Sharing this fantastic performance by Gaelynn Lea..
comment 1
Episode 3 of The Agency podcast is up
Episode 3 is called Dear God, it’s Nightcrawler and Ehrenreich!!!! You can listen to it here or grab it from iTunes.
If you enjoy these podcasts, please subscribe at iTunes and consider giving us a rating or review over there – it will really help us grow our audience.
Recording Day
Today Candy Minx and I will record Episode 3 of our new podcast, The Agency. When we recorded the first one, I was somewhat nervous, worried both about achieving an interesting podcast, as well as one with reasonable sound quality. By last week, I was much more relaxed, and I think you can hear that in the episode. I hope you’ve enjoyed The Agency so far, and you stay with us for our weekly podcast.
Our goal is to record on Tuesdays and do any post-production work Wednesday and have it uploaded by Wednesday evening or Thursday morning at latest. The way it works is we upload a sound file to a host. The host provides us with an RSS feed and iTunes picks up the feed soon after it is created.
As an aside, this week we’re going to try recording a different way. Instead of using the native Skype call-recorder we’re going to try a 3rd party recorder which attaches to Skype. This allows us to create separate tracks for Candy and I. When I drop the tracks into Garageband, I can then make adjustments to either or both of the tracks as needed. This just gives us a bit more post-production flexiblility.
I record the music for The Agency on my banjo in the clawhammer style. The opening theme is a traditional Old Time tune called Sandy Boys. I’ve been choosing other traditional pieces to play for the ending music. So far we haven’t had a need for other music in the body of the podcast, but if we do, I’ll record that too. Garageband enables me to fade music in and out of the podcast at will, and I can record right here at my computer directly to Garageband using my USB mic.
Podcast lovers can find The Agency on iTunes – as well, when Episode 3 is up, I’ll provide a direct link here at 27th Street.
Jack Antler at Tree Fest
Jack Antler (that’s Ted Myerscough on guitar and vocals and me on clawhammer banjo) will be playing a set of Old Time music Sunday September 22 at 12:30 at Marie Curtis Park – all part of Long Branch Tree Fest. If you’re in the area, stop by and check out the festival and be sure to say hi.
Retail Follies
We need a new office chair. The one I’m sitting on has to be replaced soon. I stopped in at my local Staples while I was out and about this morning to see what they have. It turns out they have a whole slew of chairs and various price ranges. We don’t need the Rolls Royce of chairs, just a sturdy comfortable and adjustable utilitarian office chair. Should be easy, right?
I check out the chairs and I can see pretty quickly that what we need is one of the mid-priced products. Lo and behold, one of them is on sale, $50 off. That’s a 25% discount. I compare it to the one next to it that is not discounted. By all appearances they are functionally the same. They look a bit different but the weight rating is the same, the materials are the same, the wheels are the same, and they both look about like office chairs.
They way this place has their chair section set up is to have all the floor models along the back wall of the store with chairs in boxes in racks above. This means I need a human, so I go looking for one. I find a staffer and say, hi, can you help me buy a chair. Sure, she says, I’ll have someone meet you at the back of the store in a few minutes. Sure enough, in about 2 minutes, Buddy shows up.
I’d like to buy this chair, I say. Oh, he says. We’re all out of that one (the only one on sale). I see. Well, I’m willing to buy this here floor model, or alternatively, I’ll happily buy this one next to it if you are willing to give it to me at the sale price. He says, I dunno, I have to check, and off he goes. A few minutes later, Buddy returns. I can sell you the floor model, he says. I say, perfect, let’s make this happen.
He wheels the chair up to the cash and opens up a cash for me. Great, I think. These people want my business. He punches something into the cash, then turns to me and tells me it will be a few minutes because it requires an override to sell me a floor model and he doesn’t have the authority to do it. So he stands there for a couple minutes, then he starts serving other customers. I stand around for a couple customers, then tell him, just want to let you know, I’m leaving in 3 minutes, so if you want to sell me the chair, you’re really going to have to make this override happen.
He finds a manager and they have a little conversation. The manager says to me, there is a $20 build fee if you’re going to buy one already assembled. I start laughing. It’s the floor model – you should be giving me a discount, but look, I want the chair and I’m willing to buy it at the sale price. No no no no, that can’t happen. He explains that they charge $20 for assembling chairs for their customers. Again I say, but it’s the floor model. Are you sure? There is no way I’m going to pay more for a floor model. It’s just not going to happen.
At this point it is no longer about the $20. If the price of the chair was $20 more (not quite as big a sale), I might have bought it anyway. At this point, it’s the principle of not paying more for a floor model. I think, this is a drag, I just want to buy the damned chair, but he’s dug in his heels and I’ve dug in mine. I say, well I guess you’re not getting my business today. You understand though, that when I need printer ink, paper, electronics and whatever else I might buy at your store, I’m going to rethink where I shop and give somebody else my business in the future.
