Lady Fiddler in The Big Smoke or, Trying Not to Buy Fluevogs on Queen Street

Note to self: never attempt to update the blog on a smart phone. I seem to have deleted the first bit of what I wrote earlier. I'm in Toronto this week for work and have brought my fiddle, as always. Only this time I didn't get to play it at all during the working part of the week as there was little to no free time, morning, noon or night.

 We did get to go for a bit of a walk, spotting quintessential Torontonian things.

 An incredibly talented busker let me take his photo: brass and strings at the same time!

Friday afternoon we were finally free! I moved my things to the Hostel on Church Street and went in search of National Ballet tickets, Fluevogs and finally, The Sweater Place, owned by Nancy, a woman of very excellent taste who manages to keep her tiny storefront free from duplicates. Not a single sweater is the same and she always has new seasonal stock.

My main goal this trip is to sit under a tree in a park and practice my fiddle. I deliberately did not bring any music, hoping to memorize and speed up tunes I already know.

The National Ballet of Canada was performing its final shows of the season, three modern pieces umbrellaed under a theme of Physical Thinking. Standing Room Only tickets were the tempting price of $12 so I jumped. The view was excellent and I stood next to a gentleman who had the poise of a former dancer and who indeed knew a little too much information about the great Canadian dancers to be an ordinary Joe Canadian Public. We spoke the same language. It was very refreshing!

Friday night dinner was at a cafe resto called bannock, next to The Bay. I could see the mannequins through the back window as it was attached. Fireweed honey is what I think the server said was in the huge artisan butter tart before me with whipped cream and a wild berry compote. Main course was a squash stuffed with wild grains, walnuts, fried cheese, sitting on a bed of steamed spinach and pomegranates with some kind of mildly spicy sauce. Heck, I'm no food critic but it sure was good!

Painting in a boutique in the Distillery District

The Hostel was hot and the bed kind of smelly. I was in one of the 10-person co-ed bunk rooms having forgotten to conclude my booking a month ago one frantic day at work and took what they had left when I arrived. At one point some idiot spent a half an hour making unpleasant noises in the toilet directly on the other side of the wall from me. I told myself it must have been food poisoning and waited to use the bathroom until the sound of a custodial cart had come and gone in the morning. But no harm done. I've stayed in places on the Camino with unbelievable bathrooms.

Saturday I intended to go right to the ferries and explore Toronto Island, fiddle in tow. However I got sidetracked after websurfing at my breakfast Starbuck's on King Street and discovered at www.nowtoronto.com that the Sing! choral festival was currently on and that Cantabile: The London Quartet would be playing that night. Tickets were available at a certain place in the Distillery District, which turned out to be a great little touristy area full of shops and historical buildings related to the - well, booze-making history of Toronto. And there I found the other Fluevog store! But alas, no shoes for me. When the only boots I want cost the same as a plane ticket, I need to save for that plane ticket.

Now that's a sign I like to see!

A long-ish walk along Lake Shore Drive landed me at the Jack Layton Ferry. $7 and 10 minutes after boarding, a ferry deposited about 100 people at the westernmost point of Toronto Island. I wandered until I found a swing set and a nice tree, sat, had lunch, and finally - got to play me fiddle! Swans abounded.

Reluctantly caught the 4:30pm ferry back and had enough time for a dinner of soup and quinoa salad at The Sultan's Tent & Cafe Moroc at 49 Front Street near the hostel.

A 15 minute walk after ditching the fiddle landed me at Little Trinity Church and a brilliant concert by The London Quartet - From Montiverdi to Monty Python. Plus some hilarious tricks of their own including a sung version of the Cricket rules in the manner of Estonian minimalist composer, Arvo Part. A lot of "the player is innnnn" and "the player is ouuuuuut" in that one. They delivered Beatles classic Penny Lane with fun and beauty, and had us in tears with a completely forgetful spoof of "Memory" from Cats by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

A highlight of the evening was to meet the gents and nab a photo with them.

