When you start feeling depressed here’s something that is guaranteed to pick you up. You can look back on your life and realize that right at the beginning you were the one who succeeded against almost impossible odds. You, and most likely you only, won a marathon race to your mother’s egg among at least 50 million other highly competitive sperm. You certainly weren’t a loser that day. Your chances to win a major lottery are often much better: something like 1 in 14 million. Feel better?

This documentary is Australian jazz giant Simon Barker’s journey to discover the influences of a Korean drummer/Shaman named Kim Seok-Chul. Director Emma Franz takes us, sensitively, along. Simon is not allowed by his contact, Kim Dong-Won, to see Seok-Chul right away. There is a lot of resistance there although Simon doesn’t know, at first, why. Is the master drummer, who is regarded as such a national treasure by his country that he is Intangible Asset Number 82, being protected from the foreigner? Is he not worthy?
The truth was that Kim Seok-Chul was very ill and in hospital but also that Dong-Won wasn’t sure it would be right to present Simon to him. Would the Australian drummer actually understand the honour? Would he be worthy? So, as a process, Dong-Won goes on a trip with Simon to visit other musical Shamen. The singer Bae Il-Dong is one. This is a singer who lived in the wilderness in a hut he built beside a waterfall for seven years, singing up to 18 hours a day. Learning to out-sing the noise of the falls. Il-Dong considers the mountain as yin and the valley as yang with the waterfall the holy place where yin and yang meet. His is a powerful, raw voice that seems too big and too much noise for the Western ear. But he sings pure nature and without fear or ego. I would love to hear him in concert.
Simon also learns about drumming with his entire body. To begin throwing himself down on the ground as if in mourning to learn to let go and relax into the music. And to listen to his own heart for true rhythm.
Near the end, Seok-Chul has left the hospital and Simon does get the chance to visit with the master three days before he dies. We, as voyeuristic companions, get a rare glimpse into some of the final hours of a man revered by his family and society. It is impressive and touching.
I learned, in the end, a great deal about South Korea and music in this wonderful and powerful documentary. I whole-heartedly recommend it to anyone!
This was the first of the five documentaries I saw during the 2009 Guelph Festival of Moving Media.

The family and I attended the September 26 Art of Time Ensemble performance of Abbey Road at the Enwave Theatre at Harbourfront Centre in Toronto. This was the 40th anniversary of the release of the Beatles’ album and each song from it were tackled by different Arrangers and a very talented group of singers and musicians. You can see pictures from it here.

So why did I wait for over a month to report on Andrew Burashko’s homage to the Beatles that night? It was an awesome concert and it affected me incredibly: likely the best concert I’ve been to for years. But I lack the language to describe what happened musically and emotionally that night. It was amazing.

The singers were:

• Steven Page
• Sarah Slean
• Andy Maize
• Alejandra Ribera
• Kevin Hearn
• Raine Maida
• John Southworth

The Arrangers were:

• Shelly Berger
• Gavin Bryars
• Robert Carli
• Kevin Fox
• Jonathan Goldsmith
• Jim McGrath
• Roberto Occhipinti
• Dan Parr
• Cameron Wilson

The Musicians were:

• Andrew Burashko / Piano
• Benjamin Bowman / Violin
• Greg Campbell / Viola
• John Johnson / Sax
• Amy Laing / Cello
• Rachel Mercer / Cello
• Joe Phillips / Bass
• Doug Perry / Viola
• Rob Piltch / Guitar
• Rick Sacks / Percussion
• Stephen Sitarski / Violin
• Michael White / Trumpet

This past Saturday, Karen and I celebrated her birthday by going on a wine-tasting tour in the Niagara area. It was organized by the University Catholic Community.
Accompanied by two ukulele’s we sang our way to Niagara-on-the-Lake and walked around for an hour and a half. Then it was off to the picnic tables at the Niagara River Whirlpool for a delicious lunch from Angelino’s (one of the best places to buy food in Guelph).

We were off to Chateau des Charmes following that for a tour of a vineyard and the facility. As a group we tasted:

• the 2007 Riesling VQA
• a 2007 Rosé
• the 2007 Gamay Droit (St. Davids Bench Vineyard VQA)

I also tried the 2007 Gewurztraminer (St.Davids Bench Vineyard VQA) at the tasting bar.
I purchased a bottle of the 2007 Riesling VQA.

Then we went to Joseph’s Estate Wines where we had another tour. It was interesting to see the similarities and differences between the two wineries, each headed by experienced wine makers and innovators in their industry. As a group we tasted:

• 2006 Gewürztraminer
• 2007 Caroline Rosé VQA
• 2004 Pinot Noir
• 2000 Vidal Icewine VQA

At the tasting bar later I also tried:

• 2006 Merlot Reserve VQA
• 2004 Shiraz VQA
• Vintage Country Red
• Katherine’s Perry Sherry

I purchased a bottle of each of these: Olde Town Port, Olde Niagara Cream Sherry and 2007 Caroline Rosé VQA as well as some grape skin flour.
I learned a lot at each but I enjoyed the Joseph’s tour more since they were more generous with their tasting and tasting bar costs and they allowed us to actually taste grapes on the vine and touch things like putting our hands through the surprisingly dry crushed skins and seed.

