The last time my daughter was home from Montreal we needed to go to Long and McQuade, a major Canadian music store for some quickly needed, emergency instrument repair. Driving out to Burlington, one of the many Long and McQuade music stores, I failed to see the Walkers Line cut off from the QEW highway, and I ended up in Oakville, knowing I was wrong. Foolish though I might have been, I was able to get off the highway at the first Oakville exit and return to Burlington and get to the music store in time.
Now it’s Reading Week, and my daughter is home again. She needed a music book, and waited until this morning to let us know. Long and McQuade had it in stock, and would hold it for us behind the counter.
My wife relentlessly told me the exit is Walkers Line, right after the Guelph Line exit. After ten times I had it down pat. It was emblazoned in my memory. On the way I told my daughter who was making fun of our first excursion, we get off at Walkers Line right after Guelph Line.
And so, I failed to see the Walkers Line cut off from the QEW highway, and I ended up in Oakville, knowing I was wrong. Foolish though I might have been, I was able to get off the highway at the first Oakville exit and return to Burlington and get to the music store in time.
We have all heard about the idea that nothing is worse than actually wanting something and than getting it. There is always a disappointment factor.
In the day, my friend Gary had a friend from work, Phil, and I knew them both. Gary was my friend for years and Phil was his friend who I knew in a more casual way. Phil was an interesting guy.
Phil was extremely penurious, so money was a key motivator in his life. This took various forms which included offering car loans to friends at better rates than the bank or the dealerships.
Early in his career, Phil had the opportunity to take his wife and children to live in Europe for two years, while he worked in one of his company’s European offices. While there, with the strong U.S. dollar, they lived extremely well with a maid and vacations and the ability to do all this and still save lots of cash to be used for careful investment.
When he returned to the U.S. he hoped he would achieve some status within the corporation and be able to move up into another position which would assure another foreign assignment so he would be able to accumulate more cash for his family’s future.
Seeing no promotion in sight and obsessed with the idea that this was the way to go, he threw himself upon the voluntary exchange idea of no promotion but a lateral move in order to improve his lot. He discovered the opportunity to move to Turkey for a few years and his life would improve in the long haul.
They leased their home rather than sell it so it became a good business move, and they moved to Turkey.
After a few months he became ill, and the Turkish medical system did not do well with him, and he died in hospital of pneumonia, I believe. His family brought his body home, but they had no home to move to, as it was leased to another family.
I tell this story from a long time ago as it came up last night as I was telling my daughters something or other and they hated it because they never like my stories. I had forgotten or repressed it for the last 40 years or so and felt it might be a tale worth telling.
So here we are in video heaven! Super bowl, olympics etc., all big and in HD. It’s like dying and going to heaven!
Our family's first TV was in 1952 and it was a Sylvania, a table model, and it cost $250. This was a fortune in those days. It was black and white, of course, and I watched Ed Wynn perform on that first night. TV was in its infancy and it was fantastic! I never considered it small at that point, it was great and I was warned not to sit too close because I’d ruin my eyes somehow. I saw the Queen’s Coronation as it was filmed, processed and flown to New York for immediate broadcast just a day late!
I bought a plastic screen a few years later, kind of a Winky Dink screen if you’re old enough to know who that was (a TV cartoon where you drew on a plastic sheet to fill in the needed parts of the cartoon so Winky could forge the river etc.). I put the screen across the set and it was sky blue on the top, sort of yellow in the middle and green on the bottom and it was cheap color TV!
My friend Mike had a giant Fresnel lens kind of very expensive devise to make the screen look bigger. It stood in a large metal stand holding this giant lens.
In 1957, Alan, an old friend, moved away but had in his new house a color TV console and the only show I saw was a western with blue sky, yellow middle and green grass that looked a lot like my $1 plastic sheet.
In 1963 I was working-part time at the department store and a man traded in his old TV on a new model (this was a popular gimic at the time). He was willing to sell it to me for the trade in value, $1 per inch. I paid him $21 and I got his 21” portable which was a 100 pound metal bodied table model with a handle on top! It was black and white of course and it was huge! I watched the Kennedy assassination on that set and it’s indelibly set in my mind.
