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@Thane15     I am devoting my day to music and cooking, two things I can do to create positive energy. Friday is Remembrance Day, and tomorrow is a school closure day, so today my son’s school has Remembrance Day assemblies all day. He is in the choir, so he gets to spend much of the day in the auditorium singing, including multiple goes at the national anthem. I told him that today, he really has to sing it like he means it!

@mudlark     Omg, the whisky. I was so tempted last night, but I didn’t do it. Tonight, however, I  there might be mojitos as I am cooking Cuban food. And we all deserve a little sunshine today (it’s not happening outside here, either!).

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@Thane15  @janetteb  @miapatrick @mudlark

I read that 70% of Trump supporters think life was better in the 1950’s, and wish America could go back to that. !!! Tell that to women, and blacks, and gays, and so many others that were downtrodden or persecuted in the golden era of America. And of course Thane is absolutely right, it’s astonishing to think that these people really believe that Trump can give them their old lives back. For better or worse, those days are gone. In my unsympathetic moments, I think that if they would suck it up and educate themselves, instead of sitting around complaining that the factory jobs are all gone, they and the rest of us would all be better off. But they don’t like the new world, can’t accept it, and won’t adapt to it. And then someone comes along and tells them things that they really, really want to believe, so they believe. There’s bound to be horrible anger somewhere down the road, when these people all realize that they’ve been had.

One thing that saddens me is this “Make America great again” business. Because what made America great in the first place was immigration, innovation, and the ability to adapt to circumstances. Not a desire to turn back the clock and keep people out.

My husband and I were talking with a friend last night about the government, and the dilemma that awaits them. Many, many of these Republicans repudiated Trump during the election. What will they do now? Will they speak out against him if necessary, or will they just fall into line, happy to have their majorities back? We shall see who has any integrity, I guess.

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Feeling so terribly, terribly sad, discouraged, depressed this morning, after only about a half-night’s worth of sleep. Thinking about the large number of people who at some point in the next four years are going to wake up and understand how thoroughly they’ve been played, and will be very, very angry, I found this refrain running through my head: God damn them all, I was told we’d cruise the seas for American gold. We’d fire no guns, shed no tears. Now I’m a broken man on a Halifax pier, the last of Barrett’s privateers. The immeasurably great Canadian icon Stan Rogers.

 

 

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@missrori

The thing is, I don’t actually believe that we are “owed” happiness, and I don’t think that the Doctor would believe that, either. I think we have to earn happiness, and we do that, not be doing good things and being rewarded, but by choosing to be happy. We have to choose happiness, regardless of whatever we are dealt that might not make it easy. We have been left hanging for a very long time with the Doctor’s story, but we did have one little glimpse of his post-Clara life in the Christmas special, and it does seem to me that he has chosen happiness, once again. He has always chosen it, it’s how he has been able to let go of all those companions that he loved in the past. As for “being the Doctor”, I don’t think that’s something that he can choose. We saw Eleven try it after losing Amy and Rory, and it didn’t work out terribly well for him then. He certainly wasn’t happy. My two cents.

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@puroandson

Great Tom Lehrer number. My husband grew up in the Boston area, and his dad was a Harvard grad who was tone deaf but had a fondness for Lehrer’s humour. As a result, Mr. Arbutus grew up on his songs. I would have to think that some of them were pretty inappropriate for a little kid to be singing along with, but I don’t think my father-in-law thought about things that way. Anyway, I don’t suppose it was any stranger than me singing along to Tom Jones’ “Delilah” when I was 8 or so. (For those who don’t know, very melodramatic song about a man who murders his woman and her lover!)

@whisht    Your tastes are nothing if not eclectic.

In a completely different vein from any of the above, I was listening to this last night. Gorgeous bass playing.

 

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@pedant      I did mean to comment on the remarkable Jenkins piece you posted. Really, really powerful. Thanks! (And to @jimthefish for the article links, too.)

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My hero.

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@pedant      That’s a great tune. I love the 1970’s hairstyles on those guys, takes me right back to the day!  🙂

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@cathannabel       Thanks for linking, nice work. My son included Blowin’ in the Wind as part of a poetry analysis project he did a few years ago. Seriously, no one with any familiarity with Dylan’s work could say it wasn’t legitimate as poetry.

