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3 July 2016 at 02:49 #53051
@puroandson Sympathies on the uncertainties of a close election. It’s what we thought we were getting last fall until surprising numbers of voters actually coalesced around a single viewpoint.
I’ve been confused by some of what I’ve been reading, can you clarify for me? Your government has been a right wing coalition, but it includes the Liberal party? In Canada, the Liberals are centre-left and at this point in history, hell would pretty much be an ice rink before they would ally themselves with the Conservatives.
On the other hand, in British Columbia, our provincial government is called the “B.C. Liberals”; however, a less liberal bunch could hardly be dreamed up, in this country at least! Confusing, for sure.
2 July 2016 at 03:57 #53043@puroandson I see you’ve gone all cerebral over at the pub (all very interesting, btw). As we are celebrating Canada Day today, I’ve got the music playing and thought I’d share. Just so you all don’t think that our only musical exports are named Justin, Celine, and Nickelback. 🙂
Today I have listened to the wonderful and idiosyncratic Glenn Gould, and a more contemporary take on Bach from Angela Hewitt. Also the fabulous Marc Andre Hamelin (one of my household gods; coincidentally, I was present at this performance!), and the iconic Oscar Peterson.
Not wanting you to think that we only play piano here. 🙂 There’s loads of other stuff, of course, I have shared it here before, but lately I’ve been listening a lot to these guys.
30 June 2016 at 18:11 #53015@lisa @pedant Speaking from a Canadian point of view, I would have thought that it isn’t so much a case of other countries being completely unwilling to do business with Britain, but more an acceptance (or not) of geographic and economic reality. Canada spent a number of years trying to diversify trade after running into problems dealing with the US, and waking up to the realization that we had allowed almost our entire collection of eggs into that one basket. The situation is much better these days, as I understand it, but still, the vast majority of our trade is with the US. This is inevitable as they are our nearest physical neighbour, and such a big economy. I imagine that Britain would find itself in a similar position with regards to the EU.
Admittedly, the EU as an institution is facing big challenges currently, between the migrant situation and the failure to fully integrate certain economies which probably should not have been admitted in the first place. But I think it is certainly far too soon to write them out. One hopes it would be more a case of working out the bugs and fixing them, rather than disintegrating altogether. But that is the view of someone who grew up in a federation that in many ways operates similarly to the EU. Our provinces are self-governing in many areas, control their own taxation, trade, and resources to a huge extent, while the federal government largely oversees immigration, big trade deals and foreign policy, the military, and many social safety nets, as well as being the last word on constitutional issues. That’s an over-simplified view, obviously, but in many ways, Canada feels more like a union of smaller countries than one big one. There is frequent squawking from provinces (and increasingly, cities) when they feel neglected or hard done by. But by and large, it sorts itself out. It tends to lead me to the belief that more unity is better than less, on the whole. How you get there is another problem!
(Like @puroandson, I appreciate @pedant‘s clearly-stated list of areas in which the EU has “given back” to Britain. To an outsider, these facts aren’t always known and I find them hugely helpful. In a general sense, facts aren’t brought up nearly often enough in this kind of debate!)
26 June 2016 at 23:42 #52936Oh, dear, that was long-winded. Oops. Well, it is a pub, hopefully philosophers are welcome if they buy a round!
26 June 2016 at 23:41 #52935@whisht I’m of the opinion that it’s our intentions that make all the difference. I don’t think we can ever entirely escape our cultural history, our upbringing, our generation, whatever it is that governs how we respond to things and people. Sometimes, it’s enough to understand that our instant assumptions aren’t always justified (while sometimes, of course, they are). I’ve talked with my son many times about the fact that he has grown up in a world (both globally and locally) that is unimaginably different than the one in which I grew up. In mine, Vancouver was a mid-sized city with an insular, small-town feel to it, mostly white with a smallish group of “other”, mostly second and third generation Chinese families whose kids all spoke flawless English and interacted basically like the rest of us, except that they fascinatingly spoke Cantonese at home.
This is nothing like the world my son inhabits. At his high school, white kids are outnumbered by non-whites, many of his classmates aren’t yet fluent in English, and most of them take family trips every summer to China, or the Philippines, or Korea, or wherever. He has some white friends, but more are Chinese or Filipino, or of mixed descent. They all joke quite freely and good-naturedly about their own and each others’ cultures. They eat sushi, pho, and burgers with equal readiness.
