax, spreading the word, and then this morning emailing and phoning people. I suddenly feel less ambivalently excited about the move and more just plain happy. Everything about Halifax was inspiring to me yesterday, and I feel just as good about the decision today.
Of course, it would be nice to have some guaranteed income for awhile, especially as we seem to have built up a fairly heavy debt over the past year. But what good is debt if you can't multiply it cavalierly with no idea how or even whether it will ever get paid off? This is my new adult attitude I'm working on. What do you think? I may even get a cell phone.
And now, back to taping up cardboard boxes and stuffing them full of crap. We pick up the U-Haul truck tomorrow evening and move everything Saturday. Wish us luck! (Gulp.)
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Movin' On Sideways
I'll have to put off telling you about Alison's grandfather's birthday and some of the other pleasant times we've had between then and now, because time's flying by and there's one very important piece of information I haven't been able to convey yet.
I guess just about everyone who would be reading this blog knows this already, but for anyone who hasn't heard, we're moving back to Halifax. I got a job working for a photographer, so it's so long, beautiful Annapolis Valley; hello, foggy, cold, mouldy metropolis. Are we crazy? Perhaps.
However.
This job of mine at the university has not been the exciting career-builder I'd thought it would be. I've been responsible for putting forth the institution's brand clearly and consistently, even though no one has ever come up with a clear statement of what that brand is. Why not? There are too many different political interest groups with too many different ideas of what the main point of the university should be, so no one dares to come up with any clear definition of its public character. That's fine, though — means I can visually express what I take the brand to be and just try to stay consistent with myself. Except that my hands would keep getting tied at every turn, and I'd be expected to just do whatever any individual wanted for their particular ugly marketing piece and forget about building any kind of brand, or else go along with whatever half-baked and ultra-expensive one-off campaign an outside agency would be hired to produce, and then shake my head in wonder along with everyone else when the question arose why there were not enough students enrolling to keep us from acquiring a massive debt. All I could say was that it certainly wasn't my salary that was causing it.
And then there's the town of Wolfville. Beautiful and charming. Lovely weather. Politically progressive. But just not very interesting. Where are the hipsters? Why is there no record store or college radio station? How come, with such a great music department at the university, the only bands that ever play around town are all composed of two guys simultaneously strumming acoustic guitars and maybe a woman earnestly whacking some bongos? I.e. where's the RAWK? Plus it smells like cow poop all the time, which is just extra depressing if you're already not into the vibe. I don't know. Maybe when we're ready to retire we'll want to move back here. "Retire". Good one! It is quite lovely, though, especially in the summer. Can you tell I'm ambivalent about this?
This'll also, hopefully, allow Alison to get some more work because she won't have to commute an hour in either direction. Which means maybe we'll be able to afford this somewhat expensive apartment we're about to rent. Sure has been nice having a whole house to rattle around in...
So anyway, we've found an apartment, I've quit my job, and we're set to move Haliward after we get back from a week in Maine, starting Saturday. This I can't wait for. We're meeting my parents and sisters and their families and another family that's friends of our family's, all at the same beach/cottage community we went to a couple of years ago and where we've been going sporadically since I was a little kid. Alison and I are driving, meaning Alison's driving. It should take us most of Saturday. I'm loading up the iPod right now, we're going to make some egg salad sandwiches, and the maps are in the glove compartment. Gobo's gotten an oil change and the thumbs up from our local mechanic, and Alison figured out why the high beams weren't working (they were actually the low beams and the low beams were actually the running lights; we drove all the way home from Chester at one in the morning Saturday night like that). I have the latest Believer and a new Kazuo Ishiguro book. Everything's set. Look out, rich white liberal Americans, here we come!
I guess just about everyone who would be reading this blog knows this already, but for anyone who hasn't heard, we're moving back to Halifax. I got a job working for a photographer, so it's so long, beautiful Annapolis Valley; hello, foggy, cold, mouldy metropolis. Are we crazy? Perhaps.
However.
This job of mine at the university has not been the exciting career-builder I'd thought it would be. I've been responsible for putting forth the institution's brand clearly and consistently, even though no one has ever come up with a clear statement of what that brand is. Why not? There are too many different political interest groups with too many different ideas of what the main point of the university should be, so no one dares to come up with any clear definition of its public character. That's fine, though — means I can visually express what I take the brand to be and just try to stay consistent with myself. Except that my hands would keep getting tied at every turn, and I'd be expected to just do whatever any individual wanted for their particular ugly marketing piece and forget about building any kind of brand, or else go along with whatever half-baked and ultra-expensive one-off campaign an outside agency would be hired to produce, and then shake my head in wonder along with everyone else when the question arose why there were not enough students enrolling to keep us from acquiring a massive debt. All I could say was that it certainly wasn't my salary that was causing it.
