Me and the girls. It’s always gratifying to see an action shot like this and realize that people were actually listening and paying attention!
It would probably come as a surprise to those not actually involved in the writing industry to know just how much time and energy we writers invest in teaching others how to do what we do. Teach may be too strong a word to describe this activity. Perhaps it’s only guiding. Allowing, even.
I’m guided in this activity by a motto that comes from the Hippocratic Oath: Do no harm. I know that I can’t always reach every person in the room. I also know that despite their desire and hard work, some just won’t have what it takes. Fair enough, they will find that out with time. But at least I hope that nowhere in this process will I damper anyone’s love of writing and literature, or harm in any way their sense of self-worth.
People who enroll in any kind of class do so with a hope and a prayer, it seems to me. And no matter what they might seem, they are no doubt vulnerable and even fragile and I try to honour that. They may not learn to write as a result of their time with me, but at least they won’t feel any worse about themselves.
Do no harm. It’s a modest goal, but an important one. Sometimes more than others.
Recently, I was invited to talk to a group of aboriginal girls who are part of the Stardale Women’s Group Foundation, being run in Calgary by the indefatigable Helen McPhaden. Stardale, which began in Saskatchewan in 1997, offers a wide variety of services and programs specifically for aboriginal women and girls.
I met with the girls in a small community centre in the west end of town early one evening. A light supper was provided for the girls (and their instructor for the evening) and after they had taken care of some business, they were introduced to the great author (moi) and our goal was to explore the writing process together in a reasonable manner.
As I say, my goal is to do no harm. I was aware that some of the girls in that room had been on very difficult journeys in their young lives. In fact, Helen told me that the underlying goal of the group is to restore, in some cases create in the first place, a sense of self-esteem.
Anyone who has ever sat in a classroom knows how easy it is to be wounded by a teacher. It can be deliberate or it can be accidental, but it happens. It has always struck me that some teachers, those we refer to as pedants, are in the habit of using their knowledge on a subject both as a weapon and as an extension of their huge but fragile egos. That is in fact the opposite philosophy of doing no harm.
I know that the idea of writing something doesn’t fill everyone with a feeling of radiant joy. In fact it scares the hell out of a lot of people. (Apparently public speaking is the greatest fear most people have.) And so I don’t ask much at these workshops. In fact, with these girls, I only ask for one word. I figure everyone has at least one word in them!
But that’s for starters. I had the girls write one word on a small recipe card and then I got them back and shuffled them and handed them out again so they could write a second word on a different card. Even a third or fourth or fifth if they felt up to it. And so in this manner we came up with the cards in the photo below.
“Love, hate, you only live and laugh once, hurt, happiness, I love you, I loooove you, joy.”
It’s just a beginning, of course. The cards can be added to, shared or taken over by one person. Two words together might be the basis for a poem, and from there it’s not too big a jump to open a notebook and start writing on one’s own.
The cards done by the girls at Stardale aren’t really a whole lot different from the cards generated by other students in other situations. Wherever we find ourselves, whatever hand we have been dealt in life, it seems to me we all hope for and fear pretty much the same things.
That these girls have grown to participate so well and so enthusiastically in workshops like the one I led and everything they do beyond this says a lot about their own courage and determination. It also says a lot about the volunteers and leaders of the Stardale Girls Program. It’s a very much needed and important program. It is changing the lives and expectations of these girls for the good.
While it may be depressing for some of us that Alberta’s leading cultural export right now is probably Nickelback, Alberta is known for many artists working in many fields around the world.
A number of years ago, my daughter Hanna and I were in New York where we saw a performance of Calgary’s Old Trout’s Famous Puppet Death Scenes at the Public Theatre. I wrote about that event in my column in the Calgary Herald and I know many people were surprised to learn about this production taking place in the Big Apple.
Back then, there were people in Calgary and perhaps throughout the province who thought we were still importing our art from exotic places like Toronto, New York and London. While there’s still a bit of that going on, it hasn’t really been that way for 20 years or so.
Alberta art of all kinds is of a high enough quality to export. But it doesn’t just happen. It takes a lot of hard work and some financial support and so I’d like to talk about an upcoming event that is near to my heart in many ways.
