Favourite Songs for the Holidays

1. Fairy Tale of New York - The Pogues

If Christmas is a time for family and loved ones, for many of

my generation, raised in an age of Hallmark cards and

sentimentality expressed through consumerism, The

Pogues "Fairy Tale of New York" is the perfect Christmas

song. I don't think I'd ever heard any couple go at each

other the way these two do. I think that's part of the allure

for most people, the whole "You cheap lousy faggot" thing,

but things are a whole lot more complicated that it simply

being a case of these two people hating each other. The

music expresses a nostalgic tenderness - these two hate

each other, in part, because they don't know how to let go

of each other. It's a twisted kind of amour fou.

2. Silent Night - Space Needle

(Sorry couldn't be found) Granted Space Needle, from Seattle, didn't record much, just two albums of 1990s prog rock, but somewhere along the line they recorded an all feedback version of "Silent Night" that was capable of driving people away in droves. It was awesome. I played it on the radio every winter. If you can find it, it's on A Christmas Present to You From Zero Hour Records.

3. Santa Claus is Coming To Town - Bruce Springsteen

While there's a view other versions around,

most of them from the last year or two, this

black and white footage from 1978 more

closely mirrors my own experience with

Springsteen. I think I was five or six at the

time, and Springsteen was in his must-

save-rock-n-roll phase. When the band

changes tempo halfway through, I was

hooked on rock forever. I probably wanted

to learn to play the saxophone in Jr. High

because of this song.

4. Oh Holy Night - Enrico Caruso

There are times though when something more traditional

is called for, and that's typically when I'll admit that my

soft spot is for a more straight-ahead rendition of Oh Holy

Night. Opera legend Enrico Caruso probably set the

standard with this early record. Caruso was the first major

selling vocalist, and perhaps the first pop superstar. He

held many of the best-selling records until Elvis Presley.

5. Little Drummer Boy - Bing Crosby, David Bowie

My wife and I are a secret mission to bring our

daughter over to our side of the cultural fence.

It began with Star Wars and Gene Kelly, and it

continues here. She knows both of these gents

by name as well as their related bodies of work.

BONUS.

Happy New Year's.

1. The Ice of Boston - The Dismemberment Plan

Bowie or Bust, Pt. 5

Bowie or Bust, Pt. 5

Several weeks back, Spectrum Culture has us sit down and listen to the albums of David Bowie. Not knowing which albums they'd ask me to comment on, I made some notes as we went along.

Click here for the official Spectrum David Bowie Playlist.

The Buddha of Suburbia, 1993

Did this really come out at the same time as Black Tie, White Noise? I was rather surprised, considering how dated it sounds. The Buddha of Suburbia on the other hand, sounds oddly fresh, it sounds like an album full of ambient electronica, but Bowie is trying to catch the nascent trip hop vibe. Instead, he’s reaching back and re-interpreting the sounds of the Berlin trilogy. The instrumental pieces that were meant to act as a soundtrack to a BBC adaption of the Hanif Kureishi novel of the same name, are distant cousins to songs like “Moss Garden.”

Outside, 1995

Again, this is one of those albums where, in retrospect, Bowie is playing around with some musical ideas. There’s a big guitar sound that flirts with industrial music. It’s about outer space and it rocks far more than anything Bowie had put out in over a decade. That said, it really doesn’t stand out when placed next to other albums like Aladdin Sane.

Earthling, 1997

Superficially, it would be easy to suggest that this album was conceived to celebrate Bowie’s fiftieth birthday publically. It featured a lot of dance-oriented singles, as Bowie actively encouraged DJs to remix the songs. It buzzes along with a heavy drum ‘n’ bass vibe, but it’s mostly remembered for the stunning video single “I’m Afraid of Americans.” The song is out of sync with a lot of the album, but acts a perfect summation of everything Bowie had tried to accomplish on Outside, complete with a collaboration with Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, bringing a degree of authenticity to those pseudo-industrial sounds of the last album.

Hours, 1999

Bowie has a reputation of being an insincere musical magpie, thieving elements of the day for whatever happens to be his latest album. To some extent Hours falls into this category, but then so could Earthling and Outside. Bowie might be a magpie, stuffing Hours with some pretty standard guitar/drum arrangements, but insincere is too cruel a charge, especially given the deeply personal and emotional charge that “Thursday’s Child” carries. The album as whole also carries a lot of lyrical weight, so maybe it might be fair to suggest that if the music suffers a little on this one, it was because Bowie had a lot of things to get off his chest.

Heathen, 2002

Maybe Bowie just doesn’t know what to do in gentle times. His best albums came out during the turbulent 1969-1973 era, and I guess it’s not much of surprise that the post-9/11 environment saw him release something energizing and haunting in songs like “Slow Bur.n” Plus, much appreciation for a cover of the Pixies’ “Cactus.”

Reality, 2003

For a the brooding menace that found it’s way into Bowie’s work since 1993, Reality has much more of a pop sensibility to it, and not just through the presence of Jonathan Richman’s “Pablo Picasso.” It catches Bowie reflecting on the process of growing old in songs like “Bring Me The Disco King,” and “New Killer Star.” At the same time, he’s still pushing the odd musical envelope as there’s a moment in “Looking For Water” that crafty listeners can determine was the musical bonding point between Bowie and The Arcade Fire, cementing their 2005 collaboration.

