I just found a recording of my very first compositions…
While I was looking for the CD recording of Kristin and I playing in that tour I mentioned in yesterday’s cross-country cycling journal entry, I stumbled across something really weird: a recording of some of the first music I ever wrote. Read more
Shed a Tear for Me: I Just Lost 400 Friends.
I pulled the plug on my Facebook account a couple days ago. Their censoring the direct link to the recently-released Wikileaks ‘Insurance File’ was the last straw.
It’s entirely likely that, as Facebook claims, their blocking of this link is an automated part of their system (and no – it has nothing to do with it being a link to Pirate Bay. Read more
416 Creative Music Festival 2010
Last Thursday I performed at the 416 Creative Music Festival. It’s a festival of improvised music that happens every year at the Tranzac. Even though I’m not really part of that community (i.e. I haven’t done a purely improvised concert for many years) David Dacks, who was curating that night’s show, asked me to put a band together for it.
So I ended up playing with three really great musicians: Nicole Rampersaud (trumpet), Steve Ward (trombone), and David MacDougall (drums). It was a good show and a lot of fun. I think I’m going to look to do more shows of this sort. Read more
Cycling Journal: Day 4 (August 3)
Cycling Toronto-Saskatoon Journal
Day 4 (August 3): Passing through Mordor – the Trans-Canada Highway – I begin to experience a strange sort of madness – Clarence’s Smoked Fish and Booze (observations on Northern gay/redneck relations) – Campingplatz Parrot Coconut
My father likes to complain about things a bit. The new wind farm on Wolfe Island, near where my parents live is a current pet peeve:
windmills at work destroying Wolfe Island: "they're ugly, noisy, and slaughter birds by the thousands"
The funny thing about a windmill farm is that one doesn’t tend to recognize it as an industrial instillation; I think most people see it as a transformative alteration of the environment and subconsciously interpret it on a scale very different from the one they’d apply to industrial projects. A month ago, I found it quite remarkable Read more
Cycling Journal: Day 2 (August 1)
CYCLING TORONTO-SASKATOON
JOURNAL DAY 2 (August 1): Owen Sound (The Asshole Line) – Tobermorey (“Five Crappiest Towns I’ve Visited” Second Prize) – Sympathy of the Proletariat – Hunters – Wild Beasts – Guerrilla Camping Technique
I was on the road again by 8:00 this morning and made the 60k trip to Owen Sound in just a couple hours. Breakfast at the Old Bus Stop Diner, enjoying the company of a mildly retarded but friendly man with a singularly unattractive skin condition. We talked about the recent demise of Wiarton Willy (the famous psychic groundhog) and he gave me some vague advice about the road to Tobermorey (“it’s flat but there’s damn big hill in Wiarton!”).
The Old Bus Stop Diner, Owen Sound
In yesterday’s journal I mentioned how I later realized that Highway 89 was the Yuppie Cyclist Line because there are no YCs north of that latitude. Owen Sound was also a dividing line: it’s the Asshole Line. Read more
Cycling Journal: Day 1 (July 31)
CYCLING JOURNAL: Day 1 (July 31)
First day on the road!
catchin' the Go
I decided cheat past the Iron Curtain of big box stores, bitterness, and depression that forms the outskirts of Toronto by catching a Go bus to Georgetown. Was planning on hooking up with Friendly Rich for coffee there before setting out. But missed the early bus while buying cigarettes and got to Georgetown too late to hang out: Rich was getting ready for his CD-release show that night and I wanted to be off anyway.
Friendly Rich
The early part of this day’s ride set me straight on the question of whether it’d be better to stick to fairly major (but sometimes too busy) roads or go for tiny country roads that are seldom travelled: those roads are seldom travelled for a good reason. They’re terrible. Read more