And then there's the town of Wolfville. Beautiful and charming. Lovely weather. Politically progressive. But just not very interesting. Where are the hipsters? Why is there no record store or college radio station? How come, with such a great music department at the university, the only bands that ever play around town are all composed of two guys simultaneously strumming acoustic guitars and maybe a woman earnestly whacking some bongos? I.e. where's the RAWK? Plus it smells like cow poop all the time, which is just extra depressing if you're already not into the vibe. I don't know. Maybe when we're ready to retire we'll want to move back here. "Retire". Good one! It is quite lovely, though, especially in the summer. Can you tell I'm ambivalent about this?
This'll also, hopefully, allow Alison to get some more work because she won't have to commute an hour in either direction. Which means maybe we'll be able to afford this somewhat expensive apartment we're about to rent. Sure has been nice having a whole house to rattle around in...
So anyway, we've found an apartment, I've quit my job, and we're set to move Haliward after we get back from a week in Maine, starting Saturday. This I can't wait for. We're meeting my parents and sisters and their families and another family that's friends of our family's, all at the same beach/cottage community we went to a couple of years ago and where we've been going sporadically since I was a little kid. Alison and I are driving, meaning Alison's driving. It should take us most of Saturday. I'm loading up the iPod right now, we're going to make some egg salad sandwiches, and the maps are in the glove compartment. Gobo's gotten an oil change and the thumbs up from our local mechanic, and Alison figured out why the high beams weren't working (they were actually the low beams and the low beams were actually the running lights; we drove all the way home from Chester at one in the morning Saturday night like that). I have the latest Believer and a new Kazuo Ishiguro book. Everything's set. Look out, rich white liberal Americans, here we come!
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Winnipeg » Saskatoon
We're in Saskatoon now, and have been for a couple of days. Alison's grandfather's 100th birthday celebration is this afternoon, in the seniors' complex in which we're staying. There is actually wireless internet here! It's sporadic, but it exists.
I have notes on the drive here from Winnipeg, which I was going to work up into a proper post, but there never seems to be an extended period of time for that. So I think I'll just give you the point-form version essentially verbatim, along with some photos and video:
• Rained the night before, so no Red River photos possible. But here's a shot out the motel window.
• Starbucks for coffee before leaving. Served by a younger version of Jack Black.
• Black line of clouds early on extends eerily downward and immediately becomes HEAVY rain, and then large hail (size of rock salt). Have to stop briefly. Skyscrapers of Winnipeg still visible on horizon. Clouds are so close here you can watch them move relative to each other.
• A few hawks seen.
• Stop at the "Chicken Corral" in Neepawa for fried egg & cheese sandwich lunch. Waitresses sing in Rankinesque 3-part harmony for monetary pledges in support of "Lily Infestation" festival.
• Which reminds me, and this is not in my notes, the restaurant we had lunch in the day before was called "P. I.'s Lounge" and was a total dive that smelled like vinegar, with weird pictures of babies on the walls and Christmas lights everywhere, and the food was really great. There was a pickup truck parked outside with the Ontario license plate "CHEZBRGR".
• Alison sees a coyote sitting by the side of the road.
• Ali and I figure out that the game of Cows is impossible to play on the prairies because when you see them they are in groups of ≥ 100, i.e. no fun to count. So we play Horses instead.
• Sky and land get bigger and bigger; another short shower.
• Eat left-over garlic broccoli & ginger fish fillet at Saskatchewan border.
• The 1-road town of Langenberg (Co-op store, Golden Bowl Chinese restaurant, Save Room for Dessert Bake (sic) & Eatery) has red-, yellow-, & green-striped banners lining its one half-km road, probably not indicating a strong Jamaican presence.
• 13–10 for me so far at 2:55, or 1:55, depending on whether Saskatchewan's shunning of DST means we have to set the clock back another hour, a question about which there's been some debate. Game goes to 50, and there haven't been any graveyards yet.
• Canada geese with babies by a pond in Yorkton.
• Today there are roads leading off in other directions, plus great visibility of sights in those directions besides dense, unpopulated forest, relieving us of the in retrospect fairly apt impression that we have been stuck going one way along a 1-dimensional track where if you stop moving for some reason good luck ever getting found by someone, not unlike a fat kid caught Augustus-Gloop fashion in a completely enclosed waterslide like the indefinitely out of order one at our motel two nights ago in S.S. Marie, our unanimous fascination with which only now strikes me as symbolically fitting.
• Ali moves into the lead — 16–13 — just past Yorkton.
• Stop at a tiny picnic park in Foam Lake. Throw a softball with Alison. A small bird sings insistently, defying us to find it in a dense tree. No one ever gets a clear look at it, even with the binoculars. Probably a red-eyed vireo, though.
• Graveyard! 16–0. 13 really is an unlucky number.
