preparing to fly

It must be a holdover from the days of pre-connectivity, this need to get all loose ends tied up before leaving on a trip. I am well aware that I will have ample airport time to complete assignments, yet I still find myself slave to the to-do list in the days leading up to departure.

Perhaps it's my new pen, which strikes things off so deliciously and with such finality. A good striking-off pen is irresistible to a list junkie.

I have not been to the wet coast since the fall, and am anxious to spend time with the OFKAR and with my coastal friends, to walk my adopted oceanside neighbourhood and cruise the plethora of record stores. There will be a solid contingent of like-minded souls meeting up for the Magnetic Fields concert on Sunday, for which I am highly chuffed. I am counting on my friends to prop me up should I swoon if they play All My Little Words or Born on a Train or The Book of Love.

I must remember to bring along my magnificent new striking-out pen to cross "Magnetic Fields concert" off my bucket list.

What are you doing this weekend?
What was the last concert you attended?

go big or go home

One of the first things I did when I got to the East Village Sales and Experience Centre for the VIP sneak preview on Saturday was check out the interactive map that I did some work on. The second thing I did, naturally, was snap a photo of one of my own pop-up reviews. It's the real-life equivalent to Googling yourself.

It was quite an amazing afternoon. There was a great turnout of the curious and loads of interest in both the developments that were featured and in the area itself. There really is a lot to love about East Village.

For instance, this is me enjoying my new river-front condo. Can I pour you a little snort?

I took some rather cool photos (if I do say so myself) of the scale model that dominates the lobby of the centre. May I direct you over to my latest post at Cantos/National Music Centre to see some photos featuring the future NMC building that will be a cornerstone of the new East Village?

If music and pictures aren't your thing, perhaps you are more interested in words and food? Check out my article on the Calgary Food Truck scene that I am thrilled made it into the latest issue of EVE. Certainly one of the glossiest, most stylish magazines I have ever wormed my way into.

Stacy and Clinton, please call

It's four sizes too big for me. There's a gaping hole in the collar, a couple of missing buttons, and it's so stretched out of shape that's it's a foot longer in the front than it is in the back. Plus it's a really unflattering sort of beigy tan non-colour. It's my ugly sweater, my dirty little secret that all the neighbours have seen me wear.

My ugly sweater was butt-ugly even when I first I bought it fifteen or so years ago. My reason for the purchase has long since been forgotten, insanity perhaps, or toddler brain. But I must admit, what the sweater lacks in beauty, it makes up for in longevity.

I tell myself that I am only hanging onto it, so that somebody will spot me wearing it, take pity on me, and nominate me to be on What Not to Wear. If you are planning to do this (and I pray that you are), please hurry. All my other clothes are suddenly in various stages of shreddedness and I don't want to spend money on new clothes if Clinton and Stacy are just going to make me throw them away.

Have you got any shameful clothing secrets hiding in your closet?

it's complicated: Fool For Love

Fool For Love
- Sage Theatre

Sam Shepard's fiery play, Fool For Love, is the first collaboration between Calgary's Sage Theatre and Edmonton's Shadow Theatre. Judging from the reaction to Wednesday's preview performance, it's a marriage of theatre companies that is well worth nurturing. Presumably any kinks had already been worked out of the performances during the Edmonton run, because the preview at Sage Theatre was exceptionally polished.

The one-act play unfolds in a shabby motel room in the Mojave desert. Outside, visible through the cheap blinds that adorn the windows, a parking lot and cacti provide the only distraction from the sparsely furnished room with the peeling wallpaper. Willie Nelson fittingly wails out his heartache as we take our seats.

Fool For Love is a short play, only 65 minutes long. But those 65 minutes are so consumed with raw passion and the fallout of toxic relationships that, had it been any longer, our heads would have exploded.

May and Eddie are the on-again off-again lovers who are embroiled in a fiery relationship that reveals itself to be increasingly disturbing, as the layers are gradually peeled away. While May and Eddie attract and repel each other like two crazed magnets, poor hapless Martin, May's new gentleman friend who comes to take her out to the movies, is forced to be a captive and silent witness to their drama.

Throughout it all, The Old Man sits off to the side in a rocking chair, a sort of dirt cowboy Greek chorus who challenges the two lovers' perception of their shared yet conflicting memories. He is the epitome of their troubled past, fraught with betrayal and abandonment.

Each actor in Sage/Shadow Theatres' production of Fool For Love nails perfectly the passion, fury, and confusion of people who are caught in a tangled mess where the sins of the father inevitably revisit the child. The troubled drifters of this desert wasteland will haunt your soul for days to come. Go see this.

a tale of two sciency books: with two-part titles

In an increasing but strictly unintentional trend, the number of non-fiction books I read this year continues to outnumber those of the fictional persuasion. Quite the reversal of my reading habits of a decade ago. The last two books I finished have both been non-fiction, both in the science realm.

