The April 2012 Canadian Geographic has this beautiful article about the Grasslands National Park, which the writer calls one of the world's last great quiet places. The article follows Gordon Hempton, a sound artist/acoustic ecologist, who was hired by Parks Canada and Tourism Saskatchewan to conduct a sound survey - the first of its kind in a Canadian national park.
Hempton is an American, and he looks for quiet places all over the world. His goal is to record 15 minutes of natural grassland silence without any manmade sounds - It seems such a modest goal! I read it twice to be sure I had read right. But it's a goal he has not been able to achieve in U.S. grasslands, with its network of highways and railways and the ever present jets overhead.
The article describes the grassland in glorious detail: it has 60 different kinds of grasses and many birds and animals whose early morning conversations Hempton records with his very high-end microphones at 3:30 a.m.
Grasslands is also an official dark-sky preserve, the biggest in Canada until Jasper National Park also gained dark sky status last year. The idea of quiet areas receiving a similar designation is just beginning to filter into the parks system. I love this concept. Sometimes when we go snowshoeing in Joe Rich it is quiet like that, but on the weekends there are often snowmobiles roaring all around - not that they don't also have a right to be there, but it makes for a completely different experience.
April 7, 2012
March 1, 2012
The Guinea Pig Diaries by A. J. Jacobs
My New Year's resolution to read less is slowly crumbling in these dark
damp days of late winter. I have succumbed regularly in these past few
weeks to my favourite drug - easy reading, funny books. The Guinea Pig Diaries qualifies admirably in that category.
The subtitle of this fairly ridiculous book is "My Life as an Experiment." A. J. Jacobs is the author who also wrote The Know-It-All (in which he took a year to read the Encyclopedia Britannica right through) and The Year of Living Biblically. He's the master of experiential or immersion journalism and in this third book he describes nine different immersion experiments ranging from a day to a month long. He tries such things as impersonating a beautiful woman, being completely honest in everything, outsourcing all his daily tasks overseas, "uni-tasking" (as opposed to multi-tasking) and spending a month doing everything his wife tells him to.
It truly is ridiculous but it's funny too, and in the course of his experiments he comes to some profound insights about life and people. In between he reflects on how his experiments have changed him, and they have, especially his year of living according to the Bible, which he says has left a permanent habit of thankfulness with him, and although not a believer per se, he prays a prayer of thankfulness every day, sometimes many, and is teaching his children to do the same.
One of the most fascinating things he uncovers in his "Rationality Project" (Chapter 5) is a monstrous list of about 56 cognitive biases that affect the way we think about things. For instance, the "Self-serving Bias" lets us attribute our successes to internal factors but our failures to situational factors beyond our control. So you got an A because you worked hard but if you got an F it was because the teacher didn't like you. Because of the Romeo bias, men generally overestimate women's sexual interest in them. The Lake Wobegon Effect (Lake Wobegon, "where all the children are above average") makes us think we're smarter and more virtuous than we actually are.
I was reading pretty fast, so I'm not sure which of these he's making up (e.g. the IKEA effect, where the harder it is to put something together, the more value you attribute to it), but they all make sense to me anyway. I see Jacobs has a new book coming out in April called Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection. I'll look forward to reading it.
The subtitle of this fairly ridiculous book is "My Life as an Experiment." A. J. Jacobs is the author who also wrote The Know-It-All (in which he took a year to read the Encyclopedia Britannica right through) and The Year of Living Biblically. He's the master of experiential or immersion journalism and in this third book he describes nine different immersion experiments ranging from a day to a month long. He tries such things as impersonating a beautiful woman, being completely honest in everything, outsourcing all his daily tasks overseas, "uni-tasking" (as opposed to multi-tasking) and spending a month doing everything his wife tells him to.
It truly is ridiculous but it's funny too, and in the course of his experiments he comes to some profound insights about life and people. In between he reflects on how his experiments have changed him, and they have, especially his year of living according to the Bible, which he says has left a permanent habit of thankfulness with him, and although not a believer per se, he prays a prayer of thankfulness every day, sometimes many, and is teaching his children to do the same.
One of the most fascinating things he uncovers in his "Rationality Project" (Chapter 5) is a monstrous list of about 56 cognitive biases that affect the way we think about things. For instance, the "Self-serving Bias" lets us attribute our successes to internal factors but our failures to situational factors beyond our control. So you got an A because you worked hard but if you got an F it was because the teacher didn't like you. Because of the Romeo bias, men generally overestimate women's sexual interest in them. The Lake Wobegon Effect (Lake Wobegon, "where all the children are above average") makes us think we're smarter and more virtuous than we actually are.