Every year, an organization called the Folk Alliance International puts on a conference for musicians and other individuals from all areas of music presentation to attend and participate in — and indeed to showcase their talents. Last year the event took place in Memphis, Tennessee and this year it is being held in Toronto.
My friend Stewart Chyz (a fellow Saskatchewan expat) has been involved with this event through the Bow Valley Music Club, a great organization that, among other things, brought in Jack Semple last season . (Jack is another Saskatchewan boy, but not an expat, he still lives there. He and I went to high school together in Regina back in the day. But that’s another story for another day.) BVMC puts on 10 concerts a year at the Strathcona Community Centre. Full details can be found on their website, www.bowvalleymusicclub.org.
The goal of the club is to help offset the costs incurred by Alberta musicians who wish to attend this event. Through their fundraising efforts, the club pays for at least a portion of the registration fees as well as providing presentation and showcase rooms for our musicians to perform in. The goal of course it to create awareness and even work for our artists outside of Alberta.
This idea of cultural exportation is important to our image in other parts of Canada and beyond; for providing a real sense of what is happening here for many people whose image of Alberta dates back to the 1920’s.
To help raise some funds for this event, Stewart has very generously (ie, out of his own pocket) produced a compilation CD called Toronto Bound, featuring songs by many of this year’s participants. These are no slouches on this disc – they are some of our finest musicians, including Ralph Boyd Johnson, Steve Pineo and Jenny Allen, to name but three.
Stewart isn’t looking to make his money back for himself, but he is looking to sell as many CD’s as he can to support this venture. One way to get them is through the BVMC website or through their Facebook page, but an even better way is to pick one up at the Ironwood on Sunday, October 21, from 2 – 6 PM, where there will be live entertainment, of course, including Pear, Steve Pineo, The Jenny Allen Trio and John Wort Hannam.
The Ironwood is located at 1229 9th Avenue S.E. in Inglewood. It’s 20 bucks to get in, another 20 for a CD. In this way you can help support Alberta musicians showcase their talents in Toronto early next year.
PS. If you want to pick up a copy of the disc and support this worthy cause, they are available for $20.00 at Heritage Poster and Music on the NW corner of 11th Ave. and 14th St. SW.
Thanks for reading. I leave with you a little snippet from the Trouts . . .
I took the photos in this post using the “paper camera” app on my iPhone. It’s a free app and has many cool settings. This one is called Comic Boom.
While I was on my regular Sunday morning excursion to my local Shoppers Drug Mart, I was reminded of an episode that occurred last summer, which I know will be of burning interest to readers of this blog.
Before I venture any further, let me elucidate a few things. First, when I say “my local Shoppers Drug Mart,” you can simply visualize your own local Shoppers Drug Mart, for as I found out in Stratford, Ontario last fall, they are all exactly the same. The shampoo is over here, the cheesies are over there. I find this both freaky and comforting at the same time.
And second, and more to the critical understanding of this post, it should be known that I possess an extraordinary number of Shoppers Drug Mart Optimum points. It’s quite an astronomical number, actually, putting me in the $85.00 free merchandise redemption neighbourhood.
I don’t like to brag about it (being a humble man), but I do believe this is a remarkable enough achievement that I include it on my resume.
One of the reasons – certainly the most important reason – for my trip to Shoppers this morning was to grow the Optimum fund.
As I say, I was reminded of a situation last summer. I was living, surviving more than living, really, in a most depressingly impecunious manner. The job had ended and the EI was moving about as quickly as a glacier. Adding to the merriment, my daughter Hanna had come back to Calgary for the summer.
She was not destined to stay, however, and before long had made arrangements to test the waters in New York City. Before she left, in need of toiletries and such sundry items as can be found in any Shoppers Drug Mart (on the same shelf in relation to the other shelves in any store anywhere in this fine land), she suggested that I give her my Optimum card so as not to strain my fractured finances any further.
I felt a pain in my chest, like a knife had been plunged into my heart.
“Use our Optimum points?” I asked, clutching my chest, slumping into a chair, chest heaving as I sought to get my breath.
