you wrote that you looking moped rental and chicago
here you have all what I found:
put down your brush
comet holds the secret to life
after he cheats
cup of tea the answer
why women really love wearing shoes
tori spelling’s dress: sad, limp and purple
how long does meat keep in your fridge?
kim kardashian denies causing stench on airplane
discovery hints at real aliens
my septic guy told me
bad foods that are good
four steps to a better shave
five things never to put in a dishwasher
angelina jolie is turning shiloh into a boy
zombie outbreak likely to lead to collapse of civilization
unless dealt with quickly, university of ottawa students conclude
Category Archives: Secrets
My Canada includes Kate and Anna McGarrigle
Just days after Canada lost poet, novelist and painter P.K. Page at 93, Kate McGarrigle has left us at the far too young age of 63.
Mother of Rufus and Martha Wainwright (she used to be married to American folksinger Loudon Wainwright III), Kate is best known as half of Quebec’s beloved folk duo, the McGarrigle Sisters.
Kate and Anna McGarrigle are folk and roots music legends; true Canadian icons (not like Celine Dion or Nickelback, god forbid, but in the manner of Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell, and, dare I say it, Pierre Trudeau). For three decades they weaved a simple, understated magic with their harmonies and original songs, which have been covered by the likes of Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, Maria Muldaur and Kirsty MacColl.
Kate died at her home Monday in Montreal after fighting sarcoma, a rare form of cancer, since 2006.
“She departed in a haze of song and love surrounded by family and good friends,” Anna posted on the McGarrigles’ website. “She is irreplaceable and we are broken-hearted.”
Count me among the broken-hearted.
Love Over and Over (from the early ’80s album of the same name) has always been one of my absolute favourite songs, its catchy baby baby baby ’til my tongue spirals outta my head … riff impossible to get out of your own head once it’s gleefully inside. One of my top two Edmonton Folk Music Festival workshops (the other being Buffy Sainte-Marie rockin’ out with Mary Gauthier) featured Kate and Anna on Stage 6 with Tom Russell, Nanci Griffith and Greg Brown. Songwriters’ songwriters, every one of them. The afterglow lasted for days.
The unglamourous McGarrigle sisters sang of joy, of sorrow, of driving cab for the Star Cab Company and of eating dinner at the kitchen table. They sang jaunty folksongs in French and English. They sang love is a shiny car / love is a steel guitar / love is the pleasures untold / and for some love is still a band of gold.
I’ll allow that, like Iris Dement, they were a bit of an acquired taste. And just as there are many Canadians out there who have never heard of the remarkable P.K. Page, there are many who will claim to have never heard of Kate & Anna McGarrigle. To them I say, you may not have heard of them, but you’ve definitely heard them.
If you’re Canadian, eh, and of a certain age, you would have heard them providing the delightful vocals on The Log Driver’s Waltz, a song written by Wade Hemsworth and forever engraved on our true north DNA thanks to a three-minute animated National Film Board vignette that got tremendous play on the CBC network in the 1980s. (“For he goes birling down a-down the white water; that’s where the log driver learns to step lightly. It’s birling down, a-down white water; a log driver’s waltz pleases girls completely …”)
To me, Kate and Anna McGarrigle represented the best parts of a Canada that doesn’t exist anymore. A Canada that is polite and proud of it, eclectic, a bit fearless, a bit naive, and still (thankfully) a little untamed; a fair and caring nation, heartbeats accelerating.
I would like to have it back.