Panic in Level 4:
Cannibals, Killer Viruses, and Other Journeys to the Edge of Science
- Richard Preston

Richard Preston sure knows how to pick fascinating topics. You may recall how compelling I found his earlier book, The Hot Zone, which dealt with the search for the source of the Ebola virus. Panic in Level 4 revisits that topic in one of its chapters, but there is surprisingly little redundancy in the current writing. Obviously it is a topic of endless fascination.

Equally, if not more, fascinating are Preston's chapters on the search for pi (in particular that of the brothers Chudnovsky, mathematical geniuses who built a super computer for that purpose in their New York apartment), the race to sequence the human genome (in which millions were rapidly made and lost in the resulting biotech bubble), and the little-known story of the grotesque and heart-breaking Lesch-Nyhan syndrome, a chromosomal defect that results in victims self-cannibalizing.

I was reading the latter chapter at the hairdressers and almost lost an ear when my hairdresser, scissors in hand, looked over my shoulder to see a photo of a Lesch-Nyhan victim. The irony would have been exquisite.

Only one chapter in this book drags somewhat. The devastation of the eastern hemlock by the introduced parasite, the wooly idelgid, is a disturbing cautionary tale, but lacks the fascination factor of the other topics that are investigated in Panic in Level 4.

A fascinating read.

My Stroke of Insight:
A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey
- Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D.

I am always puzzled as to why some people add their academic credentials to their signature. I can see the purpose of doing so for this book. My Stroke of Insight is geared toward the layest of laypersons and the addition of Ph.D. lends credence to the tale that unfolds within the pages.

When I first heard of its existence, I was very curious to read this book. Having worked in neuroscience for thirteen years, specifically in stroke research, I was keen to gain some insight into the actual experience of stroke from a neuroanatomist who had suffered a hemorrhagic stroke. So when a friend gave me this book some years later, I sure looked forward to reading it.

My Stroke of Insight is divided into three sections, pre-stroke, stroke, and post-stroke. The pre-stroke section includes simple and well-written neuroanatomy lessons. Aside from the unavoidable nomenclature, it avoids jargon and is a good introduction (or refresher course) to neuroscience.

The stroke section, in which the author describes with uncanny clarity the sensations that she experienced the morning of her stroke, was nothing short of riveting. Obviously Bolte Taylor pieced together her experiences considerably after the fact, but she manages to bring an immediacy to her story.

It is in the post-stroke section of My Stroke of Insight that the book begins to lose me. The timeframe of the story begins to skip around so much at this point that I was never certain whether what was being divulged happened days or months after the stroke. But that was relatively minor. The story of Bolte Taylor's heroic efforts at rehabilitation was quite astounding, both in the effort involved and even more so in the gradual refunctioning of the neural circuitry that had been damaged by the stoke.

By the last few chapters, however, Bolte Taylor gets all mystical and loses me. I understand how an event like a major stroke would make one reexamine the meaning of one's existence, but the endless talk of tapping into the peacefulness of her right hemisphere and becoming part of the cosmos was just too touchy-feely for me. I wanted science, damn it!

Overall though, My Stroke of Insight is worth reading, especially if you stop before it gets too annoying.

catch me, we are falling

I don't understand those people who never open their blinds. What's the point of having windows if you can't look out? I like to watch the way the light changes and the shadows dance - the long shadows of winter, the dappled shade of summer. Sometimes what I see out that window delights me, sometimes it infuriates me.

The most infuriating sight I see out the front window is that idiot woman who drives her SUV down the street once a week, with her adolescent sons hanging onto the outside. She folds newspapers while she is driving and then hands them out the windows to her kids. They hop off the running boards, deliver each paper and then hop back onto the side of the vehicle while she drives to the next place, folding newspapers as she presumably steers with her knees.

How many illegal (and stupid) acts can you spot in the preceding paragraph?

We don't live on a particularly busy street, but it is icy, and I just hope I don't happen to be looking out the window the day one of those kids slips under the wheels.

On the other hand, the most delightful sight that I see on a regular basis are my neighbours' dogs, best friends. The grey house people regularly stop at the green house to pick up their dog and take them both for a walk. Sometimes they have play dates at each other's house - the dogs, that is. And they are both so insanely happy to see each other every single time.

They live four doors from each other and I often see the people who live across the street from me in the green house open their front door and peek out. Within seconds, I see the other dog come racing across the front lawns to arrive at their front door, all tail waggly, while on the other side of the door the other dog is practically apoplectic with excitement. It's just too cute.

What do you see when you look out your front window?

winter leakage

It's shaping up to be another music-mad summer.

The Calgary Folk Music Festival has been sneakily releasing their leak of the week on Mondays, giving us all a reason to make it through Sunday night. So far some of the 2012 artists include the Barr Brothers, Justin Townes Earle, Serena Ryder, and this week's leak - Beirut.

In further OMGOMG news, today Sled Island Music Festival leaked some of their confirmed acts, including Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks, Timber Timbre, Feist, and Thurston Moore.

I'm a firm believer in inherent patterns in nature and I like the way this one is shaping up: Lee Ranaldo last year, Thurston Moore this year... Kim Gordon next?

