Belle and Sebastian: Crystal Clear Beauty

Last night, Hil and I got to see one of those bands that we'd always wanted to see, but never in a zillion years would have seen them in Calgary - Scotland's mighty, mighty Belle and Sebastian!

The venue was once again at the Docks (where we saw Iron and Wine and Calexico), so the sound was assuredly good. However, we didn't factor in the bastardiness of promoter Craig Laskey, who oversold the show by what seemed like five hundred people. It was absolutely ridiculous how jammed it was. Honestly, 70% of the people who went probably never got closer than 100 feet to the stage, let alone being able to see the lads from Glasgow tear it up.

Hil and I, ever diligent and vigilant, endured 20 minutes of insane crowd needling, and were able to get a pretty decent spot near the center, 1/3 of the way from the stage. Through it all, Vancouver's New Pornographers were playing. I think I would have appreciated their set more if we weren't so busy fighting for our lives in the crowd. So many people were cheesed off - and understandably so - 40 bucks each to not even seen the band?

When Belle and Sebastien came on - everything was okay again. Hmmmm - how to sum up the show? Well - they were super tight, and sounded crystal clear. You know all those concerts you go to where you don't have a clue what the singer's saying? Not here - frontman Stuart and sidekick Stevie's lyrics were beautiful and coherent. They did a whole gamut of material too - from old stuff dating back to the Tigermilk LP, all the way to the new stuff on Life Pursuit. It was awe inspiring - especially when they did, in my opinion, their finest track in recent memory: Your Cover's Blown.

They had some good banter in between tracks too, where Stuart proclaimed how one would never hear a B & S track on an advert - but at the same time, questioned the integrity of his bandmate Stevie:

Stevie: "I can't be bought"

Stuart: "But what about the mansion?"

Stevie: "I don't need a mansion."

Stuart: "But what about all the fine Oxford-bred women that you so desire?"

Stevie: "I'll get them with my charm."

Right on!

Their encore was "Get me away from here, I'm dying", and by that time, our backs were sore from standing, but our hearts were light, as the beauty of the melody wrung out smiles from everyone in the crowd.

j

Way to Go Team Gushue!

Hope you guys saw the Canada - Finland curling match today. Did you see those stones that Nichols threw? After the debacle of Canadian Mens Hockey, it was so great to see the boys from Newfoundland bring home the Gold.

6 stones in one end! Yeesh!

***

With the end of this week I am absolutely beat. Right now, I'm sitting here on the couch, (Hil's asleep), and I'm tapping away on the blog. Random thoughts through my mind, as the TV flashes away.

***

What a busy month: a ton of classes + teacher training + the responsibilites of daily living all added up to negative free time. But the classes were SO great, and the students awesome. I was talking to someone the other day about how the beginning of a year drags by, but once March kicks in, the time will start to fly, and before you know it, we'll be sitting in July.

Ah, summer! I can feel it.

***

Many thanks to the mighty TTC driver late Thursday night. I was sprinting desperately down Queen Street after teaching 3 classes, heart in my throat, legs burning, trying to catch the streetcar at a red light. Just as the light turned green, he opened the doors and I was able to fall inside. Thanks!

j

Ron Reid Rules

Came from Yoga Lab today, under the tutelage of Ron Reid - the best damn technical ashtanga instructor in Canada. Today's topic was arm balances, and my forearms are still burning from the intensity of the work.

Ron has a way of looking at the body and breaking it down to various fundamental actions. Not a ton of actions - but all key ones. Actions that can be carried all the way from the simplest asanas to the most hair-raising. Actions that have been lost in our day to day life that take blood, sweat and tears to find again.

If you get a chance to study with Ron, do it. There are things Ron's told me that completely flew over my head. But then, 2 months later, in the middle of it all, when my asana clicks and things feel so right, I have this moment where I go, "Oh! So THAT's what Ron meant!"

He retold a great quote in teacher training the other day. It was by BKS Iyengar:

"Before I started yoga, my body was whole and my mind was in pieces.

Now that I do yoga, my mind is whole and my body is in pieces."

Classic Ron Reid, storytelling.

j

BTW, like all the luminaries of the world, BKS insists on using Macs:

Womans Boardercross

Hil and I have been camped in front of a TV the last few days. Our dear friend Leslie, lent us her telly, so now we've become Olympic junkies.

