Fred Penner

Just a photo of me and my new friend, Fred Penner. It was taken at the Hillside Festival in Guelph last weekend. Such a fantastic experience to meet a childhood hero!

Nostalgia

"Being nostalgic is like taking an offramp and getting a sandwich – and then you get back on the highway. I don't want to be spending the rest of my life at the gas station."

- Eddie Vedder

Word Cloud: How Toy Ad Vocabulary Reinforces Gender Stereotypes

I believe all social experiments should include at least one word cloud. This is why.

And so it was ...

2010

I've never been a huge New Year's Eve fan, meaning the flashy outfits, cheap dollar-store tiaras, and the outrageous cover charges, but I've always loved the idea of ringing in a new year. To me, this means reflecting on a year gone by and looking forward to the next one to come.

2010 was an emotional year, filled with (at times) absolute bliss, but also heartbreak. I don't think a month passed where we didn't receive news of a death, whether of a friend, a mentor, a friend's parent, or a grandparent. Just yesterday, Jordan's grandmother passed away. And only a week ago, an old colleague's son drowned in Ottawa. Most of the people we lost were way too young, and left us way too suddenly.

But this year was filled with emotional highs. Jordan and I saw France. We ate at French restaurants. We cooked French food in our apartment that overlooked the Eiffel Tower. We had an emotionally charged, but wonderful day, exploring the area around Vimy Ridge. We travelled through the Riviera, exploring Nice, Monaco, Saint Paul de Vence, to name only a few. I could go on and on about how incredible our trip was, and how it has only given me the urge to travel more.

There were amazing concerts (Sufjan! Flaming Lips!). I met Farley Mowat! I acted like a tourist in Toronto for the first time, finally going to the top of the CN Tower and taking a cruise to the islands. There were trips to Ottawa (Two this year) and many, many great days and nights with friends in Hamilton and Toronto.

And now it's time to celebrate, and hope for a happier 2011. Instead of waiting in line at an overpriced bar, we're heading to Matty's for a low-key cocktail night. Cheers to 2010, and welcome 2011!

How Facebook and Twitter Are Replacing Blogging

How can I not re-post an article with this title, as it's exactly what seems to be happening here on my beloved blog. It's not something I'm proud of, and not something I hope continues, but I've made false promises before.

Amisfield

Today the morning started off with a visit to Amisfield, right near my house. Who knew? We were lucky enough to get a peak inside as well.

An original photo of the building can be seen here.

Bliss

Nice, France

I will be in Paris in three days!

City of Lights

Last night I did something that I've been planning for a very, very long time -- I booked a flight to Paris! Five weeks from now Jordan and I will be spending a week there before heading to the south of France to spend another handful of days on the beach in Nice (and surrounding area).

Trip planning has been monopolizing a lot of my time (and budget!) lately, but besides that it's been a busy summer. A few weeks ago I headed to Ottawa for Bluesfest (and to visit a wonderful friend who I haven't seen in at least three years), where I saw my first Flaming Lips show. I've been lucky enough to see dozens of amazing concerts over the last decade, and this one was right at the top of the list. They closed the show with "Do You Realize" and it really was just one of those moments where the whole world seems to pause. It was unreal. The photos don't even do the craziness of a Flaming Lips show justice.

That's it for now, but I do hope to bring a laptop with me on the trip so I can post photos, etc., while I'm in France. If anyone has any recommendations, please let me know!

"All of us see ourselves in her."

I hate to say it, but twitter has replaced my blogging. Luckily (for my all-but-abandoned blog), this quotation is more than 140 characters long.

Why we love Liz Lemon, from Girldrive:

"All of us see ourselves in her. With the women from Sex and the City, maybe we saw ourselves in that we have those conversations with our girlfriends, but I don’t think that most people [really] saw themselves. But Tina Fey’s character is so popular because people feel like floundering basket cases. Especially now … You prioritized your career over personal life and it creates a whole set of issues."

- Liz Tigelaar

All Grown Up

R.I.P Dan (From Auteur Recordings)

I wish my return to this neglected blog was to share some happier news. Instead, it's to share a piece written by my wonderful better half about the death of his close friend and producer, Dan Achen. He's heartbroken, as the rest of the Hamilton arts community is by Dan's sudden death. Dan truly believed in The Rest and gave them so many opportunities, and for that, I'm thankful.