Flying home Sunday at 6pm. Should I take in the Songwriting workshop with Dan Hill, Alan Frew (former lead singer of Glass Tiger) and Lorraine Segato (former lead singer of the Parachute Club) in the afternoon?

Turns out it was a good idea to return to the Sing! Vocal Arts Festival on my last day: met Paul Sanderson, Canada's top entertainment lawyer and author of the country's most (only) comprehensive textbook: Musicians and the Law in Canada. Then caught the Harlem Boys & Girls Choir Alumni Ensemble - breathtaking! and finished with the songwriting workshop - no Alan Frew but a whole lot of up-close and personal Dan Hill and Lorraine Segato.

I was one of about six people attending and being in the front row, was the object of their focus as they told story after story about how they came to write this song and that song that made their Grammy-winning careers. Intense and inspiring! It was really hard to make a dash for the street car when all I wanted to do after was chat with Lorraine. She said she loved writing songs but not singing - but someone in The Parachute Club had to sing so the job fell to her. Dan interrupted to tell her, "You need more confidence - you can do it - you just need more confidence." I felt like he was speaking to me. Witnessing him mentor her was incredible.

Lorraine Segato and Pat Silver hold mics for Dan Hill as he sings a song he just wrote dedicated to his late sister.

Never before has it been so hard to have to get on a plane to come home.

Playing in Parks

I've started a new job that involves travel! I have no problems with that. I've decided to take my fiddle with me always, regardless of the nature of the travel just in case there's any spare moments to practice or play.

First work trip, Vancouver. We're staying at the Pan Pacific hotel at Canada Place. TED talks are coming to town so there's a nebulous shimmering net hanging above the ground just outside the front entrance.

The view from the hotel's rear terrace is of the harbour - stunning! I miss being near the ocean.

Breakfast the first morning was at a little Italian place called Brioche with entrances on Water and West Cordova Streets in Gastown was amazing. As was the coffee.

This morning I took the fiddle along for a wander to the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Chinese Garden, one of my favourite haunts in Vancouver's China Town. Spring is here! Such a contrast to snow-buried Winnipeg.

A mosaic of the Chinese zodiac lies on the ground just outside the gardens.

We saw a large coi, several ducks, and a huge blue heron up in a tree. He proved to be an attentive audience when I settled in the pagoda to practice. Seems like Vancouver has a large urban population of Blue Herons, which are a species at risk in BC.

Later, after lunch with a few more co-workers - same place: Brioche (so good!) we walked along the seawall all the way to Stanley Park. I took the opportunity to practice a bit more. Couldn't resist being surrounded by moss and trees.

Then back to work meetings. More meetings this whole week but hope to visit a bit more of historic Gastown on Friday before flying home to the frozen tundra of Winterpeg, Manisnowba. Can't believe there's crocuses already popping up here and no hope of seeing a single bud back home for at least another two months.

Definitely not happening in Winnipeg anytime soon :(

Travelling Vicariously

Soundcloud is another form of social media I am only just discovering. One Kristian Boruff discovered me through Soundcloud and asked to use my performance of Neil Gow's Lament. I was very surprised to get Boruff's message saying, "I've found a number of versions online, however yours is the best."

Boruff is a young American who spent nearly a month in Germany last summer visiting family, and has since been posting intensely compact - and hilarious - travelogue episodes. Averaging about 2 minutes, each Youtube video captures a day of Boruff's "Adventures in Deutschland" built with his own photos, video, and other borrowed images - all accompanied with sound effects including some taken from Soundcloud.

In this episode, he  opens with a Ken Burns-like montage accompanied by yours truly - only with the Neil Gow ballad, not the Ashokan Farewell - but only for a few moments. The result is quite amusing.

Finding little epics at home

This summer my fiddle got out to large bodies of water several times: to the Experimental Lake Area, the cottage at Bird River, and my guitar got to accompany my friends and I on a exploratory mission to find primo climbing areas in the ELA again.

