I’ve got about six blog posts started and not yet finished. It has been that kind of month, I guess. I have all these big ideas that are in the cake decorating sleeve and no matter how hard I squeeze, the nozzle is plugged.
I’m going to try to unplug it by working on my second installment of “why I put this song on my birthday playlist”. We are in February and my birthday was in September. At this rate, it will take me until my next birthday to finish this!
Closing Time (from Celebrate Canada) performed by Leonard Cohen): I’d call myself more of a Leonard Cohen admirer than a fan. I “get” why he is so revered and I do own a couple of Leonard Cohen tribute albums of other folks covering his work. The man can write. He just can’t sing. I’ll never forget the look of shock on his face in 1993 when he won Best Male Vocalist at the Junos and famously quipped “It’s only in a country like this that I could win Male Vocalist of the Year!” In any case, this song does not appear because of anything to do with Leonard Cohen. In the mid-90′s, J and I would often attend an aquafit class at the downtown Y and our favourite instructor used this song after the high energy cardio portion as a “warm down” and it has always sort of stuck with me, reminding me of splashing about in the pool like a three year old.
Come To My Window (from Greatest Hits), performed by Melissa Etheridge. Once again, Ms. Etheridge at her garment-rending best. The woman must have been a bodice-ripper in a former life.
Day Too Soon – Mock & Toof ReMix (From Some People Have Real Problems), performed by Sia: Still can’t find this actual edit anywhere on the Internet. Adore it. Apparently no one else feels as strongly.
DJ Play My Song (from Revival), performed by Jully Black: I have a friend who, until extremely recently, was a big time clubber. Every Friday, and most Saturdays, out she’d go to a variety of clubs. Lots of stories to tell, most of which prove to me that lesbians do not have a monopoly on drama. Straight gals got their fair share. Anyway, this song makes me think of my friend, the ex-clubber. Over the Christmas holidays, she travelled to Sri Lanka, met the man of her dreams, essentially got engaged, and will be moving there in the summer. Times change.
Donde Esta Yolanda (from Sympathique), performed by Pink Martini: I could be accused of thinking that EVERY Pink Martini song I hear is my FAVOURITE Pink Martini song. But, really, THIS is my fav. Honest.
Odd trivia – the aforementioned ex-clubber? She turned me on to Pink Martini oh so many years ago … sometime around 1998 I think, she handed me Sympathique and said, simply, “You MUST listen to this!” She was SO right, young and clever those Queen’s grads! She was about 23 at the time and I would have been about 35. The friendship, and the mutual adoration of Pink Martini, has endured. We went to their concert in March 2008 together and we both still agree it was the BEST concert either of us have ever been to, bar none.
Dreams (from Women & Songs 2), performed by The Corrs: Here is an example of a cover song that freshens up the original. Not many of those around.
Falling For The First Time (from Maroon), performed by Bare Naked Ladies: The album appeared right around the time that J and I were facing the beginning of the end of our relationship. This was also right about the time that I was nursing / fighting a massive crush on someone completely and ridiculously unavailable. This song reminds me of that time, in a good way. The lyrics make me sit up and take notice, in particular these lines in the chorus:
Anyone perfect must be lying, anything easy has its cost
Anyone plain can be lovely, anyone loved can be lost
The video that I have linked to … it was the only one I could find that played the original tune as performed on the album.
Figure It Out (from It Won’t Be Soon Before Long), performed by Maroon 5: I’m a recent convert to Maroon 5. Love anything that leads with interesting layers of percussion, like this cut does.
Harder To Breathe (from Songs About Jane), performed by Maroon 5: The lyrics are … difficult for this feminist to get her head around. It really isn’t clear whether they are truly misogynistic or ironic or something else. Putting that aside for a moment, this song just rocks! I can’t believe that I entertain fantasies of singing lead on this Very Angry Song … it must touch my inner head-banger.
I’m Yours (from We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things.), performed by Jason Mraz: What a cutie! The song is cute, the fella is cute and he has just about the cutest damn web site of any musician I’ve seen. Cute overload!!!
I Can’t Decide (from Ta-Dah!), performed by Scissor Sisters: This particular video includes the lyrics which are kinda R-rated. OK – confession time. January 08, I was gearing up to overcome major fears and quit the job I’d left teaching to do. The whole situation sucked. In order to get myself into the right mental space, I sang this song at the top of my lungs as I drove the 1.5 hours out there. To burn off the adrenalin after the conversation, I sang it at the top of my lungs all the way home. I especially love the lyrics in the bridge:
Oh I could throw you in the lake
Or feed you poisoned birthday cake
I wont deny I’m gonna miss you when you’re gone
Oh I could bury you alive
But you might crawl out with a knife
And kill me when I’m sleeping
I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’ (from Ta-Dah), performed by the Scissor Sisters: I have nothing to say other than I LOVE THIS SONG!!!! Best heard at extreme volumes.
I Feel Lucky (from Come On, Come On), performed by Mary-Chapin Carpenter: My friend SPL and I are recovering line dancers. We met on the dance-floor, each with a different jo-ann. This song has exactly the right beat and timing for a raucous little two-step or line dance of some kind. This song, actually this entire album, reminds me of very happy times kickin’ up our heels and getting very retro indeed.
I Wanna Be Like You (from This Beautiful Life), performed by Big Bad VooDoo Daddy: I am so sad that I can’t find a decent version of this online. It’s a bitchin’ big band cover of the Jungle Book tune. When it comes on in the car when I’m driving, I tend to dance around in my seat like a very silly person. Come to think of it, the original is pretty darn good, too.
Asian Vibes (from Real World Music), performed by JOI: This is one of those songs that I crank up when it shows up on my car sound system.
Just Came Back (to Say GoodBye) (from Sudden Stop), performed by Colin James: Love how the song segues from the old style blues guitar to gritty rockin’ big band blues.
Just Keep Me Moving (from Lesbian Favourites), performed by k.d. lang: Yes, I actually DO own a CD called “Lesbian Favourites”. Hey, it is a no nonsense title, straight to the point. Kinda like wearing comfortable shoes.
Like The Way I Do (from Greatest Hits), performed by Melissa Etheridge: And yet, I own only ONE Melissa Etheridge CD. Good lord, check out the hair in this video!!! I suddenly don’t feel so bad about my hair now.
History Repeating (no idea where this is from), performed by The Propellerheads with Shirley Bassey: Don’t know how old Ms. Bassey was when this was shot, but I wouldn’t mind being in as good a shape as she is when I reach that number. Whoa. Rowr. Purrrrr.
Littlest Birds (from Blue Horse), performed by The Be Good Tanyas: Although this is their original video, the music is stronger on the actual CD recording. Also, the CD doesn’t speed up towards the end like this version does.
Come to think of it, I have several bones to pick with the Be Goods. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all in favour of Canadian female artists. But this is yet another time this particular bunch has let me down. This song, as recorded on Blue Horse, is gorgeous. Totally gorgeous. Intricate. Some may recall this was used in a Zeller’s commercial a few years ago. However, the audio on the video sounds like it was taken from a practice track. My other major bone to pick has to do with the one time I saw them in concert in Toronto, a cold January a few years ago. I’d snagged one of the last remaining single tickets and I was sick as a dog, but determined to hear them sing Just This One Song. Well, to my enduring disappointment, they arrived on stage half in the bag and carrying plastic tumblers of red wine. They performed this song mid-point through the show, always debating the playlist in low mumbling tones, never making eye contact with the audience or speaking to us or acknowledging us in any way. Honest to pete, it took until part way through the song for me to even recognize that it was THE SONG I’d come to hear.
In spite of my issues with the Be Goods, this song still is very high on my list of songs I’d love to perform with a small all-female vocal group someday. Maybe after I retire.
OK – I should stop now … only 19 more songs to go to wrap up the first of three giant playlists!!!
I received the following by e-mail from a Handbasket lurker, a.k.a. Katje’s Auntie:
I am forever amazed at the items that reveal themselves as the snow melts. This week has been a particularly rich experience since the snow melted so quickly that the volume of exposed materials was far greater than usual. Anyway, as we were walking (and sidestepping) I spotted a lemon timidly protruding from a snowbank at about the 3 foot level (can we time deposits like archaeologists?). It was bright enough to catch my attention. Fully 2/3 exposed, I had to have a closer look. The lemon was intact, blemish free, pleasantly plump. I couldn’t help but wonder how it got there. It was too far from the garbage can area of the lawn. It hardly seems the type of thing to jump out of someone’s grocery bag. And I can’t imagine one of the local kids losing it from their lunchbag. (maybe it’s something to do with global warming?)
So, I’m curious as to what’s the strangest thing you or your audience have come across this past week as the snow temporarily recedes? I remember the shoes/food items you photographed last year and can only wait to hear what treasures are discovered this week.
Temporarily recedes? Pshaw! This is spring, my friend!!!
A quick snow melt does reveal lots and and we dog-walkers are front-line witnesses. I can’t say that what Freddie and I have been discovering is always pleasant. For example, there is now clear evidence that other dog owners are not nearly as diligent as some of us are about picking up poo. I don’t know how many times this week I’ve rescued Freddie’s, er, output while staring at many months worth of similar output in the same vicinity. One wonders in these moments if such diligence is worth the effort.
One of my hockey buddies commented the other day about a bicycle that is being slowly revealed from under a massive pile of snow on a street corner. The bike was chained to a street sign and then buried under months of actual fallen snow, topped by snow removal snow. As the snow has started to fade, the bicycle has emerged. It is one of these gorgeous new but old-fashioned “sit up and beg” style bikes with big fat white-walled tires, no gears and a snazzy orange paint job. My friend, a bike-lover, railed against the absentee owner of the bike. “Who would abandon such a beautiful bike to the elements? How irresponsible! If I could pick locks, I’d snag that bike, take it home, clean it up and love it like it deserves to be loved!” I’m thinking about taking bolt cutters to our next game in that neighbourhood.
A fellow walker and I were discussing the mysteries of buried snow treasures in the park the other day. She offered up a story about some winter camping she did a few years ago. A sudden thaw happened mid-trip. The campers decided to go for a hike around a lake on foot/snow-shoe. As they rounded a turn in the path and looked out at a secluded bay, they saw an antler protruding up out of the now-slushy ice surface. A moose had gotten trapped, and subsequently frozen, into the ice at the beginning of the winter.
Personally, I find these early thaws to offer some of the uglier times to live in downtown Toronto. Months worth of discarded wrappers, the aforementioned output, and cigarette butts suddenly appear and I find it almost embarrassing. Especially the cigarette butts which I find distasteful and disturbing at the best of times. I rounded a corner the other day to be confronted with literally thousands of butts on the ground in front of a men’s hostel. That is what it feels like to me, a confrontation. Or, more accurately, an affront. A visual assault. Blech.
What I remember, and what is missing from the urban experience of a quick thaw, is the smell of the earth thawing out. A soft warm breeze that carried the oddly comforting smell of old leaves, now almost humus, and that unmistakeable scent of the earth waking up. It is probably too soon for that now anyway, in spite of my enthusiasm for this thaw.
What I have been enjoying is the enthusiasm of our feathered friends for this weather. Birdsong is everywhere, including in the parking lot on campus. Given that the parking lot is my least favourite location at my place of employment, it is particularly lovely to be welcomed by happy active birds, chasing each other from tree to tree.
They should probably get all the activity in that they can muster … we still have most of February and all of March to weather. So to speak.
A re-run from my Vox blog, last October. Seems timely to re-visit.
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A few weeks ago, I stumbled across an Anaïs Nin quote that I’d forgotten about.
And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
It captured something that I needed to be reminded of in that moment. Remembering this, I did a Google search for Anaïs Nin quotes and found quite the treasure chest. I thought I’d share some of what I found here.
Age does not protect you from love. But love, to some extent, protects you from age.
Do not seek the because – in love there is no because, no reason, no explanation, no solutions.
Dreams are necessary to life.
Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living.
I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by giving, by losing.
If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don’t write, because our culture has no use for it.
It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it.
Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.
My ideas usually come not at my desk writing but in the midst of living.
People living deeply have no fear of death.
The dream was always running ahead of me. To catch up, to live for a moment in unison with it, that was the miracle.
The only abnormality is the incapacity to love.
The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.
We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.
Posted on February 4, 2009 by Venus in fluff, meme
Recently on Facebook, people are tagging each other with the request to list 25 Random Things about themselves. This may seem odd to non-Facebookers, but it is just something that happens from time to time in that particular social networking site. And, as one friend of mine states, it is a fun way to get to know one’s friends in a way that one wouldn’t in the normal course of human events. The Internet is kinda funny that way. Over-sharing is rampant and occasionally welcome.
The zenith of tagging activity happened for me this past weekend with several friends doing the Facebook equivalent of nudging me to write my list of 25 things. I’m usually game and started to turn over the possibilities in my head.