His assumptions about people are far more likely than mine to be based on things he has actually experienced in his society, and I think he makes fewer assumptions than I do. I catch myself all the time having those thoughts that you describe, and I’m usually aware enough to “self-correct” as you say. I firmly believe that good intentions count, as long as we remember to act on them as well as have them. My son and I had a long post-Brexit chat the other evening, and we talked about the importance of all the small choices we make every day, and how they all add up to changing the world for either good or bad, hopefully moving things incrementally in the direction we’d want to see them go. Easier said than done, many days! But you try because you have to, right? 🙂
26 June 2016 at 17:57 #52928I originally came to leave this, because, well, it’s epic.
Hands up everyone who had ever heard a bass saxophone before? 🙂
26 June 2016 at 17:54 #5292725 June 2016 at 01:26 #52885@puroandson @all I watched the results come in last night (8 hour time difference so not terribly late here), and when it was all over, I couldn’t help but think, well, the shit has really hit it now, and we’d all better duck. I can’t help but think that there are challenging times ahead no matter what side you’re on (of course, the times have been challenging for awhile now, haven’t they?). I do feel for the young people who might find it less easy to participate in the global economy now, as they really tend to have a world-view much broader than that of older people like myself.
I had a long and interesting talk about it with my son, who is almost 17 and an interesting combination of idealist and pragmatist. In his view, a move away from unity is never a good thing, because he thinks that the world can only end one of two ways, that is, in either a largely unified and mostly equal society, or a divided one in which the haves become increasingly separated from the have nots into a very dystopian world. He spoke lengthily about his ideal that everyone should have equal opportunities, pieces of the pie, etc. I pointed out that this is of course socialism, and while it may seem like a no-brainer to us, not everyone is on board with it. I love hearing his views, as the future is in the hands of him and his friends, which gives me some reason for optimism.
At the same time, his “glass half full” view is that at least the Scots will have another crack at independence now. As a one-quarter Scot, he was greatly saddened that they didn’t make it happen last time. It seems like a contradictory view, but maybe not completely. It amuses me that although he is Canadian-born, (fourth-generation along one branch), none of his immigrant friends could feel more tied to the motherland and nationalist pride in their roots than he does in his 1/4 this, 1/4 that, from various parts of northern Europe!
By the way, Puro, I’m always being told that if women didn’t work, the economy would collapse! Although, I also read someone’s view earlier today that cyclists are bad for the economy because they don’t spend money. ????? I thought, my husband’s a cyclist and he spends loads (much of it on music, coffee, and microbrewery beer, I might add).
22 June 2016 at 06:03 #52828@puroandson “It’s cold” is not a complaint I hear from you very often! 🙂 I do like a song with nice harmonies interesting use of instruments. A group that throws in the occasional violin, accordion, or trombone, for instance, will always win my love. Best of all is a group that will use all of those. 🙂
I give you the fabulous Quebecois band La Bottine Souriante!
21 June 2016 at 04:58 #52822@whisht I’m sure lots of us have a story at least a bit like that. Back in the day, we all heard at least one great “new” song that was actually thirty years old or whatever. In fact, it still happens. A couple of years ago, my son was very keen on this song. He didn’t believe us when we told him that it was using a theme from something 30+ years old. We downloaded the Aha song for him, and he actually liked it better. 🙂
@thedentistofdavros I have no idea if this is the kind of thing you might like, but it’s a song my son introduced me to, by a Canadian group with the fabulous name Walk Off the Earth. My son has great taste and I find listening to his music very encouraging, because it shows me that positive, upbeat, interesting music is still out there! As well as their own stuff, Walk Off the Earth has actually done a lot of covers that they have posted on YouTube, and some of them are very interesting!
(I may have put this up here before at some point, I think it’s a great song!)
21 June 2016 at 04:43 #52821@thedentistofdavros Oh, no, not encyclopedic at all! I have been introduced to so much great music on here that I had never heard before. And the really humbling bit is when six other people come on and say things like “Oh, classic!” and “Great memories!” and I’m going, “Well, all right, then. I guess everyone’s heard this band except me!” 🙂
I know a fair amount of classical music because A, I studied it, and B, my husband, who studied even more of it, has a truly scary memory for music. If it’s classical and he’s heard it, he never seems to forget it. He can identify symphony orchestras by how their brass sections sound, for Pete’s sake.
(Incidentally, he does the same thing with wine. How many times have I brought home something “new”, and he says, “Oh, yes, we had that about 6 years ago and so-and-so’s house, it was pretty good.” Or whatever.)