I moved up to 24” some years later, and maybe even 26”.When we lived in Beverly, MA we bought a 26” on a special sale and I was so excited. It was huge! It was not until the 2000’s that I moved to 32” and it was 110 pounds!
A year and a half ago I moved into a flat screen at 50” and I was in heaven. It’s so big and I can read the screen without glasses. In HD, I can see everything!
I want a bigger one now. No one believes me at home, they think I’m kidding. I want one so big that I can melt into the screen. I want the wall TV that covers the wall.
Funny thing is, we’ve been working with others trying to find home for discarded TV’s. We started with our 26” model and moved onto a 32” and a 40” give away that happy new flat screen viewers have no idea how to get rid of. They work fine and we’re all guilty about wanting them gone. No one wants to admit to being just an overstuffed greed ball or an over privileged child but we want them to disappear.
My wife and I have found homes for a few. The dump wants money for getting rid of yours and most of us want to put them out on garbage day and hope someone takes it, which usually does happen.
We all want bigger and better! I do!
P.S. Thanks to all of you for sticking by me. Today is the one year anniversary of this blog! I can't believe it but 290 stories later I'm still here and so are you! We will continue until I simply run out of stuff to say or I simply cease to be. Happy anniversary to me and to you!
In an earlier story I spoke about my experiences with being a senior and having, from time to time, to prove it. These were experiences related to seniors’ discounts and truly, it’s the only time most of us will admit to being over 65, because in the end, money is money. Pride skips out of the window on this one.
I have not posted any new ones of these stories, because as one gets further away from 65 (the wrong way of course) those stories disappear.
My cousin, who I am sure wishes to remain anonymous said this to me by email after reading one of my senior discount stories, “Just the opposite happened to me. Shortly after I turned 65, I was in a restaurant that advertised a "senior discount". I was paying at the counter and said to the young kid taking my money: "I get a discount as a senior".
When we purchased my youngest daughter’s bed, it seemed like it would be there forever. She was about six and this was an IKEA Bangsund bed, a very high bed with storage underneath which could last a lifetime, and besides, it weighed 400 pounds and was packaged in two boxes, one which weighed 275 pounds. The guy from IKEA helped me get it into my car, and we removed the boxes in pieces, by opening it up in the car and carting the pieces upstairs in many trips. Once together, I was sure I’d be long gone to my final reward before this monster would move again. How wrong I was!
My daughter and my wife planned a redo of her room. Now sixteen, she had different tastes than she did at six, so out everything must go including the 400 pound behemoth.
My wife looked around for someone to take it and she found a new mother at work who was willing to relieve us of the bed. She and her husband were to come over yesterday to get the bed. The new floor can’t go in unless the bed is gone! When they arrived they took one look at the bed and backed out of the room declaring it too big for them! We were stuck with nothing to do but deconstruct the bed, take it downstairs to the garage, and put it up on Kijiji.
If you need a giant bed, really great for kids who do not have a fear of heights, call me!
The Kijiji advertisement said:
Ikea BANGSUND Twin Bed. The bed has two rows of storage shelves with sliding doors and measures 42W x 80L x 40H. Located in Ancaster. I have taken the bed apart (I have the instruction manual to assemble the bed).
You will need a van or truck to pick this up as it is heavy.
It went in a week ago. Yesterday I paid ($1.99) to move it back to the first page. Someone bought it this morning and it’s gone!
223 people looked at the ad!
Here are all the emails I received with original spelling!
1. do u still have the kids bed
2. I iwll take it for 40......is it big enough for a 5'5 adult?? Lol
3. I would like to buy your bed if you still have it...I have a mini van to pick it up..Thanks
4. Is this still available? Interested for new teenage granddaughter will you take S $50
5. Thank you for your prompt reply. We will contact you when we sort out the timing for a visit.
6. My daughter dislocated her shoulder last night and so we are a little grounded at the moment. Many thanks,
7. Interested. Is this is in good shape? Need for teenager. Would this be suitable?
8. very interested in bed. please mail me back. work nights so wont get message till tonight. Thanks
9. do you still have this??
