Muse-ic

I love music, all kinds. I can find something in just about every genre, that speaks to me. I love the old boys , the crooners. If I had to pick a favourite it would be Dean Martin. Sorry Frank, you were great too, but I have to go with Deano, I'm a sucker for the female vioce also. I'm over the moon for Senade O'Conor, I don't care that she's bald and tore up a photo of the Pope, I still listen to her songs.

I once took one of those bamboo torches that you set out for a garden party and fashioned it into a Japenese flute. I can't play any instrument but I was able to make my creation emit some haunting sounds.

I've been having some conversations with a good friend about music, she's sent me some to listen to. The girl has teased and tickled my brain. She's made me want to explore more.

Music is one of a few thing that you may enjoy even if you know nothing about it. I would add to that list, food, love, and sunshine.

Winter Walk

I wish you had been with me on this winter's walk alone.
there was too much to see for just one set of eyes
I'm sure I missed things, small things, that your eyes would have seen
you would say stop, Peter, look, this leaf is the wing of a fairy.

A Small Crime

I stole a book from my friend. Not really stole, I borrowed and failed to return it. Maybe failed isn't the right word, for to fail you need to try, and I didn't try. The book began to feel like my own. I read and reread it. It was special, it spoke to me. To my friend it was just a book, but to me it was a treasure.

The book was called Atlas. It featured short writings by Jorge Luis Borges that accompanied photos by Maria Kodoma. It's been years since I've turned those pages. There is in the book a very short piece, I think it was called the Last Wolf in Europe. I can't remember the lines but the writing was so powerful that I can remember the emotions I felt when I read it. I felt the feeling of being pursued. It made me feel an awful solitude. the words made me feel what it would be like to come to the end of something.

My unlawful possession of the book came to an end. My friend came over for supper one evening. My wife went to my bookshelf and brought the book to him, she reminded him that it was his and that we had it in our house for a long time.

That same evening my wife reminded my friend to take home his Miles Davis CD, that we had had it for a long time too.

My wife is a good partner, but a terrible partner in crime.

What Kind of Day Did You Have?

I found these flashed cards in a set of drawers being stored in our warehouse, they must have belonged to someone in an HR department. I took all of the negative ones and spread them out on my chair and snapped a picture. I did the same for the positive ones

I wondered what type of touchy-feely exercise they could be used in. I imagined "Team Building", "Conflict Resolution". I thought of some guy like me having to endure a talk from an HR specialist, a watered down Skinners "positive reinforcement", a Maslow's "self actualization".

I don't know maybe I'm too cynical, maybe there's a place for all of this new age stuff in business, I just can't help but seeing it as a dog and pony show.

I can smell supper cooking, I'm salivating, Pavlov's "conditioned response".

Cold

It's cold today. This is the day that winter came up and bit me. when I left for work yesterday I didn't think the mighty Toyota was going to fire up, It groaned when I turned the key in the ignition. The engine caught and it came to life, It hasn't let me down in ten years. oh heck I'll be sentimental "she" hasn't let me down in ten years.

The cold today made me think of some winter camping trips I've been on. If you like quiet, than winter camping is for you. Two Friends and I went out to the Pinery Provincal park. Anyone who was ever a teenager and lives within a 200km radius of me has been to the Pinery, has camped at the Pinery, has drank to much at the Pinery, has barfed at the Pinery.

Sorry back to winter camping, the two friends and I arrived at the campsite. My one friend brought 12 ounces of old scotch whiskey, the other "friend" brought 26 ounces of I don't know what. It had a picture of a sheep on the bottle. I brought a bottle of french red wine. I remember that it was a Bordeaux, Chateaux Puyfromage.

The three of us are foodies, I brought fish, Orange Roughy, I think, with minced peppers and onion, Kirk, the sheep bottle boy, brought this amazing orzo with fennel and sausage, Steve brought the good scotch, but I can't remember his choice of food.

While we were setting up camp Kirk opened the sheep bottle. I took out my coffee mug, Steve took out a coffee mug, and Kirk, had forgotten his coffee mug, he took out his cereal bowl. Kirk gave us all a too generous pour. As we set up the camp we emptied our cups/bowl.

