It's the same as this time last year, Angie...

Someone sent me a video of a song from concert I did in Paris at the wonderful l'Ogre A Plumes, a charming and charismatic downstairs-venue run by actors in the 9e that I am not sure is there anymore.

I like it because the video was shot on the sly, and I think it's cool to have shaky footage from an elegant little concert in a dirty little basement. It's not the best video, but it is still interesting to me in concept more than anything.

The song is "Angie, Say A Prayer", and I am posting it here because it is not really recorded anywhere and people always ask me about that song. Maybe that is why someone whipped out their video camera when I announced that I was going to sing it that night at l'Ogre A Plumes.

"The body is a place where each of us lives..."

Zed Nelson is a UK-based photographer who just released a book of images and text titled "Love Me", examining the impact of the beauty/enhancement industry across the globe and noting that human beings are seemingly striving to a shockingly similar aesthetic, leading to a largely homogenized version of "people". The images in "Love Me" range from a woman with severe anorexia to discarded eyelash extensions, they are memorable and sometimes shocking.


I have been poring over the book all afternoon, mesmerized by photos of a jailhouse beauty pageant winner, a normal-sized 13-year old girl at a weight-loss camp bragging about losing 8 lbs in 10 days, and the gory sheets of skin being lifted by surgeons during a tummy tuck procedure.



The captions beside each image is what really nails the point home - the price we are paying for beauty is becoming, well, priceless. Check out Nelson's website: www.zednelson.com for a full range of the images. Pretty unforgettable.

Have You Heard ...

I do apologize for such a long delay. I had a good reason for my absence (please see pic).

Music takes new shapes on top of the old ones. It changes colour depending on the time of day and how much water I pour on it. A kettle boils, a bath runs, rain trickles in through the bedroom window. The foundation of it stays the same though, and the piano lets me tug out the song it's got livin' inside.

The Waitress.

I am writing a lot lately but not playing songs for anyone (except one person). Am waiting for two grant notifications, waiting for upcoming grant deadlines, waiting for my guitar to be repaired, waiting for the perfect ontario macintosh apples to arrive in Kensington Market, waiting for so many significant things.

It is funny that life seems to center around waiting and arriving. I wrote this a long time ago now:

Another year goes by
The circle turns into a line
he drives me by the seaside and I dream of going nowhere.

These lines are followed by the chorus it makes me a little sad. I suppose it does make me a little sad. There is a quiet acceptance in a period of waiting that I suppose can make one a little sad at times. Maybe this is why we keep ourselves so busy - I am not part of a waiting culture, we are a culture of instant access to information, answers, and tweets. Maybe I need to learn how to "wait" (am trying to teach my little dog this, but in a different context as he exuberantly storms ahead of me on our walks).

Although I can't speak for anyone else (and certainly not my plucky little dog) I would like to learn how to be a better waiter (waitress?).

Another line from a song of mine:
and the afternoons are
after all then
not so sad...

Summer Vacation ... Autumn Vacation ... Winter Vacation

I am writing a lot these days. And, practicing a lot - playing the piano endlessly, dutifully fingering scales and arpeggios, whipping through sonatinas and meandering through sonatas and variations. Nothing gives more strength of conviction for me than playing the dear old piano.

That being said, aside from a few private events in the next month or so, we are taking un petit break from playing live. I plan to record by next spring... mostly the songs I wrote while living in Paris. Songs like "Rosemary's Cerise Valise", "Blue Shoes" and "Lonely Prince". Also, older songs that found their juice again like "Angie, Say A Prayer", "The First Initial Sting" and "Toujours Tres Doux". Then there will be the songs no one has really heard. And of course, songs I have not yet written.

I shall keep up my blog between sonatinas...

"Oh be true:
I'll stick to you
like your best friend's shoes;
I don't know what I would do without you,
my Red Delicious apple tree..." - from "Little Marie"

Not My Lover.

In an absent time
of mismatched under-lying
and unintentionally repeated stories,
the confusion has outshone Hollywood.
Lackluster and bare (for years)
we attempt to both remember and forget.

In an altogether other universe,
I wear a faded sundress
and listen to the lake.

Summer Show.

If you are in Toronto on July 16: please do come.