@thedentistofdavros, I will go over to the music thread and post something for you. Do come and post something back! Anything, something you like. That’s the point. By the way, Freddie Mercury was phenomenal!
20 June 2016 at 02:22 #52789@puroandson @ichabod I think that comment was mine, actually. It wasn’t said so much as an objection to mindful discussion, more that the same points do seem to be made over and over. Personally, I’ve accepted that 1) Time Lord gender change is now canon; 2) it is probably only a matter of time until the right set of circumstances gives us a female Doctor; and 3) this will happen regardless of my views on the matter. I’m not altogether sure I want to see this, only for the reason that in my mind, currently at least, the Doctor is pretty irrevocably male. However, I have no reasonable argument against it other than my own disinterest, which is not really an argument. I may or may not like the change, but I may or may not like whatever the Doctor becomes when Capaldi is done. In both situations, I will certainly watch with interest.
Anyway, that was the thinking behind my saying earlier that I had stayed out of the discussion for the most part, except for my one comment about growth and change being pretty much essential to art, whether or not I personally love the direction it takes.
20 June 2016 at 02:12 #52788@puroandson No doubt some folk led beautiful lives of equity (:cough:) and leisure whilst the majority slaved away in toothpick factories but :cough: let’s ignore that….
Not to mention how many of these lovely girls would have lost their lives at an early age in childbirth– assuming that they survived childhood themselves. And yes, lovely to be courted by some guy three times your age who your father is going to make you marry, like him or not. The list goes on. I’ll take the 21st century, thanks very much, Trumps and all. 🙂
20 June 2016 at 02:08 #52787@puroandson Hello, sweetie! 🙂 Nice to “see” you. I have greatly enjoyed the Puricle’s contributions over the last couple of days. The Cat, not in a tree but among the pigeons; a polite, respectful cat, but not afraid to voice an opinion!
20 June 2016 at 00:42 #52783@whisht OMG, Jimmy Smith. You’ve just pushed at least four of my buttons– jazz, organ, Hammond B3, Jimmy Smith. I hadn’t heard that before. 🙂 🙂 🙂
And Tito Puente. That’s funny, because I was just last night reading some stuff about Latin jazz while listening to Stan Kenton. Tito came up in several places. That’s a great track.
Have a listen to any bit you like of this (or even all of it, if you have some nice fizzy beer or mojito fixings handy!):
19 June 2016 at 18:56 #52769@ichabod I think what helped make Xena so successful was that she was so beautifully realized. All these years later, they still don’t get female superheros right, when they try them at all; and back then, I can’t remember if there were any truly kickass women out there (in the mainstream where I lived, anyway). Xena was smart, she was funny, she was gorgeous and sexy, she was loyal, she was conflicted, and she kicked the guys’ butts week in and week out. I wouldn’t need this in every show I watched, but it was fun to get it there. It was great entertainment.
Who wrote the new Elizabeth bio? I’d love to read that, too!
19 June 2016 at 18:50 #52768Welcome back, @mudlark! I hope the recovery is going well and you will soon be back to digging and so on. 🙂
19 June 2016 at 18:50 #52767@missy @puroandson @ichabod @mersey @pedant
Okay. I’ve stayed out of this because I don’t really understand why we keep coming back to it. I won’t go into my own reasons for being on the fence about the issue, but only wanted to throw this in for what it’s worth.
As a lover of music, my greatest respect goes to those artists and groups who choose not to rest on their laurels and play it safe, but those who like to change it up, keep things interesting, stretch their boundaries. Sometimes this results in a recording that I don’t enjoy as much as previous ones; sometimes it results in a great big win for me! But even when I am not personally the winner, someone else is. Most importantly, the artists themselves. This is why the “it’s been fine for 50 years so why change it” argument doesn’t hold water for me (even assuming it were true, as @pedant points out).
I think that if/when the showmakers at whatever point decide to go with a female Doctor, it will not be because of ideology but because there is the prospect of someone great in the role, and why not try something that has been discussed for a long time now? I have no idea whether I’ll like it when they do. If I don’t, I’ll just wait it out for the next incarnation, as lots of people do with a Doctor that isn’t their favourite. Because when you look over the history of the arts, it’s usually been the artists who try out new ideas who get the most traction over the long haul.