Photo by Kasia Dyszy

Now that it's shoulder season, I'm forcing myself to stay home: too cold to canoe, camp or climb, not cold enough to ski.

So for the first weekend in MONTHS that I'm actually home, I managed to still have a couple of epic adventures: Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, Variations on a Rococo Theme for Cello and Orchestra, and Syphony No. 4 in F minor - performed perfectly by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and soloist Denise Djokic.

Saturday, after combining work-out and errands in an 8 km run for groceries, I met with a producer/sound engineer to discuss a future recording project, then rushed to a workshop on music Management at Manitoba Music, and retrieved Edmonton murder mystery writer Janice MacDonald and her husband Randy from the Manitoba Museum to take them shopping at Vintage Glory before settling in for slow food at Cafe ce Soir.

Enough links there? I'm wearing my PR hat today! But this is the town I live in. Winnipeg is so close-knit, and if you go out and live life to the fullest in it, you can make so many connections and enjoy it so much. And it's not just the businesses and buildings, it's the people...

I found encouragement for my own music talking to the musicians and managers I met today. And Doug Shand at Vintage Glory always has a good story - and he's a blues singer himself! French-trained Chef Tran is a rock climber and carpenter who is trying to learn to play the violin! And folk-music lover Janice is a banjo picker.

Though I'm not taking wing myself these days, if anyone wants to visit Winnipeg, these are a few of its stories, created by its wonderful people - and those who pass through.

Just another manic Monday...in Divisoria

Once upon a Monday in May I awoke in a small room in Makati, road noise outside the window. It was already hot, the air conditioning unit having turned off on its timer. The TV was going out in the hall, a five-year-old boy watching cartoons. Ina's uncle and aunt greeted me with smiles, directed me to where and how to wash myself and a few clothes, and fed me some of the best Spanish bread I've had yet. Each bakery, I think has a specialty.

Then it was time to take a walk. I was delighted to find a small patch of green among the steel and glass.

And a bit of history waiting to be explored at the Yuchengco Museum.

But that bit of history will have to wait for another day to be explored. I had to head for Greenbelt to meet Carol for a bit of Retail Therapy - it was Divisoria Day! En route, I was momentarily distracted by Black House designer Vic Barba's store in Greenbelt 5. It held a black tailored shirt - with a twist, waiting just for me. I wore it to death from that moment on and am still in the process of wearing it to shreds.

Carol's driver took us as far as Roxas Boulevard where first we partook of Chow King, my staple food source in Manila: tofu, bucchi, chicharap and that green stuff - without the bacon bits, thanks much! Then a Jeepney took us directly to our destination. But first, a quick stop at the soul-soothing cathedral on the corner: the Minor Basilica of St. Lorenzo Ruiz, first Filipino saint.

Then, time to SHOP...

and SHOP...

and finally rest our feet while indulging in Starbuck's...malamig (cold)...

or ma-init (hot)...

I learned how to haggle, this time, and how to ask "Magka-ano, po?" (how much, please?) and "Bayad po", (here's my payment - usually said when handing over the Jeepney fare). Seems like the sellers quote a top price and you work them down to 'last price.' But don't push them too far or they return to the top price and won't work down again!

So many shiny things, so little time. I try to find something for everyone back home but there's only so much you can carry and you have to limit yourself to what cash you have on hand. When the pesos run out, that's a good time to cut yourself off. Favourite purchase: a necklace of hammered metal tree leaves of different sizes, bronze, silver and copper coloured, each with a rhinestone raindrop on the end. Reminded me of fall forest leaves in rain. I never wear jewelry but this I'll wear till it falls apart.

Next...a trip to an actual forest...and memories of last moments in Manila.

Sunday Dinner with Modern English

When I look at the kind of day Sunday, May 5th, 2013 was, I must admit it was no ordinary day. Waking up in a borrowed bed in a new friend's house in a tiny town in a tropical country, having breakfast with an extraordinary family, shopping in a village market, drinking fresh coconut juice from an enthusiastic street vendor (stylin' in a pink lace widow drapery and t-shirt), jamming with talented musicians, riding a crowded jeepney, getting caught in a political parade on one street and a religious parade on another, and finally getting to shower at a friend’s house all on a hot muggy day.