“Why not?” she rejoindered.
“Oh no, oh no no no . . “ I opined.
“But dad, we’re broke!” she reasoned.
And so it was with tears in my eyes, I took my daughter’s hand in my own and looked deeply into her eyes so I could teach her one of life’s essential lessons. And I said, “It doesn’t matter, love. We’ll find the money somewhere. Even if it means I have to go out and find a job like a normal human being, we will find the money somewhere. Somehow. But we must, at all costs, preserve the sanctity of the Optimum fund. For once it’s gone, then it could truly be said we have nothing left but the skin that covers our bones and our nerves, and I truly will be up the proverbial creek of excrement with no paddle.”
We held each other and had a good cry, alone together against the enormous indifference of the cosmos. And I can’t remember what I had to do to come up with the money, but some was found, and Hanna was able to get her deodorant and a toothbrush and those other things that women are always getting, that men know nothing of.
And the points were preserved, dear reader. The Optimum fund remained intact, as it does to this day.
Safe. Growing. Flourishing, even.
And that was what I was thinking of when I went to Shoppers Drug Mart this morning to buy some invigorating shower gel, hair conditioner and a new 5 blade razor system with two replacement cartridges, thereby swelling the fund an additional 140 points.
It’s a wonderful life after all. Thanks for reading!
This particular Shoppers at the corner of 17th Avenue and 7th Street SW in Calgary was erected on the site of the old Mercury Lounge, which was my favourite bar, so visiting this location is always a bitter sweet experience.
Taken by my friend Michele shortly before the security guards swarmed down on her.
Bob Dylan and his band and Mark Knopfler and his band performed at the Saddledome in Calgary last night and here are a few thoughts on that event . . .
I have seen Bob Dylan 4 times now, going back 10 years when I saw him at the Saddledome in Calgary with my friend Bob White. That was a great show, as I recall, and what I remember most vividly all these years later is Dylan’s virtuosity on the guitar. He was flanked then as he still is now by Charlie Sexsmith who is as good as they come. It was a one-two punch that I will never forget.
Most recently, I saw Bob Dylan and his band in Lethbridge this August. I wrote a blog post about that show in August, which you can access in the archive section of my blog to the left of this post. Nothing about Dylan and his band’s performance last night changed anything I wrote about the Lethbridge show.
The thing that stands out the most is Dylan’s engaging personality as it comes through in his performances these days. 10 years ago, he may have seemed more remote and less personable. At the Lethbridge performance, I found him to be surprisingly engaging and fun. I wondered if that was in part due to a smaller venue, but that was not the case. He was all of that and more in Calgary last night.
The playlist and the way the songs got played was not really different than it was two months ago. If anything, as the band goes on with this never-ending tour, they are more tight than ever. I would think if you know anything about North American culture over the last 50 years or so, you would think it worth while and money well spent to see the man who gave us “Like a Rolling Stone” and “Blowin’ in the Wind” perform these iconic songs live and in person.
My friend Zenon took me to the concert in Lethbridge, and to last night’s concert as well. (He is a very good friend!) Even while we were in Lethbridge, we had heard that he had added Mark Knopfler to the card, and that Dylan and Knopfler would appear together in Calgary a few months hence, so Zenon decided we should see what that was all about.
At the time, and I suppose even going into last night’s concert, we weren’t sure how it worked, if MK would actually play with BD and his band, or if it would be a separate act.
Well, when you think of it, with Charlie Sexsmith as the lead guitarist in the BD band, where would MK fit in? He wouldn’t. So what we saw in Calgary and what you will see if you’re yet to catch them on this tour is an hour set by MK and his band followed by a slightly longer set by BD and his band.
I have seen MK before, when he came to Regina in the late 80’s with Dire Straights. It was one of the best concerts I have ever seen, and I was anxious to see MK in concert again.
He didn’t disappoint. (Except maybe for the British bloke near me who kept yelling out “Romeo and Juliet!” between songs.) With his amazingly versatile 8 piece band he laid out an hour of new and intricate and complex and decidedly Gaelic-sounding work. The virtuosity of all these musicians coupled with an amazing sense of ensemble playing made MK’s portion of the evening one of the greatest musical events I have witnessed in some time.