It's enough to make us want to lie on our patch of grass and dream of summer.

the walking awesome

I have to admit, I am seriously Jonesing for a Walking Dead action figure. Evidently the zombie biter, on the right, has a spring-loaded jaw. How perfect is that?

And who wouldn't want a Daryl Dixon doll? Sure, he's a redneck hillbilly and all, but he definitely has moments of humanity, even sweetness. Not to mention a totally bad-ass crossbow. And you have to admit that squirrel belt makes a pretty powerful fashion statement. Go Daryl.

The burning question of the day, though, is at what point do zombies lose their zombieness?

We've all seen completed bisected zombies continue to be a viable threat (at least in their minds), but how far along in the process of natural decomposition can they continue to do so? How much damage can a zombie realistically do if they have lost teeth and hands, even if their brains remain intact? What are they going to do, put you in a leg-hold? Gum you to death?

And then there is the question of putrification of the brain itself. Zombies continue to decompose as time passes. Presumably the brain decomposes at the same rate as the rest of the soft tissue. Does a zombie gradually lose its zombie characteristics as the brain decomposes? How much of the brain must remain intact in order to maintain zombieness?

These are all questions that keep me awake at night.

volunteerest

Volunteer season is starting to ramp up around here. I volunteer with four different agencies, contributing regular blog content to two of them, being decidedly more hands on with the other two. The hands on work is seasonal and is now beginning in earnest.

I have been serving on the communications committee for the annual fundraising book sale for Calgary Reads, an early literacy initiative, for a few years now, and I am really pumped about some new developments this year. At the risk of sounding all mysterious, since I can't divulge details at this point, the signs are pointing toward some really creative partnerships, resulting in an absolutely fabulous multidisciplinary aspect to this year's sale. Stay posted for cool coolness.

I can talk about the Books As Art aspect that is being added to the sales pitch this year, encouraging people to think about what they can do with used books in addition to reading them. Despite the radically lowered expectations for my results, I would love to try my hand at something like this.

Regular visitors will know that I have been volunteering with my homies, the Calgary Folk Festival, for several years. It's kinda like my Christmas and the record tent is my stocking.

This year I am super stoked about being asked to judge the Calgary Folk Fest's Untapped Newcomer Songwriting Contest. If you've got a song burning in your soul, you too can enter, for a chance to win big money and godlike status. Deadline for entry is March 16; bribe station is now open.

Or if, like me, you are more of a music lover than a music maker, you can come down to the Ship and Anchor on Sunday, April 29 to watch the finalists and to see me sweat my way through the judging. I'll even buy you a beer.

the algorithms are restless

How is this even possible?

Yesterday I booked a rental car for an upcoming trip. I used the same rental company I have been using for years to book a compact car for four days over a weekend, an exact replica of many previous rental bookings.

Imagine my surprise when the reservation quote came back at $692.00. I can take a hell of a lot of cabs for that amount.

So I tried again, using a different link on the same coupon, but keeping all the other parameters exactly the same, and the price magically dropped to $341.00.

One more try brought the final price to $293.00, which was more in line with what I normally pay.

Perhaps I should have just kept trying. Eventually I was bound to get to a point where they would be paying me to rent the car.

I would love to see MythBusters investigate the rental car conundrum, the seemingly random generation of rates. After seeing them overwhelmingly prove the Monty Hall Paradox*, I am confident they have the mad math skills needed to explain it.

* The Monty Hall Paradox is really cool, a double whammy of psychological and mathematical oddities. Contestants on Let's Make a Deal almost always chose to stick with their original choice rather than switch doors, after the third door is opened to reveal nothing. Psychologically, people prefer to stay with their initial gut instinct. Yet, switching one's choice actually increases the odds of winning from 1 in 3 to 2 in 3. MythBusters proved it!

better in the matinee

I can't remember the last time I went to the movies.

Oh wait, I do. It was in October, at the Vancouver International Film Festival. My fellow Communiqueters and I took in the late morning screening of the Andrew Bird tour doc, Fever Year.

I've always preferred matinee showings - less crowds, more room, and if you play your cards right, you and your movie date will be the only ones in the entire theatre, which allows for unbridled commentary. Nothing enhances the film experience quite like the license to loudly slag the movie's flaws as they unfold.

I'm still disappointed that there was absolutely nothing showing in the theatres over the Christmas holiday. The Offspring and I have always enjoyed our Christmas holiday matinees, but Twilight movies are not going to cut it, I'm afraid.

And now that the all the Blockbusters have closed down, the nearest video store is a half hour drive away. It's a really good independent video store, but I am not prepared to do all that driving, to watch a movie at home by myself. Oh sure, I know you've got your Netflix and other fancy things these days, but I am sure I could never watch it enough to justify signing up. Besides, I am a notoriously late adapter.

How often do you go to the movies?
What was the last movie you watched?

wired for speed

PechaKucha Nights never fail to inspire me. Regardless of the night's theme, I always come away with mind racing, heart full. Perhaps the local planning committee is just really gifted at choosing engaging speakers, perhaps Calgary has an extraordinary number of visionaries who also know how to work a crowd, I don't know. But these are my people.

