Climb every mountain

Well okay, just this one.

Lord help me!

Ride report

in: 1'C wind 10 ks S

out: 3'C wind 36 ks S (rain)

ABES AlleyKrahn result: DFL! (half-assed indeed!)

The Moonlight Sonata of Beethoven Blatz (Act 2)

At intermission I'm standing in the lobby talking to a friend. I'm a bit in awe of it actually. I say to her that there's something about Armin's "West-side" style that sets it off from the "East-side" writers. And I start to list the differences: One, it relishes in our agrarian roots (Armin's not afraid to joyously detail the dirt and shit of good farm-work.); Two, it is happy in its "vices" (Characters joke and laugh out loud about dancing, drinking, and sex.); Three, the females are fecund and in control (Think of Oata on the couch, or in the motel, or in the truck.); Four, the characters move forward without looking back (They understand that what they do will have consequences, but they steel themselves for them, and live on. They are unstuck because of it). Without naming characters I can identify more than three significant examples from East-side writers that live in a near diametric opposition to these characteristics; they leave (or have left) the land, feel guilt and conflict about the "vices," have lost, or struggle to find, control, and are stuck between looking back and moving forward.

There's history at work here. The West-side Mennonites from the Halbstadt Altona area initially landed on the East side, but after a short stay there they took the opportunity to move to the more fertile land of the West side (The land on the East side is rocky and less productive, which has resulted in a more mercantile economy.). On the West side the top soil runs as deep as three feet in places. It's rich like the Russian steppes. It would have felt more like home, so they left the East to farm in the West. The "low" culture agrarian social systems - drinking, dancing, mummering - continued more or less unabated on the West side. That, and the church culture of the Sommerfeld Church (West), as compared to the Kleine Gemeinde (East), was different - leaving the week to itself, and the holiness to Sunday.

All this you can feel in the smiles and laughter of Moonlight. For in the midst of the weighty reality of whether or not a child will be born, there's no ceiling, or rather, the ceiling is only the heavens, the moonlit night, and there's liberation from the heat of hell. The heat rather comes from the loins, from the centre, from the urgency to dance in the rhythms of living.

So how do you continue after an act that's ended with a transgression that's necessary, even permitted? Well you reconsider the permission. Not the necessity, but the possibility that the humanness of doubt, of jealousy, of propriety, of gossip and innuendo, of shame, and so on, take over. We move from the transported ecstasies of wild abandon, to the buzz-kill of the gaze of others - from epic mythic power to petty proscription and in-fighting. The action could turn lousy here. We could so easily dive into tragedy. Susch could succumb to Teen and Obrum's sudden case of the guilts, but she does not. She leans to the music, to Blatz. She wonders in her mind, but knows in her heart. But she does not keep these things to herself. She knows she has moral ground to stand on, and she knows that the rules men make, and fret about, have less weight than the imperatives of the wind and the soil and the music of life.

And so this small woman becomes indomitable. More than Mary in the stable, she gives life and then directs the traffic. No bystander Madonna, she manages life and love, and the house too. This is the arc of Wiebe's project. The music rings in our ears from within the spheres of our own genetic code. The music is the religion of the atoms and molecules and the spinning star wheels. The orbit of the moon, the rising and falling of tides, the cycles of day and night, of waxing and waning, of fertile and arid. The tensions crescendo and then fall away. The play has to be about music and composition because it is about those largest, most inexplicable of movements when the muse visits. Sitting on a plow, at a piano, or reaching for the wash, this sonata needs composing. If only we all had the schwunk of Susch, to do it even in the face of moral rectitude.

Ride report

in: 2'C wind 10 ks W

out: 6'C wind 10 ks W

The Moonlight Sonata of Beethoven Blatz (Act 1)

On Saturday, together with friends, I travelled to the Rachel Browne Theatre in the Crocus Building to watch the Theatre Projects Manitoba production of Armin Wiebe's first play, The Moonlight Sonata of Beethoven Blatz. It's a four hand cast, two men and two women. The set appears to involve simple staging, until Obrum and Susch Kehler roll on a full-size upright piano into the temporary farm "shpika" (cabin/shed) they call home. It's the 1930s. The Kehlers are two-years married, in love, and poor. They work hard, and they still play, in every way. Obrum loves music and dreams that his Susch will learn to play more than chopsticks on the clavier. To that end he invites Beethoven Blatz, recently immigrated from Russia, to live with them, to tune the piano, and to teach Susch to play. Blatz comes haunted. He dreams of and speaks aloud of his love, Sonja, who plays the cello and, we presume, has stayed back in Russia. He mistakenly refers to Susch as Sonja, and these continual errors serve to raise the potential for something further.

