Away from her

Elder daughter is criss-crossing Norway with a friend who has resided there for the past few years, a dream-trip twice postponed by circumstances financial and pandemic. Yesterday, she found herself in Oslo's Deichman bibliotek, the largest library in Norway, and confronted with a Canadian (and Victorian) connection.

Nine years ago, I wrote about my brief encounter with Alice Munro. She died about a dozen days ago, and readers across the country mourned, even though she had been sidelined by dementia.  Her short stories remain, though: wry, pointed, and bleakly funny.

I bet Norwegians really got her, I texted elder daughter this morning.

Beautiful Scars

It is my habit to listen to the CBC Radio Two Morning show as I get up, and during this October, this song is the one that makes me stop what I'm doing.

I've posted about Blackie and the Rodeo Kings before and have explained that they're a kind of super-group, comprised of three highly-respected Canadian singer/songwriters:  Stephen Fearing, Tom Wilson, and Colin Lindon.  This is from a compilation of collaborations with male artists (hence the Kings and Kings - they did a Kings and Queens a few years back), and the collaborator in this case is Dallas Green aka City and Colour, joining in on Tom Wilson's haunting song based on a 2014 novel by Miriam Toews called All My Puny Sorrows,  loosely based on what led up to her sister's suicide.

(Coincidentally, Toews got a degree in journalism at University of King's College -- like elder daughter, though obviously about a quarter of a century earlier.)

About a year and a half ago, Wilson premiered the song on the CBC Radio show "q", with Toews listening.  You should listen, too.  It sounds like a completely different song. Wilson starts performing about four minutes in: