Only The Shadow Knows

When I worked at Tilley Endurables during the turbulent late 1980s (the dog days of Duran Duran), I learned many things. For example, I learned that the average hat size for an adult male is 7 3/8. The average hat size for an adult female is 7 1/8. Women, on average, have slightly smaller heads than men.

Oh, do they....?

Take a look at this image that I took yesterday as Wendy and I strolled along Toronto's glorious downtown sidewalks, sun on our backs. Now, is it just me, or does my head look tiny compared to Wendy's? Notwithstanding that my head also happens to look very much like the tip of a penis. <sigh>

It's kind of depressing to think that today's blog is so gawd-awfully mundane that I have lowered myself to street level where grubby boots tread on frozen spit, cigarette butts, salt and dog shit. Gone is the excitement of the polar vortex. It would appear that I'm now settling in to everyday life in Toronto. I am but a shadow of my former self.

You're also a dickhead, Ian, and today's picture proves it!

I wonder out loud what I could do to make my shadow more manly, not that my phallic shadow isn't 'manly'. Maybe I could wear a huge hat or a fro wig? Maybe, like Wendy, I could wear a hood, although I can't stand not having peripheral vision in a city where there's a one in three chance of being hit by a car, a bike or a head-down-texting tunnel-bear. Maybe I could move to Vancouver where they don't have shadows in the winter (you need sunlight to make a proper shadow)? Perhaps I should become a street walker at night?

Or perhaps I, and you, nous, or we, should look at my shadow in a different light altogether? Use your imagination to no longer see me as the silhouette of a Jewish porn star. See me as a chess piece. Look at my shadow again....

I. Am. The. Bishop.

I see you as more of a pawn, Ian.

So be it. If I must be a shadowy pawn, then I'll be the best shadow pawn I can be. I will be a pawn star! Doh!!

For Whom The Bell Tolls (PG Rated)

Every time a bell rings, a senior gets his wish!

Merry Christmas, Sewell!

For those of you who have no idea to what I'm referring, let me just say that there's an older chap in my Mom's nursing home who has a very healthy libido. It lives in his mind and not in his trousers, thankfully. Occasionally this old bulldog will ask a nurse if he can "touch her bottom". That's a lot to ask of a health care professional, if you know what I mean!

When I saw this bell in a games store window display yesterday, I immediately thought of its many uses for those with limited mobility, but grandiose plans. Many seniors reach out to God in their last years. Some, in more primal gestures, just reach out for something onto which they can get their hands. Some things, it would seem, are more important (or bigger) than God.

At this point, I'll just shut up before I incriminate myself somehow.

You wouldn't want to make an ass of yourself, would you, Ian?

Not if the bell is tolling for me.

The Condupdate - January 2014 Post Sofa Delivery

the bathroom

the bedroom

the den

the kitchen

Here are the latest images from the condo. The bulk of the work is done but there is still some shopping to be done. We need some greenery ('medicinal' marijuana for me, ficus or  dracaena for Wendy). We could use a few pillows too.

The artwork on the living room and den walls has yet to be created (by me) but I have some ideas (the easy part). Making them work is always the challenge. Stay tuned.

the kitchen again

the living room

kitchen feat. living room

Clean Air For Sale

As I troll and stroll the streets of Toronto, I am greatly amused at times. I really should say that I'm greatly self-amused. No one is trying to make me laugh but myself.

I laugh at the absurdity of it all. The fashion, the frenetic pace of progress, the sloth, the texters and their obliviousness to others, dogs with sweaters, the originality of now ubiquitous tattoos, ear lug plugs, the popularity plague of Canada Goose coats (if Canada ever needed a uniform...), the veneer of shallow Yorkville, vehicular perfectionism and the morons behind the wheels, men who spit while talking to women....the list is endless.

I rarely laugh out loud at what I observe. It's usually just a sly smirk or a happy hmmff. Sometimes a head shake and an apres chuckle. It makes Toronto more lovable when you`re able to laugh at it, or with it.

The other day, at our local hardware store, a laugh was generated by someone else....by design and on purpose. It wasn't just for me, but for everyone. On the counter sat three clear plastic bags filled with air. Each one made a statement about the contents and the price, as follows: clean air $22.99, not so clean air $12.99, and not clean air $2.99.

You could argue that the hardware store was making a point that Toronto air is in jeopardy. I don't think this is the case as Toronto air seems mighty fine to me, though I'm not here in July when things could get uncomfortable. In Beijing this would not be a joke. I think the 'Just For Laughs' crew at this Toronto hardware store was being playful, and you know what? It's a business strategy that works. I went there on a utilitarian mission to buy things that are necessary, but not fun. I left with a huge smile and some blog fodder. My experience in this store was memorable. How often do you leave a store with a bad feeling, or perhaps worse, no feeling at all? Ambivalence...I trip over it every day on my retail excursions.

Our independently owned hardware store in question is 'the only gay hardware store in the village', to steal a Little Britainism. It's not the Home Depot. The Home Depot has no sense of humour. Most big box/small brain retailers don't. In fairness to Home Depot, and their ilk, it would be ridiculously difficult to incorporate humour corporately. Humour is more of a peculiar individual characteristic, and not something that can be institutionalized, replicated or enforced easily. It's also dangerous when mismanaged.

This gives our friendly neighbourhood hardware store an advantage. Their selection of goods can't compare to the big boxers. Their prices can't compete. They have the advantage of location, and they know their customers. I can walk to my hardware store in five minutes. The nearest Home Depot is 3.6 km away. Is it worth paying a little more for convenience? Yes, absolutely. More important than proximity, our hardware store has personality. I'm not paying any more for a laugh as that's a free gift from the store owner to the customer.

The price of a laugh is free, but I ask you, my dear readership of four and a half, what is the price of not laughing?