As is only fitting for an event on Valentine's Day, I left the Spousal Unit at home on his own to attend last night's PKN. I had invited Urban Blonde to join me before I realized that the event was actually sold-out, and since I had already registered for my own ticket, I then had to uninvite her. I'll have to take her out for coffee soon to make up for my boorish uninviting ways.

I certainly don't mind attending PKN solo. I've done so before. I usually know a few people, recognize a few other faces, and inevitably end up meeting a bunch of new folks. There's an inherent camaraderie amongst people who leave the house to hear other people speak. Calgary is a big city, but the circles are small.

As I drove home last night, stopped at the traffic light leaving Kensington, I felt that familiar surge of wonder that the lights of the city, spread out before me on the other side of the river, always give me. There's comfort in the lighted windows of the office towers, community in the purple glow of illuminated bridges spanning the water. Somebody built those, I marvel to myself. For some reason, I find it comforting to know that there are people who can build things like bridges and highrises. Because I can't. But I can bask in the glow of their vision that warms me until I reach my own door.

If you want to know more details about PechaKucha Night #11, here's my recap.

the coworkers

... are converging

and they want to discuss your work habits

past this great change

I Can't Keep All of Our Secrets - Rae Spoon

The broken-hearted catch still haunts the voice, sweetly sad amongst the relentless rhythm of programmed drum beats and analog synths. With I Can't Keep All of Our Secrets, Rae Spoon's most electronic adventure to date, the former folk artist moves ever deeper into the world of electronica and dance beats. But one foot remains firmly planted in country heartbreak. This is no shiny happy dance album.

On first listen, it's easy to gloss over the deeply personal lyrics in favour of the upbeat vibes and hypnotic danciness. That all changes when When I Said There Was an End to Love I Was Lying starts playing. In the first of the understated ballads on the album, the instrumentality is stripped back to allow Spoon's sweetly plaintive voice to take centre stage. The raw emotional power is enough to make you go back and really listen to the tracks that have gone before. Each subsequent listen reveals more depth.

Rae Spoon has an achingly evocative voice that you don't normally hear in electronic music, and that in itself makes this album an anomaly. That this is a deep and intensely personal electronic album cements that anomaly.

I Can't Keep All of Our Secrets, written in the aftermath of a friend's sudden death, follows the complex path that grief can take. In between the nostalgia and the pensive moments, nestled amongst the electronic beats, are inklings of hopeful connection, queer-positive openness, and gratitude.

Recommended tracks: Crash Landing, When I Said There Was an End to Love I was Lying, Curses on Us. Definitely worth repeated listens.

raespoon.com

sympathetic at war with the parasympathetic

So there I was, walking along a downtown sidewalk, minding my own business. I was a little late for an appointment so I was striding along fairly quickly. Well, as quickly as one can while still favouring a bum knee, although lengthening my stride is something I have been conscientiously working on.

And then I hit a crack in the pavement. Oh sure, I have stumbled before, many times. But I am fairly confident that this was the most spectacular and protracted semi-aerial display of forward motion that the other pedestrians had ever witnessed. Arms flailing, body bent double, I lurched on for a good eight or nine steps, trying desperately to right myself, thinking all the while oh fuck, this is going to hurt so bad.

Amazingly, I did not fall. Knees, elbows, and chin saved from a crash landing with the pavement, I did what we all do in that situation. I glanced at the bottom of my shoe, glared over my shoulder at the crack in the sidewalk, then checked the bottom of my shoe again. Just so everybody knew it wasn't my fault.

Hours later I could still feel the post-adrenaline throbbing around my eye sockets, and my entire body ached liked someone had taken a baseball bat to me. But at least it was only my pride that got skinned.

What's the most embarrassing public tumble or near-miss that you have had?

the air up there

Not much time to breathe lately. I have as much work as I can handle right now. And that's good.

I worked several high energy evenings at Cantos last week, one of which was an all-ages blues jam session. I have a massive bruise on my chin from where it hit the floor when I heard a brother and sister, just barely into their teens, belt out some really nasty-awesome blues standards, while laying down some smoking guitar licks. Definitely the highlight of my week, hearing those two.

In my other work, I have been making my way around East Village, meeting all the neighbours, talking about the future. Everybody has a story. I'm gathering them.

And in my other other work, the latest issue of BC Musician Magazine, the venue issue, has hit the streets. My contribution, Jamming with Ghosts, brings it all full circle.

What are you up to?

she's your man

We have a winner!

Hats off to Mrs Ritchie, the enigmatic former brooding teenager, who sent in this suitably Cohenesque free verse composition rife with post-post-coital anxiety and bearing the scars of Grace Slick channelling the metaphysics of Alice.

Wonderland

My lover has left me

In shadows, alone

The sky above is gray but salvation lies before me

I swallow it down, down, down falling through the rabbit hole

I see him, just a glimpse

wait, my love,

please

wait...

