The Prospect of Jam

There's a feeling welling up inside you. Or gathering, building like a wave, growing in power. It's a familiar, ancient surge, comfortable and welcome, though dangerous if diverted or ignored. There's an easy way to feed this urge: pick up that instrument and play, damn you.

London appears to be a cheap place for rehearsal space, and not at all sparse on the talent or desire. With a few likeminded individuals I might procure me a loud-noise-accepted-nay-encouraged chambers, and you're totally invited.

Aside from being nonlinguistic communication, which is to say communication with a few less barriers and that's a little more abstract, jamming has something primal attached to it, something not necessarily animal but certainly indigenous. It brings out something good in good people.

And speaking of good people in good settings, two Ottawaeans I have known
from two separate (800km distant) parts of my life-- one IgnorantCowboy and one ARMelhooshy, no less --managed to brush up against each other pleasantly and randomly... cheers to the surprising meetings that let a body know he must be on the right path.

Perfect weather if you're a duck

This weekend's tournament in Montréal marked the start of Gaelic football season & we had the perfect weather for it: cold, wet and muddy. I pity anyone that tried camping this long weekend. The men's team tied a game we should have won, lost a game we could have won, and then won a game; but it wasn't enough points to advance and play on the Sunday. The Lady Casements played excellently and advanced to the semifinal, but Sunday had lots of straight-up rain, and the men's team were lucky to be huddled on the sidelines under umbrellas and trees.

As for the craic: it was great, though the service consistently sucked most everywhere that we went; from things as small as charging $8.25 for a pint of Smithwicks (Jan was even charged $5 for a pint of Coke) to serving staff who complained about not being tipped enough (which provoked a mass exodus of maybe two dozen Casements; hopefully that was enough of a statement to get the point across).

Matt Collins's wallet got stolen, which was a shitty thing to have happen, and it provoked a surprising display of racism from some team members; but it also prompted teammates' support: everyone pitched in $5 so that the guy could feed himself and still have a good night out.

More photos in the photobucket, here.

Cheer this

"The Oilers were coming off a Game 5 tinged with controversy. San Jose fans had roundly booed the Canadian anthem at the opening of that contest, and many wondered if the Edmonton faithful would follow suit in Game 6. And they did, swapping boos for loud cheers from the onset of the U.S. anthem in obvious defiance of their American counterparts." (CBC Sports)

Seriously. In Ireland and in London I opted not to talk a lot of the time, for after being told by an Irishman that he couldn't distinguish between me (a Canadian) and "them Yanks", I didn't want to be confused with an American, else I'd have to pull out this argument:
"First of all, it shouldn't matter; second, I'm Canadian; and third: what's your problem with Yanks anyway? Is it their international politics? Because only half the country turned out to vote, and less than half of them voted for Bush, and most of them were probably duped into the vote..."

But then, with such a Bush-league (funny how things turn out) display of ignorance such as booing a country's national anthem, it's hard to want to stand up for this mass of people. Good to hear the Canadian crowd did the right thing.

Interestingly, of the 25 players on the San Jose roster, 12 are Canadian, versus 5 that are American. On the Oilers, 21/33 Canadians and 5 Americans.

There's only the conference finals left to go: in the West, Edmonton Oilers vs Mighty Ducks of Anaheim; in the East, Carolina Hurricanes vs Buffalo Sabres... then the Stanley Cup final in June.

even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea

Here I am safely arrived back from across the sea. After flying into Dublin we drove across (west) to Everlawn, Bunnanaddan, County Sligo: the farm of Caroline's granny. Chez Wynne was home base. From there, the major trips were to Inishmore (14km-long island off Galway where the first language is Gaelic), London (where we saw a Premiership match between Fulham and Middlesbrough), Dublin (home to Sharon and Brent), as well as visited every leg and arm of Caroline's family.

Platitudes aside, I was most floored by Newgrange, a burial mound that predates Stonehenge and the pyramids at Giza. The art and structure were interesting, but the compelling part is that it's perfectly aligned to allow light into the tunnel only at the Winter Solstice; from December 19th through 23rd each year, in the morning, light will creep upward into the tunnel, but only on one day will it fill the burial chamber with light -- December 21st, for a total of about 17 minutes. People are allowed to be in the chamber on that morning each year, and I applied to be one of the 15 chosen (though last year 27000 people applied). Wish me luck.

I took over 300 photos and have uploaded a few dozen of them, accessible here in three "albums": Dublin, Newgrange, and a selection of the rest. I also kept a sketchbook and have scanned and uploaded the images here.

But here of course is my favourite (wide panoramic shot [jpg] -- 2485x440, though that's a quarter the size of the one on my computer).

Alrighty then. Picture this if you will.

The new Tool album is worth buying simply for the packaging artwork, viewable through the built-in stereoscopic lenses ("use of the lenses for any other purpose is not recommended" -- intriguing). And I would like to posit that my favourite part, musically, occurs at about 4:23 into "Wings for Marie (Part 1)"

For anyone confused by the title of the album, consider the title track, "10,000 Days (Wings part 2)", and its preceding track, "Wings for Marie (part 1)". Judith Marie Keenan, singer Maynard's mother, suffered a stroke that left her paralysed until her death 27 years (or approximately 10,000 days) later. Knowing that, consider the words in the title track:

Ten thousand days in the fire is long enough, you're going home.
You're the only one who can hold your head up high,
Shake your fists at the gates saying:
"I have come home now!

"Fetch me the spirit, the son, and the father.
Tell them their pillar of faith has ascended.
It's time now!
My time now!
Give me my, give me my wings!"

---------------------------------------------

Herein as well lies an Australian radio interview (mp3) with Danny and Maynard, and the inside of the album (jpg) which can be used as a desktop wallpaper if you're so inclined.

Word from Galway

(1pm here, 8am there)
Right now I'm enjoying some of the world-famous Irish weather -- dark grey skies and sheets of rain. All the more reason to stay in for pints of Guinness, generally in the range of €3.50 (and no tax or tip). On our way to Inishmore, the biggest of the Aran Islands. Wish us good weather & look forward to photos and sketch scans when I eventually return..

Sláinte!