Description 26 - The Boo-Boo Box

Go inside the actual 2006 ballot of the key state in the U.S. elections...and why do I have that ballot? Fortunately, we have some Canadian rock from Danko Jones to help get our frustrations out.

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Click here to download directly and cut through any red tape.

Associated links:
Ashtabula County Board of Elections
Absentee voting info from the Ohio Secretary of State
votefromabroad.org
Overseas Vote Foundation
Margie Bort and Joe Pete (Jr.) at a county auditor meeting (sorry, you can't get the full effect of Joe's mustache in the photo....)
That photo came from The Star-Beacon.
Danko Jones: .com, .net and myspace!
Thanks to the Podsafe Music Network
And zefrank explains voting! (QuickTime)


the show with zefrank

Whew. Seriously, this is one of the very few shows I've done in the apartment totally off the top of my head. I didn't know what was going to happen or how much I'd be blathering when I got the iRiver rolling. It should be clear I'm not the most informed person about the local politics from where I grew up, and have no pretense to be some sort of pundit (what? like not being informed stops real pundits?). These days, I am paying more attention to the municipal elections here in Toronto, which will happen shortly after this U.S. whoop-de-doo. As usually happens (already my concerns about Michael Ignatieff's trajectory are coming to fruition), David Miller had good ideas when he got voted into the mayor's gig and not all of them have worked out. He's certainly screwed up at times. But having the ideas (himself or from others) and pulling off some of them is enough for me to vote him back in. And then there's the matter of finding someone to fill the councillor's seat Olivia Chow left when we sent her to Ottawa. Adam Vaughan seems a worthy successor. If he is not a Philosopher King, he definitely is a Philosopher Prince, with all the risks implied that I'm usually willing to take.

Okay, enough of that. Making an effort to do silly crap next time. Oh, man - I'd been intending to make a promo. We'll see if I ever do that.

Description 25 - Nuit Blanche

The city stays open all night for the sake of contemporary art, and lots of people actually show up! Including me! Enjoy music made with water, reading pieces of paper tied to tree branches, and learning how to walk the right way through fog. And remember: positive energy!

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Associated links:
Official Nuit Blanche Toronto site
Torontoist Does Nuit Blanche, Has Stories, Is Sleepy.
Spacing on Philosopher's Walk
An explanation of Taddle Creek
University of Toronto Faculty of Music
Bloor-Yorkville @ toronto.com
That carrot episode of "Good Eats"

The featured exhibits were: Carl Beam: The Whale of Our Being, Fog in Toronto #71624, Son(ic)ambulism, Hold That Thought, I Am Curious - Yorkville, Leif Ostlund and Raphael Montpetit @ Hollander York Gallery and One Garden One Night One Wish.

It's a long episode, but man, I cut a lot of stuff out. Sorry there are things I made reference to that ended up on the virtual cutting-room floor. After my first bit, I walked down bpnichol lane, where there was supposed to be something going on on the way to Sussex, but I must have been too late for it. In a nook of Yorkville, huge, inflated capsules were floating for Pharma©opia by Toronto art legends of the '80's General Idea. At the Royal Ontario Museum, there was some great work imported from the Nuit Blanche in Havana, Cuba - particularly the work of Carlos Garaicoa. Also, outside of the ROM in the contruction site for the Crystal, an interesting projection was being shown. And I didn't end up dragging my ass across the street to the newly renovated Gardiner Museum.

Again, that was just part of Zone A! There were two other zones with swimming and 10-year-olds DJ'ing and dramatic pup tents and cops dancing and whatever the hell. Once folks finally wiped the sleep from their eyes, it was determined about 450,000 people experienced this thing. That's pretty damn cool. But y'know, Montreal is having one of these deals next spring - they're supposed to be the artsy ones. That event just may have enough power to fortify all the overpasses in Laval. But for now, the art community of Toronto and the plain old shmucks like me can be kinda proud of what went down Saturday night.

