Description 30 - Tim Horton's

Finding a Canadian institution where I least expected it, I follow its history and the life of its namesake as I drive back to Toronto after the holidays. Features music by Memory Bank, a mic that will never be the same, and a kid dressed like a jelly bean.

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Associated links:
Tim Horton's the place (a vastly-improved site, btw)
Tim Horton the man (a very good biography @ about.com)
Quaker Steak and Lube
Grimsby, Ontario
Memory Bank @ myspace
Timbit Minor Hockey does good in Erie
Sydney Crosby Timbits commercial on YouTube

Okay, so why'd it take a whole frigging month? Uh... To be honest, I think it's because I've been in Second Life too much. My best friends there now are in Europe, so when I get home from work, there's a short time before they sleep, so we hang out...and then when they're gone, I hang out some more. Sheesh. Sorry. So if you're there and see Valerie Bethune...
...you can say hi and ask what the hell I'm doing there instead of doing a show. And then I'll probably mute you. :-)

This episode marks the début of the GarageBand I got for Christmas. I've started out by just using it for the mixing (which is the main reason I wanted it) and will eventually learn more about editing and the EQ settings. So far, it's much easier in a few ways than Audacity, but based on what little I know, there's way less control over the formats for export. I'll keep futzing.

The location where I started the episode was about half a mile up the street from where three years ago, a man went through a horrible experience you might recall. He was the pizza delivery man who got attached to a bomb by someone who then forced him to attempt to rob a bank on Upper Peach Street in Erie. Later caught in a standoff, with no one having any idea how to defuse the bomb, with cops and media watching, the bomb went off and the guy was killed. It's odd to drive by some place where you know someone has been blown up. But if you're doing that, it's nice to drive into Tim's, get some coffee and donuts and head back up to Canada.

Description 29 - le défilé du Père Noël

In Montreal, Santa Claus has roadies and a secretary, but I learn the guy works hard to entertain at his big downtown parade. Enjoy not-exactly-festive music from Loco Locass, along with face-painting, more mouth-noises than ever and someone twirling long socks like nunchucks.

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Associated links:
défilé du Père Noël
The official site of Père Noël
where he hangs out in Quebec
Loco Locass
Complexe Desjardins
Radio Énergie
Viva Marina! (Orsini, that is...)
Wikipedia on Annie Brocoli (that woman in the parade everyone knew but me)

Seriously, sorry about the mouth noises. I should've had some water sitting around.

The little hymn at the start of the episode was something I recorded at the Centaur Theatre while seeing a play called "Assorted Candies," the English version (translated by Linda Gaboriau) of the Michel Tremblay play "Bonbons Assorties". It's a funny and often melancholy collection of remembrances M. Tremblay has about being a kid at Christmas when his family was poor. You can find a book version here.

I mentioned a show Marina Orsini was in called "The Last Chapter / Le Dernier Chapitre". It was a miniseries about biker gangs in Ontario and Quebec, and Marina played the steely wife of the ambitious Ontario leader (Michael Ironside). I guess it should go without saying that our old pal Roy Dupuis was in it too. Actually, it was two miniseries - four, if you count the sequel - because they filmed in both languages simultaneously. Okay, obviously, it wasn't completely simultaneous, but they would film a scene in one language, then do the same scene in the other language, and on they went down the line. Freaking wicked. Granted, a couple of the Anglos who couldn't quite get their pronunciations down like me :-) had stunt-French-talkers who were dubbed in for them. But still, I think it was a great achievement, and I wish more tv shows and movies were done that way. Yes, I know it's a pain in the ass to make any domestic piece of entertainment in English Canada, much less twice in two languages, but a gal can dream.

Guess that's all the stuff I'll put on the podcast from Montreal for now. I have my perspective, but there are plenty of podcasts and blogs based in Quebec where people actually know what the hell they're talking about. I think #1 for me is Vu d'ici (Seen From Here), but there's also BandeÀpart (part of Radio-Canada), the legendary in over your head, Quebec en Baladodiffusion, and if only in retrospect if they don't get their crap together :-) The Bob and AJ Show. And of course there are others, but that's as far as my brain's going right now.