Take a bow, Mrs Ritchie! Your teenaged angst served you well, after all. Our friends at With a Bullet will be sending you a fresh new copy of Old Ideas. Embrace the darkness.

new words for Old Ideas

tell me again the words that burn your soul

show me the place where your songs live

go down to the pit where poetry lives, where the angels scratch for light

bring me platters of redemption, the mercy of the road
this is where your slave lies bleeding

Or something like that.

Can you be my Leonard Cohen? Would you like to win a copy of Leonard's new album, Old Ideas?

Our friends at With a Bullet would like to send you the latest CD from the bard of darkness and all you have to do is write me a poem. Pour your soul out in the comments or send me a tortured email, just make sure that you channel your best inner Cohen, and that you send it before Thursday, Feb 2 at midnight MT.

The winner of the most Cohenesque entry will be chosen by a panel, and will have my eternal admiration. In addition to your shiny new copy of Old Ideas, of course.

Need a little inspiration? You can stream Leonard Cohen's Old Ideas below.



Now go forth and bleed, my precious.

wrapped up in (British) books

Quite unintentionally, the last two books I finished were both novels by British authors, whose books I have always enjoyed. Could they keep the streak going with these two books? All will soon be revealed.

Tigerlily's Orchids - Ruth Rendell

When Stuart, a vacant and rather vain boy-toy, decides to throw himself a flat-warming party, he invites all the residents of his small London apartment house in the outer suburbs. He is loathe, however, to invite his needy and expensive lady friend, as that would entail also inviting her husband. The party sets off a chain of events that forever impacts the lives of everyone who attends.

Rendell, always a keen observer of human nature, has created in Tigerlily's Orchids a richly-drawn cast of characters. I was taken with how well-rounded these people were, with all the foibles and redeeming qualities of people you would find in any neighbourhood.

Tigerlily's Orchids doesn't follow a standard murder mystery format, in that the murder (and I am not spoiling anything here) happens quite late in the novel. By this point, the series of intertwined sub-plots had branched into twisted threads.

I did feel that the book sort of fell apart briefly toward the end, but the scatteredness was short-lived and the novel concluded most satisfactorily. A fun read, with characters who remain vivid and memorable long after the last page is turned.


Juliet, Naked - Nick Hornby

Duncan is the self-proclaimed world expert on the life and music of Tucker Crowe, an American musician who suddenly and mysteriously disappeared into a reclusive life shortly after releasing his magnum opus. Annie is his long-time girlfriend who tolerates his obsession, until the release of Juliet, Naked, Tucker Crowe's first new release in over twenty years, causes a rift between the two.

Like all of Hornby's books, Juliet, Naked is a fast and fun read. Although I have never personally broken into somebody's house to use the toilet, while stalking the occupant, some of Duncan's musical obsessions did hit rather close to home. Hornby knows his music nerds.

Lovely touches of irreverent humour, an odd cast of characters, and a realistically ambiguous ending makes Juliet, Naked a good mid-winter novel.

snapshots of Science Cafe

It's a good thing we showed up early. There were only a handful of seats left at the Ironwood Stage and Grill, when we made our way down for a star-studded evening of Science Cafe.

This wasn't entirely unexpected. Jay Ingram is, after all, pretty much a rock star in the science media. His discussion with Valerie Sim, a neurologist specializing in prion research, about the pitfalls of reporting science data in the popular media, promised to be riveting.

And riveting it was:

- only 15% of a science show like Daily Planet is actually science

- "people make up their minds about controversial science, not based on data, but on social and cultural beliefs of groups to which they already belong" - Jay Ingram

- in a five minute story on a science show like Daily Planet, two of those five minutes are spent setting the context

- "when you have been a host as long as I have, you keep forgetting that this isn't your show" - Jay Ingram, on muscling in on hosting duties

- "I just wear layers" - Valerie Sim, on climate change

- "I think we're in this situation: in the past, policy was shaped by science, now science is shaped by policy" - Jay Ingram

- "every time you put a filter between you and the audience, you diminish the impact." - Jay Ingram

- "when you first start to interview you learn not to ask two questions at once, because the interviewee gets to choose which one to answer. Which I am going to do right now." - Jay Ingram

housebound kitty ventures forth

After a brutally cold week, nobody was happier about the arrival of
the chinook than the Slightly Retarded Kitty.

There was so much work to do:
- checking to see how the decorations fared through the cold snap

- doing a little porch sliding

- making sure the boundaries were secure

- spinning a few doughnuts

- checking to make sure mom is watching

Okay, I'm ready to come in now! Mom!

run for the shadows

How old are you?

Or rather, how old do you feel?

I have always felt a couple of decades younger than my biological age, until sometime in the past year. The switch was gradual, but undeniable. Activities that I had always taken for granted started getting increasingly difficult and painful. Suddenly words like I ache in the places that I used to play made perfect sense to me.

But my medical parameters of health have always been solid. Those annual tests were a mere formality. I may have been getting creaky, but I was damned healthy.

