The many faces of Remembrance Day. Here, where there was no war, just commerce and volunteering for service overseas, it is a very sombre week, everyone wears poppies and it is full of ceremonies remembering all the soldiers who fought in WW1 and WW2 (and others of course). (it is also a big drunk for many). It was a defining issue for the young country of Canada.
Over in many of the countries of the mother continent, whose ass got saved, it's either a normal day or if you're on FB, it's Spinal Tap day.
In Ireland, at the trial of some IRA men who murdered british soldiers out collecting a pizza, it was mentioned multiple times that the families were wearing poppies. (Of course they were, it was November and they were at the trial of their murdered BA soldier sons).
This year, the Occupy Nova Scotia crew were camped at the cenotaph. After some negotiations, they packed up and left for a few days to allow the Remembrance Day ceremonies to take place, despite a lot of the veterans saying that they fought so people could protest and they didn't need to move.....
Now we will see whether the Occupy protesters will get back into the site....that will be the true measure of what the poppy stands for.
Showing posts with label Canada. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Canada. Show all posts
Friday, November 11, 2011
Thursday, August 05, 2010
Yes, it's all really funny till someone gets hurt
 |
| Smart ass anti-baby comedy sketches inc. |
What really sucked about my day (and it was a sucky day) was that my friends got turned down for adoption after YEARS of filling out stupid forms and undergoing stupid tests.
None of us could believe it.
Himself couldn't believe it. And he doesn't even know them.
When you think of all the babies in the world that are hurtin' and starvin' and lonely and scared and your friends want to raise one, and there's some asshole somewhere says they can't.... that sucks, man.
YUP.
Me, I had spent an hour or so last night looking at footage of George Carlin and Bill Hicks on YouTube, including their 'why would you bring a child into the world' sketches (see the link under the picture), which always make me laugh because it's exactly how I feel about the whole children business. But last night, while I was watching the video I happened to think of those same friends and how determined they were to have a child despite all the hurdles. And I felt a little surge of happiness because finally it seemed they were on the back straight to their dream.
And then they get SHAFTED by some bureaucrat today.
This is a trip down the rabbit hole on so many levels.
On the first level, there is the macro argument. There are millions of children in the world who need love and parenting. There are people who want to parent. It should be possible to match them up.
Except it seems to be nigh on impossible, such are the levels of perfection that prospective adopters must reach. Not just in Ireland. I have friends here in Canada jumping through similar hoops. But at least you can be a bit eccentric and still have a chance.
In Ireland, you have to be perfect. Heterosexual. Married. Conformist. Boring.
Normal.
But that is necessary, they say, in order for children to be safe. We must make sure that the people in charge of them are not psychopathic or perverted or dangerous to the child in any way.
R.E.S.I.D.E.N.T.I.A.L. S.C.H.O.O.L.S.
....yes, old schtick... it's because of that that the rules are so strict now.
Hmm. Tell that to the Nigerian children who are accused of witchcraft and abandoned by their communities, usually on the authority of the caring US and Canadian Pentacostal missionaries working in those villages. I don't see the combined adoption personnel of the world working themselves up into a frenzy of tongues about that issue.
Yes I know hard cases make bad law. I don't friggin care.
But let's pull the lens in a bit.
Ireland's Health Service Executive. Responsible for adoption procedures and for looking after children in care.
Here's a snippet I found on the Internet:
So how do we fix this?
Do we prejudge everyone?
Or do we take a benchmark of real parents and apply those standards to prospective ones?
I don't know. Any argument on this will be battered with the child protection argument.
Maybe we should start with the word compassion. In all its imperfections.
Compassion for bad parents.
Compassion for non-parents.
Compassion for would-be parents.
Compassion for parents that are a little different to us in whatever way.
Compassion for non-parents that are wildly different in every way.
Compassion for fantastic parents having a bad day.
Compassion for children who need parents.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Haiti brings out the pedant in everyone
Haiti.
What to say.
I was listening to Stephen Lewis, father in law of Naomi Klein and kick-ass international humanitarian in his own right, talking on the radio today (as part of CBC's National Day for Haiti, which was mostly a rehash of the last week's conversations with some added Canadian rock stars telling us to contribute to the relief fund) and he said that yes of course, it is completely normal for us all to feel numb, overwhelmed, and devastated by the news coverage of the earthquake.
I was thinking, why would I feel any of those things?
My house didn't fall on my head.
I'm not from Haiti. I'm not trying to find out what happened to my family that I had to leave to come live in Montreal, to try and have a shot at a life.
My mother didn't die. My brother didn't have to dig his family out from under what's left of his house with his bare hands. My sister isn't lying under a sheet tent in a street with no food or water, waiting for an amputation when the MSF saws finally get through the 'bottleneck' at the airport. My dad isn't working a backhoe burying thousands of bodies in mass graves.
Obviously, I feel very sad for all the millions of Haitian people who are feeling numb, overwhelmed, and devastated by the earthquake. And supportive of all the brave kind people who are trying to help them.
But could we all get a little fucking real about this.
I spent the day shopping and getting my hair done.
Like millions of other western hemispherians.
Mostly today, I felt contented in a slightly sickening consumer-buzz kinda way.
Christ, I even put my dog in daycare.
To ease the guilt of leaving her on her own when I go out.
What makes me feel numb, devastated and overwhelmed at times is the fact that for the totally random reason of birth, I can do all of those things and for equally random reasons, billions of people round the world can't.
Ever.
Because if we all could do them, then there wouldn't be enough resources for it to happen. And me and all my privileged western hemispherian colleagues would not have such a nice time.
And so we have constructed a world in which we make sure they won't ever get off their knees enough to realise that we aren't so great after all.
I know Stephen Lewis knows these things.
A lot better than me.
So what in jaysus' name is he doing on the radio mouthing platitudes at us?
Because if he went on the radio and lectured us all on the unfairness of it all, we'd get mad and his foundation would lose funding.
It has struck me forcefully that the media coverage of Haiti is different to previous disasters.
For me, anyways.
When you think about it, go back to that Michael Buerk report from Ethiopia in 1984 that everyone my age remembers so well (because it resulted in Live Aid).
Bad stuff happened. You saw it on television. If you were in a house where there were newspapers, you read about it in detail. If those newspapers were broadsheets, you got some sense of why it was happening.
You got past the word HUNGER.
But mostly it was a narrative that hyped the unfortunateness of some poor people and the bountifulness of the rest of us.
Nowadays, it's a little more complex.
The news breaks on Twitter, it's reported on 24-7 rolling news, the videos are put up on YouTube, they're shared and dissected on Facebook and other sites, Google brings millions of opinions to your fingertips.
It's at the same time easier and more difficult to get past the word DISASTER.
Reading around the issue I am struck by how RIGHT everyone who is commenting feels they are.
The US ARMY ARE WRONG.
It's the Navy, was my impression.
The Aid Agencies ARE SURRENDER MONKEYS.
They`ve been outflanked by the speed of the military operations, was my impression.
The news media are DISASTER JUNKIES.
For a reason.
The Haitian government is CORRUPT.
Well, which G8 nation is propping it up.
Too many viewpoints for me to figure it out.
But the hum of the rest of us feeling good about throwing another couple of hundred onto the credit card bill is coming through loud and strong.
Thank Christ for that.... maybe it`ll help with the numbness.
Interestingly, a poll of Canadians found that 88% of them felt that the money they donated would NOT get to the people of Haiti.
But they are still leading the world in donations per head.
Tonight`s the big face off between the Canadian mega-fundraiser and the Yankee one. Which I have to go watch soon, because it is the thing to do in our house tonight.
I guess people are good, generally. But they cling to viewpoints for reasons of stability and that is not good, generally.
Hopefully the intersection of the two aspects of us will result in a new, better, Haiti at some point in the future.
Social media so far is not impressing me with its ability to clarify complex issues.
What to say.
I was listening to Stephen Lewis, father in law of Naomi Klein and kick-ass international humanitarian in his own right, talking on the radio today (as part of CBC's National Day for Haiti, which was mostly a rehash of the last week's conversations with some added Canadian rock stars telling us to contribute to the relief fund) and he said that yes of course, it is completely normal for us all to feel numb, overwhelmed, and devastated by the news coverage of the earthquake.
I was thinking, why would I feel any of those things?
My house didn't fall on my head.
I'm not from Haiti. I'm not trying to find out what happened to my family that I had to leave to come live in Montreal, to try and have a shot at a life.
My mother didn't die. My brother didn't have to dig his family out from under what's left of his house with his bare hands. My sister isn't lying under a sheet tent in a street with no food or water, waiting for an amputation when the MSF saws finally get through the 'bottleneck' at the airport. My dad isn't working a backhoe burying thousands of bodies in mass graves.
Obviously, I feel very sad for all the millions of Haitian people who are feeling numb, overwhelmed, and devastated by the earthquake. And supportive of all the brave kind people who are trying to help them.
But could we all get a little fucking real about this.
I spent the day shopping and getting my hair done.
Like millions of other western hemispherians.
Mostly today, I felt contented in a slightly sickening consumer-buzz kinda way.
Christ, I even put my dog in daycare.
To ease the guilt of leaving her on her own when I go out.
What makes me feel numb, devastated and overwhelmed at times is the fact that for the totally random reason of birth, I can do all of those things and for equally random reasons, billions of people round the world can't.
Ever.
Because if we all could do them, then there wouldn't be enough resources for it to happen. And me and all my privileged western hemispherian colleagues would not have such a nice time.
And so we have constructed a world in which we make sure they won't ever get off their knees enough to realise that we aren't so great after all.
I know Stephen Lewis knows these things.
A lot better than me.
So what in jaysus' name is he doing on the radio mouthing platitudes at us?
Because if he went on the radio and lectured us all on the unfairness of it all, we'd get mad and his foundation would lose funding.
It has struck me forcefully that the media coverage of Haiti is different to previous disasters.
For me, anyways.
When you think about it, go back to that Michael Buerk report from Ethiopia in 1984 that everyone my age remembers so well (because it resulted in Live Aid).
Bad stuff happened. You saw it on television. If you were in a house where there were newspapers, you read about it in detail. If those newspapers were broadsheets, you got some sense of why it was happening.
You got past the word HUNGER.
But mostly it was a narrative that hyped the unfortunateness of some poor people and the bountifulness of the rest of us.
Nowadays, it's a little more complex.
The news breaks on Twitter, it's reported on 24-7 rolling news, the videos are put up on YouTube, they're shared and dissected on Facebook and other sites, Google brings millions of opinions to your fingertips.
It's at the same time easier and more difficult to get past the word DISASTER.
Reading around the issue I am struck by how RIGHT everyone who is commenting feels they are.
The US ARMY ARE WRONG.
It's the Navy, was my impression.
The Aid Agencies ARE SURRENDER MONKEYS.
They`ve been outflanked by the speed of the military operations, was my impression.
The news media are DISASTER JUNKIES.
For a reason.
The Haitian government is CORRUPT.
Well, which G8 nation is propping it up.
Too many viewpoints for me to figure it out.
But the hum of the rest of us feeling good about throwing another couple of hundred onto the credit card bill is coming through loud and strong.
Thank Christ for that.... maybe it`ll help with the numbness.
Interestingly, a poll of Canadians found that 88% of them felt that the money they donated would NOT get to the people of Haiti.
But they are still leading the world in donations per head.
Tonight`s the big face off between the Canadian mega-fundraiser and the Yankee one. Which I have to go watch soon, because it is the thing to do in our house tonight.
I guess people are good, generally. But they cling to viewpoints for reasons of stability and that is not good, generally.
Hopefully the intersection of the two aspects of us will result in a new, better, Haiti at some point in the future.
Social media so far is not impressing me with its ability to clarify complex issues.
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Inmytunes 2009: a cornucopia of Canadiana, brought to you by Queenie (and Rich Terfry)
Every year-end for the last few years, people who are members of the mailing list inmyday (of which I am a member, obviously) can put together a playlist of their favourite music of the preceeding year. Then share it with everyone else on the list.
Bingo!!
You start off the new year with a load of new music.
Of course, it being the inmyday Inmytunes compilation, there are rules, and of course it being Inmyday you are allowed to bend them. The original rule was that you had to make a compilation of the top 15 or so songs on your iTunes 'most played' list.
