To thine own self be true

The Tin Palace still lives with the excellent outdoor patio and the semi-outdoor section (where my party sat) which feels like it’s outdoors with overhead cover and openable windows. Still not much they can do about occasional vehicles suddenly roaring past. The large darker inner restaurant with different sections remains the preferred long winter part. Parking, to the east of the building remains free, but you need to get there early, say before 5 pm on weekdays to find a spot.

Earl’s features a wide range of drinks from Vancouver wine to lime Daquiris, And an extensive menu from oven baked salmon to burger and veggie-conscious fare. Servers are numerous, attractive, and personable with well-timed intrusions. Dinner for 2 with drinks about $60.

A nice visit there during the dinner hour on a beautiful summer-like evening followed by a post-sup tea and dessert at a valley-edge hi-rise overlooking the Italian park, High Level Bridge with a wide-angle view of the beautiful beginning-of-fall river valley including the Legislature and lit-up 105 St. bridge. Tea was a fruitful decaf and dessert was two modest slices of pumpkin and pecan pie side-by-side. Company was fun with my old 1975 McNally teacher-friend and his retired nurse-wife. The olde jokes and stories still remain the best.

when old rock stars who are older than you are dying and you’ve never even heard of them or can’t identify one of their songs.

The blinds were closed that Sunday September afternoon. I had closed them for my wife’s father who, otherwise, would have been blinded by the light as we watched the football game on the tube. A familiar context, for sure, and an outing for him, nothing unusual until I looked at the closed blinds.

On them were two strange shadows. The bird shape I knew because of its location–a black bird decal on the outside of the window to ward off the many backyard birds from entering whatever vistas they might be visually tricked into beholding/imagining. The effect of sun and light on large late summer patio windows. The limitations of bird perception combined with the hard presence of man-made objects in overlapping worlds.

But here in the strangeness of show and surfaces–a butterfly had found the black bird shape and amazingly, on a wingtip, a place to call home for fifteen minutes or so. In that duration, it had found its precise missing piece, completion, or context and made a choice in response to the similarly deceptive,but in a way contrary to how the window decal repelled real birds. Like the birds, though, the butterfly had bought the illusion.

What joined the two shadows, one a flimsy physical item, the other a living presence? The windows are large and there is so much space to choose for a butterfly’s landing. Why the wingtip and not elsewhere? The timing was similarly uncanny with both humans inside witnessing this found art shadow-show. In that moment for two people–a privileged glimpse into the oddities of perception and Nature. In that moment, a vision of absurd connection not possible had the blinds been open, had we not been sitting there at that precise miraculous macro-conjunction of normally separate random worlds.

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“To increase consciousness is to increase mobility by metaphor.”–Northrop Frye, “Entry, Notebook 23”

“…all understanding is in a sense metaphorical understanding.”–Northrop Frye, “The Transferability of Literary Concepts”

“I think there are all questions and there aren’t any answers.”–Northrop Frye, The Great Teacher

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Dedicated to the memory of Clifford William Reade

A glimpse into my sensibility…

The young woman ahead of me in line buying a loaf of bread to start the day. Breakfast? Survival food? Needed for toast or a sandwich later? No matter how you cut it, survival or continuance for the body, self, or family.

And me, for my part, after having breakfast, buying The Globe and Mail and The National Post to read, to engage with ideas, to find out what’s happening in Canada and elsewhere–a sumptuous, pleasurable luxury/workout feeding my mind, feelings, spirit, and soul.

Different levels. But you know, looking back in history, that’s how it was for a long time; early peoples had to feed their bodies just to survive and get along, moving ahead to a time when after meals, there was time to explore other possibilities; notably those having to do with ideas, thoughts, plans, and other possibilities.

Transcending earthier, more basic levels to increase and experience consciousness and awareness. To exercise other faculties within and expand inner growth and external, physical life possibilities without. Overall enhancing the quality of self and life in larger, deeper, richer ways.

Further thought: that one cannot so readily explore such higher planes of regard sans a loaf of bread or a good meal. About as basic, still, as it gets.

Trust The Globe & Mail to correctly know and still practise a spelling/usage distinction no longer made by the multitudes.
(For those unsure: ‘se’ for verb use, ‘ce’ for noun use).

were by black and brown performers, many of whom are retired, departed, and forgotten now. So, below, these were some of those favorite songs that impressed a white kid growing up in a Canadian prairie town listening to their music, lyrics, and spirit.

1956 Long Tall Sally- Little Richard
1956 Blueberry Hill- Fats Domino
1957 Jamaica Farewell- Harry Belafonte
1957 Chances Are- Johnny Mathis
1958 A Lover’s Question- Clyde McPhatter
1959 Along Came Jones- Coasters
1960 A Rockin’ Good Way- Dinah Washington & Brook Benton
1960 The Twist- Chubby Checker
1960 Chain Gang- Sam Cooke
1960 New Orleans-Gary U.S. Bonds
1961 Spanish Harlem- Ben E. King
1962 Baby It’s You- Shirelles
1962 I Can’t Stop Loving You- Ray Charles
1962 Mashed Potato Time-Dee Dee Sharp
1962 The Loco-Motion- Little Eva
1962 Green Onions- Booker T & The M.G.’s
1962 Don’t Hang Up- The Orlons
1963 He’s So Fine- Chiffons
1963 Hello Stranger- Barbara Lewis
1963 That Sunday, That Summer- Nat King Cole
1963 Heat Wave-Martha & The Vandellas
1964 Hello Dolly!- Louis Armstrong
1964 Walk on By- Dionne Warwick
1964 Chapel of Love- Dixie Cups
1964 Baby Love- Supremes
1965 The Name Game- Shirley Ellis
1965 The ‘In’ Crowd- Ramsey Lewis Trio
1965 Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag- James Brown
1966 Reach Out I’ll Be There- Four Tops
1967 Up, Up and Away- Fifth Dimension
1967 I Heard It Through the Grapevine- Gladys Knight & The Pips
1968 Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay- Otis Redding
1968 Baby Now That I’ve Found You-Foundations
1969 My Cherie Amour- Stevie Wonder

Many of these people like The Supremes, Dionne Warwick, Fats Domino, and Sam Cooke charted many times.

“What’s that?”
“Winter. Snow.”

The town workers have redesigned flowerbeds and put in nice granite stone walkways. The front garden of the municipal building overlooking main street is the absolute best it has ever looked.

At Bighorn Meadows Resort. Great lighting effects there all day long. Sky and water canvases.