My new podcast and blog

A Gypsy in Kashmir .. heading 300 miles south to winter grazing grounds

I am very excited. I've been trying to find a way to combine travel, listening and tourism. Lots of people do photography but I haven't found anyone who takes sound pictures like I do.

So I have started a new blog and will be doing a new podcast ... I won't be announcing the name until I get the domain name registered (it's competitive out there). It will be a place where I can post my sound art from different places and also my journalistic pieces I've done. I've got enough pieces done to keep me going for at least a couple of months. Soundwalks in Nairobi, temple bells in Kathmandu, falcons on the tundra ... listening to my sounds brings me right back there.

The whole idea being that you don't just have to take your camera .. sound recording devices and editing program are inexpensive enough and easy enough that you can bring home your memories in sound. And add them in a slideshow presentation to your photos .. maybe even do some poetry around it ...

I'll let you know when I get some content up ... I'm so excited. Especially about getting enough traffic to my site to get free trips ...

Current blog count:
this one -- Heading to Central Blissville
Sound Out Media - my tips and tools blog
My non yet announced blog and travel and sound

Podcasts:
The House of Sound and Story - (which I really need to do more frequently)
The Green Planet Monitor (a project of Earth Chronicle Productions -- new series coming starting in September)

I know that sounds like an awful lot of podcasts and blogs .. but believe me, I know people who have 10!

My Next Mode of Transportation

I'm going to move somewhere next year at this time.

It will probably be a city. I really want to move to Nova Scotia but I don't want to buy a car. Partly because of the expense, mostly because I had one small accident, the first and only in my entire 25 years of driving. And the insurance companies want to charge me extortionate rates.

The damage to the car was around $8000. The book value of the car was only $6000. So they wrote it off. The person who hit me only got a scuff on her bumper. So this is justification to charge me $5000 a year in insurance?

I'll stop ranting now. I will rent cars. And live in cities. I will not own my own car as long as the insurance companies want $5000 a year from me.

If I did move to Nova Scotia, I think I would buy a horse. It would be less than an hour to ride to Digby to get groceries. Of course, Superstore doesn't have a hitching rail, so that's something I'd have to lobby for.

Overall, in rural areas, it makes a lot of sense. Still haven't ruled out the idea.
But I think I will continue to be a city dweller. Maybe Toronto. Maybe Ottawa. Leaning towards Ottawa ... where for sure there is no place to hitch your horse ..

Lessons in Patience

Trying to slow down for a good look around


The other day a friend of mine and I drove past a garden shop. They were advertising Impatiens for .69 cents. My friend said "you sure don't need any of those. You're already impatient enough".

I have never been known for my patience. I attribute it partially to my background working on current affairs shows. I could often get three stories chased down and written in the time it was taking others on the show to finish one. My secret ... know when it's not going to happen and move on to the next one.

It is very useful to know when to cut and run. But to live a truly balanced life, one must also have the capacity to sit and wait. And I'm not good at that. Especially right now. The last three years in my life have been one of those phases where growth took place slowly, (if at all, sometimes it seemed .. things moved so slowly for a while there that I think they were actually going backwards).

And now things are just bursting wide open. All kinds of exciting possibilities. Great things happening .. it's kind of like Christmas. So much to open, so much to be excited about. I want it all. NOW.

I am very consciously trying to slow myself down, telling myself that everything still takes time even when time is travelling at a dizzying pace. So much value in slowing things down a bit.

So I try to meditate (never have been very good at it), try to live in the moment, try to tell myself that some things are still going to take their sweet time. And not drinking as much coffee ... I am like a madwoman on four cups of coffee in the morning.

Ah yes, this quest for patience.

The biggest challenge is that I want more patience NOW.

The Richness of the Question

In my last post, I wrote a bunch of notable statements that I heard at the Deep Wireless Festival. One of them is staying with me.

It's from Chris Brookes presentation "Making it Rain". He told a story about a snake .. can't remember what the snake connection was, but this snake asked the question "Why would you destroy the richness of the question with the poverty of an answer?"

Maybe it's because I ask questions for a living. Or maybe I ask questions for a living because it's something I've always done. Journalists are the answer seekers. In my art, which is not always journalism, I am always an answer seeker.

In my personal life, I also ask a lot of questions. And I'm always looking for answers. Life is a mystery to be solved. Ambiguity is just something to be contended with, not something to be enjoyed like a foggy day.

The reason why I am drawn to Chris's (and the snake's) question is that maybe, finally, I am starting to enjoy the questions. For the first time in my life, I am starting to relax with the idea of mystery .. of not needing to know the answers to everything.

It's slow growth, though. I have to remind myself to be patient. I have to remind myself that not knowing what I'm going to be doing every minute of the day tomorrow is good. That there is a lot of life in the unpredictability, because then I am open to the possibilities I wouldn't see by requiring everything to conform to a predictable path.

Don't expect instant patience from me right away .. but I'm planning to be around this world for a lot longer ... so I do have some time to work on it. Another good thing that happens with patience is accepting that I am a work in progress.

I am the richness of the question. I am not the answer.

Deep Wireless

This weekend was the annual gathering of the Tribe of Radio Producers.

The Radio without Boundaries conference is part of the Deep Wireless Festival, presented by an intrepid group called New Adventures in Sound Art.

I started this conference until it was passed on to the capable hands of Nadene Theriault Copeland and Darren Copeland. So naturally I feel a bond to this event that goes deeper than other events with which I am involved.

Hard to describe what happens when people get together united by a common passion for the work they do. Sound people are a rare breed, radio people even rarer. Add artist to the mix and it's truly an adventure in every sense of the word.

In addition to being the radio art deejay streaming on line to Free103.9, occasionally running two mixers at a time, I got to reconnect with people whom I haven't seen in a long time. And meeting people for the first time who have either known me or vice versa through the radio listserves I am on. It's a great community.

Here are some of the best quotes from the weekend:

"Radio is a process art, rather than a product" -- Tetsuo Kowgawa, visiting artist from Japan.

"The role of the producer is to ask clarifying questions. The producer is a fresh set of ears" - Neil Sandell, Senior Producer, CBC Radio's program "Outfront"

"A radio producer is only a radio producer if somebody tunes in" -- Christopher Allworth, Halifax (but I've decided I can leave "radio producer" on my business card anyway, even if I don't know if anybody's listening"

"The Moral High ground is where money flows away from" - Andreas Kahre, performance artist, Vancouver

I learned that when you only use one piece of duct tape on a dog's collar, your recording device ends up in the middle of Dundas Street" -- Marjorie Chan, one of this year's commissioned artists who did a piece about what dogs say. Further reflections -- little dogs are no damn good if you're trying to get the essence of dog. They don't record well.

And my favourite -- recounted in a story by Newfoundland artist Chris Brookes -- think about this several times -- it's truly a profound question about the deep mysteries of life:

"Why would you want to destroy the richness of the question with the poverty of an answer?"