18 June 2016 at 05:32 #52742@puroandson Son of Puro, here’s a link to share with your mom. The music school where I teach had their year end recitals recently, and the little guy in this video is a great kid with some big behavioral challenges. He usually prefers gymnastics to music, and has a hard time staying focussed, respecting the other kids, and so on. At the recital he did this, and completely blew everyone away. Tears ensued (at least from me, but little kids singing has reliably made me cry for years!). I thought of Puro when I saw that the school had posted the video.
By the way, I enjoyed reading your comments on the other thread, regarding gender and the Doctor. I know that my son and many of his friends share your views about this sort of thing, and have a greater open-mindedness than many people in my generation (because we had to learn it later, we didn’t grow up with this sort of thinking, for the most part, and so we find (or I do, at least) that we have to keep practising it. Here’s to you! 🙂
11 June 2016 at 22:41 #52686@puroandson Hello, sweetie! Lovely contribution, the Te Deum. I shall play the whole thing tomorrow in the quiet of my own Sunday.
Yes, things are gradually calming down. Music school is done now, and the boy has one more week of classes and just a few more baseball games. While not exactly frosty, the temperature has dropped quite a bit and we’re getting some rain, useful for the garden, less helpful when playoff games have to be postponed. We’re having a 6-day trip to Chicago in a few weeks, and I saw some truly scary temperatures being posted over the next couple of days. Heat, humidity, rain, thunderstorms, all in one great package. Well, I do remember driving around the Canadian Great Lakes a few years ago, and the trip was studded with “weather events”. However, we’re all very excited about our Chicago visit. Among other things, I plan on eating all the Latin American food I can get into my face over six days! 🙂
Regarding House– oh, yes. Such a fantastic show. I’d like to watch it again some day, but it will take me awhile to recover from the first go round. Funny, disturbing, heartbreaking, thought-provoking, all in one package wrapped around a “hero” who did such a fabulous job of being almost likeable before letting you down! Props to Hugh Laurie and the writers for doing that so very well.
11 June 2016 at 06:01 #52679By the way, I’ve been listening to huge amounts of jazz over the last week or so, here’s something I listened to today. Anyone who likes piano, listen to the fabulous solo in the last few minutes. Jess Stacy. So awesome.
11 June 2016 at 05:57 #52678@whisht I had seen your post, just hadn’t had time reply, in the midst of year-end music school activities and Midget house league baseball playoffs, among other things. Although I do love Arvo Part, I confess I did not listen to him twice. I have put a few PCO things onto my wishlist since that conversation, but not this one. I will have a listen over the weekend– I really do think they’re great! Cheers! 🙂
30 May 2016 at 21:29 #52609@miapatrick That is a very funny story, and it makes a good point. And the moral is that most personal differences can be resolved by bringing in the ukuleles? 🙂
But what you say about professional writers sometimes receiving less and less editorial help rings true. I have noticed the same tendency in films sometimes, when someone produces something successful, and suddenly has carte blanche to do what they want, and the sequels and so on become increasingly overblown because nobody wants to sit them down and say, “Stuff needs to be fixed.” I would absolutely need someone I trusted to read my work before I would ever go down a self-publishing road (which I have considered). My problem isn’t that I find my stories and characters boring; it’s more that I find them endlessly fascinating, but I can’t quite believe that they would appear that way to anyone but me (although I guess this beats the alternative)! 🙂
Anyway, @janetteb said it for me: In the end though I have decided that I write because for me is is as essential as breathing and if nothing ever comes of it I won’t have wasted my life doing it.
30 May 2016 at 21:18 #52608@puroandson Lovely piece of music! (I loved the poem as well.) Have you heard it done live, or perchance, performed it yourself? I would think it would make a terrific impression heard in person. Some very interesting harmonies in there. Thanks for sharing it.
26 May 2016 at 02:42 #52556@miapatrick Do you know what’s the worst thing that gets tracked into our house? The little bits of rubber that come up out of all-weather artificial turf playing fields. We have a lot of those in Vancouver due to it raining much of the winter when soccer is on, and the cleats end up full of these tiny rubber balls that end up all over the kitchen floor. Argh.
The red dirt from a baseball diamond is also pretty bad. Every so often I make noises about getting one of those Roomba robot vacuums, that zip around the floor sucking stuff up. Our vacuum has a permanent home in the hall next to the kitchen door, because it is almost constantly in use.
