It was great to be home!

Back in New Zealand now, after my fantastic whirlwind visit in Canada, I must say it feels a bit weird to be here. I truly had a blast in Canada, with my family in Kelowna and friends in Calgary, and with my shows in each location. I topped the whole trip off with my good friend's wedding - what a great time, it was a reunion of friends for me, not just a celebration. Oh, and I caught the bride's garter belt... yikes.

Ah, Kelowna. My brother brought his Nintendo Wii and we bowled the entire Thanksgiving weekend, hilarious. My friend Kyle the Kiwi was able to join my family for Thanksgiving before returning to New Zealand, that was a treat. A bit of a wrinkle at The Minstrel Cafe & Bar - unfortunately I was double booked over another act, forcing me to play early during dinner. I was disappointed; although it was out of my control, I apologize to anyone who was turned away due to the capacity dinner crowd. Thanks for coming! Also, too bad that I missed performances by Nat Jay and Adrian Glynn, who had the original show that night. Finally, Ralph and George, it was great driving from Vancouver to Kelowna with you, thanks!

Calgary. My sinuses clogged, lips cracked, and face transformed into a cracked mud-bed. I drank beer every night, which didn't help my reaction to the arid climate. But I had a blast - I was overjoyed with the quantity of friends I was able to catch up with, and with the quality times we had. And I met some great new people, too, which is always exciting. Love those autumn leaves along the Bow. Oh, I was very happy with my show at the Ironwood Stage & Grill, thanks to everyone who came! Much appreciation to Shelly Groves and Kodi Hutchinson for charming everyone with their violin and bass skills, too. It was a real treat for me to experience Mark Berube and the Patriotic Few afterwards... awesome show!

So, New Zealand. It's a great place, truly. I am here, it just takes a bit to get accustomed again. A few weeks back home in Canada really made me feel... at home. I look forward to being home again. In the meantime... come visit??

p.s. Moon, don't think I'll forget you being the biggest that I've ever seen you, crawling up and out of the pink and blue over Calgary's "work stacks", near the end of another Greyhound Through the Rockies.

Winter lightning

Winter in Wellington.
Thunder and lightning, hail and rain
Crashing down tumultuously.
Never have I seen such a mid-winter spectacle.
This kind of heavenly behaviour I've only seen mid-summer.
I am, after all, from B.C. and Alberta.

I was caught in it, surprised, during my late evening
Walk out to the corner store to get some melodies.
I danced soaked with glee.
I walked through gushing icy streams that raced down streets towards the bay;
The sidewalks covered in crunch-crunchy pellets.
I giggled absurdly and took shelter next to a parked car
As the wind lashed me with it's angry kernels.

When I returned
She rolled me up on the floor.
Hot cocoa, nuzzle-snuggles,
And I was warm with wonder.

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I love movies

Sometimes I wonder if I'd be writing more songs if I watched less movies... Ah, but movies are so inspiring! Books, too. But this is about movies.

In the past couple years, while living in New Zealand, I've watched a good share of movies. Some Kiwi made (like Eagle vs Shark - a goodie - and Scarfies, Out of the Blue...), and some foreign films.

I thought I'd share my top 7. Two of them are old, which I'll comment on. But they're all great movies, so if you're looking for something to watch, try one of these. Who am I kidding? You've probably seen them already.

1. Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others) (2006, Germany)
   
2. Eden (2006, Germany)
   
3. Amadeus (1984, USA) - I was too young to appreciate this film when I first saw it... but now I love it.
   
4. Adams æbler (Adam's Apples) (2005, Denmark)
   
5. Once (2006, Ireland)
   
6. La Science des Rêves (The Science of Sleep) (2006, France)
   
7. A Beautiful Mind (2001, USA) - I've never seen it till this year - oooooh I love a good twist - plus I love anything to do with mathematics!
   

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Aerosmith a.k.a. The Inventures

This is mystifying. There is a website called globalinventure.com and it is totally whacky. Without wasting too much of my time, I've noticed two very peculiar things.

First go here. It's the very first bio I (must have) put on CDBaby for my CD, Seventeen Oh-Two Oh-Six. Probably this site is a mirror of an old snapshot of CDBaby, as I no longer use that bio, and there are countless other similar pages for other artists/CD's. Also, who are those South-Park-looking characters at the top of the page?

Well, go here. Those South-Park-looking characters are... Aerosmith!? While you're there, click on the links at the top: Home, About Us, News, and Future. It's all about Aerosmith, except they're called "The Inventures". Very weird.

Anyways, don't waste any more time looking at it. I'm not even gonna waste any more time writing about it. We need to be very efficient - time is not to be wasted.

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Homesickness

When I first left Canada to travel in 2005, I marvelled at how I seemed impervious to homesickness. Every month away seemed like a prize or a gift. I was heard to say that I was having the best time of my life. I was away about 9 months - the accumulation of which seemed a blissful eternity - and my return to Canada was for musical reasons, not from homesickness.

Once back home, I was restless and anxious to leave again. And so I did, after about 8 months. Since then, I've essentially been in one place - Wellington, New Zealand. The first year here was mostly exciting - I adjusted to the different weather and climate, and I dived into the culture and music. I felt that I'd like to stay longer, so I did.

It is now pushing two years of being away, and I've noticed a growing confusion, and a longing for Canada, and North America in general. The confusion results, in part, from setting up a home - a place to live - away from the environment that I've always known to be home. Once I did this, I grew to realize that I was no longer travelling - and the question "how long is this for?" appeared. And I haven't been able to produce an answer to that. I won't go into the various complexities involved.

