jon-o-vision

Books of summer

2008-09-10T22:30:00.006-05:00

It's been some time since I wrote anything in this space, so I'll throw something out there.

These are the books I read this summer. It's a little embarrassing that someone with as much spare time as I had this summer could only get through 4 books in 4 months, but I'm not apologizing.

Title: The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
Author: Naomi Klein
Genre: Anti-capitalist screed
Pages: 672
Summary in one sentence: Milton Friedman has no soul and his disciples are ruining the world.

Title: In Europe: Travels Through the Twentieth Century
Author: Geert Mak
Genre: Historical travelogue
Pages: 837
Summary in one sentence: It's been a violent century in Europe, and Nazis are bad.

Title: Spook Country
Author: William Gibson
Genre: Near future spy fiction
Pages: 373
Summary in one sentence: That guy on the street corner is probably working for some pseudo-communist religious cult, or he's not really there.

Title: Bleak House
Author: Charles Dickens
Genre: Classic literature
Pages: 989
Summary in one sentence: Lawyers will suck you dry, and poor people will die in the meantime.

School is in, but school also includes two weekly blocks of several hours of unused time that could be filled by more reading. Poor Folk may be my next project.

On theft

2008-08-11T12:01:00.004-05:00

I've been hit again by Winnipeg's bike thieves. The last time it was a whole bike, this time merely my seat and post, so I suppose I should count myself lucky. In both cases I didn't exactly make it difficult for the thief: my mountain bike that was stolen was unlocked, parked beside a friend's house in Wolseley, and the seat that was stolen had a quick-release.

A bike without a seat looks (and feels) strangely unbalanced.

Still, much like Dostoevsky with his Raskolnikov, I like to explore the pyschology of the perpetrator. Or at the very least, try to understand the logic of stealing a bicycle part that, on its own, has very little value. Let me set the scene:

The seat, while quite comfortable, probably has little re-sale value, especially at a pawn shop.
The post is much rusted and the metal itself has many scrapes and gouges. Essentially a throw-away
If the perp is merely stealing to replace a seat for his own bike, I don't understand why he (excuse my gender stereotyping, but I'll keep using the male pronouns) would have to steal two seats (mine and that of the bike parked next to me).

I can understand crime if it is profitable, but this seems clearly to be the sort of crime that doesn't pay. The Free Press had an article today on the rise in stolen scrap metal, but this is hardly on the same scale.

Lessons:

Quick release = bad. When I ride to a bike shop (with no seat) and get a new post, I'll also be asking for a traditional bolt to replace the quick release.
St. Vital = bad. That's right. I've locked my bikes up all over downtown, left it for hours unattended on porches in Osborne Village and the West End, but the two places where I've had incidents were the relatively 'safe' neighbourhoods of St. Vital and Wolseley. (If I go all the way back to my high school years I can include St. James as well). Of course this leads me to believe that it's probably 12 year old punks doing the stealing. I think more experienced thieves or kids in a dodgier neighbourhood wouldn't settle for anything less than a whole bike.
Look where you park. Perhaps I should have been tipped off by three front wheels, sans bike, still locked to the rack where I had locked up (even the tire had been removed somehow). Or the fact that someone had cut through a 3-inch metal bar on the outside of the rack.
Riding without a seat isn't fun. You might think that of the various pieces of bike hardware the seat is pretty unimportant, but let me assure you that it isn't. Among other things, without a seat, a slip off the pedals becomes far more dangerous and wet streets are far more inconvenient (read: messy).

It's more of a nuisance than anything else. The $40 or so that I'll have to spend will be equivalent to what I initially paid for the bike, but is a drop in the bucket compared to those who have more expensive rides stolen or vandalized.

Bombers, Borders

2008-07-25T11:55:00.009-05:00

It can be a strange experience to emerge from four days cut off from civilization (when 'civilization' signifies electricity, plumbing, news media and the internet). It is stranger still when something important has changed over that time.

During the time that I was canoeing and hiking my way through the Turtle Mountains, Ryan Dinwiddie replaced Kevin Glenn as the starting QB for the Bombers. And, rather amazingly, this time, he's actually good.

Dinwiddie gave a performance that was most un-Dinwiddiesque, and if he continues, I'll be forced to stop using that adjective in a negative way. More importantly, the win means I can end my Bomber embargo, which I never took all that seriously anyway. I watched most of yesterday's game, and only missed the loss to B.C. last Friday because of work.

The Bombers may not have 'it going on', but at least they have a win.

The rally towel must have worked for the fans last night, as Dinwiddie drove the team for a touchdown with less than a minute to go, and it is now rightly resturned to an upright position.

* * * *

What I found particularly interesting in my Turtle Mountain trek this week was a length of trail that follows the border with the United States. I have long heard the phrase "the world's longest undefended border", but haven't actually seen much of the boundary itself other than at highway crossings. The horse trail we hiked that follows the boundary is very much undefended.

The field is American, the trees are Canadian. As you can tell from the angle of the shot, we crossed illegally.

These pillars mark the spot every few kilometres. The four sides read: "Canada", "Treaty of 1908", "U.S.A", and "Border Convention of 1818".

If you squint a little, you should be able to see the two towers which sit on either side of the border at the International Peace Gardens. The Canadian tower is white, the American one black; you can draw your own conclusions.