Are You Seated Comfortably? Then We'll Begin...

something yellow and comfortable is all we wanted

Today Wendy and I will be Ed Hillary and Tenzing Norgay on top of Everest. We will be Wilbur and Orville in flight. We will be Lewis and Clark 'discovering' the perfect windsurfing location on the Columbia River. We will be Jesus and Wayne Gretzky, walking on water. We will be Kirk and Spock at the end of our five year mission, but still in love with each other.

So what is happening today that is so monumental? Well, we're having our last pieces of condo furniture delivered. Is shopping for furniture in Toronto easy? "Tthhis his nutthhin", to quote Flick, might have been our initial response to the question as there's an abundance of selection. Buying is easy, but trying to get stuff made and delivered on time has proven to be more than nuthin. I'll never forget how difficult it was for the Hudson's Bay Company to deliver our bed. "How can we sleep while our beds are burning" at 120 Homewood Avenue...in North York!

Today we're expecting the arrival of a nice yellow chair, and orange sofa and an orange ottoman. They were ordered during the first week of November and were to be delivered at the end of November. It is now late January. Tick tock tick tock.

The Rolling Stones sang 'you can't always get what you want'. Gun n' Roses told us "all we need is just a little patience". I'm pretty sure they were singing about girls, and not furniture. No one ever sings about furniture.

Hold on a minute, sunshine. There's a web site devoted to furniture songs. Here's the link: http://top10.me/top-10-furniture-songs

I stand corrected, but I sit on furniture...finally!

Interior Design Show - Toronto 2014

At the invitation of a couple of friends, I attended the 2014 Interior Design Show yesterday. Although I had no idea what I'd see at the show in terms of wares, I had a pretty good idea of who I'd see there. In short, gay design professionals and uppity bitches.

Ouch....uppity bitches??

Well, it's no secret that the world of design is populated with gay guys. I make no claim of being sage-like in my prediction. Just take a look at the television design shows, they're all hosted by gay men. Take Stephen and Chris, for example, or Linda Reeves. All gay men, I think. I innocently misspelled Steven's name as I've never seen the show he co-hosts, yet I know the faces of the hosts. As a 'tribute' to my own sexuality, I have no idea which one is Steven and which one is Chris. Straight! I made another faux-pas, apparently...a quick fact check alerted me to the reality that Linda is actually Lynda, perhaps once Lyndon??

You really are an asshole, Ian.

I am kidding, of course, it's just that since the demise of Baywatch, television personalities often seem so genderless. I ask you, is Steve Murphy a man or a woman, or just some smoothed over cartoon character?

Speaking of CTV luminaries, was Ben Mulroney there, Ian, or did he just send in his army of clones? And what of the uppity bitches?

His army of clones was there, no question. As for the uppity bitches, I'm going to apologize upfront for tagging this group with such a miserable handle. First of all, they're not bitches. They're sensitive human beings who wear too much perfume while measuring their own shallow self-worth, and that of others, by the clothes on their collective backs and the tiles on their Gucci-graced floors (as if I actually 'know' this...refer back to 'you're really an asshole, Ian'). It would appear that thread count and sofa fabric matter more to them than body count and/or moral fibre. Of course there's also global warming, war, mass starvation, genocide, or the fuel economy of sub-compact automobiles to consider. I doubt they care much about Nascar, to their credit, but hey(!), did you see that carved jade vanity on aisle K?

Maybe we should go back to calling them uppity bitches? It seems gentler somehow. So why were you there, Ian?

Good question. The fact is that I appreciate design, I just don't happen to worship it. I want good design in my life, but I'm not willing to sell my soul for it. When I see a mucky-muck driving a Ferrari on the streets of Toronto, I do everything in my power not to gawk. The fact of the matter is that I love the design of Ferraris and I want to drool all over them. Here's the kicker....do I want one? Of course not. They're completely impractical for where we live. Potholes would eat them. You'd never get them out of first gear. An oil change likely costs $1000 if you're lucky enough to have a Ferrari dealership within a thousand miles. As fate would have it, there's a dealership in Jemseg, but I still can't justify the $180 000 price tag.

So much of what I saw at the design show I would covet, but much of it is just way over the top and, frankly Frankweena, unnecessary. From today's image, take a look at the tuffet upon which I sat my little Miss Muffet eating my curds and whey (from Whole foods, you know). Funky, fun, vibrant...but it's not going to fit in the elevator of my condo, let alone through my door. That sofa, in fact, is bigger than my living room. Maybe it's all just a joke, like couture? Maybe everyone's in on a giant hoax except me.

Ian, I think you were punked!

Sometimes I wonder. I saw a $38 000 painting at the show that was nothing special. I saw multi-thousand dollar rugs that I'd be scared to walk on. Most of what I saw was so over-the-top gorgeous that it could only exist in a childless society. It's a 'watch the china!' world in which the design professionals would have us live. I think I'm more suited to padded walls, bean bag chairs and feather pillow fights with 'the Bunnies', yet here I am in tony Toronto. I saw throw cushions at the show worth more than my car. It's madness...and I'm amused by it all, but sometimes I wonder....

Is life but a lark about to be plucked?

Lark feather pillows, $2995, available on aisle C.

Meet Dongyang?

In the winter of 1949, B.B.King played at a dance hall in Twist, Arkansas. In order to heat the hall, a barrel half-filled with kerosene was lit, a fairly common practice at the time. During a performance, two men began to fight, knocking over the burning barrel and sending burning fuel across the floor. The hall burst into flames, which triggered an evacuation. Once outside, King realized that he had left his guitar inside the burning building. He entered the blaze to retrieve his beloved $30 Gibson guitar. Two people died in the fire. The next day, King learned that the two men were fighting over a woman named Lucille. King named that first guitar Lucille, as well as every one he owned since that near-fatal experience, as a reminder never again to do something as stupid as run into a burning building or fight over women (from Wikipedia).

