Like every good conservative government, eventually the scandals come through and the law and order moral police are exposed for hypocrisy. The Polish conservative coalition government’s cracks are showing. Check out the story from Bloomberg News here.
A Dilettante’s Life
I like that Billy Bragg’s getting into the American Idol/Pop Idol racket (not really). The British folk/punk/protest rocker is getting youngsters to put together a band, with a chance of winning the chance to perform at The Glastonbury Festival later this summer. In the meantime, check out this video —
Like the seemingly out of step, out of touch conservative uncle you have to deal with at Christmas dinner, Poland never fails to surprise and make you drop your jaw and utter, ”come again?”. Everyone’s been there – you’re sitting around, and sometime after the soup course and just before the main dish, Uncle (insert name) clears his throat and says, “you know what’s wrong with ___________ ?” – and out comes the right wing rhetoric.
In the past week, we’ve seen stories on Poles marching by the droves in a call for an outright ban on abortion, and yet another story on the Polish government cracking down firing any teacher promoting a “homosexual agenda”. The conservative coalition government in Poland seems hellbent on continue this stereotype of the country being some European backwater, forever bucking the liberal trends of most of the rest of the continent.
Nothing cures homesickness better than a steaming hot bowl of sheep guts. That’s why the British arm of Heinz is apparently going to cater to the gastronomical needs of expat Poles living and working in the UK. Anglo-Poles will soon be able to pick up a jar of “traditional” Polish eats and treats – heat a jar of flaki (hot bowl of sheep guts) up in the microwave and you’ll no doubt forget you’re no longer at your babcia’s house in some. But that brings to mind another issue – are there no “Polish Stores” in England? It seems you can’t walk for a block here in Southern Ontario without running into a Polish/Ukrainian/Slav/Whatever delicatessen with imported soups and chocolates and candies and shit. Most of ‘em offer flaki and bigos in some form or another. (If you don’t know what bigos is…ask your neighbor(s) – at least one of them is probably a Pole).
So I’ve been trying all day to get to the votefortheworst.com website, which seems to be down. (I know, I know – there are much better things that I can be doing than catching up on idle Idol gossip and blogging). By know many of you have probably heard of vote4theworst, but if you haven’t it’s got a very simple premise: American Idol is a joke, but instead of ignoring it, expose it for the joke it is. The passion this website inspires amongst die-hard trad Idol fans is incredible (F*CK UR N ASSH*LE UR RUINING AMERICAN IDOL IM GONNA SUE YOU OMG YOU SUCK!!!!!!). It’s a shame I can’t vote for the American Idol competition…..
5. Jian’s Market – you just have to stop by this place on the way to your bus or street car. Stopping to smell the roses is not a cliche here, it’s an imperative. When the weather’s nice the flowers are arranged in a eye-catching display while inside the heady scent of fresh flowers and fruit give you a great excuse to miss the bus.
4. Murals – check out the murals on the side of the local restaurants, hardware store and funeral home.
3. Daisy Mart- just because the shop owner seems to be one of the friendliest people I’ve ever met. A smile, a wave, a hello everyday as I walk to the streetcar. I just always thought this sort of neighborhood friendly shopkeeper character have been out of style since the days of the black & white motion picture.
2. Lake Ontario- just another great reason to miss the streetcar in the morning. Leave a few moments early just so you can check out the morning sun shimmering orange and yellow on the water. The view of the city from Humber Bay park is second to none.
1. Birds and Beans – a cozy little coffeehouse that offers fairly traded and ecologically sound coffees. Also sponsor many local events and happenings in the community
In “Three Hours”, the third song on Nick Drake’s Five Leaves Left 1969 debut album, Drake sings about being “..in search of a story that’s never been known…” Reviewing an album by a long-dead young man, in particularly one who died from “complications” related to serious mental illness is a dangerous task. Immediately there’s a temptation to look to the lyrics as some sort of warning sign, a suicide note, to his death at the age of 26. There are other many many other words, written in other places, about his life, his middle class upbringing and his frustration at the lack of commercial success in his lifetime. The song “Fruit Tree” for example, has in my opinion been wrongly interpreted as a sad man’s last, bitter words.
Now as hard as I try not to find themes of death and ending in these 10 songs, I’m struck by a sense of how autumnal it all sounds. It’s something I felt the first time I listened to it years ago, and something I haven’t been able to shake on repeated listening. The lyrics are punctuated with references to breezes and cold nights, while on a couple of tracks Drake’s guitar is subtly but beautifully accented by string arrangements. This works to bring a chill to the listener, one which evokes the chill of a bright November day. Yet, the autumn this album evokes is not one of decay, grayness and bare trees – in other words, no suicide note here. Instead the autumn evoked here is a time of change – we see a young man shedding the petty preoccupations of youth, and turning to a mature introspection perhaps unseen in many of his contemporaries. Five Leaves Left might even signal an early departure from the sometimes bombastic, often noisy reverb-heavy music of the late 1960s.
Time is indeed a major theme in the album. The rythms of the songs evoke the steady ticking and chimes of a grandfather clock, sitting dust covered in the corner of an old drawing room. We’re invited by Nick Drake to listen to the clock, to sit and and to age and grow, and to slow down to reflect on where we’ve been and where we’re going. The original back cover of the album reinforces this notion as it shows a man rushing down the street, hurried into a blur of non-recognition as Nick looks on. Drake’s face seems to recognize the man-in-a-hurry, but at the same time seems unconcerned with the busy-ness.
The album’s 10 songs are each strong in their own right, but it’s the two songs that bookend the recording that remain most in my mind. “Time Has Told Me” is a bluesy number about finding refuge in a loved one, while the closing track “Saturday Sun” is another blues number, more laid back in tone, punctuated brilliantly by Tristam Fry’s vibraphone.
Tucked away in a cozy lake-side corner of the map of Toronto, seemingly a million miles away from the centre, but always in the CN Tower’s gaze sits the village of Mimico by the Lake, and the murals that welcome, or at least bewilder the shopper, the visitor or the new arrival to the hood. Visiting the hardware store? Check out the swirls of colours at the building’s east side. Jonesing for some steak and eggs at the Canadiana Restaurant on Lakeshore Blvd? Enjoy, just stop and appreciate the bizarre undersea themed mural which seems to show a magical Thanksgiving dinner deep in the ocean. Head north from there and you’ve got the local funeral parlour – eternal rest inside, the illusion of rest outside, as you look at a mural of a very inviting looking park on the side of the wall. Why rest at the real park a block away when the painted benches and trees are enought to delight? But that’s a bit mean – these murals, funded by a Business Improvement Association project do provide a nice touch to the neighborhood.