• A pizza place in Lanigan across from the gas station where I pull out the end of the infinite towel in the washroom claims to be "Home of the Big Slice," but I know it is lying because that's in Halifax.
• Realize in Plunkett looking out to the point where field meets sky that the oft-alleged similarity between prairie living and coastal living, viz. the proximity of large open spaces, does not exactly hold, because looking out at the ocean from the shore is always looking at an implied infinity that is other than oneself, whereas the prairies' endless distance surrounds you — you are in the centre of it. There is an extra, breath-stopping sense of utter freedom on top of that awe associated with the grandeur and ultimate imponderability of nature.
• < 1 hr. outside of Saskatoon: 10–0 for me after a few more graveyards on either side. How will someone ever get to 50?
• Of course they don't. We get into Saskatoon, check into the seniors' complex, meet Alison's grandpa, and eat dinner at Smitty's. Turns out I'm right about the DST thing and so we've gained another hour. Seinfeld and early to bed. It'll be weird not to be on the road again tomorrow. I kind of wish we could keep on going all the way to the Pacific Ocean. But I also feel dizzy from watching the land fly by all day, and am actually having a bit of a hard time walking.
And now I'm behind again, as there's already a couple of days in Saskatoon to add to this, but it'll have to wait. The birthday's about to get underway.
I have notes on the drive here from Winnipeg, which I was going to work up into a proper post, but there never seems to be an extended period of time for that. So I think I'll just give you the point-form version essentially verbatim, along with some photos and video:
• Rained the night before, so no Red River photos possible. But here's a shot out the motel window.
• Starbucks for coffee before leaving. Served by a younger version of Jack Black.
• Black line of clouds early on extends eerily downward and immediately becomes HEAVY rain, and then large hail (size of rock salt). Have to stop briefly. Skyscrapers of Winnipeg still visible on horizon. Clouds are so close here you can watch them move relative to each other.
• A few hawks seen.
• Stop at the "Chicken Corral" in Neepawa for fried egg & cheese sandwich lunch. Waitresses sing in Rankinesque 3-part harmony for monetary pledges in support of "Lily Infestation" festival.
• Which reminds me, and this is not in my notes, the restaurant we had lunch in the day before was called "P. I.'s Lounge" and was a total dive that smelled like vinegar, with weird pictures of babies on the walls and Christmas lights everywhere, and the food was really great. There was a pickup truck parked outside with the Ontario license plate "CHEZBRGR".
• Alison sees a coyote sitting by the side of the road.
• Ali and I figure out that the game of Cows is impossible to play on the prairies because when you see them they are in groups of ≥ 100, i.e. no fun to count. So we play Horses instead.
• Sky and land get bigger and bigger; another short shower.
• Eat left-over garlic broccoli & ginger fish fillet at Saskatchewan border.
• The 1-road town of Langenberg (Co-op store, Golden Bowl Chinese restaurant, Save Room for Dessert Bake (sic) & Eatery) has red-, yellow-, & green-striped banners lining its one half-km road, probably not indicating a strong Jamaican presence.
• 13–10 for me so far at 2:55, or 1:55, depending on whether Saskatchewan's shunning of DST means we have to set the clock back another hour, a question about which there's been some debate. Game goes to 50, and there haven't been any graveyards yet.
• Canada geese with babies by a pond in Yorkton.
• Today there are roads leading off in other directions, plus great visibility of sights in those directions besides dense, unpopulated forest, relieving us of the in retrospect fairly apt impression that we have been stuck going one way along a 1-dimensional track where if you stop moving for some reason good luck ever getting found by someone, not unlike a fat kid caught Augustus-Gloop fashion in a completely enclosed waterslide like the indefinitely out of order one at our motel two nights ago in S.S. Marie, our unanimous fascination with which only now strikes me as symbolically fitting.
• Ali moves into the lead — 16–13 — just past Yorkton.
• Stop at a tiny picnic park in Foam Lake. Throw a softball with Alison. A small bird sings insistently, defying us to find it in a dense tree. No one ever gets a clear look at it, even with the binoculars. Probably a red-eyed vireo, though.
• Graveyard! 16–0. 13 really is an unlucky number.
• A pizza place in Lanigan across from the gas station where I pull out the end of the infinite towel in the washroom claims to be "Home of the Big Slice," but I know it is lying because that's in Halifax.
• Realize in Plunkett looking out to the point where field meets sky that the oft-alleged similarity between prairie living and coastal living, viz. the proximity of large open spaces, does not exactly hold, because looking out at the ocean from the shore is always looking at an implied infinity that is other than oneself, whereas the prairies' endless distance surrounds you — you are in the centre of it. There is an extra, breath-stopping sense of utter freedom on top of that awe associated with the grandeur and ultimate imponderability of nature.
• < 1 hr. outside of Saskatoon: 10–0 for me after a few more graveyards on either side. How will someone ever get to 50?