For you see, though the play begins pastoral and lovely, even quaint, (this ambiance is enhanced by the Low German English dialect the actors speak) we soon learn that two years of marriage and no child on the way, with no dough rising, there is a snake in the garden. Something is "loose;" perhaps the yeast is bad. Teen, the village midwife, comes around to see how things are going, in the family way. Through her prodding the problem of Obrum's mumps, and then the wink wink possibility of Blatz as a "gypsy in the hayloft" to help solve the problem, the stories and suggestions become real. Even Obrum is in on it. He nudge nudges Blatz that he might be able to "tune" his piano. And you can hardly believe that you're watching it when it happens. Laughing and wondering you do not avert your eyes as Susch takes the advice to heart, as she takes charge, as she and Blatz, on the piano bench spinning in different worlds, connect and harmonize and align themselves with the moon.

After Act 1 you're exhilarated and a bit flushed. You feel as though something's been achieved. You feel hope heavy in the air. It's honey and light. You're sure, but you're not certain that you've just watched two unwed Mennonites coupling on a stage. You've just watched them enacting the biblical myth. You've just watched them turn Mennonite and biblical into ancient and mythical. It's been good. You want a cigarette.

(Act 2 to come)

Ride report

in: -1'C wind 3 ks SW

out: 4'C wind 5 ks SW

Statutes of limitations?

You're walking down the street one day feeling, for whatever good reason there might be, pretty good about yourself and your life. You turn the corner, look up, and there's that certain someone who reminds you of something you, well, you wanted to forget. What's your statute of limitations on these things? How long does it take you to get over something you've wanted to forget, to the point of Eastness from Westness that you can look up at the certain someone, smile like a somnambulant, and breeze on by without a wince or head-duck?

I don't know if I've got an answer for that, for myself. I think it's pretty long though. It takes me a while to forget. Today was a double-whammy day. You can, even in a small community like ours, live a remarkably long time (months) without wincing or turning and walking the other way. I guess I was on a roll, and today was karma-time. The wheel just keeps turning.

So I'm trying to catch that one smart-alec chicken that manages to get out of the pen (and there are foxes around, so it's in her best interest to be inside for the night, and I turn the corner, around the coop, talking chickenese and trying not to sound pissed off, and I have one of those moments. The second one of the day. In this case it was just the voice of someone from the next yard. Well I kept the wince inside and kept on talking to the bird and following it around back and forth like a fool, waiting for my chance to corner it and pick it up (no mean feat when you're dealing with a robust black hen who thinks you might be dangerous - it's right!). Once I caught it and returned it to the coop, I walked back inside, somewhat out of sorts, and wishing I could get past it. (But I know it'll take a long long time yet; the statute is still quite unlimited.)

The first was in an innocent question, of an innocent person, at work. We were both just doing our jobs. We were both doing our job prudently. But her answer to the question turned everything awry. She couldn't have known. She wouldn't have tried to raise the spectre she did, but her answer made me snap at her a bit. I allowed it to turn me into a bit of an ass - I acted as if it might have been her fault. It wasn't. It wasn't really mine either. But there you go. My reaction in this episode was so strong that it was obvious to another colleague who came by my room later to see how I was doing. Ouch.

Forgive and forget they say. As far as the East is from the West, they say too. But what if you've got a good memory, and you can't get that far away because you all live together in a small town? What to do what to do. I can't just get over it. I mean, I could, if they could. But I'm not hopeful. Not at this point. Sometimes adages and proverbs are just full of crap. Maybe there ought to be a statute of limitations on whether you can use them to answer questions like this. The limitation would be "never."

Ride report

in: -1'C wind 10 ks NW

out: 0'C wind 5 ks W

(not a good day if you're a wind turbine that likes to turn)

Sundays are for biking

Together with JS, I drove out to Bruxelles (which is West and bit North of St. Leon) for the first road race of the season. The roads were gravel. And there was mud involved. The course was a 10 k loop (rectangle) with hills on each leg of the rectangle. I rode my cross bike, with the straight bar, and it performed admirably. Shifts were smooth and the brakes responsive. It was dirty tiring fun.

This is my first year buying a license, so I'm a "Citizen" rider, which means I have to register and race in the lowest category. Today that meant two laps. Well after my two laps I rode another, just to make sure I could. My time was pretty good (46 min 32 sec), the fastest in the category (by about 5 mins), and my three lap time was reasonable too (around 73 mins). It was good practice, but if those hills are any indication, I still think Mt. Ventoux might just chew me up and spit me out.

It was a great day. The bike racing crowd is friendly and though everyone rides hard, the competition is as much with yourself as the group. It's a great vibe! Looking forward to the next one.

Life and death

The living and dying of the creatures of the world takes me aback.

Last Saturday this flock of chickadees (I think?) stopped by to feast and fly.

On Thursday morning this lovely, curious, insistent, even bright, kitten, died. (The picture was taken a week ago, on the same Saturday that the flock of chickadees came by. We had a home for her. She was about two weeks from being weaned at the time.) We believe that, in looking for smallish places to explore she found her way underneath or behind the chest freezer out in the garage, sitting on an uneven concrete pad. The tippiness of the freezer, and her older brother's penchant for jumping onto the freezer, which causes it to rock, likely conspired to crush her in some way. We found her Thursday morning, near the end, crying in pain. All we could do was to try to make her feel comfort and care before she stopped breathing.