The Rest at Catherine North


From Auteur Recordings

I’m really happy I knew Dan Achen.

Last Thursday I hung out at Catherine North Studio. I was stopping by to pick up a guitar that Dan was helping me sell. A guitar that Adam and myself had purchased off of Dallas Green a few years back while Dan and I had been working on Dallas’ record. I had just finished working my 4th consecutive 10-hour shift and was super exhausted. I told him how my plans for the afternoon were to grab the guitar and run home to nap before a show that our band The Rest was playing. In true fashion, Dan successfully transformed our five-minute meeting into almost 4 hours.

“You gotta try this coffee, smell it, doesn’t it smell good?”

“Smells awesome.”

“You take yours black right?”

“Yep.”

“Me too… but with cream. Haha.”

I’ve had the pleasure of knowing and working with Dan for the past five years. I remember the first time I met him. We wanted to record a full length, and our friends from the band Cities and Dust had been working at his studio. Through them Dan had heard our demo for Innocent Fools, and after seeing an amazing photo of the studio we met up at Doors Pub here in Hamilton. This same photo on a business card with a friendly handshake landed Dallas and countless others at his door.

Dan loved to sell you on stuff, whether it was a guitar, or a Mac book, or an idea for 5-second section in a song. Dan could convince with such passion. And our first meeting with him was no exception. Still to this day I’ve never heard anyone explain the mechanics of a melotron with such enthusiasm. Dan loved to talk about gear, how it worked, what it sounded like. His love for it was infectious.

Last Thursday was no exception either. As I walked around downstairs at the studio I looked over and noticed a strange looking electric guitar.

“What’s that?”

“It’s an Idol.” (A crazy looking 60s Japanese electric guitar)

“Cool.”

Dan then picked up the guitar and played some blues riffs. I think I’ve heard him do the same thing a thousand times now when he picks up a guitar. His tester riff. It’s like 4 chords and then some dancing. It’s always impressive. Then he hands it off to me and I try my best to pretend like I can play something.

I’ve had the pleasure of working a lot with Dan in the past 5 years. I’ve engineered records with him, mixed records with him, driven to airports to get people for him, mopped studio floors for him, made coffee, cleaned toilets, driven 2 hours away to pick up pre-amps for him. I would have driven 20. When you worked hard for Dan you could always tell he appreciated it and would reciprocate ten fold. Dan had his hands in everything we worked on. Even the allegories record that was recorded in my parents’ basement was transferred to tape by Dan, dithered by Dan, sent to mastering by Dan. With The Rest he turned a group of sloppy, naïve, high school buddies into a real band. Dan’s power was in his ability to give others power, and that made him truly special. I spent countless hours staring at a screen mixing albums with Dan. And we truly had an amazing work system together. It took a lot of convincing to let him let me mix records at first, but I’m so happy I was bullheaded enough to pull it off. I’ve learned more about how to make music from him than any other person in my life.

On Thursday we sat down at the mixing console and he showed me his newly acquired vintage speakers. I told him how excited I am for the new songs that we are working on. He was super excited to mix new stuff with these speakers. We spent the next hour or so listening to stuff back and forth, speaker set to speaker set. He glowed about how much air he was getting off of the two inch machine. He told me how he had been playing more guitar than he had been in years. He showed me what he had put down on Amanda’s record. It’s fucking amazing. The next day I saw her and blurted, “It’s fucking amazing!”

And I’m an absolute mess right now because he is gone. And I can’t help but be thankful that I didn’t go home and take that nap. I will forever miss him and be grateful to him for all of the good he brought into my life.

It’s really hard to sum up a person in just a few words but I will say this about my friend.

Dan loved his family. Dan was great at what he did. Dan was an endless source of inspiration and enthusiasm. Dan was cool as shit.

I’m really going to miss you Dan.

- Jordan

Literary Mourning

Two full months into a new year, and I've yet to post. Not good. Not good at all.

Stumbled upon this article in the New York Times this morning. I'm not familiar with Barry Hannah, the author who died of a heart attack earlier this week, so I can't eulogize him here as I often do when people of note die.

However, I did find this article about his work — and how we mourn authors — completely beautiful.

"It’s strange, the way we mourn our writers. We react to the news of their passing, typically, by rushing out to buy their books. Volumes that have sat on shelves for years, gathering dust and perhaps remainder stickers, are suddenly carried off in stacks. For many writers, especially those in midcareer or of midrange repute, death is the best (and last) great sales push they ever get. I like to think of the posthumous book purchase as an example of what Raymond Carver called “a small good thing,” offered up as consolation and condolence for those yet living, part of the same chain of motive that fills homes in mourning with casseroles and pies.