Bowie or Bust, Pt.4

Wherein I continue listening the complete solo works of David Bowie, in chronological order, and encounter a profound questioning of purpose with his 1980s albums.

This task was given to me as part of the Spectrum David Bowie Playlist.

Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), 1980

I think few major artists with an extensive catalogue could have been more pleased with an album they released in 1980. Scary Monsters is unique in that in somehow manages to summarize Bowie’s past succinctly in tracks like “Ashes to Ashes”, where he re-imagines Major Tom as a post-fame strung –out junkie, but also sounds as if he’s been paying close attention to the emerging punk and new wave scenes. However, unlike other albums that sound like Bowie’s trying to ride a wave or cash in on a trend, Scary Monsters somehow pulls off the appearance of being of the same gritty musical world as these subgenres without resorting to aping its style. I was unprepared for the cover art, which features David Bowie dressed up as some kind of harlequin. It made me think of Stephen King’s It, while also reminding me of a line from one of Jimi Hendrix’s last interviews, where he claims he’s on the verge of a new musical direction, vowing “I don’t want to be a clown anymore.” Is Bowie thinking the same?

Let’s Dance, 1983

I think I had heard Iggy Pop’s version of “China Girl” maybe once or twice before this, some years ago, but I had never heard the Bowie version, though wife routinely described it as horrible. She even went so far as to claim that Bowie himself tried to distance himself from the track on The Rose O’Donnell show, and elsewhere admitted that he recorded his version to help Iggy Pop out financially. I was expecting the worst, and actually thought it not bad. Same for “Let’s Dance,” leading me to suspect that this is a David Bowie album that a lot of people are embarrassed to own (when everyone knows that ought to be Young Americans), probably because it’s a dance album released just a few months too late.

Tonight, 1984 and Never Let Me Down, 1987

It is unfair to pair these two albums together, as if individually they have little to recommend them, but well, sometimes the truth hurts.

I have this theory about the 1980s, formed in large part by these albums and old reruns of Dynasty, that America was very entranced by artifice in the 1980s. Everything mainstream looked fake – deliberately fake. As in, how big can we make these shoulder pads? How high can we tease this hair? How many extra pop hooks and studio over dubs can we add to this song? More so than Tonight, but Never Let Me Down is almost excessive in its production value. The only studio trick that’s missing is perhaps a guest rapper.

Black Tie, White Noise, 1993

If Bowie’s output in the 1980s were characterized by being over-the-top, Black Tie, White Noise at least exercises some restraint. The worst criticism, and the most telling one, is that it bares absolutely no resemblance to anything else going on musically in 1993. “Pallas Athena” recalls moments from Low and Heroes, but most of the album just gets sucked into the background.

Bowie or Bust, Pt.3

Bowie or Bust, Pt. 3

Several weeks back, Spectrum Culture has us sit down and listen to the albums of David Bowie. Not knowing which albums they'd ask me to comment on, I made some notes as we went along.

Click here for the official Spectrum David Bowie Playlist.

Station to Station, 1976

There’s the pop hooks of “Golden Years” and then there’s the lonesome experimental edge of “Station to Station” itself. I found it hard to believe there were only six songs, but they certainly presented a lot to think about, setting the stage for the three albums that would emerge out of his collaboration with Brian Eno. As I said before with Man Who Sold The World, it often sounds like Bowie is practicing ideas before putting them all together, and that really seems to be the case here. However, the result as unexpected as it is, is also quite endearing.

Low, 1977

Low was a complete surprise, but I found songs like “Always Crashing In The Same Car,” “Breaking Glass,” and “Warszawa” captivating. I was equally surprised that somehow Low had stayed off my radar. Back in my parking lot late night DJ days, “Always Crashing…” would have been a staple.

Heroes, 1977

As good as the title track single was, for me the key to the album was the sequence of songs beginning with side two (from V-2 Schneider on). They are perhaps my favourite string of five Bowie songs, and I’m not surprised that the album caught the attention of people like Philip Glass and King Crimson. Much of what would later for the basis for electronic, ambient music has its roots here.

Lodger, 1979

Oddly, I don’t have much to say about this one. A lot of Lodger is already present on Heroes and Low, but with a dash of early world music, as on “Yassassin.” For those of you counting , the gap between Heroes and Lodger represent the first recording break for Bowie since the interim between his debut and Space Oddity, a nine year stretch that saw him release ELEVEN albums, ranging from folk, bluesy rock, glam, soul, experimental, world, and electronic music. Suck on that Nickelback.

Bowie or Bust, Pt.2

Bowie or Bust, Pt. 2 - 1973-1975

Several weeks back, Spectrum Culture has us sit down and listen to the albums of David Bowie. Not knowing which albums they'd ask me to comment on, I made some notes as we went along.

Click here for the official Spectrum David Bowie Playlist.

Aladdin Sane, 1973

Up until this point I hadn’t really felt that I was missing out on anything from David Bowie. I have a best of compilation that covered the early years and was perfectly happy leaving things at that. I knew that a lot of people seemed to really like Aladdin Sane, as it turned up on quite a few Best of the Century lists back in 1999/2000, but I thought that this was basically on the strength of “The Jean Genie” and “Let’s Spend The Night Together.” How wrong I was! From start to finish, I think this was my favourite “newly discovered” Bowie album, a fitting rock counterpart to the folk of Hunky Dory.

