Everyday Boy

2009 In Concert

For all you music lovers... I decided to make another mix CD to look back over the year, this time through the lens of music I heard live in 2009.  I'm going to send this out to a few folks (hopefully in the next little while) so If you're interested in receiving one of these, send me your address and I'll mail you one (and I would be happy to swap for a music compilation of your own).

When we're ready to sing, we step up to the microphones,
and it sounds something like this...

- Offspring (1)

 

I'm not a huge Chantal Kreviazuk fan, but her song Ordinary People (2) is growing on me.  It reminds me of folks striving to live the ordinary life, extraordinarily well.  According to Tammy, who has seen her in concert before, the one we saw this past Fall at the River Rock Casino was disappointing, mostly due to poor sound, but also because she found the band she was playing with took away from her strong vocals and piano.

We also got to see another of Tammy's favorite musicians, Sarah McLachlan, play a small set in a concert series at the beginning of the year as part of a 2010 Olympic countdown event.  I like Song For A Winter's Night (3) because it makes you want to curl up beside a fire on a cold winter's night.  I was not here for much of the winter blast of snow and cold that swept through Canada last winter, but I caught enough to be thankful that I missed most of it.

We attended the Vancouver International Jazz Festival last summer, where we heard Micheal Kaeshammer perform a mean piano, on songs like I Wish I Knew (4).  The double bill featured a young performer with a big voice, Nikki Yanofsky, who belted out songs like With A Little Help From My Friends (5).  The other performance we caught at the jazz festival was Portland’s Pink Martini, who took us around the globe and back again with songs like Hey Eugene! (6).  I like their international flair for music.

 

We were excited that our friend Sara Ciantar (www.saraciantar.com) came out with a new CD in 2009 called Lines For Keeping.  I got to see her a few times over the course of the year: at Wise Hall for her CD release party, at The Wired Monk on 4th Street in Vancouver and at The Backstage Lounge on Granville Island, before she went on tour around the world.  We like her song Wreck Beach (7).  And as a bonus, when I went to see her at the Wired Monk, I got to hear Hannah Georgas for the first time, and enjoyed her song The National (8) so much that I picked up one of her CD's on the spot there.

One of the best, if not the best concert we saw was Ani DiFranco's performance at the Centre For Performing Arts.  She indulged a few of her fans shouting out songs to be sung, and gave a nice rendition of The Garden of Simple (9).

With all the hoopla over H1N1 in 2009 I thought I should include Kid Koala's Flu Song (10) on this mix CD.  I stumbled upon his music at the Calgary International Folk Festival of all places, where they seem to be promoting more and more hip hop roots music to it's line-up.  His songs are very playful and so was his performance.

I’m usually not a big club person, or listener of such songs as Everlasting (Dub Version) (11), but my friend Chris convinced me to go down to Seattle with some friends for a quick day trip and to see Miss Nine perform at the Sea Sound Lounge.  We had a great day touring around a bit and Miss Nine gave a great show at a nice intimate venue.

I dragged Tammy, sick and all, to see Broken Social Scene at the beginning of the year.  Tegan & Sara opened for them, and Tammy liked them so much that we saw them again this past week headlining their own concert.  They have some catchy songs like I Bet It Stung (12) and their banter between songs is wonderful.

It was the first time I heard Broken Social Scene in concert.  Tammy napped while I enjoyed songs like Ibi Dreams Of Pavement (A Better Day) (13).  One of their members, Charles Spearin, gave the crowd a glimpse of The Happiness Project – where he used interviews about happiness with his neighbors, like Anna (14), to create songs.

We got to see The New Pornographers for the second year in a row, without Neko Case this time around.  The first performance was perhaps better, but I still enjoy hearing their songs like Adventures In Solitude (14).  They opened for Death Cab For Cutie who we saw in concert for the first time.  Tammy thinks their sound starts sounding the same after a while, but I quite enjoyed their concert.  Mellow songs like I Will Follow You Into The Dark (15) were the exception that night, not the rule.