And let the sun set on the ocean
I will watch it from the shore
Let the sun rise over the redwoods
I’ll rise with it till I rise no more
(Kate McGarrigle, Talk to me of Mendocino, 1975)
inside the drawer from hell
unable as i am to throw anything away,
i came across in the junk drawer the other day:
bits of string
expired pizza coupons
chinese takeaway menus
three hundred and sixteen twist ties
seven golf tees
recipes for chicken wings (i’ve been vegetarian
for twelve years)
screws of various lengths
fridge magnets
yellowed dilbert comics clipped from the newspaper
dental floss
the joker from a pack of playing cards
seed packets for wildflowers
a dead chapstick
a guitar pick
nine ketchup packets
dad’s swiss army knife
an eaton’s charge card
five dead batteries
shoelaces
folk fest wristbands from three different summers
several brittle elastics
two broken pencils
nine dried-out felt pens
thirteen business cards
joe’s wedding invitation
lorne’s funeral notice
a radio shack tape recorder
four “special” beer caps
a postcard from new york city
a plastic skull ring
ribbon
a bic lighter
eyepiece caps from a pair of binoculars
visa receipts from 2002
warranty cards for kettle and microwave (both of which
are long gone to kitchen appliance heaven)
film negatives clipped to photo reprint orders
popsicle sticks
a piece of petrified double bubble
a black and white photo of dad playing the harmonica
with jamie on his knee
a red crayon
fourteen ETS bus schedules, twelve of them out of date
a mix tape of songs from 1986
half of a very linty chocolate bar
an oilers key chain
picture hanging wire
three pairs of one-armed sunglasses
nineteen paper clips
candle ends
a kazoo
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
below the line:
and this is just the stuff that i KEPT …
if the bruising
if the whiskey
flowed back in the bottle
if the bruising
branded the abuser
if the bite
if the cold
if the rip cord
if the night
if the sleepwalking
if the fist
if the charm
if the knife
if the wishing
if the dance
if the seduction
if the snake hair
if the pleasure
if the shock treatment
if the conjurer
if the memory
if the death card
if the half moon
if the fallen
if the believer
if the screaming
if the nail
if the kind word
if the redemption
if the mercy kill
if the tainted
if the bleeding
if the comfort
if the breathless
if the standing
if the quicken
if the mask
if hand on mouth
if broken bone
if strip mine
if purple rage
if jealousy
if smacking lip
if hatred
if the obscene
if the baby
if the connection
if deliverance
if the hard kiss
if the “go faster”
if the forbidden
if the bad touch
if the hurricane
if the perfection
if the tiger eye
if the simple truth
if the forgiveness
malta pilgrimage, 2000
for jennifer and joan,
with gratitude
(i’m just the stenographer;
this piece was created
by 32 remarkable women.)
We have all been here
together, before.
What you need, you will find.
Is it answers you seek? Truth? Tranquility?
Or merely … possibility?
From this place I will take:
The power of the circle. Spirals.
The breaths of a million years ago.
Blessings. The ancient, inviting scent
of the temples.
White lace. Black Madonna.
Red peppers. Green olives. Yellow sun.
Pink morning sky. Several sets of purple toenails.
The bluest water I have ever seen…
and the big orange glow
of a Gozitan moon.
Goat cheese. Garlic. Sun-dried tomatoes.
Honey sesame bread. Hummus.
And eggplant,
permanently tattooed on my tongue.
Cisk lager. Hop Leaf. Kinnie.
Piercingly strong, dark coffee.
Tales of scotch and water for breakfast.
Listen: Xlendi. Ghajnsielem. Tarxien.
Hagar Qim. What do you hear in the names?
Valetta. Marsaxlokk. Mnajdra. Ggantija …
How many faces can you see in the stone?
This place has made us feel sacred.
Timeless.
In awe. In tune.
Centred.
Blessed.
At peace … Home.
This place has given us
visions of living limestone. Sweet, smooth rock.
Magic beans. Swollen vulvas.
Exquisite fat ladies … Maiden, Mother, Crone.
Wrapped in the loving arm of a giantess
we have been tugged
inside the dreaming,
closer to the lap of the goddess …
a place of radical joy
where we feel grateful for love … vision …
healing … music …
for everything.
you have done ritual before.
If you change places,
your name won’t know where to find you.
what i expected is not what i got.
i need to do more of this.
Look at that moon.
You can’t get much more
hot-damn halleluiah
than that!
My other name is … bursting at the seams.
I am divinity and I am nothing.
All will be answered in time.
I don’t need to be anxious; I can just let it come.
we can come here and circle,
and i can experience nirvana
… i appreciate the breaths.
So what intrigues you more?
