7.8.06

katherine wins

a little while ago i mentioned my disgust with the CBC's "the one" on our blog and stated that i felt their radio programming was deteriorating. our friend katherine took issue with this and published a rebuttal extolling the virtues of cbc radio. this weekend we have made several trips into vancouver, leaving our mountain home and entering the realm of radio1 accessibility, enabling me to further test my theory of decline.
we listened to quirks and quarks and learned about deep brain stimulation as a treatment for depression as well as how to apply penguins' waddling skills to decreasing fracture rates in seniors. we heard good, balanced news coverage of the war in the middle east and i heard an interview with an extremely droll vancouver accordian virtuoso named geoff berner. i also heard a great new raffi song about the middle east which is available for free download.

long story short - katherine wins - i guess the reason i was so ticked about the cbc was b/c i value it so much and i am scared that it is in danger. i have mentioned before that i really value friends who are willing to undercut me and challenge my wild pronouncements. as a side note, you can get quirks and quarks as a podcast and listen to it at your leisure (it accompanied my breakfast sans globe and mail while we were living in golden bc).

the reason for my vancouver trip on sunday was that i went biking with my good friend chris at WHISTLER!!!
a good time was had by all as i revived my sleeping downhill skills. sorry i do not have any actual pictures of biking as whenever we had our bikes we were screaming down the mountain. maybe next time we will actually take the time to stop and get some nice shots.




i would like to leave you with a paragraph from the book "wicked" by gregory maguire that i just interpreted for kylie. i havent read it yet (aside from the occasional clarification for my spouse), but i am sure i will love it. check this out.

"And now respectable unionists are going in droves over to the pleasure faith," said Frex, snorting, "or even tiktokism, which hardly even qualifies as a religion. To the ignorant everything is spectacle these days. The ancient unionist monks and maunts knew their place in the universe - acknowledging the life source too sublime to be named - and now we sniff up the skirts of every musty magician who comes along. Hedonists, anarchists, solipsists! Individual freedom and amusement is all! As if sorcery had any moral component! Charms, alley magic, industrial-strength sound and light displays, fake shape changers! Charlatans, nabobs of necromancy, chemical and herbal wisdoms, humbug hedonists! Selling their bog recipes and crone aphorisms and schoolboy spells! It makes me sick."

hee hee hee! i love it!

3 comments:

Stephen and Amber said...

Stephen and I met Raffi. I was a bit in awe due to hours of sinigng in the car growing up. Stephen had a smaller level of exposure and proceeds to tell Raffi that he loves the song " On Top Of Spaghetti." Rafii then makes an akward face and tells Stephen that is not his song and excuses himself. Yup, that is our Raffi story.

m+K said...

we met raffi too! we were at the maine island farmers market where a less than mediocre busker was playing puff the magic dragon. the next song was baby beluga and i thought, wow, he sucks at puff, but what an awesome raffi cover!
anyways, it actually was raffi. andrew was with us and walked over and sat beside him and started jamming with his harmonica. when the song was over, andrew asks, "hey man do you know any blues?" raffi says, "nope sorry" and gets up and walks away.
i said wow man, you just jammed with raffi! andrew had no idea.
thats our raffi story.

Katherine said...

Marc! I've been off the blogosphere because of our trip across the country to Ottawa. I'm glad to hear that you've seen the error of your ways by slagging on the cbc. I too fear the cbc's decline but radio one is still doing really great things. I can't believe you don't get it in "the wack" (I love that nickname, Kylie told me about it and I can't get enough of it) You should check out radio3. They do a live stream and play some amazing music. You can also listen to playlists.

I wish I had a raffi story. I saw Fred Penner once at the U of L. I must admit I was more of a Mr. Dressup fan. I cried when he died.