Seriously, I'm not really researching *that*, new or otherwise

Sometimes I wonder how much trouble I would be in if the police confiscated my computer and built a case against me based on my search terms. I rather like the indie band The New Pornographers, for example. So when I wanted to find some of their CDs at the library, I had to put "new pornographers" in the search field which made me a tad uneasy. If I look up their videos on YouTube or check out their web site, well, a music fan reasonably familiar with the Canadian music scene would know I'm not making a nefarious search, but suppose I had to explain this to someone in authority?

For those of you not so reasonably familiar, The New Pornographers (cringe) are sort of an indie supergroup, comprised of about seven core members who were known for their previous work before collaborating. Known by cognoscenti, that is -- the only person I recognised in the the line-up was Neko Case and she's an American, albeit based in Vancouver. The group came to my attention via a catchy tune with obscure lyrics entitled "Sing Me Spanish Techno" which I've mentioned in a previous post. The song was from their 2005 album Twin Cinema, but I heard it much later because I'm not up-to-date by any stretch of the imagination. I decided to get any available NP CDs out of the library after hearing this song from their 2010 album Together:The library had three CDs which I downloaded on to my iPod and so I've spent the past few months being ambushed on my song shuffle.
Here are a couple of my emerging favourites:


And this one, which I really like, but I prefer the pictures in my head to the video, clever as it is:
And finally, because I can't resist, this rather marvellous cover of a Fleetwood Mac song of which I'd never heard:
That's it; I'm off to bed now.

Can you guess why Bono said no?

Last summer, I posted a very funny video called "Haters" by
Isabel Fay, but it wasn't until months later that I had a look at some of her other films, mostly while I was avoiding things I ought to have been doing. (I do that a lot.) I'd like to show you two gems.

The first is the story about how Isabel and her director Lee York entered a film into the LA Comedy Shorts Festival, then remembered they didn't have clearance to use the soundtrack, a choral version of U2's "With or Without You". After trying and failing to get permission, they came up with a very clever way to show their film without getting hauled into court:

Now, at the close of this video, Isabel tells us that they still couldn't actually show their film because U2 was still refusing to give them clearance. Evidently, they eventually got permission; the original award-winning short is now up at Isabel's channel at YouTube.

When I watched it, I thought I could guess why Bono initially said "no". Why don't you watch it and do some guessing yourself?

I enjoyed this immensely, by the way, yet, unlike several YouTube commenters, I felt some sympathy for U2 as well, although I admit I have never heard their reasons.

Dance me to the end of life

At the risk of sounding morbid, I must confess that one of my daily cyber-stops (along with news sites, family history blogs, Facebook, and my habitual stalking of David Tennant) is the obituary page at the Victoria Times-Colonist. Why? Victoria is a relatively small town and I lived there a long time. It shields me with fore-knowledge, so that during my annual retreat to visit Demeter, I won't blunder into a friend's grief in my ignorance, and might, in fact, get an appropriate note into the mail.

It's not scintillating reading; obituaries are not a hot-bed of original thought nor good writing. They're mini-biographies written by grieving people, so we usually hear that the deceased "fought a courageous battle" with whatever disease carried them off, that they lived with "the love of his/her life", or adored their children. Often they were a friend to everyone. Well, it isn't the time to argue, is it?

Today, though, I was brought up short by an obituary. The first thing that caught me was the picture, a tiny black-and-white snap of a lady dancing on one foot, waving an open umbrella. (Not the photo below, obviously.) You can't really make out her features. She could be middle-aged, or a little older. However, the picture radiates joy and celebration. So does the text which begins with little in the way of punctuation: "Thank you Thank you Thank you . . . .", then launches into a litany of gratitude for her family, for being born when she was, for things like stars and trees, friends and music, for her caregivers who "were born kind".

As exits go, this one was classy. She was no one I knew, but frankly, I'm a bit sorry she wasn't.