I often think of my friends in Canada; I miss them. I sat down and wrote their names, their full names, and the names of their partners, and their children's names - if I could remember them. Many of these friends I've known for nearly 15 years. Some of them only a few years - yet in some cases we managed to form bonds as strong as those of longer friendships. Writing this list was bittersweet - I'm happy to remember and cherish people, and I'm sad that we are so distant - literally and figuratively.

I've grown homesick. Missing friends, growing out-of-touch with family, longing for the Canadian and North American environment - this is it - homesickness. New Zealand is a beautiful place (from the small bits I've actually seen), and Wellington is a very happening city. Yet I have to work at appreciating where I am and the things that I've accomplished. I almost daily take a walk and feel some peace from my environment - I have it pretty good here. But a great deal of the time I feel a default confusion and longing - a displacement. How long is this for?

I'll discover the answer when I'm ready. Meanwhile, I will officially (anything on my blog is official, ha ha) admit that I am homesick. I miss you Canada. I miss you, North America. Please don't reject me, for I have not rejected you.

Oh yeah, p.s. please find my podcast from my website, listen to it, like it, and tell your friends about it. Done.

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More podcast episodes, for her pleasure

Lately I haven't been blogging much, instead I've been podcasting. You can find my podcast from my website. I've podcasted some live recordings from the Mussel Inn and a live video from Happy - these shows were part of my mini-tour of New Zealand in April, 2008. Songs podcasted so far are Greyhound Through the Rockies and The Romance of Kaslo.

In addition to live tracks, you'll find a poster for the mini-tour, and I may also be podcasting some photos from the gig in the near future. Yes, you can podcast posters and photos. But maybe I won't podcast the photos, maybe I'll find some other, more webulous way of bringing said photos to you. Perhaps I'll just put them up at Myspace and Facebook. All these known and unknown options make me sleepy.

I may podcast some more live tracks from these shows, so please subscribe to my podcast if that's what you're into. And if you like my podcast, please share it with your friends. I'd like that. Obviously.

By the way, there's another song I podcasted called Summer Grace. It has nothing to do with the New Zealand tour. It has everything to do with stealing fruit. Dig it.

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The world is an amusement park

I was on my way to the music store today, where I had a quick, introductory listen to Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and I spotted the following:

1. A man wearing a tee shirt saying "New Mexico: Cleaner Than Regular Mexico". In "regular" Mexico's defense, I miss your sandy courtyards and chicken barbeques in half-barrels at roadside.
   
2. A lady busking with a 3-or-4-foot-tall harp outside in a mall courtyard. There were no jesters nearby, but I thought of joining as a bard.
   
3. A Maori fella preaching from a bible to an indifferent, bus stop audience. He kept peaking at the bible for lines, then refocusing his gaze to the bus-waiters and continuing on as if the words were his own. I wondered if his gentle accent contributed to the endearing quality of his sermon?
   

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0.01 "horse power" insufficient in high winds

You know you're going to have a great day when you are cycling to work in the morning, and you have to pedal just as hard downhill as you did climbing uphill.

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Cigarette gold

I saw an un-smoked cigarette on the ground and nearly picked it up. I don't smoke, but many people do, and people are always asking for them from friends and strangers alike. They're expensive to purchase - they're valuable. Perhaps someone dropped this one and, later realizing it, felt a loss... like the loss of a dollar.

I imagined if it was a dollar, then I would pick it up. But imagine if cigarettes were acceptable for trade... I think I'd charge 20 cigarettes for a copy of my CD, knowing that I could trade those for two meals. I could get a good shish taouk for 12 cigarettes, or fish and chips for 6, or a burger and fries for 10. Thick milkshakes are 5 or 6 cigarettes, depending upon the quality of the ice cream in them. A cheap beer might be 3 or 4 cigarettes, and then a lot of people might smoke 3 or 4 cigarettes while drinking a cheap beer.

The bank would have to reserve and store cigarettes and issue notes that were legally "backed" by cigarettes - that way we could pay rent and make major purchases without moving boxes of cartons of cigarettes. A new Subaru WRX Wagon might cost 100,000 cigarettes (probably more)! Eventually the banks would commence fractional reserve banking, and only a portion of our cigarettes would actually exist at the bank. Perhaps the missing cigarettes would have been smoked by wealthy bank owners and aristocrats.

Eventually the bank-issued notes would become legal tender (no longer backed by cigarettes) and commonly accepted for trade, instead of cigarettes. Cigarettes would become rare and coveted, and the majority of the world's cigarettes would be in the hands of the wealthy. People would be disgruntled, feeling tricked out of their wealth of cigarettes. People would pass by banks and wonder where all the cigarettes in the world are truly residing.

Cigarettes would still be traded on the global stock exchanges as a commodity. Investors and brokers would trade bank-issued notes for bond documents that prove ownership of a specified amount of cigarettes. When the market was good, people might sell their stock of cigarettes (for bank-issued notes). Ultimately, nobody would actually see the cigarettes.

Anyways... I wonder if anybody after me picked up that cigarette?

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Podcast: Welly Wonky

This is a slide guitar instrumental that I wrote in late 2006 after arriving in Wellington, New Zealand. It came out (of me, if one can say such a thing about a song) around the same time that I began writing Silent. The recording is from Access Radio - we were recording a radio show in August 2007. It's a rough one-take, but it does the trick for my podcast!

• download mp3
  

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