Some of our butterfly mosaics (for instance The Brain Project) depict actual butterfly species. Others like this one are improvisational and imaginary.
We do custom mosaics for gardens or interiors. We’ll even make mosaics using your broken treasures, so if you want to re-purpose that special teapot (or anything) we’ll reinvent it for you.
Two recordings which were released in 2017 have been getting a lot of play at home and in the car lately: Going Home by April Verch and Joe Newberry and Carp Fishing in Missouri by Cathy Barton and Dave Para.
April Verch is a super-fine fiddler and step dancer who came out of the Ottawa Valley fiddle tradition a number of years ago. These days her repertoire has expanded to include other fiddle and song traditions as well. I’ve been fortunate enough to have seen 3 of her shows over the years. She always gives a fabulous performance. I was delighted to discover that April Verch has been performing of late with another of my favourites, Joe Newberry.
You might be familiar with Joe Newberry from frequent appearances on Prairie Home Companion. He also has some great recordings available. His Two Hands recording is excellent and as well I recommend the live recording he did with mandolin picker Mike Compton simply called Mike Compton & Joe Newberry Live. I also know Joe as a teacher and I’ve had the opportunity to take some of his classes and jam with him at Midwest Banjo Camp. What a great experience! Joe is a really good teacher and also a great person to be around.
April Verch and Joe Newberry have quite a chemistry playing together and it comes across wonderfully well on Going Home. The album features a selection of songs and tunes which for the most part are different than you would hear either of them play on their own or with others. Both performers sing, April Verch plays loads of fiddle and Joe Newberry plays both guitar and banjo.
The highlight of Going Home for me is one of Joe Newberry’s songs, Jericho. Here they are performing the song live on Good Hope Island…
Another highlight for me is the instrumental medley, Back up and Push/ Carleton County Breakdown/John Brown’s Dream. I love these choices together. Back up and Push has been well recorded, mostly by Bluegrass bands. I’m betting that Carleton County refers to the historic Carleton County in the Ottawa Ontario area, since April Verch was known first as an Ottawa Valley fiddler. When I hear John Brown’s Dream, I think of North Carolina and more specifically Surry County, home of the Round Peak style of old time music. When the medley kicks into John Brown’s Dream, we hear April Verch’s dancing against Joe Newberry’s banjo. Perfect. John Brown’s Dream, the devil is dead.
The final tune on Going Home is Arcand-Saw Traveler/Arkansas Traveler. The first part is a nod to the great Métis fiddler from Saskatchewan John Arcand. The second part is the Arkansas Traveler I know and more like the one I like to play on the banjo.
Today I’m writing about two duos but I should mention that Joe Newberry and Cathy Barton and Dave Para happen to have known one another going back a very long way. I should also mention that I’ve had a chance to take a number of classes with Cathy Barton and jam with her and Dave Para at Midwest Banjo Camp. I’ve attended that camp 3 times and along the way I’ve learned quite a number of tunes from Cathy’s enormous repertoire.
The title Carp Fishing in Missouri refers to a jam at the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield Kansas, known as the Carp Camp. This recording features a number of musicians Cathy and Dave have played with at that jam, as well as several tunes they learned there. There is some singing on this album, but it is dominated by instrumentals. I know Cathy as a clawhammer player but she is also well-known for her hammered dulcimer playing and it is featured on quite a few of the tracks on the album.
There is a great version of the John Hartford song, Skipping on the Mississippi Dew on Carp Fishing in Missouri. I’ve heard Cathy and Dave perform this one live, at the 2014 Midwest Banjo Camp faculty concert. Here’s a live performance they did to promote the new album on the Paul Pepper radio show – featuring Dave Para on Jew’s harp.
The banjo Cathy is playing on this video is a vintage Ode by the way – it may look like it’s been through the wars but it has come out victorious. It’s a great instrument and Cathy Barton makes it sing so well. I’ve only played open-back banjos. One day I’d like to try playing a beast like that Ode.
Here’s another from their new recording, also performed on the Paul Pepper Show. It’s Oh My Little Darlin with Lady on the Green.
I learned Lady on the Green from Cathy in June at banjo camp. There’s another tune on the album I also learned from Cathy and Dave – a French Canadian tune called Le Grande Chaine.
I bought the Newberry/Verch music as a download on iTunes. I bought my copy of Carp Fishing in Missouri at the Midwest Banjo Camp store. You can order a copy from their website. Both recordings highly recommended.
