“I think I learned years ago that you don’t get songs that have that long stride and that pivot-hinge ability if it’s too much diary entry.” — Leslie Feist
Feist made this observation about her songwriting technique — moments before, she acknowledges “there is always an innate bit of autobiography there” — in a 2007 interview with the New York Times.
This was just before the release of her breakthrough album The Reminder, and indeed right as she was about to shoot the video of 1 2 3 4, the song that pushed Feist right smack into the mainstream.
“My thought is always, ‘It’s only downhill from here.’ That’s how I’ve always operated, ever since I began Family Guy. I had the crippling fear that I used up all the funny last week. That crippling insecurity really drives you to do your best. … Your moments of pure joy are few and far between, but they do exist.” — Seth MacFarlane
The creator and driving force behind Family Guy and other projects, not to mention the voice of Stewie, Peter and other characters, Seth MacFarlane made this comment in 2012 when he was being interviewed at an industry forum in West Hollywood around the time he hosted the Oscars that year.
Surely that kind of gig would be a feather in any entertainer’s cap. I find it remarkable that MacFarlane, with a bevy of talents, is dealing with insecurity that can feel threatening.
Earlier this week, I put the first line of clothes of the year out on the line. Now it’s spring, I thought to myself. I made a quick post on social media, and hours later, I was surprised to see that several dozen of people had engaged with the post on Threads.
Flattered, I thought … but it’s just laundry, right?
There is something about a clothesline, though. The one you see above is from last August, when I hung a batch of shirts out, and the early morning sunshine was sublime.
It’s no coincidence that the humble clothesline has been a recurring motif for Newfoundland and Labrador’s celebrated tourism ads over the years. Indeed, the whole genesis of the campaign rests in the fact that in some parts of Canada, clotheslines are verboten.
“The sea can swallow ships, and it can spit out whales like watermelon seeds. It will take what it wants, and it will keep what it has taken, and you may not take away from it what it does not wish to give.” — Natalie Babbitt
Living in Newfoundland, and just a short drive from the coastline, I’ve had a lifelong appreciation for the sea. It has its own magic and lore, and so often, there is also tragedy — a reminder of the ocean’s relentless power. That pain is present in the folk songs we sing, the tales we tell.
Martha Muzychka making some delicious spinach pasta.
On the weekend, Martha and I drove to Cape Broyle — about an hour south of St. John’s — and spent an afternoon learning how to make pasta. It was one of the best things we’ve done together in quite a while.
The pasta course is one of the things that The Cape has been offering as it gets ready to open its high-end cabins this summer. The cabins look to be pretty luxe, and I take it are aimed at tourists from away (hey, Ontario) who are looking for a cosy-rustic experience while scooting around St. John’s and eastern Newfoundland.
“I am much fonder of receiving letters, than writing them: but I believe this is no very uncommon case.” – Mary Lamb
Known most for retelling (with her brother, Charles) the plays of William Shakespeare into stories for children, Mary Lamb was also an inveterate writer of letters, some of which were collected and published decades after her death in 1847.
Her own life was marked by pain, mental illness and tragedy; she fatally stabbed her mother in 1796.
“I’m just thinking about making people laugh. I hate when guys talk about ‘I’m edgy.’ The worst comics think that way. It’s not edgy if you’re talking about it! You just live it.” — Chris Rock
Chris Rock is perhaps the most famous comedian or comic of my generation. We were born a few weeks apart, and grew up in completely different circumstances. I grew up in a homogenous bubble of eastern Newfoundland, and Rock grew up in Brooklyn, one of the first Black kids to be bused to a white school.
Polling data from the last few days speak to a few things. First, Canadians are getting increasingly anxious about economic matters. Second, none of that is hurting Mark Carney — at least, not yet.
There’s a conventional wisdom that economic indicators — and not just that, but public perception of them — are tied directly to a political success and failure.
It’s not always that simple or straightforward, though, and right now Canada’s Liberal prime minister has not been dragged down by an economic gloom that threatens to push much of the world into recession.
