Lots of snow

Snowy days in South River 

This is my dad. My mom took this picture to try to entice us to come up to visit them. It's the snowiest year since they moved up there in 1992.

I love snow and snowmobiling, so this is a good idea. They've got a nice place that's almost like a resort up there on the lake and it's really beautiful. And I can let the dog off the leash and she really likes that too.

Hope it doesn't get mild before I get up there.

Looking Upriver 

Dog and Ice Floes 

Becoming an Eye Person

Learning to See 

For years I have resisted working with visual images. I've always believed that it is too optimistic to think we can do everything well. I've been hesitant about venturing outside of audio expression because if I spend time on the pictures, will I still be able to do audio just as well?

I've had a change of heart ... I figure I've been doing audio now for over 20 years, so if I spend a little time learning something else, it won't detract from my sound work.

And so last summer I went out and bought a video camera. And yesterday I got a cute little Canon still digital camera. It's probably very simple by professional standards but to me it has gazillions of features and makes me ask "where do I start?"

And I answer, like I would tell anybody asking me how to get started in audio, you just go out there and do it. You learn by doing.

That's what I did today. I took pictures of tree bark (as you can see above), shards of ice piling up on each other, some of the historic buildings in Olde Sandwich Towne.

I even have a little 30 second video mode on my still camera and was able to get a sheet of ice on the river scraping the edges of another sheet of ice. The sound was also remarkable ... I am inspired to go down there again and get some more ice floe images.

It's a whole new experience -- I know what kinds of sounds I am drawn to because of all the years I've spent sound gathering. I've always used my microphone to try to hear beyond the obvious. To really work my eyes and see beyond the obvious is the next step.

And yes, there is a film in the works. It will likely take me about five years but it is happening. It's a theme I started working on back in 1999 as an audio documentary. The images are so stunning and startling that to do it in sound alone will only tell part of the story.

That, I think, is an important idea -- if you don't need pictures, don't use them. If you do, it doesn't honour the story to tell it halfway by leaving them out.

It's energizing to be exploring new ways of telling the story ... however it wants to be told.

Cheering on the Team

Do they look like me? 

These are my two adorable nieces Emily (the little one) and Elizabeth (the almost-a-teenager one).

My brother in law Mikey sent this picture and a note:

"In anticipation of the gold medal for hockey later today, my girls are pumped!!"

Maybe next year we'll get Elizabeth and Emily on the ice!

Go Canadian women, big and little!

The Language of Aggression

Oh no. I'm a warmonger.

After my last post about militarism and peaceful protest, this is a really ironic thing that I'm writing about.

For the past few weeks I have often caught myself using militaristic language. When I'm in a situation requiring me to be large and in charge, my language changes. Examples of recent turns of phrase that I've used -- "I'll just blow it out of the water", "subtle as a hand grenade", "pinging off problems one by one like ducks in a shooting gallery".

Hardly peacemaking and gentle words. I am trying to notice when I do this because it does reflect when I'm preparing to go to battle over something. They're very little battles, mind you. But my language shows when I am in a "power over" , rather than a "power with" mindset (these are phrases used by Starhawk , who is a really wonderful witch (pardon me, that's "Wiccan") from California who does really great social change work)

Fascinating. Good example of personal change through linguistic awareness. Goes to show how our mind affects our words and our words affect our mind ..

Why I'm Holding an Anti-War Sign

What good does it do? 


I went to a vigil a couple of nights ago. That's the soft word for a protest.

I don't do this an awful lot. My last public demonstration was in the volatile days of the Mike Harris Reformatories. (The Hamilton Protest was amazing .. the best in the province).

Partly my participation was about the need to do something, anything .. because the road ahead looked very scary (it was). And I had also hoped that large numbers of people would send a message that the the government had to listen to. (They didn't -- they just dismissed us as saying we were all little bad union members who were the puppets of our big bad union bosses.)

So, okay, back to Friday night and the picture above. And what were we protesting. Or vigilling. What we were doing. I didn't know. There was a military conference happening inside the Windsor Armouries. So we were there.

