Posters and Presents

Remember my posting about how amazing Marcie was in getting me this poster? Here it is on my wall at work. It may be the only one of these still on display anywhere in the world.

One of the young lawyers was concerned that management might disapprove. I asked him why.

"I don't know, dirty old sneakers... dignity of the profession..."

Management loved it. Wanted to know how and where I got it and all of that.

This poster makes me think of presents. Because some of my favourite presents in the past have been free posters that people acquired and gave me.

Gift giving tip #1: Give people what they often give to others. (Like if they give magazines or books as gifts, they'd probably love to receive them.)

Gift giving tip #2: If you're giving someone a household item and you don't know what colours to go with, observe what they wear. If they like to wear a colour, they probably like it in their home decorating also. (I learned this from a nice woman at a party I went to recently. I'm afraid I don't remember her name.)

Update Saturday, Sept. 2: I'm listing to music on Pandora.com and I have a "station" that is based on El Canto del Loco and guess what? I like their music!

Onvertigo: Still my favourite Ottawa Photo Blog

I was going to put up a picture of my big Spanish poster, but so far the photos I've taken have been blurry and don't properly demonstrate how big it is.

Last week, I was pretty much either working, watching TV, reading Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, or hanging out with friends. Since I'm not about to take this blog into fantasy novel reviews, and since after every interesting thing my friends said, they added, "don't blog that", I will bring you my favourite pictures from my favourite Ottawa photo blog from the past week. (Which wasn't my favourite week, but was still a fine week.)

I keep going back to look at Christina's picture of the cat and mouse because I'm hoping she'll tell the story of how these two got together. They look to me like a pair of crime-fighting buddies who have just solved another case.

This picture makes me regret not going to the Ex this year, even if I didn't ride the zipper, I'd have found something for the blog.

Make sure you click on the photos to see them in their proper full size glory.

Another tip: Christina only puts up one photo a day on her blog. She has many more photos at her flickr site.

My Other Blog - the Maple Leaf Brass Band

In my ongoing efforts to make myself indispensable to the Maple Leaf Brass Band because they could replace me on second horn in a minute, I also maintain the band's blog.

I put up announcements about upcoming performances and then write a few comments and post any images or video we have from the gigs.

If you've attended any of our performances, we'd love it if you clicked on "comments" and gave us some feedback about what you liked, what you'd like more of, even what you'd like less of (unless you'd like less tenor horn).

We'd also love it if you send us any photos or videos that we can post on the blog or link to from it.

p.s. Do you remember when I bought those hats? and then found a clear suitcase for them? Aren't they magnificent?

First Appearance

I had my first appearance before a judge today. Asked for an adjournment on consent in Small Claims Court. Was very nervous about whether I said enough and when I should stand up and sit down and all that. How nervous? Let's just say that several hours later, M&Ms were melting in my hand, not in my mouth.

But don't worry, I got my adjournment.

A Dream Accomplished

Animal Rights

I had lunch today with two friends I met through our work with Amnesty International. I'd had the pleasure of being on the board of the Canadian Section with both of them. While ordering, one mentioned he'd been reading a book about how badly food animals are treated and said that while their treatment disturbed him, he wasn't ready to become a vegetarian. He then indicated that he figured the people who did make that move were probably more moral than he is.

"I don't care about animals," said my other friend. "Do you care about animals?" she asked.

I confessed that I care about elephants, all the primates, whales, dolphins, and some dogs and cats; but I'd still put humans first, and I don't really care about other animals much.

"Not this guy I saw on TV who says animals are as worthy of life as humans," she said. "If he had to choose between saving a mosquito and saving you, he wouldn't be able to."

This led to me talking about the our war against the insects and our allies in the war: spiders and bats as well as insect collaborators like the preying mantis and the dragon fly.

My animal-apathetic friend told us that pest removal companies have told her that bats are a protected species and cannot be killed.

This shocked me. (Let's just say it made me glad that I've not exactly said what's happened to the last few bats who got into my house.)

However, now that I'm here with my high-speed internet connection, I've gone looking for information on whether bats are protected in Ontario and have found nothing to suggest that they are. According to this Environment Canada list, the pallid bat is "threatened" and the spotted bat is of "special concern", but they're only found in British Columbia.

Just the same, I promise that I'll endeavour to build a bat house to attach to the outside of my house and I have sent an email enquiring about the "Wild about Bats" package from the Canadian Wildlife Federation.