Football hiatus

2008-07-16T21:35:00.006-05:00

It may not be the most edifying or productive passion, but I do get a major kick out of most sports. Soccer is foremost among them, but in terms of local sports teams, the Bombers have always been my favourite.

However, I'm just about ready to give up that relationship. At least for a while.

I attended last Friday's contest (and here I am using the term pretty loosely) between Winnipeg and the B.C. Lions.

How terrible was it? Let me count the ways:

After the Bombers fell behind 20-5 after 2 quarters, the halftime show consisting of 2 dispassionate Guitar Hero wizards battling on the big screen was probably the most entertaining moment of the 3 hours.
The team's overall performance was so poor that backup quarterback Ryan Dinwiddie's performance, which featured 2 interceptions and several sacks in less than 2 quarters of play against B.C.'s defensive backups, was seen as a bright spot.
The fan experience: a drunken loud-mouthed lout sitting in front of us who was far too generous in using his airhorn kind of ruined things, though his tale after halftime of outrunning event security, who were trying to confiscate said airhorn, was mildly amusing.
I didn't think it possible, but since last year the stadium has become even more unfriendly to those who bike to games. Unless I missed something somewhere, there are no longer any proper bike racks on the stadium grounds, let alone something like a bike valet, and we ended up locking to a tree. It's bad enough to work one's way through the big box wasteland in the area, and the actual wasteland-cum-parking lot where the old arena used to sit without having to walk around half the stadium looking for a place to park your ride.
By the third quarter, I had as much interest in the planes landing at YWG as the game itself. You get a great view of the airport from portions of the east side upper deck.
The stadium is a miserable dump. When the team is winning I hardly notice, but it is not pretty to look at, comfortable to sit in, and a downright disgusting place to go to the bathroom (although I very much like the water-saving aspect of the troughs). I don't want to get into the stadium debate, other than to say that the proposed Point Douglas location is pretty stupid, but the status quo is not a real option.

I was a fan through the miserable Reinebold years, and other rather disappointing seasons, but this was by far the worst performance I've seen in person. I've made a promise to myself not to watch any games or read any CFL-related reporting until the Bombers put one in the win column. Which could mean that I'll have a bit more free time on my hands for the next month or two.

The "Official Rally Towel", pictured upside-down out of protest. Any use this towel got was ironic; the only 'rally' the Bombers mounted was far too late to matter.

* * * *

On a brighter note, I read a good book recently.

Things I like

2008-06-23T12:15:00.008-05:00

I haven't posted here in nearly a month, possibly because there hasn't been much to write about. There still isn't, really, but I'm not letting it stop me this time.

Some things that I am enjoying these days:

1. The weather

I don't know if it should come as a big surprise that people enjoy summer, but it seemed for a long time that cool and dry was all we would get for May and June. Not so these days. Of course, the combination of recent rain (including a nice weekend hail-shower) and present heat will unleash a wave of killer mosquitoes, but who am I to complain.

2. Reading

In particular, I've been reading Naomi Klein's excellent Shock Doctrine, and while it's rather heavy, the page-turning factor is practically Korman-esque (his early work, up to, but possibly not including The Toilet Paper Tigers). Reading on the porch is a good way to combine #1 and #2, and also to achieve the ever-popular chest tan/white back look.

3. New music

I don't find myself too much interested in bands that I haven't heard of these days, but I am rather enjoying new releases from 2 favourites.

The Notwist's latest, The Devil, You + Me, is as excellent as I had suspected, and features prominently in the current rotation on my iPod. And Wolf Parade's new album, with the unlikely name At Mount Zoomer, also nails most of the items on my musical checklist. You may have noticed that these two records were featured on back to back days by the purveyors of I'm-smarter-than-you---and-better-at-name-dropping-to-boot music reviews. I can assure you that this did not influence my decisions. I also bought the Wolf Parade album at Walmart, of all places (I was there for work, honest!), which would surely make me a target of scorn for the Pitchfork crowd.

4. A well-running bicycle

I was beginning to get pretty frustrated with all the grinding and clicks I was hearing from most of the moving parts on my Norco steed. But like most problems in life, it was all solved with a squirt here, and some lube there (insert joke). And some new bearings for the rear wheel. I no longer feel the need to ride dangerously (illegally?) by wearing headphones, for the sole purpose of obscuring the cries of pain from my bike.

5. Garage sales

Actually, I don't like garage sales. But work lately has included a weekly Friday round of south Winnipeg garage sales with a client, and occasionally something good turns up. Case in point:

1970s algebra texts are the best because they include lengthy tables for things like trig ratios which can now be done by any dollar store calculator. And the first page of the first chapter includes a rather grandiose and sweeping account of mathematical history:

Through the ages, man has found himself in need of numbers to help him in his daily chores. One of his most basic needs was to determine how many of a certain thing he had. Thus he developed a set of counting numbers, sometimes called natural numbers . . . Later man discovered more sophisticated uses for numbers. Gradually he developed a body of knowledge known as algebra, where many different sets of numbers are used.

That's all, nothing more needs to be said on the matter. And clearly, there was no need at the time to write inclusively of gender, either.

Please don't hit me!

2008-05-28T11:53:00.005-05:00

Regular readers of this blog may wonder why I've decided yet again to write about cycling on Winnipeg streets. But most days, these two-wheeling times are among my most enjoyable moments. Also particularly enjoyable is listening to Blue Jays baseball on Morden's country station, but who wants to hear about that? I've put in over 1000 km in '08 on the mean streets of the city, and over 900 in the last two months, so I come by this obsession honestly.

