Too much rock (need to sleep)

On Wednesday, Leah and I went to see a show at Massey Hall. Her flute student's high school band was playing in this massive Toronto District School Board band extravaganza. I'm talking about three hours of high school bands and choirs, featuring everything from your standard band medleys, to a steel drum band, to four hundred kids singing songs from Evita.

And then last night (after dinner with Leah's boss and his family), we went to the Rivoli to see some bands from Guelph play. I think it must be the nineties in us that appreciates the vaguely hippied-out beard rocking indie scene, as opposed to the slightly stuck-up and trying oh-so-hard to be artsy cool Toronto music crowd.

Or maybe its just that, without all the pretentiousness, the music tends to be better.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to see the last band play, which is really the one that we wanted to see... but that seems to be the usual story when you are a working stiff. Also, Katherine showed up unexpectedly, which was fun.

In other news...

Da da da da da da...

The great thing about iTunes is that everybody at work can share their music. And for some reason I keep listening to early/mid-nineties Snoop Dogg and Dr Dre... (and the odd Sean Paul jam too.)

Lunch break

Today I walked up to the library during lunch. The weather is nice. On the way back I walked down a residential back street. At one house, the wooden stairs up to the front porch had fallen down. An old lady was lying face down, her body stretched awkwardly over the steps and porch, with her head resting on the bottom step.

There was a young man crouched down beside her. I asked if they needed help, and he told me that her husband was inside calling the ambulance, and that the stairs had obviously collapsed.

It was so weird because the whole scene was so calm and out of place. It looked almost like a film set or something. Since I couldn't really see any way to help, I kept on walking...

Weekend update

It's Monday...

Friday - I don't think we did anything. I can't really remember.

Saturday - We went to Goodwill and Salvation Army and bought some clothes. We also went to get Leah's guitar from Mike's house. He showed us the kickass review and writeup he got in the paper for his album. 3.5/4 stars.
That evening we went over to Jeremy's to pick up an 8mm camera.

Sunday - Laundry and church. Church was a lot of work, since it was our turn for setting up and tearing down, Leah was leading worship, and I (due to my lack of organizing/scheduling abilities) ended up running sound. It all worked out OK though (despite my lack of skillz). Sometimes I forget how so many churches often tend to miss the point, and forget that ours is pretty darn neat (we actually refer to 'the Bible' quite a bit, for example...)

Rebar

I had not heard of this group, but their Park(ing) project is pretty neat.

Idiot people...

This morning I found out about these two separate incidents of infuriating stupidity...

The sidewalk carving outside St Andrews subway station has been ground away by the city... (I especially like the response from St Andrews church, as they proudly encourage everybody's idea of Christians as dumbass uncultured rich white people who don't give a crap...)

[edit] I don't mean to ignore the work that St A's does feeding and helping to house people... I just don't know why this is presented by them as an either/or scenario - as in we can house and feed this guy OR we can respect him and his art.[/edit]


And, on the other side of the world, more rich dumbass white people paint out massive chunks of a thriving street art scene.

Hallelujah

Hostages freed!!! We were just praying for these guys last night...

Tuesday

Hmmm... Not much to say today.

Last night at the Gem was fun, as usual. If you live anywhere near Davenport and Ossington then you should try to make it out occasionally.

I hope to be able to go to this festival, if only to see Danielson, SF59, and Miranda Stone... (a little expensive though).

What else?
I keep listening to a Dear Nora & CFTPA cover of a Missy Elliot song called Hot Boyz. It is strange and good. I want to hear the new CFTPA album...

It's Monday...

so that means it's time for the weekend update.

Friday - we went to Don and Kevin's to hang out with the team, minus Kevin and Jen. I was really tired, so it was less fun than it should have been.