Description 24 - King of Kensington

The King is dead; long live the neighbourhood. I try to figure out the significance of one of the only Canadian sitcoms anyone bothered with, then walk through the rain to get my haircut where it took place. Includes a globe on a chair 20 feet in the air, saffron-wasabi truffles and George Clooney's head used as graffiti.

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Click here to download directly because you'd rather serve yourself.

Associated links:
King of Kensington on Wikipedia
Remembering the King in Forget Magazine
Northern Stars bio of Al Waxman
"Welcome to Kensington" from the Kensington Market Community Site
Rice Bar Online
Shampoo Hair Studio in Toronto Life
Alchemy Baking (where the wierd shortbread cookies are)
Toronto Life's picks on Augusta.
Tom's Place
[murmur] in Kensington
Twitch City is coming to DVD!
Scenes from Twitch City on YouTube
(And here's how the whole series started!)
Photos and video of the Kensington Festival of Lights (for the winter solstice)
Corner Gas

Seeing those youtube clips of Twitch City reminded me how awesome it was to have two of (imho) the hottest guys in Canada, Don McKellar and Callum Keith Rennie, in the same show. I once saw McKellar's film direction debut, Last Night, and there's this one scene in an apartment building lobby that caused me to say, "All right - I've now seen everything I ever wanted to see in a movie. I don't have to see movies anymore." Yeah, I've gone on to see other movies since then. But mmmmmmmmm, that was sweeeet.

Oh, there's some noise during my blathering in the first part of the episode, which I think is some neighbour knocking his pipes for some reason. Or maybe the pipes themselves were knocking, as pipes can sometimes do. Whatever.

I think I've said pretty much everything I wanted to say in the episode, so I'll take some space for a Day Job Plug for something everyone can check out if they have broadband and QuickTime...uh, which I guess doesn't mean "everyone"...sorry.

This time last year, we were working our asses off describing dozens of films of varying lengths and types for the National Film Board of Canada, for a huge project of putting their catalogue online. That project is finally coming to fruition. We have a few films on their Focus on Animation site (specify "films + described video" and specify QuickTime as opposed to Flash), longer films on their Aboriginal Perspectives site (same deal with QuickTime spec; it's hit-and-miss finding the movies we did; try the films Riel Country and Incident at Restigouche).

That all sounds kind of hard, and it is, really. It's even harder getting into the motherlode, which is their CineRoute site, though, granted, it is a pilot project. To really get in there, you have to sign up for the NFB Film Club and get invited to CineRoute, blah blah. However, I got in and I have links that go straight to their embedded QuickTime Player - yay! So here are some examples of what I do for a living, one click away (I hope...). The first example is only one minute long.

For the described version of "Canada Vignettes: Faces" (if you lived in Canada in the '70's, you'll remember seeing this on tv), click here.

For the original undescribed version (to find out what we added), click here.

And here's more described fun stuff:
Neighbours (classic Norman McLaren, but a bitch to describe)
The Motorman (funny day in the life of a Montreal streetcar driver)
Adventures (a kid watches a racoon get into trouble - too cute!)
EyeWitness (a newsreel that would play in movie houses to keep folks up with the times).

Email me if you have any comments or questions on the NFB programmes and what the heck we do with them.

Another Cinderella Moment

So I crawl back into work after a fast and furtive Labour Day weekend in San Diego (for all I'm about to say, that's probably the thing you'll be most curious about. "Soooo, what about San Diego, hmmm? Winkwinknudgenudge saynomore?"), and there's a gmail from Sue Campbell, one of the producers of the big-deal CBC Radio extravaganza Sounds Like Canada. She wants to know if I'd be part of a panel on podcasting on the show the next day.

Yeah, that would be the national show hosted by the beloved (and well she should be) Shelagh Rogers, who I quoted in Description 6 and who I was too gutless to talk to at Podcasters Across Borders.

HOLY CRAP!

Uh, yeah, I can do that.