The sleeping lady
or the slamming door?
revealing, renewal, revision
returning …
the story
is about
to change.
the joy of not working
i’m quickly coming up on the one-year anniversary of quitting my job in order to write and paint full-time.
as expected, the bank account is not being fed nearly as frequently, but the soul is thriving.
a few years ago, inspired
by ernie zelinski, the edmonton-based
author of the joy of not working, i composed a list of things i wanted to do — some realistic, some pure whimsy — if and when i had, er, made the time. here are some of the things from that list:
learn the banjo
write letters to the editor
sleep
meditate
read books / poems / magazines
listen to alternative / public radio
listen to my own music
drum
go to the movies
wander whyte avenue
dance / alone or take lessons
redecorate the house (streamline / simplify)
cull wardrobe
organize photo albums / negatives
write a song
have a garage sale
sing / alone or with others
star gaze / stare at the moon
study zen buddhism
start a writing group
throw a theme dinner party
ride the LRT from end to end
fight pollution
climb a tree
swing on a swing
keep a dream journal
try a new restaurant
recreate a favourite restaurant meal at home
attend live theatre / concerts
go on a retreat (writing / nature / spa)
enter writing contests
send out writing to publishing houses
write a book
make lists (!):
- the soundtrack of my life
- songs i want played at my funeral
- the successes in my life
go birdwatching / hiking
paint
take pictures / make photo cards
swim / cycle
do nothing
have fun
i’m surprised that travel wasn’t on that list, because it’s one of my favourite things. and i’ve definitely done a lot of that since hanging up the cleats. but this particular list was created in 2003. fast-forward five years and … despite having much more time on my paint-spattered hands, many of the things on that quirky wish list remain undone.
i haven’t taken up the banjo — yet — but i have arranged to learn bass guitar from a former beatnik who happens to be the illegitimate son of monk montgomery’s barber.
i’ve written a few letters to the editor, but none of them has appeared in print.
(too scathing? too left wing? too cryptic? can’t handle the truth? cowards!)
i’ve meditated — but not more than twice. which hasn’t gotten me very far.
i’ve been to the movies and wandered whyte avenue.
those ones are easy.
culling the wardrobe, on the other hand, is a constant challenge — even though i can now stay in my pyjamas all day if i choose. three decades’ worth of photo albums & negs are still in disarray. i haven’t exactly written a song, but i wrote one in a dream, does that count? (sadly, all that i can remember is the title … all the more reason to start keeping a dream journal.)
i did have a garage sale … and would prefer to never have one again. they’re bad for the soul. and the feet. and i rode the LRT to both ends of the line one day … man, is e-town’s north-east end spectacularly brutal in its sprawling ugliness.
i’ve tried several new restaurants, and did manage to create a pretty good version of matahari’s mee goreng in my own kitchen. my improv veggie version just keeps getting better, actually, whereas matahari took theirs off the menu. um, maybe they heard how good mine is and surrendered?
achilles tendon problems have prevented me from playing any tennis in the past two years. but the feet are healing, slowly, slowly. (and who knew so much depends on the glorious & notoriously unsung big toe?)
i’ve retreated to the banff centre three times in the past four years, and visited a vancouver spa for massage and a tiny bit of pampering.
haven’t written a book — well, i guess i actually have, the manuscript just hasn’t been published yet. it’s sitting in a tight sweater somewhere on the corner of jasper and 105th, waiting to be discovered.
i’ve watched lots of birds — particularly love to gawk at west-coast eagles and the herons that nest on the fringes of stanley park. i have wandered the beaches near tofino. i sipped the local cider near erdeven on the north-east coast of france, and roamed the gower in south wales. i washed down a veggie muffelata with an abita beer on a humid sunday in new orleans, after being wowed by the tragically hip
at the house of blues the night before.
in the past year of working without a net I’ve sold a few more paintings, and will have two pieces on display in visual arts alberta’s annual diversity exhibit in conjunction with the works art & design festival. (june 19 through july 19, 2008, site # 21, harcourt house, 3rd floor, 10215 – 112 street, edmonton; opening reception thursday, june 19,
6 to 10 p.m.)
i also took a sculpture workshop. i made it to the regional finals of the annual cbc poetry faceoff competition. i helped some very good friends celebrate milestone birthdays and they helped me with one of my own. i kicked up my heels at a wedding or two, and actually saw mingus tourette do the bird dance. (having posted that, i may now have to enter a witness protection program.) in the last few months i’ve thought a lot about mortality as i watched two friends bury their mothers, and witnessed another friend’s amazing journey back — literally — from the brink of death.