The title is a reference to the message sent by the new 'sharrows' that have begun appearing on Winnipeg streets.

From the article:

New bicycle lanes are being painted on more than a half a dozen busy traffic routes throughout Winnipeg.

The new lines create "sharrows," or narrow lanes demarcated on existing streets; it's hoped they'll help ease tension between cyclists and motorists, who often feel like rivals for space on the roads.

"It's going to increase the awareness of drivers to share the road with cyclists, and … it'll increase the awareness for cyclists, you know, to stay where the sharrows are," said Janice Lukes of the city's active transportation advisory committee.

Since the new lanes are on seven busy streets, most of the people who will use them will be experienced cyclists, Lukes said. She hopes the sharrows lead the city to take more steps to become more cycling-friendly.

"It's an absolutely huge first step, from nothing to this — and then it's only a matter of time where you're going to have more families [who] want separated lanes," she said.

"I do believe that the will of the government is there to where eventually we'll see that, maybe in the next two years. It wouldn't surprise me."

The city set aside $100,000 in the 2008 capital budget for the sharrow initiative.

The lanes, accompanied by signs urging motorists and cyclists to "share the road," will appear on:

Higgins Avenue.
Roblin Boulevard.
Grant Avenue.
Regent Avenue.
Plessis Road.
Dakota Street.
Dunkirk Drive.

I've been up and down Dunkirk Dr in the past few days where the sharrows have been painted. I take exception to them being described as either 'bike lanes' or 'lines' as the author of the article has done, but generally I welcome any reminder to drivers that cyclists on the road aren't thrill-seekers but in fact have every right to be there.

[Read the lower rated comments attached to the CBC article for some particularly misinformed and misanthropic vitriol from drivers]

Directional arrows offer help to confused cyclists.

I do question the broader implications of sharrows on a select number of routes. The signs and painted images of bicycles on the streets don't confer any new rights or responsibilities on either cyclists or drivers. Whether you are driving or riding on a signed street like Dunkirk or Roblin, or an unsigned one, the fact remains the same: cyclists have a right to the road.

The tone is a bit motherly, but the law requires motorists and cyclists to share every road.

Some drivers, though, might get the impression that the marked streets are somehow different, and that their blatant disregard for the life and limb of cyclists on other roads is justified. The Dunkirk sharrows cover ~~only a 1 km stretch~~ [edit: I went by again and realized the sharrows continue down Dakota to Bishop Grandin and likely past St. Vital mall. Still only in 1 direction], only the southbound portion, as if this was some tiny cycling Valhalla. But it's not: the regular hazards like broken glass, drains and manhole covers occupy the same curbside space.

So far my $5 tires are winning the battle against curbside debris, including the broken glass pictured.

I'm questioning, not complaining. Any attention to cycling issues is welcome, even if it's an article about a ridiculous bike radio backpack (driving with headphones is worse, but still . . .). You'll notice even that story manages to get in some good stuff:

Ravenelle said bike-vehicle accidents will be all too common until cyclist-only lanes are created around the city.

"If downtown Montreal can do it, Winnipeg can do it. We absolutely need bike-only lanes, not bus and bike lanes. It's ridiculous riding with a bus trying to go around you," he said. "There has to be a lot more education and advocacy put into teaching people to coexist on the road. The easiest thing to do is have dedicated bike lanes. Does Main Street really need four lanes?"

I guess what I'm trying to say is that sharrows aren't bike lanes. It's a start, though.

Trouble with math

2008-05-12T10:34:00.004-05:00

From reading other blogs, it does seem bloggers have a habit of overreacting to factual or other errors in newspaper writing. I'd like to avoid that stereotype but there was something that I simply couldn't let slide.

Bartley Kives is one of the better writers at the Free Press. He used to be the guy on the music/entertainment side of things and now does a solid job working the city hall beat, including reporting on some of our esteemed mayor's shadier dealings.

But it seems he has a bit of difficulty with numbers. From an otherwise reasonable article about gas prices and walking, he offers the following analysis:

According to city research conducted in 2005, the average Winnipegger commutes 11.5 kilometres every day. And according to 2006 census data collected by Statistics Canada, that one-way trip takes an average of about 30 minutes.

Even though those two statistics were not intended to be taken together, the implication is kind of ugly: We appear to be moving around three kilometres an hour, which suggests a lot of us spend a ridiculous amount of time idling in rush hour.

The first paragraph leaves a bit of confusion as to whether we are taking about a 11.5 kilometre trip taking 30 minutes, or a 30 minute commute covering half that distance, but neither set of numbers should produce the highlighted conclusion Kives comes to.

Try this: 11.5 km / 0.5 hours = 23 kph

Or, at worst: (11.5 km / 2) / 0.5 hours = 11.5 kph.

This would be a rather unimportant error, if he didn't rely entirely upon the result to support the following argument:

Three kph is slower than the average human being saunters, let alone actually walks on the way to work.

I'd like to think I'm a big supporter of active modes of transportation, but even I wouldn't argue that walking is faster than driving.

Dutch love

2008-05-07T17:05:00.012-05:00

I tend occasionally to be wistful about times past, and in particular, the year I spent living in the Netherlands. It is a country that often seems more sensible than our own, a land where the Prime Minister vacations in a trailer in a Portugal campground (you'll have to look for it; it's cited as an example of the culture's small 'power distance'). Some of that sense is reflected in that culture's enthusiastic embrace of the bicycle.