I bought a new-to-me guitar this week and it occurred to me that I should give it a name. I didn't have any 'Lucille moments' while finding this guitar, so the choice is not obvious. The front runner in my mind is to call my new Martin OM-1 Dongyang. I bought the guitar on Kijiji from a Chinese Canadian chap called Dongyang. If nothing else, it's a one of a kind name to my ears. That said, perhaps there are 50 000 Dongyangs in Jiangxi Province alone. Also, the thought of 'strumming my Dongyang' doesn't really work for me.

I could call the guitar Martin or Marty, but that seems too obvious. I'll bet every spotty faced John Denver wannabe has thought of that, so bye-bye Marty.

Hmmmm....Martin. Hmmmm....B.B.King. Martin King. Martin _____ King.

Wait for it...I smell smoke, not unlike B.B.King, and where there's smoke, there's fire!

(insert emoticon light bulb in 3....2......1......) Luther!

Hear ye, hear ye...I christen my new guitar Luther. This is even more apt because a 'luthier' is a guitar maker. Rearrange the letters and you get 'I Luther' or is it 'e Luthir'?

So goodbye Dongyang, thanks for selling me your guitar. I'm loving it. Everybody.....meet Luther!

Billy Bishop's Balloon Bop And Alternative Adventures In Aviation

William Avery Bishop, aka Billy, was Canada's World War I aviation hero...an ace. He was credited, or self-credited, with 72 victories. Of course the 'victories' were one sided, since you can't have a victory without a loss. A lot of people fell from the skies. This was war, after all. I suppose a man has got to do do what a man has got to do. Did I mention that his total of 72 victories included 2 balloons? Shooting down balloon fliers sounds like some sort of carnival attraction, like Whack-A-Mole, eh?

Though I may sound trite about balloon popping, this 'theatre' didn't serve popcorn and over-sized drinks. Do you know the life expectancy of a WWI pilot in Billy Bishop's situation? Eleven days. Eleven days! The Germans were downing Allied airplanes at a ratio of 5 to 1. The pilots must have felt like lemmings, so why do it? Think of the many alternatives (i.e. a lifetime making bumpers for BMWs, among others)

Before Billy took to the skies he was in the trenches, and not happy about it. In his own words "it's clean up there! I'll bet you don't get any mud or horse shit on you up there. If you die, at least it would be a clean death." Being a pilot presented itself as a better way to die. The lesser of the evils, I suppose.

In Toronto, 2014, we don't worry about being shot out of the sky, we worry about jets landing at Toronto's Billy Bishop airport on the harbourfront. There's a dogfight for airspace superiority and it's unclear who will win. The battle pits proponents of extending the runway and allowing smallish passenger jets to arrive downtown, versus those who see this as a recipe for a less inhabitable city.

Would allowing jet service at Billy Bishop airport be something desirable for Toronto's air-traveling population as a whole? Without question, yes. Anything that saves a $65 cab ride to the L.B.Pearson airport has got to be good, wot wot? On the flip side, would downtown jets add to the congestion and noise in Toronto's already busy downtown? Likely.

The question, I suppose, pits the good of the greatest number versus the good of a smaller but significant group. I'm leaning towards allowing jet service into the island airport, if and only if the jets are 'quiet'. I'll admit that I'm not well versed on the subject. My position was swayed towards pro-jetport by a conversation that I had with a retired pilot in New Brunswick over the Christmas holidays. His argument for jets on Toronto Island was compelling and forward thinking, but he doesn't own a condo on the waterfront.

It's a shame we couldn't just have a balloon-port on the Toronto Island airport. Hot air balloons are quiet and actually enhance the sky-scape, especially those shaped like cartoon characters. We could even have a fleet of them shaped like Rob Ford...imagine the tourism spin-off? 

Billy Bishop died in 1956. His contribution to the war effort made it possible for us to contemplate having jets fly into the airport we named after him. His death also made balloon flying just a little bit safer. There is much to consider....

What Singers Think About When They Sing...Not Vinegar

It's all true!

As I type this morning's blog, I happen to glance to the right and I see a sheaf of papers magnetically clipped to my brushed steel fridge. I've never been a fan of attaching pictures or papers on the fridge, yet when someone else has images or letters on their fridge or door, I'm the most ravenous gawker.

On my fridge is a shopping list which summarizes those things we can't live without. I see white vinegar on the list, for example. What does that tell you about me? You might assume I'm into pickling, or that Wendy is searching for an alternative window cleaner. Maybe I like fish n'chips? Actually, I don't know why we need vinegar, and you don't know anything more about the shopping habits of the reclusive Vartys. You only know that Wendy wrote it, and I'll buy it, or I'll be on marital probation. Ha ha.

At her office Wendy has a heavy, virtually soundproof wooden door. There is a small black sign with white letters which quietly tells the world that Prof.Wendy Nielsen works here. That's about it. No images. No notes. No grocery list calling out for acetic acid.Wendy's professorial neighbour at UofT has a door plastered with good-humoured operatic stories and cartoons. I often stop and read them. It's a nice way to give myself a smile when I'm otherwise consumed with all-thoughts-vinegar.

This morning's image is a 'real' snapshot of the operatic world's most ubiquitous voice types and the sweeping generalizations that summarize their thoughts. I found it on Professor Nielsen's neighbour's door. The bass is thinking about fishing. The soprano is thinking about being loved by her audience (Wendy!). The baritone is thinking about technique. The mezzo is thinking about the baritone, and the tenor is thinking about money.

I can't think of one occasion when Wendy ever thought about the money when considering a singing gig. She sang because she loved to sing, and because she loved to have her singing make a difference. The money, though necessary to survive when married to a confirmed Leisurologist, was always an afterthought or a by-product. She sang for the art of the song and, yes, her audience mattered greatly to her.

Admirable and true, but more than anything......thank gawd she wasn't a mezzo!