Tears of Rage is a gorgeous song, I was first familiar with it as done by The Band. Another lesser-known poetic gem is this one:

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@puroandson      This might do, courtesy of Arbutus Jr.’s playlist. It might even be on one of the EA FIFA soundtracks, he has picked up a lot of favourites from those!

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@puroandson       Civilise YouTube? Even Don Quixote wouldn’t have taken that on. 🙂  You’re very brave. I make comments in very few places. I stepped out of my huddle today to post several things on a news story about the politically-motivated, undemocratic firing of the Vancouver School Board by the provincial government this week. Trying to explain to someone taking the simplistic view that if they had “done their job” they wouldn’t have been fired, that if that budget in question had been the real issue, the firing would have happened back in June. I linked to lots of people with presumably greater authority than my own saying basically the same thing- “It’s political, stoopid!”. But this is a big deal for me, I have to be feeling pretty outraged to respond to these stories. Better just to listen to some nice jazz and calm down.   🙂

 

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@pedant      You must be on time delay, the door was locked and bolted a couple of hours ago.  🙂  For their sins, the Jays now get to go to a quiet place and think about how they can be better. Meanwhile, the door is still open for the Cubs, whose fans are even more long-suffering than we are up north.

Meanwhile, @puroandson’s news is much more positive, and I prefer to be positive. Well done, Puricle! That must be down to the 2 1/2 hours a day of practice. This is in the end why we follow sport, not for the highly-paid professional athletes who at critical junctures forget how to hit/kick/shoot. If I can think of an appropriately celebratory tune, I will post on the Music Thread. Meanwhile, salut!

(Btw, Son of Puro might be amused to know that Arbutus Jr. has embarked on a plan to educate me in the footballers of my maternal homeland, Ukraine. This week’s subject is Yevhen Konoplyanka, who plays for Schalke, although his real team is apparently Sevilla.)

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@puroandson     Hello, sweet Hybrid! I love “pupil-free day”, but surely for you, it’s a “teacher-free day”? Or maybe Puro Solo counts as a teacher? You know, the older I get, the more convinced I am that the planet is swarming with very stupid people, people who in harsher periods of history would not have survived their own stupidity. I try hard not to be too cranky about it, and I try to be nice, because I think that’s important. But really. Seriously… stupid… people.

I wouldn’t say technology repels me, although it does sometimes render me highly irritable. Moral of the story… never unplug anything. And I find that music fixes most things (or at least, drowns them out!).

Love, Arbutus   🙂

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@puroandson        Arbutus Junior is in Grade 12, but school runs from September through June here, so the fun has just begun. Festivities are next spring but the photo shoots are in the fall, hence the early purchase of the suit. I admit we dropped a stupid amount of money on it, but between you and me, he looks gorgeous!

They call it “prom” here, too, although when I was in school, it was still “grad dance” or “grad ball”. Prom comes midway through May, convocation early June, and then exams and completion. Not a lot of time for the brain cells to regrow, but a bit, I guess.

Your dress sounds lovely! My grad dress was yellow (still one of my favourite colours). I have learned only recently some of what Junior has experienced throughout high school, but it doesn’t seem to have damaged him any. They are very protective of their innocent old parents, aren’t they, these lovely boys? We’ve given Junior a fair bit of rope over the years, which he hugely appreciates now, knowing that many of his friends weren’t so lucky. I agree about the silliness of these kids whose parents never tell them to just get on a bus, for crying out loud.

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@puroandson     As well as what to do with all the tickets you just had to keep 

Personally, I attach mine to the fridge with magnets. Currently, I see the following: restaurant receipts from  Mexican, Cuban, and Puerto Rican restaurants in Chicago, unused Taste of Chicago food tickets, the tag from a Hawaiian pineapple bought in Oahu, and receipts from various places in southern Italy that date as far back as 2006.  🙂  These are mixed in with the official family portraits taken at the top of tall buildings, and mostly quite old photos of Arbutus Jr. in various sports uniforms. If you’re wondering whether the outside of the fridge ever gets cleaned, the answer is “Don’t be silly.”

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@pedant     The Indians appear to be doing to the Jays what they did to the Red Sox. Still, at least the Sox’ll get Encarnation next year

Oh, shut up. I refuse to believe that yet. Although if things don’t improve on Monday, strong drink may be required. And the Sox can have Joey Bats. I’m starting to think we won’t miss him.

