Not a great photo--crooked, the light too harsh and all, but I'm going with this blog entry directly from my Flickr site, home of 180 Hillsdale photos, including the seven Houses of Haultain.
What goes on in these houses includes:
Garbage day.
Woman walking by with one child strapped to her chest and at least one more in a stroller wide as the sidewalk.
The sidewalk itself split and lifted.
Just down from here a house for sale. L-shaped living room, a fireplace angled at the crotch of the L, kitchen on the other side of the walls, two bedrooms and a bathroom, basement steps leading down from the back door.
Rain earlier, bright clouds now.
So far I've chickened out, but sooner or later I'm going to use my little digital to compose a panorama, images linked, of this row of houses on Haultain.
But as I say, not when the light's so harsh.
Tuesday, 6 July 2010
Friday, 2 July 2010
Road Trip
In June I drove to Edmonton to see my friends off to Europe.
And catch my son's act at the Edmonton Improv Festival.
He and I walked by our old apartment (top left).
A few days later I slept by my sister's pool in Kelowna.
Under the solstice sky, which had all the answers.
My three sisters and I spent 48 hours down the lake.
I tipped my cap to the sky.
Then I drove home.
Saturday, 19 June 2010
Jose Saramago
I dug reading Saramago in Portugal. Sitting below the statue in Lisbon so prominent in the Ricardo Reis book (the statue that's prominent, not me). Intepreting with him the Lisbon skies, the streets, the water. Enjoying the wryness of the voice in any page (any strange Saramago page). Trying to write like him for the fun of it: _________. Being cantankerous correctly (a sentence he would never write). I love his respect for Pessoa too.
Fans of fooling with history enjoy his The History of the Seige of Lisbon. In it a proofreader inserts the word not at a crucial point in a narrative of the Crusaders and the famous seige at the heart of national stories in Portugal. And falls in love--yes you fans of love, he doesn't forget about you.
So he died the other day, had been sick. It is said that his good-bye was placid and serene.
The bulk of a Saramago book was a companion the many times I reached into or from my backpack, removing a piece or replacing one. If I think about what those days were like, five to six months ago already, I think of that fabulous writer.
So he died the other day, had been sick. It is said that his good-bye was placid and serene.
Thursday, 10 June 2010
How I Damn Near Bought a Kayak Last Night
Jubilee avenue was Lake Jubilee when the storm hit. A couple with my last name, but no relation, had been trying out kayaks during Product Demo nights and had taken one home.
It was a tandem model, perfect for paddling Lake Jubilee, about four feet deep. At first they kept to the street, that late afternoon, but after a while paddled right up to neighbours' front doors. "It was tippy," said Gladys later. "People handed us hot chocolate."
This went on until sundown when they swung the kayak around and tracked north over Langley then west for the last time.
It was a tandem model, perfect for paddling Lake Jubilee, about four feet deep. At first they kept to the street, that late afternoon, but after a while paddled right up to neighbours' front doors. "It was tippy," said Gladys later. "People handed us hot chocolate."
This went on until sundown when they swung the kayak around and tracked north over Langley then west for the last time.
Friday, 4 June 2010
Monday, 31 May 2010
Tomorrow, then. Straight to Jubilee.
I've been wondering for several minutes how to get back to work. Deleting now about from between minutes and how is as far as I've gone. And turning up the volume on my random five cds.
Last week I attended my son's convocation in Vancouver. In breaking our joint two-week abstention from liquor of any kind--this was the night before--we wondered if arbitrary goals meant anything. Depends on the context in which the goals were set, is the sensible answer, isn't it? (The process of composing pieces of poetry might be one context for usefully arbitrary goals. If not, I'm screwed.)
On the way out to Vancouver on the plane, anticipating that conversation (which we'd begun on the phone), I read the June The Walrus cover to cover. About three quarters of the way through I came across commentary about Micah Lexier that began by quoting Igor Stravinsky. I didn't write it down--something about the generative and liberating powers of arbitrary goals--but I did clip it and pin it to his bulletin board when he wasn't looking. (Poor guy--he gave up his bedroom for me and slept on the couch. Then after work he was heading across the line to the Sasquatch music festival until today. He won't spot the clipping until tomorrow, I'm guessing.)
So, I know my Hillsdale work is not done until, among other things, I've written on location on every one of its streets. I'm working backwards alphabetically; a version of K, for Knowles, is my May 20 blog entry. What I particularly like about that idea is that it ends with Anderson, my boyhood home, where we moved in '61.
Last week I attended my son's convocation in Vancouver. In breaking our joint two-week abstention from liquor of any kind--this was the night before--we wondered if arbitrary goals meant anything. Depends on the context in which the goals were set, is the sensible answer, isn't it? (The process of composing pieces of poetry might be one context for usefully arbitrary goals. If not, I'm screwed.)
On the way out to Vancouver on the plane, anticipating that conversation (which we'd begun on the phone), I read the June The Walrus cover to cover. About three quarters of the way through I came across commentary about Micah Lexier that began by quoting Igor Stravinsky. I didn't write it down--something about the generative and liberating powers of arbitrary goals--but I did clip it and pin it to his bulletin board when he wasn't looking. (Poor guy--he gave up his bedroom for me and slept on the couch. Then after work he was heading across the line to the Sasquatch music festival until today. He won't spot the clipping until tomorrow, I'm guessing.)
So, I know my Hillsdale work is not done until, among other things, I've written on location on every one of its streets. I'm working backwards alphabetically; a version of K, for Knowles, is my May 20 blog entry. What I particularly like about that idea is that it ends with Anderson, my boyhood home, where we moved in '61.
Saturday, 22 May 2010
Crude Audio
Four times I walked the path through the woods between the Emma Lake Art Camp and Fern's Grocery at Murray Point last June. For fun, I had my Sony mp3 recorder running. The result is four tracks averaging 11-12 minutes each--mainly footsteps and birdcalls.
In case you listen to these tracks, using the link to the right, you may want to know that the "Brando" talk refers to the last in a series of poems set in Stan Still's cabin at Emma Lake. Everyone at the party--one of my grandfathers, Virginia Woolf, Robert Kroetsch, Jack Kerouac, a monk from St. Peter's Abbey, Ella Fitzgerald and Marlon Brando--was alive at least between 1927 and 1930. On the day of the four walks I'm musing about how to make the Brando piece (which I'll record and add to the site later).
If you're a writer friend who likes birds, you'll hear your name mentioned during the third and fourth walks.
In case you listen to these tracks, using the link to the right, you may want to know that the "Brando" talk refers to the last in a series of poems set in Stan Still's cabin at Emma Lake. Everyone at the party--one of my grandfathers, Virginia Woolf, Robert Kroetsch, Jack Kerouac, a monk from St. Peter's Abbey, Ella Fitzgerald and Marlon Brando--was alive at least between 1927 and 1930. On the day of the four walks I'm musing about how to make the Brando piece (which I'll record and add to the site later).
If you're a writer friend who likes birds, you'll hear your name mentioned during the third and fourth walks.
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