Pin Ups, 1973

Um, an entire album of covers? Aladdin Sane’s “Let’s Spend The Night Together” suggested that this was coming, but to Bowie’s credit it actually took me a few songs in to realize that’s what this album was about, as I wasn’t terribly familiar with early Pink Floyd songs like “See Emily Play” or bands like The Things. It’s interesting to hear cover albums removed from the era of their release because different generations of listeners each find something unique in a particular song (or set of songs). What it was that Bowie fans heard that encouraged them to take this album to #1 though is beyond.

Diamond Dogs, 1974

To me, this album is famous, though it wasn’t until Spectrum asked that I listened to the whole thing from start to finish. The result? Well, remember when I said that Bowie has a tendency to over think what he’s writing about? That’s in evidence throughout Diamond Dogs. While songs like the title track and “Rebel, Rebel” move quickly despite their length; others like “We Are The Dead” sound like essays put to music and a lot of effort is put into describing a post-apocalyptic society. The whole thing was written as a stage show, and some of the songs are very much composed with that in mind.

Young Americans, 1975

If you’re counting, David Bowie had released an album a year since 1969. How did he do it, you might wonder. The answer, revealed during the tour for Diamond Dogs, was large amounts of cocaine. At some point, you might expect the wheels to fall off the bus, and to me, that is what Young Americans sounds like, a big screeching car crash of an album. Bowie on the otherhand, describes it’s sound as “Plastic Soul” something he developed during the second half of the American Diamond Dogs tour. When I mentioned the other day that Bowie’s observational skills could sometimes be cynical and mean (from his debut album), it was in part Young Americans I was thinking of – it’s like Bowie has collected the worst parts of the 1970s and fed it back to people. The sad part? The title track was his first #1 song in the U.S.

Bowie or Bust, Pt.1

Several weeks back, Spectrum Culture has us sit down and listen to the albums of David Bowie. Not knowing which albums they'd ask me to comment on, I made some notes as we went along.

Click here for the official Spectrum David Bowie Playlist.

David Bowie, 1967

The self-titled debut is all over-produced folk music. Bowie’s voice is alternates between high and nasally, and the lecherous, teeth-sucking persona in “Love You Till Tuesday.” It’s mostly forgettable and somewhat surprising that Bowie ultimately found another record deal afterwards. The most interesting feature of David Bowie is that Bowie demonstrates his keen observational skills on “Uncle Albert” and “Love You Till Tuesday,” however, unlike on later albums where he is capable of convincing a younger generation that he’s their co-conspirator, here he comes off as disdainful, sarcastic, and mean.

Space Oddity, 1969

There is little on Space Oddity that listeners did not first experience on David Bowie, except that it all comes together here perfectly. It’s a pattern that would often repeat itself with Bowie, as if his audiences needed to sit through a practice album before the finished product. Yes, “Space Oddity” was hastily put together, but it seems to prove that sometimes Bowie overthinks what he’s doing. Space Oddity appears much more honest and direct with the caliber of songwriting head and shoulders above his debut.

The Man Who Sold The World, 1970

Before engaging in this process, I was only familiar with the title track, courtesy of Nirvana’s Unplugged. It only took one listen though to realize why this was so. After the thoroughly satisfying folk experience of Space Oddity, someone appears to have given Bowie an electric guitar and a huge bag of blow. “The Man Who Sold The World”, may come off as following in the anti-advertising footsteps of the Rolling Stones’ 1956 hit, “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”, but the rest of the album is steeped in post-hippie Vietnam Weathemen themes like “Running Gun Blues” and “All the Madmen”, wallowing in heavy distortion and feedback as if for their own sake (I‘m thinking of you, “Black Country Rock”) . Even though it’s a phrase better used to describe Diamond Dogs-era Bowie, my initial thoughts here were “massive cocaine blowout.”

Hunky Dory, 1971

Going into this, Hunky Dory was my favourite Bowie album. Superficially, it’s aimed at the Flower Generation, but Bowie manages to capture them right at a moment of transition, before all their dreams come crashing down. The signifiers of the 1960s are here with “Song for Bob Dylan” and “Andy Warhol”, while the Velvet Underground were the stylistic inspiration for “Queen Bitch”, but it’s “Changes” and “Bewlay Brothers” that capture the prevailing mood

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, 1972

This is the classic Bowie I’m familiar with. The notice on the back of the album reads “To Be Played At Maximum Volume.” The hits are “Starman,” “Ziggy Stardust,” “Suffragette City,” and to a lesser extent “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide.” Listening to it this time however, it hit me that the opener “Five Years” serves as a fitting closer to the 1960s as a whole, rampant as it is with a sense of the finality of things and of dreams broken.

Superman v. Batman - you know who wins

We've all said this before, but it's elegantly expressed here.

Most Played Music of 2009

Alright, in a few weeks my "Best of" lists and contributions will be appearing in different places, so in order to save that surprise for later, I thought I'd share the music that I listened too most often throughout 2009. These aren't necessarily favourites - sometimes I get stuck when writing a review and listen to something over and over.