And so I did, with Shane from Shane and Tom's Squeezebox (the guys who did those wicked t-shirts at the conference!) and Tim from The Twisted Wrist. We talked with Shelagh about what we do in podcasting and why, and by all accounts, I kept my heart from pounding into my throat. Whew. You can find my recording of that half hour here. (Excuse the redundancy at the beginning for the benefit of the subscribers who didn't get to read this.)

Then after going off the air, we chatted some more, and that's ended up on the Sounds Like Canada Digital Extra podcast. Even before all this, it was my favourite of the new rash of CBC podcasts, so being on that is about as much of a thrill as being on the main show. Go here to subscribe or to download directly.

Thanks very much to the Sounds Like Canada folks and the Podcasters Across Borders guys for steering them my way. Also congrats to Shane and Tim for a great job.

Description 23 - Honest Ed's

So you say you want a digital clock with a 3D painting of the Last Supper? Follow me through a mansion of discount wonderment (founded by another American expat!) and listen to me whine about how heavy a bottle of bleach is. Also featuring wicked new music from The Supers, 40 cent espresso shots, and the return of Les Pierrafeu!

"The nicest people in the world click through this link: our subscribers."
Or click here to download if you'd rather serve yourself.

Associated links:
The Official (we guess...) Honest Ed's site
Mirvish Productions (the theatre stuff)
The Wikipedia listings for Honest Ed's and Ed Mirvish
These German guys did this cute site about Honest Ed's!
The Supers on myspace and Maplemusic
(and don't forget Graham Powell and Sho Mo and the Monkey Bunch!)
Peter Rukavina explains the Tim Horton's Iced Cappuccino
Ontario Science Centre

Sorry about the weird mic popping - this was the first time I'd clipped the lapel mic to my new snazzy and massive Swiss Army bag I got in Kingston when my old bag broke at Podcasters Across Borders, and it kept moving funny on the strap. Always something...

A good example of the Honest Ed's dichotomy cropped up when I was researching links. The mirvish.com site is about the productions running in their theatres, and it's very lavish and detailed. But the site for the Honest Ed's store itself? Just a basic thing connected to toronto.com, like hundreds of small businesses with barely enough coins to rub together to prop up an internet presence. I guess they figure no one going to Honest Ed's is impressed by Flash and Java. And they're probably right.

When I was first dreaming up what I'd talk about on a podcast, I considered a rant that I ended up doing this episode. I try to take a bag or bags with me when I'm shopping - a cloth one, a heavy nylon one, maybe recycling an old plastic one. I've been doing this for at least 5 years now. I have enough crap cluttering up my place, I don't need more plastic bags piling up here or in some landfill when it isn't necessary. Every once in a while, a store will search a bag if there's stuff in there already, and they're more than welcome to search or hang on to my bag at the front desk or inspect a receipt. The bigger problem is at the checkout, especially at Dominion down on Bloor. They start to check stuff out and immediately start running it into one of their own fresh bags, and I have to stop them and say, "That's okay, I brought my own bag," and set it down in front of them to use. Sometimes, most frequently at Dominion and at Honest Ed's during the soundseeing tour, the cashier takes out what may have been bagged in the new bag and continues checking stuff out...then won't put any of it in my bag. They just let it sit there. I haven't come up with a good way to actually ask, "could you put all that in my bag, please?" although now I've taken to asking right off "Could you use this bag, please?" But if I get this standoff thing happening, I'll just kind of get all passive-aggressively huffy and end up bagging it myself.

Okay, I realize this is not the end of the world here, but I just don't understand why i shouldn't have the same service as everyone else. One girl gave me the explanation that people who bring their own bags usually prefer to do it themselves anyway (read: they're picky difficult control freaks). Another said there'd been "trouble" and no one wanted to get involved with a bag someone had brought - like there had been stolen stuff in the bottom or something and God forbid a girl check it out first. I don't know...it still mystifies me. So that's why I got a little pissed there. People are just so locked into their routines supposedly for the sake of efficiency, any change is some provocation of the delicate balance of life - which of course explains a lot of damage we've done to each other and the planet (er, sorry, let me get this granola bar out of my mouth...ahem!). I don't want to make trouble, but just want to exercise some common sense. What am I missing here?

