1 April 2020 (Day 13) – I have a new job. I’m creating
or helping to create a closed Facebook group for our building.
I had floated the idea to the board chairman, Jim, when
we first got back from Europe, thinking it might be a way to ease the sense of
isolation for residents who are practicing social distancing – which now, of
course, everyone should be. It’s a fairly social building, but all or most of
the incidental contact we have with neighbours, in the lobby, halls or
elevators, is gone. And certainly any planned social events have been or will be
cancelled.
One of the other board members, our neighbour across
the hall, Christian, was apparently already thinking along the same lines, so Jim
put us together. The upshot, after a brief telephone meeting with Christian yesterday,
is that I’m going to take the first steps to setting up the group.
It will be a moderated group. It’s meant to be a place
for people to keep in touch, exchange ideas on how to cope, offer or request
help, and for the board and management company to pass on information. What the
board doesn’t want is for it to become a forum for carping. There are unfortunately
some chronic complainers in the building.
We’ll also want to ensure there is nothing offensive
posted. So I’ve volunteered to be part of a moderating committee that would
have the power to take down posts and even expel repeat offenders.
Could be interesting.
*
Karen said to me last night, “How come you don’t
mention in your blog that I’m whomping you at Scrabble all the time?”
Okay, I'm setting the record straight. After a few years
of my dominating in our winter-away series, Karen came roaring back this year,
winning the series something like 4-2 or 5-3, including by some big scores.
Since we’ve been home, we’ve played three games. She’s won two, once by a few
points, once by 15 or 20. I destroyed her in the other game, winning by over 50.
The series will possibly resume this evening. We’ll
see.
*
Karen reported a dream to me this morning with an
interesting twist. In it, she was working in an office providing some kind of
public service. (Hers was the corner office, she said, with big windows on two
sides – yeah, right, in her dreams!)
At some point, for some reason, it became necessary
for her to get some forms that were stored in a tower. She had to scale the
outside of the tower to get to them. (I can just see her in one of the business
suits she used to wear to work in the 80s, shinning up a church-steeple-like
tower!)
When she got to the top, there was some kind of
pointed concrete cap that, when she grabbed it to pull herself up, wobbled
under her weight. She initially thought (in the dream), ‘This is dangerous, I
need to get down from here!’ But then she thought, ‘No, no, I just need to wake
up!’ And so she did.
See! Lucid dreaming! Maybe not quite as effective as
the Senoi, but still, a measure of control.
*
Before introducing my latest desert-island and dirty-hippy
picks, I wanted to say a couple of things more about one of yesterday’s selections,
Frazey Ford’s 2014 disc, Indian Ocean.
I listened to it again last night, for the first time in a few months, and was
impressed all over.
First, full disclosure. As Bobby Baines takes great
pains to point out on FB, it was he who first introduced me to this album, or a
snippet of it, when we were holidaying a few years ago in the Canary Islands. I
rediscovered it on my own months later, by which time – he’s probably right, because
I’m old – I had forgotten all about his introduction. So.
I was struck on my most recent listening by the
album’s almost hypnotic groove. It’s partly Ford’s sometimes monotonic singing
style, partly the similarities in the arrangements of the songs. The High
Rhythm Section always sounds very distinctly itself – the mellowed-out funk guitar,
the muted braying of the horns.
Bobby mentioned the song “Done,” which I think is one
of the great take-down songs of all time, right up there with Dylan’s “Like a
rolling stone” and Carol King’s “You’re so vain.” The song is a declaration of
war and a kill shot in one go. A little snippet from the lyric:
Who told you that you could rewrite the rules?
And do you really take me for a goddamn fool?
'Cause I'm not - oh, I'm done.
And you can drag me out before some authority
If that's what you have to do to feel like you can
punish me
But I can't (ooh), I can't, I can't, I can't keep the
peace anymore
With your dogs (ooh), with your dogs, at my door
...
And I'm sorry that you don't like your life
But I fought for my own victories and for the beauty
in my life
My joy (ooh), my joy, my joy takes nothing from you
No, my joy (ooh), my joy takes nothing from you
I also wanted to point out, for anyone who actually
takes the trouble to check out this album, that it includes an interesting hidden
track – sort of like “Her Majesty” on the Beatles’ Abbey Road. The penultimate track – the title track – continues with silence for
over a minute after the song ends, so it seems like the album is over. It’s not.
When that track finally ends, another, which appears
in my rip of the CD as “[Untitled],” plays. It’s in fact a second, acoustic version
of the album’s first track, “September Fields,” with just Ford, her guitar and
minimal back-up singing. It’s interesting because it gives an idea of what The High
Rhythm Section adds to the song, but also because it shows how well the song stands on its own.
*
Desert
Island: If you’re into classical, you listen to Wolfy. So
here he is.
I’ve been listening to performances of the piano
sonatas played by Mitsuko Uchida for for over 35 years. I have a very clear
memory of sitting in our living room on Manning St. in Toronto, listening to the
LP of this that I'd only recentlly purchased, taking a brief respite from the insanity
of having a newborn in the house. Baby Caitlin was sleeping upstairs with her
poor tired mother. Bliss. Uchida released a succession of Mozart sonata albums
in the mid-1980s. The album cover here is of the one I first bought. The sample
track is from one of the other albums.
Dirty
Hippy: Joni is one of my abiding loves from the dirty hippy
period. I think this was the first or second album I bought. It stands up well.
I rediscovered Mitchell a few years ago. I had fond
memories of the albums I'd owned back in the day, but hadn’t listened for
decades. The great Court and Spark,
which came after the period when I was intensely interested in her, and Blue, one of the jazz albums, both still
get played here. Along with this one. It includes some of the early hits,
including “The Circle Game,” “Big Yellow Taxi” and “Woodstock” – the last two
of which I don’t actually remember being on my LP. If they were added as bonus
tracks for the CD, I’m grateful.
The
Cryptic Corner
Again, it’s astonishing that no one among my legion of
followers could help me with the puzzle I was stuck on yesterday. Never mind.
From here on out, I’m just going to post illustrative
examples from the puzzles I’m working on – the ones I can actually solve, I
mean. Here goes.
From today’s puzzle in The Globe & Mail: “Close – doubly close in fact (6). The answer
is: NEARBY. Once you see it, it’s easy. “Nearby” means the same as “close”
(with a hard ‘s’), but so, in some contexts, do “near” and “by.” So “doubly” “close.”
It’s a typical setter’s trick: use a word that describes how to build the
answer, but looks as if it might be part of a
non-cryptic clue.
Here’s another: “One of the top stylists (11).” It’s a
kind of riddle. It plays on the fact that in spoken English, the way words in a
sentence are stressed changes the meaning. You’re meant to think the stress
falls here on the word “top” – he’s one of the best stylists. But the clue actually means “one who styles tops” –
heads in other words. The answer: HAIRDRESSER.
Photos of the Day
The sun came out, but it was chilly on the balcony - though Karen sat out for awhile. Photo ops were few and far between.
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| A long way away: Blackfriars Village just the other side of the river from us |
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| Neighbour family setting out for walk |
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| Daddy waiting earlier for Mum and baby |
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| Social distancing...not! |
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