This morning, after a fresh snowfall, the chickadees came back, still intent on finding food.

So it goes.

Double bind: too short to blog, too long to tweet

I rode home in a moderate, wet snowstorm today.

After buying certain necessaries at the Farm Service, Chris saved the day by supplying me with wrap around safety glasses for the ride. The snow was thick and the wind was up and the glasses helped me keep my eyes open.

Ride report

in: 2'C wind 15 ks NE

out: 0'C wind 20 ks SE (snow)

Running on empty

It's funny the things we do to rebel. My dad would always look to fill up the car the instant the fuel gauge dipped below half. Now I wonder what that was about, actually. Certainty? Safety? Was it a kind of frugality? Sure enough, if you always fill the tank at around half, you will pay less at the pump. Of course you'll have to fill more often, but that's beside the point.

So tomorrow, or Saturday, whenever I drive the car into town (hopefully without running out of gas), when I fill the car, the total will be high. And unlike my dad, from about St. Jean home I was wondering if I'd make it. Well I knew I'd make it, actually. But still I had to wonder. The "low fuel" bell had rung, the needle was showing right on, and then slipped below, the bottom line of the gauge.

I told myself that if I got home, and if I was still worried, I had a few litres of gas in the jerry-can. For me, tonight, I didn't fill up because I didn't want to put in gasohol from the Husky in Morris. I'm not convinced about gasohol, and I was thinking that if I was going fill the car up with that much fuel, I might as well pay one of the local guys and keep the money in town. Lord knows Morris needs help, but I'm not the one, I think. And then there's the bank account. It's payday tomorrow, and I didn't want to risk filling and swiping the card on a near empty account (another thing that we run to empty pretty regularly).

M., my dad's third wife, is running on empty too. She's being paneled. You know what that means. She'll probably "pass" the panel and go into a full care facility, in a room separate from dad. He's still got some fuel in the tank, but it's hard for him to watch her run down to the dregs. Probably because he's always been intent on not getting caught too low, he's struggling to understand how she could let it get this way. (And it seems that this is what's happening; though the engine still has a few miles on it, she's just not looking for a fill.)

Today I can see the wisdom in not letting the tank get too empty. If you run too low at times, you can lose your sense of where the filling stations might be. You might get yourself into the kind of bind that you can't refuel yourself through. Though I'm not sure that this means that I won't run the car low on occasion, once again I'll appreciate the prudence of my dad. Prudence. Huh.

Ride report

in: 1'C wind 15ks ENE

out: 1'C wind 15ks ENE

Into the wind? Still a good day

The wind was blowing pretty good from the NorthWest this morning. More than 30 k/h, and it was cool again, -9'C. So I rose five minutes earlier, dressed appropriately, and battled it in to work. A good ride, though the side-wind is always, to me, less desirable than a headwind (it's more of a headache trying to keep the bike straight, than putting your head down and grinding away).

At work the day started well too. A shower, a conversation, a few minutes to clean up the email inbox, a few minutes to get set for the first class, and we're off. The Tempest first. Some comprehension quizzes (boring but necessary), then finish reading Act 3 together and move into Act 4.

The day moves on, a little less literary than this beginning, but still there are good moments. A discussion about why working online is easier for two boys, how a short story beginning could be developed, which novel to read, what makes for a good page design, and on and on. Even during and after a staff meeting the smiles and laughter come easy. Good deals.

At home for supper and then S arrives from CMU. She's just finished her first year! Played her jury pieces today and felt good about it. Now she's home for the summer to start working at Friesens on May 2. Epic Altona!

This evening I registered for the MCA racing season for the first time (a lowly Citizen license - a great deal, and yes, it's about time), and then registered for Sunday's Bruxelles race. Love the gravel. All winter, all spring!

To quote Fred Penner: "What a day!"

Ride report

in: -9'C wind 30 ks NW

out: -3'C wind 30 ks NNE

He reconsiders, with gravity

Whether or not there are alien visits and interventions he thought that it was possible that he'd been visited. That that was what had caused that thud, that noticeable bump which had, perhaps, made his house shift and tilt. This was the work of an extra-terrestrial visit. He allowed himself to imagine it. Then to think of it fully, completely, as an act of another kind of god. For would this not be a better signature of meaning, even of insignificance? Can there not be solace in both? That a house shifting beneath him, somehow suddenly tipping over at the behest of unseen geologic demons, might not also be a house touched by the unfathomable force of creatures un bound by these physical boundaries. Gravity? Attraction? What of them? Strange solace for him perhaps, but he began to hope for, look for, the signs.

Was his house not brighter, more electrified, more vivid since that bump? Did his toast not pop sooner? higher? Was it not more perfectly browned? Did the slices of five grain harvest whole wheat veritably leap out of the slot into his hands? Was the clover honey not more zesty, in its essence grapefruited with tang, the butter beneath it creamier, more mild, so receptive? Had he in fact, in the moment, in that moment of thunder, been transformed?

Had his senses not been replaced? Was he a not new man? What should he think about this now apparent overwhelming everywhereness of light and love being showered on him by sun and sky as he steps outside and proposes to himself that a walk, even a run, or a bicycle ride might be in order? To what other force might he owe this lightness of the Spring air? This whatness of the wind? Its effervescence in his hair? Can he not smile? Is his house not nodding in agreement? Is it not jaunty? Cannot the universe speak in more than whispers?

Ride report

in: 3'C wind 10 ks W

out: 9'C wind 20 ks W

He thinks back

To those moments when he's known better, he lifts his glass. To distract himself he picks up his guitar and plays. Open-strings ringing he plays a modulating progression that begins in the minor, works its way down through four positions to end on the same chord, fretted at the conventional place on the neck. The conventional voice for the chord. He plays to inspire. He plays to forget. He plays to remember.

As he remembers it, the house was always level and square. The doors opened easily and swung shut with a light push. The windows slid without effort. The plastered corners of the ceilings were seamless and clean. He kept the cobwebs down. He got up into the corners to keep it clean. He knows those corners and, for the six years he's been living in this house on 68 Dunsworth Avenue, he's loved this house. Now though, he feels like that house has left him.

The cracks are appearing everywhere. The plaster is separating in the corners and fissuring like lightning strikes across the walls. The doors are stiff and scraping. Yesterday morning when he gripped the side-door handle to step out to pick up the daily paper, the door would not budge. Not until he put his shoulder to it, was he able to get, and then not without a creaking complaint from the jamb.

Things are shifting. He's sure of it. The house has always been fine, but now when he walks to the front walk and turns to look at it, he sees the north side nodding. He sees the foundation along the south wall pushing the soil up. Heaving at it. He sees the wooden siding boards separating in places and compressing in others. There is a major force at work here. He can't remember another time when it has been like this.

He does recall another moment though, a time of a subtle shift. Was it a year ago? He'd been too tired to care at the time. You know what that's like. You see something. In fact someone else points it out to you, so you know you're not really making it up. It's real because someone else, someone you trust, someone who has no reason to mess with you, or wish bad things on you, tells you so. You know those moments don't you, when a friend confirms the worst.

"So your house is in that zone," his friend John says. And he says, "What zone?" "Haven't you heard?" John says. "That area between the rivers, you know, where some guy who got laid off by the city says that it's like the two rivers want to join one another. Like they're looking for a way to join into one, underground!" "What?!" he says. "Is that even possible?" "Possible and even likely," says John, nodding with the kind of certainty that makes you doubt it.

"So what would that mean?" he says, going along with it. John's just a bit of an alarmist, he thinks. And he's concerned for me. It's okay to listen to this. He's my friend. When he's done I'll sit down at my laptop and find the truth. Or I'll make a few phone calls. Better safe than sorry, he thinks. "It would mean that some houses in this neighbourhood could start to sink. That the soil underneath them would be eroded. That they might just drop out of sight.

"Drop out of sight?" he says. "That's crazy! You're making this up. I mean ..." "Yeah," John says. "I know eh? It's nuts, but I swear I heard it. There was a whole CBC radio show about it. They interviewed the guy, and then they tried to interview the city people responsible for it, and they refused to do the interview!" "Crap!" he says. "Really!? They wouldn't clear things up? You know, debunk that kind of idiocy!"

"No man," John says. "They refused the interview, which left everyone listening to this guy who sounded really worried. Like he said it's possible that it's been happening for a while already and that some of the houses may be already sinking. You know. Really slow at first. Maybe getting a little crooked." "You're full of shit, man!" he says. "What is this April fools?" "No man," says John, his voice lowering, "I think we should check your basement."

A year ago in Spring they walked into his house, he and John, and down into the basement which was unfinished, which John said was a good thing so that they could really see what was going on. It was a typical concrete basement. The house was about sixty years old. The concrete looked old. But that made it look solid. That's what he thought. John tut-tutted a bit. He said he didn't really know that much about foundations, but he thought this one didn't look reinforced.

They looked into the corners too, and all over the floors, for cracking. For seepage. For any signs. John looked really. He stood back and waited. He couldn't look. Didn't want to. You know that feeling don't you, when you know that something might be bad, but if you don't look for it, if you don't see it, then maybe it won't be bad. Maybe it won't be there at all. That's what he did. He hung back. See no evil, he thought.

John told him that there didn't seem to be anything to be worried about. Then, smiling and sighing he said how he figured it would be okay, how solid this old house was, and how grateful he was that John cared enough to do this with him. "No problem, man!" John said. "It's what we do," he said. "It's what friends do." Then they went up the stairs and sat at the kitchen counter and each drank a beer. It was the first warm day of Spring. It was a good time for a beer.

But he doesn't want to remember that day today. He wants to move forward. No. He doesn't really want that either. He doesn't want to go down into his basement. He doesn't want to phone John. He's been living with that planted seed of an idea of catastrophe for a year and now it's germinating. It's growing. Rooting pushing at his foundations and creeping in. Spreading the walls apart. Making things unstable. What's he supposed to do?

