creative forces

 Blog # 177...May 2026

Despite having a pretty low tech household, there seem to be a number of disembodies voices that keep me company. My blue tooth speaker murmurs softly when I turn my computer off, I can't quite make out what it says, maybe, have a good sleep, or, you should really do something about those cuticles. It's taken me some time to realize that voices approaching me from behind on the street are likely from a person having a phone conversation and not responding to imaginary voices. I listened to one of the latter this morning and decided that if I had to live on the street, I'd probably be yelling  obsenities too.

The CBC brings welcome voices into my life, I start weekdays with The Current and end with Ideas, Saturday morning I catch up on political shenanigans with The House. On Sundays, I eat breakfast with Sunday Magazine and lunch with Bookends.  Most of my blog features are gathered from those sources...just so you know.                                                                                                                     Other regular voices are accompanied by faces, Jon Stewart breezes in with a weekly breath of fresh air from the US and Christiane Amanour, safe in the UK, brings her perspective on what's going on in her homeland of Iran.  Occasioally Bill Nighy pops in with Ill Advised, and most days Rebecca and Richard fromThe Daily Mail disrract me for a few minutes with Palace Confidential. What a houseful!

Speaking of disembodiment, there seems to be a moving away from dating apps to in person meetings.  These  meetups sprong up inin NYC in the nervous atmosphere after the attack on the World Trade Centre...9/11. I mentioned a few blogs ago going to a Death Cafe where the urge to talk about death seemed secondary to wanting to gather in a group. Lots of ways to come tohether  are emerging to meet our human instinct to be with each other.  It's a healthy sign, all that anonymous swiping would make me nuts if I was in the dating game.  

 A Michael Fliess photo

On our way to see the David Blackwood show at the AGO recently, my eye was caught by this piece by Allison Katz She's capyured something interesting and amusing that speaks to me of many things - our relationship to art, our feelings as women and life itself.  She's n ew to me  and I'll start watching for her work. I could have stayed looking at her collection all afternoon but my friends reminded me that we had  come to see David Blackwood so I tore myself away.

It was totally worth it. David Blackwood is new to me too. Descending form  generations of sea captains in Newdoundland, the North Atlantic is in his blood and his paintings.  They capture its beauty and power as well as the the flora and fauna of the surrounding land, I could almost feel the salt spray. He's also know for the unique print technique he's developed callled intaglio  that produced beautiful etchings.  What a treat it was to discover both of these wonderful Canadian artists.

 There's joy in discoverying a new writer too. Early in the days of the self help and improvement titless that now crowd the shelves of bookstores, Harriet Lerner captured our attention with Dance of Anger. She continued to dance with Fear, Intimacy, Connection and Deception. Her son Ben has inherited the writing gene  and uses his talent for both novels and poetry, winning Canada's Griffin Prize in 2019. I've just finished his second novel  10:04,  (the title refers to the time appearing on a clock in a film) in which the protagonist has Marfan's Syndrome, a condition, although not very noticeable or fatal, affects a life. Ben share's his mother's interest in physicality and its link to behaviour and explores how the character's situation plays out. Blending personal details with fiction,which Ben does, unsettles a lot of people  but for me it's usually engaging and I don't mind a bit of challenge and uncertainty.

I posted about music in Powell River a while ago and they're in the news again. The town was founded on indigenous land, its People displaced and the town was names after an early white settler. It was an era of cultural assimilation, and now in  more sensitive times, the original inhabitants are asking for the original name to be restored. It raises the sticky matter of name replacement. On one hand, the rights should be respected but on the other hand, could retaining the imposed name offer an opportunity  to talk about the wrongs that were done... sometimes though, there is no other hand and as with much of life, it's complicated.  Namesake, a documentary  app,earing at this years's HotDocs festival in Toronto explores this, watch for it on a screen near you. 

It's raining very hard as I'm writing this, many places are flooding, hopefully not my basement!  I think and worry about water and love listening to The Great Lakes Suite, just put out by The  Rheostatics, celebrating the five expanses of it that define so much of our border with the US.  The music and narrative are a meditation,with the poignant voices of Tanya Tagaq and the late Gord Downie  warming my heart. A more chilling view from Louise Penny's latest Gamache novel, The Black Wolf looks at a plot south of the border to take our water, wishing I could unread this!  

I think April is World Poetry Month, and if it isn't, it should be. My friends know how I love limericks, and I thought of writing one for you, but decided to share one of my favourites fromf Dorothy Parker, a forerunner of hip hop. not techically a limerick, but close enough.

"Oh life is a gay and glorious song,
A medley of extemporanea.
And love is a thing that can never go wrong,
And I am Marie of Roumania.”

There are scads of birthdays in May, if yours is one of them, count your blessings and have a happy day.

 See you in June and don't forget what arrives tomorrow.

                                                                                                               

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