When I Was A Boy...

When I was a boy we had war and killing, now we have ethnic cleansing. We had good behaviour and thoughtfulness, now we have political correctness which feels strategic and not at all real, or fun. We had groundbreaking rock n' roll, now we have auto tune and Taylor-can't-sing-live-to-save-her-life-Swift.

We also had Arctic air masses, now we have polar vortexes. Ack. Everything has been sexed up or dumbed down, or re-branded for the sake of our 'I'm bored' society.

You know the minute you say 'when I was a boy' that you are either deeply disgruntled with the present or simply frigorifically old. If you say 'when I was a boy' and you're a woman, then your problems are deeper than mine, undoubtedly a recipe for a lifetime of psycho-therapeutic couchings, and perhaps a blog, on my part. Note: not a blog on my 'part'. The comma matters.

Today we're dealing with meteorological phenomena. It's seems that the winter of 2014 has given rise to the popularity of the term 'polar vortex'. I suspect the term has been around longer than that (1853), but now it's fashionable (translation: of little real value). We all know what 'polar' means....up there, and cold, but what's a vortex? A vortex is a whirling mass of air, among other things. Here's a definition from Wikipedia (where else?):

Vortices in the Earth's atmosphere are important phenomena for meteorology. They include mesocyclones on the scale of a few miles, tornadoes, waterspouts, and hurricanes. These vortices are often driven by temperature and humidity variations with altitude. The sense of rotation of hurricanes is influenced by the Earth's rotation. Another example is the Polar vortex, a persistent, large-scale cyclone centered near the Earth's poles, in the middle and upper troposphere and the stratosphere.

Mmmmm....troposphere. And while we're at it, is is 'vortexes' or 'vortices'?

So, folks, we basically have a large mass of Arctic air dipping down into our neighbourhoods. By using the term 'polar vortex', the meteorologists are simply crying out for attention. Let's face it, their lives must be horrendously boring. In fireman terms, they basically sit around all year buffing their bumpers until a fire comes along, and they don't rescue cats from trees so their public worth is negligible. In meteorological terms, the 'fire' is a polar vortex, hurricane, freezing rain, snowstorm, flood or tornado. They are few and far between. In reality the meteorologist spends about fifteen minutes a day figuring out if it's going to be sunny or cloudy, then they play Tetris on their computer and answer a few e-mails, then they toddle off to the fire station to walk the Dalmatian...unless there's a polar vortex.

Polar vortex....sheesh.

I really don't see why the big fuss about the polar vortex. In layman's terms it's just a climatological feature that hovers near the poles year-round. It's not all that relevant since polar vortices exist from the stratosphere downward into the mid-troposphere, and I live in Toronto. Do I care that a variety of heights/pressure levels exist within the atmosphere? No, I just want dinner for under ten dollars. Do I really care that within the stratosphere, strategies such as the use of the 4 mb pressure surface, which correlates to the 1200K isentropic surface, located midway up the stratosphere, are used to create climatologies of the feature? No, not really. Furthermore, due to model data unreliability, other techniques use the 50 mb pressure surface to identify its stratospheric location, so it's not even part of a perfect science like economics. Everyone knows that at the level of the tropopause, the extent of closed contours of potential temperature can be used to determine its strength. Simple stuff for simple people. The horizontal scale of the vortex is frequently less than 1,000 kilometres, anyway.

Ian, wake up. Wake up!

Huh, what just happened?

I think you were having a nightmare. 

Whew...I'm glad that wasn't real. Hey, what's it like outside today?

Delightfully frigorific. We're in the middle of an Arctic air mass.

What's that?

Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head And Other Frigorific Rainforest Challenges

One of life's great challenges is walking into a guitar store in the winter, but only if you're bespectacled. I often make a spectacle of myself, especially in guitar stores.

My greatest guitar store faux pas happened in London (ON) in the early days of my 'career'. I picked up an acoustic guitar and started playing it. My first thought was 'this sounds like sh_t'.

It couldn't possible have been your playing, Ian?

Yes, that's always a possibility but in this case a closer inspection of the miserable guitar yielded the discovery that it was a left handed model. In piano terms, that's like playing with oven mitts on while doing a naked hand-stand, exposing your two-part buttocks tattoo which reads 'me dumb'.

Music stores are troublesome, though, because of their humidity. In the wintertime, when you walk into a music store wearing glasses on a cold day...boom! Condensation on your specs, to the point of temporary blindness. It's hell, I tell you. Hell! Music stores need to keep the humidity around 45-55% for guitars and 40-45% for pianos in order to keep the instruments from drying out. The optimum air temperature for a guitar is 72-77 degrees fair, in height.

Did you know that in 1724 Daniel Fahrenheit published an article in which he detailed achieving the lowest temperature in his scale by mixing a frigorific mixture of ice, water, and ammonium chloride. This temperature became known as 0 degrees Fahrenheit, but what's really important to remember is that 'frigorific' is a real word. Regardless of its meaning, I intend to use it because I like the sound of it, i.e. my poisonberry Slush Puppy was frigorific.

Frigorific: causing cold: chilling.

My winter in Canada was frigorific. It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times. Best not lie.

So, the point of this blog, other than enlightenment of the unwashed masses (all four of you now), is to make the point that in order to maintain a high quality guitar at the proper humidity, I'll need to turn my home/condo into a rain forest. I'm currently shopping for a high quality guitar but I'm not exactly Mr.Maintenance (ask Wendy), so I worry about it cracking if I don't maintain relative humidity around 48.7%. Sure I could buy a 200 gallon humidifier but I hardly want Toucan Sam flying around my house because it reminds him of the Brazilian rainforest.

Ian Fun Fact #12: I simply can't maintain my home at the proper guitar humidity without creating a habitat more suitable to lightning, lichens and toucans. The very thought of my dilemma is frigorific.