Bloody 'ell

As you may have noticed, I'm participating in my tenth NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). So, it's 11:48 and I'm on my way to bed, and it suddenly occurred to me: Ooops! So here's a nice picture to look at. It's our neighbour's side of the porch. I think she took the ornaments down this evening. Both our trees are lying on the lawn like corpses waiting to be taken to the plague pit. I'll write something substantial tomorrow, I promise.

Take heaven

Some years ago when the girls were very small, I stumbled upon a Christmas book by Tasha Tudor entitled Take Joy. I remember very little about the book except the quote from which the title came, the words attributed to one Giovanni Giocondi, a Franciscan friar. He was a scholar, an archeologist and an architect and lived in Italy during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century, so a Renaissance man in all respects.

At Christmas 1513, he is supposed to have written a letter of encouragement to the Contessina Allagia deli Aldobrandeschi, and while there is no proof that he was the actual author, the sentiments work for me, especially now that the Christmas tree is stripped to the lights only and will be going out on to our lawn tomorrow evening to await pick-up:

I salute you! There is nothing I can give you which you have not; but there is much that, while I cannot give, you can take.
No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today.
Take heaven.
No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present instant.
Take peace.
The gloom of the world is but a shadow; behind it, yet within our reach, is joy.
Take joy.
And so, at this Christmas time, I greet you, with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks and the shadows flee away.

And so may it be for all of us. The challenge of Christmas is bringing a bit of it into the rest of the year. I usually fail, but each year, I hope that I can. Let's see what happens.

Twelfth Night and what I will

Less than half an hour of Christmas left. I can really smell the balsam which is either because the tree is dying or because my Christmas cold has worn off.

We've just got back from the annual Twelfth Night celebration with A Company of Fools, one of the few compensations for dwelling in Hades. It was long, but we won two door prizes. Scott Florence, the Fools' director made cracks about killing Christmas which younger daughter failed to find funny, Christmas being her favourite time of year, but she found most other things funny including the company's annual mangling of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. They find a different way to warp it each year and this time they did a read-through with weird hats and asides.

As I watched, I recalled I'd forgotten and foregone one of my Christmas gifts: a DVD of Des McAnuff's charming production of Twelfth Night from the Stratford (Ontario) Shakespeare Festival's 2011 season. I won't be able to see it this Twelfth Night, but I'll use it to ease into Epiphany.
I also picked up my library hold of Patrick Stewart as Macbeth. Talk about killing Christmas....

As long as there is egg nog in the fridge (Merry Eleventh Day of Christmas)

As I let the dog out for a relief wade through the foot or so of snow in our front yard, I notice that the strings of white lights in the window of the middle apartment across the street have vanished. Although many pretty lights continue to glow throughout our neighbourhood, I have already passed the corpses of more than one abandoned Christmas tree in my travels through the maze of side streets.

It's only the eleventh day of Christmas, but I accompanied elder daughter to catch her plane to Halifax. The Resident Fan Boy has been dissolving into tears all day, bless 'im, so I'd gone in his stead. After she was swallowed up by airport security, I stood for a few wistful minutes gazing over the railing into the arrivals lounge where I waited for her to appear less than three weeks ago. The trees and elf figures were still there, waiting to welcome back students returning to Hades for their studies. The bus was crammed with them and their suitcases, and there was nothing to be seen through the mud-encrusted windows, so I sighed and opened a newspaper.

Back home, we opened the penultimate Christmas gift and took one step further to letting the season go.

But not yet. There's still egg nog in the fridge.

Here's Walk Off The Earth's take on "Jingle Bell Rock", a song which, if you think about it, has nothing whatsoever to do with Christmas and could actually be sung at any point in the winter. (If WOTE look familiar to you, they're famous for the five-people-on-one-guitar rendition of "Somebody That I Used to Know". They're Canadian, too...)

Hold the phone (Merry Tenth Day of Christmas)

For more than a decade now, the Resident Fan Boy and I have resisted getting a cell phone. The RFB was actually offered a Blackberry for work, but refused. He doesn't like the idea of work following him home. For myself, I don't like what cell phones seem to do to people, encasing them in invisible bubbles which reduce all fellow travelers to scenery at best, and obstacles at worst.