And then last week I failed my first ever bone density exam. I knew I should have studied; I could have at least faked my way through the essay question.

It came as a bit of a shock, and suddenly I felt every single one of my misspent years. With this coming on the heels of the Spousal Unit's current health issues, I felt a little betrayed by the body I always considered, if not incorruptible, then certainly robust for the foreseeable future. And I'm not the only one. I've noticed that when I talk to my siblings on the phone lately, one of the first things we discuss is our latest health betrayal.

I did eventually snap out of the bout of self-pity enough to realize that it was up to me to adjust to the new reality of life inside this shell and to work even harder to make it as strong as possible. This was no time to lie down and give in to the ravages of cell biology.

But sitting down and calculating my calcium and vitamin D intake made me realize something about the elderly, about why they are so obsessed with their aches and pains. The reason that failing health is by far the most popular topic of conversation amongst the geriatric set is because nobody expects it to happen to them, and nobody expects it to take up so much time and attention. I have two degrees in physiology and it was still challenging to come up with an exercise and supplement plan to combat this bone mass loss.

I can only imagine how confusing and frustrating all this aging is to someone without a science background.

do right album

Get Out of Sin City - Boca Chica

If good things really do come in threes, then Get Out of Sin City, Boca Chica's third full-length album, is the best of the good things. This is definitely my favourite Boca Chica album (so far).

This album has everything I love in indie Americana music - gorgeous steel pedal that makes my heart swell while it makes me want to weep, boy-girl choruses, handclaps, a little twang, a lotta sass. And the band does it all so perfectly. This is a beautifully mature album that has me excited for the next one.

Get Out of Sin City has a slightly laconic sashay to it, a hip-swaying strut down Main Street, cigarette and a bottle in hand. You know you're heading for trouble, but the sun's setting over the hotel bar and you're too invested in this drink to go home.

Frontwoman and songwriter, Hallie Pritts has an utterly distinct voice that, frankly, I was never before completely comfortable with. But the songs and the arrangements on this album are perfectly suited to her unique vocals. In Pritts' hands, these songs take on the breeziness of cool indie dream pop, mixed with touches of dark folk rock, and leaning heavily on their classic country pedigree.

Get Out of Sin City is a damned fine album, which I cannot wait to take out on a road trip. Windows rolled down, hair whipping in the wind, stereo blasting, following the yellow highway lines to Vegas.

http://bocachicamusic.com/

humanity on the battleground

Another Day in America
- Laurie Anderson

Theatre Junction Grand
January 12, 2012

Onto a darkened stage that is a veritable minefield of lighted candles, Laurie Anderson, understated in cropped black pants and a simple white shirt with a black tie, steps up to the microphone and begins to speak. Her words, measured and chosen with the care of a poet, are at once personal and profound. She has a voice that commands - commands attention, commands belief, commands imagination, commands compassion. It's another day in America.

So begins the premiere of Anderson's latest creation, a work-in-progress that meshes soundscapes and home movies, anecdotes and big questions, music, ideas and memories. It's an evening that those in attendance won't soon forget.

The audience on this particular evening was definitely skewed toward the slightly older, well-heeled crowd, which was not especially surprising given the $50 per ticket price tag. Not a particularly exorbitant fee, but not chump change either. Given the expectant hush that fell over the crowd as Anderson took the stage and the rapt attention with which all hung onto her words, I doubt that anyone regretted forking out the money. As if you could put a price tag on the chance to spend the evening in the presence of a contemporary visionary.

During the ninety minute show, Anderson led us through series of anecdotes that were simultaneously quirky, profound, and humourous. In her bemused, measured voice, she told stories of visits to tent cities, where the inhabitants maintain a tenuous thread to their former lives through the last vestiges of politeness. She related Darwin's thorny problem with peacocks, how to explain the existence of their tail display in the context of survival of the fittest. In a dreamlike monologue, she reflected on the recent signing of the American National Defense Authorization Act, which transforms American soil into a de facto battleground. These big questions were punctuated with haunting violin solos, allowing time for absorption and reflection.

And, of course, the Voice of Authority made an appearance. As I listened to the deep-voiced male character that Anderson creates using a voice filter, I was immediately struck with the realization that this must be who The Voice from the CBC's The Current models himself after. It explains so much, and only cements the impact that Laurie Anderson has had upon pop culture.

These moments of observation and pondering took an intimate turn when Anderson left the podium and waded through the sea of candles to an armchair, flanked by a screen. Along the short journey, Anderson shed her poet-seer persona and, as she lowered herself into the chair for a good chat, began to share tales (and video clips) of the life and death of her blind piano-playing rat terrier, Lolabelle.

But of course, even while sharing these stories of her personal home life, Anderson did not shy away from bigger picture. Perhaps not surprisingly for an artist in her sixties, she used the experience to look for ways to embrace the inevitable approach of death.

And then she stuck a pillow speaker into her mouth and played a song on it that was an eerie combination of ethereal throat singing and robotic instrumentation. Of course this made me wish that I was able to see Laurie Anderson as she is let loose among the instrument collection at Cantos Music Foundation/National Music Centre later this afternoon, if only to see what she puts in her mouth.