10. Hello, can you tell me the condition of this bed, does it have scratches or broken or loose parts. Also if it would be convenient for me to come and see it today. Thankyou
11. I am interested in seeing this bed, i understand it is taken apart, i can come this afternoon just let me know what time is convenient for you.
12. i wana know about mattress.its include or no. how is conidition for bed.if there is mattress too i will pay $65.let me know . does it come with the mattress
13. Hi, yes I am interested in coming to see the bed could you send your address and a time that is good for you. Thanks!
14. Hi I am EXTREMELY interested in coming by to see this bed! I have a single matress already so I would only need the frame. I have my boss's truck that I could use to pick it up with but may need a hand loading it depending if I can get extra hands or not. Is it in as good of condition as this picture? Are you free for me to come by tomorrow?
15. Do you still have it? is there a box spring needed for it and how long is it?
16. would like the bed. as said in first e-mail, i work nights. i kindly ask that you phone me to make arrangements to see and pick up the bed. Thanks
17. Hi Arthur, for some reason im just getting your message now. i can come today if its convenient for you. (The bed was already gone when this one came through.)
I answered everyone, even those trying to bargain for a bed they never even bothered to see.
#14 came out this morning and took it in her bosses truck!
Yesterday morning at about 10:30 I was hungry. I know it’s not unusual, and it’s almost always about the same time, but I really wanted something good. I went to the candy machine and looked at all the newly placed items, and there, at the bottom of the machine was a cookie.
It was a big, soft cookie, and was an oatmeal raison with added Omega Three. It was a healthy snack for sure, especially when compared to the chips and candy bars in the machine. I was hooked.
I put in my $1.25 for the cookie and went to get a big coffee to go with it.
Every morning at work I have a Diet Coke at about 9:30 and a coffee at about 10:30 or 11:00. This is a years old habit, but usually I don’t get any food. Of course I could be prepared with some sort of healthy snack, but years of watching Barney with the girls have left me with the notion of a healthy snack always being carrots and celery and the like, and I just wouldn’t be happy with that.
I opened the package and tasted the cookie. It was sort of a textured cardboard but sweet. It had some tooth to it, and was passable, just not something I would particularly want. Now, at $1.25, I was invested in it. I continued at my computer, slowly savoring my cookie and drinking my coffee when I made a decision, I would grab the cellophane package and read the nutritional information to see how wisely healthy my decision had been.
The cookie had 420 calories and 15 grams of fat!
I could have a cheeseburger at McDonalds with 300 calories and 8 grams of fat or gone to Tim Horton’s and had a Chocolate Dip Donut with 210 calories and 8 grams of fat and been better off that I was with this less than wonderful cookie.
So the machine is dead to me (although the most convienient) and I need to be better prepared for such an emergency.
I’m going into my office this morning and find the rest of the cookie (I did stop eating it when I read the label) and throw it out!
I went to see a student teacher in those days, and he was teaching a 5th grade art class. He was totally prepared; he gave me a copy of his lesson plan, and he had one for the helping teacher. He was nervous but in control.
He asked the class the question, “What’s the day like outside today?”
The kids jumped up and down in their seats and “ooh’d” and “ahhhh’d” and held up their hands. He called on the first child who answered, “It’s snowing!”
“No”, he said, “that wasn’t it”.
But it was snowing and I was lost. The child was hurt, because that was an answer.
He called on the next child who answered, “Its cold!” “No” he said, “that wasn’t it either”.
But it was cold, and it was snowing.
I was totally confused. He wanted a specific answer, unfortunately, and the kids had given the best answers that knew, it just wasn’t his right answer.
In the end, no child came up with the “right” answer, which in his little world was grey! The answer he wanted was grey!
After class, which somehow was something about color or absence of color, we had a discussion. The teacher and I both understood the problem.
He had excited kids, the snow being part of the excitement, and he had the opportunity to work off that excitement when approaching the class
Instead, he managed to frustrate himself and a bunch of children trying to get a specific answer that was lost on me as well.
I am sure there was no permanent damage done to any children in that class.
I am sure the young man grew up to be a fine teacher.