Btw, in the last couple weeks, Dominion has suddenly become more receptive to crazy me and my bags. One cashier even praised my wanting to help the planet. Er...okay. I don't want to be terribly cynical or anything, but could this change of heart have anything to do with the fact that Dominion is now selling their own re-usable bags?

You think I'm gonna buy one?

Description 22 - The Last Spike

Live (uh, a month a half ago) and direct from a VIA train from Kingston, I try to figure out what to say about what rail travel means to Canada. We also do a soundseeing tour of Toronto's Union Station with someone who knows what she's talking about, yet can't steal one of those neat goody bags with William Shakespeare's picture on it.

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Click here to download directly like you're curled up in coach to Winnipeg.

Associated links:
VIA Rail!
Official Kingston, Ontario website
The Last (Canadian) Spike in Wikipedia
Silver & Blue class on The Canadian from Toronto to Vancouver
Doors Open Toronto
Toronto Railway Historical Association (who took us on our tour, so support them!)
Ninjalicious (RIP) infiltrates Union Station
Steam Whistle at the Roundhouse
Stratford Express

Holy crap, was I zoned on the train. I must've had 8 hours sleep in the previous two days. And many of those awake hours were not always sober. But hey, to be in Tod Maffin's suite at 1am watching Shelagh Rogers play some crazy-ass card game? What the hell. Did I mention I didn't even talk to to her, even though I'm a fan and took something from one of her lockout podcasts for Description 06? Er...yeah.

(Update: March 30, 2007:When I go up the stairs into Union Station, a cute '80's song runs through my head, which pisses me off. The song is "Every Little Tear" by Paul Janz, and it runs in my head because much of the video was filmed in Union Station. So admire the architecture and try to get the hook out of your head. I'm sorry in advance.)


Some useless trivia: I recorded my own uneducated soundseeing tour of Union Station before I took a train to London to The Pursuit of Happiness' New Year's show last December, but somewhere along the line, I lost the file. So when I heard Doors Open snagged the station for the 2006 edition, I said, "hey!" Off the top of my head, I think I have at least 3 other Doors Open soundseeing tours, so we'll see if I can wring themes from them.

Since Taste of the Danforth came and went last weekend, I looked back and found that Description 01 (which featured Taste of the Danforth) was dated August 18, 2005. So I guess we can call it a year. YIKES. I gotta say, I have been from the depths to the heights in the last 12 months, and not much of it had to do with having a podcast. It had a lot to do with why I only squeezed out 22 episodes, though. I've gone from depression to having to finish this post quickly in time for a Yahoo Messenger video chat with my boyfriend in San Diego (!). I have a boyfriend! That's pretty f'd up. But I'm very thankful for the remarkable things that have come my way, and I'm thankful for you for bothering with this little dog-and-pony show I put on.

I'd be more thankful if you can tip me to any software where I can do video and audio chat from Mac to PC without Skype and without a frigging firewire cam (like iChat requires). :-)

Description 21 - Cleveland

It's the North Coast, it's the place Ian Hunter said rocks, it's where I was born - which I'll mention way too many times as I stumble around the debris of my lame-ass youth. Includes music by the Michael Stanley Band, a movie theatre that became a bakery, a life-size photo of Dan Marino and a band playing Outkast on an old freighter ship.

Click here to subscribe like you're on the Innerbelt.
Click here to download directly like you gotta take the 480.

Associated links:
Cleveland.com
University Circle
Cleveland Clinic (who took care of Mom!)
The Michael Stanley Band discography for download
The Cool Cleveland blog/podcast
PopMatters visits Cleveland Heights
Coventry Village
Cleveland Free Times
Cleveland Scene
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum
The Goodtime III

As I was recording the intro, it was early that morning, and saying the date, I realized it was my brother's 45th birthday. Mentioning that, my voice had a bit of melancholy to it because we haven't spoken for a few years. It's one of those long, stupid stories families have, unfortunately. When I was home, I only heard his voice on a voice message on my parents' cellphone giving a contact number in case of emergency, as he and his current wife were camping.