Despite the length of this review, it's very difficult to actually characterize the experience of seeing Laurie Anderson perform Another Day in America. It felt like a rare opportunity to see a contemporary visionary at work. At the same time, it was deeply personal. I will be thinking of this evening for a long time.

For background information on Laurie Anderson's amazing life, so far, please check out the primer I have put together.

I am

- convinced that She and Him is the worst name in indie music today. I also can only handle Zooey Deschanel's singing voice for short periods of time.

- aware of the irony that we are no longer going to St. Lucia next week, as originally planned. A week that is forecast to be the first extended period of deep freeze in an unseasonably warm winter.

- happy that the sensation that somebody dumped a box of salt on my tongue, which has been driving me crazy for the past week, is starting to subside. You know it's nasty when water tastes salty. On the plus side, I think I have been cured of salt cravings for life.

- excited to see Laurie Anderson perform Another Day in America tonight! The world premiere! I don't even mind that I am going alone.

What's going on in your life?

clung on tightly, like parenthesis

I got a free oil change, so there's that.

It's been so unseasonably warm and dry here, albeit with insane winds, that I decided to walk home through the creek valley after dropping off the urban assault vehicle for servicing. Not something I would normally do in January. Particularly since I am becoming increasingly terrified of ice patches.

But although any snow that remains has long been transformed into wind-polished snirt, enough of it has disappeared that I figured I could skirt my way around the slick spots.

This walk home was also to be a test of my knee. I have been gradually increasing the length of my elliptical workouts, but I am still a slower walker than I once was, and walking on uneven ground could prove tricky.

And then there was the matter of that killer hill that you have to climb to get out of the park.

I'm glad I did it. I needed a change of scenery, a touch of nature. There certainly was a lot of nature down in the park. Piles of it. I don't know what those coyotes have been eating, but it goes through them like shit through a goose. Or through a coyote, I guess.

I didn't encounter any coyotes this time, although I stopped on the little bridge just before killer hill to watch some ducks bob about in the water, in amongst the ice floes. I lingered there on the bridge for longer than I had intended, to allow two women with westie terriers to overtake me. I didn't want anyone to witness me labouring up that hill.

The hill wasn't as hard on my knee as I expected. I did take my time, and it took 185 steps instead of my usual 150. Yes, I count steps going up hills, what of it? It felt good to be a little winded again, something I have really missed with my slower workouts.

My knee is a little swollen tonight and I can feel the bits moving around and rubbing against each other, but the outing was all worth it. Especially for a January day.

Where is your favourite place for a winter walk?

check, mate

Final Parcheesi game of the holidays came down to the wire.
First one to roll a one takes it all.
I'm green, the OFKAR is blue.

Dang!

I still love Parcheesi though.

What's your favourite board game?

in the suburbs young protesters write

Evidently, here in my neighbourhood, we are slow learners.

This is the sign that was erected a few weeks ago outside the gates to the community lake - a seasonally upgraded version of the same sign that informed us a few months ago that the area was also not a leaf and pumpkin recycling depot.

For a few years, this entrance to the neighbourhood lake was the site of a temporary leaf and pumpkin depot. Clearly people liked hauling their autumn yard waste to this site, because even after the depot was discontinued, bags upon bags of leaves continued to appear in the dead of night, along with numerous collapsing jack-'o-lanterns. For years.

The community association tried putting up signs to dissuade the nocturnal leaf dumpers, but finally the City had to step in with something more official-looking.

So far the Christmas tree non-dumping sign seems to be more effective than the leaf and pumpkin one, but it's still early in the tree-turfing season, so I'm not holding my breath. The Fire Hall, a few blocks away, was a Christmas tree recycling depot for a few years, and people are still surreptitiously dumping their bedraggled trees there, years after it was moved to another location. Even though the City now picks up your Christmas tree directly from your back lane as part of the municipal recycling program. The firemen are getting mighty pissed.

The OFKAR and I lamented to each other many times, as we drove past that sign this holiday, that I hadn't thought to save at least one half-rotted pumpkin from Hallowe'en. For old time's sake.

the year in my ears

I missed some big albums this year, as I do every year. It's become my thing. So you won't find any Tom Waits or PJ Harvey or Bjork on my annual recap of favourite albums.

I'm also missing some albums that I suspect would be strong contenders for favourites - the new Elliott Brood, the new Dan Mangan, and the new Rural Alberta Advantage spring to mind - as it's becoming increasingly difficult to find music in stores around here. So while I sit by the mailbox, waiting for my orders to arrive allow me to tell you about my choices for:

Favourite 11 of 11

1. The Decemberists - The King is Dead

- I never get tired of this album. Listen after repeat listen, I become completely engrossed in the achingly lovely ballads and the insanely catchy guitar-driven rock.







2. Frank Turner - England Keep My Bones

- I waffled for a long time before finally deciding that this would be my second choice. A very close second it is. This album is a rollicking, passionate feel-good blast of singalong goodness.