We couldn’t dawdle - we had to be at the hotel by 5pm, 5:30 at the latest. And Alfie and I are not exactly renowned as the world’s most prompt individuals.

What does one wear to dinner with aging rockers? Nothing too revealing: male musicians are notorious for being classified in the subspecies of ‘dirty old men’ as they age. I pulled out my least-wrinkled silk dress and a silk crocheted sweater top.

Manila City Hall just over yonder.

We were the first to arrive. By a good hour. The restaurant was on the roof of the hotel. At first we thought we were in the wrong place but the host confirmed that yes, this was the place with the reservation. We were directed to two long tables reserved for our party and were offered drinks - Coke for Alfie, of course, and coffee for me. The evening was warm and the sky was clear, with stars emerging as the sun set. We enjoyed a lovely view from the rooftop and could see the Manila City Hall clearly. Fireworks went off over Manila Bay.

Finally some other members of our party arrived: some lovely ladies who were regulars and friends of the owner of Nomix Resto Bar and Grill, one of the co-producers of the Modern English concert. Many of them had attended the Half Life Half Death reunion concert last year and recognized me, though I hadn’t met them - it was a really pleasure to meet and talk to them. The ladies encouraged us to come out on a Wednesday night to Nomix but we ran out of time with our jam-packed too-short stay. I have a growing to-do list for my next visit to Manila.

The guests of honour still hadn’t shown up by the time we decided to eat. As we lined up for the buffet, we had the pleasure of watching a drunk European sexually harassing an embarrassed member of the hotel’s serving staff. It was so jarring, I was certain I had suddenly travelled back in time and was experiencing a 1940s wartime era film. Only this was real-time colour, not crackly black and white. Spasmodically my big mouth remarked loudly on the inappropriate treatment of women. The 'gentleman' was incredibly quiet as he fell into the buffet line behind me.

Finally the band members and their crew arrived just as we were finishing our meal and starting to think about getting dessert. I had begun to wonder if the whole exercise was simply to have a nice dinner, no band-meeting included.

They all sat at the far end of the table and barely looked our way while eating. After they’d all had dessert and we were on our third or fourth cups of coffee or beverage, the concert producer stood and said, come on over everyone, come say hello, feel free to take pictures and get some autographs.

Ever-prepared, Alfie had some LPs to be signed. Clueless me happily played photographer. I agreed to join a friend for one photo with the lead singer. As we took our places on each side of the tall gentleman he said something that sounded a lot like, 'Alright, a chocolate sandwich!' My smile froze and I struggled not to say something in reply, something like: 'How clever, sir! Aren’t you a brilliant old boy! Pip pip cheerio! I didn’t find that comment the tiniest bit off colour! At all.' I don't know much about the fellow but wondered, based on that remark, if his experience with women had been limited for a long time to air-headed groupies flinging themselves at him. How often had he been surrounded by intelligent female writers who were competent musicians themselves?

Despite that strange little moment, the highlight of the evening for me was when the keyboardist, Stephen, struck up a conversation with me. I understood that he had been acquainted with Alfie for some time since Alfie had at one time written a definitive article about the music of Modern English. He and Alfie had struck up a friendly correspondence and Alfie had actually met the band members earlier that previous week before the concert at a press conference. Stephen was aware that I was Alfie’s bandmate from Canada and started asking how we’d met. I confessed I was not that familiar with their music but that we covered their song I Melt With You. Further to that, I said, I don’t mean to toot our horn but we were told that a particular music magazine editor in Manila was of the opinion that our cover of that song was the best cover he’d ever heard. Stephen was impressed and said he’d like to hear a recording of that performance (the one from the previous night at IDB). “Look, I’m serious,” he said, looking most sincere, “I’d really like to hear it.” Alas, last I heard, the only video file of our cover was stuck on someone's broken computer.