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@winston     They did. I could go on and on, but I will try not to.  The game was close, they just couldn’t get their big bats going.  🙁   I’m telling myself that they just need to get back to their own sandbox, with their own fans, and get their Latin machismo back!

I suppose you’re entitled to drink all the coffee you want, if you don’t drink beer, wine, or whisky!    🙂

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@puroandson      We have a Rancilio Silvia. It was the smallest decent one we could get, and it’s served us well for quite a few years now. It does have a steamer, but only a single heating unit, so you have to heat up the steamer, use it, then turn it off and let the heat readjust for a few minutes to pull your shot. Mr. Arbutus has gotten excellent at it, and even Junior and I can do it now. I forget what it cost, but it wasn’t remotely $5000!

Craft beer has really flourished all over North America, and the microbreweries are proliferating around Vancouver now. Our neighbourhood (because we live in Hipsterville) has more than its fair share. They’re kind of fun, because a) the beer is fresh;  b) a growler refill is excellent value;  c) they act like little pubs, where you can sit and have a glass or two with a snack, but because they can only serve each customer a small amount due to licensing, it never gets drunk and disorderly;  and d) they are all small businesses, which is cool.

I’m with you, by the way, I could never drink a whole pint beer, way too filling. And nowadays, I can’t even drink a whole can of ginger ale without going into belch mode (not on command!).

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@winston  @puroandson     Oh, yes! I forgot to add The African Queen, that’s a favourite of mine, too. I am compelled to point out, though, that Hepburn wasn’t in True Grit, she was in the sequel, Rooster Cogburn and the Lady. She was fabulous in it, of course!   🙂

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@puroandson      Joke received and duly laughed at.  🙂  I’ve always assumed “pulling” referred to pulling the lever on the tap. @pedant may well know better than me, though! But over here, our tap brews are definitely not coming from the cellar. In the microbreweries near me, in fact, you can see the tanks in the back. Maybe “pull me a gin and tonic” refers to the fact that the tonic is on tap, so again, you would pull the lever? We also talk about “pulling an espresso”. Again, levers are involved (in the high-end machines in the shops, anyway; ours at home has switches).

@pedant    North American craft brewers have fun making beer in all kinds of traditional European styles, and thus we do see top fermentation here from time to time. There is, literally ( 🙂 ) beer for every taste here nowadays.

Son of Puro… Katherine Hepburn is one of my very favourites! I especially love The Philadelphia Story, and some of her great stuff with Spencer Tracy. Years ago, I used to love one called The Rainmaker, with Burt Lancaster. I have to admit that the wisdom of years tells me that the two of them overacted to a stunning degree, but I loved the story, and my second cat, a personable Siamese, was named “Starbuck” after the Burt Lancaster character.   🙂

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Wow, I turn my back for a few days and the pub is filled with interesting conversations! My current obsessions (baseball playoffs, my son’s new 3-piece suit, classic cocktails, memorizing Hoagy Carmichael songs, etc.) have kept me preoccupied for a few days.

@puroandson      his virtual world needs a new word for ‘met’ as ‘read’ wouldn’t work, exactly     I don’t think a new word is required- I feel that I have met you all!

@puroandson @pedant @mudlark @cathannabel

The problem in North America is with the concept of “cellar temperature”. Your average beer-drinker here doesn’t have that option, especially in the summer. It’s either warm or cold. Also, even with the craft beer explosion here, I’d say that the vast majority of beer being sold is lager, and crappy lager at that.

I confess to drinking more beer than I ought since our discovery this past spring of three excellent microbreweries within walking distance of our place. We haven’t bought bottled beer in that time, but take growlers of various sizes and fill them up with something appropriate. I’ve also been learning to cook a lot of Latin-American food over the past few months, which cries out for a nice beer (west coast pale ale works pretty well!).

@pedant    When I was 14, my mom remarried, and my sister, three years younger, got memorably drunk by going round the room and draining people’s abandoned champagne glasses! My mom couldn’t understand why she was so sleepy at 5 in the afternoon (I knew perfectly well what was going on!)