 

The Calgary International Folk Festival was full of great music with family and friends: We saw stalwart folkie Sara Harmer perform songs like Open Window (Wedding Song) (16) on the main stage.  We saw newer musicians like Chad VanGaelan, warm up the crowds with Willow Tree (17).  We danced to international bands like Bellowhead who played rousing songs like Trip To Bucharest / The Flight Of The Folk Mutants Parts 1&2 (18).  We sat back, enjoying delicious food, while Iron & Wine serenaded us with songs like Naked As We Come (19).  And we also sang along to The Decemberists, Son’s & Daughters – a rather fitting song for a folk festival, and were blown away by their performances from their new album Hazards of Love, which has very rock opera-like tunes likeThe Wanting Comes In Waves (20) (Reprise).

I wasn't able to go to New York this past year, and felt deprived of seeing musicals.  But I was pleasantly surprised by the performance of Les Miserables in Vancouver.  I always like the song Do You Hear The People Sing (21), and so was happy to finally see this musical for the first time.

Here's wishing you all a year filled with good music and good company to enjoy it with.

Looking Back

Memories are interpreted like dreams.

Leo Longanesi, journalist and editor (1905-1957)

It has been almost three weeks since coming back from our four week family vacation in the Philippines, and I have been combing through the hundreds of pictures and hours of video we took, trying to relive all the sights and sounds, faces and experiences I encountered there.

The trip does feel like a dream of sorts - as does this past year, which has gone by so quickly, so full of so many good memories.  How does one begin to account for all the blessings a year can bring - one punctuated with a long overdue homecoming for my parents, and a tracing of roots that has me wanting to know more.

I feel both overwhelmed with gratitude, and frustrated with my inability to somehow share it all.  But I share what I can here... a small sampling of pictures that reminds me of our time together in the Philippines: meeting family for the first time, feasting on food, and learning about the people and land which bore my parents.  Such rich beauty.  Such rich hospitality.  I hope to go back again soon.

Philippines Trip - Part 1

Philippines Trip - Part 2

Philippines Trip - Part 3

Remembering New York In Pictures

I received some pictures in the mail today which made me think of my time in New York.  So I created an album (in the right side-bar) with some pictures that highlight a few of the moments I had there.  New York was so vast and layered - I felt like I had only scratched the surface with everything I experienced there.  Here's a poem from Garrison Keiollor's book Good Poems.  A poem by Elizabeth Bishop - as I wonder what all you New Yorker's are up to:

In your next letter I wish yoiu'd say
where you are going and what you are doing
how the plays, and after the plays
what other pleasures you're pursuing:

taking cabs in the middle of the night,
driving as if to save your soul
where the road goes round and round the park
and the meter glares like a moral owl.

and the trees look so queer and green
standing alone in big balck caves
and suddenly you're in a different place
where everythings seems to happen in waves,

and most of the jokes you just can't catch,
like dirty words rubbed off a slate,
and the songs are loud but somehow dim
and it gets so terribly late,

and coming out of the brownstone house
to the gray sidewalk, the watered street,
one side of the buildings rises with the sun
like a glistening field of wheat.

- Wheat, not oats, dear. I'm afraid
if it's wheat it's none of your sowing,
nevertheless I'd like to know
what you are doing and where you are going.

(35, 36)

Road Trip to the Falls

The contemplative life must provide an area, a space of liberty, of silence, in which possibilities are allowed to surface and new choices - beyond routine choice - become manifest. It should create a new experience of time, not as stopgap, stillness, but as 'temps vierge' - not blank to be filled or an untouched space to be conquered and violated, but a space which can enjoy its own potentialities and hopes - and it's own presence to itself. Ones own time. But not dominated by ones own ego and its demands. Hence open to others - compassionate time, rooted in sense of common illusion and in criticism of it. - Thomas Merton, November 7, The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton (117)

Our community, Nigel, Margarida, Cynthia and I, along with our formation director in Toronto, Sister Isabel, went on a retreat to the Loretta Center in Niagara Falls. A large dormitory type house that reminded me both of a hospital, and a southern mansion, with it's quiet cavernous hallways, large porch and balconies, and it's white-walled old fashioned interiors. It's wonderfully located overlooking the Falls, yet isolated enough from the tourists to remain a place of quiet and solitude. It was a good time to leave the busy-ness of Toronto, and have some time to relax and enjoy one another's company, and to reflect and refresh ones soul.

