God bless Radiolab… blowing my mind about Games… and sports.
They have this mucky-muck on the show talking about 3 year olds… and how they are pure improv. Just making shit up and being in a constant state of invention. Being the parent of a 3 year old, I love it. I laugh dozens of times a day because of the weirdness that comes out of Madelyn’s mouth.
By 6 years old… kids are all about games with rules. Playing tag and someone is “it” and when you get tagged… then you’re “it.” Basically mimicking our lame life of laws and rules and signs and all that bullshit.
Now the mucky-muck says the best games, the ones we love and that stick around, are the ones that skirt between imagination and rules.
Crazy right?
So then they get going about Chess. And how mathematically there are a bunch of moves that have a pretty standard series of actions and reactions. But in chess… the players battle and can move past these moves till they get to a chess position where they are in a unique place. Where the series of moves from here on out are not part of any pre-determined pattern. This place is called the “novelty.” When the chess game hits this point… the players are in a state of free form and imagination.
Back to the grind after an awesome weekend in Vancouver. Coral and I took Mads to Coquitlam to see my sister Andrea, Uncle Matt and Stuphie.
Saturday night, we teamed up with Coral’s sister Alyx and hit the Commodore Ballroom to see Jimmy Eat World.
The concert was my second chance to see JEW. The last time Coral and I went was 2007 when she was pregnant with Madelyn. I remember that show to this day being one of my favourite concert experiences.
This 2011, might go down as even better. Jimmy Eat World were playing songs heavy on classics and also from their album Invented. I love the hits as I do with any journeymen band… but seeing as my favourite JEW records tend to be the later ones, I was happy they leaned on Invented and Chase This Light for some great depth performances.
I loved that Jimmy Eat World brought Courtney Marie Andrews on tour with them to sing the female harmonies. It added a lot to the show and she sounded great on the Invented songs and the older JEW songs. Notably on the Bleed American slow-burn, “Hear You Me.”
All-in-all… such a beautiful concert. Too bad is took so bloody long to get home on the skytrain.
The rest of the weekend was filled with relaxing, hockey, eating and Bridesmaids.
Andrea and I took Madelyn to Dawes Hill Park which is a little playground and urban forest by my folk’s place.
As kids in the 80s… much of the neighbourhood where we grew up was forest. Now its houses. We’d spend hours patrolling our domain, making trails and exploring.
I was very happy that an old trail that we always trekked along in Dawes Hill was still there and that Madelyn was jazzed to wander it.
I wonder how she might take to walking on a trail? Maybe still a bit too young. Even this little adventure required me to pick her up and carry her for a bit when she got “too tired.”
But I was reading my Backpacker magazine and they were talking about kids as young as 5 getting out into the back country and even had some kids packs! O RLY? Kids Pack and a 4 person tent… then I’m gold!
Walking to the Zone today (sometimes I walk and not bike so I can listen to music… Jimmy Eat World right now, fairly fiercely)… right, walking to the Zone today down Gorge Road I spotted and amazing old car with a decal for Victoria on it. Nice.
It was an old classic Ford called a Fairlane Victoria. I’ll have to check my lotto 649 today… but I’ll but that beauty of a car on my list of old cars to be driving.
I watched an inspiring short film today. Its called ‘No Experience Necessary.’ The film is the story of 5 friends from Vancouver who set off on an epic 5 week sea kayaking adventure along British Columbia’s Inside Passage.
I don’t know about you, but taking 5 weeks off of work and life to kayak would be both amazing and impossible. What I really liked about the film is that none of the 5 adventurers were avid kayakers. They were able to prepare, plan and practise before leaving and achieve their goals.
The adventure got me to think about taking a holiday that involved kayaking and camping. But I think I’d stick to adventures around the lower Gulf Islands so I could get back to work! Maybe after the summer I will have enough treasure hoarded and enough bills paid down to do my own adventure.