Alcohol in varying amounts has been a part of our son’s life since he was small-  little bits of wine and beer earlier on, glasses of wine with dinner later, and now that he is 17, a cautious intro to the world of hard alcohol. In the spring, he will graduate, and he and his friends are planning to spend a few weeks backpacking around Europe in the summer. Hopefully, as alcohol won’t be new to him, he will keep out of serious trouble!

Regarding punctuation, I won’t go too much into my obsessive love of the semi-colon; however, I try very, very hard to guard myself against overuse!  🙂

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@puroandson       Dropping by to check out the new pub and answer your question about the MLB, as this seemed like a better place than the music room and I haven’t been in yet! I see some more cerebral conversation has been going on, but I’ve already had a cocktail and a bit of beer, so I’m probably beyond that sort of thing right now. (I’ve been learning to make a proper Old Fashioned with rye whiskey, what a really nice drink! 🙂 )

MLB= Major League Baseball. Almost entirely American except for our Toronto Blue Jays (who won the second of their best of five yesterday, although it was harder work than the first!). I confess I have entirely abandoned the great Canadian pastime of hockey for baseball, which I find on the whole to be a lot more fun, and it has a certain Zen to it which I like. It also has an astonishing complexity of rules for what would seem to be a pretty straightforward game (hit the ball and run). So the Jays just need one more win over Texas to move on up to the American League final. (MLB is divided into two leagues, American and National. The champions of each league play in the World Series.)

So I’m all about baseball right now, Mr. Arbutus is watching the progress of the New England Patriots in the world of American Football, and Arbutus Jr. is monitoring his various soccer clubs, including Liverpool F.C., Borussia-Dortmund, and A.S. Roma. We have interesting conversations over dinner. 🙂

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@puroandson    I’m not a metalhead, but lots are. No shame to Puricle there. Arbutus Jr. has a varied taste, about the only thing he really doesn’t care for is pure rap, as like his mama, he prefers a tune. One of his bands of choice is the American indy-rock band Imagine Dragons, and lately he’s been listening a lot to this track, which reminds me of nothing so much as some of the heavier arena rock of the seventies (or maybe even late sixties). He was interested when I told him I found it very retro. See what Puricle thinks of it.

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@craig     Interesting! I fully agree with @puroandson’s excellently-written assessment of this, I don’t see most of those similarities as particularly startling. Quite honestly, within the basic harmonic structures used in pop music nowadays, there just aren’t enough possibilities for every song to be utterly different. Not too long ago, I was able to point out to my son that the riff he likes in a particular TV theme is identical to one from a Bob Marley song. He knows the Marley song in question, just didn’t recognize the riff in its new context.

As a musicologist, I’m just familiar enough a millennium’s worth of music to believe that anything is ever really new anymore. I remember going once to a June Tabor concert and hearing her introduce a song as dating back to the 18th century- true as far as it went, which wasn’t far enough, as I knew it as a renaissance song from the late 16th. :-

@pedant      The thing about the infamous canon is that it’s based on a “cycle of fifths” style progression that is one of the most attractive, and therefore most common, progressions in tonal music. So I’m betting that at least some of those songs “based on” Pachelbel, are actually just following the same convention, a common one in 18th century music.

Love “Don’t Sleep in the Subway”!

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@whisht @puroandson

Mr. Arbutus sends thanks for the birthday wishes. Wine and tea were certainly had, and pie because he likes it better than cake.

Nice tracks! I have the Bags & Trane recording, isn’t it gorgeous? I think inspired duets are one of the greatest things you can get in a jazz performance. I have fond memories of Boogie Nights from my high school days. 🙂

Okay, riffing on a whole other theme now, but I have to give this one as I am about to listen to a ball game (only the MLB schedules playoff games for the middle of the day, as far as I know, it’s a strange kind of insanity). Toronto dominated Texas yesterday and Canada was happy; hoping for another good one today- if not, I will be back later with a sadder tune!

Go Jays!

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@puroandson   Okay, I was actually going to post something rather different last night, but I had to go away for awhile to recover from your epic post.   🙂   It’s hard to follow something like that, frankly.

@whisht     Yes to Sun Ra! I can curl my tongue, but that’s it for my skill set (and how I wish I could raise one eyebrow, that’s such an effective trick!). However, I can whistle, which I used to take for granted until I found out that my son can’t do it. Perhaps I’ll add it to my c.v.