It’s enough, indeed, to make me wonder if Carney’s greatest opponent right now is not any individual in Parliament, but economic forces outside.
“I don’t think people listen with their ears. I think they listen with their soul.” — Herb Alpert
I heard Herb Alpert — the legendary trumpet player, producer and career-maker — say these words in the documentary Herb Alpert Is…, which is currently streaming on Tubi.
Early in the documentary, we’re reminded that Alpert accomplished something that later generations might find hard to believe. He was so successful around 1965 and 1966, he was outselling the Beatles.
For Gen X folks like me, a few bars of some signature tunes like Spanish Flea are shorthand for an era of kitsch, plastic and questionable taste. But I actually do like his playing, and (Dad puts on his cardigan for this part) some of those Sixties records actually sound pretty good.
“It seems like only yesterday that savers were dorks. They kept piggy banks. They drove last year’s cars. They fished in their change purses for nickels while the superstars flashed credit cards. Today, values have changed. The new object of veneration is not money on the hoof but money in the bank — and the dorks all have it.” — Jane Bryant Quinn
The financial commentator Jane Bryant Quinn made that observation during a recessionary time … the early Nineties, to be exact, in the book Making the Most of Your Money.
This was a work she would revise or update through the years, which makes sense, because practical advice about money never really goes out of style.
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” — Isaac Asimov
These words from Isaac Asimov, the noted author and writer, first appeared in January 1980 as a My Turn column in the American magazine Newsweek. My Turn was a pillar of the magazine, showcasing a different guest column each week.
Asimov, though best known as a science fiction author, was also passionate about public understanding of science, and took advantage of the opportunity to argue that the right to know is meaningless if so many people are ignorant. (And, yes, more than three decades before the MAGA movement, he critiqued how gaining knowledge and checking facts were being dismissed as activities of “the elite.”)
I was saddened to learn today that Dr. Carl Robbins has died, at 81. The family’s obituary speaks right away to the kind of man he was.
Carl passed away during his last walk on Easter Sunday. Walking had always brought him joy, though it had become more difficult in recent years. We are grateful he felt well enough to be out that morning doing something he loved.
We should all be so lucky to be doing something we love in our final minutes.
I knew Carl mainly from reporting I did through the years on medical issues. He was a vice-dean at the medical school at Memorial University, was an evangelist for rural medicine for decades, and taught and trained scores of doctors, many of whom are practising now in Newfoundand and Labrador.
“We’re curious people. Humans are curious. We want to understand things. And for me personally, there’s no greater thing to understand than the universe itself and the parts that make it up.” — Anna O’Grady
Today’s quote comes from a recent CBC article by former colleague Elizabeth Whitten about an aspiring astrophysicist who grew up here in St. John’s. I was drawn to Anna O’Grady’s above quote, which is about curiosity, passion and learning.
I was also struck by details in the story that underscore how important it is to fire up a young kid’s imagination.
O’Grady said her parents always encouraged her to be curious, but she can recall in Grade 8 shopping with her mother at the Chapters bookstore in St. John’s and spotting a large astronomy book on the bargain table.
Since she was holiday shopping for other people, she put it down but said her mother noticed her interest and the book ended up beneath the Christmas tree.
“I absolutely inhaled the book,” O’Grady said, and it led her to the NASA website, reading what she could, and she became hooked.
In early 1986, the British TV series Yes, Prime Minister aired a scene that remains stunningly relevant with its lessons about political manipulation, polling, media literacy and public policy.
The series was a sequel to Yes, Minister, and carried on with the exploits of Sir Humphrey Appleby (played perfectly by Nigel Hawthorne), the adroit mover and shaker behind the scenes.
The hand underneath the puppet, as it were.
As the title of the sequel series indicates, Sir Humphrey is now, um, “advising” the prime minister as cabinet secretary, and the stakes are higher than before.
“Masterpieces are only lucky attempts.” — George Sand
The French writer George Sand — born Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin de Francueil, she adopted a pen name and a style for dressing to put her as an equal with men — experienced masterpieces. Her own, plus those of artists she met in 19th century Paris, not the least of whom was Frederic Chopin.