Taking BC Ferries from Victoria to Vancouver and back inspired me to check out these Gulf Islands. I’ve lived on Vancouver Island for about 8 years now and I’ve only ever ventured to Salt Spring. Once, years ago. I have a plan to visit Pender to DJ a wedding which I am looking forward to in August and I might take the day off before at the Zone to explore and camp before my gig.
But after that…. maybe my brother and I will get to rent some kayaks and paddle around and camp. Maybe Coral will come, maybe it’ll just be a Two Brother experience… who knows.
I do know this… I am pretty much obsessed with camping. I even got my hands on an issue of Backpacker Magazine for my ferry ride. I think I like the idea of camp/cooking and huddling under tarps in the rain while sipping hard liquor/coffee the best.
I found these neat pots/cups/plates thing from Mountain Equipment Co-Op. Probably something that could be had cheaper or is unnecessary, but I liked the style.
The one I like is the duelist as that would work for me and Coral in the bush, but its over $50! For camping plates?! Crazy. But at the same time, so pretty.
I shouldn’t be buying an camping gear right now… but I just like to look.
An unsought, unintended, and/or unexpected discovery and/or learning experience that happens by accident and sagacity.
I was thinking about it the other day because of my recent collection of French pop.
And how nothing just happens. I think it all goes back to when Brendan Canning (Broken Social Scene) guest DJ’s on the Zone and dropped some 70s Zimbabwean Afro-pop on the Capital City masses.
Neat.
Then at record club last week Tiemen at Talk’s Cheap Record Store played a band that he called Nouveau French Pop band… and I said… “french Pop?”
He quickly explained what 60s French Pop (ye-ye) is and played the song. It was good.
Saturday at Veneto, St. Christopher stops by with a record player for me (thank you!) and some records and we played Serge Gainsbourg. Sounded so good in the Veneto. I thought, “this is what the Veneto sounds like to me…”
I wikipedia Serge Gainsbourg and yeah… yesterday’s post. I download a bunch of 60s European pop and ye-ye from France and Italy because it turns out there was a fun pop scene in Italy at the time as well.
Then yesterday this from FMQB.com:
Uber producer/deejay Danger Mouse is working on a collaboration with Italian composer Daniele Luppi called Rome. The project is inspired by their mutual love for 1960s Italian film soundtracks and it features loads of vintage equipment, as well as guest spots from Jack White and Norah Jones. Danger Mouse has actually been cooking up the project for five years, and he says he can hear traces of it in everything he’s done since then. “Rome seems to have fed into everything I’ve done — you can hear it in a lot of Gnarls Barkley, it’s all over Broken Bells too,” he told The Guardian in the U.K. “I get a lot of offers to do film soundtracks and I’ve never said yes, because no one has heard this yet, and I think some people still think of me as a hip-hop producer. But this is what I would actually do, if I were to make a soundtrack. I’m really happy it’s out. I just hope it’s not going to take five years to do the next one.”
Hell yes, I was excited to read the other day that coffee counts towards that water I need to put in my body everyday.
The amount of fluid gained is far greater than anything you piss out from the caffeine.
AND coffee helps fight off the debilitating effects of gout. Not that I plan on being a medieval King of England anytime soon or anything… BUT the point is… I feel secure in my coffee consumption each and everyday.
Now, if only I could find the study that says coffee isn’t exasperating my anxiety, we’re gold.
Jimmy Eat World – “Coffee and Cigarettes”
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In other news… I am pretty much obsessed with National Geographic magazine and also want to find out how I can get a job recreating famous exploration voyages.
There must be a way to get paid, and handsomely, to hop in an olden tyme sailing vessel and make for the New World.
My reasoning is simple. I thought it was fucked that people get paid to talk on the radio… and well, someone pays me to do that, so why not get paid to sail around in a replica “Matthew” and rediscover Newfoundland?
Maybe its silly to get paid to be a gloried pirate, but perhaps there is hope for me?