The Vegetarian is a highly unusual, psychologically complex and thoughtful novel which explores themes around identity, family, mental illness and questions about how we choose to live in this world. It’s set in Korea and written in Korean and translated to English. This book is the Man Booker Prize winner for 2016.
This three part novel is the story of a woman, (described as unremarkable by her husband), who has a dream which leads to her giving up eating meat. She begins to change in many ways which we see as descending into some kind of mental illness apparently driven by her series of dreams.
The story, Yeong-hye‘s story, is told from three points of view, first from her husband’s, then from her obsessed artist brother-in-law’s and finally from the point of view of her sister. The different perspectives add layers of complexity to her story and pull in many aspects of her life, including childhood trauma.
The Vegetarian is a strange novel and a very intense one particularly in the second part. Yeong-hye tells the other characters and through them the reader, we won’t understand her dreams and how they are changing her life. We’re given enough clues about her life story that we feel compelled to understand what is going on with her, and yet it is easy enough to dismiss her experience as an illness.
It’s a very moving book which quickly shattered any expectations I might have had of it going in. I didn’t want to stop reading it, even though it was disturbing through much of its length. I suppose there are more questions here than answers. We’re never quite sure what is going on with Yeong-hye because even though the writer offers up 3 perspectives, none of them is the perspective of the main character herself.
The huge walnut tree at 39 Twenty Seventh Street was destroyed today. The owner of the property is planning a re-build and apparently the Committee of Adjustment granted them the permit to take down this tree as well as two other walnuts in the back to make room. I spoke to the owner of the property this morning. She said, “I know, I like the tree, I had no choice.”
Crew getting ready to take down the walnut
Now here is what was left, last time I looked a couple hours ago…
What a shame.
The City of Toronto has an Urban Forestry department but unfortunately. they have not been very effective in protecting the canopy on our street.
There used to be a huge maple at #75 Twenty Seventh. The lot was split and a pair of soldier homes were erected, damaging the tree in the process. It took the tree a couple years to die, but die it did.
At #2 Twenty Seventh, 6 mature spruce were destroyed without a permit, leaving one huge silver maple left on the property. That tree was badly damaged by a city crew connecting up drains. From the email I received from the Forestry rep responsible:
We have visited the site and seen the trench that you have brought to our attention. The injury incurred was committed by a City of Toronto contractor and not the property owner. We will continue to investigate this breach of the City of Toronto municipal Code Chapter 813 Article II 6B.
It was observed by our staff that moderate root damage took place at the time of excavation. Although it is anticipated that the tree will survive the root damage, it is unknown how it will affect the overall condition of the tree.
That was in December of 2015. The tree is almost dead now and the city has recently sprayed it with the orange mark of doom. Looks like it is going to be taken down soon.
Just to the north, along the same side of Twenty Seventh, the owner of 4 and 6 Twenty Seventh has taken down everything green in the front of those lots with the exception of one spruce tree which he has sadly defoliated up to about the 30 foot level.
I wish I could say I’m hopeful many new trees will be planted on our street, but based on what I’ve seen, I’m not. Fortunately we have a lush garden with several mature trees on our side of the street to take refuge in.
When we moved to Twenty Seventh Street, it was like Muskoka in the city, a condition which has been chipped away at steadily over the past few years. It’s really sad.
If you would like to see our brain in person, it’s now on display at Nathan Phillips Square.
Our project was created by affixing tesserae (Italian Smalti tiles) directly on the blank brain sculpture. Once all the tiles were in place, we grouted the piece with standard tile grout. There are 5 images of monarch butterflies positioned around the brain.
Tuffy P suggested I make a Saskatoon lemon nut loaf. I tried it today.
This is like a cranberry lemon nut loaf except with Saskatoons instead of cranberries. it is seriously good. And the great news is that I have enough berries ripening on the bush out front I’m going to be able to bake with Saskatoons one more time.
I adapted a more or less standard loaf recipe. It uses butter, plenty of lemon juice and zest, flour, sugar, salt, eggs, baking powder, and loads of Saskatoons and walnuts.
We have a Saskatoon Berry (Serviceberry) bush out in the front garden, and this year it’s loaded with fruit.
I did a first picking after supper today, and in a couple days most of the rest of them should be ripe.
Now to decide what to make with them. To all my friends who love to cook and bake, I’d love to hear your suggestions. If you’ve got a terrific Saskatoon recipe, please share! I’m leaning to making a simple Saskatoon Berry Crisp, but I can be talked into trying something more interesting.
27th Street 