I was reminded of this reading an article in the June 2008 issue of The Walrus. I'd link to the article by Bill Reynolds, an excellent yet odd melange of art criticism, biography, autobiography and reporting about cycling safety and advocacy, but as a subscriber I'm so far ahead of the curve that the story isn't even online yet.

Update: Here's a link to the entire article: Geared Up (Walrus, June 2008)

So I've reproduced the relevant sections:

Along one-way cobblestone canal paths, on dedicated bicycle highways, and sharing the roadway with cars, there are tens of thousands of cyclists in Amsterdam. They get their very own traffic lights - with bicycle icns lighting up red or green - in the central core. Dutch city bikes tend to be clunky: hard to lift, uncomfortable to ride over long distances, and forcing riders to sit too far back. (No one in North America would dream of riding such a bike.) But they're solid, the tires are large, and they don't break down - in short, they're perfect for city riding. Couples lazily ride to dinner, formally dressed in suit and gown, he pedalling (usually) and she sitting on the baggage rack. Moms and dads transport kids the same way. No one wears a helmet. Down at Central Station, the confluence of lanes makes the Arc de Triomphe traffic circle in Paris look like the idyll of Manhattan's Central Park. Amsterdam is inner-city kinetic energy at its finest.

My 'just North of Amsterdam' bike. Compared to most city rides (including the one I rode in during my A-dam stint), this is a Cadillac. A used one sells for over €150 (over $225)

H-i-i-i-i-s-s-s-s-s...a middle-aged woman admonishes a walker for dallying on her bike highway. She's one of the ones who have taken up cycling later in life, the government's social engineering having successfully pushed bikes as a way for people, women in particular - Surinames émigrés and Dutch citizens alike - to become more independent and mobile. She's learned the rules of the Amsterdam system to the letter, and her message is, don't get in my way.

Bikes rule Amsterdam. If a car hits you, it's the driver's fault. Period. Down these crowded streets, walkers fight through designated traffic lanes - one for bikes, and one each for taxis, regular cars, and the tram. But nothing is perfect. When I tell Paul, our bed and breakfast host, about the supercilious, hissing woman and numerous speed-automaton men - like our slick cab driver from the airport - he says, "Yes, here in Amsterdam we have our cycle paths, and we have our psycopaths." The system, no matter how ingeniously regulated, is bursting at the seams. Car congestion has given way to a different anxiety: moving through public space that is on the verge of becoming a bike dystopia. I wonder if bikes here have become the new cars; if they are two-wheeled insects, they're sizable ones, like dragonflies. So what does that make walkers - mosquitoes? Maybe there is something in wheeled motion that induces aggressive behaviour.

This light isn't in Amsterdam, but it's close enough.

You'll have to forgive that insect bit at the end - it draws on an analogy from earlier in the article - but otherwise that description is pretty good. I think he goes overboard with the idea of a bike "dystopia". It seems like the kind of judgment one would make as a tourist trying to navigate the bustling city core, from the Stadshouderskade inward. And he does go on later to describe the derision he experienced riding a MacBike (MacBikes aren't the latest innovation in uber-cool from Apple, but rather the name of a city-wide bicycle rental firm dealing almost exclusively with tourists).

How much do they love Bikes? Let me count the ways:

At the beach

National park, free-to-ride, bikes

Further out, where most people live and work, the scene is more sensible. My 5km daily commute showed little evidence of bursting at the seams, with my most dangerous encounters being snowball related. (While Amsterdammers have much to teach us about cycling and bicycle infrastructure, they could sure learn a thing or two about winter etiquette, for those 3 or 4 days a year when they have to deal with the season). For parts of the city that aren't entirely overrun by slow-witted tourists, the cycling machinery operates quite smoothly. And the best part is that the infrastructure is in place basically across the whole country.

A rural bikepath somewhere in Gelderland.

Reynolds also complains about a near collision in Vondelpark, and those are pretty commonplace (actual collisions less so). He later adds:

Paul, our B&B owner, says some riders "try to find the absolute shortest way between two points and go as fast as they can. The only thing they respect is the tram because it is heavy and takes time to stop." In 1987, American satirist P.J. O'Rourke theorized that his nation was "afflicted with a plague of bicycles." Right theory, wrong country, perhaps? Then again, after two weeks any new rider will graduate from naiad to dragonfly and thrive in this cycling ecosystem.

That graduation is hard to describe, but you realize it the first time you passive-aggressively ring your bell at a pedestrian obstructing your way, or at a group of girls riding 3-wide across the entire bike path. And it's a far cry from here, where I earned a honk for swerving intoa few inches of the next lane (on Wellington Crescent, a winding residential street, I might add) to avoid a construction worker.

Suspended neon shoes add colour to a sometimes frustrating Wellington ride.

A news story today called to mind another example of Dutch common sense. It details a proposal by an analyst to improve Winnipeg's transit system. From the article:

Prentice envisions what he calls a "hub-and-spoke" transit system, which would include the usual city buses on major routes, as well as mini-buses or shuttle services picking up suburbanites at their homes — possibly when summoned by the rider — and ferrying them to transfer stations.

This calls to mind the excellent Treintaxi service, which for a fixed cost (roughly 5 euro) will take you to or from a train station. Knowledge of this might have been useful before a certain 40 euro cab I split with a friend of mine.