I read this story about the most ancient history of White Canadianna… turns out there were secret exploration missions to Canada around the time of John Cabot. Evidence destroyed? International Italian Bank syndicates? secret Christian missions in Canada? A historian on the case… but just before she was going to release a book on the subject, she destroys all her notes and conveniently dies. What did she discover?
Dan Brown… Paging Dan Brown….
Here’s what I think… Cabot found the Vikings… and the secret mission of Weston was to exterminate the Vikings so England could make claim. The Beothuks were then hunted and exterminated later because they knew of the Vikings… whoa.
Everyday that I watch the CBC and don’t see these intriguing stories of Canadian History made into HBO styled mini-series is an affront to entertainment.
Heartland? Seriously…. I love the Tudors and have picked up on that series. It shows the CBC is capable, but come on guys, pick a story that is at least kinda related to Canada.
OK, I’ll add the mysteries of John Cabot to my list of Canadian Historical mini-series(es?) I need to write.
01) World War War epic 02) the story of John Jewitt, white slave of Maquinna 03) The Viking Settlement of Canada 04) The Mysteries of John Cabot
If you’re a writer that stumbles on my blog, don’t steal my ideas or I’ll stab you. Unless of course, you actually steal and make it, then I’ll be happy and watch it!
Turns out… sometimes people actually do read my blog and Jordan sent in this great email.
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Hey man, saw on your blog you were confused about what Human’s going on about in the middle of the new USS song “Mavericks”. So I’m going to drop some surfer knowledge on you….as it is my theory behind that part of the song. You might want to double check my facts on the net, this is just what I know being an avid surfer.
First, Mavericks is a crazy surf spot in California. Look up some pictures, it’s amazing (picture at top is a shot of a surf competition stolen from the internet). It’s typically a winter spot, with huge waves. Second, Jeff Clark is a surfer that was born down in Cali. I think he was around the Half Moon Bay area where Mavericks is located. He’s retired from competitions now, but he was one of the first (some people say he was the first) to ride Mavericks back before people used it as a hot spot. I figure humans doing the breakdown in the sports broadcasting style. When he’s yelling “Mavericks loses” he probably means Jeff Clark beat waves that people were too afraid to even look at for his time. That’s what I figure anyways. The surf picture of them made me put the pieces together. Hope that helps!
Jettisoning off to Tofino this weekend won’t work for Coral and I… but we wanted to take a little adventure somewhere and now we’re thinking of the west coast Island outpost of Bamfield.
Bamfield is named after the gentleman Banfield.
I don’t know if this is racist or encouraging, but the story goes that the native population had a hard time pronouncing the ‘N’ and so it became Bamfield. That or the post office made a typo in 1902 and no one gave enough of a shit to correct, and so Bamfield it is. A typo clinging to the shores of British Columbia.
When I spoke of making the overland to Bamfield, many folks spoke out to inquire if I had the ability to navigate the back roads to this fishing/tourist/educational metropolis.
Yes I do.
It may not seem it as well, most my life is a comical bumbling of happy accidents but me and my co-pilot in adventure Coral, have a track record of success in this field.
Many moons ago, we did seek out and find the fabled Nitinat Lake.
A similar drive through the rain forest over logging roads… but all the signs pointed to Bamfield and few pointed to the lake. We found the lake! The village should be easier to track down in the wild (it doesn’t move about right?).
When we get to Bamfield, I am not too sure the plan. It had a population of only 251 (ish)… so like it might have a Wal-Mart but I am not expecting to find a Red Lobster. I think they have a coffee shop? and maybe a restaurant?
I went to Shoppers Drugmart in Esquimalt last night to buy some medicine for my little sick monkey (or Baby Sick Money as I call her). I thought, “hmm, maybe I want a magazine?”
I perused the magazine racks past all the thousands of wedding magazines, Cosmo, Home Decor and I spy… Bow Hunter.
Wow. I get that people are into hunting with a bow… but are there enough Bow Hunters in Esquimalt that it needs a whole magazine? Is it that mainstream that I will find my Bowhunter right beside my Rolling Stone, People, and National Geographic?
The Morning After 