Food for thought

Pleased to reintroduce myself

This is a pretty enough image, but in fact it came as an afterthought while I was trying to get a shot of the *hundreds* of crows who trek from Odell Park and surroundings areas into the tiny patch of woods behind the Student Union Building on campus. The sound they make once they're settled in is pretty bone chilling.

Its been awhile since I added anything here. Combination of busyness, forgetfulness, and general seasonal lassitude.

We have several conflicting seasons this October and November.


There's autumn.


Winter.

And not pictured is the Spring/Summer we had last Friday (November 16th) where it rained in torrents and the temperature went up to 17 degrees celcius.

Apart from that... what's been going on?

Well the weather turn toward the cold seems to have spawned a kind of hibernation impulse.

I've been listening to a bunch of the year's music to start compiling year end lists for myself, for Exclaim! and for the Surgery Radio website. The Exclaim! one is done... though as with previous years as soon as I send in my top tens I hear something that bumps my other choices down a few notches. I'll start posting little tastes of the top 50, though not the actual order... such as:


Air- Pocket Symphony (v2)

Not what you expected? HaHaHaHA!!!

I've also been watching movies... though mostly from my own collection, and mostly only as sleep aids. As I may have mentioned before I've found that a sure lullaby for me is the director commentary on any DVD at just... the right... volume. One second Michael Mann is explaining how Jamie Foxx rode around L.A. with a number of cab drivers in preparation for.... ZZZZZzzzz. The only downside is that when I rent movies and actually want to listen to the commentary tracks it still has a tendency to knock me out.

One such instance was with one movie I did rent recently... Canadian Classic:


Goin' Down the Road

For those of you unfamiliar... this is a 1970 movie by Don Shebib that tells the tale of two Maritimers escaping the dead end life on the East Coast and heading to... Toronto!!! The bulk of the film focuses on their quick and modest rise to solvency (loading and unloading trucks with bottles) and their eventual quasi-dramatic fall. It's a low-low-low budget slice of life film that meanders more than narrates, but in the end is immensely likeable. Of the two leads, Paul McGrath and Doug Bradley, only one was actually from the Atlantic provinces (McGrath)... and he was the one with acting experience!! In doing the quick research it turns out that McGrath is still acting... even had a part in John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars. A small one, but still.

Perhaps the biggest revelation was that Jayne Eastwood... one of Canada's enduring female actresses... age 23 when she appeared in this movie... was kind of a hottie!!


Jayne now.


Jayne then.

There were two commentary tracks for the movie. One by the director, Don Shebib... who was refreshingly a bit of a windbag; not the modest "aw shucksy" Canadian we usually expect. Unfortunately he is also pretty numbskulled... making pronouncements such as, "images aren't really important in movie making... it's really all about time and how time passes." Call me nuts... but they do call them moving pictures, don't they? Second commentary is by "Toronto Star Critic..."

Geoff Pevere (believe it or not this is the actual press photo he seems to have chosen to represent himself on the internet).

I've always found it strange, given our affinity as Canadians for the arts, that we've never seemed able to produce a film critic (esp. on television) that wasn't at least 75% full of shit.

i.e.

Richard Crouse.


Mose Persico.

I could go on... but I feel a little upchuck in the back of my throat already. Though if you want to learn more about Mose... his... errrrr... uh, fanclub is here.

Oh, yeah... the Geoff Pevere commentary? Fell asleep about six words in. Thankfully.
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Well it's getting to be closing time up here... so I'll leave you with a picture from my recent visit to my folks. The maddest, fattest black cat I know: