I think my second post had fewer mispellings, stray commas, and grammatical peccadillos than the first, but I seem less sure of what I wanted to write about than I was when I contemplated this project. As for the little miscues I see writers of repute are plagued by them, too. I'm a technophobe so I don't yet know how to do links or photos but that will come. Far more important is it to try to find the right voice and possibly to clear out the kind of huge log jamb I suppose many frustrated writers accumulate over the years.
Yesterday I peeked into my thin little purse to see if I had a sufficiency of ducats for the purchase of a digital camera and decided after excruciatingly painful deliberations that, yes, I had enough. So now I have a little Pentax. And already I see that I should have waited until I had more to spend. The biggest problem is that it doesn't have a viewfinder. I didn't know this would be a problem until I tried to use it in direct sunlight. Impossible to see anything on the display. The next problem is that I like to take pictures in funny lighting conditions- backlighting, strong contrast between light and shade, artificial light- and with only the preset exposure contols to work with these are almost impossible. I suppose with practice I'll learn how to get what I want. At least my mistakes won't be so expensive as with film.
On my personal profile I listed Milt Hinton as one of my favourite musicians. In case you aren't familiar with the name I'll tell you a little bit about him. He was a jazz bassist who grew up in Chicago when jazz was just a youngster like him. Over the years he played with almost everybody at one time or other, but his main gig was with the Cab Calloway Band. I don't think there has been any other bassist who could swing a band like Milt Hinton. My knowledge of him comes almost exclusively from a CD set he put out when he was in his eighties called Old Man Time. Made with various musicians he had worked with over the years, these sessions included greats like Dizzy Gillespie, Doc Cheatham, Cab Calloway and many others. One great track has Cab singing the great song Good Time Charlie. You just don't hear singing like that anymore. Another of my favourites is when Milt and long time Calloway band guitarist Daniel Moses Barker sit down together doodling on their instruments, talking about old times and playing old tunes. Just the two of them. Talk about musicianship. And the wonderful songs, good melodies, lyrics with feeling, played by two masters with more musical knowledge between them than the entire crop of rappers put together. Milt was also a camera bug who took lots of photos of his musician pals that are now of historic as well as artistic importance.
Thanks to Jonathan Ives, Steve Jobs and a cast of thousands I am able to provide musical entertainment for my customers. I mean with my iPod, of course, which I route through the cab's stereo. This experience has led me to the conclusion that my young customers from the university campus have been deprived of something they yearn for without knowing it: beauty. They all seem to have lots of money, and expect to have more of it after graduation, and they all seem cool and clever, the girls pretty and well dressed, and definitely not sexually repressed, (as Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls said of Las Vegas girls, they all have nice teeth and no last names) but about beauty they are surprisingly ignorant. Typically, after a little bevy of young things, or a couple are travelling in my cab for a block or two they start to notice the music. What radio station is that? Who is that singer? What is that genre? And the best response, when we arrive at the destination: I don't want to get out of the car. Not always, of course. The boys are a little afraid of seeming faggoty if they are with out with their friends pounding beers. (Yes, even after years and years of conditioning by the schools and the media that it's all right to be gay, most boys want to make it perfectly clear that they are hetero not homo.) Possibly one of the factors in the decline of popularity of classical music is that it has become associated with effeminate men.
That reminds me of an article I saw but didn't read about Billy Strayhorn where he was described as living in the shadow of Duke Ellington. More like living under the protection of Duke Ellington. Strayhorn was the composer of some of the most popular songs that came out of the Ellington band. One of them, Take the A Train, used for a lyric a set of directions the Duke gave him of how to get to Harlem. Strayhorn grew up in a dirt poor black working class neighborhood in Pittsburg and
was unabashedly gay. Musically precocious, he managed to get to meet Ellington when he came to town on tour and was offered an audition if he could find his way to Harlem. From then on, he was Ellington's most notable composer, arranger, song writer, and without that support there would have been no career for a stridently gay, black musician in those days.
We had a little snow this afternoon in Victoria. It was coming down pretty good but it wasn't sticking. Global warming, where are you?