26 May 2016 at 02:38 #5255526 May 2016 at 02:36 #52554@pedant @puroandson
I have just today been hearing about the problems with Windows 10, and am just glad that I don’t have to go that route. We are a household of Mac users, and I agree regarding the excellence of Time Machine. My husband has worked in IT for years and has often quoted that line about the two kinds of hard drives. He has set up various servers in our house over the years where we store different types of backups, and is a big advocate of backups to multiple places, as @janetteb suggests. The tech is great nowadays, small devices that hold huge amounts of stuff. As a result, I am about as confident as I can be that I will probably never lose anything too critical. And I tend to be conservative about new tech, I’m not an early adopter of just about anything!
24 May 2016 at 21:40 #52525@StitchInTime @missy
I really like what @ichabod has to say. I have been writing most of my life, and have at this point accumulated three novels that exist in a “complete” form (that is to say, they have beginnings, middles, and ends), and one still incomplete. The oldest of these is also the biggest, and after much rewriting has been (temporarily) put aside as it still has some structural problems that I can’t see a way out of. I find that having multiple things on the go means that I can always write when I want to, which is ideal because writing brings me a great deal of joy. When I am truly bogged down, or can’t find the time and quiet needed to get too involved, I turn to essay writing, which I can do in shorter bursts. I have at times viewed my participation on this forum in that light! When all else fails, I wrote something on The Doctor Who Forum today! 🙂
@StitchInTime, the “big” work I mentioned above is a lengthy historical, and I went through a similar debate with myself over its length and how to handle it. In the end I decided on the “major editing” route, as I felt that although it covers roughly 45 years and is told from the point of view of two major characters, it really tells one story in a single arc. Plus, the thing about me and history is that while I am fascinated by loads of little details about other times, I doubt that all readers of historical fiction feel the same way. Expanding into a trilogy, which I considered, would have been a license for me to logjam the whole thing up with which streets went were, what year certain buildings were built, and so on, to the detriment of the actual story. Lovely little bits of dialogue is my other weakness, and I have to force myself sometimes to just admit that an entire conversation doesn’t really add anything to the narrative. My experience, for what it’s worth!
24 May 2016 at 18:14 #52519@janetteb Yes, it’s the always popular Universal Stacking System. But your version sounds far more ambitious as it involves more types of media. Mine is largely limited to paper, although right now I’m also seeing a couple of cd’s, some AA batteries, and seed packets over there. Also some kind of a strap that I think belongs to a suitcase.
24 May 2016 at 04:56 #52505@puroandson I have many lists, I make them on the interminable notepads that arrive in my mailbox from realtors who would like to have a go at selling my house (which I don’t own!). The problem is that, all too often, the lists end up in the aforementioned piles. Then I make new ones, which is why there are so many. For awhile, I tried doing this digitally, but I find that the paper notes work better because they are more immediately visible. Until they disappear in the piles.
24 May 2016 at 04:54 #52504@StitchInTime Well, there are two main kinds of situation. The first, and more common one, is the stuff I just can’t be bothered to take care of when it first shows up: things to be filed, forms to be filled out, bits of newspapers that I saved for some reason, etc. These I just put into a pile at the corner of our kitchen table, between my spot and the wall. There it stays until either a) someone is eating with us and we need the space; b) it simply gets too big and messy; or c) my mother is going to be in the house. Then I remove the pile and hide it in another room. This process is repeated until there are several piles going on in different parts of the house.
At some point, I will need something that I know is in one of those piles badly enough that I will be forced to dig through the pile for it. At this point, unless I am really, really deep in denial, I will usually deal with the pile. This doesn’t actually take me that long, although there are usually one or two things that will end up back on the table next to my spot!
I don’t recommend this system as it is pretty dysfunctional.
The other situation involves stuff that I can’t make a decision about what to do with it. Usually it ends up in a box in our storage locker, until said locker is too full to get in and out of. Then I generally go in and do what I should have done in the first place, i.e. throw the bloody stuff out. C’est la vie.
24 May 2016 at 02:54 #52497@StitchInTime Ha. Unfortunately, I am also one of the organizationally challenged. @Puroandson has the right idea, a friend of mine has an “organizer” who has helped her a lot. Unfortunately, I’m not dealing with quite the situation that Puro describes. It’s a more small-scale situation, although it comes up over and over, so I don’t really feel justified in paying someone to help me deal with it! 🙂
24 May 2016 at 01:30 #52494@miapatrick @StitchInTime I find my collection of Big Finish really useful for chores, particularly the ironing, and the sorting of the piles of stuff that seem constantly to build up in my house. For cleaning the kitchen, I tend to put on some lively music, I sort of dance and sing around the room as I’m cleaning up. It livens things up. 🙂
24 May 2016 at 01:26 #52493@miapatrick When I said “mental space”, I guess I really meant having a large piece of a day available where I’m not constantly having to jump up and deal with other things. Because I find that I will sit down to it, and get so absorbed that suddenly far more time has gone by than I intended. I’m not one of these people who can say, “I will write for 90 minutes today, and then do whatever else.” That is to say, I can say that, and try to do it, but it doesn’t always go well (for the errands and chores, anyway!).