Ian's Alter Ego Fun Fact #12:  you can buy small humidifiers that fit inside your guitar case for $25. Problem solved.

Seriously? Bye-bye rainforest...hello guitar!

Ambur Alert: Collaborative Pianist Needed

One of Wendy's star students recently posted an urgent message on Facebook. She needed an accompanist on piano for a vocal audition the following day. Short notice, to say the least. Did I mention that she was in Europe at the time?

This gave me an idea. I'm used to hanging out with singers. I know their needs, foibles and moods. I'm also an accomplished pianist who plays well with others. Some would call me a collaborative pianist. I also have a considerable amount of time on my hands, so I've decided to launch a business.

Ian Varty Collaborative Pianist LLP

I think there's a demand out there for my services, though I worry that my high hourly rate may scare off all but the most financially successful singers. Those are the ones I want to play with anyway as I'm not all that interested in working with amateurs.

And You Thought Volvos Were The Safest Cars??

Asteroids, planes and suicidal stock brokers....all things that fall from the sky during unsettled times.

Are you prepared for the impact? I'm not, but the owner of this Saab certainly was!

For decades now Volvo has been telling us how their cars are among the safest. It may or may not be true, but the perception that Volvos are safe still exists. I can't afford one, so I really don't give a bleep. The fact of the matter is that no cars are safe, particularly when they come face to face with a thunderin' Tundra or a giant Sequoia. There are times in life when an airbag just ain't gonna save ya. Sorry.

There's no question that the Swedes build nice cars, but they were not the originators of the airbag (front or side). Oldsmobile introduced the first front airbag equipped car, the Toronado, available to the buying public in 1973. You'd be hard pressed to find a car these days without airbags. In Toronto you'd be hard pressed to find a car these days without an angry, horn-blowing windbag behind the wheel. I've seen two people (in cars) giving the one finger wave to other drivers in the past two days. In either case, safety was not an issue as it was simply a case of aggressive drivers being impatient. From the safety of the sidewalk, I gave them both the finger. Well, not really, but I thought about it.

Yes, I am back in Toronto. My inner Rhino senses are tingling already. I may not have a car and airbags, but I have a horn and I'm not afraid to use it.

Grrrrrr. Toot toot. Grrrrrrr.

From The Twilight To The Comfort Zone...And Is There Any Difference?

With a weekly private finger-style guitar lesson, a group ukulele lesson and almost daily forays into the bowels of the music building at UofT, you might think my ears would be full of music. On any given day at UofT I can hear oboes, drums, pianos, tubas, classical guitars....but mostly I hear opera singers.

'Me lugs' are not wanting for sonic sustenance, yet what do I consider music to my ears? 25 great meals under $10...that's a tune I could use! My arrival in Toronto coincided with Now newspaper's feature article. I believe that satisfies my definition of karma.

Last night Wendy and I went out for dinner with another couple in Toronto's up and coming neighbourhood of Leslieville. The restaurant was dark and warm, and buzzing with Friday night freedom. Our waitress, in her twenties, I think, was friendly and helpful. The menu was small but appetizing. Dinner items ranged from $10 to $36 with an emphasis on meats, I'd say. My entree of Korean twice fried chicken weighed in at $13. It was tasty and tiny, but a total rip-off in terms of value. As I don't drink, I opted out of a cocktail, though everyone else had one. The cost of a cocktail...$12 to $14. A glass of wine...$11. Absolutely criminal.

I'm excited by the idea of a great meal for under $10, though I don't mind paying more for atmosphere. I do, however, have my limits. Dinner for four last evening cost $152 (post tax, pre tip) My contribution to the tab was $13 plus tax and tip. I'm not suggesting that a game of 'who-can-be-most-Scottish' is healthy, but I will say that dinner for four at $152 plus tip is waaaaayyyyyyy out of my comfort zone.

Ironically we had a dinner table discussion last evening about the popularity of comfort food. To most Torontonians, comfort food means macaroni and cheese, or a nod to the traditional home-style meals of our youth. Comfort food to me is something under $10. My $13 Korean chicken nuggets were not even remotely close to being as delicious as the supper I had the night before....a $5.79 chicken shawarma at our favourite little sans-atmosphere pita place. As I said before, I don't mind paying a premium for atmosphere, but I awoke this morning with a worse-than-normal back from sitting on a miserable wooden chair last evening. Somebody shoot me or, at the very least, pass me a gun.

We pay a high price to live in Toronto, in so many different ways: physically, mentally, spiritually and even financially. Thinking about life when considering these all encompassing parameters, I wonder if I can I live within my comfort zone? Sometimes I feel incredibly stupid, though it's usually in situations that are out of my control. There's no question that, after 40 hours in Toronto, I'm still in 'the Twilight Zone'.

Doodoo doodoo doodoo doodoo doodoo doodoo.

Solved! The Mystery Of The Poo Shrooms

"What's that smell?", I said aloud as I walked through Toronto's Queen's Park in November of 2013. A less-than-faint, more-than-overpowering odor of dog sh_t cut through the crisp autumn air. It's no secret that there's dog sh_t everywhere in Toronto, particularly on the fringes of sidewalks and in the parks.

The smell of doggy doo-doo lasted for about two weeks, and it was always in the same place in Queen's Park (ironically not where the elected officials sat...as in, the legislature...that's more often bullsh_t than dog sh_t). I was not the only one who noticed the poison poo zone. Robert K, pianist of note, also commented on the sour nasal note as he walked through the park, as did Wendy.

Now, here's where things get strange....on most mornings, some aged Chinese-Canadians would be picking mushrooms in the exact area where the smell was the strongest. I naturally assumed that it was the mushrooms that were creating the foul air. At Christmastime I mentioned the poo-shroom mystery to a friend who is well versed on all-things-mycological. During our conversation it came out that it wasn't the mushrooms that smelled bad, but the tree under which they were growing.