i’ve accommodated several sets of house guests, ranging in age from 16 to 70.
i read: novels, poetry, some non-fiction. and i discovered there actually is a book called “the complete idiot’s guide to nascar.” (insert your own redundancy joke here.)
i slept. in fact, i have gained a whole new appreciation for sleep. when i was five i hated having to sleep. it’s taken me decades to realize that sleep is quite a lovely thing, especially if you can master the art of doing it well, and for seven or more hours at a time. (such restorative power. such bliss.)
bonus round:
on sunday night, i got goosebumps hearing k.d. lang sing hallelujah live at the jubilee auditorium.
on monday night, i was privileged to hear gloria sawai read one of her wonderful short stories to an intimate gathering at the faculty club.
life is good. i’m having fun.
hallelujah?
hell, yeah.
when 2 poets collide
for M & K, whose collision is still sparking up the cosmos
sept. 8, 2007
when two poets collide
turbulent skies rejoice
stars sweeten up the cracked hallelujahs
cackling black crows kick up their heels.
when two poets collide
there is chiming up the violets
there is singing down the rain
there is trilling, drumming, chirping, thrumming
there is clanging of pot, slapping of feet,
prattling of ham
there is a clutch, a plethora,
an insignia of iambic pentameter
there are rips and fits and stits and pits and ritz!
there is word / there is beat
there is sonnet / there is heat
when two poets collide
leaping greenly ghazals pull red wagons
through fitful sleep
deep breathy verbs punctuate the blood
a cauldron of metaphor burbles next to the bed.
there is upper-case wool
there is lower-case lingerie
there is subtext in the soup pot
irony in the ink pot, wild ripping beauty in the coffee pot
pathetic fallacy in the chamber pot
there is grammatically incorrect kissing
a hint of patchouli tenderly tenderly
graces the ripe hot doggery of the haiku
when two poets collide
miss e
she landed in our cornfield.
not, like you may have heard, in the bermuda triangle or somewhere in the pacific,
but in a soft patch in auntie’s north 40.
and she liked it so much, she just stayed.
our house was small, and nothing fancy; just some wood and brick and not even indoor plumbing — but there was always room for one more, auntie said. and feeding another mouth? heck, back then, we all knew how to stretch a meal.
at first she didn’t talk much. not at all, really.
so we made sure she wasn’t hurt and then we left her alone.
we fed her air and light and quiet time when she seemed to need it — which was often — and soup and bread and hot, hot tea, with honey.
auntie told me to let her be, to not follow her around or disturb her with talk unless she spoke to me first. i was full of questions, but tried hard to be patient and waited for the answers to float down from the sky.
she slept on a cot in the tool shed — one tattered blanket was all we could spare — and she seemed to like being close to the ground. but she looked up a lot, squinting & frowning at the clouds.
our dog lucky was drawn to her. she smiled when he would come around, and let him sleep at her feet.
after the first week miss e started to talk. by then we’d figured out who she was but didn’t let on we knew anything except what she’d told us. which was nothing much, ‘cept that a storm came up, she lost her bearings, prayed hard, and … woke up in our corn.
auntie thinks she lost her confidence along with her bearings, but she didn’t say that out loud to her, just to me. “people sometimes go from bold to bashful overnight. ‘specially women,” is how she put it. “this gal, she’s known false comfort, and betrayal, and lately she’s known more pain than anyone else. the pain of losing herself. she got caught up in something, and is trying to find her way back.”
back to where? i wanted to ask. but auntie just shushed me and told me to go get a nicer pillow from the couch for mel’s head. that’s what auntie had taken to calling her, and she called auntie a dear, and eventually she called auntie a lifesaver, and eventually auntie called mel to her bed.
and lucky’s heart took flight ’cause after that he got to keep both their sets of feet warm.
and i breathed easier, though i wasn’t sure why. i still missed my dearly departed uncle jake, but never since the day he died had i seen a grin on auntie’s face like the one miss e put there.