However, the lesson learned that day is one of great importance. When we have a specific expectation from any group, it would be best to let the group know what that expectation is. To have them guess at it, and not accept correct answers as correct, is the ultimate job of bad teaching.
The lesson learned by the kids that day was is that the teacher was an idiot!
The redo on my youngest daughter’s room included the removal of a butterfly wallpaper border. It seemed so cute ten years ago to put up this lovely, 5” border at the ceiling height. I assumed it was strippable! Not so!
After caustic chemicals and warm water etc., we could just about scrape off the top plastic layer, to expose the paper, glued underneath. Then scraping all over again to remove the paper and glue! This was the worst! No one should ever mention wallpaper to me again!
When the top surface was off most of the paper, we moved to kitchen sponges with those hard green surfaces like sandpaper. When those gummed up we moved to scrubbies from the shower which finished the deal.
Now it is clean and can be painted as soon as the walls get a TSP scrubbing to remove the regular dirt and the stuff we put on to get off the paper.
I thought we would get it painted in a day.
I have to prime the purple color so it won't bleed through the teal!
When we purchased my youngest daughter’s bed, it seemed like it would be there forever. She was about six and this was an IKEA Bangsund bed, a very high bed with storage underneath which could last a lifetime, and besides, it weighed 400 pounds and was packaged in two boxes, one which weighed 275 pounds. The guy from IKEA helped me get it into my car, and we removed the boxes in pieces, by opening them up in the car and carting the pieces upstairs in many trips. Once together, I was sure I’d be long gone to my final reward before this monster would move again. How wrong I was!
My daughter and my wife planned a redo of her room. Now sixteen, she had different tastes than she did at six, so out everything must go including the 400 pound behemoth.
My wife looked around for someone to take it and she found a new mother at work that was willing to relieve us of the bed. She and her husband were to come over yesterday to get the bed. The new floor can’t go in unless the bed is gone! When they arrived they took one look at the bed and backed out of the room declaring it too big for them! We were stuck with nothing to do but deconstruct the bed, take it downstairs to the garage, and put it up on Kijiji.
If you need a giant bed, really great for kids who do not have a fear of heights, call me!
I looked through all 270+ posts to see if I could find the story of the birthday visit from my mother, but I can’t seem to find it. Such a powerful experience, I’m sure it’s here but I am forced to retell it because of this follow-up.
Two years ago I was asleep on the sofa in the family room “watching” television when I woke up to find my mother sitting across from me on our hassock. She was wearing a maroon suit, and looking very good considering she had been dead since 1997! She was having a hard time speaking, and we passed some information between us almost subliminally. I know that I could have been dreaming, but when I awoke again later, everything was exactly the same but she was gone. It was very real to me!
I was shaken when I got up and realized what had happened. I looked around for any evidence of her being there but of course nothing could be found. I then realized that she had appeared to me on February 8, her birthday.
Last year was quiet on that day and this year, I was concerned, but nothing happened on the evening of February 7, and on the morning of the 8th all seemed quiet. I put it out of my mind.
The next night, past midnight so it was officially the 9th, I was watching TV again, covered with a fleece blanket and holding the remote in my left hand. Suddenly, the blanket lifted out of the crease formed by my right hand and my right leg while lying down, and was laid calmly back down again, as if making an adjustment. I was awake. There was no one visibly present!
As I thought about it I realized it had been my mothers 100th birthday, and she was just adjusting my blanket so I would feel better, I guess.
Remember in the film, “Independence Day”, how the President knew nothing about Area 51? He was so surprised that here was this incredible information and the public and most of official Washington was deceived.
This story is not about Area 51 per see, it’s about information withheld from the public and even the insiders, and what can happen.
Many years ago, my Building Manager had many different people reporting to him, including Security and Maintenance.
It was late in the evening, and security saw on their screen that a break-in had occurred in the President’s office. Clearly someone had entered the space, which was behind a number of doors one would have to pass through before you reached the inner sanctum. The Security guy didn’t know for sure what to do, as the obvious visible doors were not broken, so someone doing this had keys.