And while trying to figure out that Loco Locass song, I decided to bounce it off a friend of mine in Second Life who happens to be French (like, French French). Of course, he couldn't get a lot of local references, but got that while Quebec has been accused of fascism and censure in the past, plenty of those accusers would do well to check out the skeletons in their own closets. But my friend found another possible very cool reference. The title, "La censure pour l'échafaud," reminds him of a Nouvelle Vague film from the '50's called Ascenseur pour l'échafaud, which can be translated to "elevator to the gallows" or "elevator to the scaffold". Louis Malle's first feature film, it's about a guy who plots with his lover (Jeanne Moreau, of course) to kill her husband (his boss), and while the murder does happen, something gets messed up and stuff really starts to unravel. And it happens to have an amazing soundtrack by the late Miles Davis. Doesn't get much cooler than that.

Description 28 - Mode d'emploi

Finally, I get into why Canada has two official languages, yet many of us (including me) suck at least one if them. Featuring great music with sub-par sound quality by Mes Aïeux, tasty new cookies, and a church that became a mall.

Cliquez ici et abonnez!
Cliquez ici et téléchargez!

Associated links:

That convention-fresh Liberal Party
CBC Archives: "The Road to Bilingualism"
Wikipedia takes on bilingualism in Canada
Parlez-Moi with Sol (from the Rick's TV site)
Histori.ca on the October Crisis
The Rocket/Maurice Richard now on sale on DVD
I first discussed that movie and some of this stuff in Description 16.
MusiquePlus
Mes Aïeux Official Site (in four languages!)
"Dégénération" video on YouTube, a great homemade video with old home movies, and another cool homemade one with family memorabilia.
(Update: March 30, 2007: now you can see the original video with English subtitles!)
Farewell to the Montreal Forum
The Bell Centre
Guide de la Petite Vengeance (no matter the language, it's an excellent movie site!)
Schwartz's Montreal Hebrew Delicatessen

This is an episode I've wanted to do ever since started thinking up what I could do on a podcast. The French/English thing has been a source of fascination for me. Hasn't helped me pronounce any better, mind you.

Something I probably won't have a chance to mention on these Montreal episodes is another way I would try to learn French: watching La Fureur on Radio-Canada (that's the French CBC-TV). There are versions of this show all over the world, where celebrities/media personalities compete in teams based on gender in games based on music. The defining game is where they play a popular song and everyone sings along, then they stop the music for a short time but the team must keep singing the song so that when it comes back on, they haven't missed a beat. Actually, every answer in every game is some sort of pop song, which everyone then sings for a few bars. So everyone can do that on the show and watching the show, they have the lyrics running at the bottom of the screen like for karaoke. For me, that means I can hear what the words on the screen are supposed to sound like. Makes sense...but then pop songs have a lot of slang and stuff, and lyrics can have a ton of contractions to the point I'm asking "what the hell words did they just smush together? How the hell would I know that from hearing someone?" Still, it's fun to sing along like I know what I'm singing. After all, isn't that what everyone around the world does with English pop songs?

In researching the links, I was amused to learn that the guy who wrote the movie The Rocket (en Français, Maurice Richard) also wrote the movie I saw in this episode, Guide de la Petite Vengeance. So thanks, Ken Scott, who is way more French than his name suggests. Btw, the plot to that movie goes like this: This guy is an accountant at a fancy jewelry store, and his boss, Vendome, is kind of a dick. Not a total asshole, but one of those guys who says subtly nasty things and is super-passive-aggressive and who doesn't really yell at you, but is never really satisfied with anything you do. One of those bosses, who, if you're a generally good person, veeerrry sloooowly sucks out your soul.

C'mon! Who can't relate to that?

So our put-upon hero, Bernard, happens to meet a guy whom he replaced at the shop several years ago. Robert totally understands his pain, and ropes Bernard into a plan for a little vengeance: stealing just a couple small trinkets from the jewelry store. Of course, that's not all there is to the movie - there are all sorts of twists, some I saw coming and some I didn't, and those kinds of movies are rare. And it says some nice things about love and letting your life kind of slip away from you when you're busy working. So if you have a chance, check it out.