When it ended, and after the encore of the only song I recognized from MK’s earlier days, “So Far Away From Me,” I felt it was ending far too soon and I was left with that hollow feeling that the party was over and yet I still wanted more.
However, that feeling didn’t last too long. After all, the greatest poet of our generation was waiting in the wings . . .
These days I derive part of my income from teaching internationally educated health professionals – doctors, surgeons, dentists, nurses, and such – at a place in North East Calgary called Alberta Business and Educational Services. (I wrote about ABES, as we call it, and what I do there in a post called Work, Work, Work which you can find in the archives to the left, written in August, 2011.)
Invariably I have these medical types give a class presentation on alternative medicine, and inevitably one of my Chinese students will deliver a lecture on acupuncture. In fact this term we had three such presentations.
The best description of the whole concept came from my student Shu, who showed a map of the Calgary C Train system to illustrate that the flow of the C Trains is like our Chi, our energy, and the stations on the map are like the pressure points on our bodies. The same day, another student with the western name of David, who is a doctor from China, gave a presentation on the practice of cupping.
As I sat listening with my aching back to these presentations, it suddenly dawned on me that rather than sit there in discomfort for the rest of my days, perhaps I should check out acupuncture myself and see if it would offer me some relief.
And so on a lovely Saturday morning in the late autumn, my friend Gord gave me a ride to the outer reaches of North West Calgary and I found myself in the home and small clinic of a very “authentic” Chinese acupuncturist, Fangping, a friend of my student Shu.
I managed to communicate the nature of my complaint, which I suppose is probably nothing more than garden variety sciatica, and soon enough I was in the prone position with Fangping ready to treat me. (I am resisting the obvious corny metaphor of being turned into a human pin cushion.)
Before she started the acupuncture, she used the cupping technique, which David had told us about. This involved about six small glass cups about two inches in diameter applied to points along the back and on the upper buttocks. The cups are designed like suction cups, and a vacuum is created, cinching up the skin and everything underneath it. (In the old days, the vacuum was created by heating the cups, but Fangping thankfully had an updated version of this ancient device.)
Lying there with the muscles thus torqued, I felt a gentle pressure being exerted, causing a stretching in the area that seemed to relax the underlying muscles. The cups were left there for about ten or fifteen minutes and when they were released, the whole area felt more relaxed. It’s hard to explain just what it felt like, exactly. But it certainly felt different.
And then came the main event, the acupuncture itself. The needles were inserted along my lower spine, then out towards the hip in the upper buttock area, as well as a couple at specific points behind each knee. It was impossible to see what she’s doing but she seemed to manipulate the needles (jiggling them up and down) in a pattern at regular intervals. I went into some kind of deep trance while this was going on so it’s hard to say.
After half an hour or so, the needles were removed and I was good to go.
Because it was my first time, I may have been a bit apprehensive at certain times, but I can honestly say that nothing Fangping did caused me any pain whatsoever. All in all it was a very easy treatment to endure.
So the big question . . . did it work?
Yes. In fact, it did.
I did something to my back cycling about a month ago and have been in pretty consistent pain ever since. It’s usually manageable with a bit of rest and some Advil (amazing what one can get used to) but sometimes it can get very uncomfortable. And painful. Obviously it was bad. Why else would I have sought out help?
I got back home from my session and lay down for a bit, and when I got back up I didn’t feel any pain at all, not even a twinge. By the end of the evening, there was a bit of discomfort, but it still felt much better. I didn’t expect a problem that’s been present for decades to magically disappear after one session. Fangping suggested I come back for a few more treatments and I will.
There are other more esoteric applications of acupuncture that interest me, beyond a quick fix of a bad back. These have to do with the above mentioned flow of the chi through our bodies. Could repeated treatments make one feel more awake, more alive, more happy? Or cause one to see and hear better, sleep better, quit smoking, lose weight?
I see no reason to think that it wouldn’t help in any or all of these areas, and then some. As far as I’m concerned, you can’t argue with results. If you have ever thought of trying acupuncture for whatever ails you, I highly recommend it.