Most Played Songs of 2009

1. A.C. Newman, "There Are Maybe Ten or Twelve Things"

2. Dido, "Quiet Times"

3. Asobi Seksu, "Gliss"

4. Beirut, "El Zocolo"

5. Asobi Seksu, "Familiar Light"

6. The Dudes, "Girl Police"

7. Ben Kweller, "Things I Like To Do"

8. Japandroids, "Wet Hair"

9. M. Ward, "Epistemology"

10. Orenda Fink, "Why Is The Night Sad"

Most Played Albums

1. Asobi Seksu, Hush

2. Beirut, March of the Zapotec

3. The Dudes, Blood Guts Bruises Cuts

4. Ben Kweller, Changing Horses

5. Japandroids, Post-Nothing

6. M. Ward, Hold Time

7. Orenda Fink, Ask The Night

8. Doom, Born Like This

9. Hayden, In Field & Town

10. The Big Pink, A Brief History of Love

Ghosts of Year-End Lists Past

While preparing my year end list of albums, songs, and whatnots, I came across this contribution to !earshot in 2001.

!Earshot asked campus/community radio contributors across the country these questions. Scroll down for a sampling of their responses:

1. Three fave albums of 2001?
2. Most overlooked artist/album?
3. Local band that rocked your socks?
4. Best radio moment?

Name: Sean Marchetto

Station: CJSW — Calgary
Show: Radio Free Nowhere

1. Radiohead — “Amnesiac” (EMI), Cursive — “Burst And Bloom EP” (Saddle Creek), Senor Coconut — “Le Gran Baile” (Emperor Norton)
2. Beta Band — “Hot Shots” (Astralwerks)
3. Dan Vacon, both in The Dudes and solo.
4. Flipping though Have Not Been The Same, the new book on Canadian rock n’ roll and finding Dave Bidini telling the story of my phone-in encounter with Stompin’ Tom.

So, how'd I do? Well, Radiohead has three albums that critics are in stumbling over to put on any number of Best of the Decade lists. Cursive followed up Burst and Bloom with The Ugly Organ and Happy Hollows. Are the Beta Band still overlooked and underappreciated? Given that Hot Chip is riding their groove, perhaps more now than ever.

As for Dan Vacon and the Dudes? In 2001 they were still playing on the front porch of Rock Central opposite my old parking lot. Last week they rocked the Grey Cup party, so I guess you could say things are on the rise.

Really the only odd selection is Uwe Schmidt's Senor Coconut, which was a brief moment of levity in an otherwise pretty heavy year. Schmidt's discography though, is something to behold.

To see what other people said, click here.

November's Books

As the month draws to a close, I am just closing the cover on Let The Great World Spin Colm McCann's fictionalized account of events in New York City during the 1970s on the day when a man walked across a tightrope strung between the World Trade Center towers. It's a great character study, with the city itself one of the main characters, and stands quite nicely as a much more compact and unassuming companion to Don Delillo's Underworld.

Last month I read Richard DuFour's book on Professional Learning Communities, Learning by Doing. This month, I'm reading David Townsend's Made In Alberta Reply, Essential Questions. One day soon I hope to update my Exploding Beakers blog with some brief thoughts of these work related books.

I also started reading British historian Eric Hobsbawm's slim volume On The Edge Of A New Century because I was bored one night and frankly too lazy to go all the way downstairs to get my other books out of the trunk of my car. Hobsbawm used to review jazz records under a pseudonym as an undergraduate back in the 1930s, so we get along fine.

With luck, December will be a lot quieter and I'll be able to dip into some pocketbooks.

Books Read
Colm McCann, Let The Great World Spin (2009)

Currently reading:
Eric Hobsbawm, On The Edge Of A New Century (2000)

David Townsend, Pamela Adams - The Essential Question: A Handbook For School Improvement (2009)

J. Lloyd Trump - A School For Everyone (1977)*
Robert T. Kiyosaki, Sharon L. Lechter - Rich Dad, Poor Dad(1997)*
*I'm in no hurry to finish these, but for different reasons

Books Acquired
Zadie Smith, Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays (2009)

How I Spent My Time

I'm a pretty busy guy, it's true. Perhaps I'm a little twisted since my "hobby" is actually more work on top of regular work. Nevertheless, it's fun.

So here's a run down of November:

Under the FastForward Weekly masthead:

Welcome to the Urban Revolution, by Jeb Brugmann

Molina & Johnson, S/T

For the fine folks at Spectrum Culture:

Orenda Fink - Ask the Night

End of the Aughts: Films of the Decade - Brokeback Mountain

End of the Aughts: Songs of the Decade - Kids With Guns

Lou Barlow - Goodnight Unknown

Do Make Say Think - Other Truths

Music Update

Where did the month go? It started with a bit of a lull as Bowie or Bust wound down, giving me some time to listen to the fabulous Herbaliser Sessions 1 & 2 album. Blow Your Headphones was a phenomenal album and I can listen to any version of "Mr. Chombee Has The Flaw" you'd care to drop at any time. However subsequent albums saw the band go into a bit of lull until their rejuvenation with last year's Same As It Never Was, so it's great to hear them re-do some of those mid-period songs with renewed verve and energy.

My ipod got a further dose of UK bump courtesy of the (now) London-based Swedish DJ Annie, who released her campy follow-up to 2005's Annimalia this month, with Don't Stop. It's fun, but kinda light, though this particular track bucks that trend a bit.

Jason Molina and Will Johnson teamed up for something a little darker and edgier with the self-titled Molina & Johnson. Johnson plays mostly piano, Molina guitar, and occasionally I think hear someone play a saw. It's the closest thing I can probably get to earlier Songs: Ohia, so I'll take it.