Oh, btw, when I was talking about that Maurice Richard movie when I saw it, I was speculating about how well it would do in the box office in English Canada. It did well, but not well enough to really be a big deal. (Though then again, we're not good at making anything a big deal.) But a few months later, a movie that really fits this subject came out: Bon Cop, Bad Cop is a prototypical buddy cop action movie, only the crime in question happens on the Ontario/Quebec border so one cop is Anglo while the other is Francophone. Violence and hilarity ensue. Not being a big violent action movie-type person, I didn't happen to see it, but it has become the highest-grossing domestic film in Canada ever, beating out even Porky's (yes, that movie was done in Canada). Still, most of the money was made, quelle suprise, in Quebec.

Description 27 - Doodlescription!

Okay, so what's this "movies for the blind" thing? I finally explain and demonstrate with help from one of the hottest bands to come out of Canada - just ask your four-year-old nephew. Don't let the kid listen in, though, unless you want him to learn some nasty language.

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Pull the Rope and download direct!

Associated links:
AudioVision
VoicePrint Canada (our sister company, where you can hear some of our stuff)
The Canadian Government tries to explain what I do.
The BBC explains how to get it in the UK.
What the heck is SAP?
The Official Doodlebops Site
Together Forever, the best Doodlebops fansite

For video examples of described video we've done for the NFB, scroll down to the end of the listing for Description 24.

Could've put this up earlier, but I was on my holiday in Montreal, where I racked up enough audio for probably three shows. I did do most of the editing for this episode (what? there was editing?) on the VIA train when I should've been listening to my Fodor's French For Travelers on my nano. Yeah, that would've made a ton of difference. :-)

Props to The Doodlebops: Lisa J. Lennox plays pink-haired keyboard player Deedee with a voice like a bell, Chad McNamara plays Rooney the blue-dreadlocked guitar gearhead with that touch of musical theatre flair, and Jonathan Wexler plays the impetuous breakdancing drummer Moe, whose hair colour has always been a source of frustration for me (is it red? orange? red-orange? How can there be so much Doodlebop trivia, yet no one's settled on this?!). The legendary Jackie Richardson plays manager Jazzmin. You didn't get to hear John Catucci as Bus Driver Bob, which is a drag, because my favourite part is when he comes out at the end of the Get On the Bus song with "Hey! Yeah! We're gonna take a bus ride!" Frickin' hilarious. Really. Okay, so maybe you have to be there.

Anyway, on the rough DVD version I get of the show initially, when the band first performs the featured song for the episode, they sing it live on set to a very minimal backing track while doing their dancing, and it's very impressive. Now those three kids have been touring their colourful little asses off for months with their wigs and makeup and oversized fingers, so God bless them.

I've learned that when I get back to work Monday, I have to start describing this year's edition of Stars On Ice. Yes, for the first time, we describe figure skating for the vision-impaired.

So you wonder how the hell I'm gonna do that?

I'm wondering too. Stay tuned...

Epilogue to the Epilogue

So I emailed our Board of Elections friend Katie with that bit from the Ohio Voter Information site linked in the previous post, and here's the reply I received:

Ok Valerie,

Please vote for the Federal Offices.
Thank you for your concern.
Also, I am sorry for the confusion!

Have a great day!

So when I got my big manila envelope for non-service people that she'd promised, I took my big ballot and only filled in the little SAT circles for the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House, and off it goes via courier to Jefferson. Will it also meet the fate of the Boo-Boo Box? Only time will tell...or maybe not.

But if you have been properly warned by my little tale of intrigue, and you're a U.S. person who'll be in the U.S. voting on Election Day and you happen to have a video camera, the fabulous Arthur Masters tipped me to something you may want to consider doing, a little something called Video the Vote.

Yes, here's another embedded video. I promise, no more for the rest of the year.

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.

Click here to subscribe and get on the list.
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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Click here to download directly for a more immediate expression.

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?