Following this we embarked to Niagara (with only a brief stop at a Pickard Peanuts store) and took a stroll along the walkway near the lip of the Falls. Then up to the revolving restaurant in the Skylon Tower for supper. And there was more music on the way home.

The total trip took a little less than 13 hours but what a wonderful day! Something for Karen and I to remember for a long time.

I have finally read Orson Scott Card’s brilliant novel Ender’s Game which is the first book in the Ender’s series.  This was originally a shorter novelette but was reworked into a full length novel by Card.  It is about a young boy named Ender who is a long hoped for military genius on a future Earth.  He is force trained to become the tool that will save mankind from an alien menace.  But Ender is, in the end, his own man or boy.  A product of his handlers but not them; the book has an incredibly surprising finish. 
I enjoyed it very much. It is intensely psychological and, like many of the best examples of fiction writers, Card dwells strongly in the territory of human relationships. That’s what makes Ender so interesting. In the end, Ender is more important than even Earth leaders think. The fate of more than just human’s is involved.
I definitely want to read more in the series.
Highly recommended.

This film starring Jim Kaviezel (Kainan) was a pleasant surprise. Although it involves Earth’s past, Vikings, an alien, his space craft, and a pissed off alien dragon it isn’t as ridiculous as it sounds.  The writer explains these so well that they didn’t remind me overly much of the rash of Beowulf movies lately. The back story (that humans had been seeded on Earth by Kainan’s people) and that Kainan crash landed with an imprisoned alien dragon was an explanation for his human appearance. It certainly seemed reasonable as I watched, anyway.  I liked the special effects for the Moorwen or dragon. It is a good adventure film and, I think, worth a couple of hours of precious time if you like good action sci-fi films.

Drew Hayden Taylor’s 2007 novel, The night wanderer (Annick Press Ltd.), is about a 350 year old Anishinaabeg (Ojibway) Vampire meeting a modern Ojibway (Anishinaabeg) teenage girl.
It has the subtitle ‘A Native Gothic Novel’ but I beg to differ with that categorization, ‘gothic’ implies something else to me. A dictionary defines it as:

A novel in a style emphasizing the grotesque, mysterious, and desolate.

To me, a better and less limiting summation would be ‘A Native Vampire Story’. While one of the two main characters, Pierre L’Errant, is certainly mysterious and has been, at times, desolate, he is never grotesque to me. Definitely not a typical vampire. And although Tiffany, the 16-year-old other main character, is frightened and helpless at times she has untapped inner strength. I see her as neither a gothic heroine nor could she afford to look like or be a goth. Taylor has created two very unique characters who inevitably clash with interesting and, IMHO, satisfying results. What I found most fascinating was Pierre’s view of the contrasts between his former culture and the current native culture found in Tiffany. I wanted more of that actually. Tiffany’s grandmother provides a sympathetic bridge between the old and the new as someone who yearns to hear Anishinabe language being spoken but lives patiently in the here and now.
All in all, a quick and highly recommended read!

Renée French is the creator of the two graphic novels The Ticking (2005: top shelf productions GA) and micrographica (2007: top shelf productions GA).

The ticking is my favourite of the two works.  It’s a wonderful tale of a young boy born with a deformity and shows the many ways this can be seen. We see the downside and upside through Edison Steelhead’s strength and talent and his father’s, Calvin’s, love and fear. It is told simply with few words and beautifully shaded monochrome art. Yet it is amazing what gets across to the reader. I’m not sure I understand what the ’sister’, Patrice, brings to the story but it makes me want to keep re-reading the story to figure and savour it all out.

Original drawings for micrographica were little more than 1 cm by 1 cm and were magnified for this novel.  Of course they get blown up in size but not much as the book is roughly 12 by 12 cm.  And text is added. Naked mole rats and crapballs and teenage humour and child-like bravery are the essence of the story.  But it isn’t the art that impresses here. It is more the fantastically quick way Moe, Preston and Aldo and their relationships are explored.

I would highly recommend reading (perhaps buying if you are the art savouring kind) The Ticking first. If you ‘get’ it then you may also enjoy micrographica.

The byline for the Up Series of documentaries is:

Give me the child until he is seven, and I will show you the man

which is based on a quotation by the Jesuit Francis Xavier. The original idea was to bring together 14 kids born in 1956 of various class and economic backgrounds and interview them. It was meant to be a one-time socio-political expose for Granada’s “World in Action” program but it gained life when a Granada research assistant, Michael Apted, decided to keep the concept alive seven years later. He has done it every seven years since. The latest is 49 up (all the participants are 49 years of age) and nearly all are still involved. No other documentary could claim to be as complete a picture of real people. This is truly Reality television. And simply brilliant.
What began as a left-wing political study of contrasts in class, race, location and the education system has became a time capsule of life: a study in the incredible capability and resiliency of human beings.
I can’t recommend this highly enough. If you belong to the genus Homo sapiens then you should see this movie. It’s as simple as that.  With the 6 DVD set that is now available, you can take a weekend to see the whole set of 7 documentaries. It will take you through an amazing journey that you will never forget.

White so white
gulls cycling
near the bottom
of battleship grey clouds.
Holding, barely,
against the stronger winds.

Lightning and long dark drapes
of rain to the west.
But not here quite yet.

And the parking lot
of this bastion of commerce
seems wholly
inadequate.

-2009/10/03-