Bins of these dried mushrooms are available for sale at this store on Dundas. The mushrooms are dried whole. There is no English identifier and I’m not sure what these are.
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The Chagall Exhibition
I enjoyed this exhibition, although I thought it was uneven. Most of the works I liked best were by Chagall’s contemporaries rather than by Chagall himself. For instance, there was a group of black and white lithographs by Natalia Goncharova that I thought were a great set. There were 15 of them, produced in 1914 and called Images of the War.
Another set I really enjoyed was a group of six small landscape oils by Kandinsky. these were painted in 1917, and as the handy card beside them suggested, they depicted the last months of calm before revolution. I thought they were a charming set of paintings.
There was a film playing by Dziga Vertou called Man with a Movie Camera. It was a silent film in 35mm showing everyday Russian life. This film was lively and inventive, using techniques like double exposures and freeze frames and slow motion to heighten the effect.
My favourite Chagall in the show was the smallish1937 Study for the Revolution, depicting Lenin balancing like an acrobat. The more familiar Chagall paintings, the ones with the floaty guys and the Russian villages, were there, but I can take them or leave them (especially the later ones).
Overall, the show was well worth seeing, but I wouldn’t call it spectacular, and the $25 admission was steep.
I met up with my old friend Tim there, and spending the afternoon catching up made for a great afternoon.
Related articles
- Rare Chagall paintings sold in New York (thejc.com)
- Marc Chagall works loaned to AGO from Paris (cbc.ca)
- Chagall’s synagogues up for sale (rt.com)
- Chagall and his contemporaries together at last (arts.nationalpost.com)
Dundas St.
I enjoyed this storefront today on Dundas St., not far west of the Art Gallery of Ontario
Chagall today
Off to the Marc Chagall exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario today. The show closes on the 15th, so I’m meeting up with my old friend Tim today to catch the show and catch up. Tim and I know one another going back to both high school and university. That’s back when dinosaurs roamed the earth for those who were wondering. More later….
Scottish à Catinaux
I’ve been posting quite a bit of music lately. I hope you’re enjoying it as much as I am. Here’s a tune I’m familiar with. I play a version of it on my triple row accordion. This is very nicely played by Serge Carrier on a lovely 1-row box.
for those days when the button accordion is just too mainstream…
Image via Wikipedia
…there’s the Hurdy Gurdy. When I grow up or win a medium sized lottery, I’d love to get my hands on one of these instruments.
A Minor Repair
I was experiencing what sounded like a horrible problem with my Guerrini triple row diatonic button accordion. Something was stuck, causing air to pass through a reed even though no buttons were depressed. That meant the box was unplayable in its current condition. Before taking it in to the shop, though, I thought I should take the grill off and see if there was any visible problem.
The picture shows the accordion without the grill. The left side is the bottom of the accordion when playing. The yellow wire you can see along that side connects from an internal mic to a control on the outside of the accordion. That wire sits there under the grill in a space next to the valves. Somehow, the wire slipped under one of the pads. When I opened up the grill, I could see the wire holding up the pad, allowing air to pass. Normally, gravity keeps the wire away from the pad. I must have depressed a button with the accordion upside down, causing gravity to have the reverse effect, lodging the wire where it didn’t belong.
Once I saw the problem, the repair took a fraction of a second. If I experience another problem with the wire, I can secure it down so it can’t possibly slide under the pad, but I’ve had this box for years and have never had the problem before, and I don’t really expect to experience it again.
To celebrate, I practiced Soldier’s Joy until my fingers hurt.
Soldier’s Joy is a tune that has been around for a very very long time and I’ve heard it played in all sorts of ways, all of which more or less share a melody. Here are a few different approaches to the tune.
Le Reel de la Contradiction
Wow, this is Denis Pépin! Beautiful.
Le reel du cultivateur
Let’s start 2012 off right with a nice button accordion reel.
Clément a l’accordéon et Réginald a la guitare
Sorry but I don’t know anything about these guys. They have a number of videos up on YouTube and they’re all very enjoyable.
25,000
According to the good folks at WordPress, this blog was viewed about 25,000 times last year. Of course, numbers can be deceiving. At some point early in the year, for instance, I made a post about a movie – the famous one about the submarine. I don’t even want to mention it here because that single post caused dozens of people to stumble in here only to be disappointed to find the usual accordion videos and photos of the menagerie + one brief review of said movie.
I wonder if WordPress stats capture readers who look at posts in a reader but don’t click through to the blog itself? I suspect not but I don’t know. It’s still a mystery to me that after quite a few years of blogging, it still captivates me, and stranger still, that some folks keep coming back. I know there are a few readers who have been dropping by here since the Mister Anchovy’s days on Blogger. And a few of you will remember when it was simply Mister Anchovy. Looking back, I’m surprised I didn’t simply call it The Mister Anchovy.
Anyway, for those of you who like to visit 27th Street, thanks for coming and thanks for your comments along the way.
Here are some things I posted about in 2011 in poll format – your chance to tell me what you want to see more of (no promises of course).
27th Street 