Lighter Touch, Louder Voice

            During Wednesday morning’s song practice, since I really couldn’t afford to buy new guitar strings, I made a conscious effort to strum more lightly. In some ways applying such mental effort to my playing caused me to make mistakes on songs that I’ve learned to play without thinking. I noticed though that I was singing louder when I played softer and it wasn’t just that my voice seemed louder because it wasn’t being drowned by the guitar. Not only did I have more volume in my voice but it also seemed that my singing was more in tune. Plus, I didn’t break a string!

            In the early afternoon, now that I had some room on my computer, I had a look at the last video that I’d shot of my song practice on Saturday. The last half of the video was of me changing a string but I did get some footage in the beginning of me fumbling through some songs. I’d managed to position the camera this time so that I was in the centre of the frame and I think the height of the camera was fine. I think I should stand back more though because the top of my head was out of the frame. I’m pretty sure the guitar would still be loud enough from a little further away and since I’m using a microphone the voice will still be the same volume.

            In the late afternoon I took a very hot bike ride to finish exploring the area south and east of Don Mills Road and Eglinton. For the most part the most interesting thing about that neighbourhood is how incredibly boring it is. There is not a building with character anywhere in the whole area.

            I went back the way I came and stopped at Whistlers at O’Connor and Mortimer to use the washroom. On the patio, as there often is, a jazz trio of guitar, bass and saxophone was playing a standard that I couldn’t name.

            When I got home I left the cold water running while I went over to the liquor store to buy a can of Creemore. When I got back I drank a glass of water and ate a slice of cold watermelon. Probably because of the long ride in the heat I felt drained afterwards and didn’t last long after dinner before going to bed about 45 minutes earlier than usual. 

Breaking Guitar Strings

            On Tuesday morning I broke my E string again, just a day after breaking the B. I’m starting to think there might be something sharp on the bridge that’s cutting them. If I break an E or B on Wednesday morning I won’t have a replacement.

            I moved several video files to my external hard drive and freed up twenty gigs on my computer.

            In the heat of the late afternoon I took my bike ride but instead of going through the hell again of taking the bike unfriendly Don Mills Road from O’Connor I took Pape across the river to Millwood, turned right on Overlea and took that across to Don Mills Rd. It was so much easier and less nerve wracking that way. I went north then turned right on St Dennis, which I followed to where it ends at Eglinton. Instead of going back the way I came though, I decided to continue east on Eglinton because there were a couple of streets that I hadn’t explored that run off of Bermondsey. The first one was Mobile, at the end of which is an $11,000 a year per student prep school and the second was Old Eglinton Avenue, at the end of which at least ten garbage trucks were parked. My next ride should get me finished with the Don Mills and Eglinton area and then I can spend some time covering all the streets between O’Connor and Victoria Park, up to Eglinton. After that I can get back to the Danforth east of Woodbine.

            On the way home I stopped at Freshco where I bought bananas and yogourt. I held onto a few dollars just in case I would need to buy more guitar strings.

            I watched the first episode of the second season of Maverick. It wasn’t a bad story. A thief who stole $40,000 sets up Bret Maverick to take the fall. He’s tried and sentenced to hang but he still keeps insisting that he doesn’t know where the money is because he’s innocent. On the morning of Maverick’s execution though the greedy sheriff proposes to fake his hanging if he’ll lead him to the money. Seeing this as a way out, Maverick lies that he does know where the money is and agrees to the sheriff’s plan. After they are well out of town the sheriff lets Maverick out of the coffin, but he easily steals the sheriff’s horse and escapes.

            A few days later a woman claiming to be Bret Maverick’s widow shows up in town and wants to see her late husband’s grave. After visiting it she leaves on the next stagecoach.

            Hours later Bret Maverick, wearing a moustache, arrives in town claiming to be Bret Maverick’s brother, investigating the validity of the testimonies of the three men who had claimed that they’d seen Bret commit the crime. But when Maverick hears that his “sister in law” had just been there, he finds out which stage she left on and rides after it. He intercepts the stage and gets on as a passenger, eventually seducing his own “widow” whom he’s never seen. She decides to run off with him but Maverick says that she should make a clean break from her husband. She insists that she wouldn’t be able to face him but Maverick tells her he will come to meet him with her. When they arrive at her home though she pulls a gun because she’s been secretly sure all along that Maverick was a lawman and so they’ve both been leading each other on: Maverick to find the guy that framed him and her to bring the cop to her husband. When her husband comes out and sees him he draws his gun and shouts that she’s brought the man that was supposed to hang. A gunfight ensues between the two men and the wife could easily shoot Maverick but can’t do it. Maverick kills the husband, and then takes the wife back to clear his name.