That turned out to be a little embarrassing if you had had a tough year emotionally.
So that quickly morphed into 'most played if I had a hyper-critical audience sitting with me at all times' list. Then as is normal on inmyday everyone just went off and did their own thing anyway.
By that I mean that I understand that sticking to the rules is some people's idea of doing their own thing.
Anyways, I have gotten to hear a lot of music that I would never have heard otherwise, seeing as I don't spend a lot of time buying music or reading about it anymore.
This year I was totally screwed. I think I bought two albums all year. And I gave them away before I ripped them. But I was saved by Buck 65.
Buck, or Rich Terfry as he was named by his mammy and daddy, who live near Enfield which is near here of course, DJs the Drive show on CBC radio 2. The show is for me and people like me.
People who don't like advertising.
People who like to listen to Rich shite on about baseball while they sit in traffic.
People who like the feel of the show, which feels like Rich is bringing in his own records to play for you.
People who want to know what's going on in the Canadian music scene, but who don't have the energy to go to gigs anymore because they don't start till ten pm, which is bedtime chez nous.
So, I cheated on the Inmytunes this year. Basically, anytime Rich and I agreed that a certain tune was a great tune, I made a note of it on a piece of paper I had stuck in the sun vizor (difficult on the highway trips). When I heard him spin it a few more times and we were still agreed that it was a TRULY GREAT tune, I put a circle round it.
Tonight I sat down and bought everything with a circle round it on iTunes.
Note to music promoters.... Rich Terfry moves downloads ... ohmylord he does... every song I bought was a massive spike of downloads, way ahead of everything else on the album.
So thanks, Rich. I really enjoyed this year's compiling.
If you're interested, on the Euro front, he plays Wilco and David Gray and the Waterboys to DEATH. And he's very excited about some woman singer from Dublin right now, whose name keeps escaping me, because he talks really fast when he's excited. But you should send him records. Because he sure sells them if he likes them.
I'm just going to take a moment to flip the playlist back to front. I had started with the electronica-type stuff and then got progressively folkier, but it's not working for me so I'm flipping it round.
Which is incidentally the order in which I downloaded them... I should've been a dj.
Inmytunes 2009
1. The Deep Dark Woods, All the Money I had is Gone (Winter Hours).
This is a very simple little song from a great folk band from Saskatoon. I thought it was pertinent for the year that was in it.
Rich and I dedicate it to all the capitalists out there who are hurtin'...
CBC Radio 2 had the strangest competition this year. The Great Canadian Song Quest. They got people to vote for 13 places (one in each province/ territory) and 13 bands (the same), who then had to write about said place in their province. DDW won the vote in Saskatchewan and wrote a song about Charlie's Bar, which sounds a bit like a Canadian Whelans and is being torn down.
Generally, the songs are a bit meh.... except for Quebec, which was won by...
2. Martha Wainwright, Four Black Sheep in the Snow (CBC Radio 2 Great Canadian Song Quest)
I think Martha missed the memo from Rich that said 'these songs are meant to be cheery for to cheer up Canadians who have lost all their money'. Anyways, I thought PFI would like to hear it, as Martha is 'known to us'.
Isn't it funny the way the guards say that about people. The Mounties don't say that. They just say 'he had a criminal record, that's probably why he got shot'. The guards say 'we don't know why he was shot, but he was 'known to us''.
Weird song. From a weird songstress.
3. David Myles, When it comes my turn (Things have Changed)
I think I am heading into my middle agedness, judging by the first three songs on the list. Or, maybe me and Rich are just feeling a little old arsey this year, what with getting to be married and all.
Not to each other of course.
I hate baseball.
I was about a month ahead of him I think.
Anyway, David is from New Brunswick I think, and he is just back from recording his new album on the SAME CONSOLE in some famous studio in Arizona as was used when Radiohead were there and recorded The Bends.
Which is my least favourite Radiohead album.
I'm shocked an album that miserable was made in the sunshine...
4. The Wooden Sky, The Late King Henry (If I don't come home you'll know I'm gone)
I just like the name of this song. And the tempo is kinda rollicking, maybe nice for kiddies.
Note to parents: Not only did I not put the song I really liked with the swear words on the playlist this year, I put on this song the kiddies might like.
Learning I am...
5. The Duhks, Mighty Storm (Fast Paced World)
I love the Duhks (ducks), who are from Winnipeg, Manitoba and so know a thing or two about weather. This is dedicated to all the Irish weather you`ve been having lately.
Bless.
6. Kathleen Edwards, Sure as Shit (Asking for Flowers)
This was our wedding song. So it goes on the list.
7. Bahamas, Southern Drawl (Pink Strat)
Man of mystery. Very difficult to find out anything about this guy. Apparently he's on tour with Amy Millan, so maybe he will turn up here some night and I won't go. Nice song though. Very smart.
Speaking of...
8. Amy Millan, Baby I (Honey from the Tombs)
Amy, the queen of Canadian pop. The homecoming queen for the nerdy boys. She pops up again later with The Stills. As she says herself: 'together, my own songs and these covers create a bed where the lonely can rest for a little bit, where little hopes, little deaths, and big loves are flammable but fallow'
Amy's fab. We are big fans, me and Rich. He nearly passes out when he talks to her.
9. Jenn Grant, Dreamer (Orchestra for the Moon)
Jenn has a voice like hot chocolate. Which is apt, because this song mentions her having a date at Chocolate Lake, where Queenie and Himself used to live (and dream), so it had to be included.
10. Cuff the Duke, Long Road (Sidelines of the City)
Okay, last of the alt: country, Canadiana type songs.
Onto more inmyday-ish type music.
11. The New Pornographers, My Rights versus Yours (Challengers)
According to the blog metatag, The New Pornographers are AC Newman and a group of ridiculously talented people uniquely equipped to realize his musical ambitions. You may know their album, Mass Romantic. It was considered the best indie album in Canada until Arcade Fire released Neon Bible. This song is from another album called Challengers. Either of them are worth a listen if you dont know these guys.
12. Metric, Sick Muse (Fantasies)
Emily Haines and James Shaw, the singer and guitarist in Metric also play with Broken Social Scene. Emily is one of those effortlessly cool blonde rockstars that make me feel completely inadequate, but despite that, I love this song.
13. Stars, This Charming Man (Nightsongs)
A lush retake of a Smiths classic, by the people who also bring you Broken Social Scene.
14. Stars, Your ex-Lover is dead (Set yourself on fire)
When there`s nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire.
`Xactly.
Plus there are cellos. I do like a bit of cello in my eloquent, Montreal-based pop music. Even if they did support Coldplay recently.
... ah, the almighty dollar does strange things to us all. But these are the best lyrics on the compilation:
I`m not sorry I met you.
I`m not sorry it`s over.
I`m not sorry there`s nothing to say.
15. Holy Fuck, Lovely Allen (LP)
From the boys who are known as the Toronto evil super group, who brought you the Cowboy Cat t-shirt. Anyone who wants to buy me one is very welcome to do so!!!
Reminds me of God is an Astronaut a bit.
Anyways, folks, that`s it for another year. Hope you like them.
Bingo!!
You start off the new year with a load of new music.
Of course, it being the inmyday Inmytunes compilation, there are rules, and of course it being Inmyday you are allowed to bend them. The original rule was that you had to make a compilation of the top 15 or so songs on your iTunes 'most played' list.
That turned out to be a little embarrassing if you had had a tough year emotionally.
So that quickly morphed into 'most played if I had a hyper-critical audience sitting with me at all times' list. Then as is normal on inmyday everyone just went off and did their own thing anyway.
By that I mean that I understand that sticking to the rules is some people's idea of doing their own thing.
Anyways, I have gotten to hear a lot of music that I would never have heard otherwise, seeing as I don't spend a lot of time buying music or reading about it anymore.
This year I was totally screwed. I think I bought two albums all year. And I gave them away before I ripped them. But I was saved by Buck 65.
Buck, or Rich Terfry as he was named by his mammy and daddy, who live near Enfield which is near here of course, DJs the Drive show on CBC radio 2. The show is for me and people like me.
People who don't like advertising.
People who like to listen to Rich shite on about baseball while they sit in traffic.
People who like the feel of the show, which feels like Rich is bringing in his own records to play for you.
People who want to know what's going on in the Canadian music scene, but who don't have the energy to go to gigs anymore because they don't start till ten pm, which is bedtime chez nous.
So, I cheated on the Inmytunes this year. Basically, anytime Rich and I agreed that a certain tune was a great tune, I made a note of it on a piece of paper I had stuck in the sun vizor (difficult on the highway trips). When I heard him spin it a few more times and we were still agreed that it was a TRULY GREAT tune, I put a circle round it.
Tonight I sat down and bought everything with a circle round it on iTunes.
Note to music promoters.... Rich Terfry moves downloads ... ohmylord he does... every song I bought was a massive spike of downloads, way ahead of everything else on the album.
So thanks, Rich. I really enjoyed this year's compiling.
If you're interested, on the Euro front, he plays Wilco and David Gray and the Waterboys to DEATH. And he's very excited about some woman singer from Dublin right now, whose name keeps escaping me, because he talks really fast when he's excited. But you should send him records. Because he sure sells them if he likes them.
I'm just going to take a moment to flip the playlist back to front. I had started with the electronica-type stuff and then got progressively folkier, but it's not working for me so I'm flipping it round.
Which is incidentally the order in which I downloaded them... I should've been a dj.
Inmytunes 2009
1. The Deep Dark Woods, All the Money I had is Gone (Winter Hours).
This is a very simple little song from a great folk band from Saskatoon. I thought it was pertinent for the year that was in it.
Rich and I dedicate it to all the capitalists out there who are hurtin'...
CBC Radio 2 had the strangest competition this year. The Great Canadian Song Quest. They got people to vote for 13 places (one in each province/ territory) and 13 bands (the same), who then had to write about said place in their province. DDW won the vote in Saskatchewan and wrote a song about Charlie's Bar, which sounds a bit like a Canadian Whelans and is being torn down.
Generally, the songs are a bit meh.... except for Quebec, which was won by...
2. Martha Wainwright, Four Black Sheep in the Snow (CBC Radio 2 Great Canadian Song Quest)
I think Martha missed the memo from Rich that said 'these songs are meant to be cheery for to cheer up Canadians who have lost all their money'. Anyways, I thought PFI would like to hear it, as Martha is 'known to us'.
Isn't it funny the way the guards say that about people. The Mounties don't say that. They just say 'he had a criminal record, that's probably why he got shot'. The guards say 'we don't know why he was shot, but he was 'known to us''.
Weird song. From a weird songstress.
3. David Myles, When it comes my turn (Things have Changed)
I think I am heading into my middle agedness, judging by the first three songs on the list. Or, maybe me and Rich are just feeling a little old arsey this year, what with getting to be married and all.
Not to each other of course.
I hate baseball.
I was about a month ahead of him I think.
Anyway, David is from New Brunswick I think, and he is just back from recording his new album on the SAME CONSOLE in some famous studio in Arizona as was used when Radiohead were there and recorded The Bends.
Which is my least favourite Radiohead album.
I'm shocked an album that miserable was made in the sunshine...
4. The Wooden Sky, The Late King Henry (If I don't come home you'll know I'm gone)
I just like the name of this song. And the tempo is kinda rollicking, maybe nice for kiddies.
Note to parents: Not only did I not put the song I really liked with the swear words on the playlist this year, I put on this song the kiddies might like.
Learning I am...
5. The Duhks, Mighty Storm (Fast Paced World)
I love the Duhks (ducks), who are from Winnipeg, Manitoba and so know a thing or two about weather. This is dedicated to all the Irish weather you`ve been having lately.
Bless.
6. Kathleen Edwards, Sure as Shit (Asking for Flowers)
This was our wedding song. So it goes on the list.
7. Bahamas, Southern Drawl (Pink Strat)
Man of mystery. Very difficult to find out anything about this guy. Apparently he's on tour with Amy Millan, so maybe he will turn up here some night and I won't go. Nice song though. Very smart.
Speaking of...