Whether or not this hub-spoke model would really work on a smaller scale (though Winnipeg's sprawl isn't that far off from Holland's postage stamp footprint) is a matter for debate, I suppose, but any way to get more people riding public transit, a service like Treintaxi included, is at least worth trying.

If my Dutch-love seems a bit unreasonable, and I'm ignoring significant social problems and ethnic tensions, you might be right. But they also invented tulips, or something like that, so back off.

Playoffs

2008-04-14T18:52:00.003-05:00

Last week my roommates and I hosted the draft for the annual playoff pool. It's nearly a week in and not looking good.

I set up a program to keep track of the standings, so if you're interested in seeing how badly I'm losing (currently I'm tied for last), follow my progress here.

Celebrity lookalike

2008-04-07T18:14:00.005-05:00

"Has anybody ever told you that you look like a famous person?"

This, or something close to it, was a question I was asked by a student today who clearly was searching for anything to focus on instead of his math assignment on personal income taxes. I answered in the negative (a lie, but I didn't feel like prolonging the conversation). I was nervous, though. There aren't that many celebrities I'd like to be compared with.

The student proceeded to describe the match:

"Have you seen Harold and Kumar?"

(I nodded, another lie).

"You look like the guy who sits in the backseat." (Thanks, real helpful. Maybe not the sharpest knife in the drawer.) "Patrick something."

This must the scene they were thinking of.

I started to walk away. Another student said "the brother from Malcolm in the Middle". (A little better, but there are 4 brothers on the show.)

The lightbulb finally went on and the student had the name: "Neil Patrick Harris"

What? You mean Doogie Howser?

A younger me?

I wasn't quite sure how to feel about that one. Those of you who know my appearance can be the judge of how accurate a comparison it is.

I'll admit, we do share a giant forehead.

Interestingly, this is the second time in the last two weeks I had spoken with someone who had mistaken the elder brother from Malcolm in the Middle (turns out his name is Christopher Masterson) for Neil PH. Get your B-list celebs right, people.

Happy Friday

2008-04-04T09:33:00.006-05:00

If you like good music and being depressed, have I got just the thing for you:

The vibe is rather post-apocalyptic, with the rusty tin-cans sans labels, barring the door with a railroad tie, and the improvised flying machine. And those two seem not to enjoy each other's company much either.

Still, I like the Notwist and this song which, along with the other new one I've heard, has me excited for the new album.

There is such a thing as a free lunch ... and supper

2008-03-14T16:42:00.004-05:00

Student teaching has its ups and downs -- mostly ups -- and today I added to the list of experiences with another inservice day. Most teachers seem not to enjoy these days, and I can see why, with all of the complaining and talking in circles about the same issues over and over again. But since I only need to see these problems for 5 or 6 weeks at a time, I don't mind these meetings. The morning was capped off with a free lunch -- potluck for which I didn't bring anything (I had a list of excuses prepared, but nobody asked).

The second half of the day was spent checking out the classrooms or workshops for the various vocational options available at the school. I signed up for the Foods program and Welding. Welding was a fine time, although I am still waiting for my hearing to return tomorrow after the welding guy let some oxygen-acetylene gas leak into a steel pipe and then lit it. I got to cut some steel with a torch, wear some killer goggles, and hear accident stories.

Foods was another story. Those of us who attended watched a well-trained chef prepare a gourmet meal (he said it would sell for $25-30 in a restaurant) and then got a plate for ourselves. I lost the recipe, but it was some stuffed chicken thing with a chocolate sauce. Unfortunately, the hour in the kitchen followed immediately on the heels of the potluck, so I wasn't ready to eat again. The meal was wrapped and I carried it home with me on the bus. I planned on taking a picture, but it didn't survive the journey quite so well. Still tasty, though, and I've got dinner.

* * * *

The other interesting thing from this week was attending the Brier. Those of us who went had a grand time, but as a sporting event, it's kind of bizarre. Unlike hockey games, where any break in action is punctuated by "Song 2" (you know, that "Woohoo" song by Blur), it is persistently quiet, with rare bursts of applauses or shocked gasps as Kerry Burtnyk blows another shot.

The event also provides an excuse for old people to get rowdy. A lady in our section answered every chant of "B.C." (Manitoba's opponent) with the eloquent reply "Sucks!". There weren't any close games among the 4 (you can see in the picture that one of the sheets is empty already, the game having been conceded early), but that only left more time to plot a curling team for next winter.

Brahms and beards

2008-02-23T12:25:00.003-06:00

Check out posters for my next two musical engagements [1] [2]

I'm looking forward to the second concert. On the menu is Brahms' Symphony No. 4. Somehow, in my unillustrious orchestral career, I've managed not to play any major Brahms works, but now I know what I've been missing. I've you've got the time, download it [50 MB, do the ol' 'right click/save link as' trick to save yourself some trouble]. Listen especially from 18:10 to 19:10. That's the payoff that makes a two and a half hour rehearsal on a Friday all seem worthwhile (and don't worry, the rest of the piece is great too!)

These two are concerts are non-paying gigs, but I did join the city musician's union back in September to get more work of the paying variety. The jury's still out on that move, but there are a few perks, I guess.

