"10.# # # Gordon Lightfoot, Massey Hall, Winter of 1976. For the debut of the Wreck Of the Edmond Fitzgerald. I used to go the annual Gordon Lightfoot shows at Massey Hall, and in those days, ticketing was all done by mail order. So you’d call the box office after Christmas, and they’d tell you: tickets are $5.50 $4.40 and $3.30 this year; send a check for the dates you want and usually sometime in January or early February they’d arrive in the mail. That year, I ordered two pairs – I took a friend from university, Cathy Osborne for the first show; and Monica, my sister to the second.
Cathy and I were in the fourth row. Gordon opened with one of his hits and then explained that he was debuting a new song that would be on an album to be released later in the year. He told the story of a freighter that went down in Lake Superior a couple of months earlier and proceeded to sing the song. Nobody’d ever heard it before, but his voice was so clear and the acoustics so good in the hall that you understood every word. It was moving, breathtaking – and of course, no one knew when it was over. You know how usually, the applause starts before the song ends? Here – and I’ve never seen this – there was dead silence for … thousand one, thousand two, thousand three. It seemed endless – and then the place exploded in a standing ovation that lasted longer than any I could remember. Lightfoot seemed genuinely taken aback. I think right there, he knew he had written something special.
Two nights later, I warned Monica what was about to happen and it unfolded in exactly the same fashion. Never forget that moment, for as long as I live, the loudest silence I’ve ever heard."
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Yesterday I learned that Dr. Karl Clark (arguably the father of Alberta's oilsands industry) became so almost by accident. In the 1920's Alberta's road system was virtually non existent and the number of automobiles was growing rapidly. He was hired to look for a solution to hard surface our roads which were at the time build from local material (ie bentonite rich which is massively slippery when wet). He experimented with oilsands in hopes of mixing it with the other road materials for something that might hold together and was water resistant. It was during this time he discovered he could separate the bitumen from the sand and his interest pivoted. The rest is history.
Yesterday I learned that Dr. Karl Clark (arguably the father of Alberta's oilsands industry) became so almost by accident. In the 1920's Alberta's road system was virtually non existent and the number of automobiles was growing rapidly. He was hired to look for a solution to hard surface our roads which were at the time build from local material (ie bentonite rich which is massively slippery when wet). He experimented with oilsands in hopes of mixing it with the other road materials for something that might hold together and was water resistant. It was during this time he discovered he could separate the bitumen from the sand and his interest pivoted. The rest is history.
Great story. No #### his interest pivoted. H'mmm how to get this fleece off of this goose, what would be the best way, experiment, experiment, Hey this makes it ##### gold. Ok, no more concerns about fleece.
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Me: Huh, who is that?
Google: here is all the info on her...
Me: Hm. Pretty, born in 1990. THIRTY ####ING YEARS OLD?!?
Me, again: But, but, she was only born in 1990!! How can she be THIRTY?!
Me: Wow, I am getting old.
Eric D. used to be roommates with James Muretich who was the infamous music critic for the Calgary Herald and co-host of FM Moving Pictures. I'd like to interview Eric myself, about all that.
Have been playing chess with my son and watching Queen's Gambit. Meanwhile, unrelated, a buddy of mine is moving to Thailand.
So naturally one day the 80s song One Night in Bankok gets in my head. I would have been 13 or so when that was big. Never paid much attention to the lyrics; no internet back then, but always thought it was some 80s pap (albeit really catchy)
Turns out the song is from a musical called Chess (written by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus of ABBA fame) and is about international chess tournaments.
Love it when the universe throws up little twists like that
I learned that you never know what's happening with someone at home, even if they seem happy. I was always nice in my interactions with them, and really liked them, but I feel like, damn, could I have done something? I'm looking at the world through a different lens today.
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I learned that you never know what's happening with someone at home, even if they seem happy. I was always nice in my interactions with them, and really liked them, but I feel like, damn, could I have done something? I'm looking at the world through a different lens today.
I’m very sorry to hear that. The exact same thing happened to me a few years back. It took me a while, quite a while actually, to realize that no there was nothing I could have done unfortunately.
I learned this year that if you're ever looking to move into a unit in a residential building, your first and most important question should be - Is the building concrete or wood construction?
I didnt ask that question before moving into my building. It was all quiet for a few months, and then little Johnny/Suzie upstairs learned how to walk (run) and they ran, stomped and dropped things non stop (yes, your precious baby is loud as hell and not cute to me)
Luckily, the family above me moved out recently, and so we moved into their apartment (the top floor of the building), so we don't ever have anyone living above us again.
I never had that experience before in the 4 buildings I had previously lived in (obviously concrete, now that I look back). It was stupid of me not to have considered it.
I learned that you never know what's happening with someone at home, even if they seem happy. I was always nice in my interactions with them, and really liked them, but I feel like, damn, could I have done something? I'm looking at the world through a different lens today.
Really sorry to read that. I hope you're doing okay.
__________________
"If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?"
I recently learned that buying cheap wrapping paper and especially cheap tape, is a bad route to go. The better quality, the easier it is to wrap for a non-wrapper person.
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I recently learned that buying cheap wrapping paper and especially cheap tape, is a bad route to go. The better quality, the easier it is to wrap for a non-wrapper person.
I scored a massive roll form Home Depot, I think, a couple years ago after Christmas on clearance. You could probably support a small car with it, it is so sturdy. It makes even a klutz like me able to wrap gifts and not look like a drunk racoon did it. Highly recommended good paper. I've probably got 5 years left on this roll.
I learned that you never know what's happening with someone at home, even if they seem happy. I was always nice in my interactions with them, and really liked them, but I feel like, damn, could I have done something? I'm looking at the world through a different lens today.
I'm really sorry for you loss. Its been a couple of years since I had a family member take his own life. I thought he was past his demon's, he had put a bad year in the mirror and was rebounding. On reflection, and its easy to Monday Morning Quarterback, I missed some things that now seem obvious.
Here's the thing, People that commit suicide, and I know I'm going to sound shytty saying this. Are like a Blackhole, when they go in, they unintentionally drag everyone attached to them into the same cycle.
We blame ourselves, we curse ourselves because we didn't save them. We mull over it for a long time and it can be crushing, and devastating and emotionally draining. Though this family member and friend has been gone for a while, its not like he's faded away, or I've stopped thinking about it. I doubt that ever happens because every time you see a picture or someone brings up his name or whatever, that blackhole starts rotating again.
I have no stunning advice, except the phrase that's important. Its not your fault. You have no blame in it, they made a decision, and hid it and camouflaged it, and chances are there wasn't a lot that you can do. you'll just catch yourself in the riptide if you follow that line of questioning about yourself.
sorry for the long post and its rant like nature, but I've been caught in a few emotional event horizons way to often, and in a ironically named string about things I've learned. I've never been one who's really learned to let things go, and maybe that's a resolution that I need to follow for 2021.
Damn Christmas Rum.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
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I recently learned that buying cheap wrapping paper and especially cheap tape, is a bad route to go. The better quality, the easier it is to wrap for a non-wrapper person.
Newspaper and string, its how it was done in the old days, and if its good enough for Grandpa Conswarnit, its good enough for us.
__________________
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
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Today I learned that Ma-La (From Kenji Lopez-Alt's exceptional cookbook that I got for Christmas) means "numb spicy" and is a Sichuan concept of mixing peppercorns, chilis, and other spices.
In its filing, the Girl Scouts said the Boy Scouts' marketing of expanded services for girls was "extraordinary and highly damaging to Girl Scouts" and had set off an "explosion of confusion."