8. Amy Millan, Baby I (Honey from the Tombs)
Amy, the queen of Canadian pop. The homecoming queen for the nerdy boys. She pops up again later with The Stills. As she says herself: 'together, my own songs and these covers create a bed where the lonely can rest for a little bit, where little hopes, little deaths, and big loves are flammable but fallow'
Amy's fab. We are big fans, me and Rich. He nearly passes out when he talks to her.
9. Jenn Grant, Dreamer (Orchestra for the Moon)
Jenn has a voice like hot chocolate. Which is apt, because this song mentions her having a date at Chocolate Lake, where Queenie and Himself used to live (and dream), so it had to be included.
10. Cuff the Duke, Long Road (Sidelines of the City)
Okay, last of the alt: country, Canadiana type songs.
Onto more inmyday-ish type music.
11. The New Pornographers, My Rights versus Yours (Challengers)
According to the blog metatag, The New Pornographers are AC Newman and a group of ridiculously talented people uniquely equipped to realize his musical ambitions. You may know their album, Mass Romantic. It was considered the best indie album in Canada until Arcade Fire released Neon Bible. This song is from another album called Challengers. Either of them are worth a listen if you dont know these guys.
12. Metric, Sick Muse (Fantasies)
Emily Haines and James Shaw, the singer and guitarist in Metric also play with Broken Social Scene. Emily is one of those effortlessly cool blonde rockstars that make me feel completely inadequate, but despite that, I love this song.
13. Stars, This Charming Man (Nightsongs)
A lush retake of a Smiths classic, by the people who also bring you Broken Social Scene.
14. Stars, Your ex-Lover is dead (Set yourself on fire)
When there`s nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire.
`Xactly.
Plus there are cellos. I do like a bit of cello in my eloquent, Montreal-based pop music. Even if they did support Coldplay recently.
... ah, the almighty dollar does strange things to us all. But these are the best lyrics on the compilation:
I`m not sorry I met you.
I`m not sorry it`s over.
I`m not sorry there`s nothing to say.
15. Holy Fuck, Lovely Allen (LP)
From the boys who are known as the Toronto evil super group, who brought you the Cowboy Cat t-shirt. Anyone who wants to buy me one is very welcome to do so!!!
Reminds me of God is an Astronaut a bit.
Anyways, folks, that`s it for another year. Hope you like them.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Universal engager with the private
What a lovely occasion: Alice Munro celebrated in Trinity College Dublin (my alma mater of course... and the Queen Dad's.... and Gypsy's now too) for winning a prize awarded to her by a panel chaired by Jane Smiley, who was interviewed by Colm Toibin about that choice.
If I wasn't so delighted about the choice, I'd have Da Envee...
You can read about it here:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0626/1224249575138.html
If I wasn't so delighted about the choice, I'd have Da Envee...
You can read about it here:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0626/1224249575138.html
Saturday, March 07, 2009
Generation Loser has a great soundtrack thanks to Buck 65
Seeing the beauty in small things is what this blog is supposed to be about.
It's quite difficult to do that at the moment, because the world and the weather keeps dumpin' a load on us all, don't they.
But as I am up at the crack of dawn this morning, due to the not-so-small snoring sounds that were emanating from the body in the bed beside me, I thought maybe I'd catch up on some of the small things that are keeping me going through this long winter and recession.
1. CBC Radio 2 Drive, with Rich Terfry (aka Buck 65).
Those of you who know me will know I am a Buck 65 fan anyways. I feel we are psychically connected (but not in a scary, over-enthusiastic way of course) because Buck 65 played Whelans in Dublin the night before I left Ireland for Canada. And then I ended up living in his home province.
Anyways, after spending time in Paris and New York, and just a few months after his amazing collaboration with Symphony Nova Scotia (take one hour out of your day this weekend to listen to this concert - you will not be sorry), Mr. Terfry abandoned the Maritimes again, moved to Toronto, but thankfully, was snatched up by the CBC for its relaunch of its Radio 2. The Drive show goes out 3 - 6pm every weekday.
So it's like he's here in a way.
It's a good show.
You don't want to get out of the car... yes, the show is that good.
The howls of outrage from the baby boomers who wanted wall to wall classical are drowned out every day by the best of Canadian singer-songwriters, roots, and urban (whatever that is).
Drive focuses on Canadian music naturally, but plays international stuff too (actually, Buck plays Irish artist, Damian Rice a lot... I keep meaning to email the show to tell him to check out good Irish artists) and there's a little sub-genre of south american pop and reggae and dub going on there too.
The best part of the show - apart from the music and Rich Terfry's rich-voiced ramblings about whatever - is the live sessions he hosts. Tune in here for the back calendar.
There, now I've done a 'nice thing in Queenie's world', there's a rant that's been building for a bit....
I was reading Macleans magazine the other day and they had one of those moan, whinge, complain, horror articles (well they had many, but I'm going to talk about one in particular) that was all about 'Generation Loser: the generation that will be poorer than its parents'.
It featured a nice, unfortunate, Ontario-based couple in their thirties, who had done the usual thing - arsed through college and their twenties, then 'gotten lucky' working for an auto-parts company for $33 an hour, then gotten even luckier in meeting each other. They bought a house and started a baby, before suddenly getting their pink slips.
Now he's making $11 an hour doing something menial, she's at home with the baby, and they don't know how they will survive THE FUTURE.
According to Macleans, they are typical of a generation that are losers BECAUSE WE ARE THE FIRST TO END UP POORER THAN OUR PARENTS.
A number of things struck me about the article.
Firstly, to go from a household income of $1ook plus, to one of under $25k two months before you have your first child is friggin' scary enough, without having Macleans come in to do a feature on what a pair of losers you are. Even if Macleans is using that term to describe an entire generation and not just you two.
Secondly, our parents did well overall, yes, but their high end manufacturing jobs and conspicuous consumption has damaged the planet, and..... as far as I can make out, they have mostly all just lost their pensions in the stock market (as well as ours) ....
....so I'm kind of at a loss about why we are the losers.
Are we losers because we are the first generation not going to be able to do the same as our parents because it's unsustainable?
Because we could maybe wait a few more years and get judged on our overall performance.
Oh, that's right, Macleans being a paper-based media organization, it will probably have folded by then. ;-)
Thirdly... what is this shit about 'the first generation'?
There have been thousands of generations. I'm sure there are earlier generations that lost more of their best and brightest to the sabre-toothed tiger than their parents, or got whipped into a worse chain gang building some more insane necropolis than their parents, or had to pay more rent to the local squire than their parents, or didn't last as long in some hellish part of the Imperial bureaucracy, or WHATEVER.
It annoys me intensely that economic commentators only look back as far as the development of the Model T factory line, and generational commentators only look back as far as the development of the American middle classes when they purport to examine historical trends.
It narrows the potential for insight so much.
The simple fact remains that under the current model of economic development (i.e. the growth model), if we were all (as a generation) to 'do better' than our parent's generation, the natural world would collapse under the strain.
So we can't.
I'm sure some of us will.
But most of us won't.
People who build a future on a job making car parts in Upper Canada certainly won't, unless they change life direction rapid.
Our parents did the best they could with the decades they got, and they got some of it right and some of it wrong and we will be the same.
I wish we could all accept, internalise and celebrate this concept and move on with it.
Then instead of wringing our hands about what a loser generation we are, we could redefine progress and get ourselves out of this mess.
After that wish, I wish I could find some economic commentators who are looking at the slowdown in sustainability terms (feel free to post links).
And if I got the full complement of wishes, I wish Macleans et al would find and publish numbers that measure the benefits of sustaining and repairing what we already have, rather than droning on with the shock horror statistics measuring cataclysmic drops in the creation of mountains of poisonous plastic and chrome.
As JD Irving, the Tree Growing People would say in their ads that pretend they give a shit about nature 'that's my what if!'
Most hilarious economic meltdown occurance of the week
What: The world's stock markets plunging yet again, after hearing that the Chinese government wouldn't spend billions on a stimulus package to make things better.
Why: Did the running dogs of capitalism actually think that the Chinese government was going to save them?
It's quite difficult to do that at the moment, because the world and the weather keeps dumpin' a load on us all, don't they.
But as I am up at the crack of dawn this morning, due to the not-so-small snoring sounds that were emanating from the body in the bed beside me, I thought maybe I'd catch up on some of the small things that are keeping me going through this long winter and recession.
1. CBC Radio 2 Drive, with Rich Terfry (aka Buck 65).
Those of you who know me will know I am a Buck 65 fan anyways. I feel we are psychically connected (but not in a scary, over-enthusiastic way of course) because Buck 65 played Whelans in Dublin the night before I left Ireland for Canada. And then I ended up living in his home province.
Anyways, after spending time in Paris and New York, and just a few months after his amazing collaboration with Symphony Nova Scotia (take one hour out of your day this weekend to listen to this concert - you will not be sorry), Mr. Terfry abandoned the Maritimes again, moved to Toronto, but thankfully, was snatched up by the CBC for its relaunch of its Radio 2. The Drive show goes out 3 - 6pm every weekday.
So it's like he's here in a way.
It's a good show.
You don't want to get out of the car... yes, the show is that good.
The howls of outrage from the baby boomers who wanted wall to wall classical are drowned out every day by the best of Canadian singer-songwriters, roots, and urban (whatever that is).
Drive focuses on Canadian music naturally, but plays international stuff too (actually, Buck plays Irish artist, Damian Rice a lot... I keep meaning to email the show to tell him to check out good Irish artists) and there's a little sub-genre of south american pop and reggae and dub going on there too.
The best part of the show - apart from the music and Rich Terfry's rich-voiced ramblings about whatever - is the live sessions he hosts. Tune in here for the back calendar.
There, now I've done a 'nice thing in Queenie's world', there's a rant that's been building for a bit....
I was reading Macleans magazine the other day and they had one of those moan, whinge, complain, horror articles (well they had many, but I'm going to talk about one in particular) that was all about 'Generation Loser: the generation that will be poorer than its parents'.
It featured a nice, unfortunate, Ontario-based couple in their thirties, who had done the usual thing - arsed through college and their twenties, then 'gotten lucky' working for an auto-parts company for $33 an hour, then gotten even luckier in meeting each other. They bought a house and started a baby, before suddenly getting their pink slips.
Now he's making $11 an hour doing something menial, she's at home with the baby, and they don't know how they will survive THE FUTURE.
According to Macleans, they are typical of a generation that are losers BECAUSE WE ARE THE FIRST TO END UP POORER THAN OUR PARENTS.
A number of things struck me about the article.
Firstly, to go from a household income of $1ook plus, to one of under $25k two months before you have your first child is friggin' scary enough, without having Macleans come in to do a feature on what a pair of losers you are. Even if Macleans is using that term to describe an entire generation and not just you two.
Secondly, our parents did well overall, yes, but their high end manufacturing jobs and conspicuous consumption has damaged the planet, and..... as far as I can make out, they have mostly all just lost their pensions in the stock market (as well as ours) ....
....so I'm kind of at a loss about why we are the losers.
Are we losers because we are the first generation not going to be able to do the same as our parents because it's unsustainable?
Because we could maybe wait a few more years and get judged on our overall performance.
Oh, that's right, Macleans being a paper-based media organization, it will probably have folded by then. ;-)
Thirdly... what is this shit about 'the first generation'?
There have been thousands of generations. I'm sure there are earlier generations that lost more of their best and brightest to the sabre-toothed tiger than their parents, or got whipped into a worse chain gang building some more insane necropolis than their parents, or had to pay more rent to the local squire than their parents, or didn't last as long in some hellish part of the Imperial bureaucracy, or WHATEVER.
It annoys me intensely that economic commentators only look back as far as the development of the Model T factory line, and generational commentators only look back as far as the development of the American middle classes when they purport to examine historical trends.
It narrows the potential for insight so much.
The simple fact remains that under the current model of economic development (i.e. the growth model), if we were all (as a generation) to 'do better' than our parent's generation, the natural world would collapse under the strain.
So we can't.
I'm sure some of us will.
But most of us won't.
People who build a future on a job making car parts in Upper Canada certainly won't, unless they change life direction rapid.
Our parents did the best they could with the decades they got, and they got some of it right and some of it wrong and we will be the same.
I wish we could all accept, internalise and celebrate this concept and move on with it.