Molina & Johnson were not the only representatives of Austin, TX to make their way to my ears this month as Gordie Johnson of Big Sugar fame released the third album under his metal-punk hybrid vehicle, Grady. Johnson relocated to Austin five years ago after spending some down time back home in Alberta. Good As Dead, the first post-Big Sugar work I've heard from Johnson, takes me back to those "Dear Mr. Fantasy" days.

I also picked up the latest album from The Thermals, Now I Can See, as well as XXXX by You Say Party! We Say Die!. For me, the rough-and-tumble rhetoric of the Thermals trumps the dance floor friendly tunes of YSPWD.

Finally, after weeks of waiting for it's arrival, DJ Spooky's dense The Secret Song is the most recent composition to attract my attention. It'll take a few more spins for all of it's secrets to tumble out.

Darlin' Don't You Go And Cut Your Hair

I need a haircut. I've been quite conscious of my hair for some time now as, the longer it gets, the more out of place it seems in my work environment. It's made me think of how often haircuts play an integral role in self-identity in the early stages of cultural movements ultimately result in those movements being reduced to a haircut (perhaps the subject of another post). I'm not sure what kind of cultural signifier my hair qualifies as these days, but as the youngest person in my office by twelve years, it definitely sets me apart.

I plan on cutting my hair soon, but since I need a shorter haircut for Christmas, I'm caught in a kind of barber limbo and have to tough it out for a few more weeks.

As an aside, when I was much younger, this is what my classmates said my hair resembled:

When I got older, it looked more like this:

Now, I feel it growing increasingly unruly, more like:

In a few more days, I will be a different character altogether:

October Bookends

October was a busy month and November shows no sign of relenting. Having said that, I did manage to finish Jack Whyte's finale to his Templar Knights Trilogy, Order In Chaos. I was very pleased with the way he ended his chronicle with the unfolding of events in France under the reign of Philip the Fair. Last month, I mentioned that I had been a bit disappointed with the middle volume of the series, Standard of Honour; my wife is reading that particular book at the moment and has no such feelings, so maybe it was just me all along.

I am currently reading Let The Great World Spin Colm McCann's fictionalized account of events in New York City during the 1970s on the day when a man walked across a tightrope strung between the World Trade Center towers. The actual events, I believe, are captured in the documentary Man on a Wire, a film that's been on my to-watch list for quite some time. There's been a lot of talk the last few months about how New York has become a squeaky clean city in the wake of the post-9/11 rebuilding and finance bubble. McCann and his characters, a socialite, a prostitute, two Irish brothers (one a priest, the other a writer), all hearken back to that grittier, edgier, New York that we seem to have lost.

The other book I read in October was Richard DuFour's book on Professional Learning Communities, Learning by Doing. It was quite the unintentional experience. I read it for my nine to five work, and while I had some questions about how to translate some of its Message to American Audiences to the Alberta Experience, it nevertheless became obvious that many people I work with had read his earlier work. The result made me laugh, a kind of laughter that allows you to let go of a lot of pent up baggage. I felt a lot of relief afterwards. Not because of anything that that DuFour wrote about facilitating change, but because it was clear that my organization was following his (or similar) principles and all of sudden their goals became clear. It was like discovering the playbook to the other team.

Books Read
Jack Whyte - Order In Chaos (2009)

Richard DuFour, et al., Learning By Doing (2006)

Currently reading:
Colm McCann, Let The Great World Spin (2009)

David Townsend, Pamela Adams - The Essential Question: A Handbook For School Improvement (2009)
J. Lloyd Trump - A School For Everyone (1977)*
Robert T. Kiyosaki, Sharon L. Lechter - Rich Dad, Poor Dad (1997)*
*I'm in no hurry to finish these, but for different reasons

Books Acquired
None

Moms Against Climate Change

I saw this commercial on TV today and it brought a tear to my eye in a completely sincere and non-ironic way.

Because it's totally true in the cynical sense that after watching a decade of post-Battle in Seattle news coverage, I don't think the riot police would stop just because these protestors are children.

I'm also glad that Moms Against Climate Change are running the ad above in an attempt to shame Prime Minister Stephen Harper into action. I don't know what else will. Harper's been letting us down since his election:

Here.

Here.

Here.

Here.

Here.

Here.

And here.

After his uninspiring I'll-go-if-everyone-else-is-going example of leadership regarding the proposed Climate Change conference in Copenhagen, no one will be mistaking him for Lester Pearson anytime soon. Oh wait, Harper isn't really interested in Pearson's legacy, after ignoring the Fiftieth Anniversary of Pearson's Nobel Peace Prize and founding of UN Peacekeeping.

Good job Stephen. Way to make us proud.

Spread the Word

New "What Sister Ray Said" T-Shirts available from Zazzle.ca. Believe it.

I'm Making Some Love and Put My Root Down

It was a gloomy day here in Cowtown. My wife and daughter are at the end stages of their colds, and really all we wanted was some soup. So, with my daughter peeling vegetables, my wife chopping, and myself relegated to washing dishes, we took this:

and added them to this:

to achieve this delicious root vegetable soup:

Understanding Your Family

Sometimes it takes awhile to put two and two together.

