Prescription for a Livelier Downtown

Welland's Amphitheatre in Merritt Park with IlluminAqua fire pods visible in the canal

  

It’s time for us to stop thinking of Welland as a hard-done-by industrial city.
We need to start moving forward as a picturesque canal city,
 putting our best recreational foot forward.

Click here to read my ideas in today's edition of The Tribune!

Blue Rodeo at Safari Niagara July 20, 2012

My favourite Blue Rodeo album is Casino. I had bought the cassette tape back in 1991 after falling in love with the black and white video of the guys playing Trust Yourself  in the snow. I still think that song is fabulous, and so different from anything else the band has created. As I played that tape endlessly, side after side, I would find myself singing What Am I Doing Here throughout my work day, and I lingered over the emotions of Montreal and After the Rain, the latter probably getting the most airplay in my little cassette player!

Although these and many other Blue Rodeo melodies became part of my soundtrack of growing up, I had never experienced a live performance of theirs - I was starting to feel like the only Canadian ever to utter such words! It just never ended up working out for me.

Last year, while we were enjoying a Sarah McLachlan concert, Greg Keelor appeared before us on stage - a complete surprise to us - to perform the haunting Dark Angel. Then this past May, I was a member of the open air audience at The Jim Cuddy Band's performance as part of the revered Illuminaqua Series in Welland. And at that time, I was already the proud owner of tickets to see Blue Rodeo perform at Safari Niagara.

It was a neat venue, spread out like a huge grassy bowl that offered a fine view from any angle. The calm air was warm and comfortable on that Friday night, mercifully less humid than on its surrounding days.

It was a fantastic show, as masterful and satisfying as I expected it would be. I enjoyed hearing Greg Keelor's unique raspy voice and harmonizing. And Jim Cuddy's still got it: that great head of hair and that unbelievable vocal range. He repeatedly rendered us spellbound not only by hitting those high notes we're used to hearing in songs like Try, but by surpassing them!

I think my favourite performance of the night was delivered when he snuck back to the piano and weaved his melodic mastery on After the Rain. He didn't just sing it, he used his voice as an instrument and delivered a solo performance that was no less mesmerizing than the guitar solo on Diamond Mine or the unexpected piano solo on Five Days in May. I don't know if it was this expression of talent, the syncopated lighting that accompanied it, or my sheer love of that song, but I was quite certain I never wanted it to end!

But eventually, of course, it did. The band finished the evening with the romantic Lost Together that lingered nicely in our minds as we lay back onto the grass relaxing contently as the herd of people filtered out into the parking lot.

Cape Spear, Newfoundland

I have navigated the barren mass of rock and grass that blankets Canada's most easterly point many times, but it's always been from the predictable and secure path of the boardwalk, Perched safely removed from the Atlantic Ocean's precarious activity, it is still an awesome view of an uninhibited natural setting . And with two small, fearless children to govern, predetermined safety is a desireable quality! I assumed this responsibility so obviously, as parents tend to do, that it didn't even occur to me to venture beyond the wooden railing.

But if you look across the middle of this photograph, you may discern a jaunty pathway that appears to be protected by a railing. During my visit this spring, I secured the opportunity to visit Cape Spear with my one son, who is now old enough to understand the capricious nature of the ocean and respect its potential force. It became less about keeping two curious little sets of feet away from danger, and more about exploring the craggy skirt of the cape. There was a trail where we hiked, but there were no barriers. It was safe, but you still had to step with so as to avoid being tripped by a delinquent branch  I was excited to be able to get a refreshing view of a familiar location, and he was thrilled to be given the trust and freedom to go somewhere a little more extreme. Plus he was getting to go somewhere that his little brother hadn't so I'm sure he thought that was cool!

On Jazz

There was a time when I liked the idea of jazz more than the music itself. To my untrained and mostly unexposed ear, it always sounded like a disorganised explosion of notes coming from a collaboration of spirited musicians all wanting to do their own thing in spite of one another. Everything I heard as a child, from my Mom's easy listening to my Dad's classical, made melodic sense to my ear. And I understood and appreciated music in general, even spending many years as a piano student with the Royal Conservatory of Music.

In my twenties, I made several concerted attempts to get excited about jazz because to me it was the soundtrack of the charismatic urban existence that decorated my dreams upon moving to Ontario from Labrador just after high school. But I was too much of an ingenue who fell into a state of awe at the turn of every new corner to take any of it seriously. And this was before I even made it outside of Welland's city limits! And just as I couldn't picture myself finding my way around any city with a population greater than the 12,000 back home, I also couldn't properly navigate this complex musical genre. I kept getting tripped up in the mosaic of seemingly unrelated sounds set to a seemingly arbitrary beat that my foot just couldn't seem to follow.

This curious mystification simmered inside of me and has only approached maturity recently. I found myself increasingly seeking out 91.1 Jazz FM, easily intrigued by Ella Fitzgerald and Emilie-Claire Barlow, Oscar Peterson and Frank Sinatra. But it wasn't until I joined the audience of a Ravi Coltrane concert at Brock University several months ago that I learned to really love the style of jazz I mentioned above.

I became drawn in by the passion of the performers, their obvious rapport, their confidence and masterful manipulation of the instruments, their ability to interpret the music as it was being woven. The musician who really made an impression on me was the young man who pivoted on his heels as he danced with his double bass, his raven dreadlocks falling parallel with the strings that were being devoured by his fingers like five-legged spiders. During the post concert interview and question period, his quiet manner free from arrogance was appealing and further revealed himself as a dedicated musician.

During this same interview, Ravi Coltrane talked about how "jazz is not about imitation". He acknowledged that borrowing the standards and learning them note for note, and striving to play in the exact same style as one's idol is an important step in learning the genre. But that eventually, a musician should be courageous enough to venture out on his own to craft something that nobody has ever heard before, trusting that his own voice and ingenuity will resonate with and captivate the audience.

These days, I listen to jazz because I love its intricacies and I believe it is some of the best music for dancing, etc. Even amidst the standards, I frequently pull something new out of it...  and I still become entranced by Coltrane's air of sophistication, even if my foot doesn't always find the beat.

Harbourfront Centre's Crayon Box of Kayaks in Toronto

On the waterfront in Toronto, rows of kayaks are tethered impatiently to their network of metal sleeves. How torturous it must be for them to look out onto the luminous water, aching to be set free to make love to the lake but too often find themselves taunted by each flippant wave that slides up against the edge of the pier.

And here they must wait as the days are long in this hectic city that doesn't take summers off. There are many tasks that must be completely crossed off before the list is cleared down far enough to allow the line "free time to do that which makes one feel truly alive" to be up next.

But when that time comes, they are ready. Kayaks, like so many other instruments of passionate, leisurely endeavours, are used to being put on the side burner, kept warm and lovingly in mind until the time is afforded them. The good thing is when they have been listed as the main event of a sultry, Sunday afternoon, they will inarguably become the best part of the week - or longer - enjoyed wholeheartedly, unabashedly, and thoroughly, free from the clouds of responsibility or the wind of time. From the cleansing deep breathing to the repetitive physical exertion to the occasional splash of lake water, everything always comes alive on the waves.