Knowing that this is how the reading public mourns, it makes perfect sense, and is even in some sense commendable, that bookstores come swift to our aid. Nonetheless, the sudden appearance of memorial tables and displays may leave a sour taste in the mouth of the literary mourner. However noble the motives, however dignified the presentation, commerce in the face of death is ghoulish. It just is. And what’s worse, the Memorial Sales Display turns the experience of loss into a jostling for front-of-table real estate. It is, in this sense, quite terrible, a compounding brutality to the fact of the death itself."

"All things go ... All things go ..."

My 2000s playlist.

I've been thinking about compiling a list for awhile now — listing the songs that were constants on my discman, minidisc player, and eventually my iPod in the 2000s. This isn't a definitive list and it changes day by day, but these, for the most part, are the songs I blasted through Eli's speakers, danced to at Zaphod's, belted out in a front row of concert halls and listened to on repeat in an unforgettable decade. All things go ... All things go ...

1. Lover’s Spit, Broken Social Scene

2. I’m Trying to Break Your Heart, Wilco

3. Untitled #1, Sigur Ros

4. Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois, Sufjan Stevens

5. Neighborhood #1, Arcade Fire

6. My Girls, Animal Collective

7. Memory Lame, Jim O’Rourke

8. Jesus, Etc., Wilco

9. Yoshimi Battles on the Pink Robot, Part 1, The Flaming Lips

10. Chicago, Sufjan Stevens

11. Ballad of a Lonely Construction Worker, Cuff the Duke

12. Bird Gerhl, Antony and the Johnsons

13. Glosoli, Sigur Ros

14. Cause = Time, Broken Social Scene

15. And I Remember Every Kiss, Jens Lekman

16. I’ll Believe in Anything, Wolf Parade

17. How to Disappear Completely, Radiohead

18. Reservations, Wilco

19. Crane Wife 3, Decemberists

20. Lost Cause, Beck

21. So This is Goodbye, Junior Boys

22. Skinny Love, Bon Iver

23. Thin Blue Flame, Josh Ritter

24. Lover’s Spit (Bee Hives version), Broken Social Scene

25. Widow’s Walk, Swan Lake

26. Wake Up, Arcade Fire

27. Did You See The Words, Animal Collective

28. She Sends Kisses, The Wrens

29. District Sleeps Alone Tonight, The Postal Service

30. Guaranteed, Eddie Vedder

31. Hummingbird, Wilco

32. Molten Light, Chad Vangaalen

33. The Park, Feist

34. Tiger Mountain Peasant Song, Fleet Foxes

35. Do You Realize, Flaming Lips

36. Stars and Sons, Broken Social Scene

37. Your Ex-Lover is Dead, Stars

38. Combat Baby, Metric

39. One More Mouth, Josh Ritter

40. At Least That’s What You Said, Wilco

41. Walking For Two Hours, Twilight Sad

42. Devastation, The Besnard Lakes

43. Bye Bye Bye, Plants and Animals

44. Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl, Broken Social Scene

45. Universe Above, The Vanity Press

46. Piano Blink, Hawksley Workman

47. Hope There's Someone, Antony and the Johnsons

48. Hymn 101, Joe Pug

49. Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago

50. Decibully, Tables Turn

A Charmed Life, by Liza Campbell

I read this one on a beach, toward the end of summer, while camping with a group of friends. I think because of that I'm somewhat biased. It really is the best way to read a book.

As the daughter of the 25th Thane of Cawdor and the last child born in the fairy-tale castle made famous by Shakespeare, Liza Campbell was privy to not only wealth and history, but also to the madness of a father fuelled by drugs and power, all of which are documented in A Charmed Life, a beautifully written memoir that is rich in detail, but somehow leaves readers wanting more.

Farm City, Novella Carpenter

All right, I'm going to have to start doubling up on my one-sentence book reviews until I'm all caught up. Just one tonight, though. Ben is sleeping on one of my arms, so typing is a time-consuming endeavor right now!