This past week I've been asked for my Best Albums of the Decade picks, and in the process of compiling my faves, I realized that there's a significant gap in my record collection during 2003-04. I mentioned this to wife and she matter-of-factly declared "d'uh." It took me a moment to realize that she was referring to the birth of our daughter in 2003. With her birth, I took a step back from quite a few things to devote time and energy to her. Collecting records easily went on the back burner.

For someone who studies history and pop culture, there are some surprising gaps in my knowledge, specifically for a lot of mainstream pop events that happened from 1974 to about 1982. As my wife and I watched tv tonight, a Kenny Rogers song appeared in the soundtrack. She groaned, expressing her disapproval of the song. I shrugged and admitted that I didn't know it, musing, "Sometimes I think the seventies never happened in my house." No sooner did I say it, than I suddenly realized why - the seventies were a hectic time for my parents, with the births of my brother and I followed by our move from Vancouver to Calgary. My parents were too busy being parents to indulge in the pop ephemera of the seventies.

Goodnight and Farewell, Reverend Ron

Earlier today I heard that Calgary community radio station CJSW (my good friends and family), lost one of their most iconic voices in the Reverend Ron, long-running host of The Blues Witness. Reverend Ron was a fixture during my time at the Station, from 1994-2003, and for the last few years I had the good pleasure of of hosting on Wednesday evenings from 4:00 - 6:00 PM, just prior to the Blues Witness. Ron and I saw eye to eye on a lot theories about radio, despite some of the curmudgeonly airs he would sometimes put on. At heart, Ron believed in music and he believed in people. He believed in both very strongly, and would often aggravate people who wanted the one without the other. But that was the point. Radio and music ought to be of the people, and Ron was never afraid to remind us of that.

Somewhere tonight, we know that the Reverend Ron has his own spot in the Church of Get Down Choir he so often celebrated.

Ilie Nastase - That's How He Rolled

Want it? Need it? Christmas is coming.

October Progress Report

So, on the one hand, I'm statistically falling even further behind. On the other, I think I've stumbled back into a productive groove, doing a significant amount of creative writing early weekend mornings, bulking up Games of Chance with transcribing a fair amount of the handwritten copy I wrote during the summer.

I also managed to edit and upload the short story "Psychic Hearts" - while not technically part of my Twilight of the Idles quartet, it is set in the same late 1990s Calgary and would probably be best packaged with them.

Short Stories:
"Of Light and Darkness" - in revision*
* this is part of my Twilight of the Idle short story series along with"Labellypock", "A Night on the Fronde" and "Out of Time (Ped Xing)"
"How My Uncle Faught The Spanish Civil War" - 1000 words
"Il Brute" - 700 words, a short story about living in Bridgeland

Novel Ideas (and working titles):
A Saturday Afternoon By The Slurpee Machine - 2100 words, growing up in NE Calgary, circa 1990
Games of Chance - 14590 words, quasi-related to the current economic downturn
The Last Days of the Daily Wenzel - 8150 words
Father Borsato di Sangi - notes only, about a priest in small town Alberta, circa 1910,
Mt. Pilatus Calls My Name - notes only, a corporate satire

Good Ideas At The Time (Whole draft novels):
joculatores domini - in revision, a novel about parking attendants and the Calgary Stampede
The Liminal Trip - in revision, backpacking through Europe,

October's Total Word Count: 2590

Two other things

Here are two other things I managed to squeeze out of my limited free time:

Orenda Fink: Ask The Night

Best Films of the Decade: Brokeback Mountain

Things I've Done Recently

As my nine-to-five threatens to extend way beyond it's proper borders, I have managed to eke out a few things on the side:

The Big Pink: A Brief History of Love

Said The Whale: Islands Disappear

The Pastels/Tenniscoats: Two Sunsets

Jeb Brugman: Welcome to the Urban Revolution

Enjoy.

Fubar 2

Give'r. Again.

Music Update

By September standards, October slowed down a little bit, though some of you might have noticed my "Bowie or Bust" updates on Twitter (@wenzel), where I tried to work my through Bowie's entire solo artist catalogue. I'll post my thoughts later in November.

As for new stuff, the new Do Make Say Think album, Other Truths, was captivating. Particular the lead song "Do".

The British record label Ninja Tune continued to surprise with a new release Patriot by a group called Cougar. Ninja Tune helped pioneer the whole DJ/turntable revival in the mid-1990s, and until recently mainly put out electronica releases. Cougar, however, has a far more deliberate rock and roll sound, and coupled with the folky Fink album they put out a few months back, marks a real attempt to diversify.

The British Isles also furnished another album I gave steady play too, Two Sunsets, by Glasgow's Pastels, and Tokyo's Tenniscoats, collaborating for a ethereal synthy pop album at times reminiscent of the Lost in Translation soundtrack.

Closer to home Magneta Lane's Gambling with God got things rocking with their bluesy four-four time and Vancouver's Said The Whale, a homage to their cross-Canada travels stacked with a few hometown songs like "False Creek Change" that helped inspire some fresh fiction writing.

Generation Bubble

Wow, yesterday's post about hipsters via Generation Bubble led to some costing around their website and brought back a flood of memories from the early days of The Daily Wenzel. I think it fair to say though that Generation Bubble does everything we set out to do far better than we ever managed to accomplish it. I tip my imaginary hat to them and encourage you all to read what they have to say.

(To be fair to my colleagues in The Daily Wenzel though, I couldn't help but notice that the members of Generation Bubble are geographically spread out. Clearly this is advantageous to overcoming the drinking and socializing that tended to undermine our literary efforts.)

