Have you a dream?  Perhaps an imaginary rustic cottage on a cliff overlooking the crashing sea? Or maybe a sudden view of the Ocean on the other side of a mounting ribbon of highway rising high into the blue and billowing ether. It might instead be an endless path across the nation – reminiscent of Highway 64.

“U.S. Route 64 (US 64) is an east–west United States highway that runs for 2,326 miles (3,743 km) from Nags Head in eastern North Carolina to just southwest of the Four Corners in northeast Arizona. The western terminus is at U.S. Route 160 in Teec Nos Pos, Arizona. The highway’s eastern terminus is at NC 12 and U.S. Route 158 at Whalebone Junction, North Carolina.“

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What is the allure of shopping! You say to me, “What is the answer?” and I say to you, “What is the question?” The question – to put it in a more manageable form – is simply this: “Can humanity escape the retail world?” Astonishingly no matter how old or experienced one is in matters retail there are seemingly no end of contortions surrounding even the most purposeless acquisition. The casual watch manufacturers know only too well of what I speak. Watches – like any other technology, cosmetic or fashion – are undergoing constant alteration seemingly to capture the current popularity of a Hollywood star or whatever preposterous heights or depths the watch manufacturers’ advertisers consider current – whether flying with a Breitling or diving with a Rolex. Really? How gullible are we then? Apparently more so than is good for us!

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Perhaps it is no coincidence that as a Toronto Conservatory pianist and an amateur photographer I should have a keen affection for music and motion picture soundtracks.  The attraction is especially commanding when the soundtrack captures the drama at times to the extent of a spiritual level.  Examples are the theme songs of Casablanca, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, a Clockwork Orange, Jurassic Park, Star Wars and Romeo and Juliet to name but a very few.

“I do think we are all musical receptors, at a very deep level,” says Brand. “We have that in our ancient DNA, and because film music is working at a deeper level than language and intellectual thought, maybe it’s hitting us all at that level. In a funny way, talking about that means that you recognise it, but it doesn’t change its power.”

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Nothing surpasses a rainy Saturday for remorseless indolence. Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible, baguette bagel with butter and a strong, black coffee. The natural interruption of drizzle nicely camouflages the day’s tarsome agenda. Besides I need a break from routine. Today is instead devoted to negligence and indulgence of the first order! Again I am reminded that we’re not saving it for the funeral!

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Getting out of bed in the morning at any particular time is never guaranteed – more so on a weekend when there persists the customary hang-over treatment. Most often we haven’t any scheduled appointments which would prompt the Drill Sergeant into parade ground routine. Today – Sunday – was no exception.  Yet when I succumbed at last this morning to the allure of a new day it was approaching nine o’clock. I recall having voided my bladder shortly after five o’clock this morning.  I then took my initial collection of pharmaceuticals and pain killer which I presume afforded a soporific effect. Nonetheless my awakening was nurtured moderately by a taste for discovery.

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My first inclination was to talk about the improving alterations which have recently affected my life. Then it occurred to me that the currency of my affairs is hardly much different from the past – at least that is when estimating my accomplishments. The indicia of repetition are perhaps painfully evident. Certainly there is no denying the natural declension from which we all suffer in one way or another – and the indescribable gusto emanating from an unpredicted triumph.  The truth is that the stability or turbulence of our inner mechanism very much govern our behaviour and the ensuing chronicle of things. Naturally an element of this propulsion is the inescapable feature that some days are more breezy than others. Today was just such a day – one which was blithely of the more persuasive character.

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Language
Published on October 28, 2017

Although President Donald Trump’s use of cryptic language is normally understood by even the lowest common denominator, certain words suffer misconstruction due to auditory distortion. Take his use of “bigly” for example. Apparently what he’s actually saying is “big league “. In either case the assumption is that he’s using the word or phrase as an adverb, something to modify a verb, as in “We won bigly” or “I intend to do something bigly”. If what he is really saying is “big league ” it still amounts to doing something on a grand scale and therefore the sense or meaning in either case is relatively clear even if both renditions are paradoxically more poetic than prosaic.

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There is perhaps a favourable though unforeseen endorsement which attends the neurosis of obsessiveness; that is, the feeling that when things are good, they’re very good! Naturally a similar nap prevails when the feeling is that things are bad; namely, they’re very bad!  Nonetheless when the prevailing circumstances are such that one is settled upon the more desirable alternative, the cheerfulness is unparalleled. These mercurial passions – when the palette of serendipity and casual coincidence align – render a remarkably pleasing episode. It is this “boomps-a-daisy” sentiment which brands my day today.

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A year ago we congregated for lunch at Heirloom Café on the other end of Mississippi River in the Town of Almonte.  This year – closer to the Town of Carleton Place – we sat on the patio overlooking the first tee at the Mississippi Golf Club in the Village of Appleton adjacent Glen Isle. Fortuitously the only robbers among us were brazen sea gulls who occasionally approached the bread on the festive table. The mosquitoes and horseflies did however do us the favour of avoiding the clubhouse atmosphere.

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It is perfectly lamentable that I so look forward to a day unblemished by obligation of the least constraint. Certainly there is nothing I do which qualifies as either weighty or extraordinary. Yet there is a private distaste I harbour for anything engaging before noon. It is a manifestly disruptive assignment which enforces the morning ablutions and matutinal nutrition by unmitigated preparation. What a stoic beginning to a day! What a catastrophic alert to life’s unfettered resources! Today by contrast was void of any such purposeful alignment.  Instead I leisurely contemplated the narrow shard of toxic sunlight escaping the end of the bedroom draperies. Repeated insights of this tell-all nature have over time insinuated my awakening capacity of this gentle nature – none of this business of clock radio alarms or iPhones propelling some preposterous Looney Tune concoction over the air waves!

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