I was reading pretty fast, so I'm not sure which of these he's making up (e.g. the IKEA effect, where the harder it is to put something together, the more value you attribute to it), but they all make sense to me anyway. I see Jacobs has a new book coming out in April called Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection. I'll look forward to reading it.
February 27, 2012
Metamorphosis by David Suzuki
This is Suzuki's 1987 biography, written when he was about 50 years old. I read it years ago, but now re-read it, skipping only the very detailed parts about the years he spent studying fruit flies.
I found it an intriguing book for a number of reasons. Every resident of B.C., at least, should read it for its highly personal account of the consequences of the Japanese internment during World War II. Suzuki was a young lad when he and his family were abruptly uprooted and forcibly moved to the Kootenays, losing everything they owned. I had not realized (but Suzuki explains it very clearly) that after the war, the Japanese were not really welcome to go back to Vancouver. They were pressured in every which way (and most of them bowed to this pressure as they had little choice) to move east instead. Suzuki's family landed up in Ontario where some of their relatives had gone. It is a story of terrible shame for Canadians, not least because as the Prime Minister admitted in the midst of the evacuation, not one single incident of a Japanese Canadian being a threat to Canada's security had ever been documented.
Suzuki also writes knowledgeably about academic life and in particular the life of a passionate scientist, and the costs to his family of his dedication to his work. It's a bit discombobulating at times as he documents, with disconcerting honesty and humility, his own arrogance as a young husband and academic.
The other part I found quite interesting is his inside look at the workings of the CBC, how it's funded and how the politics of being employed there worked (and didn't work) for him.
Suzuki was the keynote speaker at a teacher's conference I was at in Vancouver in 1988, shortly after the book was written. It was great - he gave the speech his all; there was no sense that this was just another duty for him.
All in all, this is a good read. I see David Suzuki as an important part of my Canadian cultural heritage. He's a thoughtful man who is willing to change his mind and he has changed a lot in the past 25 years. In 2006, he published another autobiography about the years after 1987, called David Suzuki: The Autobiography. It was his 43rd - and, he said, his last - book. I'll be interested to read it.
I found it an intriguing book for a number of reasons. Every resident of B.C., at least, should read it for its highly personal account of the consequences of the Japanese internment during World War II. Suzuki was a young lad when he and his family were abruptly uprooted and forcibly moved to the Kootenays, losing everything they owned. I had not realized (but Suzuki explains it very clearly) that after the war, the Japanese were not really welcome to go back to Vancouver. They were pressured in every which way (and most of them bowed to this pressure as they had little choice) to move east instead. Suzuki's family landed up in Ontario where some of their relatives had gone. It is a story of terrible shame for Canadians, not least because as the Prime Minister admitted in the midst of the evacuation, not one single incident of a Japanese Canadian being a threat to Canada's security had ever been documented.
Suzuki also writes knowledgeably about academic life and in particular the life of a passionate scientist, and the costs to his family of his dedication to his work. It's a bit discombobulating at times as he documents, with disconcerting honesty and humility, his own arrogance as a young husband and academic.
The other part I found quite interesting is his inside look at the workings of the CBC, how it's funded and how the politics of being employed there worked (and didn't work) for him.
Suzuki was the keynote speaker at a teacher's conference I was at in Vancouver in 1988, shortly after the book was written. It was great - he gave the speech his all; there was no sense that this was just another duty for him.
All in all, this is a good read. I see David Suzuki as an important part of my Canadian cultural heritage. He's a thoughtful man who is willing to change his mind and he has changed a lot in the past 25 years. In 2006, he published another autobiography about the years after 1987, called David Suzuki: The Autobiography. It was his 43rd - and, he said, his last - book. I'll be interested to read it.
February 24, 2012
Jan Lisiecki, Pianist
The third of our community concert series for this season was an amazing evening. I felt awed at the virtuosity of this 16-year-old Canadian pianist - truly felt as though I was in the presence of genius. At 60 myself, 16 just seems astoundingly young to have so much understanding and so many notes in one slight teenage body. His playing seemed other-worldly to me, unearthly, like water flowing endlessly down some hillside in heaven.
Back in the day, we used to say of some of our local pianists, "He (or she) has a nice touch." I don't know if that's still a descriptor for pianists, but Lisiecki's "touch" seemed to me sublime. He taught us carefully and formally (without a mic) before each piece what the significance of the piece had been to the composer and what we should listen for. But then when he sat down and began to play (after a long "centering" silence) everything seemed to become almost impossibly light. Not that he couldn't be forceful - he could rock the loud parts - but even there I could barely sense a whisper of effort. It was as though the keys and the instrument and his fingers and brain were all one.
I've been awed before by the skill of very good pianists, but usually have a sense of practise, practise and lots of effort and professionalism and experience, and although I have no doubt that Jan Lisiecki practises as much as anyone, all I could think of when he was playing was that it was some kind of miracle.