Now, I'm not usually a fuzzy thinker about these things and there I was anyway. Even though I wasn't clear on the agenda -- was it an anti-war conference? Or one of those funny ones where everybody says they're against war but then start talking about how we can stop war by giving more money to our armed forces and finally buy those new helicopters or whatever the army wants today ...

I didn't know. And I didn't spend the time to find out. Because, in the end, it wasn't about the conference and its agenda. It's about our agenda. And I think the the reasons why I went say a lot about my beliefs about why we go to demonstrations, and their value.

See, what happened was this -- Ann, a friend who organized the vigil, felt really strongly that there needed to be a presence at this event. She was getting a really lukewarm reception from others and whether or not we should be there. The reason why I went was because the thought of her standing outside in the snow, one person with a picket sign was brave. And committed. (And kinda sad too). So I went to stand with her.

I needn't have worried -- twelve other people came through. Maybe because they (unlike me) understood the agenda of the conference and felt the need to be there. or maybe, like me, they were there to support Ann. Or both.

I don't think it matters. Do the people we are trying to reach really care that we are standing out there with our "no war" signs and candles? Probably not. What protesting, or vigilling, or demonstrating, or whatever you want to call it, does is give us space to be with each other. And to support each other in the struggle.

Maybe we are just small voices calling out in the wilderness. But remember -- it's an old premise of the social empowerment movement that our voices get stronger when we put them all together. And being with people working together for a common goal helps make it easier when we get up in the morning all by ourselves and work yet another day for the good of the world and its inhabitants. The people around us who support us make it possible for us to keep on going, especially when we are tempted to say what the point?

So that's why I was carrying an anti-war sign. Even if I wasn't clear about what was going on at the conference itself.

(By the way, the picture above is me, and my friends Shawn Hupka and Mary Atkinson.)

Happy Valentine's Day everybody -- for those of you without sweeties out there, your best sweetie is yourself anyway. Go buy yourself some chocolates. Or whatever you want to do to show yourself how much in love you are with the person you are.

A Passage to India

I have been burying my nose in travel books and web sites trying to get a handle on my itinerary. My good buddy, Dave Kattenburg of Earth Chronicle Productions has just scored another grant. We've worked together lots of times before and last fall he asked me if I wanted to be part of his project. This time, he said, he'd really like me to do some of the international travel to gather material. In the past, it's been me doing a lot of the domestically focussed research and he's the one who's gone overseas.

I told him I thought I'd like to go to Asia. Part of the reason is that India has just now opened up the airwaves and I really want to meet some people who are trying to put community radio stations on the air. Also, because there are a lot of good environmental stories, especially in the Himalayas.

We just got the word last week that the application was successful. So it looks like I am going. Not until the fall -- my teaching gig isn't up until the end of April, and that's when the hot, hot summer starts in Southeast Asia. Followed by the monsoons. So it will likely be September or October before I shove off.

This will be a much different than any other experience I've had before. I've been to England alone, Holland alone, out to BC, to many of the States -- I think I am a more seasoned traveller than some. Anybody who has ever travelled to India has told me that none of the rules of the rest of the world apply there. They often invoke words like "overwhelming" and "chaotic".

While checking out hotel prices, I've noticed a few selling points that are unusual for North America -- cold AND hot running water, bacteria-free filtered water, a choice of air conditioned and air cooled rooms .. have to check out what the difference is.

I have also been told that despite the difficult conditions, there is also a vitality, energy and spiritual base that we just can't match here in North America. I have been told that there are 330,000 Hindu gods and goddesses. Even though India is a big country, that's still a lot of gods and goddesses per square mile.

And so my research continues. I have to start lining up some stories before I know for sure where and when I'm going. I hope to do some stories in Sri Lanka and Thailand too.

Some of this will also depend on what I have going on over here. If I don't have much happening, maybe I'll end up staying for a few months. I can write and edit just as easily from over there as I can from here.

Ah, yes, this nomadic lifestyle has it charms and its challenges. Overall, it's very cool.