Truths and Half Truths

Hi, Honeys, I'm Home ...

Arrived home tonight at 9:30 after a 5 1/2 hour flight from Glasgow to Halifax and a 3 1/2 hour drive Halifax to Charlottetown.  I'm pretty much wasted.

The house-sitter took good care of the pets, but the yard is (from what I could see n the semi-darkness) a disaster, the mail is stacked up hip high, it took me 12 minutes to sift through the archived phone messages, and the hot tub was essentially algae soup.  So, tomorrow might not be the best day to expect me to blog extensively.  Just so you know.

The trip was ... well, pretty amazing.  I'm tempted to blog the whole damn thing, assuming there are no protests to the contrary, and I definitely will run a Self Portrait contest in the next week or so to test your knowledge of Notable World Landmarks Nils Embarrassed Himself and His Daughters By Taking His Own Picture In Front of Them Even Though Total Strangers Offered To Take The Picture For Him.  Stay tuned for your opportunity to win a valuable prize, assuming you're willing to re-adjust your definition of "valuable". 

In the meantime, it's 11 PM Atlantic Time, which makes it ... I don't know, almost sunrise in Glasgow where I started the day.  So, a smart man would head off to bed.

Not sure just what I'll do ...

Pip-pip, Cheerio, And All That

I'm off for the England tour as of noon on Friday ... so posting here will be irregular if at all till the end of May.  I'll try to keep in touch as best I can by e-mail, but there are a lot of variables.  So if you don't hear from me, don't assume I've been roughed up by soccer hooligans.  I'll probably be in a pub.  (Yes, Alan, yes ... I'll take pictures.  But not at the expense of my drinking time)

House sitter is in place, dogs and cats are happy ... so ... off we go ...

Cheers, all!

They Don't Fool Me ...

Over the past few days, I've gotten a spurt - well, more than a spurt, a virtual deluge - of spam e-mails.  They've all been redirected into my junk e-mail box by hotmail.  But they're fascinating  because, for one thing, they all bear similar subject lines:  either "registration confirmation" or "your e-mail was refused" or "in answer to your query" ... something like that.  They all have an attachment.  They're all precisely 73 K in size, which first alerted me to the problem.

I find myself actually looking at them longingly ... half-assed wanting to open one of the attachment to see what terror it unleashes.

I don't, of course.  Just click and delete.  But I'd sure like to know if anybody knows what these are ...

Two Great Reads

For those of you who, like me, stumble around looking for great new blogs to read:  try Waiter Rant and Club Life .  Both of them are set in New York City, one at a restaurant, the other at a night club.  The stories of the daily interactions with patrons and fellow staff are funny, occasionally poignant, always brilliantly written, and a part of my daily routine I look forward to.  In both cases, I've gobbled up everything in their archives. 

I know neither of these writers, but they both have blogs that read like books-in-the-making.

If you already knew about them and didn't tell me - shame on you.

Soothing the Savage Breast ...

(Yes, that is the correct ending to that quote.  So many times I see it as "Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast."  It makes me crazy.)

I dropped by What The Fuck Opera's blog tonight.  It's one of my favourite places to visit now, not just because she has interesting things to say, but because while she's saying it, and while you're commenting, and even afterwards if you choose (and I do!) you are blessed with some wonderful music from the world of opera.  It's glorious ... go there, click on the player, and let it be your soundtrack for the rest of your travels tonight.  Your soul will thank you.

(Incidently, her blog isn't called "What the Fuck, Opera?"  It's "whfropera" ... but every tme I look at that, I don't see her station's call letters - I see "What the Fuck, Opera?")

I was thinking a lot about music - classical and otherwise - today.  As we all prepare for our tour ,  I've had to spend some time with the girls working out their music.

Both my daughters are musicians.  Erin, my oldest, graduated last year from the University of Prince Edward Island with a degree in Music Education.   Her particular instrument was piano - specifically, classical piano.  Here is  Download 05_track_5.wma a wee sample of her talents. 

(Okay, I confess - that's from a scene in the show about the joys of having a beginning piano student around the house. This:  Download 11_track_11.wma might be a better example.  Interestingly enough, it took her more takes in the recording studio to do the first piece than the second.)

Erin studied music in University for five years - it's an incredibly challenging course, not just academically, but also because while students in Arts or other faculties would go out to the pub at night, she was spending an average of 3 to 6 hours a day practicing.  What that meant was we had a house with what essentially amounted to a soundtrack.  I'd be writing into the night with Chopin or Brahms or Beethoven wafting through the room.  It was wonderful.

Allison, my younger daughter, gave up the piano for the violin when she was about ten.  She's an accomplished violinist but also branched into fiddling.   This:  Download 1. Catharsis.wma is Allison, from her first CD.

Both Allison and Erin have toured with me before - it's lovely doing a show called "The Truth About Daughters", then at the end, introducing "your musician for the evening, my daughter ..." and hearing the audible gasp from the audience.  And when we go to England, one or both of them will play at all the shows.  It's a far better experience for the audience, and without putting too fine a point on it, it's nice to be able to go to Revenue Canada and go "Yeah, this trip?  TOTALLY tax deductible.  So, bite me."

(Note to the good folks at Revenue Canada:  JUST KIDDING!  I have nothing but respect for all of you!  Please don't audit me!)

The point of this wasn't to brag about my girls - although I promise you, I'm more than willing to do that, and can do it endlessly.  But my point was to tell you about some other music I heard today, which I called my girls in to hear, and made their jaws drop.  Erin, the music grad who understands all the jargon and terminology, pronounced this "Insane".  So ... I guess that's good.

Have a listen.