The manager has a look on his face that can only mean, I’ll show you I’m not going to get pushed around by a damned customer. We deserve that extra $20. So I say, have a nice day, turn and leave the store. Next week I’ll go buy a chair from somebody else. It will cost me another shopping trip I’d rather not make, but I’ll get over it. The $20 surcharge was over the top. If it were my business, I’d be happy to sell the chair.
Rock Island Line
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee
Freight Train Boogie
Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives
Banjoreno
Performed by the Hokum High Rollers…
Walking in the Don Valley
For the past couple years, I’ve been participating in the TDSB nature walks let by naturalist Miles Hearn. I’ve learned so much about the natural world around me during that time, all without leaving the Greater Toronto Area. Yesterday I went on the first walk of the fall session. I enjoy this time of year, even though we don’t see nearly so many birds as in spring. Throughout the year, each walk tells its own story, and things often change daily through the seasons.
Yesterday we visited the area of the Don Valley known as Crother’s Woods. Crothers was a company that sold heavy equipment (now called Toromont). It was located in this part of the Don Valley for many years, and as it happened it’s the place Tuffy P’s dad worked for a very long time. In fact, he worked his way up from an entry level position, retiring as a VP. He thought it was very important to stay with a company for a full career if possible and loyalty was a very strong value for him, something I admired very much.
This is the time of year for asters. There are several species in bloom right now, and in the coming weeks, expect to see various different ones in my pictures.
Lots of shrubs are showing off berries right now. One of the more common ones is Buckthorn. In fact, this shrub is considered invasive. The berries don’t look all that much different than the Serviceberries we enjoyed earlier in the summer, but you don’t want to eat Buckthorn berries. The Latin name of the plant is Rhamnus cathartica, and if you eat the berries, you will have an unpleasant and in fact cathartic experience.
On the other hand, Highbush Cranberry produces edible berries. I read that there are different species of them. The native or American Highbush Cranberry apparently produce berries that are tart but tasty while the European Highbush Cranberry produces berries that are bitter and not palatable at all. At this point, if I see one I can identify it as a Highbush Cranberry but I couldn’t tell you which species it is. I suppose doing a taste test is one way to tell. The Highbush Cranberry is not a true cranberry at all. It’s part of the Viburnum group.
Be careful out there if you see berries you think might be good to eat. I photographed the Deadly Nightshade berries above not far from Highbush Cranberry bushes. With plants as well as with mushrooms, it’s important to be very careful to identify things accurately should you plan to eat them. If you aren’t certain, don’t eat it.
Another berry producing plant we saw yesterday was Doll’s Eyes or Baneberry. These area unique and beautiful, but the berries are very poisonous.
Right now there are lots of Woolly Bear caterpillars around in the Toronto area. These become the Isabella Tiger Moth.
When I was growing up, I was always told the Don was a very polluted river. It got that reputation for every good reason, since there was plenty of heavy industry along the river, including a paper mill. Where we walked yesterday, there was once a garbage dump, which has been naturalized over the years. I don’t know what the overall health of the river is like these days, but it’s looking good, and there is a great variety of plant and birdlife along the banks.
My friend Hobie is along on the walks this fall. He spotted this Red-tailed Hawk, sitting atop a pole.
The most common species of bird we saw and heard on the walk was the Goldfinch. There were plenty of them and we could hear them chattering through much of the walk.
Next week, we’ll be walking in the Rouge Urban National Park.
Other Places
Those of you who are enjoying The Agency Podcast that Candy Minx and I have been cooking up (the second episode is up and you can now subscribe at iTunes or listen here)- can find other related materials and perspectives on this blog, on Candy’s blog, on our Agency Podcast Facebook page (we’ve even started a Facebook group) as well as on Instagram. These other places offer an opportunity for us to post pictures or videos or notes after the fact, and provide additional colour to the episode.
I’m finding making these podcasts to be a tremendous adventure. While each of us goes into each session with some ideas about what we want to talk about, I don’t think either Candy or I can predict where each conversation is going to lead us, especially since we don’t even tell one another what topics we plan to introduce. Going into the first recording I was nervous and I think Candy was too. I felt much more relaxed going into the second episode, even as we navigated some technical trials and tribulations.
Some additional notes. The intro and ending music bits are from the Old Time tradition, played by me solo on clawhammer banjo. We’re putting the sound file together using Garage Band on my Mac. This allows me to add multiple tracks which I can move around, and as well, I can fade any of the tracks in and out. The actual conversation file is recorded using the native recording feature on Skype (so far), but I’m looking into other ways of going about this which might improve the sound quality some. If any readers have suggestions, I’d be happy to take a look at them.
27th Street 