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Memphis gets a new toy
Over the Waterfall
I love the Old Time fiddle and banjo tune, Over the Waterfall. Here are a few different approaches to it, beginning with Dave Hum fingerpicking it…
It has a different feel played clawhammer. This version was posted by Kenneth William Elkington. Very nice.
And Ryan Thomson on fiddle…
Raw Materials
After finding that beautiful maple syrup can recently, I ordered up a neck from ebay. My other canjos have been “A” scale but this is a full length neck. It’s in pretty good shape and I think it will make a nice instrument….once I get around to finishing up the mountain banjo waiting in the workshop for my attention.
Storytime – The Catch
We got back to my place with a sack of perch we caught through the ice on Simcoe. As ice fishing goes, it was a good day. The plan was to fillet them up and package them for the freezer but mom wouldn’t let us use the kitchen. You’re not bringing those slimy things in here. Go on, take them downstairs.
It was Dad’s bridge night, a weekly event that moved from house to house, basement to basement, involving modest wagers, a cloud of cigarette smoke and a bottle of CC. They were three quarters through the bottle and half in the bag when we got there. We ignored them as best we could, laid out some garbage bags on the old chest freezer, spread out our catch, and sharpened up our knives.
G was dummy, so he got up for a stretch and came over to inspect the perch.
Good for sauce.
Sauce? What are you, crazy? We’re going to fillet these up for frying.
Naw, don’t do that. Too much waste. You want to use them for sauce.
Look, we caught them, we’re going to fillet them.
Naw, na, na, don’t do that. Look, you just scrape em, gut em and eat em.
Listen G, it’s a crime to toss prime Lake Simcoe perch into tomato sauce. We’re not going to do it.
Forget fillets. Just scrape em, gut em and eat em, scrape em, gut em and eat em, that’s it.
Son, why don’t you put a few of those perch aside for G and let him do what he wants with them.
Yeah, alright we can do that.
That wouldn’t do. G wanted them all.
The Canada Club was doing its job. G started grabbing perch and stuffing them inside his suit jacket, one after another. He was always a snappy dresser.
Hey, what are doing, cut it out man.
Scrape em, gut em and…
G, cut it out, the boys are going to give you some perch already. Leave them alone and stop causing trouble in the subdivision.
Listen here Joe, I don’t have to listen to you.
He crammed another perch down his shirt.
Come on, enough already. Get back to the game.
Listen here Joe, I’ve had goddamwell about enough of you already.
Look, you filled your pockets and your shirt and your jacket with fish, don’t you think you’ve had enough?
I’m the one who decides when I’ve had enough.
I’m telling you its enough.
You’re telling me? You’re telling me? Well I’ve had enough. Enough of you my friend. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.
You can’t ask me to leave.
Who the hell says I can’t? You and who else?
I’m telling you you can’t ask me to leave. It’s my house.
Johnny Can’t Dance
(Johnny’s just like me that way….)
Here’s Ray Abshire
#3
#2
#1
When I started posting these digital drawings/photo manipulations or whatever they are, I was giving each of them a little title, but I think that presumes a greater degree of finish to them. I’m thinking of these more as spontaneous image development than as completed works. I decided that instead of titling them, I would simply assign a number to each of the images, starting now. Even though there are others that came before it, here is #1.
Cardinal Update
Tuffy P has been working away on the male cardinal. Here’s an update.
Paintings by Tim Deverell
I was out and about in the city today, first picking up some pictures from our framer’s, then picking up a suit from Tom’s place in Kensington Market, after which I walked down to Yumart at 101 Spadina (for readers not from around here, I’m in Toronto) for the opening of an exhibition by Tim Deverell, featuring works from 2000 to 2010.
I like Tim’s work very much – I’ve been familiar with his paintings for many years, and in fact we’ve hung one of his small pieces in our home for several years. It was a treat to see a significant grouping of his paintings today. The show is at Yumart, a gallery space at 101 Spadina up on the 2nd floor. Yumart is operated by Yvonne Whelen, also a painter, whose work may be familiar to art lovers in Toronto.
When you look at one of Tim’s paintings or drawings, first impressions are deceptive. You see the piece one way, and then you catch a glimpse of detail that draws you in, and suddenly the picture has drawn you very close and you’re picking out details, and as you start to see more and more going on, your perception of the picture changes back and forth from micro to macro. Some of his pictures look very simple a first glance but reveal themselves to be so complex and detailed it isn’t possible to take in nearly everything going on in them at once. Tim Deverell makes work that has a quiet presence and an underlying obsessiveness that keeps on giving.
To learn more about Tim Deverell and his work, he is interviewed by Y.M. Whelen in Numéro Cinq. This article also shows some of the pictures in the exhibition.
27th Street 