@missy We have the vape shops, too. They started showing up around the same time as the semi-legal pot stores, so I tend to associate them all together in my mind– stores selling e-cigarettes, stores selling pipes and bongs, you know, whatever! 🙂
24 May 2016 at 01:19 #52492@pedant Really weird and delightful to think that Danica McKellar is 41 now, and a brilliant mathematician with part of a proof name after her.
Is she? That’s really cool. She was lovely as Winnie, it was a great show altogether. I loved it. And I always like hearing about these multi-talented people, who can send off their bolts in different directions!
23 May 2016 at 00:00 #52466@miapatrick Thanks for that well-articulated defense of Game of Thrones. I have never watched it, so I can’t call myself either pro or against, but the impressions I have had have never tempted me. Regardless, the story elements that you describe suggest more complexity than I have ever seen hinted at elsewhere (many people’s stated reasons for watching don’t bring much to the conversation, in my view!).
22 May 2016 at 23:36 #52465@missy Outing myself now as one of the ranks of the great unpublished, I would have to say I haven’t had that experience, as I have only rarely had the good fortune to be required to write anything (not counting uni assignments and so forth here). My problem is more that if I allow myself to get going, it ends up being to the detriment of the other tasks that I am meant to be doing (feeding my family, etc.).
But I have often gone through long periods of not writing because I didn’t have the mental space for it due to viewing it as secondary to my main responsibilities. I expect that if I was a professional writer on a deadline, it might be different! Writing is for me a bit of luxury as it doesn’t usually earn me any money. 🙂
19 May 2016 at 17:46 #52404@lisa Thanks!
I wonder if hardcore punk fans would argue that the Clash is not punk enough, because people like me like them? 🙂
That’s a great Bowie/Pop track, (I love the movie clips). Something about the quality of Bowie’s voice marries amazingly well with Iggy’s edgy sound. Thanks for posting!
19 May 2016 at 17:34 #52403@puroandson PuroSolo, I loved your comments about God Save the Queen. Of course, it’s impossible to avoid the comparison, so here’s this:
19 May 2016 at 17:30 #52402@puroandson Son of Puro, I feel your pain and your Mom’s, too. The struggle is real. Arbutus Jr. is dealing this year with a nightmare of a physics teacher, and as a result his grade has dropped considerably. He went from an A to a B, and it’s looking like his third term mark will be in the C+ range. I’m in a rage about it because the reasons have nothing to do with what he actually knows, and everything to do with her unfair exam procedures and bizarre marking systems, which she is apparently known for. But he won’t let me get involved, and I have to respect that. It’s hard, though! We mother bears are pretty protective of our cubs. 🙂
Meanwhile, I’ll share a song with you (not punk) that I told my son he ought to adopt as his personal “story of my life”. PuroSolo and probably others here will know of my abiding love for the music of The Cat Empire. I love it with a deep love. The video that accompanies this track is pretty goofy, but it’s the song that’s the point, and what it says about priorities, youth, and the unpredictability of the future. I hope it makes you smile!
(P.S., while I agree that people are in fact pretty odd, I don’t think that most real people are reflected in shows like Twilight!)
19 May 2016 at 16:32 #52400@whisht Thank you! I haven’t heard Iggy Pop in an insanely long time, that was great fun. And the PCO is just wonderful. I will have to add them to Bela Fleck on my list of musicians I don’t have enough of (in the case of PCO that would be none at all, and there’s no good reason for it!).
Thanks too for your good wishes, @StitchInTime and @puroandson (Puricle)!
Hee, hee, the Beastie Boys. There’s a walk down memory lane for me, back to my days living in shared accommodations with housemates of wildly differing personalities. Good times, good times. 🙂
@puroandson I’m not knowledgeable about punk, but for what it’s worth, you can google DOA, who were Vancouver’s contribution to the North American punk scene. (No promises as to age-appropriateness!) There are some complete albums up on YouTube, and back in the day they were a fairly big deal, although it wasn’t my scene, so I was only peripherally aware of them. Also, in Canada, you learn never to assume that anyone else in the world has heard of any of your products. It was years before I realized that Bryan Adams was actually famous in the outside world! 🙂 Their leader, the excellently-named Joey Sh**head, now goes by his birth name of Joe Keithley, and does things like run for political office. Great guy altogether.