He remembers that time when he was working on the bathroom five years ago. He'd only been in the place for a year. He still loved it like a new car. He was redoing the bathroom. What could be better. He'd launched into it with fury, tearing out the sink, then the toilet, then, with some difficulty, the tub. It was a small empty room when he'd finished that first day. That's when he'd realized that he'd have to use the neighbour's bathroom for the next week.

Which he hadn't prepared them for, but they were gracious enough to say yes anyway, even with the occasional panicked and desperate waiting scene, while the teenage daughter did her hair, or whatever. She smiled at him when she walked out. He was sure she'd taken her time. He was sure she thought he was a loser, even though he was only about nine years older than she was and he already had a programming job at the telephone company.

The point was, that he'd panicked the next morning, looking into that empty room and realizing he'd never installed a toilet or a sink or a tub before. He almost sat down in the living room and cried. He might have. He couldn't remember for sure. But then he'd said to himself, You know. You can do this. You'll learn a lot. You've got time. And if nothing else, you'll hire someone to fix it. Which is what he did at the end of that week.

And then he went over to the neighbours to ask whether he could use the bathroom for another week. Or more. He couldn't be sure when the contractor would show up. Now though, he's on the edge of that moment again. The edge of thinking that there is a problem. Maybe a big one. But he just can't be sure on his own. He picks up the phone. He puts it down. He picks up his guitar. He strums a chord. He tries to sing a song he's learned a year ago, from memory.

He gets through the first verse, and then he has to stop. He can't remember the words. The chords are easy, but the order of the words just escapes him. So he keeps playing what he knows. He wanders the whole house playing that one verse and the chorus. "I'd rather be, in a deep dark grave ... than to live in this world in a house of gold ..." He even descends into the basement and plays there, in the lightbulb's glare.

With the cracks widening and water beginning to pool, he plays through to the last line of that first verse, "Don't they know, on the judgement day, gold and silver, will melt away."

Ride report

in: 4'C wind 20 ks W

out: 13'C wind 30 ks W

Black Dogs

I've been afraid of dogs. My first bad experience with one was, in my memory (which will need forgiveness to be sure), whitish and about the size and look of a lab. I was four and he came up to my nose. He knocked me over when he ran at me. My mom ran him over, accidentally, on the way home from a church meeting. I was in the back of the car at the time. I remember this because of the relief of having that fear eliminated from my life. The next bad dog experience was, and this is a bit embarrassing, as a paper boy collecting fees from a customer who had a small dog. When I knocked on the door Sputnik, about one foot high, lived up to his name and got me by the ankle. I stifled tears, took the apologies and the money, and never collected

there again. I was ten.

The first few years of bike commuting out here featured the added peril of a rottweiler named Samson. He made me mad, but my fear was, I think, warranted. He was huge and once when I stopped to talk to the owner he put his paws on my shoulders and licked me like a lover. I think he was getting a taste. Every few rides I'd be heading into the wind and he could keep up with me. Then he'd stay right my pedals. I had the feeling he was just waiting for the right time. The closest he came was one time when he came across the road and angled right at my front wheel. I braked to avoid him, and then stood on the pedals to save my life. These kinds of memories mark you, because you believe at the time that a great deal is at stake, perhaps everything.

The events of Ian McEwan's novel centre around the narrator's mother-in-law June's encounter on a mountain path with two black dogs. She was on her honeymoon. Her husband is a few hundred yards behind her on the path tying his shoes. This is not his betrayal. His unwillingness to accept the gravity of the event for her becomes the black dog in their relationship. They love each other, but their reactions to the circumstances surrounding this event, and their memories of it, thwarts their ability to live together for as long as they'd dreamed.

A story like this is difficult to tell, without it becoming maudlin. McEwan's choice is to have the son-in-law narrate the story of his attempt to understand the demise of his wife's parent's marriage. This neutral point of view allows us to see and hear both sides of the story. It become idealogical as well, mixing in cold war politics and British communist idealism. I'm not convinced that t,his topical framing of the story is necessary, though I expect the intent is to show how the metaphor of black dogs extend to international politics. So how does post-ww2 encounter along the cold war mountain path form international relations today? McEwan may have imagined, when he wrote the novel (just after the fall of the Berlin Wall), that the black dogs of these years would lurk and poison us well into the future.

I find the small-scale human story most compelling, and the attempt to contextualize them in the large-scale international situation actually diminishes the simple and profound fact that happenings over which we have no control can become black dogs for us.

Still, the effects of memory is the point of the novel. From memory we reproduce our black dogs, no matter how true to the actual experience, daily. If we can't get a hold of them, and manage them, they're going to dominate us. They may keep us apart from one another.

I hope

If a girl can stand as strong as Ree (Jennifer Lawrence) in Winter's Bone, then there's a lot to be optimistic about. This movie not only passes the Bechdel test but establishes that a woman can not only be more resourceful than a man, she can be a whole lot more observant.