For those of you interested in animal rights, and for those of you interested in human rights and how it can be that people get more worked up about animals than people, there are two CBC news stories from today that might be of interest.

First, have you wondered why you haven't seen the swans on the Rideau Canal this summer? Their caretakers say they are protecting them from the flu. It appears others suspect something more sinister.

Group releases photos of 'Swantanamo Bay' [Source]

A coalition of animal rights groups is calling on Ottawa to release its Royal Swans from a facility activists have dubbed "Swantanamo Bay."....

But while city officials claim conditions at the facility are top-notch, the coalition says photos offering a glimpse inside the facility show cramped, inhumane conditions...

And, while the politicians discuss whether our military should protect people in Lebanon and Israel, our soldiers are taking care of two little birds:

Rare, endangered birds spotted at military base [Source]

Two Kirtland's warblers, one of the world's rarest birds, have been spotted at a military base west of Ottawa.

Earlier this year, one warbler was spotted and tagged at CFB Petawawa. Then recently a second was found. It, too, was captured, banded and released. ...

The Canadian Forces is working with the Canadian Wildlife Service to try to protect the birds while still using the base, one of the main training areas for the Forces in Canada...

As for our meal, two of us had the leek and salmon pie and the other one ordered seafood chowder. Moving towards vegetarian, but still we all agreed that we have to watch what we say around some of the other Amnesty members.

Disaster on Bell Street

I was reading the online version of the Ottawa Citizen while eating my lunch today when I came across the following item:

Fire damage put at $380,000

A fire on Bell Street early yesterday at a two-storey commercial/residential complex caused about $380,000 in damage. The Ottawa Fire Department says the fire at 188 Bell St. caused about $250,000 worth of structural damage and consumed about $130,000 worth of contents. Firefighters responded to the call at 2:37 a.m. and reported that flames were visible upon arrival. No one was in the building at the time of the blaze, which required 50 firefighters and 17 trucks to extinguish. The cause is still under investigation.

[It's got the little key symbol that means I can't read any more, but if you're a subscriber, here's the link for more.]

That must be just around the corner, I thought, 188 Bell Street, on my side of the block. Why does that address sound familiar? It's not...

I went to my blog and did a search. Opened the top posting and there it was.

I went by after work and took photos. Wedel,my source of 90% chocolate has been destroyed.

And yesterday, I thought I lived a charmed life.

The Maple Leaf Brass Band Goes Folk

If you know me well or if you read this blog regularly, you know that I live a charmed life. The latest proof of this is that I will be at the Ottawa Folk Festival this coming Saturday with a performer's pass.

It is a dream come true.

If you have a dream that seems impossible, come to the folk festival main stage at 5pm and see how it can be that someone who plays the alto horn can wind up in the most unlikely of venues.

The Band goes Folk!

No More Excuses

Looking at my messy house, I realized something on Friday morning. I've got no more excuses. If I'm going to have a tidy house, an organized life, and a list of projects that doesn't get infinitely long, I'm going to have to change some habits or install new ones and just get things done.

In 2002, I could procrastinate on anything with this excuse: "I'm supposed to be writing" or "I'm supposed to be figuring out what career to switch to."

In the first 8 months of 2003: "I'm working six days a week. When I'm not working, I deserve a rest and can only focus on immediate priorities."

Then it was either: "I'm in law school" or "I'm on vacation and deserve a rest."

Now, I'm working five days a week in my chosen career. It's time to figure out how the rest of my life is going to work.

Speaking of Writing...

I've always been reluctant to read good books while trying to write. I found what may be the answer to this in an essay in this year's Fiction Issue of the Atlantic Monthly. If you've read something so good that you think your writing will never match up, Francine Prose says:

The only remedy I have found is to read the work of another, though not necessarily more like your own - a difference that will remind you of how many rooms there are in the house of art.

Close Reading: Learning to write by learning to read by Francine Prose

“I need to touch a pig.”

Here is a story from Zoom that might require you to seek out other rooms in the house of art.

My Secret New Job

I started my new job yesterday. It may interfere with blogging more than being a full-time student did.

I won't be writing much about my new job because

1. I'm happy to be there and don't want to get dooced;^{[Note 1]} and
2. I want to get called to the bar next June.

But I can show you why I am happy to be there.

Cake for me and the other new guys on our second day:

I don't have a door I can shut, but this is the view from my cubicle:

I'm eager to get called to the bar so that signs like this one will no longer apply to me:

City of Moves (Outside) Dance Performance

As I predicted, City of Moves (Outside) was amazing.