Since I mentioned on Facebook the other day that I had signed up with car2go, several people have asked me what I think of it and some have even suggested it would be a good subject for a blog post, so here you go.
A bit of background. I gave up my car on November 1 of last year. Over the winter I walked and took public transportation. This summer, I have put some 2,000 km on my bicycle. Only once during this time have I borrowed a friend’s car. I have taken a cab on only two occasions. I live in downtown Calgary so being at a central location is handy for all forms of transportation.
A month or so ago, the car2go people set up outside my favourite coffee shop. It is a company that has put, I believe, 250 Smart Cars (just like the one in my photo) on the streets of Calgary. Once you have registered with a credit card and valid driver’s license and you have been approved, you receive a swipe-card in the mail and you are good to go.
There is an app that allows you to see where the nearest car is – in fact it tells you how many metres it is from you and how much gas is in the tank. You are given the option to reserve the car for 15 minutes, allowing you time to reach it without someone else taking it. I found one just one street away from me this morning and set out on my maiden voyage. (Sans maiden, alas, but that’s another story.)
There’s a sensor located in the windshield. You swipe your card once approved, the doors magically open. Inside, you answer a few questions on the in-dash screen, such as, if the car is clean, and if there is any physical damage. My car was in fact pristine, inside and out. I took the key from its holder, put it in the ignition, fired ‘er up and I was on my way.
My trip today was to West Hills, which is a big box shopping area in the west end of Calgary. It’s not very well accessed by public transportation (although it soon will be when the new LRT line is completed) and it’s a tough bike ride, so this seemed like a reasonable destination. I was on the hunt for some winter footwear, which I have found before at The Shoe Company. Sure enough I was in luck today and I bought my Murrell winter mocs for about $40.00 less than I have seen them in stores downtown.
I believe that the car2go I used cost me about $10.00 for the trip – it is calculated at $.35 per minutes, with gas and parking in any Calgary Smart Park locations, including city parkades, included.
It took a little bit to get used to driving again, but I guess it’s like riding a bike, it soon comes back to you. I liked driving the Smart Car. It handles extremely well, as you would expect, and the visibility is the best I have ever seen, so to speak, in a vehicle. And let’s face it, there’s a certain freedom to be out cruising around on a sunny afternoon. All in all it was a wonderful experience, money well spent.
I ended my trip at Community Natural Foods on 10th Avenue, which is only a few blocks from my apartment. I could have kept the rental active, but of course one is aware of those 35 cents slipping by every minutes, and as it was a lovely autumn day, it was a nice day for a little walk after all.
I highly recommend car2go. I think it has the capacity to change the way many people view ownership of a car. When you factor in insurance, gas, parking and everything else, owning a vehicle is a very expensive venture. Car2go is extremely economical and convenient. All in all, for a person like me who knows how to get by without a car, but would still like to use one from time to time, it’s a wonderful idea.
I don’t have a photo of Gene I can upload, but here’s one of me contemplating a work of art that Gene would have liked. If anyone reading this can send me a photo I will replace it.
A few months ago I wrote a post about an early musical mentor of mine, Thomas Manshardt. I studied piano with Tom when I first entered the University of Regina back in the mid 1970’s. (That post can be found by clicking the archive button on the left side and selecting July 2012. A second post that is germane to this time of my life – if you really have nothing better to do – is my post entitled “Brahms, Gothic Script, Shakespeare, Serendipity and Other Considerations” from January 2012.)
After studying in Germany, I came back to Regina with a renewed love of the English language, and the realization that I would never be a concert pianist. I returned to the U of R as a full-fledged English major. I wanted to be a writer. There are not many people whose decision to become an English major and beyond that, a writer, could be seen to be practical, but that was certainly the case with me. My parents were certainly relieved. A possible strategy for young people intent on pursuing an essentially impractical career path . . .
It was early on in my pursuit of a degree in English that I met my second mentor and namesake, Eugene Dawson. It’s hard now to explain the impact Gene had on my life – not just mine, but on so many others at that time. Brash, American, seven times married, prescription pill-popping, dope smoking, hard-drinking, irreverent and above all funny, Gene was unlike anyone I had ever met before or have met since. He brought true joy to the horror of human existence.