He called the Building Manager at home and asked what to do. The Building Manager told him to wait, as he would come down and they could deal with this together. When he arrived they carefully went through the outside doors, and got to the door of the President’s office and waited, listening for anything obvious. They heard nothing.
No firearms were involved, but with flashlights and cell phones at the ready they quickly opened the door and looked inside, hoping to catch the thief in process.
What they found was the new President in the” throws of lovemaking” (nicely put I think) with a mature student!
The Area 51 reference was in relation to the fact that they failed to tell the President that there were motion detectors in his office!
I found this out upon my arrival at the school, as this was now my office, and the Building Manager felt obliged to let me know in case I chose to perform late night romantic relations in my office!
One thing was clear to me; the sofa formerly placed in the office had been removed! Unless I decided to use the floor, the desk or a desk chair, it would have been an impossible act anyway.
During the 1974/1975 school year, I lived with my family near Kansas City. We lived actually in Prairie Village, Kansas but my office was in Kansas City as part of the Kansas City Art Institute (KCAI). I was there to work on a special program, funded by two different grants, to work on the concept of inter reliant curricula between arts institutions. Just saying that makes me tired, and working on it was both a joy and a concern.
While there I first became friendly with Jerry Grove, the Dean of KCAI, and later, in Detroit, he proved to be my boss for nearly 12 years and is still a good friend. It was there, along with tons of great stories, some of which I’ve already told in these pages, that I saw and experienced my first Microwave Oven.
Today you say, no big deal, but in 1974, this was the top kitchen item! It was a restaurant item, not yet really available for home use unless you had, or were willing to put in, a 220 volt line in order to make it work.
For some reason unknown to me now, Jerry and his wife Nancy had one in their kitchen, and it was a hoot! People came from far and wide to see it work. Jerry remeber she paid $450 for it!
So, if you can imagine, we gathered at Jerry’s house, with many interested observers, to watch people bake potatoes! Many carried there own potato!
You were invited to, if you were adventurous, boil water in a cup and you could dip your finger in the water to feel how hot it was!
These macrons, wonderful, tasty, incredible in flavors including chocolate, rose and lavender, the latter ones made from real flower petals, were baked by my 15 year old daughter the other evening. She made pink lemon ones the next day.
She is a great baker and continually surprises me.
I had to photograph the only ones that were left!
“A macaron or French macaroon is a confectionery whose name is derived from an Italian word “maccarone” meaning paste. It is meringue-based: made from a mixture of egg whites, almond flour, and both granulated and confectionery sugar.
The confectionery is characterized by its smooth, domed top, ruffled circumference, and flat base. Connoisseurs prize a delicate, egg shell-like crust that yields to a moist and airy interior. The French macaroon differs from other macaroons in that it is filled with cream or butter like a sandwich cookie, and can be found in a wider variety of flavors that range from the traditional (raspberry, chocolate) to the exotic (foie gras, truffle). Making macarons requires a great deal of discipline and is a process that is highly dependent on exactitude, technique, and proper equipment. For this reason it is a notoriously difficult recipe to master and a frustrating endeavor for the amateur baker.
The best known macarons come from Paris. The tea house Laduree is highly esteemed for the elegance and exceptional quality or their traditional macaron offerings. They sell 15,000 a day.
Awareness has been increasing, as macarons have become a novel dessert option for weddings and a growing addition to specialty pastry and bakery shops. New York has recently witnessed a surge in macaron shops and those wishing to indulge in the delicious delicacy can find a list of macaron places in the New York Social Diary.”
I may have told this little story before, although the thought of looking through nearly 300 stories to find out if I did is not my idea of fun, so I’ll tell it again, maybe.
I thought I’d understood the idea of a lifetime guarantee until I met Leonard Peterman, our plumber. It was 1967 when we bought our first house, a small side to side split in Randallstown, MD, in a 1956 development. It was a great little home, which was just the right size for a small, growing family in a nice, quiet neighborhood.
Our kitchen sink eventually developed a drippy faucet, and it seemed to be more than I could fix at the time, so we were forced to call a plumber. I am sure we looked up Plumber in the Yellow Pages, and came up with Mr. Peterman probably because he lived and or worked in Randallstown. In any case, he was the plumber.