Alas, I am now going to be one of those people. We've just been running into more and more situations where it would have been a whole lot easier if at least one of us had a cell phone. I nervously accompanied elder daughter to a purveyor of such devices and watched in some amusement as the young man serving us consulted with her on what the expiry date on my credit card was. I did point out that I actually know when my card expires and could tell him that myself, but the irony seemed lost on them. I've spent the past week getting a start on making every texting and phoning mistake in the book. A book would be helpful; instead I've downloaded a 100+-page user's manual. One of these days, I'll summon up the courage to read it. And actually make some phone calls. Elder daughter asked me today if I've figured out how to hang up yet. (No, I haven't.)

Oh, and I've been taking pictures. Not quite as nice as I can take with my Nikon, but not bad. The above was taken this afternoon at the Mayfair Theatre in the Glebe which has been showing films since 1932. It's now a cult/art-house film venue and has been lovingly restored, complete with a piano down front and faux-loges (which may not have been faux at some point). It also features a rather large concession stand which had a nice pall of smoke today and a burnt after-taste to the popcorn. Rather pleasant, really. We munched contently while watching vintage Loony Tunes. I imagined the people who watched the original brand-new cartoons in that very theatre in the late forties and early fifties of the last century, while I picked out a text message to my mother in this century. But not during the show, of course. I haven't become one of those people.

O Holy Bike (Merry Ninth Day of Christmas)

Having a dog means venturing out in all weathers at all times of the day, and it was our first Christmas with the Accent Snob when I stumbled upon the Christmas-Cycle. It's still there this year and I rather love it, even though it reminds me a little bit of a Ghost Bicycle. This seems a deal cheerier though, and it wouldn't surprise me if it predates the ghost bike idea. With the discovery last fall that I can actually take pictures while juggling a leash, gloves, a flashlight and a bag of dog poop, I offer this existing-light interpretation.

Oh, and the name of the street where the Christmas-Cycle is gradually disappearing under layers of snow? Noel. Isn't that perfect?

Begin as you intend to continue (Merry Eighth Day of Chrismas)

I'm not a fan of new year's resolutions, believing them to be doomed from the start. Besides, I know I'm not alone in feeling that the new year really begins in September.

All the same, I rose from my bed this morning feeling hopeful. I tackled the bathroom with "I Can See Clearly Now" playing in my head: "I can see all obstacles in my way . . .it's gonna be a bright, bright sunshiny day...."

After breakfast, I filled in the new calendars and delivered one to younger daughter, who had already laid the old calendar to one side.

"There we are," I burbled. "A brand-scary-new year!"
"I don't see anything to be scared about," younger daughter stated in a matter-of-fact tone, carefully positioning the calendar on its picture hook and gazing at the coloured items I'd filled in.
"You're a braver woman than I," I told her. "I always find new things a bit scary."

A few minutes later, elder daughter appeared by my side downstairs.
"Follow," she said in a lowered voice, nodding toward the kitchen.

"Just after you left, I heard her say, 'Actually, I do see something to be scared of.' Then she said, 'In fact, I'm going to be miserable.' Then she said, 'For the rest of my life.'"

I looked out at the thick cream-cheese edges of snow on the branches of the neighbours' tree.
"You know, if I could wave a magic wand..." I catch elder daughter's eye. "All mothers do. Thanks for letting me know."

Well, I thought, gazing at the computer screen without seeing it a few minutes later. It's not like I don't know this. It's why I fill out the calendar. So she can see and brace herself.

We're going to a movie this afternoon with plenty of popcorn. This evening we will open our Eighth Day of Christmas present, from the pile kindly sent by out-of-town friends and relations which we save to stretch Christmas over its proper twelve days. We will squeeze what joy and enjoyment we can out of this day and for the next 364 days. Even school days. Especially school days. But I'm going to need help.

Today, I'm appealing to Jimmy Cliff.