Here are several good reasons to watch Winter's Bone:

It's an epic tale, set in the remote Ozark Mountains, of a young heroine defending her family and searching for her father. She relies on the women around her, and though they must navigate around the men, their quiet communion is certain. As Ree says early on, to her younger brother, who wants to ask the neighbours for a piece of deer meat, "You never ask for what should rightly be offered." Sure enough, that evening the woman brings over a box with meat and potatoes for a stew.

In an understated way it observes the corrosion of the drug trade (in this case the production and sale of methamphetamine) on family and community. The temptation here will be to say that they're producing and dealing because they live in poverty, but I don't think these people are poor. They live the way they want to live. There is plenty of evidence of happiness and contentedness in the "style to which they have become accustomed." The drugs, for some, are just another occupation, with higher stakes. It's the greed and territoriality of others, more than the "poverty" of these people, that causes the social breakdown.

Which brings me to the next good reason: it unflinchingly portrays the possibility of a simple physical life; though the family dynamics are bafflingly complex (Some might call this plain-living as poverty, but that's not the way the movie portrays it. The social structures - good music made cooperatively on traditional acoustic instruments, food prepared together, loyalty - would work if it weren't for the drug trade.

The dialogue runs true throughout. There were a few awkward-sounding moments early on, but that may just as well be a function of getting used to the flatness of the tone and face when words are spoken. These people do not let on what's going on, and the default of that is that it comes across as menace.

Finally, despite the obvious opportunities to make the movie topical (don't make or do drugs, help the poor, violence provides no lasting answer, girls will beat up girls) the story remains central. Through a clear eye and ear it avoids conventional cues (the soundtrack does not manipulate, the camera angles are necessary rather than wrought). You see the tension on the faces of the people. You feel it in the silences. You know that when a man matter-of-factly butts out his cigarette and lifts the back of his truck cap, he will pull out an instrument of some destruction, and he will use it. You understand that when a father's musical instrument is played and passed from daughter to uncle to niece, that this means we can breathe easy. We smile as the child strums a melody without fretting a note.

I rode the Rosetown loop today (57 ks) in 106 minutes, averaging 32.06 k/h. The wind was around 10 k/h, from the SW.

Fresh Rhubarb!

The new www.rhubarbmag.com is up. Check it out. Read it. Be inspired. Write your own. Submit it to us. A wonderful rerooting loop. Like a weed you cannot dig up or round up is this cycle. Help us make the rhubarb pie sweeter!

We're accepting submissions at all times. If we choose to publish your work, and you agree, we'll post it online immediately, and we'll pay you for it!

Also, consider listening to one hour radio forum entitled Connecting Science and Art featuring Werner Herzog (filmmaker), Cormac McCarthy (writer), and Lawrence Krauss (scientist and writer).

Ride report

in: 4'C wind 10 ks NE

out: 8'C wind 15 ks E

Cadence

Pace yourself. My preferred cadence (pedal revolutions per minute) is about 90. Over a mile, at about a 30+ k/h pace each foot will run a full pedal cycle 270 times. Over a kilometre, at the same pace, it's about 180 times. If I ride 50 ks that's 9000 revolutions per foot. That's comfortable for me. If I can use my gears to keep that cadence, I can go a long time, into the wind, up a hill (I hope) on the flats.

Of course on the flats, with a good wind, a 90 rpm cadence in the right gear could move me along at 45 to 50 k/h. If I'm heading into a good wind that same pace, in the right gear, may only move me along at 25 k/h. There are other factors involved.

I can maintain my cadence thanks to the gears. And thanks to the gears I can go on a lot longer, regardless of other factors. My velocity will vary a great deal, but my exertion will not. Thus, I suggest, that gears are great!

(One should of course remain humble in the face of the elegant single speed rider, whose dogged determination and physical prowess allows him to grind away into the wind at 30 or 40 rpm just to keep the bike upright and moving, or spins his brains out with a big wind at 150 rpm, and I do. I've even aspired to be that guy, but you know, I just didn't enjoy the ride as much. I cursed more, and it took me longer to get from A to B. I apologize to the gods of bicycle purity, but I have given myself to the efficiency of gears. I may still build and ride and enjoy a single speed bicycle, as an exercise in bicycle soul purification, but I will not spurn, nor mock gears. They are useful. They make sense.)

Gears are like priorities. When you have them straight, you can maintain a steady pace for a long time, cover a lot of territory, and remain mentally and physically sound. So I will pace myself. I will maintain a regular rhythm. My cadence will not waiver. This do I solemnly swear.

Ride report

in: -1'C wind 5 ks SE

out: ABES ride after P/T meetings; then home in 4'C wind 10 ks ENE

Water

There's a Lake Ontario size meltwater lake sitting up in the Arctic ice, and they say it's about ready to drain into the ocean. Some say this will noticeably change climate, and also effect ocean ecosystems. Duh.

There's likely close to 190 Billion gallons of water (that was the amount estimated for the 1950 flood) collecting, between Fargo and Winnipeg, and it's all, eventually, got to flow into Lake Winnipeg (if it doesn't soak into the earth).