it wasn’t hard, keeping miss e a secret from the neighbours. we said she was auntie’s long-lost cousin, recently widowed, penniless and heartbroken. and that we’d put her up ’til she got back on her feet. everyone knew that mean forever, ’cause where else was she gonna go?
and my grinning aunt continued to feed her soup and tea with honey. miss e, er, mel helped her with the corn. she detested the cows. said they wasted the wings that god gave them. whatever that meant.
she taught me to catch a baseball, patch a tire, and could mend the tractor even better than uncle jake used to do.
she told me that the answer to just about anything would come to you if you stared at the clouds long enough. sometimes she would walk to the end of the lane at night, look up at the stars and just sigh.
she and auntie always seemed to get along real fine. the closest they ever came to having an argument happened one day when auntie came home from town with a newspaper tucked under her arm. she showed it to mel and they tried not to let me see, but i made out the words “called off” and “presumed dead.” they talked for a while in low voices, stern but calm.
i asked what was going on and they sent me to the pump for water.
when i got back, auntie was at the stove and mel was sweeping up the shards of our brown betty teapot that lay broken on the kitchen floor.
then she took lucky for a long walk, and they didn’t return until suppertime.
auntie didn’t say a word, just cut her a slice of bread, set a bowl of soup in front of her, and went to bed.
mel picked up her spoon, twirled it in her hand a few times, set it back down and then followed auntie into the bedroom. lucky and i went out on the porch and sat until the stars came out.
the low murmur of their voices wafted through the window. i didn’t want to eavesdrop so i threw stones at the shed and tried not to hear what sounded like my auntie crying.
i curled up on the porch swing and was whistling an unhappy tune when mel came out a little while later. she told me she had decided it would be best for all of us if she left.
auntie came out and said the only thing that was best for all of us would be if mel stayed.
i looked from auntie to mel and back to auntie.
mel took her hands out of her trouser pockets and placed them gently on my auntie’s shoulders.
“you sure?” she asked softly.
“absolutely,” auntie whispered.
“then i guess i’m not goin’ anywhere,” mel smiled.
“except to town tomorrow, to buy a new teapot,” auntie grinned.
lucky howled at the moon.
how to tell when you’re being left by a heartless girl
it starts with her saying it’s all her; it’s not you.
it starts with her saying she just needs some “space.”
she will say she still loves you and always will.
she will hold your hand and beg your forgiveness.
she will let go of your hand and cry.
she will let you sleep with her one last time.
she will say she wishes it didn’t have to be this way.
she will have whispered conversation on the phone,
then pretend it was a wrong number.
she will forget to come home on the same frozen winter night as the furnace breaks down and you will check the time every 20 anguished minutes — shivering and praying
that she’s dead in a ditch because it beats the alternative — until 4 a.m. when she will spill through the front door insisting she owes you no explanation for where she’s been (nowhere) or who she’s been with (no one). later she will say she got so tired
she just fell asleep on the couch of a generous friend. this friend will have no name,
and will hang up whenever you answer the phone.
she will stop using your shared kitchen appliances and start eating out all the time.
she will stop borrowing your sweaters and demand that you return her tennis racquet.
her suddenly immaculate bathroom will be declared off-limits to you once and for all.
she will stop changing clothes in front of you.
she will no longer watch TV in her underwear.
she will let you sleep with her one more last time.
she will be careless with your books, neglect your cats,
spill coffee on your best dress shirt.
all because she is trying to make you hate her.
she believes it is easier that way.
she will suggest you start seeing other people
and suddenly it will be ridiculously obvious that for her, that ship has already sailed.
she will encourage you to make new friends, get out more, party!
but god help you if you want to go out dancing in the same place as her.
she will stop leaving you post-it notes all over the apartment.
she will stop asking “how was your day, honey?”
… she will stop calling you honey.
she will stop bringing you bagels & lattes on sunday mornings.
she will start listening to music she used to despise.
she will bring home new age CDs labeled relaxation for lovers and water harmony
and karmic lust and tell you to keep your zen-challenged mitts off them.
she will break your favourite mug.
she will break the zipper on your supposedly indestructible MEC parka.
she will break all the rules of civilized leaving…
she will break your heart.
spatherdab 