The union is a local of the American Federation of Musicians, which publishes the International Musician. I get the magazine as long as I pay my dues. It's mostly standard union stuff, although often with articles and editorials on copyright and artists' rights which I tend not to agree with. And, until this month, it seemed like brass players with terrible facial hair had a monopoly on cover appearances. Case in point:
This month's cover is Lyle Lovett, one of my many famous union brothers. This isn't a union of the mobster-dealin', leg-breakin', variety, but it will have to do.

Master of my own domain

2008-02-19T23:28:00.000-06:00

www.jonovision.com

Try it. Love it.

Stuff that people wrote that is good

2008-02-09T13:56:00.001-06:00

On weekends (which, for me, a U of M education student, also include Mondays), I try to take care of all of my assigned readings for the upcoming week. This is less about good work habits than it is a curious form of procrastination where I do the least important things first.

Unfortunately, it also means that I have to spend a few hours in a very cloudy headspace where a lot of pretty hazy concepts are bandied about. I am used to a bit more precision in academic reading, but in education, it seems like everything can be boiled down to a diagram that looks something like this.
The triangle with bidirectional arrows is ubiquitous, and by now conveys almost no meaning at all.

Because of all this, I am always happy to read good, and more importantly, interesting, writing.

Here's some:

Bali Dancing (Walrus, March 2008)

Salesman Katz fails to deliver the goods (Winnipeg Free Press, 9 February 2008)

David Asper's history lesson (Rise and Sprawl, 8 Febuary 2008)

These are arranged in descending order of scathing.

Saturday afternoon

2008-01-27T15:33:00.000-06:00

Winnipeg seems to have bested Ottawa for the title of longest skating rink in the world. I'm not big on civic pride, but I am big on avoiding homework, which was the main purpose of my trip on the rink yesterday.

I've skated the river trail in some of its shorter incarnations before, but it certainly is longer this time around. And the problem with travelling a long trail is that unless you have transportation on one end, you end up doing the whole length twice. At 8.54 km, that was 17 km of skating for me. Not too bad, but maybe overdoing it a bit since I haven't skated since last January.

Having travelled first east on the Assiniboine, past the Forks, and north up the Red, I reached the current endpoint. The men in the picture seem to be testing the ice, which seems to be something you'd want to do before you clear the trail.

North-east end of the trail (map)

The ice on the Red River portion wasn't in great shape, but there were a few interesting sights along the way.

Looks fun

First of many bridges

The postcard bridge.

Moving onto the Assiniboine, ice conditions improved a bit. As in years past, there were a couple of hockey rinks cleared which were hosting a shinny hockey tournament, like something out of a Don Cherry wet dream.

Approaching the Forks

Louis Riel. He'll have his day yet!

West of the Osborne St. bridge, the crowds eased considerably and it was possible to make considerably better time. It's interesting to have a chance to see your city from the river which you don't normally get. For example, this sewage bridge, connecting Wolseley and Wellington which I had always known existed, but had never seen:

Poop bridge

Western terminus, by Omand's Creek park

It's a good way to spend an hour and a quarter on a Saturday afternoon.

More of the same

2008-01-16T15:59:00.000-06:00

It often seems that all I write about in this space is transportation (for me, buses and bicycles) and music. Today, I have more of the same.

I've been hearing rumours of the 'bendy bus' (articulated is the technical term) that Winnipeg Transit has been testing for the last few weeks. Today, I had the fortune to be a passenger, and I couldn't have been happier.

The formidable length (that's what she said!), multiple exit doors and inefficient allocation of seating space all reminded me of riding my favourite tram. The panels which normally hold advertising, or "Busology" tips, instead provided details about regenerative breaking, the parallel hybrid drive system, the 'bellows' (essentially the bendy bit), and Winnipeg Transit's plans to buy their own buses with a more generous seating configuration (the test model will be returned to New Flyer after the test run).

The Hamilton Street Railway apparently has several buses of this exact model in their fleet. This is what it looks like from inside:

There were a few kinks to be worked out. The interior display had the time wrong by an hour (which frightened me for a second), and kept telling me that I was on Route 4, which I was surprised to learn as Winnipeg has no such route. Besides that, all exit doors open simultaneously, which solves the problem with people unable to figure out the yellow strip, but might encourage hop-ons.

I would have fully immersed myself in the experience had I not been already rather immersed in an interesting podcast on my new toy. I'm on a bit of a classical music kick of late, so I've been looking for podcasts in that vein. The National Arts Centre Orchestra (in Ottawa) has a few of these, and the one that caught my attention carried the name "Explore the Symphony". Here is the description:

Join the National Arts Centre Orchestra's Marjolaine Laroche and one of Canada's foremost music journalists, Jean-Jacques van Vlasselaer, as they explore the symphonic form from Haydn to Shostakovich.

Maybe it's just me, but on a podcast such as this, wouldn't you expect to hear some actual symphony music? I certainly did, but instead was treated to what were essentially very digestible music history lectures, in the form of rather delightfully-accented conversation between a French-Canadian bassist and a French-Canadian music critic. Which might have been even better. This morning's topic was Dvorak's New World Symphony, one of my favourites to play.

I won't bore you with the details, but I was shaken to the core to learn that the theme in the 2nd movement, which is also the melody of an African-American spiritual called "Going Home" was a Dvorak original, and embraced by black Americans, not the other way around as I had always assumed. So this 'miscegenation' the kids are talking about these days has been around for a while.