There's a few hundred (maybe a thousand or so) gallons of meltwater pooling around our home. Because of the significant frost heaves this winter, it's like the barn has actually sunk about six inches. It hasn't, but the ground around it has mounded so that it looks like that. In some places it's like we've got a small dyke around the place, and the water's inside it. Without pumps it would take a long time to move away, soak in, or evaporate.

There's likely a litre or two of salt water that excretes from my pores on a good hard bike ride. Not on the rides to and from school, but anything over 50 k and I leak like a sieve, out of all my pores. You catch light salty spray if you ride behind me. Sorry.

Just thought I'd warn you.

Ride report

in: 1'C wind 8 ks SW

out: 4'C wind 15 ks SW

I have a cold

I admitted it aloud on Sunday. I felt it last Friday after my ride. I felt that scratch in the throat, and had to snort forth an unusual amount of nose hooey during the ride. Still I didn't want to admit it. I should have started drinking more water. I should have started drinking lemon honey tea. I should have gotten right on the echinacea and ginseng, but I didn't because I was in denial.

Even on Saturday, when I first wondered aloud whether I might be "coming down with something" I didn't believe it. What I do believe in, firmly, is the power of denial. The power of "keeping on keeping on." M said she was going to pick up some cold fx tablets, the ones that contain echinacea and ginseng, but she warned me that I'd have to have started taking them as soon as I felt the cold symptoms. I was already more than a day past that. So I went for another bike ride. A longer one. And it too included even more snorting of nose hooey. I quite besotted my gloves and riding tights.

That night I didn't fall asleep until around 4 am. That's the last time that registered. So on Sunday I had no option but to fully admit it. I had a cold. The coughing and snorking and tossing and turning and blowing and drinking and so on were ample evidence. Which worked in my favour on that morning, as I had little trouble convincing M that I'd simply have to stay home from church. There was no dispute. Only pity. I love those mornings! (The love being tempered by the actual physical discomfort of the cold.)

So here I am, still with a clogged sinus, a lingering cough, and a just-on-the-verge headache. At the end of the day today the headache stood up and made itself known. Thank goodness the wind was right for the bike ride home.

They say you should feed a cold and starve a fever. Even the New Scientist agrees. I've been working on it. It's the one upside of this ordeal. (Is it an ordeal, or am I just a weak-minded nervous ninny?) I just finished a bowl of oatmeal and raisins. Mmmm. Now I'm heading over to the cabinet for a nip of rye - neat. I'll get by, but as my neck aches and I'm so much more aware of how my body is feeling, I'm looking forward to feeling like I don't have to think about how I'm feeling again.

I think I'll shave tonight. It'll help. I'll feel cleaner.

Ride report

in: -1'C wind 5 ks W

out: 3'C wind calm (W)

301

This is my 301st post since my first post on March 22, 2010. So I haven't exactly managed to do this everyday. At first I was on that track, but somewhere along the line (I'll say June 10, 2010) I missed a day, even though I was home and the computer was available. Maybe I forgot. Maybe I just decided to take control back, and not do it. Whatever the truth of that is, I've moderated my blogging to something like five of seven days. I usually "put the ball down" on Friday and Saturday, although this depends on whether I feel like writing on one of those days. For instance, if I've watched a good movie or finished a good book and want to review it, or if my pen and paper writing has yielded some short excerpt that seems worth typing up first online, before the official transcription from pnotebook to enotebook, I might get down to it again.

That's the pattern. That and documenting as closely as possible my bicycle-riding, and the conditions of the ride.

It's been rewarding to do this. I can't really imagine stopping this work. I feel like it's made a difference in my life. It's a kind of conversion experience. Knowing that someone's out there and might choose to read it, is good incentive.

Today I went to the CBC website and filled out the vote compass. I fancy myself a social libertarian, and a fiscal conservative. So I answered the questions with certainly, strongly agreeing or strongly disagreeing or saying it made no difference. Well I ended up pegged as a Liberal. I think it's rigged. I'm not much of a fan of Liberals (the large L ones). You can call me a small l liberal and I've got no argument with you, but the political ones, at this point, kind of turn my stomach. They stand for nothing and everything. Maybe that's just a function of being Canadian though. We all end up being moderates. Even our Conservatives are moderates, and screaming Jack Layton is still far too nice. The only guy who's a class act is the guy who doesn't want to be at the party. Sigh. What are you going to do? Be Canadian I guess.

Ride report

in: -2'C wind 10 ks NW

out: -2'C wind 20 ks WNW

As they say

Tomorrow, he thinks and drops his head, it's back to the grind. He's been slacking off on the dime of the public education system for the past week now he must once again answer the morning bell.

Outside the snow and rain still fall. The wind still howls. The cats yowl on the yard and mice scratch and scrabble in the walls. Water collects everywhere. It's warmer than a month ago, but there's still water lying about unsure of its state. Still the bets are that in less than a month it'll have made up its mind and there will be a flood, again.