The mushrooms that were being harvested were in close proximity to a Ginkgo biloba tree. Ginkgo is native to China and is a large tree that can live for over a thousand years. The seed of the Ginkgo 'is attractive in appearance, but contains butyric acid (also known as butanoic acid) and smells like rancid butter or vomit when fallen' (from Wikipedia).

You can't imagine the comfort I found in the discovery that it wasn't dog sh_t or poo shrooms, especially since people were clearly harvesting them. Knowing that it was simply a seed from a tree that smelled of rancid butter or vomit just brightened up my day. The stinko ginkgo!

There is one mystery left....what kind of mushrooms were the Chino-Canucks picking? My mycological adviser said they might have been magic mushrooms! This just keeps getting more and more interesting. Next November I will attempt to gather some of these mushrooms, braving the vomit air that abounds. I will brew them into a hallucinogenic tea, pour them into my finest China mug, and down them. I will then write about it.

Finally your blog might get interesting, Ian!

Picture yourself in a park in the city
With smelly old trees and vomity skies
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly
A immigrant with kaleidoscope eyes.

Doggy shit seeds of yellow and green
Tower over your head
Looking for the girl with some in her hands
And she's gone.

Lucy on the ground with mushrooms.
Lucy on the ground with mushrooms.
Lucy on the ground with mushrooms.
Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhh.......

Ian Varty Enters The Twilight Zone

Nuff said.

A Canadian Heritage Moment: The Inukshuk

"Now the people will know we were here."

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I don't know if you remember the Canadian Heritage Moment vignette where the RCMP officer with a gimp foot wonders out loud why his Inuit comrades busied themselves building a pile of rocks rather than planning his salvation from the frozen north...but I do.

Here's the link, but there's no real need to watch it... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd86ov04mqI
I only mention it to justify today's image.

I left my Mom's nursing home today knowing that I won't see her for three months. It's not a particularly good feeling, but I have to live my other life. Life is just a windowless warehouse full of smoke, mirrors and compromises anyway, and there's nothing any of us can do to change it. When there are no more compromises, there ain't no more life. Poof.

Before I left the nursing home I piled up some of Mom's 'toys' on her bed. I don't know why I did it other than to give Mom, or more likely the nurses, a smile. Maybe deep down I was trying to tell 'the people' that I was there. Maybe it's so I can find my way back.

The Mootha Gallery

 In the span of ten minutes I took these pictures of Me Mootha a few days ago. She was (as we like to say) 'on fire'. Mom has a number of expressions that have become 'regulars' so Julian decided to name them. What's more surprising is that the images captured in today's blog are just a few of Mootha's many faces.

On my list of yet-to-document facial expressions are:

- crocodile tears
- the Popeye
- the chameleon
- the eye roll
- the Queen

And there are more still. I'm telling you, the woman is a total ham, and I'm eating up the entertainment. I guess that this proves that I'm not Jewish.

What about that schnoz of yours, Ian?

Shuttup.

Who said that??

What The Hell?

To give you a snapshot of what my Mother (me Mootha) is like in January of 2014, I offer the following information:

- she's had Alzheimer's
(diagnosed) for 8 years.

- she's lived in a nursing home for 2 years, preceded by 6 months in the hospital.

- she can't walk.

- she has limited use of her arms. When she tries to rub her eyes, her hand doesn't always get there.

- she can't feed herself.

- she has trouble seeing/focusing on people at times.

- she sleeps a lot.

- when she speaks, her words are often unintelligible.

Sounds terrible, right?

WRONG!

These would be terrible predicaments for the rest of us, but I've purposely overlooked one very important fact relating to me Mootha....it's the reality that she's very content. I would even say she's happy. Thankfully her sense of humour is intact too, if not blossoming. The road has been long and winding to get to this point. Two years ago she could walk, talk and feed herself but her more 'normal' moments were punctuated with nurse tossing and confusion induced rage. There was also the odd karate chop thrown, and upper cuts (sometimes playful, sometimes real). Those were trying times.

Today it's like a gift when Mom says something relevant and comprehensible. I would estimate that 80-90% of what she says goes by without us recognizing the words. Taking inflection in account changes things somewhat, as she's very animated. In terms of using facial expressions instead of words, she's a master. She could give acting lessons to Betty White! She's often cracking jokes and laughing. About what, we often don't know. Perhaps us??

Today's image is an artistic representation of what transpired in the nursing home yesterday. We were in the east wing lounge (the one with the television and man cave decorations). Julian and I were sitting on the sofa with Mootha in front of us. Doug was sitting in a comfy leather chair directly in Mom's line of sight. Dad was in another chair beside Doug.

It's no secret that Julian and I jump through hoops to entertain Mootha. We act silly. We're facilitators of her comic behaviour. Dad and Doug, the 'science guys', tend to be more reserved (though still attentive). Something completely uncharacteristic happened yesterday when Doug pulled off his sock and asked Mom if she'd like a sock to keep her feet warm. Note: she had her own socks on at the time. Then, Dad walks over to Doug, takes the sock, turns and walks over to Mom with it. Dad dangles the sock in front of Mom's nose. Note: this is definitely out of character for Dad but cleverly planned to elicit a response (Guplov's Dofe).

Mom, in the driest of deliveries, says "what the hell?"

Buried under layers of Alzheimer induced confusion, memory loss and debility is a comic genius. For all those moments when we wonder what she sees, hears, or thinks.....along comes a moment of divine clarity. Never has a situation been summed up better in so few words, with one possible exception:

Where's me Mootha?

The Pot-holed Road To Sochi

For some unknown reason, the Olympic Games have gone out of favour with me. I've been wracking my brains trying to figure out why, but I can't pinpoint the reason. It might be because of all the doping scandals, that's definitely a kick to our shriveled nuts (men), or a kick to your newly minted set of knicker knuggets (women). Doping certainly takes the fun out of the games. You don't know what's real anymore...and those skin tight suits don't lie!