Maybe that is what did it. I was promptly cut down Monday by a pretty horrendous migraine accompanied by a wicked sore throat. I thought at one point that my head was in labour, the pain was coming in waves like contractions. Or what I imagine to be contractions. At the height of all this, there wasn’t a creative cell in my body – it was all I could do to just lie still and suffer. Later in the day, as the pain started to drift away, I started to pluck out my rather uninspired list of 25 Things. I was writing a few lines at a time between moments of dull throbbing. I wasn’t at my best.
In the interim, feeling much better these last few days, I realized that I left a few things off that I shoulda, woulda, coulda included if I’d had my act together. So, I present the original 25 + 5 bonus Random Things.
1. I hate (hate) feeling rushed. I especially hate rushing through things early in the morning. Throws me off balance.
2. My hair is longer now than it has been since I was 21. It feels both awkward and liberating at the same time. I have no idea how this is going to turn out.
3. One of the most valuable things I did in high school was take typing class in Grade Nine with Mr. Traxler whom I adored. Although I nearly failed, I am so grateful that I can type reasonably well without looking at the keys. I wonder if there will be curriculum developed to teach keypad texting. If there is, I know someone who could teach it and it wouldn’t be me.
4. I can, and frequently do, watch movies and tv shows multiple times.
5. I find cooking and dreaming up recipes very grounding and relaxing.
6. Ian Turnbull was my favourite all-time Toronto Maple Leaf. He was Borje Salming’s defence partner. He scored five goals in one game, on February 2, 1977, a record for defensemen that still stands. I remember watching that game, 32 years ago today, and also watching the awards ceremony the game afterwards. I try to wear his number, #2, when I can but that doesn’t seem to happen often. He autographed a hat of mine before he retired. I still have it.
7. I may have a Scrabble addiction.
8. I may have a popcorn addiction.
9. The thing I miss most in my new diet regimen is pasta.
10. One of my grad students was griping last week about feeling out of the loop on something we were discussing in class. I had overheard him say earlier to his buddies that he was born in 1986 and that his earliest recollections were from 1993. He asked me if I remembered 1993. I had no response. This whole exchange bothers me more than I care to admit.
11. My family experiences genetic hearing loss. I am not immune to this phenomenon. I’ve been advised that more sound, not less, will help preserve my hearing. In other words, the audiologist has prescribed listening to loud music regularly.
12. I love playing hockey. I wish I could play more than my schedule currently allows.
13. There are a few people on FB that I’ve known since we were all learning how to print with big fat pencils. They all look fit and well and happy as grown-ups. When I look at their pics, I see soccer balls and Christmas pageants and endless winter bus rides home.
14. I have a first cousin in England with exactly the same full name (first, middle, last) as me who also insists on being called “Liz”. We were completely unaware of each other’s existence until 1999. The number of things we have in common is rather astounding and includes our sexual orientation. Beware. There are two of us.
15. My least favourite vegetables are Brussels sprouts and lima beans.
16. There are at least two people on my FB who should understand, first hand, why I really don’t like cucumbers. I often wonder if they had the same response to that particular summer job.
17. I think too much. I worry too much.
18. I have terrible luck with houseplants. My favourite colour is green but my thumb is not green in the slightest.
19. I am often overly optimistic about how much I can get done in a day.
20. I used to love to read and I have stacks of books around that I have started and will one day finish. I just can’t sink into a good reading rhythm anymore.
21. When I was a pre-teen, and probably on into when I was a teen, on warm summer days, I would take a stack of 7-8 books out and sit under the gigantic maple/willow in our front yard and read. I don’t know why I felt I had to take 7-8 books for an afternoon’s read. I generally stuck to one when I got there.
22. I love where I’m living now. I miss living in the country. Somehow, these two ideas don’t feel in opposition to each other in my head.
23. My dream, until Grade 9 science class, was to be a veterinarian. After that, I wanted to be a rock star.
24. I have recently concluded that if a thinking person living in this crazy messy world doesn’t find themselves challenged by something like depression from time to time, they are not to be trusted.
25. I was not close to my father but I do find some of his weird idiom creeping into my vocabulary, such as “Put a little English on it” (elbow grease, umph) and “Do you need to look after little Mary?” (are you hungry?) and “My head is here, my ass is comin’” and “Heeeh???” (speak louder, I didn’t hear you).