Lend an ear

2008-01-11T16:45:00.000-06:00

If I was following the Ukrainian calendar, the New Year would be just a few days ahead (I am reminded of this because I have a gig Sunday with a Ukrainian choir, playing Christmas music in Ukrainian). Then I would be able to add to my music list for the year, although the piece I have in mind would fall under the category of new discoveries in 2007, not music written in that year.
That good looking gentleman is 20th-century (and 21st, as he is still living) Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. I don't normally go for the modern stuff, but in some pieces I've recently listened to, including "Fratres" linked below, I get the sense he's got the ability to do a lot without a lot, if you catch my drift. It's just violin and piano, and not even very much of either at times, but I enjoy the effect.

[buy| mp3: Arvo Pärt - Fratres (10:13)]

Albums of 2007

2008-01-04T10:55:00.000-06:00

I missed the annual party where my friends got together and competed for the honour of having the best musical taste. I was a bit disappointed, but not as much as I would have been if I had known what my favourite dozen or so songs that I listened to in 2007. It's a rather daunting task to try to think back to last January and recall what I was listening to at that time.

I've given myself the more manageable task of choosing five good records from the year.

In no particular order . . .

Interpol - Our Love to Admire

If I like an album, I have a habit of listening to it more or less on repeat. This may be because I don't have an iPod so I don't carry 100 hours of music with me, or because I usually am listening to music for 30 or so minutes at a time, and I like starting at the beginning of the record. In any case, listening to the same songs for a few weeks in a row often leads to me associating a band and record with a particular time and place.

With Interpol, that time is spring, 2005, and the place is Amsterdam. Dreary, but not forboding, skies, a creaky old bicycle rolling over cobblestones. You get the picture. I experience a sort of reverse-homesickness for that city now and then. Not so much for the people I knew there, but the city itself, which was great for riding or walking around in at any time of day or night (a half hour stroll through Vondelpark home from a concert was as good as it gets).

Anyway, this Interpol record sounds to me almost the same as the one I was playing at the time (Antics, I suppose), so it brings me back. This guy also has Our Love in his top 10, so it must be good.

The album cover is also pretty outstanding and reminds me of this awesome video from 2007 between a herd of buffalo, a pride of lions and 2 crocodiles.

[buy | mp3: Interpol - The Heinrich Maneuver (3:29)]

Justice - †

Pronounced "Cross", this Justice album is rather good. You know about my predilection for Daft Punk by now (more below), and these French dance act (wikipedia calls them "an electro house duo") shares a lot in common with them. An impressive stage show, addictive beats, catchy riffs, all are essential parts of the puzzle. The down-tempo "Valentine" would not seem at all out of place on a Daft Punk record, and I intend that as a compliment.

Looking around the end-of-year lists online, this duo of Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay (aren't French names terrific?!) mostly earned attention for their single "D.A.N.C.E", but in Canada most people, whether they know it or not, have heard "Phantom Pt. II", thanks to a Telus commercial.

[buy | mp3: Justice - Phantom Pt. II (3:21)]

Caribou - Andorra

To be honest, there may well be several songs and albums that I was really digging back in January or March or sometime before the summer. But my affection for these has faded into my memory. I've been enjoying Caribou's Andorra since August which, for me, is an impressive show of staying power.

I could try to explain why I like this record with an explosion of name-dropping like Pitchfork does, but I don't have quite the same musical vocabulary. Instead, I'll say that I like the drum-machine-y bits ("Irene"), the meandering stuff ("After Hours") and the song at the beginning ("Melody Day").

This album represents the only indie/Can-con music on my list for this year, although the Arcade Fire's Neon Bible was as strong as I expected, and the rather long winded Broken Social Scene Presents Kevin Drew's Spirit If... was a pleasant surprise. This is a change from previous years, though I might have included a MSTRKRFT or Wolf Parade album in this list had they released one in '07.

[buy | mp3: Melody Day (4:11)]

Daft Punk - Alive 2007

I've mentioned this album in this space before so I don't feel like I need to explain this choice in great detail. It's fairly obvious that Daft Punk's style translates well to a big stage, just by listening. Throw in the sweet pyramid and it really can't miss.

A few further comments in support of this little piece of greatness:

My younger cousin, whose classical music ability and knowledge in such areas as theory and harmony likely exceeds my own, called this pair of Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo (another great French name) 'genius'. This is the sort of praise he would normally only bestow upon luminaries such as Brahms or Bach.
My roommate and I decided this would be one show worth travelling great distances to see. But if they want to come to Chicago or Minneapolis to shorten the trip, they're more than welcome.

[buy | mp3: Daft Punk - Around the World / Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (5:28)]

Radiohead - In Rainbows

Of the 5 albums listed, this one could most easily drop off the list. Still, it's such an obvious choice. Radiohead fans and critics have pretty high expectations, and In Rainbows at the very least meets most of them.

This is another one of those "time and place" albums for me. I've taken a break from it after overdosing in the month of October and November, so In Rainbows will always reminding me of riding my bicycle over fallen leaves on Wellington Crescent and in the midst of traffic and exhaust fumes on Pembina.

If you want more of my feelings about this record, I'll refer you to an earlier post.

[buy | mp3: Radiohead - All I Need (3:49)]

I could go on and list some albums in the "Honourable Mention" category, but there is nothing terribly honourable about failing to crack my top 5 in a year when I didn't listen to a whole lot of music. Some old music that I was wrapped up in for a while would include Bach, Kraftwerk, and Sibelius.