Then instead of wringing our hands about what a loser generation we are, we could redefine progress and get ourselves out of this mess.
After that wish, I wish I could find some economic commentators who are looking at the slowdown in sustainability terms (feel free to post links).
And if I got the full complement of wishes, I wish Macleans et al would find and publish numbers that measure the benefits of sustaining and repairing what we already have, rather than droning on with the shock horror statistics measuring cataclysmic drops in the creation of mountains of poisonous plastic and chrome.
As JD Irving, the Tree Growing People would say in their ads that pretend they give a shit about nature 'that's my what if!'
Most hilarious economic meltdown occurance of the week
What: The world's stock markets plunging yet again, after hearing that the Chinese government wouldn't spend billions on a stimulus package to make things better.
Why: Did the running dogs of capitalism actually think that the Chinese government was going to save them?
Saturday, February 28, 2009
New France is for sale!!
JD Irving, the clear-cutting lumber giant of the Maritimes, or the 'tree-growing people' as they like to call themselves, has arranged for an American real estate broker, LandVest of Portland, Maine, http://www.landvest.com/, to sell approximately 170,000 acres (70,000 hectares) of South West Nova Scotia to the highest bidder.The acreage is listed in three blocks, and you can see some photos of these beautiful lands on Landvest's website here
http://www.landvest.com/property/NS0101/1/ .
The sale is a sealed bid auction due to close on April 9th.
The first block is Weymouth Timberlands in Digby Co. (128,000 acres) including most of the Sissiboo River drainage area, Long Tusket Lake, Silver River, and historic New France.
Anyone who knows me knows this is a very special place for me and Himself, and for all our friends in Digby County.
This historic area was settled by a French family who built a village in the woods - the first electrified town in Nova Scotia, with a railway to Weymouth, and a hydro-power plant, a pub, and every amenity you can imagine.
The village is in ruins now, but you can still walk around New France, camp nearby near one of the lakes, canoe down the old Mi'k Maq paddling routes, used for thousands of years to enable the original settlers of this place to travel easily through the region.
This river and lake system, and the forests that surround them is one of the few places left in South Western Nova Scotia where you can completely get away from it all. Acid rain has already wreaked havoc on it, but it is slowly starting to recover from that.
Let's not lose it to someone who doesn't care about it like we do.
I don't know the other two blocks as well, but I can imagine they are beautiful too, judging from the photos. They include:
Tusket River Lakes in Clare and Yarmouth Co. (28,000 acres) including Barrio Lake, Barrio Falls and the east bank of the Tusket to North Kempt; and Carleton River Lakes in Clare and Yarmouth Co. (17,000 acres) including the east and south sides of Ogden Lake and the east bank of the Carleton River to Lake Fanning.
A group called Buy Back Nova Scotia has started a coalition of diverse individuals and groups to urge the government of Nova Scotia to purchase these Irving lands and thereby halt the further sale of provincial beauty spots to those who might restrict access to the lands, rivers and streams, lakes and wetlands. Maintaining public access to lands and waters for recreation is critical and will become more so in the future.
The people involved are conservationists and ATVers, foresters, fishermen, hunters and hikers, bicyclists and birders, canoeists, campers and cross country skiers, photographers and writers.
Despite their differences about how to spend time in the wilderness, they are working together on this issue, to urge municipal and provincial politicians to purchase the JD Irving lands before more of the province disappears behind “No Trespassing’ signs and locked gates.
A public meeting to rally tri-county support for BUY BACK NOVA SCOTIA has been organized for Sunday, March 8, at 2 p.m., in the gym at the Yarmouth campus, NSCC.
A letter-writing campaign has begun too.
Please help with this. Details of who to write to on http://www.buybacknovascotia.com/
Monday, February 23, 2009
Gingers gone... what's next!
On a sad note, Ginger’s Tavern on Barrington St, home of many a pint had by Queenie and friends of hers, including Mr. and Mrs Monkey and the Byrnes on many occasions including the Monkey wedding, and separately Redser Byrne, as well as Jersey Girl and her Boy, Polly, Shazz and many others..... well, Ginger's Tavern closed last night forever.The owners are moving out of town to focus on their micro-brewery.
Himself says I am a pub joner.
Everytime I leave a place, my local closes down.
Ginger will hold a special place in my heart. Not as special as Smoothies. But special enough.
What I am really worried about is the long, slow death of Barrington St., the main street of Halifax city.
Is there any of the multiple 'development' organizations out there working on this?
Fusion Halifax maybe??
Or the Chamber of Commerce?
Or the Downtown Business Commission??
You know, boys and girls, if you don't stop this slide, soon there'll be nowhere downtown to engage in your true raison d'etre, which is of course to swap business cards.
Book Reviews 2008, part 2: Non-fiction titles
The second round of book reviews is another short category – non-fiction. However, compared to previous years, this category is storming ahead in the lifetime stakes with a total of six entries.
It’s not often that Queenie reads six books that aren’t story books.
These were all second hand items I picked up in desperation, when I didn’t have the price of a novel, or even a CanLit novel (they being cheaper than non CanLit here in Canada) on me, but still needed something to read.
They were all pretty good despite their bought for the sake of buying a book rather than for the sake of owning them status. And there are one or two gems in here.
The Little Immigrants, the Orphans who came to Canada by Kenneth Bagnell, published in 1980, was a book I picked up in a store called ‘So many books, So little time, which we happened upon during our road trip to Algonquin last October. It’s a little shack down a side street in Huntsville, but when you enter the shack, it turns out to be quite the store. Second hand books line shelves that surround the real purpose of the store – tchotchkas and dried flowers. Plus the owner had two of the nicest dogs I have ever seen lounging around a second hand bookstore.
The book is described on the cover as ‘one of the finest pieces of Canadian social history to be written’ and the author was a respected Globe and Mail and Star newspapers, which of course are THE newspapers in Canada. It apparently spent one year on the bestsellers list when it came out.
As befits a book about the littlest immigrants, it is a little book. It really should have been called ‘the littlest hobos’ but I guess that title was taken.
The book traces the fate of over 80,000 orphans or indigent children who were shipped from England (primarily from East End London) to Canada between the 1860s and the 1930s. When they got to Canada, they were dispersed across this vast country to work as farm labourers. A number of organizations were involved in ‘saving’ the street arabs, as they were then known.
The collection, transportation and dispersal of these children was organized mostly by evangelical Christian organizations at first. A number of redoubtable Christian women were involved; women who steam-rolled over the concerns of the Canadian and English authorities.
Despite a serious enquiry that uncovered wholesale abuse and defrauding of these children (they were supposed to be fed, clothed, educated and paid, and a lot of the time, not much of any of these things happened), Canada’s need for cheap agricultural labour and England’s need to rid itself of street children overcame the Dickensian concerns of the media and the child advocates.
The collection and transportation was a bit hit and miss for a number of years. Then a young man named Dr. Barnado got involved and the process hit its stride. Thomas Barnado, born and educated in Dublin of course, sent 30,000 children to Canada. The book spends quite a bit of time on Barnado, his life and works, and the obstacles he overcame with his unwavering zeal that his choice for these children was the right one.
He sounds like a terrible person… one of those individuals so consumed with his calling his actions towards friends and family are monstrous. This monstrosity almost becomes his downfall, as a falling out with a friend results in a plot against him by a number of other evangelists.
It seems Barnado is yet another mixed blessing imposed by the Irish on the British. Having said that, his legacy organization is still fairly highly regarded in some places. But the book cleared up the rationale for a lot of moral standpoints I found strange about the old Barnardos.
The book is interesting in a number of ways. Firstly, it documents the terrible treatment that a lot of these children received on isolated and primitive farms located deep in provincial Canada (all in the name of Jesus of course), and reiterates the fact that in Victorian England and Canada, children were not children as we now know them to be.
Secondly, the book describes very well the result of concerns finally getting a media airing when various well got individuals questioned the value (to the children) of ‘the importation of waifs’. The immediate reaction by God-fearing Canadians was to condemn the practice outright, because Canada should not have to house the scum and wastrels of England.
Nice kick to moral touch there, Upper Canada.
Finally, the book has some local flavour as one of the homes where the children were housed before they were sent to their new masters was in Bedford, near Halifax.
I meant to go find the home last summer and forgot. I must do it this spring.
Many of the stories outlined in the book were from Nova Scotia too, and they don’t come out well from it.
Worth a read if you ever find it.
The Secret Life of Lobsters, by Trevor Corson, is quite simply the best biological book I have ever read. I followed it with The Lobster Chronicles, by Linda Greenlaw (who is the actual woman who is represented by an actress trying to talk the skipper played by George Clooney out of his fool’s errand in A Perfect Storm).
After she lost her friend in that storm, she gave up her career as a swordfish boat captain, and went home to a small island off Maine to fish for lobster. The book describes a season and its not very good. Although I get the sense she was very contrained by the fact that all her neighbours were a little tense about the writing of it.
She does get the whole ‘living on a small island, knowing everyone, knowing their faults and failings and adjusting to them so nobody will kill each other’ thing very well. I’m just not sure it’s as riveting a read as she thought it would be.
Salutary…
As for the fact that I spent quite a lot of my reading time last year reading up on lobsters… it’s all about the fishery, doncha know… you gotta get with the game when you’re in Nova Scotia.
It was funny… when I finished reading The Secret Life of Lobsters, Himself and I were down visiting his folks on Long Island for the weekend. I was so impressed by the book I couldn’t stop talking about it or lobsters, much to everyone’s amusement because usually I pay no heed to the talk of fish. Eventually I had to haul it out of my bag to show them what was pushing my buttons.
Turned out every guy in the room had read the book when it came out first.
It is a great book. Even if you have no interest in lobsters, fishermen, the sea, crustaceans, ocean currents, the Atlantic, North Eastern USA/ Canada, or whatever, you will still love this book.
It is such a labour of love. It is beautifully written. It is painstakingly researched. It understands that a lobster is just one example of the beauty, uniqueness, humour and genius of evolution. In fact, in the dying days of the Empire of Creationism (which is when I read it), it really was a refreshing reminder that the USA can do so much better than Bush and his cronies.
Did you know that lobsters urinate on each others heads when they’re horny? Lobster sex is the most interesting animal sex I have ever read about.
But even more interesting than the description of lobster sex is the description of how US scientists figured out every aspect of lobster sex.
And that’s what I love about this book; it’s celebration of enquiry.
I found Alexander the Great, Journey to the end of the Earth, by Norman F Cantor in the bargain bin at Chapters for $2. As Kitty was doing Classical History I bought it for her, but it ended up being read by me as I had suspected.
It was okay… the maps weren’t great and I would have preferred more what and less why, as we don’t know why.
Late in the year, I found a new second hand bookstore, DustJackets, in the bowels of the Aliant building on Barrington St. and celebrated by buying a copy of A Brief History of The Celts, Peter Bereford Ellis’ recommended tome for beginners in the subject.
It’s a very good, concise overview of every aspect of Celtic society. He breaks it down into aspects of Celtic life – laws, women, religion, politics, architecture, art, money, trade, etc. He does a good job with shitty sources. That’s the problem with the Celts – it’s either some Roman making up stuff about how they’re all mental and they eat brains, or it’s some monk in a monastery in Ireland banging on about Lugh of the Long Hand and giants and such like.
Ellis’ book is famous for being a serious attempt to make sense of it all and I must say I got a lot out of it.
Plus, I found out that my maternal surname is over 3,000 years old and is one of the oldest surviving surnames in Europe.
So there.
Finally, I bought a copy of Getting Past No this year, because it was time I did. This is the sequel to Getting to Yes, the bestselling book on negotiation written by the guys who invented interest-based bargaining.
If you haven’t read GTY yet, then what are you doing reading this article. Go out and buy it. When you get it, I mean get it as in get it…. practice that for a while and then buy Getting Past No.
If you haven’t done any of that stuff yet, and you have children who are going to be older than five soon, then just go straight past GTY and buy Getting Past No.
It’s good for puppies too.
That’s it for the non-fiction.
Onto CanLit...
It’s not often that Queenie reads six books that aren’t story books.
These were all second hand items I picked up in desperation, when I didn’t have the price of a novel, or even a CanLit novel (they being cheaper than non CanLit here in Canada) on me, but still needed something to read.