Gene taught a class in black humour which I took, and it was in his class I was introduced to the work of Mordecai Richler, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Joseph Heller, Nathaniel West and Kurt Vonnegut Jr. to name a few. In fact, like Vonnegut, Gene was a Hoosier, and they certainly shared many qualities, in particular a sardonic sense of humour and a wary way of regarding the goings on in the world. It was, as they say, “a cheerful nihilism.”
Before long Gene had me working as his teaching assistant. At that time at the U of R, a TA in English essentially taught grammar as a part of English 100. “But Gene, I know nothing about grammar,” I said. “I know,” he replied, “This is the only way you’re ever going to learn this shit, by teaching it. Just don’t let them see you sweat.”
And so in this way Gene brought me into his world. Before long, a second year student, I was a fixture at the Faculty Club on Friday afternoons which led to some legendary late night sessions with fellow students and faculty members Bernie Selinger, Dale and Barb Hauser, Ray and Ruth Mise and numerous others.
On one such legendary evening, I seem to recall I was standing atop a table in a restaurant in south Regina drinking flaming Sambucas. Certainly, my life as an English major was far different than it had been as a music major. Of course, there was no looking back and no regrets.
In the words of Bryan Adams, “Those were the best days of my life.”
We called him the old man, yet he was younger than I am now when he suddenly and sadly passed away. So full of life and laughter, he left a hole in many of our lives. At his wake, we tried to honour him through irreverence, but to no avail. Gene was gone and we all knew we would never see the likes of him again.
If Manshardt taught me about the high European tradition of art as a way of life, Gene taught me in his populist American way that it was all right to be myself, with no apologies needed. He taught me that no matter how much shit the world was flinging at me, there was always something to laugh at, even if it was an uneasy laughter. Thinking back on it, it brings to mind the lines of T.S. Eliot,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker
And in short, I was afraid . . .
Do you understand what I’m trying to say about being with Gene? There was always laughter, but it was always a little on the nervous side. But my god, how we laughed at the whole damned thing.
I fear I am doing none of these men justice, and am falling short of the mark trying to capture their greatness. Yet when I Google them, I get nothing, and so at least it’s a start.
Thanks for reading . . . Here’s a beautiful song by one of Gene’s and my favourite artists . . .
Years ago, 12 years ago in fact, I was trying to write a play and for the first time in my life, the words just stopped coming. Around that time, I was, as they say, churning them out for Alberta Theatre Projects and Lunchbox Theatre and other companies. I had never lost my stride before, so what was this all about? Did I suddenly have writer’s block? I didn’t really believe in writer’s block, so how could I have something I didn’t believe in?
I was married at the time and my wife, Carrie, was a part of a movement – in my mind a hippy and somewhat suspect movement – loosely referred to as “the gathering.” At this particular point in time, there was a gathering planned somewhere in the tall grasses and in the shade of the mountains west of Calgary. Off she went, and I was left at home to look after our daughter Hanna and of course to finish my play.
It should have been easy, but for the fact that I was experiencing this thing they call writer’s block. It was all new to me. I had always been a prolific writer. But I was certainly going through something.
On one of the nights that weekend, Hanna was invited to a sleep over at a friend’s house, and so with her thus dispatched and safe for the night, I betook myself to a local watering hole.
Therein, safely seated atop my favourite bar stool, I began a casual conversation with one of the waitresses. Given that it was weighing on my mind, I could hardly keep from informing her that I was suffering (experiencing initially, but by now suffering) from the accursed and by now not imaginary writer’s block.
As luck would have it, the waitress was studying new-age voo doo at one our local colleges. She decided to look after me. Who knows, I may have accounted as a credit towards her degree. She asked me my sign. I told her it was Libra. She rolled her eyes and looked at me like I was the simplest creature on earth not to know such things, and said ”Of course you’re suffering from writer’s block. Duhhhh! Venus is in retrograde and Uranus is around your ears and your past life animals are restless and probably just a little bit hungry. Silly.”
