Dearlove.ca

It’s been a while since I wrote anything about music, so I thought I’d share a few thoughts about people and songs I heard over the past seven days.

First up was last Saturday’s annual fund-raising gala, with special guest Sarah McLachlan.  I definitely went through a Sarah phase back in the early 90′s – Solace was in my regular rotation, acting as an emotional amplifier when I wanted to wallow in self-pity.  B had also tried to convince me that Ice Cream should be our wedding song, and while part of me liked it because I was pretty sure I could master a simple waltz-step, I ultimately vetoed it because of the somewhat depressing chorus “It’s a long way down to the place where we started from”.

Hearing Sarah perform live was a pleasant surprise.  She sang extremely well, perfectly in tune, and she has more vocal chops than I thought she did (including a beautiful upper register).  She’s got a new set of orchestral charts, and I’m sure she could keep herself busy for the next year if she wanted to doing the orchestra pops circuit.  She also looked stunning, with fabulously toned arms, and had an engaging stage presence.  All around, a really good performance.

(I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Pinchas and the orchestra sounded great in the first half.  The black-tie crowd ate up the clapping bit during the Radetzky March).

The next day, it was time for something completely different.  I took the boys to the Blacksheep Inn up in Wakefield to hear a solo set by JP Hoe.  JP is a talented singer-songwriter from Winnipeg who was one of our favourite musicians at the last Scene festival.  He recently finished a new album and has a couple of important showcases coming up, and I hope it all leads to some new opportunities – he’s a great talent with a bright future.

On Tuesday, I picked up Dan Mangan’s new album Oh Fortune.  Dan was my favourite singer-songwriter during BC Scene two years ago, and since then his career has really taken off.  He was named Artist of the Year at the 2009 Verge Music Awards, was shortlisted for the 2010 Polaris Music Prize for Nice, Nice, Very Nice, and has been touring virtually non-stop.

It’s been interesting to watch the lead-up to the album launch by an artist on the rise.  There was the CBC Radio 3 broadcast of the whole album performed live, Dan was Jian’s guest on Q, and new performance clips were released on Dan’s website every few days.  All the hard work is paying off – the album is getting lots of attention, and he’s headlining at much larger venues (including a gig at the 2,800-seat Orpheum in his home town of Vancouver).  I look forward to catching his Ottawa show on October 14th at the Bronson Centre.  Tickets are available here.

Finally, I just got around to listening to some Elbow (yes, I know I’m a few years late on this one).  I’ve grown very fond of Lippy Kids – it’s one of those songs on first listen that takes you by surprise and puts a grin on your face as the melody unfolds.  Lead singer Guy Garvey has a wonderful voice that draws frequent comparisons to Peter Gabriel, which is never a bad thing.

In July, I spent two days in Inuvik during the Great Northern Arts Festival.  Throughout the festival, professionals offer a variety of workshops for us non-artists – everything from making a traditional Dene drum to sewing seal-skin mittens.

I may be a musician, but my artistic abilities do not translate to the visual arts world.  I have never been able to draw, and my feeble attempts at making something out of clay in public school always resulted in deformed pieces that only a mother could love (and even that was questionable).  So, I was both excited and nervous when I snagged the final spot in an eight-hour soapstone carving workshop.

There were eight students in my workshop, which was led by master carver John Sabourin.  We gathered around some tables in a large tent outside and picked out a large chunk of soapstone.  There were a few stencils of traditional forms we could use to get started, or we could draw something freehand (yeah, right).  I figured a polar bear would be a good choice, and step one was figuring out how to make it fit on my piece of rock.

The first part was easy in concept, a bit difficult to execute.  Using a hand saw, I had to trim off the large pieces of extra stone.  I know soapstone is considered a soft stone, but it’s still a rock, and my arm was getting pretty tired after 10 minutes of sawing.  I looked enviously at some of the professional carvers who were using power tools, but we were doing this old-school, so I just put my head down and kept going.

For the next five hours, I used a variety of small metal files to slowly shape the square stone into a rounded piece.  Every once in a while John would stop by and suggest areas that should be filed down, and a few times I ducked inside to look at finished sculptures in the gallery to see what the bear should look like.  It seemed impossible that my chunk of rock would ever resemble an actual bear.