They were all pretty good despite their bought for the sake of buying a book rather than for the sake of owning them status. And there are one or two gems in here.
The Little Immigrants, the Orphans who came to Canada by Kenneth Bagnell, published in 1980, was a book I picked up in a store called ‘So many books, So little time, which we happened upon during our road trip to Algonquin last October. It’s a little shack down a side street in Huntsville, but when you enter the shack, it turns out to be quite the store. Second hand books line shelves that surround the real purpose of the store – tchotchkas and dried flowers. Plus the owner had two of the nicest dogs I have ever seen lounging around a second hand bookstore.
The book is described on the cover as ‘one of the finest pieces of Canadian social history to be written’ and the author was a respected Globe and Mail and Star newspapers, which of course are THE newspapers in Canada. It apparently spent one year on the bestsellers list when it came out.
As befits a book about the littlest immigrants, it is a little book. It really should have been called ‘the littlest hobos’ but I guess that title was taken.
The book traces the fate of over 80,000 orphans or indigent children who were shipped from England (primarily from East End London) to Canada between the 1860s and the 1930s. When they got to Canada, they were dispersed across this vast country to work as farm labourers. A number of organizations were involved in ‘saving’ the street arabs, as they were then known.
The collection, transportation and dispersal of these children was organized mostly by evangelical Christian organizations at first. A number of redoubtable Christian women were involved; women who steam-rolled over the concerns of the Canadian and English authorities.
Despite a serious enquiry that uncovered wholesale abuse and defrauding of these children (they were supposed to be fed, clothed, educated and paid, and a lot of the time, not much of any of these things happened), Canada’s need for cheap agricultural labour and England’s need to rid itself of street children overcame the Dickensian concerns of the media and the child advocates.
The collection and transportation was a bit hit and miss for a number of years. Then a young man named Dr. Barnado got involved and the process hit its stride. Thomas Barnado, born and educated in Dublin of course, sent 30,000 children to Canada. The book spends quite a bit of time on Barnado, his life and works, and the obstacles he overcame with his unwavering zeal that his choice for these children was the right one.
He sounds like a terrible person… one of those individuals so consumed with his calling his actions towards friends and family are monstrous. This monstrosity almost becomes his downfall, as a falling out with a friend results in a plot against him by a number of other evangelists.
It seems Barnado is yet another mixed blessing imposed by the Irish on the British. Having said that, his legacy organization is still fairly highly regarded in some places. But the book cleared up the rationale for a lot of moral standpoints I found strange about the old Barnardos.
The book is interesting in a number of ways. Firstly, it documents the terrible treatment that a lot of these children received on isolated and primitive farms located deep in provincial Canada (all in the name of Jesus of course), and reiterates the fact that in Victorian England and Canada, children were not children as we now know them to be.
Secondly, the book describes very well the result of concerns finally getting a media airing when various well got individuals questioned the value (to the children) of ‘the importation of waifs’. The immediate reaction by God-fearing Canadians was to condemn the practice outright, because Canada should not have to house the scum and wastrels of England.
Nice kick to moral touch there, Upper Canada.
Finally, the book has some local flavour as one of the homes where the children were housed before they were sent to their new masters was in Bedford, near Halifax.
I meant to go find the home last summer and forgot. I must do it this spring.
Many of the stories outlined in the book were from Nova Scotia too, and they don’t come out well from it.
Worth a read if you ever find it.
The Secret Life of Lobsters, by Trevor Corson, is quite simply the best biological book I have ever read. I followed it with The Lobster Chronicles, by Linda Greenlaw (who is the actual woman who is represented by an actress trying to talk the skipper played by George Clooney out of his fool’s errand in A Perfect Storm).
After she lost her friend in that storm, she gave up her career as a swordfish boat captain, and went home to a small island off Maine to fish for lobster. The book describes a season and its not very good. Although I get the sense she was very contrained by the fact that all her neighbours were a little tense about the writing of it.
She does get the whole ‘living on a small island, knowing everyone, knowing their faults and failings and adjusting to them so nobody will kill each other’ thing very well. I’m just not sure it’s as riveting a read as she thought it would be.
Salutary…
As for the fact that I spent quite a lot of my reading time last year reading up on lobsters… it’s all about the fishery, doncha know… you gotta get with the game when you’re in Nova Scotia.
It was funny… when I finished reading The Secret Life of Lobsters, Himself and I were down visiting his folks on Long Island for the weekend. I was so impressed by the book I couldn’t stop talking about it or lobsters, much to everyone’s amusement because usually I pay no heed to the talk of fish. Eventually I had to haul it out of my bag to show them what was pushing my buttons.
Turned out every guy in the room had read the book when it came out first.
It is a great book. Even if you have no interest in lobsters, fishermen, the sea, crustaceans, ocean currents, the Atlantic, North Eastern USA/ Canada, or whatever, you will still love this book.
It is such a labour of love. It is beautifully written. It is painstakingly researched. It understands that a lobster is just one example of the beauty, uniqueness, humour and genius of evolution. In fact, in the dying days of the Empire of Creationism (which is when I read it), it really was a refreshing reminder that the USA can do so much better than Bush and his cronies.
Did you know that lobsters urinate on each others heads when they’re horny? Lobster sex is the most interesting animal sex I have ever read about.
But even more interesting than the description of lobster sex is the description of how US scientists figured out every aspect of lobster sex.
And that’s what I love about this book; it’s celebration of enquiry.
I found Alexander the Great, Journey to the end of the Earth, by Norman F Cantor in the bargain bin at Chapters for $2. As Kitty was doing Classical History I bought it for her, but it ended up being read by me as I had suspected.
It was okay… the maps weren’t great and I would have preferred more what and less why, as we don’t know why.
Late in the year, I found a new second hand bookstore, DustJackets, in the bowels of the Aliant building on Barrington St. and celebrated by buying a copy of A Brief History of The Celts, Peter Bereford Ellis’ recommended tome for beginners in the subject.
It’s a very good, concise overview of every aspect of Celtic society. He breaks it down into aspects of Celtic life – laws, women, religion, politics, architecture, art, money, trade, etc. He does a good job with shitty sources. That’s the problem with the Celts – it’s either some Roman making up stuff about how they’re all mental and they eat brains, or it’s some monk in a monastery in Ireland banging on about Lugh of the Long Hand and giants and such like.
Ellis’ book is famous for being a serious attempt to make sense of it all and I must say I got a lot out of it.
Plus, I found out that my maternal surname is over 3,000 years old and is one of the oldest surviving surnames in Europe.
So there.
Finally, I bought a copy of Getting Past No this year, because it was time I did. This is the sequel to Getting to Yes, the bestselling book on negotiation written by the guys who invented interest-based bargaining.
If you haven’t read GTY yet, then what are you doing reading this article. Go out and buy it. When you get it, I mean get it as in get it…. practice that for a while and then buy Getting Past No.
If you haven’t done any of that stuff yet, and you have children who are going to be older than five soon, then just go straight past GTY and buy Getting Past No.
It’s good for puppies too.
That’s it for the non-fiction.
Onto CanLit...
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
The Bare Hook
I thought that I was like everyone on the planet in my close following of the soon to be called Second Great Depression. It turns out I was wrong. There are people on the planet who aren't thinking about this crisis. More about them later.
As an Irish person living in Canada I am having a mild schizoid response to the soon to be called SGD, as the Irish person in me wants to sit in a corner Peig-like, rocking myself into a hysterical fit with my smelly shawl over my face.
The east coast Canadian resident in me, who doesn't work in an industry related to cars and petroleum could give a shit about the whole thing.
The reader in me is interested in the narrative of the STBCSGD.
Which of my faces to wear? Which, which??
So far, I've been veering towards 'it'll be alright, Nova Scotia can't really tank much further, pass the potato chips and put on the next episode of The Wire'.
Then a couple of things happened this evening and my potential panic got viralled (is that a verb? It should be.)
A friends noted what appeared to be concern at the crisis on Facebook. As this friend is one of the few of us who is understood to understand money stuff he got some 'what have you read? what? what?' comments.
To which he responded, the Dow.
Classy!
Another friend, whose opinion I also respect, wrote that he had tried to blog about the Irish demiracle-isation and found it too depressing. As this friend is one of my 'black humour and pithy analysis of the underlying themes' reference points on world affairs, I had to restrain myself from the 'no! no! no!' comments. I don't want to further depress him.
Then I had to get back to normal, and have supper with my beloved and then upload his cool photos of a snowy owl for his friends to see on Facebook.
How much of our world we live online now?
During which time we discussed the soon to be called Second Great Depression over the pork chops and baked potatoes and subsequent PhotoFiltre action and photo-posting.
I explained the premise of the article I had found when I typed Credit Default Swaps for Dummies into Google. After I had decided maybe I should give a shit after all.
Firstly Himself laughed uproariously at the punchline. Which appeared to be, you didn't have to own the asset to buy insurance on it.
Then he spent a bit of time figuring out how we'd work such a scheme in our favour if in fact, we had our own version of a CDS.
If we could buy insurance on say, our friend's Kevin's house, even though we don't own it, and get a big pay out if the house burned down.
Then he spent some more time figuring out how many other people we know would have been filled in enough on the situation to have bought insurance. Say, if people started to notice that Kevin had a stupid habit of dumping his still-warm wood stove ashes in the green bin and figured he'd been leaving it a little close to the side of the house. And then looked up the forecast and fixed on a particular night when it wasn't going to snow or rain. And then bought the insurance.
Then he got mad.
Who in the hell sold this insurance to other people?
All of which, on top of everything else, got me a little upset.
But thankfully, I keep our green bin out in the middle of the yard away from everything.
Himself said 'it's like the fishery.'
When you live with a fisherman, even a former fisherman, everything in the world is like the fishery.
Major things like the bible are of course, all about the fishery.
And of course, global finance is like the fishery.
You grow up in the fishery and there's loads of fish, but you can't afford a boat so you go out on someone else's boat and fish, but you can't get much fish. You spend your time thinking about all the fish you could catch if you just had a licence. And a boat. And some nets. And sonar/ radar/ GPS.
Then one day, after a lot of lobbying, the government sets up a fisherman's bank and you get a cheap loan to buy a boat and all the accoutrements and you go out fishing a lot. And you make a lot of money and have a much better life than your parents.
But that's not enough, because you can catch more fish, and there's a market for it and so you buy a dragger.
And so there was a whole generation that left school early and grew up making eighty, ninety, hundred thousand a year just catching boatloads of fish. And a whole generation of financial services executives left college early to get bonuses giving these guys cheap money to buy toys, because they could afford to pay for it out of next year's catch.
And then one day, Queenie, we went out to catch next year's boat payments and car payments and ATV payments and whatever else payments, and there was nothing out on the ocean for us but a bare hook.
That's all it is now, Queenie, it's nothing but a bare hook.
Yes dear, I know it's like the fishery and that means it's really terrible and sad.
- I may seem slightly cynical, but I have heard this story one hundred thousand and four times.
It's just this time, dear, I think maybe the whole world's run out of fish at the same time.
It got me thinking though.
What makes former fishermen really squirm and rage and howl about the death of the fishery is the deadweight of the guilt of their own culpability. The fact that they knew they were destroying the fishery by dragging, but they did it anyway to make their boat payments.
Despite the efforts of legions of university researchers, despite the warnings of generations of environmentalists, nobody who had the power to break the cycle even tried to figure out how to stop it.
They try to make themselves feel better about it of course.
Nobody did anything because it was all about the fish processors needing big catches to pay for their processing plants and value chain modifications.
Goddamn big business.
Maybe.
But nobody made them go out fishing.
Or did they?
It was also all about jobs in rural communities. Crappy, back-breaking, seven bucks an hour processing jobs in rural communities that had nothing else and never would, unless they found oil offshore.
Goddamn small rural communities thinking they have a right to survive and rear another generation of kids on minimum wage jobs!!
Doesn't have quite the same righteous ring to it as goddamn big business, does it? In fact, who'd be against that?
Who'd be against a whole generation being able to stay home if they wanted to?
The deep depression caused by this deep depression is related to the fact that we all knew we were heading towards the bare hook a long time ago and nobody did anything to stop it.