In many ways it's that same kind of uncertainty you get when you're eating a cob of corn at the annual company picnic. You know the feeling, right? Choking down those tender little buttery niblets, all the while wondering if the corn was genetically modified. You go to bed with the ambiguity of not knowing what will become of your 'downstairs' organs by morning. You know, I used to be very muscly woman but then one day I ate a pita wrap made from genetically modified wheat. By sun up I was a weakling...and a man!

Sigh.

What else bugs me about the Olympics? Well, the Disney-fied opening and closing ceremonies. Can't we simply sing the national anthems, toot some trumpets and get on or off with the events? Apparently not. The opening and closing ceremonies have gone all Hollywood. Ack.

There's also the on-going problem with the events themselves. Most events at the Olympics are out of reach of the average, non-doped, genetically unmodified New Brunswicker. Take the ski jump, for example. The province of New Brunswick can't seem to find the cash to fill potholes, so how the hell are we going to provide our citizens with a 90 metre ski jump. Inevitably this leads to the burning question of 'who, in their right mind, would want to tie on a pair of over-sized skis and fling themselves off such a monstrosity'? I've seen depressed, suicidal lemmings back down from the ski jump.

Sigh (that's two sighs now, if you're counting).

What about the biathlon, Ian? That's within reach of most New Brunswickers.

Oh, I just heard a voice! Did someone mention the biathlon? Last time I cross-country skied through the UNB woodlot with a rifle, I was taken down by a SWAT team. In hindsight, I thought it odd that a helicopter was following me as I made my way through the forest...and now I have a criminal record. Lesson learned.

I think one other 'issue' I have with the Olympics is that they're no fun. It's serious business when you're careening down or along something at break neck speeds. For example, if you win the gold medal in the four women/mixed race/short track/speed skating/reverse polarity/bi-partisan/semi-palmated event , then you're going to be rich. If not, you'll be sitting next to a wood fire in Siberia, trying to roast your new found nuts.

The image that I posted today, if you click on it, will take you to a video that, in my mind, takes us back to the essence of athleticism. Man vs. nature. Man vs.himself. It's old school. No one is going to die. No national anthem needs to be sung (sorry, Measha). It's accessible to one and all, but more than anything...it's fun!

Fun....that elusive quality that the Olympic Games seems to be missing. If the Olympics included an event where twelve participants from different countries raced down a ski hill on GT Sno-racers, then I'd be the first person to tune in. This kind of event would be a riot! I might even buy a 92 inch plasma/hemoglobin/plutonium powered television to watch the games at home, or I might fly to Newfoundland to watch them on Jason's 108 incher! 

Did you know that when you upload a video on Youtube you must choose a category into which your video best fits? All of the GT SNo-racer videos that I've made in the past two weeks have not been put into the 'sports' category where you might expect to find them. I put them into the 'comedy' category because they're fun.

I think I may have discovered my secret beef with the Olympics....the fun is gone. Almost every sport in which I participate personally is fun. I do it for the pure joy of it. The only 'fun' in the Olympics is the debate over state sponsored athletic funding. After every Olympic Games, the questions arise as to whether or not we should have won more medals as a country. Inevitably that leads to the cry that we need to give our athletes more money.

And I just want the potholes in our roads fixed. Sigh.

Wow, three sighs! That's a blog record!! You're definitely going for the gold this morning, Ian.

Sigh.

Night Mares??

There are only three things that would dynamite me out of bed into the 6:19 a.m. darkness on a frosty winter's morn:

1) a chimney fire.

2) eight litres of pee in a seven litre bladder.

3) Weekend Morning with Stan Carew.

I'm the kind of person who needs seven hours of sleep per night. If I go to bed between 10 and 11p.m. then I inevitably wake up between 5 and 7 a.m. My morning ritual typically consists of turning the radio on when it's clear that sleep is no longer an option. It's always nice to start the day informed. It's important to know what railways are on fire, or how many people in Cole Harbour were stabbed overnight.

Weekend Morning is a CBC radio program that is broadcast out of Nova Scotia every Saturday and Sunday. It's basically the same as national programming except every song played features someone yodeling, someone fiddling, or a whinnying horse...often all three. This morning was no exception.

Weekend Morning is an odd show. If you were to ask me what kind of music they played, I might struggle to answer the question accurately. If you asked me who I thought their target audience was, then at least that would be an easy one. The deaf.

Of course I'm kidding. Weekend Morning is an immensely popular radio show, and by that I mean that the listening audience is comprised of more than just the co-hosts' families (fathers, wives, sons, foals). It usurps my blog in the hearts and minds of our nation. I weep.

I'll just take a moment now for inner reflection. Okay, done.

Wait! Not quite done. Om. Ommmm. Okay, I'm good.

So, why is this radio program so popular? For that matter, why do people still root for the Leafs? It's because the world is full of hopeful people. It's full of optimists. It's full of people looking for a pony in a pile of dung....and never has an analogy been more apropos than right now! Some time ago I made a pact with the devil (myself) that I would listen to Weekend Morning and whenever three songs in a row were played that I didn't like, I would get out of bed.

The show begins at 6 a.m. but the music doesn't typically start until after the news, weather and sports. In fact, the music begins around 6:08 a.m. I got out of bed at 6:19 a.m. this morning. At three minutes per song, with banter in between (hi ho, Duke, away)....well, you do the math.

What's the appeal of this show, really? It's a sonic yard sale so far as my ears can tell. Perhaps that's the appeal. This show caters to people who like to go weekend yard sailing in their land yachts. It offers both variety and surprise. It's general for the genre-less. It's the Ponderosa buffet of song, except instead of steak there's liver. Rest assured, there's no sneeze guard over the salad. As a listener, you're at the mercy of the management and of those who call in to request the most obscure songs ever recorded...the songs that no one else will air. Of course, I can always turn the radio off, or change the station.