26. I have my M (for motorcycle) as well as my G class licence. At one time I owned a Kawasaki 454 LTD bike that I adored. Absolutely adored. I toured solo around the northern edge of Lake Superior on it one summer when I was about 24. I had to sell it in a moment of “let’s grow up and get serious” career focus. It is one of the few times in my life that I remember sobbing uncontrollably. My bike looked something like this:
Kawasaki 454 LTD
I suspect that if I acquired a bike again now that I’d have to re-certify my licence or something since I haven’t ridden since 1988.
27. In 1997, I flew to New York for three reasons. a) to see Julie Andrews perform, again, in Victor/Victoria on Broadway. b) to meet up with a bunch of Internet buddies, also Julie Andrews fans, and attend the Tonys at Radio City Music hall. c) To pitch my idea for Julie’s next big project to her producer, Tony Adams. I achieved all three. I saw the fourth last performance Julie did before her surgery cut her singing career tragically short. Being present at the Tonys was a thrill-of-a-lifetime. Radio City Music Hall is very big. Famous people are just regular-size. Tony Adams was charming and patient. He bought me lunch and suggested a way I could get my proposal in front of Julie herself, which of course I followed up on. But the surgery interfered straightaway and messed with destiny. Still, it was a pretty terrific weekend!
28. I think that the experience of growing up on a farm in RURAL southwestern Ontario colours almost every aspect of my life.
29. I believe every dog deserves one hot meal a day. My dog gets her dinner with warm water and “gravy”.
30. I am hard-pressed to think of anyone whom I know reasonably well who has not expressed at some point their feelings of exclusion, of “feeling like an outsider”. I have heard many people express this of their relationship to a family of origin, as well as chosen family, community, workplace, social groups, etc. I wonder what we do to each other to make this phenomenon of “not fitting in” so pervasive.
I have always been a good poacher of eggs. A properly poached egg is a thing of beauty. Fully set white, very runny yolk on buttered toast with salt and pepper. A perfect breakfast that seems decadent in its rich flavours and textures but is actually fairly healthy. (The butter won’t hurt ya, really …)
My former egg-poaching methodology involved any old pot with boiling water that has a dash of salt and a splash of white vinegar. (The vinegar helps the whites set without as many stringy bits.) I’d crack the eggs directly out of the shell into the water and then stand over them until the exact right moment, usually about two or three minutes. I also had an method of using a frying pan to boil the water, and now I see that is just WRONG. I remember my brother also enjoying poached eggs and using the heel of a loaf of bread to drain them first before transferring them to his toast. The heel would get tossed.
My ex says I make the best poached eggs. I have them most mornings for breakfast.
My friend Miriam and I talk about poached eggs a lot. She shares my love of the perfectly poached egg. Ever helpful, Miriam sent me a video a while back on how to poach an egg. This arose out of her disdain for the idea of putting a splash of vinegar into the water, which I do understand.
For weeks after I watched this video, my poached egg mojo was totally messed up. I couldn’t get it right as I was trying some combination of my old method and this new method and just getting it all wrong. After years of getting it mostly right, new information totally threw a monkey wrench into the works. The guy in the video leaves out some important pieces. How hot is the water when you start? Do you leave it covered or not? What do you mean, leave the egg in for TEN MINUTES???
Experimenting with this new method of doing something I know so well has taught me a lot. For example, the pot matters. If you are going to leave the eggs sitting in water, they have to be completely covered in water, and the pot needs to be heavy and able to hold heat for some time. My thin-walled small saucepan is a bust. My larger thick-walled saucepan rocks, but only if it has enough water in it to cover the eggs.
I have finally got it right.
How To Poach An Egg Perfectly Without Vinegar and Without Standing There And Staring At It and Fussing Over It
1. Select a heavy pot and put enough water in it to cover the eggs. Add a few pinches of salt and bring to a boil.
2. Crack the eggs into a cup, carefully.
3. Put some bread in the toaster.
4. When the water is boiling, stir the water in a circle in any direction you care to.
5. Carefully drop the eggs in one motion into the centre of the vortex and immediately cover the pot. Turn the heat off. Set your timer for three minutes.
6. Whistle a happy tune. Maybe pour a cup of coffee.
7. When the timer goes off, butter the toast. The eggs need the last 30 seconds or so.
8. Remove eggs with a slotted spoon onto toast. Decorate with salt and pepper. Enjoy!!