There's no amount of trade union marches going to get rid of that nagging sense of guilt.
Standing on the deck after supper, listening to the sea pound behind us and the coyotes howl in the woods beyond the house, Himself said 'there isn't one person I work with ever talks about any of this. It just never comes up.'
Interesting.
Why do these guys not worry about the future?
Where we live, the bare hook swung by a while ago.
And not just through the fishery.
People adjusted.
They take a short view on things here now.
There are disadvantages to that.
And some advantages.
The guilt lingers though.
Maybe it's our lot to be the ones who feel that guilt.
As an Irish person living in Canada I am having a mild schizoid response to the soon to be called SGD, as the Irish person in me wants to sit in a corner Peig-like, rocking myself into a hysterical fit with my smelly shawl over my face.
The east coast Canadian resident in me, who doesn't work in an industry related to cars and petroleum could give a shit about the whole thing.
The reader in me is interested in the narrative of the STBCSGD.
Which of my faces to wear? Which, which??
So far, I've been veering towards 'it'll be alright, Nova Scotia can't really tank much further, pass the potato chips and put on the next episode of The Wire'.
Then a couple of things happened this evening and my potential panic got viralled (is that a verb? It should be.)
A friends noted what appeared to be concern at the crisis on Facebook. As this friend is one of the few of us who is understood to understand money stuff he got some 'what have you read? what? what?' comments.
To which he responded, the Dow.
Classy!
Another friend, whose opinion I also respect, wrote that he had tried to blog about the Irish demiracle-isation and found it too depressing. As this friend is one of my 'black humour and pithy analysis of the underlying themes' reference points on world affairs, I had to restrain myself from the 'no! no! no!' comments. I don't want to further depress him.
Then I had to get back to normal, and have supper with my beloved and then upload his cool photos of a snowy owl for his friends to see on Facebook.
How much of our world we live online now?
During which time we discussed the soon to be called Second Great Depression over the pork chops and baked potatoes and subsequent PhotoFiltre action and photo-posting.
I explained the premise of the article I had found when I typed Credit Default Swaps for Dummies into Google. After I had decided maybe I should give a shit after all.
Firstly Himself laughed uproariously at the punchline. Which appeared to be, you didn't have to own the asset to buy insurance on it.
Then he spent a bit of time figuring out how we'd work such a scheme in our favour if in fact, we had our own version of a CDS.
If we could buy insurance on say, our friend's Kevin's house, even though we don't own it, and get a big pay out if the house burned down.
Then he spent some more time figuring out how many other people we know would have been filled in enough on the situation to have bought insurance. Say, if people started to notice that Kevin had a stupid habit of dumping his still-warm wood stove ashes in the green bin and figured he'd been leaving it a little close to the side of the house. And then looked up the forecast and fixed on a particular night when it wasn't going to snow or rain. And then bought the insurance.
Then he got mad.
Who in the hell sold this insurance to other people?
All of which, on top of everything else, got me a little upset.
But thankfully, I keep our green bin out in the middle of the yard away from everything.
Himself said 'it's like the fishery.'
When you live with a fisherman, even a former fisherman, everything in the world is like the fishery.
Major things like the bible are of course, all about the fishery.
And of course, global finance is like the fishery.
You grow up in the fishery and there's loads of fish, but you can't afford a boat so you go out on someone else's boat and fish, but you can't get much fish. You spend your time thinking about all the fish you could catch if you just had a licence. And a boat. And some nets. And sonar/ radar/ GPS.
Then one day, after a lot of lobbying, the government sets up a fisherman's bank and you get a cheap loan to buy a boat and all the accoutrements and you go out fishing a lot. And you make a lot of money and have a much better life than your parents.
But that's not enough, because you can catch more fish, and there's a market for it and so you buy a dragger.
And so there was a whole generation that left school early and grew up making eighty, ninety, hundred thousand a year just catching boatloads of fish. And a whole generation of financial services executives left college early to get bonuses giving these guys cheap money to buy toys, because they could afford to pay for it out of next year's catch.
And then one day, Queenie, we went out to catch next year's boat payments and car payments and ATV payments and whatever else payments, and there was nothing out on the ocean for us but a bare hook.
That's all it is now, Queenie, it's nothing but a bare hook.
Yes dear, I know it's like the fishery and that means it's really terrible and sad.
- I may seem slightly cynical, but I have heard this story one hundred thousand and four times.
It's just this time, dear, I think maybe the whole world's run out of fish at the same time.
It got me thinking though.
What makes former fishermen really squirm and rage and howl about the death of the fishery is the deadweight of the guilt of their own culpability. The fact that they knew they were destroying the fishery by dragging, but they did it anyway to make their boat payments.
Despite the efforts of legions of university researchers, despite the warnings of generations of environmentalists, nobody who had the power to break the cycle even tried to figure out how to stop it.
They try to make themselves feel better about it of course.
Nobody did anything because it was all about the fish processors needing big catches to pay for their processing plants and value chain modifications.
Goddamn big business.
Maybe.
But nobody made them go out fishing.
Or did they?
It was also all about jobs in rural communities. Crappy, back-breaking, seven bucks an hour processing jobs in rural communities that had nothing else and never would, unless they found oil offshore.
Goddamn small rural communities thinking they have a right to survive and rear another generation of kids on minimum wage jobs!!
Doesn't have quite the same righteous ring to it as goddamn big business, does it? In fact, who'd be against that?
Who'd be against a whole generation being able to stay home if they wanted to?
The deep depression caused by this deep depression is related to the fact that we all knew we were heading towards the bare hook a long time ago and nobody did anything to stop it.
There's no amount of trade union marches going to get rid of that nagging sense of guilt.
Standing on the deck after supper, listening to the sea pound behind us and the coyotes howl in the woods beyond the house, Himself said 'there isn't one person I work with ever talks about any of this. It just never comes up.'
Interesting.
Why do these guys not worry about the future?
Where we live, the bare hook swung by a while ago.
And not just through the fishery.
People adjusted.
They take a short view on things here now.
There are disadvantages to that.
And some advantages.
The guilt lingers though.
Maybe it's our lot to be the ones who feel that guilt.
Monday, December 08, 2008
Immaculate Shopping Lennon Day goes pear-shaped
When I was growing up, 8th December was a religious holiday in Ireland (well it still is I assume). The Feast of the Conception of the Virgin. Who was conceived by Elizabeth. Who is my favourite saint. For a number of reasons I won't go into, mainly around not really wanting to be the mother of the flippin' Virgin Mary.
It was also culchie shopping day in Dublin. Which is also known as GOIN"ONNATRAINTOSEESANTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Santy is the Irish for Santa.
Then it turned into John Lennon Died Day around thirty years ago, which was too early to mean anything much to me, even though I know it's important.
Now I live in Canada it's just another day when I feel all weird and homesick and everyone else has no idea why.
I am sitting in Cape Breton International Airport as I begin to write this, but there is no wi-fi so I will post when I get home.
If I get home…
Today was a day. I am going to rename this day Queenie's realization that winter is going to happen every year till she leaves Canada Day.
I wake at 4am because Himself’s cell phone is ringing. Normally when Himself’s cell phone rings at that hour of the morning in the winter, it means there is snow on the ground. I am so sleepy I don’t figure that out this morning, even as I listen to Himself wash, dress, make coffee and get ready to leave the house. I am irrationally annoyed because he is up so early.
Above me, the neighbours German Shepherd is pounding around begging to go out for a pee.
Finally, I call out to Himself and he says, ‘there’s a foot of snow on the ground, baby, be careful driving to the airport’ and then leaves to plough it away from all the shopping malls.
After an hour’s pointless worrying about snow and driving and lateness and the complexity of my day, I get back to sleep and have a bizarre dream about my aunt and cousin from Dublin who are visiting us in Halifax, but actually the city is Florence, Italy (this is my subconscious not wanting to deal with snow, I think). And in the dream Himself is a famous artist working in scrap metal (I don’t want to know what this is my subconscious not dealing with right now).
The alarm clock doesn’t wake me up at 5.30am when it was supposed to because I have forgotten to switch it on, so when I wake up in a panic at 5.47am, my day is already pear-shaped.
It takes about 15 minutes to scrape the snow off the car, see. And I have to be at the airport for 7am.
Up. Shower. Dress for a formal workshop presentation.
Coffee. Pot full.
I put snow clothes on over proper clothes.
Tramp downstairs. Scrape snow off car.
Tramp back upstairs.
Get coffee mug, laptop, proper boots for inside.
Tramp back downstairs with an armful of stuff.
Check I have torch, blanket, safety blanket, reflector panels, etc in the car.
Defrost the front windscreen again.
Finally, I back the car out of driveway at 6.36am. Everyone else in the building is still asleep. Apart from the dog of course.
Dogs don't shovel snow though.
Not too bad on time. My day is not too pear-shaped, but pear-shaped enough.
I drive to airport in the lightly falling snow.
In the dark of course.
On unploughed roads of course.
At 60kms per hour.
Because I’m too scared to drive any faster in case I crash, or in case Himself finds out somehow that I’ve done it, and has a fit at me for being so stupid.
I still haven’t recovered from the time I tried to sneak up to Cape Breton by road in the snow last winter because I was new at my job and thought it was important and Himself KNEW I was doing that, even though he was at work, and called me on my cell on the highway and told me I was to come home now or not at all.
Himself places a care call from the plough truck.
What speed am I doing?
I tell him.
Am I in four wheel drive?
Yes.
Good.
Keep ‘er slow now.
He listens to me moan through my blue tooth device about how unfair my life is from December to March every year. And how my snow driving stomach knots are really bad this morning, etc.
Then he has to go plough more snow.
At the airport, the signs for the long term carpark are covered in snow, and I have never parked there, so I drive around in confusion for a bit, then get lucky and follow the recently arrived LTP bus to the car park.
I park the Explorer in a snow drift.
There was nowhere else.
Anyways, it’s an Explorer, for chrissakes. It’s for moments like this.
I get on the airport bus at 7.35am.
Then I realize I am still wearing my snow boots.
I apologize to everyone on the bus for delaying the bus. Get off bus. Climb over snow drift to car. Change into proper leather-soled boots. Slither back down snow drift to bus. Re-embark bus.
We drive to the Departures Lounge in the dawn glimmer.
I have to re-check-in at 7.52am because my mobile device barcode check-in foolishness is just that.
That makes it too late for the latte and muffin I’d been promising myself on the highway…
I take off my boots and my belt in the security zone because I am beeping.
I put them back on.
I sit in the Departures Lounge for one hour with no coffee.
Finally, with the permission of the ground crew, I make a break for Tim Hortons…. Starbucks is too far away, way over in the International Flights Departure Area.
I get back to Gate 6 to find everyone has boarded.
But I can take my Timmy’s on the plane.
Hooray!!
Fifteen of us sit on the commuter plane to Cape Breton for two and a half hours while every other friggin’ plane at the airport gets de-iced before us.
No wonder Cape Bretoners are pure mule.
Now I am going to be late.
Frantically, as we barrel up to the de-icer, I email how-to-facilitate-workshop instructions to a colleague in Cape Breton and beg him to save my ass.
Then we are taking off and I have to switch off my phone without knowing whether my ass is being saved.
I panic the whole way to Cape Breton, while sitting in front of the man with the worst halitosis on the planet.
I can still smell his breath.
I decide to take my Champix on an empty stomach because I couldn’t feel any more nauseous.
Actually I could.
We get to Cape Breton only an hour after the start of the workshop.
Hoo-fuckin-ray.
The single taxi parked outside the airport has nobody in it.
I run around the airport trying to find the taxi driver.
I find the taxi driver.
I impress the urgency of my trip on the taxi driver.
He tells me he’s been here since 7.30am without a fare, so he’s taking a carload.
The taxi driver takes his time rounding up a full mini-van load.
It includes halitosis man.
I get into the front of the taxi, speechless with fury.
SPEECHLESS!
The workshop venue is the last stop on the taxi route.
I throw the money at taxi-driver who throws the receipt at me.
I burst into workshop to find everyone working quietly at correct point in workshop, thanks to innate genius of my colleague.
He is more pleased to see me than I am to see him, however, and he hands workshop over to me in alacratious relief before I even get my snow coat off.