Editing, I noticed two main themes people might get from this episode: 1) I'm an old person obsessed with how things have changed or stayed the same, 2) no matter how significant certain places might be to me, they're not terribly distinct from places like them in many other towns. There are a lot of Coventrys out there, I suspect, just waiting for angst-ridden pseudo-intellectual kids like I was. I hope you had (or still have) yours.

The MSB track was taken from a greatest hits collection called Right Back At Ya', and the song was originally found on the album You Can't Fight Fashion, both of which you can find at the link on the list above. To give another idea of the band's popularity at the time, MSB eclipsed Bruce Springsteen to set the attendance record at the local major amphitheatre, Blossom Music Center, which holds a little under 20,000 people. And sure enough, classic rock station WNCX is still around and Michael Stanley is still on afternoon drive, God bless him and his rich, low voice.

Oh, and the mixtape? The song before the MSB track is "Breakin' My Heart (Pretty Brown Eyes)" by Mint Condition, and the song after is "Justifed and Ancient" by the KLF featuring Tammy Wynette. Those were the days, man....

Great Big Day Job Update!

So I was just perusing Boing Boing as I often do, and there's this story from Cory Doctorow about the National Film Board of Canada putting many of their legendary short films online for free. Of course, that's great news for most people, but for me, I had to go over there to see if any of my day job stuff was up there yet.

Y'see, starting last fall, in my day job - described video for the vision-impaired - we started doing A TON of work for the NFB, describing a big chunk of their catalogue. It was done for this huge online project they're undertaking. Well, it's finally coming to fruition, and it looks like they're starting with the animation. The hardest films to do, not surprisingly, were some of the legendary films of Norman McLaren. Considering his groundbreaking animation techniques and the utter lack of dialogue in them (much less linear narrative), you may wonder how the hell someone could describe it all for the blind. Well, we wondered too, as did the NFB and the McLaren estate, which is why we went through months of meetings and focus groups and yadda yadda. And in the end, we all decided to do a little more description than we usually do, adding a tiny line about the techniques used to give people an idea why this stuff is such a big deal. In the end, we're pretty happy with how it all turned out, and evidently so is everyone else - a movie or two showed at Cannes this year as they gear up for the release of a DVD box set of McLaren which will include our work, and now the films are starting to appear on this new part of the NFB/ONF website here (for the French, click "Francais" at the top).

When you go there, in the drop-down menu, select "films+described video" and you'll have your choices. Also select described video in the preferences when it asks you whether you want high-speed and all that stuff. (Note: this whole thing is Quick Time only.) Play what you want, and for the English versions, you'll hear me saying what's going on if you're vision-impaired (btw, I think the site is supposed to be accessible to screen readers, but i'm not sure), or if you just want to listen while you're surfing somewhere else or don't feel like looking. Neato!

Coincidentally, the website for my day job is alive and open to all. I wasn't directly involved in putting it together - way more patient people than me pulled it off. So head to www.audiovisioncanada.com for the final word on what the hell it is I do, with info other projects you can hear (on tv in Canada or VoicePrint online), how to buy more of it or have it done for your tv show or movie.

Okay, back to editing the Cleveland podcast. Ain't it amazing what you can learn by procrastinating?

Description 20 - NXNE '06 part 2

From my balcony, I offer the last Podcasters Across Borders review in the podosphere while trying to listen for race cars. Then it's time for Saturday night at North By Northeast, with music from Kate Schutt and Galore after we don't stand too close to Stewart Copeland.

Click here to subscribe and have your canary in a coalmine.
Click here to download directly if there's too much information.

Associated links:
Podcasters Across Borders
IndieCan
dicks&janes podcast
The Sniffer podcast
The Ottawa Local Podcast
Molson Grand Prix of Toronto
Official Stewart Copeland Site
stewartcopeland.co.uk
Interview with cbc.ca about Everyone Stares
Kate Schutt and at myspace (please check out her sites and buy stuff - I didn't ask her permission to record her!)
Crash Kelly
Galore and at myspace and buy the new album!