More on Hipsters: His Bowtie Is Really A Camera

Generation Bubble posted a translation of a recent article by heavyweight philosopher Slavoj Zizek. In his article, Zizek bent his considerable intellect to the task of considering "hipsters", a topic that I am finding more and more interesting thanks to Kaya Oakes' discussion in Slanted and Enchanted.

I can't say that I understand everything Zizek is saying (since some might argue the extent to which he says anything at all), but it seems to me that really all he is saying is that we throw around "hipster" as a derogatory term because we feel insecure about our own identities. To a certain extent, I think this would only be true if all our relationships with other people were premised on exchanges of power and status. It's a pretty cynical point of view, but certainly we can all think of some people in "the scene" that we would accuse of harbouring these views. Further, given government policies of infiltrating suspected subversive groups, it's not wholly unwarranted to be suspicious.

On the other hand, as I argued earlier, any person who's participation in the counterculture is limited to passive activities such as consumption, can be defined as a hipster. If we accept that the counterculture is one where all members are encouraged to become more active participants (though we often debate how to define "more active"). However the point to be made here is that the transition from mainstream culture to counterculture is not clear cut, the boundaries are fuzzy, and "hipster" represents a transition state that more senior members of the counterculture ought to help these sympathizers negotiate.

Movies I wished I had time to watch

I find myself in possession of two seasons of Flight of the Conchords on loan, which initially excited me, until I released it meant that I had to find the time to watch eleven hours of television that I don't really have. It's a challenge, but I'm up for up.

Other challenges will include finding the time to watch some movies. The first is Where The Wild Things Are because I'm not sure who will enjoy more - me or my daughter. She loves the book, as do I. But, she has not grown up on Spike Jonze videos for Weezer or the Beastie Boys, or Might Magazine and David Eggers, and she has certainly not been exposed to James Gandolfini.

The second is this upcoming soccer movie, The Damned United, since I rather do enjoy the sport.

Why We Love Pirates

My daughter and I watched Pirates of the Caribbean on the weekend, and she drew this picture during the film. I think it's inspired by the scene where Jack Sparrow and Will Turner steal the Interceptor (the small ship) and are chased the the Royal Navy (in the big ship). The navy has launched a cannonball at them.

Part of my motivation for watching Pirates of the Caribbean was because I watched The Ultimate Gift, a religiously inspired motivational movie. I won't spoil the ending (completely anyways), but at no point did the movie make me fear that the hero would not survive or would fail in his task. It never happened, and so the movie carried no emotional weight. It wasn't poorly acted, and I guess the poor directorial choices could ultimately be blamed on scriptwriting.

As I noted last week, I have not been exactly productive in my own creative writing, but I have been thinking a lot about what works from a plot development perspective. Back in the 1990s I freely admitted that plot was overated and wrote a few parking lot inspired anti-dramas. While I still struggle with coming up with plot devices that I feel are original enough, I do have a new found appreciation for how some of those parts add up to a good story.

Enter Pirates of the Caribbean. What I really like about these three movies is the interplay between the three lead characters of Jack Sparrow, Will Turner, and Elizabeth Swann, especially in the second and third movies where they appear to have set each one up with mutually exclusive goals. The initial goal of any good story is to introduce characters that the audience likes, something accomplished in the first movie. The opening sequence in Port Royal where Elizabeth and Will defend Jack's "honour" also established them as fiercely loyal to their friend. It is this loyalty, combined with our own love affair with these three, that the second and third movies play off. We like these characters and want them to succeed, but the plot has been developed in such a way that we sit awash in tension from knowing that should anyone of them achieve their individual goals, it will come at the expense of the other two.

As an audience, we want to cheer for the main character and the job of the author is to engineer situations that puts our feelings for the character at risk. Either we need to be afraid that the character will fail, won't catch the bad guy or won't win back his or her's lover, but better movies manage to add an extra layer wherein we are afraid that the character will succeed, but only by resorting to some action of which we disapprove. This is why we like films about pirates and anti-heroes; all of the visual cues of the character establishes them as bad guys, and a few will-placed acts of good faith early on wins our trust. The rest of the movie is spent testing the audience with the notion that our trust was misplaced and given too easily.

Psychic Hearts

Maybe it's the dreary weather, but I found some quiet time this morning to finish editting a short story I wrote back in the middle of my undergraduate days. It's called "Psychic Hearts" after the Thurston Moore solo album that came out around that time and pulled heavy duty on my stereo.

Ostensibly, it's a story about what happens on a snow day, one of the worst ever experienced by Calgary, and was inspired by the infamous St. Patrick's Day snowstorm of 1998 that ground everything to a halt (although the temperature did not plunge as much).

Looking back on the story now, it also appears to be as much about being young and hanging out in a city struggling to come out of a recession. I think they were starting to pick up economically even as I wrote this one.

Enjoy.

September Progress Reports

Not much to report this month. Things have been extremely busy in my nine-to-five life, and so not much creative writing got done. I did write half a dozen reviews for Fast Forward and Spectrum, making that one of my busiest months as well. Back in the summer it seemed easy to find the time to write what appeared to be a paltry daily quota of 500 words. Now that my daily routine is back into grinder mode, even making that would seem to be a chore. I am developing the sense that I need to make some serious choices about how I spend my non-work, non-family time as it doesn't look like I have enough time to do some writing, some reading, and exercising each day. I might have to alternate with dedicated days for each activity. The summer demonstrated that I can write in excess of 500 words, so maybe writing 1500 words every three days could be an option?