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Flower count
Victoria's annual flower count started the other day. It's our way of rubbing snow in the faces of all those Canadians who are still suffering under sub-zero temperatures. In fact, although this time we've had a bit more 'winter' than the last few years, my own little excursion through Beacon Hill Park on a sunny Sunday afternoon turned up numerous showings of daffodils, crocuses both purple and white as, well as lots of rhododendrons...right on schedule. According to Greek myth, daffodils were originally white but when Pluto abducted Persephone to make her queen of the underworld she dropped some white lilies which turned yellow as burnished gold. Pluto not only rules Hades, he is also the god of wealth.
Of special note in Beacon Hill Park on my walk was the rock and alpine garden maintained by a volunteer association. What a wonderful job they have done. When you walk on the rocky spine of the park you could well believe you were on a mountain top, with craggy bed rock jutting out on either side of the path. And yet you are only a few minutes away from the ocean.
As a small city bounded on three sides by water, there is really no room for Victoria to grow outward and so it's an imminently walkable city. Every neighborhood has it's own character and ambience. The older neighborhoods were built before tract housing was invented and the history of Victoria's growth means that every area has a rather diverse collection of housing stock. Originally settled around the Inner Harbour, various early arrivals to these shores founded farms and estates scattered all over which were connected by roads and later filled in. The roads became our notoriously illogical street system and the filled in estates became our neighborhoods. However it happened the result is a feast for the eyes that's best enjoyed at a walking pace.
There is an unfortunate advertising campaign on that tries to make Victoria look like sin city north. Well we do suffer from the presence of a sizeable drug culture just like every place else these days, and in the winter 20,000 university students, many of them not potty trained, do their best to emulate the inmates of Animal House, but I can say with absolute confidence that people do not come to Victoria to get drunk and chase whores. They come because they can walk around the Inner Harbour, and just sit and look out of their eyes.
In fact, the prostitutes and drug dealers, and the many drug users who infest our streets (usually referred to as 'homeless') are the ones who discourage the kind of visitors who have historically enjoyed coming to our city.
Last week a story appeared in our local rag. It seems a certain young lady, originally from Victoria, had returned from Montreal after a number of years and was shocked- shocked- to discover how much poverty there is in Victoria. The story was followed up by a letter writer who blamed all this poverty on the heartless cutbacks to social services made by the provincial government. Poverty? I think these folks should pay a little more attention. Victoria has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world- in the 3% range. Jobs go begging. Anybody who wants to work can find a job. What else can a government do? During the ten years when the other outfit was in, the ones who supposedly champion the poor, unemployment hovered at a steady 10% while an economic boom was taking place in the rest of North America. There are a lot of things I don't like about this government, but they do understand that if you want to pay for social programs you will need a functioning, prosperous economy. And they have succeeded admirably in restoring our formerly sick economy.
Excuse me, I didn't really want to get into politics.
Of special note in Beacon Hill Park on my walk was the rock and alpine garden maintained by a volunteer association. What a wonderful job they have done. When you walk on the rocky spine of the park you could well believe you were on a mountain top, with craggy bed rock jutting out on either side of the path. And yet you are only a few minutes away from the ocean.
As a small city bounded on three sides by water, there is really no room for Victoria to grow outward and so it's an imminently walkable city. Every neighborhood has it's own character and ambience. The older neighborhoods were built before tract housing was invented and the history of Victoria's growth means that every area has a rather diverse collection of housing stock. Originally settled around the Inner Harbour, various early arrivals to these shores founded farms and estates scattered all over which were connected by roads and later filled in. The roads became our notoriously illogical street system and the filled in estates became our neighborhoods. However it happened the result is a feast for the eyes that's best enjoyed at a walking pace.
There is an unfortunate advertising campaign on that tries to make Victoria look like sin city north. Well we do suffer from the presence of a sizeable drug culture just like every place else these days, and in the winter 20,000 university students, many of them not potty trained, do their best to emulate the inmates of Animal House, but I can say with absolute confidence that people do not come to Victoria to get drunk and chase whores. They come because they can walk around the Inner Harbour, and just sit and look out of their eyes.
In fact, the prostitutes and drug dealers, and the many drug users who infest our streets (usually referred to as 'homeless') are the ones who discourage the kind of visitors who have historically enjoyed coming to our city.