17 May 2016 at 18:56 #52352@puroandson Thank you for your kind words, sweetie!
I think that the internet is a great development for education, because in theory it forces the curriculum to become less about facts and more about analytical thinking. I’d say my son’s experience has been about 50/50, with some teachers really embracing that and others basically threatening them with the fear of death if they dare to look at Wikipedia. But after all, it’s early days.
As regards post-secondary options, we have plenty, and I imagine that schools serving different demographics possibly talk them up more. But at my son’s school (which we like on the whole, it’s a good one with strong academics and its heart in the right place), the message seems to be go big or go to the service industry. It’s a little crazy. Like Son of Puro, my boy is also planning a year of travel and volunteering. He’s very excited about the prospect of spending time someplace like South America, helping coach kids’ soccer. He needs to break out and see the world a bit, get a little independence, have some adventures. But for him, uni will definitely come next, because he is in fact keen on computer programming and design. There are actually some very innovative-looking interdisciplinary programs at some of the small universities here, with study-abroad options and co-op work programs. So we will keep encouraging him, and hopefully he will come to feel more confident in the validity of his choices.
Your fridge door has a code? Does that mean that if someone changes the code, you can’t get at the food? This might not be a bad thing for me. 🙂
17 May 2016 at 18:49 #52351@missy I’m sorry! A lot of us around here enjoy a good debate, and you are as entitled to express your opinions as anyone else. No bad is meant on any side.
@puroandson In Vancouver, we have had the parks/beaches etc. smoking ban in place for a couple of years. There was some griping at first but there’s been remarkably little complaint. Of course, then we had the city telling the dudes who organize the annual 4/20 pro-marijuana rally that they need to move it off the Art Gallery lawn (one of our traditional public venues for protest) and maybe take it down to Sunset Beach. To which the parks board replied, “Woah, guys, we have a smoking ban on the beaches now, remember?” And I think the city returned something along the lines of “Suck it up, buttercup,” and the parks board had to close an aquatic centre for the day to avoid the air intake fans filling the facility up with pot smoke! It’s a gong show around here, honestly.
17 May 2016 at 06:27 #52345@janetteb So interesting that you should say that, because I have discovered the same thing recently. A friend of mine, a well-educated woman with a son graduating this spring, had to go to the school and forbid counsellors to pressure him anymore about uni applications. He is not academically inclined (either in her view or his own), and they have been working together to identify career possibilities for him that will play to his strengths. But the guidance counsellor as good as admitted when she asked that they are required to push uni on the kids so as to increase their own stats. My own son (in grade 11 but with a lot of friends in grade 12) has said that they are regularly told that if they cannot get accepted to a “top” school (meaning Ivy League or Canadian equivalent), they will not be successful and will end up flipping burgers or something.
We have always told him that his choice of school should be dictated by how well that school suits his goals and personality, and nothing else. But boy, it’s hard work for him to take the high road, when all around him, bright kids with good marks are feeling pressured to retake courses if they didn’t get an A, and believe that perfectly reputable institutions are not good enough. Parents are part of the problem because they drink the Kool-Aid as well.
Oh, well, see above– “Everything will be all right in the end, etc.” 🙂
17 May 2016 at 06:14 #52344@missy It’s hard to imagine how anyone could ban smoking in someone’s own house? Or do you mean condos and townhouses, perhaps? If so, I must admit that I have some sympathy, as I suffer from allergies and a sensitivity to tobacco smoke (apart from the whole second-hand smoke issue). We have had problems over the years with the smoke from neighbouring yards and porches and so on, but there’s not much you can do other than put up with it. I can imagine in a condo where everyone is so close together, that it could become very frustrating if it prevents people from enjoying their balconies.
I live in a moderately dense urban neighbourhood (two- and three-level splits and townhouses rather than condos) and there is definitely an issue around one person’s right to do what they like versus another person’s right not to be negatively impacted by others. It can be a real balancing act!
17 May 2016 at 05:43 #52339@pedant Fair point. I don’t disagree with regard to the responsibilities of social workers (and in many cases, they are not only underpaid but massively overworked). In that particular case, the response seemed excessive. But it is also true that they are frequently damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
@puroandson Oh, boy, I was autopilot earlier! I see that I tagged you in your former singular, rather than your current hybrid, form. Sorry!