Hey, you see my Yahoo avatar? (On my blog, for those of you getting this from an rss reader.) Cute, eh? My thighs are just that small and my eyes are just that big. It does effect my balance as I walk down the street. :-)

While Kate Schutt was listed in the NXNE grid as being from Boston, I have learned she has been living in Guelph, Ontario. (Go ahead. Say "guelph". GWELF! Isn't it fun to say?) Perhaps another ex-pat then? The kismet just doesn't stop! Btw, Kurt Swinghammer joined Kate at the end of her set for a terrific cover of Sheila E's "The Glamorous Life." Just a wonderful thing to stumble across. I wonder if this is making up for not asking her permission yet....

Of course, I also didn't ask Stewart Copeland for his permission either, but I did give him lots of time to promote the movie, which for the record is titled "Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out". The Police was the band who changed how I think about music. I'd always been into just whatever was on K104 or FM96, maybe showing early signs of loving dense vocal harmony by digging Daryl Hall & John Oates (hey! don't judge!). Then I ran across The Police - I don't even remember how anymore - and they blew my mind. It was all these aesthetics mixed together and put out with such high musicianship (especially Andy Summers, who Copeland admits is the star of this movie). Sting was of course compelling and could write a hell of a song, and there was Stewie, all wiry and cute and jumping around and beating the crap out of a drum set. Man, it was awesome. And a couple years later, they gave me my primer on my favourite band breaking-up-but-not-quite-breaking-up, wisdom I'd use with The Pursuit of Happiness. I loved Sting's first solo album, bought the second one, then my interest started to trail off. I peek in on Andy's work and Stewart's work on scores (you can just tell...) and work with Oysterhead. People grow up and their loves evolve, and it's cool. But to see these guys jumping around on a snowy hill, to see Stewart at a big show playing his drums but chatting with his camera over his shoulder about how cool it is? I'm a giggling schoolgirl with a scoliosis brace again.

Description 19 - NXNE '06 part 1

We appreciate the 3 nights everyone comes to Toronto to rock and talk. Enjoy the distorted music of Stella Panacci, C'mon and White Cowbell Oklahoma - and the metal picnic tables of the new Pennsylvania Welcome Center.

Click here to subscribe like you have a wristband.
Click here to download directly like you're paying the cover in each club.

Associated links
North By Northeast official site
ChartAttack's NXNE video blog (with clips of C'mon and WCO! Also check out the legendary Report Cards
Stella Panacci
C'mon - The Official Site of Rock!
White Cowbell Oklahoma
Opening of the new Pennsylvania Welcome Center on I-90 at the New York line

Sorry much of the music is distorted, but you're only just supposed to get a feel for the stuff anyway. Hear that, lawyers?

The first time I saw the Cowbell, it was about 4 or 5 years ago at the Reverb (a club we'll visit in the next episode). There were 9 guys on the fairly large stage; most of them slinging guitars and wearing fu-manchu-ish mustaches and beat-up cowboy hats. One guy not slinging a guitar was dressed like a sheriff, wearing mirrored shades and toting a shotgun. The remaining guy was behind the keyboards: called "The Wizard," he was clean-shaven with a conical wizard's hat and cape, and wore a Washington Wizards (NBA) t-shirt. The Wizard was the only one allowed to play the titular white cowbell.

There was some wrestling match later - I can't remember who was in that one. Elvis, I think. Elvis and Santa Claus? Or did Santa Claus wrestle Satan later? They all glom together... So anyway, you can tell now that the Cowbell is the kind of rock show that could fit in just fine at a Fringe Theatre festival. The guys in Edinburgh should check them out. And if you're a long-time listener (seriously? God bless you, dude!) and find this Cowbell stuff familiar, in the 6 Ross episode, someone had just come from a White Cowbell housewarming party. Yes, the mind does reel. :-)

And yes, Mom is doing very well now, thank you.