At one point, I said to John, “The head – it looks like a bull”.

He said, “Do you want it to be a bull?”

Who had ever heard of a soapstone bull?  “No,” I said, “I want a bear”.

He took my piece over to his Dremel-like tool, and 30 seconds later my bull was looking decidedly more bear-like.  He made it look awfully easy.

By the middle of the afternoon, my hair and clothes were covered in a fine white dust.  The bear was beginning to take shape, and John suggested it was time to start sanding.  This was a painfully slow process that involved no fewer than six different steps – coarse sandpaper, fine sandpaper, the rough side of a sanding sponge, the fine side of a sanding sponge, steel wool in water, and 800-grit sandpaper.  The final step was wiping it down with tung oil and buffing it to a shine.

Dipping the sculpture in water had a magical effect.  The dry soapstone was white, but as soon as it got wet, it looked completely different.  The stone was a beautiful green colour, with black streaks and gold flecks littered throughout.  I couldn’t believe how great it looked.

It was a pretty cool way to spend a day.  Life at home is usually too busy to contemplate spending eight hours sitting at a table and focusing all your attention on a small piece of stone – it had a definite Zen-like quality. I walked back to the hotel with a spring in my step, the bear snug under my arm, with a rare sense of satisfaction that I had actually created something.  I also came away with a much deeper appreciation for the skill of the real carvers whose work was on display at the festival – they are truly talented artists.

Camp Otonabee.  Yellowknife.  Folk on the Rocks.  Abandoned gold mine.  Owl attack.  Inuvik.  Great Northern Arts Festival.  Soapstone bear carving.  Karate camp.  Big Green Egg.  Fort George.  Pool party.  Pizzeria Libretto.  Harry Potter.  Tiffany Falls.  Westfield Heritage Village Ice Cream Festival.  Mont Cascades.    10th Anniversary.  Le nordik.  The Lion King.  Croquet champ.  Upper Canada Village.  Lac la Peche.  Twin Valley Zoo.  39th birthday.  Ancaster Mill.  Gustar reunion.  Pig Roast.  Medieval Times.  Eaglewood Folk Festival.  Adirondaks.

Au revoir, l’été…

The actual title of this post should be “The 17th Annual International Leeds & Grenville Pink Flamingo Croquet Match and Beer Swill Champion“, but it was just too damn long…

Every summer for the past nine years, B and I have headed down the 401 to the Greater Lansdowne area to take part in the Pink Flamingo croquet match.  Organized by B’s aunt and uncle, Gerry & Claudette, and a number of their friends, the annual gathering is always one of the summer’s highlights.

The event is a pretty wacky affair.  Inspired by Alice in Wonderland, pink flamingos figure prominently, and invitees typically wear bright pink ensembles.  Each year, the outfits seem to get more outrageous, with truly breathtaking mou-mous, kaftans, and assorted cross-dressers.

Of course, at the heart of the fun is the game of croquet.  Around 60 people play in the two preliminary rounds, with just six players making it to the final.  While the first round is pretty casual, the semi-finals and the final can get fairly competitive.  At stake is a stunning trophy and the chance to be next year’s Grand Poobah.  Winning is considered both an honour and a curse.

It may sound funny to the uninitiated, but croquet is a very dramatic sport.  Games can have huge momentum swings – laggards suddenly jumping into the lead with an inspired run, frontrunners falling apart with one poor shot.  The wait between shots can seem interminable as you helplessly watch an opponent roquet your ball into oblivion.  It is not a game for the faint of heart.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m no expert.  The only time I play is at the annual croquet match (where practicing is forbidden).  So it was through sheer luck and other people’s misfortune that, after nine summers of failed attempts, I wound up as this year’s champion.

I cannot overstate the impact this victory had on my two sons, especially A.  He was buzzing around me the entire afternoon, giving me tips, proposing strategy, and repeatedly saying, “You’re going to win, Dad, you’re going to win”.  As the pressure mounted in the final, he was a ball of nervous energy – his hands clenched into fists, his body tightly coiled.  When victory came, he treated it was as if I’d won an Olympic gold medal.

Yes, it’s just a friendly little croquet match.  No, it’s not supposed to be competitive.  But truth be told, I’m glad I won.  My boys thought I was actually good at something, and being the recipient of your child’s unabashed adoration is a rare gift.

