Here’s Paulino Bernal
Paulino Bernal was born in 1939. Along with his brother Eloy and their group El Conjunto Bernal, he was a conjunto innovator and a diatonic accordion master, integrating an array of musical influences. In the early 70’s he gave up the “devil’s music” and became a Christian evangelist. A couple years ago, Bernal released his first album of polkas in many many years, EL Maestro Del Acordeon Y Sus Polkas.
Today was a fabulous example of an early spring afternoon at its best. We went for a long walk with the girls, who used the opportunity to enjoy their first swim of 2011. 
We went to see Limitless tonight on the strength of a review we heard on the radio. Actually, Lincoln Lawyer was our first choice but it was full, but we were prepared with Limitless as a backup. I’m going to call it a fun actioner with some excellent cinemetography.
Here it is in a nutshell. The protagonist gets a taste of a new designer drug that enables him to use 100% of his brain. It really works and makes you super focused and uber-smart. Then bad things happen, not the least of which is that once you start dosing regularly, you get sick and die if you stop. This means maintaining supply is a big deal. This film is a lot of fun and is an enjoyable ride throughout. The effects once buddy takes the drug are great. They obviously had trouble figuring out how to end the thing, though, but I forgive that. Nicely done.
I was in London Ontario for a chunk of the day on business. On the drive back this afternoon I saw an explosion. I was driving east on the 401 a little before the 427 when suddenly a large cloud of very dark gray smoke billowed up in the distance. It looked to me that is could have been coming from the airport and my immediate concern was that a plane had crashed. Later, I found out was not coming from the airport but close – Dixon and the 27.
The smoke stopped just as I was starting to exit onto the 427 South. However, as I was making the exit, I saw an explosion of flames into the sky from the same spot, immediately followed by huge amounts of dark smoke. By this point I was heading south on the 427 and through my rear view mirror, the smoke got thicker and thicker.
It turned out to be a fire at a hydro transformer station. The smoke apparently became so thick that the 410 was actually closed down for some time for safety. I was very fortunate to be exiting just as it happened. A few minutes later and I would have been stuck on the 401 for a couple hours.
Here’s Toronto’s own bluegrass band, the Foggy Hogtown Boys. Some local readers will know that Chris Quinn on banjo used to also play regularly with Jughead, a favourite of my circle of friends back in the day.
The Dog of the South by Charles Portis (1979) is a quest novel. Ray Midge’s wife Norma has run off with her ex-husband Dupree. They’ve taken Ray’s credit cards and his Grand Torino and they’ve headed south from Arkansas to Mexico and finally to Belize. Ray is in his mid-twenties and he’s struggling to figure out what to do with his life. He’s very interested in military history and he knows quite a bit about cars, but he’s lost in the world.
Ray decides to go after his car, credit cards and yes, also his wife Norma. He packs a gun (from his collection) in a pie box and off he goes. We learn along the way that Ray isn’t likely to shoot anybody, and in fact he forgets about the gun. The book is about Ray’s adventures following the trail of Norma and Dupree. The heart of the novel is in all the characters and adventures Ray encounters along the way. Ray sallies forth on his adventure with a “don’t look back” attitude. When bad things happen, Ray gets mildly annoyed but simply carries on, moving closer to the objects of his quest.
The characters include a bail-bondsman (Dupree has jumped bail after threatening the President), a former doctor turned grifter, two older women running a missionary church in Belize, and a boy named Webster who sleeps in a box. There is no worry about what’s going to happen two weeks from now. Ray lives his roadtrip in the moment as he deals with the various obstacles separating him from his Torino.
I don’t know how it is that I’ve failed to read a Charles Portis novel until now. I’m going to read some of his other books in the coming months. I enjoyed the story and the characters and the humour as well in The Dog of the South.
OK, not from Istanbul…but we did get a telephone call from Louisiana tonight from our pals Anthony and Candy, calling from a campground somewhere outside of New Orleans. How great to hear from them. We’ve been following the progress of their amazing road-trip on Candy’s blog. It seems like only yesterday we were on a road-trip with them. We had met up at the International Accordion Festival in San Antonio Texas and drove across Louisiana to New Orleans, having a great time along the way.
Most years I read several novels, but over the last year or so, not so much. Most of my reading has been of the non-fiction variety. Maybe this is because I’ve been making a feeble attempt at writing some fiction, I don’t know. I’m plodding along with that. Actually, I wrote a section of it, stopped myself from going further, and stepped back to consider what I wrote. Now I’m going in for a re-write.
Meanwhile, the other day, I was near a bookstore and early for an appointment so I wandered in and roamed the fiction aisles. There are lots of ways to find books to read. There is the book list, and the big plan to knock them off one by one. There is the recommendation. Sometimes I read books that are recommended to me. Other times, I sniff around those titles and opt for something else instead. Then there is the roam the aisles of the bookstore approach. It’s all about going in without a plan and letting the Force take care of business. That’s what I did the other day.
A display of several copies of True Grit by Charles Portis caught my eye. I knew that True Grit was written by Charles Portis but I hadn’t read it (I did see two movie versions) and knew nothing of the author or his other books. The one I found myself immediately attracted to was The Dog of the South. I flipped it open:
“I’ve got a hundred ideas better than that but Mama won’t answer my letters. What about a Christian boys’ ranch? It’s an ideal setting. You’d think that would appeal to her wouldn’t you? Well, you’d be wrong. How about a theme park? Jefferson Davis Land. It’s not far from the old Davis plantation. Listen to this. I would dress up like Davis in a frock coat and greet the tourists as they stepped off the ferry. I would glow at them and clutch their mothers’ hands and then-here’s the payoff-they would see the twinkle in my clear eye.”
I couldn’t wait to get back on the subway and start reading. I’ll write a post about this book when I’m finished reading it. How about you? What are you reading these days?
27th Street 