Saturday - We went to the library in the morning - I checked out a couple of books. After stopping in at Nova Era, Leah had to go to Mike's to play music. I went with her, just to help carry gear. After listening to some of the Loitering Heroes recordings-in-progress, I took off. I wanted to go to Mitchell's (Christian bookstore) and IKEA, and I thought I could do both by heading over to Islington. I made the trek out to the middle of nowhere, only to discover that Mitchell's is pretty lame and mildly depressing. At least that's how I found it this time.

For some reason everything is arranged according to some bizarre cataloging system that means you cannot find ANYTHING that you are looking for without asking for help. Also, I'm not convinced there is much there worth looking for. There were a few books on post-modern emerging church stuff that I couldn't be bothered with, and one on contemplative prayer, that held my interest for about 2 seconds, until I realized it was a 'new', 'contemporary', 'contextualized' version of The Practice Of The Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence. Of course, they didn't seem to have the Brother Lawrence version of the book (which, I might add, is probably 5-10 times shorter).

Afterwards I got back on the bus in the hopes that it would take me to the terrifying blue and yellow world of IKEA. Instead, I rode the bus around the Islington and Lakeshore area for about an hour, finally ending up back at the subway station. I didn't really mind though, and I managed to finish Paul Auster's Red Notebook.

That night we ended up watching Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Kazakhstan, with Don and Mike. It was my first exposure ever to Harry Potter, and I thought it was pretty decent.

Sunday - laundry, and then church. Setting up all the sound gear was smoother than ever, and church was good, as usual. Afterwards we went to see this band that a friend is in - so today I am tired, as usual.

Kalimba Rock

I was happy to find this feature about Laura Barrett in local trash-rag Eye Magazine today.

Reading, 'riting, and rocking out...

I finally finished GenX this morning on the bus... I was getting tired of rereading it, so I had to finish it in order to be done. I agree with sentiments that Dougie C. tends to write stories along similar parallel lines. I still think that LAG whoops the papery buttocks of his other books.
I am looking forward to seeing the park he is co-designing for downtown TO.

Next topic...
I have started a writing project of sorts. If it goes anywhere at all, maybe you will one day hear more about it.
If all goes well, I will be part of a design team taking part in a design charette competition at the Design Exchange. It will be good to engage the cob-webbed spatial design corners of my mind, assuming I can find my way back to them.

And Rocking...
Last night L and I went to see Dan Howlett and Joe Grass play at the Red Guitar. Danger rocked out on bass guitar. Although I regret not sleeping as much as I'd like to, it was worth seeing them play - they are all darn good, and occasionally there songs reminded me of James Taylor / Mark Knopfler / Bruce Cockburn... even Bob Dylan. Just that old-guy vibe of writing and playing good songs, telling good stories, and in this case, appreciating the landscape of small-town Canada.
Today I am listening to U.S.E.'s album, turned way up.

Recording

Leah and I both woke up in a bad mood. I don't know why - maybe grey and windy and cold has something to do with it. I put on some Tom Waits while she was in the shower, and it seemed to fit the weather perfectly.

Last night we did not make it to the Gem. I hope to get back there soon, as I haven't been in two weeks now. I miss it.

Instead, we went to an apartment down on Queen West so that Leah could play some flute parts for an Ohbijou song. It is a great song (in the key of twee...), and Leah had fun playing. It sounded good. Turns out the guy doing the recording produced the Final Fantasy album. His apartment is a crazy mess of computers, mics, and assorted gear. Owen's harpsichord is even sitting in what I think was the bedroom, amidst instruments, posters, and more gear. It was neat watching him record; he seemed to make it effortless.

I sat in the corner, by the window-sill of ironically ghetto beer cans (the can design reminded me of store-brand diet cola - all cheap and gold and silver...), and answered questions about what I do and how Leah and I met. It was fun.

Week update

So, last week was pretty great. I left on Monday afternoon for Guelph - I took the Greyhound, which is not unpleasant when the sun is shining and the bus is pretty much empty. I listened to Sufjan's Michigan album, which seemed like the perfect soundtrack...

