Adventures on café walls

Still setting up my Spotify.  In my bid to get more recent music recommended to me, I've been entering some of the stuff I've "Shazam"ed while in coffee shops and restaurants.

This is five years old, but golly, I like it:

A muster of pea-hens

While trundling things down the hill on Linden Avenue, I sometimes see strange sights, like the day I looked ahead and saw the sidewalk taken up with large fowl.

By the time I came abreast of the brood, they were toddling through a neighbouring garden, under the wary - and, no doubt, frustrated - eye of the household cat.

Memories coming around like comets

Since the demise of Launchcast about ten years ago, I have longed for something similar, and tried three or four different platforms, including Spotify.  None of them quite took.

However, elder daughter has been honing her Spotify for some time now, and this week,  I decided to give it another try.

My hope is, like Launchcast, it will lead me to new (to me) music, but of course, this involves programming it with stuff I already know.  A pleasant side-effect is the stumbling on to songs I'd forgotten, such as this Mary Chapin Carpenter composition, which was a favourite when my little girls were little girls.


Another side effect is the pleasant at-home feeling that familiar music gives this new (to me) home.

As for new (to me) music, I've already made half-a-dozen or so promising discoveries, which I may share here - should I find myself short of time, which is likely.

Begone, dull care

My Facebook feed featured an article from the Ottawa Citizen (actually by Sharon Kirkey of the National Post) about a therapy designed to blunt unpleasant memories - in this case, betrayals and painful break-ups. 

Of course, this was the focus of the rather surreal 2004 film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but fifteen years have passed, and I guess we're oozing into reality.

The issues remain the same.  How far can it be taken?  (Probably too far.) How ethical is it, and most important, what damage is possible, if we modify memory, even if painful and traumatic?

Of course, we all modify our own memories constantly - could we trust someone else with the task?

I didn't have that many break-ups and betrayals.  The one romantic break-up I experienced was gently done -- although I was devastated at the time.  After all, "A heart without a hurt is hollow," as the song from The Fantasticks goes.

That said, it's not like I haven't been wounded.  What would really tempt me is the possibility of dulling memories of people I dislike - usually those who have hurt me.  It troubles me - early and often - that I can't shake the replaying of past slights, outrages, and injuries.

And frankly, I would not miss these people or my memories of them.

It's beguiling.

However, I'm reminded of a quote that appeared, years ago, in the Victoria Hospice volunteer sign-in book, attributed to Kahlil Gibran (but did he say or write it, really?):  "I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind, yet, strange, I was ungrateful to those teachers."

And yet, Persephone, have you learned anything?  

No, don't mess with my memories; they may be the only things I have left -- if I'm lucky.

My way out

Younger daughter flatly refused to go with us to a Sinatra-themed Victoria Symphony Pops concert.

Well, she's a Taurus, like myself, so we knew she wouldn't be budged. 

This was a pity, because I've never been much of a Sinatra fan myself.  Oh, I know he's a legend, and yes, yes, I recognize his talent and influence.  However, his appeal has always escaped me.

And I loathe "My Way".

We'd bought season tickets weeks ago, so the Resident Fan Boy and I set off in the pleasant semi-sunny autumn afternoon, squeezing in amongst throngs of white heads, as special buses dropped off seniors for the matinee.

The singer featured was a fella named Tony DeSare, one of those guys with terrifyingly impressive CVs -  he's worked with Postmodern Jukebox, and performed on A Prairie Home Companion, so he certainly had my attention.

And he was good. He's an accomplished crooner, of course, but also a mean jazz pianist, trading riffs with the three-piece band he's brought, all backed by the Victoria Symphony.  He composes his own music, playing a pleasant ballad that Paul McCartney himself complimented.  When he boogied through a Sinatra arrangement of a Ray Charles song, I could see a third chair violinist practically dancing as she bowed her instrument.  (It was one of those damned "numbers announced from the stage", so I don't know which song - not one I recognized, so likely not that famous.)

And then he ended the first half with "My Way".  No escape.  We were front row centre.

