Author: Dan Dickinson

Looseness on the march

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This is fun, catching up on music that I listened to once, liked and jammed onto my MP3 player. Here’s what I collected in March:

  • ben harper . “better way”
  • kula shaker . “hush”
  • michael meldrum . “rainstorm”
  • mogwai . “1% of monster”
  • pearl jam . “world wide suicide”
  • prodigy . “voodoo people”
  • raising the fawn . “carbon paper”
  • raising the fawn . “christmastime in the fields”
  • raising the fawn . “the maginot line”
  • track a tiger . “sound as ever”
  • wintersleep . “fog”

[tags]loose music[/tags]

UPDATED: ………Aaaaaaaaaaaand we're back

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So, that happened. Our power came back on around 4:30. Needless to say that was not the best night of sleep I’ve ever had.

Apparently it was just our street. More specifically, it was just our side of the street, in this particular block. Lucky us.

Anyway, no harm done. It stayed remarkably cool in the apartment, and we had little trouble sleeping. To the HydroOne guys who worked through the night in that insane heat: thankyouthankyouthankyou.

[tags]blackout (but not really)[/tags]

More looseness

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OK, I burned through the loose MP3s from January. Now on deck:

  • american music club . “rise”
  • american music club . “royal cafe”
  • courtney love . “the 2nd most beautiful girl”
  • death set . “intermission”
  • early years . “all ones & zeros”
  • eux autres . “le projet citron”
  • grandaddy . “disconnecty”
  • grandaddy . “this is how it always starts”
  • gregor samsa . “young and old”
  • longpigs . “on and on”
  • lush . “nothing natural”
  • massive attack . “live with me”
  • mellowdrone . “oh my”
  • my latest novel . “when we were wolves”
  • sounds . “song with a mission”
  • sword . “winter’s wolves”
  • television hill . “easy come, easy go”

[tags]loose music[/tags]

Ass-whuppin' indeed

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My good friend MLS — who at this point must be staring at her pregnant belly and yelling, “Get the @$%& out!!” — wrote something today that made me howl:

“I’d like to compare how I am currently feeling, to what I imagine a small boy whould feel like who was just told by the school bully to meet him by the flagpole after class for a beating…Waiting is almost worse that the actual butt-kicking you are about to receive.”

She was due over a week ago; I was hoping she’d hold out until the 30th so her baby could share my birthday, but that date’s come and gone. Maybe she’ll match me in another way: I was 28 days overdue. Just kidding, M; I’m sure my mother wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Not only was I late, I was more than eleven pounds.
[tags]overdue babies, giant babies, giant overdue babies[/tags]

Catching up on the loose stuff

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I’ve been adding so many “loose” MP3s to my collection without ever going back to listen them that I’ve decided to go back and make daily playlists. I’ve added all the songs that I downloaded (and kept) in January:

  • angels of light & akron family . “i pity the poor immigrant”
  • angels of light & akron family . “raising the sparks”
  • apparitions . “god monkey robot”
  • baumer . “how the west 1”
  • beatings . “stockholm”
  • bonnie prince billy & tortoise . “cravo e canela”
  • bonnie prince billy & tortoise . “daniel”
  • bonnie prince billy & tortoise . “on my own”
  • cardigans . “in the round”
  • charlotte hatherley . “kids in america”
  • city and colour . “save your scissors”
  • deadboy and the elephantmen . “blood music”
  • deadboy and the elephantmen . “no rainbow”
  • deadboy and the elephantmen . “stop i’m already dead”
  • duke spirit . “dark is light enough”
  • duke spirit . “drinking you in”
  • duke spirit . “howling self”
  • elected . “not going home”
  • feist . “it’s cool to love your family”
  • giant drag . “this isn’t it”
  • imogen heap . “hide and seek”
  • isobel campbell and mark lanegan . “black mountain”
  • isobel campbell and mark lanegan . “the circus is leaving town”
  • lonnie pitchford . “lonesome blues”
  • morningwood . “nth degree”
  • placebo . “because i want you”
  • sarah harmer . “goin’ out”
  • sarah harmer . “i’m a mountain”
  • sarah harmer . “will he be waiting for me”
  • secret life of sofia . “hospital inside me”
  • seedy gonzalez . “page 28”
  • thalia zedek . “bone”
  • whale . “hobo humpin’ slobo babe”

[tags]loose music[/tags]

How hot is it?

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It’s hotter than Satan’s asscrack out there. I’ve only felt humidity like this once before: in New Orleans.

It’s days like this I pine for dear old Nova Scotia. Dear old moderate, damp Nova Scotia.

.:.

So yes, there is a plan underway for us to become vegetarians. We plan to ease into it slowly, over the next few months, and by the new year hopefully we’ll be fully veggie (though Nellie plans to eat fish; I haven’t yet decided whether or not I will) and not sliding down a slope of protein deficiency.

On making these plans, it occurs to me that I will have become, in my father’s eyes, a vegetarian atheist Upper Canadian banker. It remains to be seen whether or not he’ll let me in the house. If he does, I believe it will be just to assert his dominance at cribbage.

[tags]humidity, vegetarianism, cribbage[/tags]

"We can't stop breathing…"

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Matt Blackett asks a very interesting question on the Spacing Wire blog:

“I was struck by one of the stats provided: by 2026, up to 4,000 deaths each year in Toronto will be premature due our poor air quality. This made me wonder — if our drinking water was helping contribute to 4,000 premature death each year wouldn’t everyone would in this city be in a panic?”

Of course. Fer chrissakes, the city’s media (if not the citizens) whipped themselves into a frenzy over SARS  (which killed fewer than 50) and the West Nile virus (which killed fewer than a dozen).

.:.

This dead-on post from Tim at Peace, Order and Good Government, Eh? raises a particularly ugly political tactic that’s gained prominence in recent years, especially south of our border: the claim that “decisive action” equals great leadership, regardless of how that decisive action turns out. As Jon Stewart once put it, if a guy drives a car straight into a ditch without even a thought of braking or turning the wheel, why does the fact that he did it so decisively make him the most qualified to drive it out of the ditch?

Dressing it up as the battle of “moral clarity” vs. “endless equivocation”, as the Tory fundraiser referenced in the article did, is the lipstick on the pig. The message here is that it’s better to avoid public discussion (which could lead to dissent) and just quietly accept the opinion of your betters. I doubt anyone would argue that absolutism is speedier than democracy, but I have a hard time believing it’s better for the average citizen.

[tags]matt blackett, spacing, toronto smog, sars, pogge, moral clarity, endless equivocation[/tags]