We arrived Friday night, and stayed until Monday afternoon. Saturday morning I got up early for a bit of a run, carving my way down towards the Falls - down the street between the towering hotels, down a tree-lined dirt path, down past a golf course and a garden lined with magnolia trees, and across the street to the sidewalk beside the rushing waters. It was a nice quiet moment along the Falls. There were few people out at that time, and the sun was shining on my face.

The retreat center wasn't as isolated as some of us would have liked. There was a certain lack of a real natural environment, but as I had never been to the Falls before, it was nice to play tourist for a little while. Three of us went on The Maid of the Mist, which was a lot of fun.

And besides the Falls, we went to the Butterfly Conservatory - "an ingenious network of pathways among lush, exotic flora... exquisite butterflies floating in the warm, moist air or spreading their iridescent wings on leaves and flowers."

It was a beautiful place. I couldn't help but feel like a kid again, following the more than two thousand butterflies dance around and above us, and rest on petals and fingertips. The goal for many people was to have a butterfly land on them. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to catch those moments for Cynthia and Margarida.

Our retreat director, Sister Isabel, formed the weekend around the idea of our desires. What is it that we are desiring in life? It was a good reminder of what I'm seeking, what my dreams are, where my heart is. Questions still linger.

"This then is what it means to seek God perfectly: to withdraw from illusion and pleasure, from worldly anxieties and desires, from the works that God does not want, from a glory that is only human display; to keep my mind free from confusion in order that my liberty may be always at the disposal of His will; to entertain silence in my heart and listen for the voice of God; to cultivate an intellectual freedom from the images of created things in order to receive the secret contact of God in obscure love; to love all men as myself; to rest in humility and to find peace in withdrawal from conflict and competition with other men; to turn aside from controversy and put away heavy loads of judgment and censorship and criticism and the whole burden of opinions that I have no obligation to carry; to have a will that is always ready to fold back within itself and draw all the powers of the soul down from its deepest center to rest in silent expectancy for the coming of God, poised in tranquil and effortless concentration upon the point of my dependence on Him; to gather all that I am, and have all that I can possibly suffer or do or be, and abandon them all to God in the resignation of a perfect love and blind faith and pure trust in God, to do His will.
        And then to wait in peace and emptiness and oblivion of all things.
        Bonum est praestolari cum silentio salutare Dei. ("It is good to wait in silence for the salvation of God.") - Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation (45, 46)

Leap Year

I saw the animated movie Triplets of Belleville with some friends last Thursday. A fun movie for all cycling enthusiasts, and everyone young at heart. It had a lovely visual quality, like that of a children's storybook, as well as a wonderful jazzy soundtrack. The grandmother in the movie reminded me of my maternal grandmother - a small Filipino woman, who although spoke little English, and who I knew only much later in her life, showed her love to me in very simple and ordinary ways of life: waving to me at the front window of our house when I went to school, rubbing coconut oil on my chest when I was sick, or folding laundry with such care. Driving back into town from the mountains, my sister and I were listening to Will I See You In Heaven, from the Jayhawk's album Rainy Day Music, and it made me think of her. Her birthday fell on leap year. There was always the running joke that she was only one quarter of the age she really was, with leap year only coming around every four years. It was fun having a 20-something year old grandmother.

It's a family tradition to commemorate a loved one's death anniversary. It comes from both our Filipino culture, and the Catholic tradition so prominent in the Philippines. I've come to appreciate it more and more the past couple of years, as the Benedictine Rule advises to keep death daily before one's eyes. Remebering that each of us has an end seems to help us better appreciate life. And remembering those who have gone before us, can sometimes help us live a better life. Henri Nouwen writes:

"When we lose a dear friend, someone we have loved deeply, we are left with a grief that can paralyze us emotionally for a long time. People we love become part of us. Our thinking, feeling, and acting are codetermined by them. Our fathers, our mothers, our husbands, our wives, our lovers, our children, our friends - they are all living in our hearts. When they die a part of us dies too. That is what grief is all about: It is that slow and painful departure of someone who has become an intimate part of us. When Christmas, the new year, a birthday, or an anniversary comes, we feel deeply the absence of our beloved companion. We sometimes have to live a whole year or more before our hearts have fully said good-bye and the pain of our grief recedes. But as we let go of them they become part of our members, and as we re-member them they become guides on our spiritual journey."