I manage to complete the workshop in only a mild state of anxiety, which eases when I realize the participants are enjoying it.
This workshop is my baby right now. Everyone must coo at it. Everyone.
My colleague drives me back to Cape Breton International Airport.
I blag my way onto the early flight home. Which is late of course.
I go to the restaurant and order sausages and pancakes and tea for my nerves.
They burn the pancakes.
How can you burn pancakes?
The plane was due in at 4pm, but it’s arrives at 5pm covered in de-icing goo.
I wonder why…
Right now, I am sitting with seven other people and the pilot on the commuter plane from Cape Breton, bowling through the winter skies towards home.
Himself has texted to say he will be home around nine, hopefully.
That means it has probably stopped snowing in Halifax. But it’s supposed to go down to minus 10 tonight, so I hope that I scraped enough snow off the car so it’s not frozen too much.
If it’s not frozen too much, I can open my car door to get my snow boots on. With my snow boots on, I can stand up long enough to haul the ice scraper out. With the ice scraper in my hand, I can scrape the ice off the windscreen and windows and car lights. With my car in compliance with the highway winter code, I can see my way out of the snow drift and then out of the car park and finally onto the highway and home.
If not, I’ll have to hang onto the door and yank at it till it opens and I fall on my ass.
Normally I don’t drink on a Monday, but all I can think of right now is that I am two hours and a snow drift away from a big glass of red wine.
I get to the airport and I find the bus and we find my car and I get the door open after a couple of yanks and I sit there until my fingers are warm enough to drive (it's now -18) and I drive home in the dark and I get home and it's HOME and then I realise...
... NOBODY'S FUCKING SHOVELLED THE FRONT DOOR STEPS.
Anyways, it only took a few minutes and now I'm inside in the warm listening to Dragon's Den and finishing this and soooo glad I'm not out in the cold.
I hates the winter....
It was also culchie shopping day in Dublin. Which is also known as GOIN"ONNATRAINTOSEESANTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Santy is the Irish for Santa.
Then it turned into John Lennon Died Day around thirty years ago, which was too early to mean anything much to me, even though I know it's important.
Now I live in Canada it's just another day when I feel all weird and homesick and everyone else has no idea why.
I am sitting in Cape Breton International Airport as I begin to write this, but there is no wi-fi so I will post when I get home.
If I get home…
Today was a day. I am going to rename this day Queenie's realization that winter is going to happen every year till she leaves Canada Day.
I wake at 4am because Himself’s cell phone is ringing. Normally when Himself’s cell phone rings at that hour of the morning in the winter, it means there is snow on the ground. I am so sleepy I don’t figure that out this morning, even as I listen to Himself wash, dress, make coffee and get ready to leave the house. I am irrationally annoyed because he is up so early.
Above me, the neighbours German Shepherd is pounding around begging to go out for a pee.
Finally, I call out to Himself and he says, ‘there’s a foot of snow on the ground, baby, be careful driving to the airport’ and then leaves to plough it away from all the shopping malls.
After an hour’s pointless worrying about snow and driving and lateness and the complexity of my day, I get back to sleep and have a bizarre dream about my aunt and cousin from Dublin who are visiting us in Halifax, but actually the city is Florence, Italy (this is my subconscious not wanting to deal with snow, I think). And in the dream Himself is a famous artist working in scrap metal (I don’t want to know what this is my subconscious not dealing with right now).
The alarm clock doesn’t wake me up at 5.30am when it was supposed to because I have forgotten to switch it on, so when I wake up in a panic at 5.47am, my day is already pear-shaped.
It takes about 15 minutes to scrape the snow off the car, see. And I have to be at the airport for 7am.
Up. Shower. Dress for a formal workshop presentation.
Coffee. Pot full.
I put snow clothes on over proper clothes.
Tramp downstairs. Scrape snow off car.
Tramp back upstairs.
Get coffee mug, laptop, proper boots for inside.
Tramp back downstairs with an armful of stuff.
Check I have torch, blanket, safety blanket, reflector panels, etc in the car.
Defrost the front windscreen again.
Finally, I back the car out of driveway at 6.36am. Everyone else in the building is still asleep. Apart from the dog of course.
Dogs don't shovel snow though.
Not too bad on time. My day is not too pear-shaped, but pear-shaped enough.
I drive to airport in the lightly falling snow.
In the dark of course.
On unploughed roads of course.
At 60kms per hour.
Because I’m too scared to drive any faster in case I crash, or in case Himself finds out somehow that I’ve done it, and has a fit at me for being so stupid.
I still haven’t recovered from the time I tried to sneak up to Cape Breton by road in the snow last winter because I was new at my job and thought it was important and Himself KNEW I was doing that, even though he was at work, and called me on my cell on the highway and told me I was to come home now or not at all.
Himself places a care call from the plough truck.
What speed am I doing?
I tell him.
Am I in four wheel drive?
Yes.
Good.
Keep ‘er slow now.
He listens to me moan through my blue tooth device about how unfair my life is from December to March every year. And how my snow driving stomach knots are really bad this morning, etc.
Then he has to go plough more snow.
At the airport, the signs for the long term carpark are covered in snow, and I have never parked there, so I drive around in confusion for a bit, then get lucky and follow the recently arrived LTP bus to the car park.
I park the Explorer in a snow drift.
There was nowhere else.
Anyways, it’s an Explorer, for chrissakes. It’s for moments like this.
I get on the airport bus at 7.35am.
Then I realize I am still wearing my snow boots.
I apologize to everyone on the bus for delaying the bus. Get off bus. Climb over snow drift to car. Change into proper leather-soled boots. Slither back down snow drift to bus. Re-embark bus.
We drive to the Departures Lounge in the dawn glimmer.
I have to re-check-in at 7.52am because my mobile device barcode check-in foolishness is just that.
That makes it too late for the latte and muffin I’d been promising myself on the highway…
I take off my boots and my belt in the security zone because I am beeping.
I put them back on.
I sit in the Departures Lounge for one hour with no coffee.
Finally, with the permission of the ground crew, I make a break for Tim Hortons…. Starbucks is too far away, way over in the International Flights Departure Area.
I get back to Gate 6 to find everyone has boarded.
But I can take my Timmy’s on the plane.
Hooray!!
Fifteen of us sit on the commuter plane to Cape Breton for two and a half hours while every other friggin’ plane at the airport gets de-iced before us.
No wonder Cape Bretoners are pure mule.
Now I am going to be late.
Frantically, as we barrel up to the de-icer, I email how-to-facilitate-workshop instructions to a colleague in Cape Breton and beg him to save my ass.
Then we are taking off and I have to switch off my phone without knowing whether my ass is being saved.
I panic the whole way to Cape Breton, while sitting in front of the man with the worst halitosis on the planet.
I can still smell his breath.
I decide to take my Champix on an empty stomach because I couldn’t feel any more nauseous.
Actually I could.
We get to Cape Breton only an hour after the start of the workshop.
Hoo-fuckin-ray.
The single taxi parked outside the airport has nobody in it.
I run around the airport trying to find the taxi driver.
I find the taxi driver.
I impress the urgency of my trip on the taxi driver.
He tells me he’s been here since 7.30am without a fare, so he’s taking a carload.
The taxi driver takes his time rounding up a full mini-van load.
It includes halitosis man.
I get into the front of the taxi, speechless with fury.
SPEECHLESS!
The workshop venue is the last stop on the taxi route.
I throw the money at taxi-driver who throws the receipt at me.
I burst into workshop to find everyone working quietly at correct point in workshop, thanks to innate genius of my colleague.
He is more pleased to see me than I am to see him, however, and he hands workshop over to me in alacratious relief before I even get my snow coat off.
I manage to complete the workshop in only a mild state of anxiety, which eases when I realize the participants are enjoying it.
This workshop is my baby right now. Everyone must coo at it. Everyone.
My colleague drives me back to Cape Breton International Airport.
I blag my way onto the early flight home. Which is late of course.
I go to the restaurant and order sausages and pancakes and tea for my nerves.
They burn the pancakes.
How can you burn pancakes?
The plane was due in at 4pm, but it’s arrives at 5pm covered in de-icing goo.
I wonder why…
Right now, I am sitting with seven other people and the pilot on the commuter plane from Cape Breton, bowling through the winter skies towards home.
Himself has texted to say he will be home around nine, hopefully.
That means it has probably stopped snowing in Halifax. But it’s supposed to go down to minus 10 tonight, so I hope that I scraped enough snow off the car so it’s not frozen too much.
If it’s not frozen too much, I can open my car door to get my snow boots on. With my snow boots on, I can stand up long enough to haul the ice scraper out. With the ice scraper in my hand, I can scrape the ice off the windscreen and windows and car lights. With my car in compliance with the highway winter code, I can see my way out of the snow drift and then out of the car park and finally onto the highway and home.
If not, I’ll have to hang onto the door and yank at it till it opens and I fall on my ass.
Normally I don’t drink on a Monday, but all I can think of right now is that I am two hours and a snow drift away from a big glass of red wine.
I get to the airport and I find the bus and we find my car and I get the door open after a couple of yanks and I sit there until my fingers are warm enough to drive (it's now -18) and I drive home in the dark and I get home and it's HOME and then I realise...
... NOBODY'S FUCKING SHOVELLED THE FRONT DOOR STEPS.
Anyways, it only took a few minutes and now I'm inside in the warm listening to Dragon's Den and finishing this and soooo glad I'm not out in the cold.
I hates the winter....
Thursday, December 04, 2008
The trouble is, we used to make things in this country....
... and now we just put our hands in the next guy's pockets....
We are about to watch Episode 12 of Season 2 of The Wire.
I don't know when normal service will be restored - there's too much to think about right now.
I still don't smoke.
Himself nearly doesn't smoke.
I don't know what kind of unfucked Canada is the last of right now, but it sure isn't democracy.
TTYL
We are about to watch Episode 12 of Season 2 of The Wire.
I don't know when normal service will be restored - there's too much to think about right now.
I still don't smoke.
Himself nearly doesn't smoke.
I don't know what kind of unfucked Canada is the last of right now, but it sure isn't democracy.
TTYL
Sunday, October 19, 2008
The doctor will see you. And then decide.
Sitting here not quite knowing what to blog about but feeling I should blog.
The worst kind of blogging feeling...
End of the weekend except it's not, as I have a day off tomorrow.
Tomorrow morning, I have an interview.
With a doctor.
I kid you not.
Here in Canada, we have the world famous Medicare, which means you don't have to pay for a doctor.
Which is great.
Except that it means there aren't enough doctors.
Apparently, there are five million Canadians without a family doctor.
Queenie, Himself and Kitty are three of those people.
So when I drove past the Spryfield Family Medical Centre and saw the sign saying lady doctor accepting patients, I was on the phone quicker than you could say 'take your clothes off and get up on the bed there love'.
So I had to make an appointment to meet the doctor.
I'm not quite sure what I should do.
Apart from bring the lashings of private medical insurance we have with me in an attempt to bribe her...
Oh yes, didn't you know, Canada, home of Medicare, has lots and lots of private medical insurance.
Himself and I pay out approximately $200 a month for coverage that includes pharmacare, massage, naturopathy, accupuncture, physiotherapy, counselling, dentist, medical emergency, etc. etc.
Of course, because everyone who has medical insurance pays so much for it, you tend to use it up as much as possible - hence the trips to the dentist, the massages, etc.
Which puts the cost of medical insurance up...
So it goes.
Anyways, I hope Lady Doctor takes us on. That will take a load off my mind.
The worst kind of blogging feeling...
End of the weekend except it's not, as I have a day off tomorrow.
Tomorrow morning, I have an interview.
With a doctor.
I kid you not.
Here in Canada, we have the world famous Medicare, which means you don't have to pay for a doctor.
Which is great.
Except that it means there aren't enough doctors.
Apparently, there are five million Canadians without a family doctor.
Queenie, Himself and Kitty are three of those people.
So when I drove past the Spryfield Family Medical Centre and saw the sign saying lady doctor accepting patients, I was on the phone quicker than you could say 'take your clothes off and get up on the bed there love'.
So I had to make an appointment to meet the doctor.
I'm not quite sure what I should do.