As for my role in our band, I explained that all I do is stand there and do my classical thing, improvising harmonies as needed, fleshing out the song to make it sound nice. Stephen advised that he is always looking for good classically-trained sessional musicians and for new ways to interpret their songs. He said he’d look for me online and encouraged me to look for him through Alfie’s online contacts. Alas, since my return to Canada I’ve been in a whirlwind. Thinking about it now I am putting it on my to-do list. Stephen, don’t give up on me - I shall indeed find you, kind Sir!

Not wanting to overstay our welcome, Alfie, Joan and I bid our new friends goodbye and shared a cab to our respective destinations. Now this took some coordinating - I retrieved my things from Facundo Street, and Alfie accompanied me to Makati where I was to stay with the Oyong family where an empty room awaited me. Charina’s uncle and aunt were so kind and I am forever thankful for their hospitality. Because of them I enjoyed a very good sleep in a comfortable bed in a nice cool room.

Next: Monday, May 6 - exploring Makati, and retail therapy in Divisoria with Carol.

Down time in San Jose

San Jose, GMA (General Mariano Alvarez), Cavite, is a small town near the City of San Pedro, set in a hilly landscape within sight of stunning mountains. It is the home of the members of Philippine indie band Playa: Athley Barba Glori, Joan Bonito, Polet Patawaran, Jerry Cajigal, and Zandro Sotto.

Playa: Athley, Joan, (me), Pol, Jerry, Zandro, (Alfie)

Built into a hill, the Patawaran family compound overlooks a stunning view. From the stone balcony outside Pol's room, you can see across a valleys of palm trees and roof tops, and in the distance, Mt. Makiling, inspiration of the legendary hero Jose Rizal, rises among clouds.

Well, the photos don't quite do it justice but the mountain is there.

It being the peak of summer, the weather was so stifling hot I found it sometimes hard to breathe. I will be eternally thankful to Pol - and to his daughter who kindly gave up her room so I could have a place to sleep - with a fan. And I am also eternally thankful to Pol's mother, an incredible woman, for making us feel so welcome!

Alfie and I with the Patawaran family, our kind hosts in San Jose.

That morning I wasn't clear on what our next plan of action was. We needed to practice with Playa to prepare for recording with them at Nolit's studio in Manila. But not everyone was available. And we needed to eat. And Alfie informed Joan and I that we were invited to be guests at a very special dinner that night. Dinner with none other than the members of Modern English, the definitive New Wave band of his generation. Whose concert I had opted out of. Ooops!

With all these things to do, the best plan of attack seemed to relax and enjoy the day and take it as it came. I'm not used to this concept of taking a rest day - but it was actually very enjoyable!

First: food. Off to market.  Live fish jumped on tables awaiting their fates as stoic ladies sold tomatoes and onions across the aisle. Deeper in was tofu and other veggies.

Out under the hot sun we stopped for fresh-out-of the fruit buko juice, shredded coconut meat included.

Back at home I tried buying coconut water in bottles at grocery stores in Canada but it's not the same - full of artificial sweeteners and preservatives - it's undrinkable. I'll wait until I return to the PH to buy it fresh.

We practiced a bit while our market finds were turned into an amazing feast, then enjoyed a last meal with the family. Then Alfie and I had to hurry home - to Pasay City. Seems like everywhere in the Philippines is now my home!

It was the week before the national elections, so candidate parades were happening everywhere. AND it was a special feast day so there were religious parades as well. Right in front of the Aznar family compound, a celebration was in full swing.

A candidate supporter poses as music blasts in a parade on Aurora Street.

Children dressed for Mary's feast day celebrations on Facundo Street.

One of many flowered structures for the feast day.

Off to dinner with Modern English, wending our way through traffic.

We had just enough time to clean up before heading out again. This time to share a meal with the members of another band...

to be continued....