So why do I tune in every weekend morning? Because, my dear readership of three, I am an eternal, infernal optimist. I know, some day, a song that I like will be played. Until then, the garden of my ears will be richly fertilized.

Bored With Ice? Then Iceboard!

For some reason, my overlords at Blogger.com won't let me paste today's video directly into my blog. Perhaps they have a filter that disallows soft-porn on hard ice, adolescent antics, and/or the mundane in general. I assure you that this ain't porn. I'm showing less skin than a self-conscious nun snowboarding in a Gortex burqa. 

If I'm not mistaken, you can click on today's image and you'll be whisked off your feet to my most recent Youtube offering. I'll warn you though, the original video was b-4-boring so I decided to edit it judiciously and then play it on double speed to sex it up. Seriously, I was going so slowly that I had to speed it up, lest it be used by medical professionals as a sedative.

Anesthesiologist: I'll just give the patient 0.5mg of Ketamine then?

Surgeon: no need, I just showed him Varty's latest iceboarding video.

The great thing about playing videos on double speed is that the action looks fast and exciting. What would have been normal walking now looks totally Charlie Chaplin, and when someone speaks at double speed....Chipmunks!

That reminds me, a couple of weeks ago someone called into CBC New Brunswick's morning show (radio) and requested a song by Alvin and the Chipmunks as the 'happy song of the day'. Happy? Gawd, it was awful. I wanted to cut my ears off. It makes me wonder if Gauguin gave Van Gogh a Chipmunks Christmas CD for a gift. Gauguin really was a prick. He couldn't be happy to live out his days in beautiful Tahiti, fiddling with his grotesque gummas and doing the odd painting of some topless native. No, he had to send Van Gogh that damned CD.

Well, enough said at this point. The video is short. The Chipmunk section of the video is minuscule. A butter knife won't take an ear off, I've tried (see Weekend Morning with Stan Carew).

Fit The Whuck?

The average person looks at a design magazine and says 'I want my bathroom to look like that'. Sometimes the average person says 'I want my house to look just like Khloe Kardashian's'. The Kardashian Komplex (Wall Street Stock Symbol 'KK') happens after reading People magazine, notably the Kardashian exposé issue which appears to be every second issue (damn you, Miley Cyrus!). Hmm, or was it Architectural Digest where I saw this? No, it was definitely People magazine.

I think, based on my experience of idly gawking at covers of trash mags while waiting in the line-up at Tingley's, that Khloe is the fat divorced Kardashian who is always grumbling publicly about her failed relationships...and posing for corpulent bikini shots on a tropical beach....all the while mulling over her terrible life and plotting for a financial windfall when she becomes a spokesperson for Weight Watchers, Jenny Kraig or Kurves. She's likely also plotting to bag a professional athlete. At least I think it was Khloe. Or was it Kim, Kourtney or Kylie?

Are they from Harvey Station, Ian? Just wondering. 

I don't think so. Anyways, too much talk about average people and their average lives. My readership of three is far above average. You know it to be true, that's why you've hung in with today's blog knowing that there is a pony in this pile of dung. You're optimists.

A pony, Ian?

Yes, a pony. Do you not remember the pony joke?

I hate horses.

Me too, but this is a joke about optimism more so than horses. Here it is for old time's sake:

The joke concerns twin boys of five or six. Worried that the boys had developed extreme personalities -- one was a total pessimist, the other a total optimist -- their parents took them to a psychiatrist.

First the psychiatrist treated the pessimist. Trying to brighten his outlook, the psychiatrist took him to a room piled to the ceiling with brand-new toys. But instead of yelping with delight, the little boy burst into tears. "What's the matter?" the psychiatrist asked, baffled. "Don't you want to play with any of the toys?" "Yes," the little boy bawled, "but if I did I'd only break them."

Next the psychiatrist treated the optimist. Trying to dampen his out look, the psychiatrist took him to a room piled to the ceiling with horse manure. But instead of wrinkling his nose in disgust, the optimist emitted just the yelp of delight the psychiatrist had been hoping to hear from his brother, the pessimist. Then he clambered to the top of the pile, dropped to his knees, and began gleefully digging out scoop after scoop with his bare hands. "What do you think you're doing?" the psychiatrist asked, just as baffled by the optimist as he had been by the pessimist. "With all this manure," the little boy replied, beaming, "there must be a pony in here somewhere!"

How can today's blog be about the Kardashians and optimism? They seem incompatible.

It isn't. Today's blog is about the Scottish language. Everything up to this point has just been filler, like when the Village Idiots open for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

I see, I think.

Today's image shows my newly painted bathroom. Being above average myself, at least in height, I chose the colour for the bathroom based on one thing and one thing alone: the Scottish language. Actually, it was even more specific than that. I based it on the Scottish language sub-sect, Doric. It's the language of Aberdeen and it's virtually incomprehensible.

A few days ago I entered the Home Depot in search of some bathroom paint. I knew that I wanted something in the citrus realm, preferably orange. I walked up to the paint swatches, picked one up and noticed that it was called 'whiskers'. Be aye en gee oh! Whiskers, pronounced in Doric, would be 'fuskers'. The letters 'wh' are often pronounced as an 'f'. Oddly enough, Julian and I had recently adopted the Doric word for whiskers as our swear word of choice. When things aren't going well we like to say we're fuskered. For example, when Wendy was going over the jump in our sledding video, we sensed that she was fuskered when she went over the handlebars. Good thing she was in shape, or what?

Or what?

The word 'what', in Doric, is pronounced 'fit'. Having had this mini lesson in Doric, you can now go back to the title of this blog and translate it. You'll see that the image goes well with the potty mouthed title.

I find all of this very confusing. I just don't get it.

So, would you say you're fuskered?

Most definitely.

Well, then you get it.