I got in to Guelph, and then took a cab to Loyola House, which is about 10 minutes from downtown. It is on some farmlands that have been owned by Jesuits since 1916. The house is basically a residential wing of small bedrooms, a wing of offices for staff, and a kitchen/dining/lounge section. There is also a chapel. The whole place is furnished in a simple style that reminded me of pictures of Shaker farmhouses. The lounge has a fireplace, large windows overlooking farm fields, rocking chairs, and blankets. The dining room is always open, and is stocked with coffee, tea, cookies and fruit. My room was basically a bed, a sink, a desk and chair, some drawers, and a rocking chair.

Everyday you are served 3 meals of amazingly good, simple food. There is mass at 11:30 each morning. And you meet with a director once a day for about 20 minutes. At this meeting you talk about each day, what you prayed about, and where you thought God was speaking to you and directing you. The directors are all old Jesuits, and they suggest scriptures to read and pray through. This meeting is pretty much the only time you talk every day.

For the rest of the time you can do whatever you want to. Mostly people pray, sleep, and write. I also went on long walks through snowy farm fields, and then later in the week through really wet thawing fields. I took a bunch of pictures too, which I will post once I get my film developed (yes, old school pictures).

That's about it. I got back on Saturday afternoon. It was a bit of a shock to go from such quiet right back into Toronto. I am trying to keep a little bit of quiet inside of me! I think God directed me in certain ways, and I am going to try to continue praying (listening) for these areas of my life.

Anyway - I will post more later. And pictures. I would recommend checking out the Jesuit retreat scene, if you ever get a chance. Zellyn and Jesse C., I think you guys would especially be into it.

Vacation / Retreat

I will be at Loyala House for the week. If you like, you can pray for me while I am there. That would be cool.

I will miss my wife.

Church

Last night we had our weekly church small group meeting, known at our church as 'Living Room'... It was, as usual, hilarious and fun. Everyone seems a little worn right now; maybe because we're in the last weeks of winter, maybe because school (for those in school) is dragging into the post reading-week stretch of the semester. Anyway - it was great to get together and pray and sing and eat.

And laugh. Dylan told some hilarious stories of his encounters with the world of hard-core music; illustrated with some informative dancing/flailing move demonstrations. He also told us of some crazy punk friends and there casual attitude towards decorating the house that they rent (spraypaint), and there casual attitude towards learning how to tattoo (each other and themselves). As usual, his animated story-telling style made things about 12 thousand times funnier.

It is great to go to a church that is fun, where you can talk about things like guys buying girls pants, knitting, the myspace emo factor, portfolios and interviews, mouth-breathing nerds, 'mouth-breathing nerd' hipsters, hipster typologies in general, the city sketch factor, baby beavers, 'spirit fingers', and pretty much anything at all of interest, and also be encouraged/uplifted by it all.

Here We Are Now...

I recently got around to replacing my lost library card - so I have been reading again. I seem to go through cycles where I read a lot, and then go illiterate for months at a time.

Anyway - I just picked up Gen X at lunch time. I have been wanting to reread it for a while, and a copy must have recently rotated into the local library branch up the street.

Every now and then I seem to find myself up against the idea of Generation X again. I'm barely old enough to qualify, so I feel a half step removed from the concept. But maybe not far enough away from it to be able to get a good overall look at it. What I do know is that Gen X seemed to have a lot to shout about at one point, and that all of that shouting somehow ended up being turned into cool music, books, and movies. While I like cool music, books, and movies, and think that they are important (we listen/read/watch to know we're not alone), I sometimes wonder what happened. I mean, Gen X issues were expressed a lot, but never really addressed in any real way, were they?! Everyone eventually moved on to the next thing. I guess I need to be a little more specific; maybe I will in a future post...

Anyway - I'm sure I will be finished reading the book shortly, so if you know of any other books that you think I should read (not necessarily about Gen X, just good books in general), please comment accordingly...