He was a very nice older guy with lots of plumbing experience and he replaced the drippy faucet with a nice, shiny, simple, new kitchen faucet. He told us, without our asking, that it came with a lifetime guarantee.
Several years later I needed a plumber for something and I looked for Mr. Peterman, and he had passed away. After telling my wife that Mr. Peterman was dead, the next words out of my mouth were, “But what about our lifetime guarantee!”
That was an “ah-ha” moment for me! It was the first time a lifetime guarantee unveiled itself so that I understood that it was not my lifetime (at 27 years old) but Mr. Peterman’s lifetime we were talking about!
“We have good neighbors and friends. They live a block or so away, and are extremely helpful and good people. So it’s with a bit of concern that I write these thoughts, but some things need to get out! I have kept their names out of this so that no criminal intent can be blamed on me.They were redoing their kitchen several years ago and were getting rid of their old refrigerator. They were paying the delivery company $40 to take it away. When we found out, we had it taken to our house for the same $40 (we did pay it) and it lives in my garage as the garage frig. I know it eats up some electricity, but it gives us great frig storage”……
They had a concern over their electricity use. “So, the now their frig is gone and he tells us last night that in his garage he has three or four barrels, filled with straw, and in these barrels he keeps vegetables”!
“She bought a giant size bag of carrots! She keeps them in the garage. He doesn’t eat carrots! She will turn orange trying to eat the carrots by herself!”“I want to turn these people in the logic police but I can’t find their number”.
So on Sunday, when they came home from being away, their dog was barking through the back window at a squirrel. When she went to see what was wrong, she discovered a squirrel was trying to eat his way through the bag with their bread in it! The bread was next to their meat pies!
Why were these things sitting on the fence in the back yard? For what reason were they sitting there?
The answer is one lost on me but easily explained by them.
You see, when he came home from the market on Saturday with bread and meat pies, they were fresh. He wanted to freeze these fresh items because of (I guess) some death wish, but any way he wanted to freeze them in case there was a famine he would have bread and meat pies!
To put them in a freezer when they were room temperature would cause them to use electricity better used sparingly, so he put them out on the back yard fence to freeze, and left them there forgetting about the wild animals who inhabit his yard and do not pay electricity bills!
What great logic! The logic police number is somewhere…………
This is a photo of me with my parents and grandparents in 1957.
This is kind of like The Twilight Zone, or Alfred Hitchcock meets Bob Newhart, but last night I fell asleep while watching television, which is normal for me I know, but last night something different happened. My wife turned off the TV and went upstairs with my daughter to work on her room while I slept sitting up on the couch. I woke up, not opening my eyes as yet, just sitting there gathering my thoughts.
I thought that I may, it was possible, be opening my eyes and sitting on the couch in my parent’s apartment, and it was 1957 and I was in the 10th grade. Now I know this is impossible, and it sounds like the plot of some really bad movies, but for a brief second I thought I’d dreamed it all!
The next thought was, before I’d opened my eyes, if it were true and I was 15 years old, would I do the same things, or now that I knew the outcome, would I change it and make life different. I knew that if I changed it, I would not have my children. I may end up with kids; they would not be the ones I have, as they would not have existed.
I knew I’d be rich, as I knew what to do to make that happen. But in doing this I would already have changed my life.
Would I bother to go to school, even art school, or would I choose to do something else or even nothing at all. I already knew enough stuff to get by anywhere; I would just have to hang around long enough to be of age, which was probably 21 at that time.
All this really happened, and I reluctantly opened my eyes and clearly I was home and it was now and nothing had changed except I’d slept for an hour.
It has been bothering me all day however, trying to figure out what I would do. My wife, who I dearly love, would have been born in 1957, so there was no way for me to go find her as kidnapping babies was frowned upon even back then.
Martha Wainwright, Kate McGarrigle, and Rufus Wainwright, photographed at the Paul Morissey estate in Montauk, New York, September 2006. Photograph by Mark Seliger. Vanity Fair Magazine
MONTREAL - Singer Kate McGarrigle's funeral will be held today at the Notre-Dame Basilica in Montreal.