I sipped on my beer and contemplated the enormous significance of this mumbo jumbo but I got nowhere. Finally, asked the supplicant of the master, “What can I do about this?” Again, she looked at me as if I was perhaps the most ignorant and certainly unenlightened dork on the planet, and as if she was prescribing “two aspirins and call me in the morning” told me, “Just get a hunk of lapis. And you’ll be OK.”
“Sorry?” I asked
“Lapis lazuli. It’s a rock. A blue rock. Get a hunk of it and tether it to your personage and you will be ok.”
Or words to that effect. Which I quickly forgot, as I had a couple of beers and drove this ridiculous conversation from my mind.
A few unproductive days later, Carrie came home from her time in the wilderness. After we had burned her clothes and deloused her, she told me that she had a gift for me. At the conclusions of such gatherings it was customary for the participants to set gifts out on a blanket. Everyone there could choose from the array of offerings the one thing that spoke to them the loudest.
She said, “I saw this, and thought you would like it.” And she gave me a little piece of blue stone. Lapis lazuli. It was one of those moments when the hairs on the back of my neck stood up on end, causing me to question the entire activity out there in the deep woods that I had been so quick to dismiss. And indeed my activity in this universe and my place in it.
And so I finished the play. It was called Closer and Closer Apart and it has had a wonderful life for a little one act play. Do I think I could have finished it without the little hunk of lapis? Good question. For which I have no answer.
The reason I write this, years later in that I’ve had another little bout of writer’s block lately. Only now it’s not such a big deal, because I have the cure, and have now started carrying it with me everywhere I go.
I had a pesky security guard trying to make sure I wasn’t taking photos while two rows in front hundreds of people were taking photos with their phones. I hope Bob doesn’t mind that I’m posting this.
My friend Zenon and I drove down to Lethbridge on Saturday to catch Bob Dylan and his band. Lethbridge is a small Canadian city located in southern Alberta. It’s the heartland, actually, a small, tiny, sensible and scrubbed clean city in the heart of the Bible belt. Hardly the kind of place that you would expect to catch Mr. Dylan and friends, but if we have learned one thing about Bob Dylan over the decades, surely it is that we never know quite what to expect from him.
This was the third time I’ve seen Bob Dylan in concert, going back a mere ten years ago when I saw him in Calgary with my friend and long time Dylan fan Bob White. (I say “mere” because this is just a sliver of the time that Dylan has been playing and performing. But you know that. In fact, a guy in the row ahead of us on Saturday was seeing him for the 24th time going back many many years!)
I guess the general impression out there is that while Bob Dylan may be one of the great poets and songwriters of our era, as a performer he has the reputation of being “uneven,” to be generous; remote, detached, disengaged, even cold are adjectives one hears typically used to describe a Dylan performance.
Well, maybe it’s something about the air in Lethbridge, or maybe he’s simply more comfortable in a smaller venue (he’s playing enough of them these days – the show in Lethbridge came a day after a show in Lloyminster, en route to Cranbrook, BC). Because say what you will, this was a very generous and even charismatic performance we witnessed on Saturday evening.
Zenon and I were sitting close enough to appreciate the real connection between Dylan and his band and the audience, especially when some of the audience broke the barrier and stood on the floor at the front of the stage. There was a constant connection from that point on, and we really came away from the experience feeling we somehow had had the chance to get to know Bob Dylan, especially his very sly yet ingratiating sense of humor. To say that at times that he was vamping for us is hardly an exaggeration.
My friend Zenon, who is a disc jockey for a rock station (Q107 in Calgary), pointed out that some bands (ie The Rolling Stones) really stop moving forward at some point and start becoming cover bands for themselves. Easy enough to do when you have so many hits. I would assume that most people just want to hear their hits the same way they have been hearing them for decades now. Change is never good, in such a case.
Yet Bob Dylan is known for constantly tinkering with his own songs, some of them which are essentially the anthems of a generation, as they say. In fact, in concert, it can take a minute or so until you realize that the song you are listening to is actually something as iconic as “Blowin’ in the Wind.” The words give it away, but not the melody or in some cases even the rhythm. It’s all been made over again. It’s all now new. And if you can go with the fact that an artist would alter his own work, even when that work is an acknowledged masterpiece, then a Bob Dylan concert is the best place in the world to be.