Kirk is a pretty fit guy, he's a runner. he wanted to go for a hike, I wanted to eat. He won. It's a beautiful park in the winter the snow was not too deep, we didn't need our snow shoes but my companions put theirs on, they had rented them and they weren't going to waste their money. We hiked for hours. I remember seeing many beautiful birch trees. I'd say "My god look at those birch trees, such stark beauty." Steve would say, "I know, what a sight." Kirk would say, "What the hell is it with you and birch trees, shut up!"

We returned to the campsite and began to prepare supper, If you ever find yourself camping with me and you wish to start the fire, forget it. That's my job, I warn you don't even challenge me on this. I'm good at starting fires, you can gather wood, set up the tent, play the harmonica, I don't care, just leave the fire to me. I've lit hundreds of camp fires, I've done it in the rain, no one has ever been killed and no forests have been
set ablaze.

The food was fabulous, I pulled the cork on the wine and we prepared the supper, it was was fantastic. Later that night we opened the good scotch and stood next to the fire as the temperature dropped, we stood, we sipped, we solved the problems of the world, three friends, Steve's scotch, my fire, and Kirk leading the conversation.

I slept in a tent alone, I snore, no one would join me. In one tent Steve and Kirk, with their two dogs, in the other Peter alone. I shivered the whole night, I drifted in and out of a tenuous sleep.

In the morning I awoke. I needed coffee. All of the drinking water was frozen. The only thing liquid was the sheep bottle booze. I managed to start the camp stove. I turned the drinking ice into drinking water, boiling drinking water. I found my french press, (I never drink instant coffee) I dumped in some ground coffee, I could smell it in the cold air. I needed this coffee, it was at the center of my focus. I needed this coffee like a boy needs his mothers love.

When the water was ready, I picked up the pot and poured the boiling water into the cold french press. I heard a crack and the glass vessel shattered, the bottom fell out.

I didn't need a lesson in physics, I needed a coffee.

My next winter camping trip I hope will be in a nice hotel, I'll miss the birch trees and the warm fire, I won't miss the the sheep in a bottle, nor the cold.

Cadence

I remember running on a trail, an old rail bed converted to a hiking, biking, running trail, I was with my best friend, we at the time held an almost identical level of fitness. It was a humid summer night, the air offered no resistance and on the last 2 km of a 10k run, we fell into the most perfect rhythm of stride. The tips of my fingers felt as if they were skimming the still surface of a warm bath. I was running swiftly and gracefully and my mind was totally relaxed.

I sat in a restaurant waiting for my dinner. I was watching a girl polish stemware, one hand would spin the glass, the other would work the white cloth over its surface. The glass would be quickly held aloft, her eyes would flash in the light that revealed the clarity of glass, it would be set down and another taken up. Each time I waited for the flash of her eyes when she gazed upon the glass. The whole ritual, the timing, held me mesmerized.

I've had times when I was alone on my boat in a perfect breeze, my tiller lashed and my sails set in a sweet balance. I'd step to to bow and would hold fast to the fore-stay. I could feel the power of the wind being transferred through the mast and into the hull of my little craft. I'd see my shadow cast on the surface of the water, I was, as a man flying.

You can hear it in song or feel it in the meter of a poem, you can experience it in the motion of life, I think it's called cadence.

I have no photo to add to this post, I can only hope the words were picture enough.

Copernicus

This picture was taken by a talented 9 year old photographer. His modest nature prevents me from telling you his name. Lets just say that we share a surname.

Surnames, mine is Tschirhart, I don't know what it means, I don't speak the language of my ancestors. I do know my way around in English well enough to know that an Archer shoots arrows, a Fletcher makes the arrow, and the Bowyer builds the bow. A Miller grinds the flour and a Baker bakes the bread. A Mason lays the brick, the Carpenter frames the door, A Cooper builds the barrel which holds the Brewers ale.

Old names that come to us out of past occupations, today a Tanner is just as likely to work in metal or practice medicine as tan hides.
A Fisher may steer the boat, and a Bateman may fish.

This brings me to the name of a person, Copernicus, one who works in copper. Work in copper he did not, but he could well have been the inspiration for the phrase, "a penny for your thoughts". His thoughts were great, fresh and new. Through observation, and brilliance he correctly discerned that the sun, not the earth was at the center of the solar system. Radical thought at the time.