Okay, pinging now. Or is it ponging? I forget. Mr. Arbutus had his birthday last week, and I loaded him up with early music and jazz cds. Here are a couple of highlights. (Speaking of superpowers, I would adore being able to play either the medieval vielle or the saxophone!)

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@puroandson      Of course. I knew that your birthday tied in closely with one in our household, but it was Junior’s rather than Mister’s! That’s a big deal for the Puricle (and you too), first birthday away. And a good long way away, as well.

I think that a fair number of these young people are just toughened to what’s around them, because young Arbutus says the same sort of thing about the words and attitudes he encounters at school. He seems to accept a certain amount of stuff as just being a part of the world. I suppose that’s a realistic approach. Perhaps wisely, he kept quiet about much of this stuff during the years when I might have been tempted to get involved. He’s simply beyond that now, as a 17-year-old, I really have to let him deal with things as he chooses (while assuring him that I will stand behind him if he ever needs it).

We are continually challenged, aren’t we?   🙂

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@blenkinsopthebrave       Thanks for that. I admit I looked them up after watching @whisht‘s clip. There was an amazing amount of creative energy flying around in those days, wasn’t there?

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@mudlark     I love the idea that we have a special relationship with the season in which we were born. I know it works in our house. I love spring best, and I have a May birthday, and my husband’s birthday is upcoming, and he definitely loves fall (apples, pumpkin pie, cooler weather). I believe Puro Solo (@puroandson) has a birthday next week as well? But for you it would be spring; is that your favourite?

Puro, Arbutus Jr. won’t be punching out any lights, as he is pretty sure he would lose that battle. He doesn’t hesitate to use his mouth, however! Interestingly, as he is a peer counsellor this year, he just spent two days on retreat, where they did role playing and learned about empathy statements. It occurs to me that possibly everyone in high school ought to be taught about empathy statements! It would at least send them into Adultland with some proper communication skills (and maybe a few fewer trolls).   🙂

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@whisht         Okay, that’s just… astonishing. I have no response.   🙂

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Listening to this gorgeous track today, lovely Richard Rodgers tune all jazzed up by Brubeck and Co. Everything about this makes me smile!

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@puroandson        It is, isn’t it? I guess that means it’s getting hot again for you. Yes, here it’s cooling off, although lovely and sunny this week. Lots of tomatoes in my garden (and almost nothing else, it was a strange summer to say the least).

Just finished lengthy chat with young Arbutus about Grade 12, wannabe hoodlums in his school, and uni applications (OMG!!!). Kramer the cat let me sleep until 5:30 this morning and then let me go back to sleep for another hour. Impressive restraint on his part.

I’ll just run over to the music thread and drop off a little something before bedtime!   🙂

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@puroandson   @ichabod

I’ll probably see Sully at some point. I think the first clue regarding the “down to earth” take on the story was the casting of Tom Hanks, who tends to get the “everyman” role most of the time. I admit I like him and have seen a lot of his work. (Other than some of the really depressing ones; as I’ve gotten older, I find I have very little interest in feeling terribly sad at the end of a movie. I can get there all by myself pretty easily! I’d rather come away smiling.)

Last week, with Mr. Arbutus away, the offspring and I brought in sushi and watched a movie. He suggested one of his favourites, Catch Me If You Can, the story of master cheque forger and fake artist Frank Abignale (who I must say Young Arbutus admires a bit too much for my comfort! 🙂 ). I had never seen it as I am not a fan of Leo DiCaprio. But I enjoyed him in this, and Tom Hanks was excellent as the hard luck FBI agent trying to capture him. What I noticed at the time was the way Hanks never let his portrayal get overly emotional, which it could have done. He made him very matter-of-fact, doing his job, trying to get the bad guy, but a pretty sympathetic character in an understated way. Also there was the value-added of listening to Hanks do his fabulous New England accent, which never gets old for me!  🙂

@ Winston     I loved Absolutely Fabulous, great show!

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@pedant     No, I got that from @whisht‘s posts from yesterday. I actually meant that no one from The Band has died lately (although several of them are sadly no longer with us).

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@whisht     Oh, I didn’t know.   🙁   Thanks for those tracks.

