I’ve written about Russell Peters before: the Canadian of Indian (East Indian, that is) parentage, who grew up in Brampton ON.
His stand-up comedy targets every ethnic group, around a core of jokes about Indians:
This year, my regular walk along Queen Creek Wash in Gilbert turned up road runners, a spoon, chuparosa bushes, a glory of palo verde, geckos, desert cottontails, and a wind spinner in a yard backing onto the path.
I’m starting to experiment with effects possible with slow shutter speeds. To do better with this one, I think I’d need a neutral density filter (to avoid overexposing while leaving the shutter open long enough to make streaks of the coloured plastic circles on the vanes of the spinner) and I should use a tripod (which I don’t carry on my multi-mile walks. Go figure.).
I’d also want a less distracting background. I’m sure the owners of this house will get right on that for me. But this is a start, showing me what can be done.
She has remarked in interviews that she focused on the short story early on simply because she was taking care of two daughters before the age of 30. – Canadian Encyclopedia
Ah. Sort of a “Bloom where you’re planted” approach to career planning. It seems to have worked for her:
By the time I learn about internet memes, they are generally past their prime, to put it no higher. The “when you” meme takes photos and adds captions intended to elicit both a laugh and an “Oh yeah, me too” reaction. Some are funny; many are gross and crude.
But as with many things, they’re harder than they look.
I did not speak my first Ojibwa word or set foot on my traditional territory until I was twenty-six. I did not know that I had a family, a history, a culture, a source for spirituality, a cosmology, or a traditional way of living. I had no awareness that I belonged somewhere. – Wagamese, writing in Response, Responsibility and Renewal: Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Journey
A toddler left in the bush with his siblings while his parents went on a drinking binge in Kenora, Richard Wagamese was abused in foster care, and adopted into a home that forbade him contact with his First Nations heritage. He was on the street at 16, abusing drugs and alcohol and in and out of jail. Continue reading
You put your left wing out, and you shake it all about.
Do the Hokey-Pokey!
If I had not been trying to freeze wing action on other birds (using a fast shutter speed), I might have got a better shot of this one (with a lower ISO). There you go. A year ago, I wouldn’t have known what was wrong with this – or how it could have been better.
So, maybe a year from now I’ll be doing better, not just knowing better after the fact. Or maybe not.
But I still like the shot. It’s not perfect, but it’s fun.
In 1989, Daniel Lanois released his album Acadie. It was the first time I’d heard anyone singing in French and English in the same song. It was a vision of what bilingualism might have looked like in this country (and might still?).
Wikipedia notes his recording career, but gives more credit to his producing work, which was heretofore unknown to me.
Lanois has released several albums of his own work. However, he is best known for producing albums for a wide variety of artists, including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Peter Gabriel, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, and Brandon Flowers. Lanois also collaborated with Brian Eno: most famously on producing several albums for U2, including the multi-platinum The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby. Three albums produced or co-produced by Lanois have won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Four other albums received Grammy nominations. – Wikipedia
I also note that his music genres are listed as rock (OK, get it), alternative rock (OK, good, that’s country, right?), and ambient (which I think means he sings while walking around, or maybe while using both hands).
Next to black-necked stilts, these are my favourite wading birds, but I find them a little shy. They tend to stay further from shore, and are also in almost constant motion, making it tougher to get a good shot.
But sometimes I get what I’m looking for.
Sometimes I get more than I was looking for. Taking photos of moving birds makes me watch them more carefully, trying to time my shutter release. I’ve learned, for example, that mallards usually dunk themselves before flaring their wings, but ring-necked ducks not so much. Watching avocets through a camera lens for that rare moment of stillness, I’ve learned that they don’t stab their bills into the water to grab food. Instead, they swish their bill sideways through the water, scooping up munchies.
It’s acknowledged as Canada’s first Christmas carol.
Aside: This raises the obvious question of whether there are other Canadian Christmas carols. My quick Google search confirms my impression: No. Not, at least, in English. Lots of French-language Christmas music certainly exists, sacred and secular, and might include carols for all I know.
I found Canadian songs about winter (and did not see that coming): Lightfoot’s Song for a Winter’s Night, for example. I even found a few about Christmas (like Jimmy Rankin’s Tinsel Town), but none that I could identify as catchy holiday standards or songs that might be sung in church.
It might have been written (circa 1642) in Huron by Jean de Brébeuf, a Jesuit missionary who was later canonized. Continue reading
Posted: 2025 Aug 20