Lots of energy, kids and parents everywhere.

Click the photo if you'd like to see other photos I took.

[CITY OF MOVES is a series of youth mentorship dance projects targeting Ottawa east end youth with disability.]

Thursday, Aug 3rd, 1pm

Overbrook Park 33 Quill St, Ottawa map

Spanish Graffiti: Malaga

With the beginning of the new month, I was able to upload more photos to my Flickr Account.

If you'd like to see my pictures of graffiti from Malaga, click the picture.

Cultural Anthropology at the Marina Beach

As promised, here are my field sketches from the nightclub research in Benalmadena, Spain.

The Club

The Marina Beach is across from the Burger King and down a flight of stairs. On our initial scouting of the marina area, our fieldwork team decided the beanbag chairs and the costuming of the staff would make for a more lively outing than other clubs seemed to offer.

We conducted our research over four separate visits. For our first visit, we arrived at 10:30pm on a Saturday night. Not being ready for the beanbags, we took up a position at a tall round table with bar stools that allowed us good sightlines of the outer area of the club.

The Staff

When I discovered two muscular young men with no shirts fixing their hair and donning sarongs in the washroom, I was nervous that my blue shorts and golf shirt look would prevent me from blending in when other customers arrived. It turned out that these men were in fact club staff.

After being in the club for about 30 minutes, the DJ played Madonna's latest hit. "We have to dance to this," announced our team leader, Marcie. Beverley guarded our table while Marcie and I went to the dance floor. Distracted by our gyrations it was only halfway through the song that we noticed the staff had hung a heavy rope across the entrance to the dance floor. As they hadn't asked us to stop, we continued dancing for several more songs until they began playing a hiphop number that our team leader determined was unsuitable.

We stepped over the rope and rejoined Beverley.

Because we'd been inside on the dance floor, we missed the first performance by the bar staff. All of them, both men and women had climbed onto the bars and other high surfaces and danced. At a certain point they all threw handfuls of tissue paper squares into the air that fluttered to the floor and onto our tables.

For some reason, watching some of the more athletic female staff perform caused our team leader to announce more than once that she would in future be restricting her diet. The performance of the male staff did not have this effect on any male members of the fieldwork team

The Revellers

At about midnight, the club began to fill with customers; all wearing more clothing than the staff. The female members of our team blended in perfectly with the other customers. I must report that my above-the-knee shorts and (slightly) grey hair set me apart from other male customers. Dancing on the roped-off dance floor, my "style" of dancing, filling an empty beer bottle with water, and my sketching may also have resulted in the regulars sensing an "outsider" in the club and moderating their behaviour.

The rope was removed somewhere between 12:30 and 1:00am. Perhaps during one of the big dance numbers.

Over the course of the evening, three or four parties of women wearing coordinated outfits arrived. We determined that these were "bachelorette" or "staggette" parties. On our second visit to the club, I interviewed some young women who had attended teachers training college together in Birmingham. They reported that it had become big business in Britain for tour companies to arrange trips for brides-to-be and their friends to places like the Costa del Sol. The packages included transportation, accomodations, an itinerary of clubs to go to and the coordinated outfits.

On our first night, the most striking group were all from Spain. Some wore tank tops that said "Se nos casa la pache".^{Note 1} They all wore black and white leopard spot cowboy hats and sheriff's badges with small plastic penises extending from them.

During the evening, each of the brides-to-be knelt on the bar and drank a cocktail that was tucked into the shorts of one of the male staff. This apparently symbolic ritual seemed to be highly popular with the brides companions.

The Music

While some of the team members were able to dance (after a fashion) to any of the mixture of disco, reggaetón,^{Note 2} hiphop, house and other dance music, our team leader felt it necessary to maintain high standards and only dance to the right music. In order for her to communicate to the disc jockey what sort of music would be appropriate, a junior team member loaned her a pen and provided her a 3"x5" index card from his collection.

The Team

Cultural anthropology is tiring work. Fortunately the Marina Beach provides large matresses for lounging along with the bean bag chairs which proved to be more comfortable than I recall my old 1980 beanbag chair being.

The final illustration was sketched by our intern Beverley (promoted to full-fledged anthropologist by our third visit) and coloured by junior team member Scrimshaw.

Links: Map

Photos:

• 22/07/2006 - Fiesta en Marina Beach1 2 - a night we were there
• 08/07/2006 - Sábado noche en Marina Beach 1 2