3. The Head and the Heart - The Head and the Heart

- boy-girl harmonies, exuberance, sweet melodies, all good.







4. Radical Face - The Family Tree: the Roots
- Even those songs that start out restrained end up in handclaps eventually. Awesome.

5. Beirut - the Rip Tide
- The gorgeous sweeping drama that you expect from Beirut, with accessible and catchy melodies.

6. Whitehorse - Whitehorse
- The husband and wife team of Luke Doucet and Melissa McClelland have gone in a surprisingly inventive direction, with lots of traditional touches.

7. Wilco - The Whole Love
- Classic Wilco, nuff said.

8. Wild Flag - Wild Flag
- The girls can rock, and I love the touches of rockabilly that keep this album surprising.

9. Radiohead - King of Limbs
- Not the best Radiohead album by any stretch of the imagination, but it has some touches of brilliance that save it from obscurity.

10. Austra - Feel It Break
- Wonderfully inventive looping sonic invasion.

11. Anna Calvi - Anna Calvi
- Calvi's big voice, paired with cinematically retro arrangements, make this album feel like living inside a James Bond movie. Dramatic stuff.

Let's see what musical goodness 2012 holds, shall we?

arctic radio

Late Nights on Air - Elizabeth Hay

Having never lived in the far north, nor even visited there, I can't attest to the accuracy of life north of 60, as depicted in Late Nights on Air. Hay's portrayal of 1970's Yellowknife, an isolated northern community to which only oddball or adventure-seeking southerners ever venture, does feel well realized, even though some depictions of native characters feel stereotyped and social issues feel cliched.

Late Nights on Air tells the story of a small northern radio station, peopled by an odd mix of characters who have been thrown together through the vagaries of fate. Harry, the curmudgeonly station boss, is escaping his demons and his fall from grace in southern Canada. Gwen, fascinated by stories of northern exploration she read as a child, longs to retrace the trails of doomed explorers through radio documentary. Dido, an exotic and polarizing possessor of a perfect radio voice, plays people against each other with dark sensuality. Thrown into the mix are the volatile and dangerous Eddy, the lovable romantic Ralph, the spiritually-awakened Eleanor, and the wise and pragmatic Theresa.

Against the backdrop of the Mackenzie Valley pipeline inquiries, issues of racism and violence, and the threat of a newly-planned television station displacing the importance of the small northern radio station, four of the characters - Harry, Gwen, Ralph, and Eleanor - set out on a lengthy canoe trip. This fateful canoe journey is the strongest part of the book, and Hay's depiction of the astonishing landscape of the Barrens makes me realize that I know nothing of the mysterious far north.

I enjoyed this book, but it didn't particularly move me. It unfolds rather slowly, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but I did have an issue with Hay's overuse of foreshadowing of a particular tragedy. Hay warns of the upcoming event for so many chapters before it actually happens, that I stopped paying attention.

Late Nights on Air is an enjoyable read, and I learned something about early arctic exploration, and about the geography of the far north. Ultimately, though, I didn't care enough about the characters to revisit them after I closed the covers.

grand pianos crash together

You would think that a creature who stomps around as much as she does would be more tolerant of a little slipper noise. But apparently the sound of the Spousal Unit walking about in his new Christmas slippers is the most terrifying thing that the Slightly Retarded Kitty has ever encountered.

When he walks across the kitchen floor in his plain brown old man slippers, the SRK skitters out of the way as though she was being pursued by the devil himself, dekes into a safe spot, and then stares at him, horrified, searching his face for signs of the familiar dad within this scary monster.

Cats are weird.

somebody shot her eye out

This year's Christmas mystery parcel did indeed turn out to be of the Nine Ladies Dancing persuasion. Sort of.

It was actually two half-ladies dancing, inside a vase. Evidently some sort of postal mishap bisected the ballerina. I'm a little concerned, because the glass vase is labelled Nine Ladies Dancing. I just hope this doesn't mean that another sixteen dancing half-ladies will eventually show up on our doorstep.

We are generally rather low-key in the gift department, and this year's bounty of gifts were right in keeping with my pragmatism. In fact, they were exactly what I had wished for.

I am particularly excited for the gift that will this year replace the annual board game. A while ago, I came across a slide projector in the basement, along with three carousels of slides from when the Offspring was a wee one. I'm looking forward to a slide viewing evening, perhaps as a precursor to the annual board game fest. I just need to find my elbow pads before the Crokinole championship begins.

The turkey has now been in the oven sufficiently long to fill the house with crazy-making aromas. 7.5 kg should be sufficient for three people and one Slightly Retarded Kitty, shouldn't it?

The SRK was very concerned about being dragged out of bed to open her present and was very skittish of all that ripping paper and of the box that we then expected her to peer inside. Judging from the curious, yet polite, tapping she has given her gift, though,I think it was a success. She still prefers to have someone come outside to give her belly rubs over any store-bought gift, however.

Time for a glass of Prosecco, and to baste that turkey again.

Enjoy your Christmas, my pretties.