Sometimes we are guilty of precopernican thought, it's easy to do, we veiw the universe from the center of ourselves, it's easy to think that we lay at it's center, but we do not.

Why is this important? the precopernican man, when he is sad, sees the world as sad. When dying he see the world as dying. The man capable of post copernican thought may lay in his bed and know that he is dying, but he knows that the world is full of life, he hears the voices of children playing though the window of the last room he will ever occuppy, the post coperincan man is content.

If a a whole culture can shift its thinking and see itself in away that before seemed impossible, than It gives me the hope to think that I can discover new things about myself. Surely realizing the I am not the center of the universe has been a good start.

Piltdown

This is a picture of Central Presbyterian I shot through the steamy window of my favourite place to drink coffee, the Grand Cafe in Cambridge. I don't think it has anything to do with my post, but I can't be sure. I seem to see connections everywhere I look these days.

Have you ever heard of Piltdown Man?

About fifteen years ago I was home, sick from work, not well enough to leave the house, I was just laying on the couch in a restless state, I found day time television unwatchable, and no activity seem to suit my mood. I went to my bookshelf and pulled out an old geology text from the twenties. I had picked this up years before from a used bookshop in Guelph but I'd never really read it through.

It was well written, I’d say at a college introductory level. It explained theories, but also gave their histories, that is to say, how they came to be accepted as scientific fact. There was within the book a small chapter on human origins. A lot of attention was paid to the European discoveries of Neanderthal remains. It was discussed how Neanderthal was felt to be an off shoot species, sharing an ancestor with modern man, rather than modern man being his direct descendant. This was all familiar to me, I had some how absorbed this through school or television.

Near the end of the chapter there was a short reference to Piltdown man, fossil remains said to be found in a gravel pit near Piltdown England, by an amateur geologist. They consisted of a few skull fragments and a lower jaw. There was a reconstruction done, and it showed that the upper brain case appeared to be almost modern in dimensions however the jaw bone seemed, with the exception of the teeth, to be more apelike than human.

Piltdown man became part of my body of knowledge. I didn't really understand it, this was in pre-internet times, so further research would have meant a trip to the library. Piltdown, this man-ape settle into my brain, he may have even helped form my view of the world, and even my view of myself.

Several years later I had learned that Piltdown man, discovered and presented to the scientific world in 1912, was in 1953 proven to be a hoax. the specimen was a compilation of an orangutan's jaw fitted to the upper skull of a modern human.

In 1912 amateur geologist Charles Dawson was messing around on his specimen table with a skull. Many decades later he messed around with the contents of mine.

Thistle

At a railway station a man stands holding a woman in his arms . He wants to fall into her; he wishes to vaporize and be drawn in with her breath. He feels that a thistle lodged in his brain, a prickly thought is on his mind, he thinks that she may only wish to board the train.

Later the man is witnesses to the the beauty of world, when he sees the rising sun and the awakening of the day, when he hears the sweet cloonk and gurgle of the stream from which his thirst is quenched , when he feels the caress of a warm breeze brought to him fragrantly through the swaying bows of pine. He then feels a deep love for the earth, he wishes to be of it, to be one with it. He does not care that the earth and all of nature offer him no regard. He is content to love that which cannot return love.

The thistle in his mind is caused by a code writ in his body, a heritage that wishes to be driven into the future, it pays for its fare in bliss and despair, When not fulfilled it becomes the germ of the hermit the seed of the drunk.
I wrote this a long while back, and kept it in a mental drawer. It was an attempt to try and understand why I, and others need to have our affection returned, why we're not content to simply admire. It's my contemplation on the nature of unrequited love. I end within a suggestion that it is a product of our biology. Had I written this at an earlier time in my life I would have framed it in a more developmental way, something with a Freudian flavour.

Now as I think of these questions , at this time, neither theory seems to fit.

I invented the word cloonk, it is that hollow sound that you hear sometimes at random, it is made by the flow of a stream, its a beautiful sound. if you stare at a stream and ask it these questions. It's only reply is a hollow cloonk. I think it means, Go figure boy, you're on your own.