I’ve listened to your last few without giving back. Bad, bad Arbutus. Here’s one to make up for it. I’ve been listening to Music From Big Pink pretty much non-stop for the last 48 hours (not sure why, it has just engaged me this week!).

No one has died (not recently at least).

For me, this is the best ever version of this Dylan song. I’m not sure whether it’s the amazing way the three very different voices come together, or the combination of atmospheric electric guitar and wacky keyboard work, or just the way the voices and instruments all sort of work to sound like an amazing orchestra. I just think it’s perfection.

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@missrori @winston @ichabod @missy

I wrote out most of this reply to your discussion on the Husbands of River Song thread, and then realized that it really belonged here!  🙂

Sometimes people have to find themselves in particular places, circumstances, or company, in order to achieve their full potential. This has been in the front of my mind lately due to some writing I’ve been doing, and then my son brought it up again yesterday in a sports context. He was talking about certain footballers who didn’t make much of an impression until they ended up in a particular situation, and then became like comets, and the exact reasons for the change weren’t always obvious. Sometimes the place into which someone is born, or winds up through circumstance, doesn’t allow for the right kind of growth. Then we can wonder, when the Doctor chooses a companion, is he subconsciously seeing something in that person that can only be released by the particular qualities of the life he leads? Eleven did say something like “I never know why, I only know who.”

This is one reason why Donna’s fate was so upsetting. She was self-aware enough to actually understand what life with the Doctor could mean to her, she sought it out, and became something she would never otherwise have been. And then it was all taken away from her, like a reset. Except that she might not have been completely reset after all. Like the Doctor’s experience in both Heaven Sent and Hell Bent, perhaps the reset wasn’t complete, and although the memories were gone, the inner changes that they brought remained? Because I think that was explicit in HS/HB, it suggests that it could also have been true for Donna. I’d love to think so!

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@puroandson       My boy (I shouldn’t really call him that, he’s 17 years old and 6 foot 3, but I can’t help it!) seems to have a very broad taste in TV and film. He does enjoy action-type things, especially if spies or heists are involved and some humour thrown into the mix, but the last movie he saw was actually Woody Allen’s Cafe Society, which he said he really liked and recommended that I should see it. Some of his favourite movies are classics like Casablanca and The Sting, but he does go with his friends to see what I can only describe as frat-boy flicks, and seems to enjoy those, too! I think he had expressed an interest in Suicide Squad, but he hasn’t seen it yet. He does all his TV watching on Netflix, and his current pleasure is a cop-comedy called Brooklyn 99. I haven’t seen it, myself, but he thinks it’s pretty funny.

Personally, my list of flawless films would include The Princess Bride, Casablanca, My Favorite Year, Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner, and The Blues Brothers. There are probably others. I really liked Midnight in Paris and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and I’ve always had a great affection for The Hunt For Red October, and the stupidly funny Big Trouble in Little China. So I guess, in terms of breadth, I’m not that different from my son after all!  🙂

Please give your Mom a big hug from me. I am nursing along my old laptop, which is called Salento, trying to eke another year out of it. I took Flash off because it tires out the hard drive and makes the fan come on, and have learned which websites it just doesn’t like. For videos or youtube, or browsing the more active websites, I stick to the iPad.

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@puroandson      We are enjoying getting to know Kramer, with all his little quirks. He is a real sweetie, if a little needy still (fair enough given all he’s been through!). It’s nice to have a cat again, as I said to the guys, it’s good for me to have someone to talk to other than myself!  🙂

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@puroandson         Son of Puro, I agree! I always preferred the “compare and contrast” method, as it always felt more orderly to me. I could move back and forth between the works and make nice clear connections. But then, I sometimes lost marks for being too concise. When I returned to uni after a few years away, I thought I might major in English, but a couple of nice, solid B’s cured me of that idea, and straight back to music it was!    🙂

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@blenkinsopthebrave     Good for you, Blenkinsops! I completely agree. It would appear that our new friend was abandoned by someone out in the country. He was living wild when he was picked up, and fairly beaten up, but definitely not feral. And he is a gorgeous healthy 3 year old and so affectionate. I can’t understand it, honestly. We are happy to have him, though.

@janetteb   We shall see how it goes. I am hoping that over time he will adapt a bit, or at least, learn that meowing at us throughout the night will get him nothing!

BTW, while it is true that the cost of a decent bottle of wine here is absolutely infuriating, even compared to Ontario, never mind other places, I choose to view it as a natural limiting factor on my intake. Especially in the summer, when I enjoy those rosés and proseccos just a little too much!  🙂

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@puroandson     And I meant to add, sorry to hear about the loss of Stellar. But welcome to the crazy world of autocorrect, lots of fun there if you have a sense of humour (which I believe you do, times 2!).

 

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@winston  @janetteb

Yes, spending time with our friends over there is our version of cottage time, as they live in a beautiful area just outside Victoria, surrounded by nature. And they are enthusiastic wine drinkers, so a great time altogether. It has been hot here (hot for us, anyway) so windows open 24/7 and fans going all night long. As Janette says, we are enjoying it while it lasts, because all too soon, it will be raining. (Although we do, as a rule, have four seasons.)

And by the way, welcome @blenkinsopthebrave to the beautiful west coast!

Last week, Arbutus Jr. made his first camping trip sans adults, up to Garibaldi Park with three friends. They made a three-hour hike into a back-country campground, got wet at night as our old tent is apparently no longer waterproof (oops!), climbed up to a glacier, and saw the Perseid meteor shower. They also ran out of camp fuel so could not boil water on the last day (they only drank what they scraped from the glacier) and couldn’t cook their oatmeal. So when I picked them up at the trail head after three days, they were thirsty and hungry as well as tired. I bought them all burgers and drinks, and then the three boys in the back seat all fell asleep! A.J. said it was entirely worth it.  🙂

@winston   That De Grasse is some piece of work, isn’t he? I think he’s great fun. I think Canada is doing pretty well at the Olympics considering that we are more of a winter sport country as a rule!

I’ve been lurking a bit recently and enjoying the conversations about canon and so on, without feeling the need to add anything. Preoccupied currently with a lot of writing, and trying to improve my grasp of jazz harmony. (I hope the Bach is coming along well, @puroandson!) Also trying to integrate our recently-adopted rescue cat. He’s a gorgeous boy named Kramer, who due to some unknown amount of time spent living rough, has become thoroughly nocturnal and really, really wants us to be nocturnal with him! We’re working on his re-education as far as letting us sleep is concerned.  🙂  But after ten months of catlessness, we are very happy to have him around.

 

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@puroandson    I thought I’d respond in the pub, as that is the appropriate place for sports talk, is it not?  🙂

Thank you for your kind thoughts. That young swimmer is quite a success story, I believe she’s only sixteen! The Australian team is seeing some nice results as well. But I picture Australia as a kind of perpetual beach party, so it doesn’t surprise me that your athletes would be great at summer sport. We just returned from a weekend spent over on Vancouver Island, with some dear friends and their two little boys. Some time was spent in the woods and on the beach, we watched the Olympics (swimming, diving, and volleyball), and generous amounts of wine and spirits were consumed! It was a great time.

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@puroandson      Also, Son of Puro, I have to second @whisht‘s comments about your cousin. She has a great voice, very rich and soulful. I’ll bet she’s great on the blues/soul repertoire. And kudos to her on that gig. Way, way back in the day when I aspired to a career of that sort, I played a few times in those kind of pub-places where you were just supposed to go ahead, and it felt like no one was really paying attention. I found it horribly unnerving, frankly I would have been less nervous in Carnegie Hall! I admire your cousin’s guts.  🙂  Thanks for sharing that link.

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@puroandson         I’m sorry, the ball has been dropped and I dropped it! Happy belated birthday, Puro! Some music for you, and the stories that go with it.

My husband played sackbut this morning at the Anglican cathedral downtown. He and his little gang of sackbutters accompanied the cathedral choir in a half-dozen compositions of 17th-century composer Johann Rudolf Ahle. It was really lovely. I couldn’t find any of the actual pieces that they did, but here is another one, very similar. Lovely stuff.

A couple of weeks ago, Arbutus Junior and I hung out at the Vancouver Folk Festival, and we heard this fabulous band. Junior was particularly impressed by both the music and the message.

And finally, for you, dear Puro (and anyone else who enjoys a good pun as much as I do) a joke I saw today.