He chose beautiful pieces, starting each half of the program with a short and simple Bach Prelude and Fugue and then "lettin' her rip" with Beethoven, Liszt and Mendelssohn and finishing off the concert with 12 Etudes by Chopin. My favourite of the concert was Variations Sieriuses, Op. 54 in D Minor by Mendelssohn. This was divided into three parts called (approximately) Lament, Light (or Lightness) and Sigh. All beautiful.
We felt absolutely blessed to have been able to hear and see this young man play. He has played all around the world and for the Queen, and I think only the quick work of community concert chair Yvonne Topf, when she first saw him on CBC two years ago, brought him out to Kelowna on a snowy February night to play for 800 grey-haired patrons. I fear for his schedule - besides many concerts, he is studying for a Bachelor of Music in Toronto - but he seems very calm and maybe this is just what he loves to do. Lucky us.
Back in the day, we used to say of some of our local pianists, "He (or she) has a nice touch." I don't know if that's still a descriptor for pianists, but Lisiecki's "touch" seemed to me sublime. He taught us carefully and formally (without a mic) before each piece what the significance of the piece had been to the composer and what we should listen for. But then when he sat down and began to play (after a long "centering" silence) everything seemed to become almost impossibly light. Not that he couldn't be forceful - he could rock the loud parts - but even there I could barely sense a whisper of effort. It was as though the keys and the instrument and his fingers and brain were all one.
I've been awed before by the skill of very good pianists, but usually have a sense of practise, practise and lots of effort and professionalism and experience, and although I have no doubt that Jan Lisiecki practises as much as anyone, all I could think of when he was playing was that it was some kind of miracle.
He chose beautiful pieces, starting each half of the program with a short and simple Bach Prelude and Fugue and then "lettin' her rip" with Beethoven, Liszt and Mendelssohn and finishing off the concert with 12 Etudes by Chopin. My favourite of the concert was Variations Sieriuses, Op. 54 in D Minor by Mendelssohn. This was divided into three parts called (approximately) Lament, Light (or Lightness) and Sigh. All beautiful.
We felt absolutely blessed to have been able to hear and see this young man play. He has played all around the world and for the Queen, and I think only the quick work of community concert chair Yvonne Topf, when she first saw him on CBC two years ago, brought him out to Kelowna on a snowy February night to play for 800 grey-haired patrons. I fear for his schedule - besides many concerts, he is studying for a Bachelor of Music in Toronto - but he seems very calm and maybe this is just what he loves to do. Lucky us.
December 7, 2011
Some thoughts about fiddle music and swimming
Very infrequently I try to write a poem about something and even though I know it is so blindingly romantic (my default style) and has so far to go, it often stirs me because it makes me think and feel more deeply about a certain thing. So it was with this poem below, which needs a title...
And why does the fiddle music strike
At the very heart and soul of me?
How can the small band by the fire
Send my spirit leaping to the raftered roof?
A cool evening with the four strings dancing
Transports me over the lake, over the snow-clad mountain.
A viola and a player with a new song
Plants me with such deep contentment in my chair
That I think I will stay there forever.
If I feel all is not lost, it is because of this family music,
An absolute affirmation, a blood memory coursing far back
To the poor days when so much was desirable
And so little was possible, possibly
As far back as a Russian village in the evening
When the fiddles came out.
This music is mine. There is no note too humble
That it does not please me
Beyond reason.
Beyond the moment, beyond all cultural memory,
That it does not catapult me, in fact, into deep delight.
I called this one "King of the World" just because in spite of James Cameron's famous faux pas when he won for Titanic, there is some chutzpah in it that I like and it's kind of the way I feel when I'm swimming at Sarson's all alone on a summer evening. But I guess it needs a better title, seeing as how I'm female and all.
I swam as the sun set
And the moon rose over the smoky hills
I rested my cheek on the smooth skin of the lake
As I stroked –
Pick an apple, put it in the basket –
Until only a rosy glow was left of the sun
Then gold, then apricot in the darkening sky
I lay arms outstretched on the liquid gold, glossy with sunset
Its palette of blues washed onto the evening hills.
Things happened:
Boats roared back to the launch for the night
A family posed for photos on the beach
A dragonfly bisected the sky briefly, then a gull
But they were for context only, stage business,
As the world revolved
Slowly around the water and me.
And why does the fiddle music strike
At the very heart and soul of me?
How can the small band by the fire
Send my spirit leaping to the raftered roof?
A cool evening with the four strings dancing
Transports me over the lake, over the snow-clad mountain.
A viola and a player with a new song
Plants me with such deep contentment in my chair
That I think I will stay there forever.