           

            

Enrolled in US Lit, then Rolled Through the Wasteland

            On Monday morning I broke another guitar string, even though I’d changed the B a week or so ago. Maybe I’m hitting the strings harder these days.

At 11:10 I enrolled in 20^th Century American Literature and Early Medieval Philosophy. It took me three minutes so I can’t blame that for the rest of the morning getting wasted. I spent way too much time arguing with someone on Facebook.

Late that afternoon I took a bike ride I wanted to explore the streets that run east from Don Mills Road. I’d remembered from last year that Don Mills Road is scary for cyclists, but I’d forgotten how intimidating it is. I felt like I was on the Don Valley Parkway. Just like last time I walked some of the way but this time I started riding once I as past the entrances and exits to and from the DVP. I turned right on Gateway, went along Grenoble, and then Linkwood to St Dennis. Then I came back on Grenoble where I stopped to look at some graffiti in Flemingdon Park. The neighbourhood is full of people and yet it’s architecturally lifeless because it’s a forest of high-rise apartment buildings.

I didn’t want to ride back the way I came so I took Don Mills to Eglinton and travelled west through four long construction zones with only short spaces of calm between them. Most of Eglinton was narrowed all the way to Yonge, which made it even less of a bike friendly route than normal.

Going down Yonge a young woman on a big bike whizzed past me. I had no problem overtaking her but she got by again at a light. I coasted ahead on the hill but when I stopped for a red light she was so desperate to get ahead that she whipped right through.
            I went home along College and then down Brock. I had just stopped at the stop sign after the underpass and was rolling again when a tattooed early middle aged woman in an old car slowed down beside me, rolled down her window and asked if she could talk with me. She assured me, “There’s nothing wrong!” She went on to tell me that a friend of hers never wore a helmet but recently got doored and now she needs brain surgery. The woman wanted to urge me, and she put her hand on her heart and added “with love”, to protect my head. I told her that I’ve fallen off my bike lots of times but never cam close to hitting my head. She argued that neither had her friend. I countered that the odds are very low and they might even be higher for people walking on an unsalted sidewalk in the winter, so why not insist that they wear helmets too? She repeated that she was speaking to me with love because of what happened to her friend. I told her that she was doing this now because she felt personally involved. Our conversation ended and I went home.

I couldn’t find any information about a woman getting a brain injury from being doored in Toronto. In my experience it’s very difficult to hit one’s head when one falls off a bike. One falls on one’s hands, wrists, arms, elbows and shoulders. One would have to be really thrown hard against something other than the ground to hit one’s head. There are contradicting statistics on this matter. Apparently countries where the most helmets are worn have the most bike accident head injuries but I don’t know if they’ve enforced the wearing of helmets because of the injuries.

That night I watched the last episode of the first season of Maverick. A small town mistook Bret and Bart Maverick for Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp, even though they kept insisting they weren’t them.

Maybe Tracey Ullman Could Be the Second Female Doctor

            I spent a lot of Sunday writing about Saturday.

There was a strong chance of rain that afternoon and so I decided not to take a bike ride. It did rain a bit during the time I would have taken the tour.

We’ve had more rain this season than for the last few summers. Hopefully it’s been good for the crops so I can buy lots of cheap local apples and other fruits this fall.

I read the news and saw the teaser showing that the next Doctor in the Doctor Who series will be a woman. I don’t know anything about Jodie Whittaker so I don’t know how good she’ll be in the role. I think Tracey Ullman would make a great Doctor though.

I haven’t bothered to look at the last video that I shot of my song practice because I have to make room for it on my computer. Those MOV files take up a lot of space so I need to move some other files to my external hard drive before I can upload them to my computer.  

Track Lighting

On Saturday after the food bank I came home to put my groceries away and saw my landlord and his wife out on the deck cleaning up the mess of months of strewn garbage caused by a combination of raccoons and the lousy job that Sundar does as a superintendent. There are three plastic garbage cans on wheels, but the wheels are pointless, since these cans are not wheeled downstairs and out to the curb. There are plastic fasteners to hold the lids on the cans but either other tenants don’t close them or the racoons know how to unhook them. Other times the cans are so full that it’s impossible to put the lids on them. Of the three cans though, one of them has been sitting upside down and unused for the last year. I asked Sundar why he didn’t use that can and he answered that there was no cover for it. But now I could see that there was a cover all along. Maybe he meant the cover had no snaps like the others, which is true.