This is highly evolved dad joking pic.twitter.com/ew3wj37W5e

— ∴ Dan (@ehthayer) July 29, 2016

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@puroandson        Well, I loved S8, but as I have written here before, Peter Capaldi had me the instant he poked his head out of the TARDIS. He is without doubt my AG Doctor. It also did what I hadn’t expected, in that it was a complete turnaround for Clara’s character. I hadn’t found her time with Matt Smith hugely engaging, except for the 50th anniversary and Christmas specials. I thought that her connection with 12 was so much more immediate and worked much better, it felt like a much more mature relationship than it often did with 11. While I did find her behaviour frustrating at times, and felt that the Doctor/Danny antagonism got a bit much, in the context of the long story it all ended up making sense. I think @janetteb put all that really well. I also agree with @jimthefish that it would have been helpful to see Danny interacting with the Doctor and the TARDIS a bit more than he did.

Also this from @jimthefish:  a little different from the breathless, kinetic style of Tennant and Smith’s best series.   This states exactly my feeling at the time, and personally, I preferred the pace. (Although don’t misunderstand, I loved Series 4 and 5 as well.) I loved the balance of humour and sobriety throughout the series, as well as the change of pace and mood between different episodes. There were none that I didn’t enjoy, and most of them I really loved. I haven’t watched it in quite awhile, but in some ways I actually liked it better than S9, which I also really enjoyed. I actually think that it is the only time in the run of the AG series that I thought a pair of back-to-back series were of such high quality. (Although 3/4 might qualify for me, despite some problems I had with S3. 4/5 can’t really count, as they were split up by the Tennant specials.)

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I saw this and was reminded of some conversation here recently about Xena.

Arnold is still Terminator at 68
Harrison is still Solo at 73
Why are they recasting Xena and Gabrielle at only 40? pic.twitter.com/z788Z1bqSy

— Brianna Wu (@Spacekatgal) December 9, 2015

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@ichabod    It is interesting, though, to think about the s**t that happens this way: “I”, or some continually developing version of me, lived with heat stroke in Egypt, really crazy government in Rome during the Empire, endless cockamamie religious wars in northern Europe, various forms of slavery and prostitution always and everywhere, lots of rough lifetimes at sea, etc.  It’s *always* perilous and stressful on many levels even for the privileged few, but the world wobbles on.  The way I see it, perspective is my very good and helpful friend, when I remember how infinitely adjustable it is.

I love this. Such a great way to look at it!

@ichabod   @puroandson   Regarding the enjoyment of cocktails: In Chicago, we went to a Cuban restaurant where we ordered a whole pitcher of mojitos, a thing neither of us had ever done in our lives before! It felt remarkably exhilarating to this pair of middle-aged non party types. We’ve overindulged in our share of wine over the years, but we’ve tended to stay away from cocktails due to the high prices at the hipster places in our neighbourhood. But a nice rum drink is a treat!

Recently, we have been drinking what is possibly way too much beer since the microbreweries started opening up down the way from our place. We can fill up a growler for an astonishingly low price, with beer that was brewed within the last few days. I have never before understood what a difference freshness makes to beer! Last night we had one that was brewed from corn… who knew?

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Congratulations @miapatrick on your distinction!

@puroandson     They stick to their ridiculous opinions even when their head’s about to be ripped off and eaten by a European bear.      My husband has just started reading a book called Don’t Think of An Elephant, all about why people can be persuaded to hold views that are actually against their own interest. It says that most people, when presented with evidence that disputes their beliefs, will either disregard it, dispute it, or somehow tweak it so that it becomes less of a problem. What they won’t do, apparently, is change their minds. The book gives strategies on dealing with these people. I’ll let you know what he learns!

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I see I’ve been missing lots of lively discussion in the pub, as always. Just back from a week in Chicago. I could rant on and on about what an absolutely wonderful city that is. They are struggling with some horrendous social challenges, but there is so much on offer there that a week was simply not long enough. People are just astoundingly friendly for such a big city, the public transit is excellent, and there is amazing art and architecture everywhere you look. We also saw a Black Lives Matter march (which made a big impression on our son) made up of multiple cultures and which was largely well-behaved, during which police showed impressive restraint and support.

We also pretty much ate our faces off. We had three restaurant meals a day for six days without getting bored, not easy for vegetarians. And we left just before Donald Trump showed up!  🙂

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