Category: Canada

Canada’s Minstrel

My first musical love was folk music, and nobody told its stories better than our own Gordon Lightfoot.

Gordon Lightfoot's "Sit Down Young Stranger" album cover via Record Cellar https://recordcellar.ca/product/gordon-lightfoot-sit-down-young-stranger/
Cover Art: The album was originally titled Sit Down Young Stranger, but when If You Could Read My Mind became a monster hit, they added the little pink sticker until the next pressing when they could rename the album.

As a young pup one of my first forays into the wider world was the bus trip I took to Toronto to see my musical idol, Gordon Lightfoot, live in concert at Massey Hall. And it was fabulous. I’ll always remember Gord’s introduction of one of my favorite songs, “Second Cup of Coffee,” self deprecatingly pointing out his folly in pairing the lyrics of despair with such an upbeat tune. The audience laughed good naturedly, but it was clear we would continue to love the song anyway.

Whether they were songs were about love or heartbreak, ballads about building the railway or laying in wet grass watching a 707 fly home, or maybe a chance to hear Don Quixote rail against injustice at an unsympathetic ocean or agonize as the Yarmouth Castle dies beneath its waves, Lightfoot’s music doesn’t just tell us his stories, he pulls us into them.

It wasn’t only the lyrical words he wove together, it was the sometimes acoustically simple, others orchestrally complex but often breathtakingly beautiful music that swept his lyrics into our minds. And very often our hearts.

Take note of the fingerpicking as Gordon Lightfoot performs his timeless classic, “If You Could Read My Mind.”

Gordon Lightfoot became the soul of the Canadian folk era, but he didn’t just fade away when folk music was relegated to the back pages of the music world. Instead he spread his creativity and passion into whatever genre was appropriate to the work, continuing to craft meticulous lyrics and wrap them in unforgettable melodies.

In the end he forged a musical legacy that became an integral part of the shared culture underpinning the Canadian Identity.

Thank you for sharing your gifts with us, Gordon Lightfoot. Rest well, dear minstrel. You’ve earned it.

Remembering Gordon Lightfoot Collage [Text] Gordon Lightfoot November 17, 1938 - May 1, 2023 [Photo] Gordon Lightfoot at Interlochen [Pictured] Album Covers • Lightfoot! (1966) • Two Tones at the Village Corner (1962) • The Way I Feel (1967) • Did She Mention My Name? (1968) • Back Here on Earth (1968) • Sunday Concert (1969) • Sit Down Young Stranger (1970) • Summer Side of Life (1971) • Don Quixote (1972) • Old Dan's Records (1972) • Sundown (1974) • Cold On The Shoulder (1975) • Gord's Gold (compilation 1975) • Summertime Dream (1976) • Endless Wire (1978) • Dream Street Rose (1980) • Shadows (1982) • Salute (1983) • Solo (2020) • All Live (2012) • Harmony (2004) • A Painter Passing Through (1998) • East of Midnight 1986) • Waiting For You (1993)

Art Credits

Cover Art: Sit Down Young Stranger (1970) © Reprise Records

Released under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 license (CC BY-SA), my Remembering Gordon Lightfoot Collage is incorporates:

Gordon Lightfoot at Interlochen
© by Arnielee – own work CC BY-SA
3.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7589668

and Album covers (fair dealing)

Two Tones at the Village Corner © LMG Records

Lightfoot!, The Way I Feel, Did She Mention My Name? Back Here on Earth, Sunday Concert © United Artists Records

Sit Down Young Stranger, Summer Side of Life, Don Quixote, Old Dan’s Records, Sundown, Cold On The Shoulder, Gord’s Gold, Summertime Dream © Reprise Records

Endless Wire, Dream Street Rose, Shadows, Salute, East of Midnight, Waiting For You, A Painter Passing Through © (1998) Warner Bros. Records

Harmony © Linus Entertainment

All Live, Solo © Rhino Entertainment

 

Canadian Politics

Over the past several years I’ve been more involved in Canadian politics because we are facing challenges we can no longer afford to ignore— from the existential threat of climate change to Canada’s human rights violations at home and abroad, festering social justice issues of colonization, systemic racism and the need to defund the police, our entrenched inequities, Victorian attitudes toward…