Farm City, by Novella Carpenter

Inspired by her hippie parents and a love for the fresh food and city life, blogger-turned-author Novella Carpenter chronicles her heartbreaking failures (think mangled carcasses following a wild dog attack) and triumphant successes (backyard self-sufficiency) in her witty memoir, Farm City, The Education of an Urban Farmer, a tale of dumpster diving, mail-order poultry, and above all else, mouth-watering, sustainable food.

Playing Catch Up

I should have known my ambitions were greater than my time management here. Just a week after beginning my one-sentence book reviews, I've already failed miserably. I have some catching up to do! And I will catch up, I promise!

Time Windows, by Kathryn Reiss

One of my favourite books from childhood, Time Windows by Kathryn Reiss, is just as addictive fifteen years after I first cracked its spine, as it follows Miranda's discovery of a life-like dollhouse capable of transporting her back in time, taking her on an adventure that seamlessly weaves tales of the underground railroad, World War II, and even a child's body in her own attic...

Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape, edited by Jaclyn Friedman and Jessica Valenti

Twenty years ago today, 25-year-old Marc Lépine opened fire at the École Polytechnique, killing 14 female engineering students before turning the gun on himself. In remembrance, today's one-sentence book review will be on Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape, edited by Jaclyn Friedman and feministing founder Jessica Valenti. Both are reminders that each day women are targeted and victimized simply for being women.

In attempt to move beyond the "no-means-no" model associated with rape, editors Jessica Valenti and Jaclyn Friedman assembled an impressive cast of writers, including Hanne Blank and Stacey May Fowles, in a revolutionary and necessary anthology that should reach beyond women's studies classrooms, encouraging readers to critically view the ways in which society vilifies female sexuality and pleasure, thus supporting a culture of rape.

Half World, by Hiromi Goto

Swept into a violent purgatory, Melanie Tamaki is the unlikely hero of Hiromi Goto's novel for young adults, Half World, a twisted, yet addicting, tale of three mysterious realms, brimming with vivid detail and beautifully illustrated by Skim's Jillian Tamaki.

Columbine, by Dave Cullen

Ten years after two gunmen opened fire at the now-notorious suburban high school, Columbine, Dave Cullen -- a respected American journalist present at Columbine on the day of the attack -- released his haunting tale of tragedy, Columbine, which acts not only as a chilling tribute to the 12 students and one teacher who died on April 20, 1999, but also debunks dozens, if not hundreds of the myths, rumours, and errors that defined Columbine, many of which continue to circulate in the media a decade later.

Notice a trend here? I read a lot of non-fiction! I'll try to switch it up tomorrow.

My Life as a Dame, by Christina McCall

Weaving together personal journalism and social commentary, the late journalist Christina McCall was known for her eye-opening looks at Canadian politics, including, among many subjects, the Liberal Party of Canada and the women's movement, two topics that are included in My Life as a Dame, an anthology featuring some of McCall's most memorable work, acting as an excellent read for fans, aspiring journalists and even those, like myself, who are unfamiliar with McCall's work and her contribution to Canadian journalism.

Egg on Mao, by Denise Chong

Beginning with a paint-filled egg, hurled upwards toward the giant oil painting of Mao that hung in Tiananmen Square in 1989, Denise Chong's Egg on Mao is the heartbreaking, yet inspiring, true story of Lu Decheng — a Chinese man whose act of vandalism helped to unmask a violent dictatorship — acting as a humanizing snapshot of one person's quest for change that is easily of the best non-fiction releases of the year.

Let the run-on sentences begin!

Inspired by today's launch of the Advent Bookblog and a pathetically low 2009 post count right here on my own blog, I've decided that I'll make myself useful in December by committing to write a one-sentence book review each day. Seems simple enough -- Hell, I probably write hundreds of sentences a day, but I have a feeling this might be a greater feat than I imagine. It requires both commitment (amidst Christmas shopping and holiday partying) and calling on my memory to think of some of the titles I read this year. While I can't promise each review will feature a book written in 2009, it will feature a book I read in 2009.

Let the run-on, likely front-loaded sentences begin!

Proving he didn't drive himself too close to the brink of craziness during his previous two experiments-turned-books, Esquire's Encyclopaedia-reading, adulterer-stoning, pigeon-egg fondling A.J. Jacobs was back in 2009 with the Guinea Pig Diaries, a succinct, yet hilarious series of social experiments, each highlighting Jacobs' awkward fumblings and witty anecdotes, while at the same time shedding some light on the absurdities of modern North American life.

Feeling inspired.