• Of course they don't. We get into Saskatoon, check into the seniors' complex, meet Alison's grandpa, and eat dinner at Smitty's. Turns out I'm right about the DST thing and so we've gained another hour. Seinfeld and early to bed. It'll be weird not to be on the road again tomorrow. I kind of wish we could keep on going all the way to the Pacific Ocean. But I also feel dizzy from watching the land fly by all day, and am actually having a bit of a hard time walking.
And now I'm behind again, as there's already a couple of days in Saskatoon to add to this, but it'll have to wait. The birthday's about to get underway.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Winnipeg!
We made it to Thunder Bay yesterday and now tonight we're in a hotel in Winnipeg, getting ready for bed. Seen many many trees and a few animals (crows (dead and alive), turkey hawks, black bear (Andrew), deer, bald eagles). On arriving here, we ate way too much food at a really good Chinese restaurant across the street. Then we went for a walk by the Red River as the sun went down. Really pretty, especially with the trees growing right out of the water and birds skimming bugs off the surface of the water, but unfortunately no camera for that part. We might take some photos in the morning.
What I do have photos — and video! — of is our visit this morning to the Kakabeka Falls on the way out of T-Bay. It was gorgeous, and made a nice beginning to another day full of sitting in a car.
Tomorrow: Saskatoon!
What I do have photos — and video! — of is our visit this morning to the Kakabeka Falls on the way out of T-Bay. It was gorgeous, and made a nice beginning to another day full of sitting in a car.
Tomorrow: Saskatoon!
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
LOOOONG Road Trip
One thing about this one-subject blogging, it seems like I'm always a few weeks behind what's actually going on, and I'm never going to catch up. So here's a very short post to fill you in on what's happening RIGHT NOW.
We're in a hotel room in Sault Ste. Marie, having driven all day yesterday with Alison's dad and brother from Toronto. We're on our way to Saskatoon to see her grandfather, who is turning 100. We made this plan long ago and now it's starting to seem kind of crazy, but it's also pretty fun so far. I've got a paper cup full of horrible coffee beside me, Alison's in the shower, and her dad and brother are busy pacing around and repacking. There's a Dairy Queen across the street and a bowling alley connected to the hotel. Andrew (Alison's brother [confusing, I know]) and I considered doing a little bowling last night after dinner, but in the end we all just went to bed early, completely exhausted.
We were in Toronto for a full day before setting out on the drive, and we got to see our friends Jeff and Tim playing some softball in a nice little park off Christie.
It was very relaxed and pleasant. Almost made TO seem like a possible place to live. Then we got back to Alison's parents' for dinner and there was a homeless guy asleep on the lawn of the person across the street. Someone called 911, and they sent a fire engine and an ambulance. Two firemen went up to the guy and told him he can't sleep there. Then the ambulance driver used his public address system to bellow, "YOU CAN"T SLEEP THERE!" Then they turned their sirens back on and left, having earned their government salary for the day. The homeless guy looked slightly stunned and/or bemused before he fell asleep again.
Today we drive to Thunder Bay. Then Winnipeg tomorrow, and on to Saskatoon the next day. I'm reading David Foster Wallace's history and analysis of mathematical infinity. It's unsurprisingly fascinating. Assuming internet connections continue to appear as we head farther into the wilderness, I'll keep you posted.
We're in a hotel room in Sault Ste. Marie, having driven all day yesterday with Alison's dad and brother from Toronto. We're on our way to Saskatoon to see her grandfather, who is turning 100. We made this plan long ago and now it's starting to seem kind of crazy, but it's also pretty fun so far. I've got a paper cup full of horrible coffee beside me, Alison's in the shower, and her dad and brother are busy pacing around and repacking. There's a Dairy Queen across the street and a bowling alley connected to the hotel. Andrew (Alison's brother [confusing, I know]) and I considered doing a little bowling last night after dinner, but in the end we all just went to bed early, completely exhausted.
We were in Toronto for a full day before setting out on the drive, and we got to see our friends Jeff and Tim playing some softball in a nice little park off Christie.
It was very relaxed and pleasant. Almost made TO seem like a possible place to live. Then we got back to Alison's parents' for dinner and there was a homeless guy asleep on the lawn of the person across the street. Someone called 911, and they sent a fire engine and an ambulance. Two firemen went up to the guy and told him he can't sleep there. Then the ambulance driver used his public address system to bellow, "YOU CAN"T SLEEP THERE!" Then they turned their sirens back on and left, having earned their government salary for the day. The homeless guy looked slightly stunned and/or bemused before he fell asleep again.
Today we drive to Thunder Bay. Then Winnipeg tomorrow, and on to Saskatoon the next day. I'm reading David Foster Wallace's history and analysis of mathematical infinity. It's unsurprisingly fascinating. Assuming internet connections continue to appear as we head farther into the wilderness, I'll keep you posted.
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