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Canadian Politics

Over the past several years I’ve been more involved in Canadian politics because we are facing challenges we can no longer afford to ignore— from the existential threat of climate change to Canada’s human rights violations at home and abroad, festering social justice issues of colonization, systemic racism and the need to defund the police, our entrenched inequities, Victorian attitudes toward work, economic inequities and presumed “worthiness” for survival, the rape culture spotlighted by the #metoo movement, the ever expanding incursions into our cultural freedom being made by the voracious “intellectual property” regime (which prompted my creation of this blog), and our government’s abject failure to put aside partisanship and deal with the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent failure to even try to “build back better”— all of these things highlight our desperate need for real real change (not the phony real change Mr Trudeau promised in 2015) more than ever before.

The thing that sucked me into politics was my belief in democracy, and my realization that the reason everything has been getting worse throughout my entire adulthood because we don’t actually have the representative democracy they tell us we have.

When a lifetime of voting in every election without ever electing a representative almost made me give up hope of things ever getting better, I discovered it didn’t have to be this way. There is a means to transform this country into an actual Representative Democracy.

The way to upend the status quo so we can actually start fixing the things that are so badly wrong so we can work toward the future we need is by changing the way we elect our gover ments. Much to my surprise I discovered there have been Canadians trying to make this happen pretty much for all of Canadian History.

Andrew Ross McMaster, 1923 Liberal MP, Brome

Now is the time to stop trying. As Yoda would tell us, we must do.

And what we must do is implement Proportional Representation.

At this point I understand that I am only one person, and it’s time to realize I only have the time to write one blog. And this is it.

And right now my focus has to be on Proportional Representation.

“The present situation [First Past the Post Plurality voting] appears to me to be one which does not appeal to logical or righteous minds, it does not give us proper representation of the thought and the political sympathies of the people; therefore, we should strive to find out something that will.”
— Andrew Ross McMaster

https://www.lipad.ca/full/permalink/643321/

visual laurel 2022-06-17 08:38:56

Ontario Election 2022

A Toronto Star Opinion Piece by Martin Reg Conn desperately tries to justify the Ontario election result in “Get Over It: Doug Ford’s Victory was an example of how democracy is supposed to work.”

But is it really?

The purpose of Democracy is to give people a say in our own governance. In a Direct Democracy that would mean citizens themselves directly make laws and government policies. As in a referendum.

But ours is a Representative Democracy, which means citizens choose representatives to represent us when making laws and policies in Parliament.

This is not that.

What’s important? View this post on Instagram A post shared by GLOBAL YOUNG…

What’s important?

What is important?

Do you want to live in a world in which money is more important than people?

I don’t.

That’s why, no matter where you live, there is a Green Party. That’s why I volunteer for the Green Party.

We need to stop messsing around.

Its time to change the world.

Signs of Spring? This sign stands in an empty spring LTC flowerbed. Field of text made up of a…

Signs of Spring?

This alt text only allows 200 characters, not enough to describe the sign planted in an empty spring flowerbed at the Long Term Care home where my mother lives, so the sign is described in the post.

This sign stands in an empty spring LTC flowerbed.

Field of text made up of a recurring list of front line workers, in differeny colours and sizes of text, including:

“Police, Health Care Workers, Nurses, Manufacturing, Pharmacists, Trades Workers, PSWs, Paramedics, Nurses, Hospital Staff, Firefighters, Day Care Workers, Paramedics, Truck Drivers, Gas Station Attendants, Long Term Care, Postal Delivery, Paramedics, Doctors, Couriers, Grocery Store Staff.

"In the centre is the outline of a maple leaf holding text that reads: To everyone making a difference… Thank You.

”#FLATTENTHECURVE #STOPTHESPREAD"

I took the photo because Grocery Store Staff was listed prominently, and as I’ve been working as a grocery store cashier, I appreciated it.

But looking more closely at the text for the purposes of this post, I became disturbed by the frequency of the word “police.”

Yes, police are front line workers, but bloated police budgets not only deprive valuable social services of funding, the stories of police behaving badly, abusing their power, have not abated despite the pandemic.

So I wouldn’t have this sign on my lawn if you paid me.