If I feel all is not lost, it is because of this family music,
An absolute affirmation, a blood memory coursing far back
To the poor days when so much was desirable
And so little was possible, possibly
As far back as a Russian village in the evening
When the fiddles came out.
This music is mine. There is no note too humble
That it does not please me
Beyond reason.
Beyond the moment, beyond all cultural memory,
That it does not catapult me, in fact, into deep delight.
I called this one "King of the World" just because in spite of James Cameron's famous faux pas when he won for Titanic, there is some chutzpah in it that I like and it's kind of the way I feel when I'm swimming at Sarson's all alone on a summer evening. But I guess it needs a better title, seeing as how I'm female and all.
I swam as the sun set
And the moon rose over the smoky hills
I rested my cheek on the smooth skin of the lake
As I stroked –
Pick an apple, put it in the basket –
Until only a rosy glow was left of the sun
Then gold, then apricot in the darkening sky
I lay arms outstretched on the liquid gold, glossy with sunset
Its palette of blues washed onto the evening hills.
Things happened:
Boats roared back to the launch for the night
A family posed for photos on the beach
A dragonfly bisected the sky briefly, then a gull
But they were for context only, stage business,
As the world revolved
Slowly around the water and me.
November 23, 2011
A Thousand Days in Tuscany by Marlena de Blasi
This is a lovely book, and I do believe it's the first time in my life I have ever come to the end of a book and flipped right back to page 1 and started over. I rarely read a book twice, never mind twice in a row. There is some beautiful writing here, lots of talk of food and countryside, and some really insightful stuff about love and friendship and personality.
The American author and her Italian husband take up residence in a tiny Tuscan village after having lived for three years in Venice. One of the locals they meet is an older man they call the Duke, who "adopts" them and they quickly become good friends. The Duke compares Marlena to his mother, saying "Life was hard for her too." Marlena responds, "But I don't think life is hard." His answer is so piercing that I'm going to record it here so I don't forget it. I can completely relate to this. He says:
"Of course not. Not now, anyway. Not with all the 'adjustments' you've made over time. My mother made similar adjustments. For her, life was too garishly lit, too big and too distant, and so she srewed up her eyelids and shortened the foreground. Like an impressionist painter, she rubbed the juts smooth, created her own diffusion, her own translucence. She saw life as if by the light of a candle. Nearly always she seemed to be wandering about in an elegant sort of defiance. Holding tight to her secrets. Like you do. And she thought everything could be solved with a loaf of bread. Like you do."
A description of two women who did successfully what I've tried so hard to do lately, whether that's a good thing or not. I guess we all put our spin on things - create our own diffusion to make things viable for ourselves. I can especially relate to shortening the foreground - the opposite of being far-seeing I suppose, but then who's necessarily to say that one is always better than the other. Having waited all my life for the grand, important and impressive things to happen, I've become more attached to the small and everyday in this last year.
The American author and her Italian husband take up residence in a tiny Tuscan village after having lived for three years in Venice. One of the locals they meet is an older man they call the Duke, who "adopts" them and they quickly become good friends. The Duke compares Marlena to his mother, saying "Life was hard for her too." Marlena responds, "But I don't think life is hard." His answer is so piercing that I'm going to record it here so I don't forget it. I can completely relate to this. He says:
"Of course not. Not now, anyway. Not with all the 'adjustments' you've made over time. My mother made similar adjustments. For her, life was too garishly lit, too big and too distant, and so she srewed up her eyelids and shortened the foreground. Like an impressionist painter, she rubbed the juts smooth, created her own diffusion, her own translucence. She saw life as if by the light of a candle. Nearly always she seemed to be wandering about in an elegant sort of defiance. Holding tight to her secrets. Like you do. And she thought everything could be solved with a loaf of bread. Like you do."
A description of two women who did successfully what I've tried so hard to do lately, whether that's a good thing or not. I guess we all put our spin on things - create our own diffusion to make things viable for ourselves. I can especially relate to shortening the foreground - the opposite of being far-seeing I suppose, but then who's necessarily to say that one is always better than the other. Having waited all my life for the grand, important and impressive things to happen, I've become more attached to the small and everyday in this last year.
November 2, 2011
True North Brass
We greatly enjoyed our first community concert of the season. True North Brass of Toronto is a brass quintet with lots of talent, experience and personality. They played everything from classical to Duke Ellington and had arranged many of the pieces themselves. The most beautiful piece was one arranged by tubist Scott Irvine called Meditations on a Huron Carol. It was a haunting work with sounds produced from all the brass instruments as well as eerie sounds from a loon whistle, bells, wine glasses, and a strange Tibetan string and can kind of thing that sounded like a wolf howling. What a great evening. We came out of the theatre feeling refreshed and happy.
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