Blast From the Past

I heard from an old friend today. When I say old friend, I mean from the 80s, from back when I was living in my painting studio on Ossington Ave, long, long before it ever became a trendy restaurant strip – and I think he was living in Parkdale, but I don’t remember the street now. We spoke on the phone this evening and I guess it was the first time we talked in over two decades. Somehow or another we both got wrapped up in whatever we were doing along the way and we lost touch. The last time I heard from him at all was a little comment in a comment book at the old Workscene Gallery on Bathurst St. I had an exhibition in the small back gallery, I don’t remember the year – it must have been in the 90s – and one day I walked into the gallery and saw this comment that said “I see you’re still a painter’s painter.” Funny the things you remember. I’ve often wondered where he was and what he was up to.

So here’s a shout out to “Cowboy Buddha” Barry. One of the things that led to our friendship is that we shared a taste for some of the same variety of music. Here’s a tune that I remember Barry introduced me to. I recall he was surprised I didn’t know it. He liked the Don Williams and Emmylou Harris version of it as I recall, but these days I like the way the author of the tune, Townes Van Zandt  played it best…

Talking to Barry today brought back to mind all kinds of stories and people from those days. One day I’ll tell you about some of them.

 

What the world needs now….

….is more spoon players. That’s the whole problem with all that newfangled pop music. It doesn’t make you feel like you ought to pick up a pair of spoons and clack away. Here’s tonight’s Daily Dose.

…and then there’s the Vietnamese way

Fly around my pretty little miss…

Now I’m no spoon snob. No way. I like washboards too…

I hate when that happens

My brother Salvelinas Fontinalis sent this video over. It seems unremarkable until just after the 1:30 mark. Check out how cool this player is. Remarkable that the band managed to finish the song.

 

Watching

Boardwalk Empire and The Dark Knight

Image via Wikipedia

We didn’t see Boardwalk Empire’s first season during its run, but watched it on DVD after, finishing up the other night. I imagine most readers of this blog are more than familiar with the show and many have been watching the second season so I’m not going to dwell on it save for a few comments. I liked a lot of things about the series, not the least of which was the performance of Steve Buscemi. I also enjoyed the attention to detail including what I imagine is actual historical detail. The show features real life historical characters operating in a fictional context and that is very successful as well. Some time down the road, we’ll catch up on the second season.

Tonight we watched The Dark Knight. We didn’t see this one when it came out either in spite of all the talk about the movie and especially about Heath Ledger’s performance. No doubt his performance was excellent. As for the film, it was entertaining enough I suppose, and it had lots of flashy action and editing bits but I found it to be a so-so actioner for the most part. I’m sure some commentators will tell me I’m nuts and explain how brilliant it really was, and I welcome the education.

Forest Flowers

Your Daily Dose this evening is a beautiful Finnish waltz I came across on YouTube, played on chromatic button accordions.

Cake Star

Today I parked in front of Cake Star on Lakeshore on my way home from work. I had to stop by the vet’s office and this was the nearest parking spot. I had every intention of getting right back in the car and heading directly home, but I couldn’t seem to walk by the Skor Caramel cupcakes I spied in the store.

I don’t need those, I thought.
I’ll take four, I said.

Cake Star makes serious cupcakes. I bet they make serious cakes too. They’ve only been here in Long Branch a short while and I hope they get lost of support here in the neighbourhood! They are located on the south side of Lakeshore between 28th Street and the Longbranch Animal Clinic

Valerio Longoria plays the Texas Polka

your Daily Dose…

Feedback for WordPress

Dear WordPress mandarins,

I like WordPress. I really do. I’m glad I switched over a couple years back from Blogger. I really wish, though, you would stop giving me stupid little blogging goals to encourage me to reach your stupid artificial goals. I know, I can just ignore them. It just bugs me, that’s all.

love,

Mister Anchovy

Is Google Reader Jimmied?

Has anyone else out there had problems with Google Reader? First I had a few days when it wouldn’t show me my subscriptions. Now it won’t mark anything as read. Grrr.

This Afternoon

The crisp clear afternoon has coaxed a lot of people in the neighbourhood outdoors. The toboggan hill at the filtration plant has hardly been in use this season for lack of snow, but enough came down the other day to create a marginal base. Marginal or not, there are several kids on the hill sliding on toboggans, sleds, and assorted chunks of plastic and cardboard. It’s great to hear the sounds of kids having a great time on the hill.

From the toboggan hill, you can see skaters on the figure 8 skate park across the field and across the road, in Sam Smith Park proper. I don’t know whose idea the skate park was, but it has turned out to be a very popular attraction to the park and to the Long Branch/New Toronto communities. I hear of people coming from across the city to skate there.

This winter, many of the regulars at the dog park on the filtration plant lands have turned to the new dog park at Marie Curtis Park for a better experience. The Marie Curtis dog park is on higher land and has a deep sand surface. Even after a rain, it is not muddy. Today the weather is perfect for the dog park at the R.L. Clark Filtration plant. That is, the ground is frozen and covered with a layer of snow – and it isn’t windy. As a result, there were a dozen dogs in there playing when I took Memphis and Ellie Mae out for some play and exercise. In the next day or two it’s expected to warm up and any thaw will turn the dog park into a muck-pit. Unfortunately, no plan was made to mitigate the muck when the dog park was conceived, even though the sogginess of the field was well known to all in the community.