@StitchInTime Excellent quote. I guess I am irrational, bordering on insane, as I do tend to believe things will work out well (sorry, Doctor!) However, I also subscribe to Sunny’s words of wisdom in “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”: “Everything will be all right in the end… if it’s not all right then it’s not yet the end.” 🙂
16 May 2016 at 17:20 #52333@purofilion Way back on the thread, you asked me about experiences here regarding acceptance of differing sexual orientations, etc. I have to say that in my city, acceptance and equality are not really issues any more. Not everyone likes it, but the predominant social and political culture support it. I always have to remind myself, however, that no so far away, there are pockets of the population where it is a different story.
At my son’s school, they received the most thorough sex education that I could ever have imagined. They talked about things that would certainly have embarrassed me to talk about (which reassured me that they were doing the job properly!), and the culture at school is such that my son is well aware of the gay population (the “out” ones at least– one of his volleyball team mates is one of them, and there was never any issue for him on the team, which I think is telling).
The battle being fought around here these days is the transgendered one, specifically the bathroom/change room issue. But the problem is not so much with institutions themselves (in most cases, anyway) as it is with the beat back from less progressive citizens who don’t agree with the changes. And the kids seem to have no issue with any of it, which gives me great hope for the future. They are remarkably open minded about certain things that almost no one was open minded about when I was in school!
Okay, I have hogged the thread long enough. I shall go and have some breakfast. 🙂
16 May 2016 at 16:58 #52332@missy A friend of mine with two sons told us about an incident in a mall parking lot, during which her younger son (then about six, and a real piece of work) was kicking up about something. When she picked him up to inject him bodily into the car, he starting bellowing, “Please, mommy, don’t hurt me again!” at the top of his voice. She laughed about it afterward but of course she was mortified at the time. Fortunately, the few people around seemed to understand perfectly well what was going on!
But the “nanny state” is increasingly real these days. I firmly believe that there must be laws to protect children from abuse and neglect, but there are frequent stories lately about parents being investigated for (for example) letting their kids walk to the park on their own. The most recent involved a parent whose kids were playing in their enclosed back yard without a parent present (she was in the kitchen making dinner, keeping an eye on them from the window, as you do); a neighbour called social services, who arrived at the door and started asking all kind of massively intrusive questions, and wanting to look in her pantry. I can assure you that if it had been me, they would not have been allowed in my house without the police at their side. I’m still shaking my head over that one!
16 May 2016 at 16:55 #52331Interesting discussion you’ve been having… I’ve been checking in to keep up but haven’t had time to jump in. So here is my 50 cents for what it’s worth!
Back in the seventies when I was in school, there was still the threat of being sent to the Principal’s Office, where Mr. O.B. (“Oddball”) Elliott would whack you with a yardstick. Interestingly, I never knew a single person to whom this actually happened! I think corporal punishment was on its way out in Canada even then. Now, of course, there’s none of that in schools here.
I expect that this does mean that it is a harder job for teachers to keep the kids in line. But I have to say that, based on my own observations as a volunteer in my son’s elementary school, and based on his stories of high school, behaviour doesn’t seem to be any worse than in my day, and in many ways, school seems to be a better place to be. Recently, my husband asked my son what in his view was the biggest danger for kids at his school and he actually thought it was self-harm. Many of his peers are under a lot of emotional pressure to perform well at school and there seems to be a lot of anxiety. Even though he is only in grade 11, he is starting to feel it as well, and we spend a lot of time lately reminding him that whatever he is picking up at school, we don’t share the view that admission to a high-end uni or college is the essential end goal to his school years!
@purofilion Son of Puro, I hope the revision is going well. Over here, the schools take shorter breaks in December and March, and the school year finishes at the end of June, after which they get all of July and August off. So Arbutus Junior will be facing his year-end exams in about a month. But right now, he is living the life: tolerating his classes while waiting for the lovely walks home in the sunshine with his girlfriend, with plentiful stops for sushi or bubble tea. He will be getting a job in the summer to fund his increasingly expensive lifestyle! 🙂 (He is a bit older than you, about to finish Grade 11.)
13 May 2016 at 06:31 #52286@puroandson Having just posted the above, it seems that the video is suddenly “not available”. Not sure why as it has apparently been up for a year, is an official release, and has garnered many views, not least mine earlier today! Possibly a temporary glitch which will go away. I hope so as i would love you to hear the track!
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