Gerry

I got out of the warehouse today, I had the pleasure of working my pal Gerry, we've worked for the same company for along time. There was a time when we worked together all the time. Now its a rare treat when I get to go out in the field and give him a hand. In honour of the occasion he bought me a coffee and a bagel at Tim Horton's, for those reading who don't know of Tim Horton's, it's a coffee shop, kinda like Starbucks only a little more blue collar and instead of being named after a Herman Melville character, it's name after a dead hockey player.

Gerry's about 20 years older than me but we get along like pals. He has a couple of lifetimes worth of stories, many of which involve numbers. He says things like "We were driving at a speed of 80, we were gittin 14 miles to the gallon, it was 2 in the morning, we were 70 miles outa Montreal"
And then he gets himself confused and says " It's a B.S. story anyway you can make up the numbers, little buddy."

"What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?"-William Shakespeare

This is a photo of the vertebra of a turkey, It is very similar to one in my own neck, the one that sometimes pinches a nerve and causes my arm to hurt, I roasted this bird on January the 1st, he rose phoenix like the next day in a fine cannelloni with sauteed mushrooms and chopped fresh spinach. That evening the remainder was rendered to a broth that I may use in a risotto or a hardy soup.

At the bottom of my stock pot is where I found this little challenge, this little provocation to thought. So like my own stages along my spinal column so like that of a whale though tiny in scale. My dog has the same in his cute little body, a deer, a fox, a dolphin structured much the same.

How clever of the builder to use a template, why draw freehand? A real sign of intellect, the manufacture of a tool and it's implementation in your work.

I have no trouble harmonizing evolutionary theory with my own beliefs, they both make such perfect sense.

Ancient peoples have always held in their legends that there is a kinship between all life on this planet, the modern science of genetics seems to be proving them right.

Dickson Park

I took this picture last night when I was tobogganing with my son. Dickson park has a great hill, it's one of the best spots to go in Cambridge, A good size hill swoops down and flattens out onto the empty fairground. Galtonian children have been sliding down this hill for over a century.

When I was standing at the top watching my kid slide, trying to stop my little terrier from chasing him, I noticed a family of new Canadians.
I don't know where these folks came from originally, I'd guess Latin America. They were probably more accustom to the heat of the tropics then the harsh winters of their new home.

In all the history of Dickson hill sliding, I don't believe anyone has had more fun than that transplanted family, especially that father, he really wore those kids out.

Welcome to Cambridge Amigo, thanks for reminding me how nice my city is all year round.

International Language

Way back in 1967-68 I've been told that I sold lemonade or perhaps Koo-lade to the tradesmen who where building our church, I have no recollection of this because I was so young that I would have barely been out of diapers. The church was within view of my house, it was a building that I took for granted. I saw it every day, every Sunday morning I sat in a pew and twiddle my thumbs. Over the years my work has placed me on many construction sites. I've been around carpenters, painters, electricians, cable pullers, carpet layers. glaziers, masons, caulkers, roofers, framers... Most of the jobs I've been on were in the Toronto area, Toronto is possibly the most ethnically diverse city on the planet. The odd things is that these guys all speak the same language, that is to say they swear. Obscenity, profanity and blasphemy is the international language of construction. So different are the tradesman of my imagined memory. The builders of my church, drinkers of my lemonade. Pious were they all, journeymen, apprentice and labour. The carpenter ever mindful that he followed in the craft of his master and saviour would hang a door, if it did not quite fit he would take it down and ask his apprentice to plane the edge. The apprentice would inquire, "How much Sir, how much shall I remove"? "Just a little son", The carpenter would say, "Just the thickness of an angel hair".

Queen Square Cannon

This old Russian cannon sits in the main square of my hometown. It was captured by the British during the Crimean War and later presented to the town in honour of it's service to the Empire. I've known this artifact my whole life.

I don't believe any Galt men fought in the Crimean war, but I do know that this cannon claimed two local men on Victoria day 1866. They were packing charges into the barrel and firing a salute to the Queen in front of a crowd of spectators. As they drove in a charge it met with remaining embers of the previous discharge, it exploded while they worked the ramrod. The men were thrown a distance, I believe one had his armed torn off. When the smoke from the discharge cleared the two men were found dead.

Imagine the effect that incident must have had on the town. Tragedy striking in the middle of joyous celebration.
Who can guess how many lives this sleeping monster may have taken on the fields of Europe before it killed for the last time, on that day in May 1866?