If you can’t go with it, and want him to keep repeating the same old thing yet again, you might as well stay at home and play the disc. Or the vinyl if you have it. And you probably do.
Just don’t go to his concert hoping that he hasn’t moved on, because he has. I’m sharing a video at the end of this post to give a sense how one of his great songs has evolved over the years. It’s probably morphed many times since this was recorded. Why not? It’s his own damned song.
I admire him for it, for this restlessness. This was one of the best, and not to damn with faint praise, but most interesting concerts I have been to in a long time. Dylan was on and charming and the band was great. And in Lethbridge, no less!
I took this pic with my phone somewhere south of Kamloops on Highway 5.
Last week I drove to the west coast, which meant traversing the province of British Columbia from my home in Calgary, which meant driving through a lot of mountains. And I do mean mountains. My photo above was taken through the windshield somewhere on the Coquihalla Pass (Highway 5) south of Kamloops. It’s meant to give a sense of the grandeur of British Columbia which is so relentless and intense it constantly takes your breath away.
As you can see, and from the video I have included at the end of this post, there are some stretches of road on this journey that are not for the faint of heart. That I could even undertake such a journey is a bit of a miracle, one of those serendipitous events of my life that I love to share, so here goes. (And keeping a long story short . . . . . .)
It all began with a cough. I somehow picked up the cough while visiting Turkey a few summers ago, maybe it was lurking in the Aegean Sea and I just happened to pick it up. Do what I might, short of quitting smoking, I couldn’t get rid of the cough. It went on for months.
One day I happened to be in our local health food store (Community Health Foods on 10th Avenue SW in Calgary) and while in the homeopathy section noticed a cough remedy. I had tried everything else and nothing had worked so I decided it was worth a shot.
In short, I bought it, took it, and a day later my cough was finally gone. I was amazed. In fact I was so amazed that I decided I really should find myself a homeopathic doctor. The next day I went out literally looking for one. It was my mission. While I was having my morning coffee at Caffe Beano, I was approached by a woman who asked me if I remembered her.
The woman was Linda Miller. Linda is an opera singer. Her claim to fame was as the singer of the aria in Martin Scorsese’s Age of Innocence. Years earlier we had toyed with the idea of me writing a play for Linda that would highlight her skills as a singer, perhaps something we could tour through the schools to introduce children to the world of opera. I even ended up sitting in on a private coaching session in Montreal. It was an idea we never got off the ground, sadly.
Anyway, all these years later, there she was large as life and we were having a coffee together when she said to me, “Actually, I’m no longer singing opera. I’ve had a change in life. I’ve become a homeopath.”
The coincidence, the synchronicity, the serendipity of the moment whatever you choose to call it was so eerie that I got chills up and down my spine. You can’t believe that such things actually happen until they do and then you get a sudden suspicion that maybe there is an order to the universe after all.
Obviously, I put myself in the care of Doctor Miller. (For those in the Calgary area who are interested, check out the website: xerion.ca) As part of our initial consultation, it came out (among many other things) that I was suffering from a serious fear of heights, in particular driving over bridges of any dimension and elevation.
The remedy, for such it is known as, that Linda gave me took care of a lot of things that were bothering me. But since that time, I have given up driving, and so had no clear indication that my fear of heights and bridges was “cured” or indeed that driving through mountain passes would be even possible.
But it was. I had a mild case of the heebie-jeebies a few times, but check out the video and ask yourself, Who wouldn’t? By the time we were driving over the bridges in Vancouver to Horseshoe Bay I was actually peering at the view down below and it didn’t bother me at all.
So you can see that from swimming in Turkey leading to a cough leading to a reunion with an operatic friend with a new mission in life to a drive to the coast, there’s a wonderful inter-connectedness to all of this.
Here’s the video which is actually taken along the Kicking Horse Pass. Looking at it, safe at home back in Calgary, I still can’t believe I actually made that drive!
eugene stickland 