Canopy Glow - Anathallo album cover

I recently discovered Anathallo, a band of musicians who seem to love making a joyous cacophony. I was really impressed by what I thought was the photo on the cover of their latest album, Canopy Glow.

So memorable was the cover art, that when my little bro and I saw the opportunity to attempt a recreation, we seized the moment.

The album image was lingering in my mind and I wanted to find out who the photographer was, so I did my best search engining.

I got more than I bargained for.  His name is Tim Lowly, except what I thought was a photo is a painting.  No way!

This review of his art exhibition tells more about his painting.  There are a few details that make the story very poignant: the model in the painting is the artist’s only child, Temma, who has been physically and mentally disabled since birth.  She’s now 14.

I kind of feel guilty about making a parody of the image now that I realize how serious the subject-matter was.  And yet, it really wasn’t out of mockery that we made this photo, but because the painting was so powerful and memorable that we wanted to recreate it.

Anyways, I can only say that I am truly inspired by this painting and the story behind it.  Take a look at Tim Lowly’s site to find out more and see his other artwork. I think it’s worth the clicks.

I saw 2 things on my way to work this morning.

1 – A cute little Asian girl walking to the metro with her mom.  The little girl was marching and saying: “I’m a marching band! You too, Mama.  You too!  Tap your feet!” So bossy, haha.  And the mom was like, “No…” But the little girl kept on marching and insisting and finally, as a walked past, I heard the “thud, thud” of Mama-feet marching with her kid behind me.  Hehe!

2 – Then, in the metro, an little Asian mom with 3 small boys got on the train at Lionel-Groulx.  I thought, “How does she do it?  That must be intense…3 hyper little boys to watch.” There was 1 baby in a stroller who was calm, but the 2 others were constantly moving: Karate-chopping each other, making sound effects, opening their mouths like baby birds for the bits of fruit she would pop in. All the people sitting around were watching and kind of enjoying the circus.

So the train pulls in to the stop the woman has to get off at and she quickly gathers all her scattered bags together and reaches down to unlock the stroller, yelling at her other 2 boys all the while.  They’re still in their own world, making crocodile mouths with their hands or something. So she pushes the stroller out the door and turns around to grab her little boys. And one of the little boys tripped and fell, so he’s lying there on the floor of the train and the stroller has just rolled out onto the metro platform! Just as the train doors began to close, a man who looked like a lumberjack jumped up from his seat and stuck his boot in the doorway. The mom grabbed her fallen boy by the arm and dragged him out of the train, the other one following. The man took his boot out and the doors snapped shut. Everyone looked at each other and laughed.  What an adventure!

I’ve had a raccoon visitor 2 nights in a row!  This is very surprising since I live in a 3rd-floor apartment in the middle of a big city!

I have two bags with my recycling in them on my porch.  Last night I heard strange noises and I thought it was bad guys.  It was the raccoon trying to open the my recycling bag.  Who knows what he wants in there…there certainly isn’t any food.  So I scared him away.

And then tonight, he came back.  This time, he came a lot earlier in the evening and the light was on in the kitchen and everything.  I chased him away again.  But he seems persistent.  Imagine, climbing all the way up to my balcony!  Maybe there was something shiny inside the recycling.  They like the bling, right?

Well, I’ll certainly take care not leave the patio door open in the future.  I might end up unwillingly adopting a raccoon.

P.S. You get a gold star if you can tell me what movie I quoted in the title of this post!

…suddenly. And with all the subtlety of a slap from a dishtowel, heavy with hot dishwater.

In June, after a May sodden with rainy days, we Montrealers are greedy for the sun. We read on our front porches and we gather in terraces. We soak it up as soon as it pokes its big head out from behind the clouds for 15 minutes.

So today, with temperatures in the 30s and sun enough to give us all skin cancer, we rushed outside.

I decided to ride my bike to the Lasalle library to pick up a card. It was a scenic ride along the river, of about 18 km (I checked Google maps). It was fun.

