Night Music: Just Give Me A Reason

Zawa — No Good Surprises

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I am a great booster for businesses on the Drive but about two years ago I wrote about why I would never again use or recommend Zawa Restaurant. Now I see that the entire front of house staff has walked out due to the “inappropriate actions and harassment from the owner.”

Image from Facebook

The only surprise is how long this took to happen.

Given the huge number of fine eating establishments on the Drive, there is definitely no need to give such a disaster your patronage and support.

To Be A Canadian

Thirty-six years ago today I became a Canadian citizen. perhaps the proudest and most satisfying day of my life.  In about two months from now, I will have lived in Canada, in Vancouver, for forty-three years — much more than half my life.

These lengths of time seem strangely enormous to me looking back because I had had a quite long and interesting life (with wives and children and a career) in England and Europe before I ever came here.  And that previous life — during the fascinating 1950s, 60s and 70s — now seems like a necessary and irreplaceable prologue to what my life became afterwards.

There were seriously important people and things that I left behind; but I don’t believe in regrets because they have no value. Even if I did, I cannot imagine that my life was anything but greatly enhanced by moving to Vancouver.  I am still a proud Brit, an unreconstructed Welsh Londoner, but I am prouder still of being — by choice — a Vancouverite, of being Canadian.

A Mainstreeting Event for TEAM for a Livable Vancouver

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Colleen Hardwick’s TEAM campaign will be mainstreeting on Commercial Drive tomorrow (Thursday 18th).

They will be meeting at the Entre Nous Femmes housing complex on Adanac & Commercial at 4pm and then proceeding south on Commercial Drive until about 5:30pm.

Come down and meet the next (and first female) Mayor of Vancouver and her TEAM!

Image: Hangers On

Night Music: Just The Way You Are

Image: Pathway In Fall

Poem: Hard Times

 

It’s hard to distinguish the fragrance of Geurlain

from that of pan-fried potato latkes

when you’re beneath a barstool

amid the boot-crushed butts and spilled beers.

 

It’s hard to carve an eagle when the tempest

of emotions coats the back of your throat

with a cold glue that no creative

surge can moisten nor free up nor reduce to tears.

 

It’s hard to say what tipped the scales, what failed to

gel, what failed to gather to you the crowds

you needed for your performances

since you screwed up so many times over so many years.

 

 

Night Music: Wallet

Image: Florida In Fall

Fidel Castro. A Hero For Our Times

Today would have been Fidel Castro’s 96th birthday.

I didn’t support Castro’s politics (though much of it tended to be better than most — look at Cuba’s health care system, for example, a success against every barrier the US could throw against it), but I supported the bravery of standing up for fifty years to an imperialist Superpower that had missiles and a huge army less than a 100 miles away.

More than the military threat, the US for more than two whole generations attempted to destroy the Cuban economy and people by sheer economic terrorism. Luckily, the world would not stand for that, and even Canada never flinched from business and tourism with Cuba.

Whenever self-righteous Americans point to the wreckage of Cuba’s economy and the poverty of the people (compared, say, to most parts of the US), remind them that this was caused directly and deliberately by American leaders.

Castro’s birthday is worth celebrating.

Night Music: Telephone Line

Time Flies When You’re Having Fun

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My mother said it wouldn’t last a year. Her mother said it wouldn’t last a year ….

Twenty-two years ago today the everloving and I stood on the dock of the lake at Trout Lake and plighted our troth. We then decamped and took over most of Waazubee’s for our reception that night.

Happy anniversary, angel!

Image: Kansas Sunset

Night Music: Bach In A Japanese Forest

Bach’s “Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring” played by a wooden ball rolling down a massive marimba.

The conception, let alone the precision construction, is remarkable.

Image: 54 Stories of Old Ireland

Nixon Resigns!

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It seems hard to imagine for those of us who lived every minute of the post-Watergate saga, but it is 48 years ago today that Richard Nixon resigned as President of the United States.

He was indeed a crook (in a far more deep sense than, say, Donald Trump) and the system finally worked to eliminate him. Gerald Ford, to his everlasting shame, was quite wrong to pardon him.

Night Music: I’ve Been Loving You Too Long

The Great CBC Rip-Off

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I don’t watch a lot of network TV, preferring to stream stuff on my own schedule. However, I have been watching The Great British Bake-Off series each Sunday on CBC. Last week, I noticed something that I thought was peculiar, and yesterday evening I confirmed it.

The show is scheduled as a 90-minute broadcast. But of that 90 minutes, a full 37 minutes (or about 40%) is commercials. No only that but the ads now come in huge batches — some segments being 5 minutes long!

The CRTC used to have strict rules about the amount of commercial time per hour but my reading of the current regulations suggest there are now “no limits” for TV stations. That is a bizarre way of killing the golden goose because I will no longer watch network CBC and will switch entirely to Gem for their shows which eliminates the need for me to be deluged in commercials.

Poem: Care

 

To enter into

the castle of her mind

 

— a private place adorned

with the illuminated thought

of past centuries —

 

was an adventure

she allowed to few.

 

The gate into

that world of reminiscence

 

— a veil ornamented

with the beauty and vacancy

of a divine smile —

 

was kept firmly shut

to all but the hardy.

 

The key to

that locked-up voice

 

— a brittle stained glass window

etched and impacted

by the meteors of time —

 

was inspiration

affection and love.