Last week a story appeared in our local rag. It seems a certain young lady, originally from Victoria, had returned from Montreal after a number of years and was shocked- shocked- to discover how much poverty there is in Victoria. The story was followed up by a letter writer who blamed all this poverty on the heartless cutbacks to social services made by the provincial government. Poverty? I think these folks should pay a little more attention. Victoria has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world- in the 3% range. Jobs go begging. Anybody who wants to work can find a job. What else can a government do? During the ten years when the other outfit was in, the ones who supposedly champion the poor, unemployment hovered at a steady 10% while an economic boom was taking place in the rest of North America. There are a lot of things I don't like about this government, but they do understand that if you want to pay for social programs you will need a functioning, prosperous economy. And they have succeeded admirably in restoring our formerly sick economy.
Excuse me, I didn't really want to get into politics.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Good Morning from Victoria
Some years ago a new aquaintance asked me where I was from. "Edmonton," I replied. "Oh," he said, "you're an easterner." Now, to call someone from Alberta an easterner could start a fight under the wrong circumstances. But we had been working together building a chimney for the previous few days and it was just a bit of banter- sort of. I've made the same joke myself many times since. It works because it has a kernal of truth to it. People from this side of the cordillera, are a different species than those on the other. The true west is the prairies and the grasslands between the mountain chains. We denizens of the Pacific Coast live in a different realm that I think of as Beyond the West. And that is my explanation for the title of this new blog.
Here in Victoria we are even farther remove from the prairies than the rest of the coast because we are on an island. Islanders are traditionally a bit xenophobic, and native Vancouver Islanders are hard to find. Waves of migrants from the colder parts of Canada breathlessly arrive to escape the ice and snow, the sub-zero temperatures and then commence complaining about the rain. The locals quite naturally feel invaded and pushed aside. That's why it was only sort of a joke when John made it. I have added a new one. When the passengers in my cab complain about the drivers in Victoria (one of the class of conversation starters known as bromides) I just say, "That's because so many of them are from Ontario," to which they usually- if I've read them right- bridle and say, "But I'm from Ontario." I try to look innocent.
Anyway, this blog is not about me but about Victoria from a cab driver's perspective. There's an old Hermetic saying, "As above, so below,' meaning that what happens in the heavenly sphere is reflected in our everyday earthly existence, and that by paying close attention to what we see around us we can learn about that which is invisible to our senses. Pure Neoplatonism.
I'll try to stay away from too much politics, but the fact of the matter is I'm a conservative and I don't intend to hide it. However, I'm much more interested in 'what's under the hood' than in the surface issues-in other words, philosophy, religion, history, ideas in general. And I hope some few readers will find my comments of interest.
It's a bit blustery today, heavily overcast with fast moving clouds that expose the odd patch of sky. And here I am at Le Cafe Vieux Montreal on Government Street where you can find the best pastries in town- and use their free wireless service to write blogs and such.
Here in Victoria we are even farther remove from the prairies than the rest of the coast because we are on an island. Islanders are traditionally a bit xenophobic, and native Vancouver Islanders are hard to find. Waves of migrants from the colder parts of Canada breathlessly arrive to escape the ice and snow, the sub-zero temperatures and then commence complaining about the rain. The locals quite naturally feel invaded and pushed aside. That's why it was only sort of a joke when John made it. I have added a new one. When the passengers in my cab complain about the drivers in Victoria (one of the class of conversation starters known as bromides) I just say, "That's because so many of them are from Ontario," to which they usually- if I've read them right- bridle and say, "But I'm from Ontario." I try to look innocent.
Anyway, this blog is not about me but about Victoria from a cab driver's perspective. There's an old Hermetic saying, "As above, so below,' meaning that what happens in the heavenly sphere is reflected in our everyday earthly existence, and that by paying close attention to what we see around us we can learn about that which is invisible to our senses. Pure Neoplatonism.
I'll try to stay away from too much politics, but the fact of the matter is I'm a conservative and I don't intend to hide it. However, I'm much more interested in 'what's under the hood' than in the surface issues-in other words, philosophy, religion, history, ideas in general. And I hope some few readers will find my comments of interest.
It's a bit blustery today, heavily overcast with fast moving clouds that expose the odd patch of sky. And here I am at Le Cafe Vieux Montreal on Government Street where you can find the best pastries in town- and use their free wireless service to write blogs and such.
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