When we attended a Michael Feinstein concert with the National Arts Centre Orchestra a few years ago, he flatly refused to sing "My Way".  In Ottawa.  Paul Anka's birthplace.  I was so grateful.

Faced with the prospect of listening to "Strangers in the Night" and "It Was a Very Good Year", we fled.  The Resident Fan Boy had a book to pick up at Munro's, and we stopped at Murchie's, where he treated me to something called Frenzy Cake, something like Black Forest, only with raaaaspberries.  Yup, just what I need - a new confection.  Gawd, it was good.

Waiting for the bus, I told the Resident Fan Boy that "My Way" is the top song choice for funerals.  The Resident Fan Boy was aghast, being the son of an Anglican clergyman, and accustomed to hymns at such services.  I also told me that "Time to Say Goodbye", surely one of the most manipulative dirges written, is high up the list.

He asked me what I'd like played at my funeral.

"Well, given how much The Wizard of Oz has meant to our daughters," I replied, "'Ding Dong the Witch is Dead' would work."

We both bent over double in hilarity:  "She's gone where the goblins go, below, below, below!" we warbled, ignoring the stares of our fellow waiters, who were, no doubt, praying we wouldn't board their bus.

Whimsical wallabies

Walking down into the Village one bright morning - with the switch to Standard Time, we're getting a few back - I happen to glance down and spot two painted rocks, tucked in by the sidewalk at the edge of someone's lawn.  I've included my shoe-tips for scale.

This makes me wonder:  does anybody wear Wallabees anymore?

Let yourself go

Two days in and I'm already cheating.

I do love this.

(The Laurel and Hardy clip is from Bonnie Scotland [1935]; "The Jean Genie" is, of course, off David Bowie's 1973 album Aladdin Sane.)

Often I stop with his words on my mind

On All Saints' Day, the trees are raining leaves like heaven raining souls.

I'm striding up Cook Street, wearing my packsack, so my hands are free, and the leaves are swooping in my direction.  I catch two, and make wishes for my daughters.

When I did this in Ottawa, there were also wishes for myself, but they mostly involved returning to Victoria, and here I am, so I make carefully generic wishes for my girls.  Best not to get too specific with wishes made for others.

I've been watching films about Oscar Wilde lately, and both featured a quote from Lady Windermere's Fan (1892, Act Three):  "In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it."

This morning, I feel a brief November chill in my heart, but only time will tell.

Speaking of leaves and souls:

Fèy o, sove lavi mwen Nan mizè mwen ye wo
Fèy o, sove lavi mwen Nan mizè mwen ye wo
Pitit mwen malad Mwen kouri kay gangan, Simido
Pitit mwen malad Mwen kouri kay gangan
Si w bon gangan, sove lavi mwen
Nan mizè mwen ye wo Oh!

Willie works as the garden man;
He plants trees, he burns leaves,
He makes money for himself.
Often I stop with his words on my mind.
Do spacemen pass dead souls on their way to the moon?

(The lyrics of "Feuilles-oh" are in a Haitian Creole, and translate something like this:
Leaves, heal me from my pain Oh!
My child is sick I’m rushing to the voodoo priest’s, Simido
If he is a good healer, he will heal my pain)

In case we need to find our way back

Clockwise from upper left:  younger daughter's "That Seventies Show" jack o' lantern (after an episode entitled "Too Old to Trick or Treat, Too Young to Die"); Demeter's jack o' lantern (simple, to spare her arthritic hand); the Resident Fan Boy's Classic Who jack o' lantern (no, not a cyberman); mine, from the Art-Deco-inspired "Star Thrower" stencil from the kit.

As the year in our new - well, new to us - home starts the slow turn from autumn to autumn, we pound in the holidays like little pegs to guide us around again. We've had the first Thanksgiving, and now we're having the first Hallowe'en.

Nothing's guaranteed; we might not pass this way again. Still, we leave the signposts.

And as things fell apart, nobody paid much attention

I re-visited this video this summer. It was always one of my favourites, not least because it includes the late great Kirsty MacColl on harmonies.

Nowadays and especially after last week's demonstrations, it's depressing how pertinent the video remains, although I imagine some of the figures have changed - probably in the wrong direction.