And there you have it. Bus-riding season starts again on Monday, so hopefully 2008 provides some good stuff to drown out the sounds of "Next stop ..." that the drivers are now required to speak into the microphone.

Cycle & Ski

2008-01-03T11:46:00.000-06:00

I don't really do New Years' resolutions -- think of this instead as a kind of goal-setting.

2007 was really the first year that I was really into cycling as my primary mode of transportation. Necessity factored into this, really more than anything else, but I'd like to give myself some credit.

In total, I cycled about 2814 km in 2007. This should tell you a few things:

I could do more. This works out to about 8 km a day, or perhaps 12 km a day during the more bike-able months.
I am anal about keeping track of numbers.

These totals were spread across three bikes (really 2, as I put on about 10 km on my old CCM in 2007 before it was stolen), and the kilometers only started piling up in June, so it should be easy to hit a much bigger number in 2008. Here's how it broke down for 2008:

Month	Distance
June	366
July	351
August	330
September	602
October	662
November	485
December	18
Total	2814

As you can see from the decline from October through November and into December, I'm not currently set up for winter riding. Essentially, I need winter tires, but they don't make those for the size of wheels that I'm riding (27", not the new standard 700mm). So, until the snow melts or I decide to spend some money, it's the stop-announcin', fare-increasin' buses for me.

1124 km of joy with this one

1690 km on the Silver Bullet (since retired/mined for parts)

If I get back on the horse sometime in March, and I find reason to ride somewhere during the summer (one can always find an excuse), I figure 4000 km in 2008 shouldn't be out of reach.

Other ~~resolutions~~ goals for 2008 include making a decent meal for myself at least once a week, no longer falling asleep at night by watching episodes of The Office on my computer, and remembering to water my plant. We'll see about those ones.

Cross-country skiing seems to be the winter counterpart of cycling, at least according to stores like this one. If my calculations and estimations are right (numbers again) I did about 40 km of this activity of the Christmas holidays, and it was way more fun than I remember it being years ago when my participation probably wasn't quite as optional.

These sweet boots (borrowed, unfortunately) might have had something to do with the increased enjoyment:

Ski de fond

2007-12-27T10:29:00.001-06:00

I don't know where I'd rather be right now, but this place was pretty good.

Celebrity, part 2

2007-12-09T18:45:00.001-06:00

I think it is due to the nature of Winnipeg that any brushes with celebrity are minor and really rather uninteresting.

My celebrity moments:

Gary Filmon played basketball on my school playground back in the day, and another, more recent (post-premier days, perhaps) time buying flowers at Safeway.
I think I saw Thomas Steen at the mall once.
I barely count things like seeing Glen Murray shopping for plants.

Last month I whizzed by John Sauder on my bike and ended up in a commercial, while yesterday I sold a Christmas tree to Sylvia Kuzyk. The common thread being that both are CTV weather personalities, though not for long (Sauder is moving, or has moved, to CBC to replace Murray "It's my real hair, honest" Parker).

If it's media personalities that I'm going to run into, I can think of better options, past (and how we miss you!) and present.

Piece or not a piece?

Wanderlust

2007-12-04T18:37:00.000-06:00

This is where I'd rather be.

Iron(y) curtain

2007-12-04T18:25:00.000-06:00

Although I think most of my contemporaries have a rather incorrect understanding of the term 'irony', on account of the Alanis Morissette song, I do believe this example fits the bill.

I've been hanging around (and being occasionally productive) in a high school computer classroom for the last 4 weeks. One recent development is the students' use of a site called Ultrareach to circumvent the network's list of blocked sites.

Ultrareach, as far as I can tell, is a Chinese site, and its prime purpose is to filter traffic through government firewalls, which are draconian and probably undemocratic in the way they restrict Internet access. The students in my classroom are using it to play crappy flash games and watch youtube videos.

Overprivileged students using a potentially powerful democratic tool to play Lemmings and avoid doing work in a computer class.

I'm not sure how to characterize my reaction to this event. Part of me is impressed that this viral knowledge is passed around so quickly, and students figure out how to navigate a site that is entirely in Chinese. But I think I'll settle on 'bemused'.

One interesting thing, to me, about this site is the way that web addresses are formed. If I wanted to, say, visit facebook via this intermediary, I would end up with an address in my location bar looking like https://www.ultrareach.net/03http-00qqq.sHB5yccU.Bcb/--. It didn't take too long, checking other addresses as well, for me to realize that the latter portion, qqq.sHB5yccU.Bcb, is simply www.facebook.com formed with a simple substitution cipher (q's represent w, c's represent o, etc.), a rather elementary way around keyword blocking.

I don't think I'd be tuned into that sort of thing if I wasn't back on the Cryptoquote train. I used to find these puzzles frustrating, because they should be so much easier than they are, but I've been doing them lately and I'm hooked.

Robot Rock

2007-11-27T19:48:00.000-06:00

"1996 called, they want their awesome back"

That's all I really have to say about it ('it' being Daft Punk Alive 2007).

Well, not quite. Daft Punk's dance beats may not be the most sophisticated or subtle (although I always get pretty jazzed up when I hear the arpeggiating guitar-synth riff in "One More Time"), but they seem like they'd be pretty great live. This, being a live album, proves that point.

Plus, who wouldn't be witness to this kind of spectacle?

(Apologies; I've used the "Someone called, they want their something back" line before, but this time it seemed à propos).