But frankly, I think summer’s advances were just a little too much, too soon. We haven’t had time to become acclimatized to the weather, like the frog in the story, who was boiled alive very slowly.

Just look at the bikini-clad corpses littering the park like it’s a beach! Everyone’s out buying ice cream cones and slurpies and setting up neon-green beach umbrellas on picnic tables. There were even people swimming in the muddy Saint-Lawrence! Clearly, this sudden summer weather has gone to our heads. We can’t take the heat!

This is one impressive series of photographs. “La Chute”, a book by French photographer Denis Darzacq, contains photos of people froze in mid-fall. They seem to be eerily floating in air that is somehow thick enough to support them. They look like embalmed creatures drifting in viscous fluid. There is a feeling of peace and contentment that contrasts strongly with the settings: grocery store aisles, concrete jungles, packed storerooms…

I went to the bank on my lunch hour. As I stepped outside, the outside smelled! After a long winter of frozen streets and trees, I was surprised. It wasn’t a recognizable smell; neither good nor bad, it was subtle. I felt the subconscious memories associated with these smells grip my chest with emotion. It was hardly subtle, this unrecognizable emotion, but I think it was more good than bad.

Pros:
Their clothing is made in L.A., not China (I’ve recently decided to boycott Made in China products).

Cons:
The inherent oddity of the clothing in question.

I ventured into an American Apparel shop for the first time last week to purchase a plain white tee to go with an outfit I had. Is anyone else leery of AA shops? There’s just something about them that gives off creepy vibes. All those sparkly leggings and multi-coloured jersey shorts! Bathing suits to wear over your clothes! Freaky. Who actually buys this stuff? It didn’t help that the cashier was way too cool to even acknowledge my presence. No greeting or eye contact, she just took the shirt and my credit card. I left the store with a distinct feeling of relief. Mais ils sont fous, ces Romains!

What The Onion has to say about American Apparel.

[Photo: Banff Lake Louise]

As a translator, I’m always googling bits of sentences to see how they’ve been translated by others. The results I get and the pages I end up on often make for interesting discoveries.

This morning, I was looking for the English word for “glacière” (which I found out is “cooler”) and I landed on this site about the ICEBOX, an igloo-building kit. The site goes into a lot of detail and makes it look fun to camp in a giant snow shelter.

The catch is, the kit costs about $200. It really wouldn’t have to. You can make your own igloo-building tools out of almost anything, as Matthias Wandel has demonstrated on another randomly-found page.

Too bad I didn’t find out about this at the beginning of winter, when I still felt like enjoying the snow. Maybe next year.

So I don’t watch TV that much. But the few times I’ve seen (or rather heard) the new Macbook Air ads, they just make me want to grin and do a finger dance. No, not this one! The happy pointy-finger dance you do when you’re just having fun.

The reason for all this glee is Yael Naim’s catchy tune “New Soul” which absolutely makes the ad for me. I don’t care that the Macbook Air can fit in an envelope. I’m just enjoying the muze! So, for your listening pleasure, here’s “New Soul”:

Oh yeah, I went out and bought her CD at HMV for $11.99 and I’m enjoying most of it. A lot of the songs are in Hebrew with little bits of French thrown in. It’s always harder for me to connect with a song if I don’t understand the lyrics. But the sound is really enjoyable. All but the cover of “Toxic,” which I simply can’t dissociate from Britney. But overall, it’s a pleasurable new music discovery!

Actually, Yael Naim’s music and especially this video remind me of a movie I recently watched called, “Once.” It tells the story of an immigrant girl who meets a busker. He plays a guitar that is literally worn through on the streets of Dublin. She studied piano for many years, but now she cleans houses. During her lunch break, she plays the pianos in a piano shop. They develop a friendship and undertake the ambitious project of recording a CD together. I love the idea of strangers coming together to create. Throwing out little strings of friendships that might create some ties but could just as easily rip, leaving just the ragged ends of memories.