Apart from bring the lashings of private medical insurance we have with me in an attempt to bribe her...
Oh yes, didn't you know, Canada, home of Medicare, has lots and lots of private medical insurance.
Himself and I pay out approximately $200 a month for coverage that includes pharmacare, massage, naturopathy, accupuncture, physiotherapy, counselling, dentist, medical emergency, etc. etc.
Of course, because everyone who has medical insurance pays so much for it, you tend to use it up as much as possible - hence the trips to the dentist, the massages, etc.
Which puts the cost of medical insurance up...
So it goes.
Anyways, I hope Lady Doctor takes us on. That will take a load off my mind.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
The Great Ontario Moosehunt
So Himself and I have traversed Atlantic Canada and Quebec and are now in Ontario.
We're only in the south-eastern part of Ontario, but I still feel like I'm a long way away from home.
#1. Canada is very big. Very very very big. Particularly if you come from a little island on the west coast of Europe.
#2. There are a lot of trees in Canada. And most of them are varying shades of gold, red and orange right now, which makes for a very pretty drive. New Brunswick is just a big Irving tree farm, with the occasional strip of farmland along the St. John river. Himself's ancestor, Daniel, was one of the Loyalist soldiers that helped settle Loyalist refugees along that river in the mid-seventeen hundreds, so we spent most of the hours driving through New Brunswick imagining what it must have been like to fetch up there with a few hand tools and some supplies for the winter.
Not good.
Personally, if I had to live in interior New Brunswick, I would not be a happy camper. The coastal areas are much more interesting.
Having said that, we are on our Great Ontario Moosehunt (I have never seen a moose) and we saw one in New Brunswick.
A lady moose.
But not up close.
#3. For a country with as many trees and swamps and Danger, Moose Ahead signs as I've seen in the last few months, there aren't the dozens of moose lining the roads to ram the Beast as I expected.
The Danger, Moose Ahead signs are particularly funny.
In New Brunswick, the moose on the signs are just standing there, looking at the oncoming cars (note these are yellow road signs with black outlines of moose).
In Quebec, the moose has charged a car side on and squashed the car. Which is unusual because moose generally just loom out of the darkness and stand there while you hit them with your car. (they then fall off their spindly legs and fall through your window). This is a very aggressive and angry moose - perhaps he has lost his cultural funding and is looking for the Tory tour bus to ram?
Speaking of elections, the Liberals have just accused Stephen Harper of copying his homework from John Howard. Highly amusing pre-election mud-slinging stuff. I pity both the poor Liberal staffer who obviously has no life, other than searching the Net for right wing idealogue fuckups, and who stumbled onto the 2003 plagiarism, and the poor Tory staffer who obviously has no job now, who actually lifted the speech and put it into Harper's set-piece on Iraq.
The Great Game continues in the hearts and minds of the Canadian people.
The Great Ontario Moosehunt continues, unabated, in Ontario.
We made it through Montreal and drove to Ottawa in about two hours through flat farmland. Not so many trees. Many many cows and lots of slurry spreaders. As we headed west on the 60, the land became a little more rocky and the trees reappeared.
# 4. The 60 is a very nice highway. I recommend it as a way through Ontario, if you have time to meander along it.
We fetched up in Arnprior, near Ottawa on Sunday night, as our former neighbours seem to have disappeared.
Generally, there's a lot of Jesus worshipping going on in this part of Ontario. I'm not sure if this is the part of Ontario that Alice Munro wrote about, I have a feeling I'm pretty close to it.
Arnprior boasted thirteen churches, one of which has a big lit up-at-night cross on a hill.
We stayed in the Comfort Inn, which was the only hotel, and ate in the Elgin Restaurant, which handily enough was in the hotel.
The special was ribs.
They were so big that we didn't speak for twenty minutes while we ate them.
(I swear I am getting more like a Canadian/ like my paternal relations in my growing inability to eat and talk at the same time. Talking only slows down the eating, doesn't it, and the enjoyment of the food).
Then we staggered back upstairs and lay on the bed which was really not big enough for two people who are used to a king-sized and not used to eating that many ribs in one go.
Then it was 7am and time to get on the road again.
Thankfully, Monday was only a four hour hop through the Ottawa Valley and Algonquin Park to Huntsville where our hotel, sorry resort, is.
Algonquin Park is Canada's oldest provincial park and has been around for about 110 years. It was originally set aside so that logging barons such as JR Booth could log in peace without worrying about prospectors, settlers and the like either moving in, or just plain old setting fire to the trees they had bought at auction.
JR Booth, who was one of the richest men in North America at the time, owned the rights to most of the park. He built a railway through it which is totally overgrown now. In fact, we walked on a trail along the old railway and it was incomprehensible to us that it used to be a railway line.
Then we found an old sleeper under the moss.
Algonquin was lovely and the weather was great, so the railway track trail was a wonderful trek through maple stands and around lakes and more importantly hills (so the seniors couldn't get around it).
No, I'm not being ageist, it's just that having had to walk at funeral pace on a previous trek that promised black spruce bog and moose and gave us bog and moose tracks only, due to the plethora of seniors trundling along the track, we really needed to just stretch out leg muscles that had been in a car for four days.
However, in the Canadian version of the game Himself and I play when driving around Nova Scotia: Spot the Young Person, it would appear that NB, QUE and Ontario are as chock-a-block with seniors and as devoid of young people - apart from in crappy service jobs - as Nova Scotia seems to be.
Maybe rural depopulation is not a NS thing, maybe it's a Canada thing.
There are some lovely little towns in this part of Ontario though; it would be a real shame if they were to die off and people kept drifting towards the GTA.
Anyways, after about 10kms of walking, we still hadn't seen any moose or bear, so we headed back to the car and drove the rest of the way to Deerhurst Resort, near Huntsville.
Typical resort hotel. Overpriced, lots of airs and graces, vast quantities of add-on costs, and when you really get down to it, cheap towels.
I hate cheap towels.
Having said that, we have a lovely room overlooking the lake and the autumn colours are as vivid and bright as you can get here.
Today it has been raining, so we went into Huntsville for food and found the liquor store, which was much better than any Nova Scotia liquor store I have seen yet. It had a massive wine section, with rows of tetra pack wine (for camping) and a great South American section.
It also has a great International Bottled Beer selection - with beer from England, Belgium, Holland, Greece, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Jamaica, US and many many other countries, some of which I've never seen before.
So we added to Himself's beer bottle collection.
I think it's stopped raining, so maybe we should drag ourselves back out to the car and head off on our moose hunt again this afternoon.
We're only in the south-eastern part of Ontario, but I still feel like I'm a long way away from home.
#1. Canada is very big. Very very very big. Particularly if you come from a little island on the west coast of Europe.
#2. There are a lot of trees in Canada. And most of them are varying shades of gold, red and orange right now, which makes for a very pretty drive. New Brunswick is just a big Irving tree farm, with the occasional strip of farmland along the St. John river. Himself's ancestor, Daniel, was one of the Loyalist soldiers that helped settle Loyalist refugees along that river in the mid-seventeen hundreds, so we spent most of the hours driving through New Brunswick imagining what it must have been like to fetch up there with a few hand tools and some supplies for the winter.
Not good.
Personally, if I had to live in interior New Brunswick, I would not be a happy camper. The coastal areas are much more interesting.
Having said that, we are on our Great Ontario Moosehunt (I have never seen a moose) and we saw one in New Brunswick.
A lady moose.
But not up close.
#3. For a country with as many trees and swamps and Danger, Moose Ahead signs as I've seen in the last few months, there aren't the dozens of moose lining the roads to ram the Beast as I expected.
The Danger, Moose Ahead signs are particularly funny.
In New Brunswick, the moose on the signs are just standing there, looking at the oncoming cars (note these are yellow road signs with black outlines of moose).
In Quebec, the moose has charged a car side on and squashed the car. Which is unusual because moose generally just loom out of the darkness and stand there while you hit them with your car. (they then fall off their spindly legs and fall through your window). This is a very aggressive and angry moose - perhaps he has lost his cultural funding and is looking for the Tory tour bus to ram?
Speaking of elections, the Liberals have just accused Stephen Harper of copying his homework from John Howard. Highly amusing pre-election mud-slinging stuff. I pity both the poor Liberal staffer who obviously has no life, other than searching the Net for right wing idealogue fuckups, and who stumbled onto the 2003 plagiarism, and the poor Tory staffer who obviously has no job now, who actually lifted the speech and put it into Harper's set-piece on Iraq.
The Great Game continues in the hearts and minds of the Canadian people.
The Great Ontario Moosehunt continues, unabated, in Ontario.
We made it through Montreal and drove to Ottawa in about two hours through flat farmland. Not so many trees. Many many cows and lots of slurry spreaders. As we headed west on the 60, the land became a little more rocky and the trees reappeared.
# 4. The 60 is a very nice highway. I recommend it as a way through Ontario, if you have time to meander along it.
We fetched up in Arnprior, near Ottawa on Sunday night, as our former neighbours seem to have disappeared.
Generally, there's a lot of Jesus worshipping going on in this part of Ontario. I'm not sure if this is the part of Ontario that Alice Munro wrote about, I have a feeling I'm pretty close to it.
Arnprior boasted thirteen churches, one of which has a big lit up-at-night cross on a hill.
We stayed in the Comfort Inn, which was the only hotel, and ate in the Elgin Restaurant, which handily enough was in the hotel.
The special was ribs.
They were so big that we didn't speak for twenty minutes while we ate them.
(I swear I am getting more like a Canadian/ like my paternal relations in my growing inability to eat and talk at the same time. Talking only slows down the eating, doesn't it, and the enjoyment of the food).
Then we staggered back upstairs and lay on the bed which was really not big enough for two people who are used to a king-sized and not used to eating that many ribs in one go.
Then it was 7am and time to get on the road again.
Thankfully, Monday was only a four hour hop through the Ottawa Valley and Algonquin Park to Huntsville where our hotel, sorry resort, is.
Algonquin Park is Canada's oldest provincial park and has been around for about 110 years. It was originally set aside so that logging barons such as JR Booth could log in peace without worrying about prospectors, settlers and the like either moving in, or just plain old setting fire to the trees they had bought at auction.
JR Booth, who was one of the richest men in North America at the time, owned the rights to most of the park. He built a railway through it which is totally overgrown now. In fact, we walked on a trail along the old railway and it was incomprehensible to us that it used to be a railway line.
Then we found an old sleeper under the moss.
Algonquin was lovely and the weather was great, so the railway track trail was a wonderful trek through maple stands and around lakes and more importantly hills (so the seniors couldn't get around it).
No, I'm not being ageist, it's just that having had to walk at funeral pace on a previous trek that promised black spruce bog and moose and gave us bog and moose tracks only, due to the plethora of seniors trundling along the track, we really needed to just stretch out leg muscles that had been in a car for four days.
However, in the Canadian version of the game Himself and I play when driving around Nova Scotia: Spot the Young Person, it would appear that NB, QUE and Ontario are as chock-a-block with seniors and as devoid of young people - apart from in crappy service jobs - as Nova Scotia seems to be.
Maybe rural depopulation is not a NS thing, maybe it's a Canada thing.
There are some lovely little towns in this part of Ontario though; it would be a real shame if they were to die off and people kept drifting towards the GTA.
Anyways, after about 10kms of walking, we still hadn't seen any moose or bear, so we headed back to the car and drove the rest of the way to Deerhurst Resort, near Huntsville.
Typical resort hotel. Overpriced, lots of airs and graces, vast quantities of add-on costs, and when you really get down to it, cheap towels.
I hate cheap towels.
Having said that, we have a lovely room overlooking the lake and the autumn colours are as vivid and bright as you can get here.
Today it has been raining, so we went into Huntsville for food and found the liquor store, which was much better than any Nova Scotia liquor store I have seen yet. It had a massive wine section, with rows of tetra pack wine (for camping) and a great South American section.
It also has a great International Bottled Beer selection - with beer from England, Belgium, Holland, Greece, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Jamaica, US and many many other countries, some of which I've never seen before.
So we added to Himself's beer bottle collection.
I think it's stopped raining, so maybe we should drag ourselves back out to the car and head off on our moose hunt again this afternoon.
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