The 63-year-old musician died at her Montreal home on Jan. 18 after a battle with cancer. McGarrigle's brother-in-law, Dane Lanken, earlier told The Canadian Press he expects singer Emmylou Harris to attend the service.
McGarrigle and her sister Anna became known as the McGarrigle Sisters and began their careers performing at Montreal coffeehouses in the 1960s with a group called the Mountain City Four.
Kate McGarrigle was invested with the Order of Canada in 1994, while she and Anna received the Governor General's Performing Arts Award in 2004.
LOS ANGELES - Loudon Wainwright paid respect to his late ex-wife Kate McGarrigle as he accepted a Grammy Award on Sunday.
Wainwright won a trophy for best traditional folk album for his "High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project."
Wainwright closed his acceptance speech with a tribute to McGarrigle, the Montreal folk legend who died of cancer two weeks ago. "I want to thank Kate McGarrigle, who taught me how to frail the banjo 40 years ago," Wainwright said. "Thank you very much."
Wainwright and McGarrigle married and separated during the 1970s and have two musician children: Martha and Rufus.
This video is the best, from my point of view, of Kate's work.
My daughter will be singing a Mozart piece in the chorus at Kate McGarrigle's funeral today in Montreal. Kate will be missed, I am saddened.
My daughter is not a singer (she is a clarinet player) but her voice class at McGill University had done the Mozart piece and knew it, so when the opportunity came up the professor asked the students to fill in with the regular choir.
FOLLOW UP:
MONTREAL — Rufus and Martha Wainwright both sang Monday at a funeral celebrating the life of their mother, renowned folk artist Kate McGarrigle.
"I will miss her smile, I will miss her hands," Rufus Wainwright told the congregation of about 500 gathered at Montreal's Notre-Dame Basilica.
"I will miss her reckless humour."
Martha Wainwright led a chorus of McGarrigle's last song, "Proserpina," and said she would always carry her mother in her thoughts and her heart.
Emmylou Harris, who covered McGarrigle's music, also performed at the two-hour service in honour of the singer, who died two weeks ago after a battle with cancer at age 63.
McGarrigle and her sister Anna became known as the McGarrigle Sisters and began their careers performing at Montreal coffeehouses in the 1960s with a group called the Mountain City Four.
Their first album, "Kate and Anna McGarrigle," was released in 1975 to critical acclaim. It was selected as one of the best albums of the year by London's Melody Maker and the New York Times.
Some of their most well-known tunes included "The Work Song," "Cool River" and "Lying Song."
But they were perhaps best-known to Canadians for their distinctive rendition of Wade Hemsworth's "The Log Driver's Waltz," which was featured in a 1979 animated short done by the National Film Board.
In addition to Harris, other artists who covered McGarrigle's songs included Linda Ronstadt, Judy Collins, Elvis Costello and Billy Bragg.
While music played a prominent role in the funeral, Kate McGarrigle's personal qualities as a person and a mother were highlighted by speaker after speaker.
Rufus Wainwright said his mother was fearless about zeroing in on the truth of a situation and stating it.
And one of the most touching moments of the service came when Anna McGarrigle came to the podium to read a poem for her sister and noted with a touch of wistfulness, "Usually when I'm on stage, it's with Kate."
The last time my daughter was home from Montreal we needed to go to Long and McQuade, a major Canadian music store for some quickly needed, emergency instrument repair. Driving out to Burlington, one of the many Long and McQuade music stores, I failed to see the Walkers Line cut off from the QEW highway, and I ended up in Oakville, knowing I was wrong. Foolish though I might have been, I was able to get off the highway at the first Oakville exit and return to Burlington and get to the music store in time.
So here we are in video heaven! Super bowl, olympics etc., all big and in HD. It’s like dying and going to heaven!
On the 15th of February I wrote:
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Remember in the film, “Independence Day”, how the President knew nothing about Area 51? He was so surprised that here was this incredible information and the public and most of official Washington was deceived.
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I may have told this little story before, although the thought of looking through nearly 300 stories to find out if I did is not my idea of fun, so I’ll tell it again, maybe.