Here are a few photos from this year’s match.

Rules are very important.  Key thing to remember is don’t touch a flamingo – the punishment can be severe.

The event is held at a different location every year.  There’s nothing like spending a summer afternoon at a beautiful country house.

B and a colourful group of competitors in the opening round.

The happy family.

The six finalists.  I am committed to finding an appropriate pink ensemble for next year.

Raising the trophy with the help of my two minions.

My son drew this at dinner tonight.

He says it’s a cannon firing at a target.

He wanted to know why Mommy and Daddy were laughing so hard…

When I pictured the perfect trip to Yellowknife, it included some kind of northern adventure.  A unique experience that I couldn’t get in the suburbs of Ottawa – something memorable, perhaps with an element of danger or calculated risk.  A story I could tell my kids about, one that would make their eyes would grow wide with wonder.

In an abandoned gold mine on the outskirts of town, I got my wish.

Day 1:  Warning Shot

After about 15 minutes of exploring the Ptarmigan Mine, I came to a large, roofless building at the bottom of a hill.  I heard a hooting sound and looked up to see a beautiful Great Horned Owl perched on a girder.

I snapped a photo and then walked through the open door, intent on exploring the interior.  I was suddenly aware of a large shape rushing towards me, and I quickly ducked back outside.  Dozens of small birds hiding inside the building began to tweet furiously.  I glanced around and the owl was gone – it had clearly decided that I was a trespasser and needed to be scared off.  Message received.

I looked around outside and saw the reason for the owl’s hostile reaction to my visit.  A cute baby owl sat on the floor of the building, and it stared at me with clear contempt.  Not wanting to risk another attack, I skirted the building and took a few photos from the opposite end.

I left the mine a few minutes later, walking with a spring in my step.  I had been menaced by a great horned owl at an abandoned gold mine – a nice adventure story to tell the boys.

But that was just round one…

Day 2:  The Return and a Warning Ignored

The next morning, my colleague Heather suggested we go back to the mine before our flight departed for Inuvik.  She wanted to see the mine for herself, and it sounded like a nice way to kill some time before departing for the airport.

Twenty minutes later, I led her on a tour of the mine, retracing my steps from the previous day.  As we approached the processing building, I scanned the rafters for the owl.  After a few seconds, I spotted it perched in a pine tree just beyond the building.  I took a few steps forward, trying to get a couple of pictures of the owl framed between the exposed metalwork.

I was about 30 feet away when the owl began to go “Whooo.  Whooo.”

“Cool,” I thought.

She began to shuffle from foot to foot, her bright yellow eyes locked on me.

“Um, it’s starting to move,” warned Heather.

Sensing I had overstayed my welcome, I began to back away, glancing down to put my camera back in the bag.  I looked up just in time to see the powerful bird hurtling towards me at great speed, its wings spread, talons extended.  It looked something like this:

In that split second, I turned my head and tried to raise my arms defensively.  Suddenly I was on the ground, the right side of my head throbbing, with stinging by my eye.  I instinctively reached up to grab my head, and thought, “Holy shit, she actually hit me!”

I got back to my feet and started to run, worried that this was just the first volley.  I looked around frantically, but couldn’t spot the owl anywhere – she had simply disappeared.  I pulled my hand away from my head, expecting to see it covered in blood, and was relieved to find nothing.

Heather and I headed back to the car, my heart pounding and my mind racing.  I looked in the mirror and saw three small scratches beside my eye.

In the days following the attack, I considered how lucky I had been.  I imagined different scenarios, including one where the owl plucked out both my eyes with her sharp talons, like some kind of Old Testament punishment.

In case it isn’t already clear that I acted foolishly, I had ignored another warning about the owl.  After the first encounter, I Googled the mine and came across a story on Northern News Services.  A journalist and a photographer had been at the mine a couple of weeks earlier, and the photographer had been attacked by the owl.  In his case, the owl drew blood.  You can find the article here and the journalist’s blog post here.

So in the end, I got my adventure story.  It was truly one of the scariest and coolest things that has happened to me in a long time.   I can’t wait until my next visit north (likely Whitehorse in October) and the promise of another adventure – suggestions are welcome.