Needless to say then, I failed to make my 45,000 word tally, and even the revised 25,000 words that I thought would be more realistic didn't happen. In fact, I only managed to type up 1000 words of the hand-written material I generated on my road trip. I also can't say that, as of October 10, this month is going to make up for it as I've written zero so far. Theoretically, my absolute totals for the end of October ought to be 60,000 words, but given my current output, even hitting 22,000 would represent an outstanding achievement.

Hopefully I'll have a better strategy in place for November.


Short Stories:
"Of Light and Darkness" - in revision*
* this is part of my Twilight of the Idle short story series along with"Labellypock", "A Night on the Fronde" and "Out of Time (Ped Xing)"
"Psychic Hearts" - in revision
"How My Uncle Faught The Spanish Civil War" - 1000 words
"Il Brute" - 700 words, a short story about living in Bridgeland

Novel Ideas (and working titles):
A Saturday Afternoon By The Slurpee Machine - 2100 words, growing up in NE Calgary, circa 1990
Games of Chance - 12000 words, quasi-related to the current economic downturn
The Last Days of the Daily Wenzel - 8150 words
Father Borsato di Sangi - notes only, about a priest in small town Alberta, circa 1910,
Mt. Pilatus Calls My Name - notes only, a corporate satire

Good Ideas At The Time (Whole draft novels):
joculatores domini - in revision, a novel about parking attendants and the Calgary Stampede
The Liminal Trip - in revision, backpacking through Europe,

September's Total Word Count: 12000

September Bookends

Wow, we're already into the second week of October and I'm just getting around to reporting on September's reading. I guess that gives you a hint at how busy I've been in my nine to five work and suggests just how much reading of non-reports, non-proposals, and non-emails I've managed to do.

Precious little.

The one book I am in the middle of reading is Jack Whyte's finale to his Templar Knights Trilogy, Order In Chaos. I was a big fan of his sprawling and detailed Arthurian books, and was finding the Templar books a little bit of a disappointment, in that Whyte appeared to be streamlining his style somewhat. Order In Chaos is something of a return to form then, and I am enjoying it very much.

My enjoyment might also stem from the fact it is the only non-fiction book I'm reading at the moment.

Books Read
Gary Small - iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind (2009)

Currently reading:
Jack Whyte - Order In Chaos (2009)
David Townsend, Pamela Adams - The Essential Question: A Handbook For School Improvement (2009)
Richard DuFour, et al., Learning By Doing (2006)
J. Lloyd Trump - A School For Everyone (1977)*
Robert T. Kiyosaki, Sharon L. Lechter - Rich Dad, Poor Dad (1997)*
*I'm in no hurry to finish these, but for different reasons

Books Acquired
None

Maybe I was mistaken

It occurs to me now, having been out of the parking lot attendant business for ten years, that maybe the designers of this t-shirt were being ironic.

Music Update

Man, September has been a busy, busy time. I think I picked up a dozen albums in the last month, which is a lot, even for me. It's a new album every two to three days, which requires a lot of listening. Luckily, I guess, I also spent a lot of time driving across Calgary doing site visits, giving me ample opportunity to listen to a lot of this music.

I stumbled across this Belle & Sebastian side project, God Help The Girl, courtesy of my friends over at Spectrum Culture. It's a kind of concept album, with a story set to music by Stuart Murdoch, who then recruited three amateur vocalists. It's interesting, but I wouldn't go much farther than that.



Speaking of Belle & Sebastian, Spectrum also ran down their recommended playlist for the Scottish group, and I spent a considerable amount of time trying to pick my favourite tracks. The end result? I'm not particularly crazy about Fold Your Hands Child... and I appear to like the "happy" Belle & Sebastian songs.



Speaking of favourites, The Big Pink's A Brief History of Love has been one of my favourites on the year.


I also picked up the Bon Iver Blood Bank Ep.


My friend Dan Vacon, lead singer of the Dudes, released an album under his quieter side-project Dojo Workhorse.



I also picked up the new Grizzly Bear album, which to be honest, really couldn't hold my attention for long.


I also found myself spending some time with Lou Barlow's latest album, Goodnight Unknown:


The new Magnolia Electric Co. album Josephine was something I listened to a fair bit back in August and so picked up the Songs: Ohia album Didn't It Rain on a bit of a whim.

I've also picked up the new Bonnie Prince Billy and Bill Callahan, two highly recommended albums that I hope to listen to more in October. Similarly, Saddle Creek's Orenda Fink has a sophomore album, Ask the Night, that just recently joined my collection.

The Dudes - Girl Police

Wow. When people tell me they love Calgary's The Dudes I'm not surprised. Especially when those people are typical indie rockers, 'cuz The Dudes are rawkers. But when fifty year old ladies tell me they like the Dudes, well, then I can only imagine that the band's on to something.

With their new video for "Girl Police", it's the bumpy bassline break in the middle about who loves who and good ol' Jess listening to Pet Sounds alone in her basement leading into the Thin Lizzy inspired "lovin' is easy" that wins'em over every time.

And of course, it would be a party with the Dudes if the cops didn't show up...