The short track speed skating sure looks like fun, but the best thing we've seen (by a longshot) was the woman's boardercross final.

I nearly fell out of our futon when I saw American rider Lindsey Jacobellis (leading by a mile), try to style a method on the last jump, and fall - ergo taking silver. Switzerland's Tanya Frieden, who must believe in miracles, was gifted her gold. In some ways, you gotta shake your head, but at the same time, I'm pretty impressed that Jacobellis was trying to throw out some old-school snowboard style out there.

j

PS - Good work Dominique getting Bronze for Canada. And Maelle Ricker, had this been a perfect world, would've surely won. She was consistently first out of the gate. Did you see how hard she augered herself into the ground at that first jump? yowch.

PPS - for Vancouver 2010, they should change the format and give style points on the last jump in the boardercross. That way, even if you're in second, you could pull something awesome, and still take the gold. Now that would be incredible!

A Lovely Quote from Mark Twain / Olympics

Teaching was great today. The Yoga Studio on Yonge and Eglington was interesting as always - hello Vanessa!

As for the students, they want to LEARN - and if that can't motivate a teacher, I don't know what can. It's so great to be able to teach people who are motivated :)

***

Saw this quote the other day from Mark Twain - jeez, I haven't thought about him, since I read Huck Finn decades ago:

"Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century. "

There's a power of perspective there...

j

PS - did anyone see that speedskating team event where the Canadians won a silver medal? Hil made a good point how if were watching in person at the rink it would be mildly entertaining, but it sure doesn't televise well. Almost the equivalent of watching 2 different shades of paint drying. Will it be the beige? Or the off white?

On another note, the boardercross was awesome! Not only has snowboarding saved skiing, it can say it's saved the olympics now too :)

Danny Kass

Things have been crazy on our end out here.

As such, I haven't had a chance to post. Will do more soon, 'til then, I'm posting an image of Danny Kass who won Silver in Torino. Kass rules. Those of us who have been snowboarding for more than a decade should recognize the base graphic on his deck - classic Gnu!

Tolstoy

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself."

Leo Tolstoy

Forget Gold Stocks, buy Guitars!

Wow - has everyone recovered from the Superbowl shenanigans of the day before?

Watching the half-time show at my dear friend Dave's house, it was a rather impressive sight to see the Stones rocking out, for two reasons:

1. Mick and Co are still in pretty good shape.

2. Culturally, mainstream society needs to GET A LIFE! Wake up people, it's 2006 - and we're still listening to "classic rock"!?! It's sad. I'm only 29 years old, and I've probably had "Satisfaction" drilled into my ears 5000 times; yet for some reason (perhaps the mediocrity of current pop drivel), we still need these guys?

Anyhoo, way to go Steelers - that was a fine play for their last touchdown.

While on the note of rock music, check out the following link

http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/invest/extra/P142831.asp

which talks about how old guitars are selling for 50k!

Hope everyone's week is shaping up nicely,

j

PS - as a further example of the ultra-right-wing-conservative atmosphere of the US, 2 of the Stone's lyrics were censored in the half-time show, being deemed too sexual. Laugh or cry, the decision is yours :)

A Softer World

Hello Everyone,

With the demise of decent comic strips, comes the following website:

www.asofterworld.com

Run by Emily and Joey, they have come up with a fine daily.

Rather than draw pictures, Emily takes beautiful photographs, and Joey writes little blurbies under them. Some are poignant, some are quite funny, and some are slightly offensive, but none are lame.

Perfect for lunch break,

jeff

Courier Vs Motorist - Must See Link

Hi everyone,

The Toronto Star a few days ago ran a cover story of how a motorist attacked a courier in my neighborhood of Kensington Market. A local website, www.citynoise.org posted some amazing pictures of the whole incident.

Check out the link:

http://www.citynoise.org/article/2770

Essentially, this guy in his SUV felt that he didn't want any garbage in his vehicle and decided to toss it onto the street. The courier, Leah, picked up his burger and threw it back into his SUV. The guy then threw his coffee on Leah, so she keyed his penis-extension...which led to the altercation in the above photos.

To add to the lunacy, the photographer went to take a photo of the SUV's license plate, and the driver grabbed a baseball bat from the trunk and charged him.

Unreal.

I don't condone violence, but if push came to shove and your life's in danger, I'd hope all my cyclist friends would swing their u-locks for protection!

j