Inside one daughter sits with her psychology book open, studying for a test. She's one day from finishing her second semester and first year of university. She'll go back tomorrow for a last day of classes, and then spend the week studying for finals. On the parapets of university dorms in the great Babylon to the south there are randy frat boys engaging in nefarious sexual acts with willing girls. It must be Spring.

Yet all he feels is the weight of his sinuses filling. There's ringing in his ears, and the mucousy rasp of his throat. He knows he's naval-gazing. He knows that it's unseemly to some. He knows that some want only high-minded cultural analysis anchored by mind-numbing plot twists - Dan Brown meets Jonathan Franzen, but he's only read one Dan Brown book, and Jonathan Franzen? He's yet to dip into that man's inkwell. This poor me schlock will have to do for now.

That's what he's left with then (what you're left with too). This stiff dose of the mundane, sprinkled with its bits of banal, and a vintage Piat D'or acting in the place of aperitif.

But the pay's good, he thinks. There's always that. And there's nothing like the bitter wannabe middle-class banter of the lunch crowd in the staff room. There'll probably be a poker game or two before the end of the school year, and likely a few memorable classroom moments to reassure him that the species has hope yet.

Still he pops those ginseng and echinacea cold fx tablets like a benny fiend, and washes them down with water and a belt of whisky to end the night.

No riding today folks. Recoup recoup recoup.

Georgie wants to go for a bike ride

Sharon says she can’t leave the Barbies hanging from the front stoop rail, or from the trees in the back yard. Georgie doesn’t understand the concern about the neighbours, or about how to present ourselves to the public. She doesn’t concern herself past what’s in front of her now and though I’m with Sharon on the public image thing, I know Georgie. So now she rides with Barbie lynched and dangling from the handlebars. When she walks around the house, or outside, Barbie drags and bumps along behind her, abused and dust-covered like that American soldier in Somalia.

It’s nearing the end of the Summer heat as we pedal along. I suggest a destination – a playground, or the garden market – but Georgie says, “Just ride, Daddy. Just ride.” So we keep to residential streets and the occasional back alley. The crickets are out too. They dot and skitter hop across the streets.

“What are they?” says Georgie.

“Crickets,” I say. You know that chirping sound you hear at night?”

“Yeah Daddy. They make me awake all night sometimes.”

“Well, not all night.”

“Yes Daddy. All night. I can’t sleep. It makes me cranky. Mommy says so.”

“Well if mommy says it …”

“It’s true,” she says. “and I’m going to kill these crickets. For keeping me awake.” She veers left, then right, back and forth, with little success.”

“Careful,” I say, anticipating an over-the-handlebars-accident in the middle of the street.

“Daddy! Just watch!” she says swerving and bearing down, head low over the front bars, focussing on the prey.

It happens. It always does. It’s only after the fact that you analyze it with silly observations like: without warning, or sooner than you think, or in the blink of an eye. Ridiculous. We know these things happen, yet we take some seeming pride in suggesting that we were surprised. That we couldn’t have imagined it. That the world has somehow caught us off guard. Like we’re blithe idiots swerving to and fro on the street looking for crickets to eradicate. Then the front wheel t-bones and we feel ourselves lifted head first over the bars, hands thrown forward to minimize the damage.

Georgie picks herself up without crying. That’s the most worrisome part really. Palms scraped, embedded with road grit, knees scudded too, and she stands up without a tear or a sob and berates the crickets for evading her, and causing this discomfort. She jumps after one that is running along the curb. She picks up the Barbie by the string and flails at it. Without success she picks up her white-wheeled, pink and tassled bike and gets back on. “Stupid crickets, “ she says. “Stupid, stupid crickets. If you didn’t live my life would be okay. I hate you.” She rides off without waiting for me, as though I’m not even there.

I am though. Right then I am no place else but with her in that stomping rage. In that sullen attention to constructing a world and then destroying it. Right at that moment I am in her head nodding my understanding and wincing with approval. I know her. I know myself. I don’t know the way out.

Rode 57 ks (the Rosetown loop). Wind was negligible. Averaged 31 kph.
Stopped to talk a former student riding his bicycle toward Plum Coulee, on the 201.

Autoharp

An autoharp is a curious instrument. It is strung in some semblance of a harp, but the strings are so close together as to be impractical for plucking.

You have to strum it, yet fretting it would be silly, since there is no fretboard.

So to play it you use a system of string-dampers, conveniently labelled according to key, which you simply press firmly, and then strum the strings. Thus you have, automatically, the sound of a small-scale harp - high and thin.

Again, MCC comes through. Margruite finds an Oscar Schmidt autoharp that is fully functional and, except for the one on the D minor damper, fully labelled.

It needed tuning, but the tuning key that it came with was too large, so I happened upon the realization that my bicycle-wheel spoke key (one to accommodate multiple sizes of spokes nipples) might work. And it did, at size 11.

Rode 32 ks today. All gravel, except for a half mile of concrete (past Green Valley), and one mile of dirt (the second mile south of Kleinstadt) . Though the dirt road was soft and muddy for about half of it, my quasi-cross baby loved the grass on beside the mud, and that worked just fine.