I told Raja that what he needs is for someone to build a big wooden bin with a liftable lid on hinges to put under the fire escape that we can put the garbage into and which would be too heavy for the raccoons to lift. He thought that was a good idea. I said that the deck would be a nice place to sit if not for the garbage situation. He agreed and mentioned that he was considering making a gate in the railing on the deck so that the garbage could be kept off the deck on the roof.

I headed up to Long and McQuade to buy a small E-string, because I always want to have an extra in case of breakage. If this weren’t the lean time of year I would have bought three, because Es and Bs are the ones that break the most. When I got there, as usual there was a mix up in communication because I asked for the string in its metric measurement. I requested a 0.33mm string but he looked for a .033-inch string, which would be a D. When I finally told him that in Imperial he was looking for a .013 he understood. Most strings that I’ve seen have both the metric and its conversion written on the package, so I was surprised when he handed me one that only showed “13”. It cost $1.10.

I’d thought that it was the law in Canada to show the metric measurements on packaging but when I looked it up I saw that it doesn’t seem to be enforced in every area. Canada is a strange incompatible mutation of the old and the new systems. Some of that is based on ties to, mixed with resistance to the British monarchy. Many Canadians are as slow to change as people in the States. I’ll bet that if there had been a referendum on the matter we wouldn’t even have universal health care in Canada. In many regards we are lucky to have a large population of more socially progressive people in Quebec than in the rest of Canada, so it keeps our country from turning into the States.

On the way home I was riding under the railroad bridge at Dufferin and Queen and I thought the light coming through the tracks above and hitting shadows below looked interesting so I stopped to take a picture. I opened my backpack but I couldn’t find my camera. I rode home and couldn’t find it there either. I was starting to worry when I looked in my bag again and found it exactly where it was supposed to be. It’s a mystery why I couldn’t find it before. I headed back to the underpass and took a few shots.

That afternoon I took a bike ride to finish exploring the Parkview Hills neighbourhood. There wasn’t much bike traffic on Bloor or Danforth in either direction. There was a jazz band busking in front of the Manulife Centre. I took Bermondsey from where it goes west off of O’Connor and then followed its curve north to Eglinton, which I took east to Victoria Park, then back to O’Connor and home. My next few rides will be to explore the streets that run east from Don Mills Road to the Don River as far north as Eglinton.

Chairs for Those Who Like to Smoke

            On Saturday morning I started recording my song practice with hopefully a louder mic and a better-positioned camera. After a couple of songs though I noticed that the camera wasn’t recording. I knew I’d pushed the record button and I had seen the red light on, so I concluded that when I’d repositioned the camera I must have pushed the button again and stopped the recording. When I pushed it again it stayed on, but then after about fifteen minutes my E string broke. I managed to find amongst my extra strings one E string that had somehow gotten twisted but I put it on anyway. The string though was dull and toneless and for some reason laying flat against the neck. I finally figured out though that when I’d tightened the string it hadn’t been sitting in its proper groove in the nut but rather it was caught along the side of the neck. I pried it into place and it sounded fine. There was no trace of the twisted part so it must have gotten wound up on the capstan. Hopefully it would hold. It wasn’t a very successful recording session though in terms of time but I haven’t looked or heard the playback yet so I don’t know if there was anything worth keeping.

            I spent some time trying to memorize Serge Gainsbourg’s “Pourquoi Un Pyjama?” Once I get the rhythm of it it’s not so hard to remember: “Moi je n'en mets jamais non jamais je n'en mets jamais je n'ai mis de ma vie un pyjama”. It’s just hard to sing it fast.

            At about 9:45 o Saturday I went to the food bank. The line-up was longer than last time but about the right length for the middle of the month. Something new though was that a handful of people had brought along camping chairs to make waiting easier. The woman in front of me had brought one in her cart and I overheard her tell someone that they have them for $8.99 at Canadian Tire.

            I guess it was inevitable that food bank clients would start bringing chairs. At the previous location there had been a few chairs put out by the food bank, as well as old furniture and palates lying around to sit on, so those that felt the need to sit didn’t need to bring anything of their own. When I’m there I don’t feel any urge to sit but even if I did, what would be the point? In order to avoid all the second hand smoke I have to stay on my feet and move around.

            The tattooed Ethiopian guy with the golden lab pup was a little further back in line. Someone was walking by with an adult black lab and he stopped to let his dog interact with the pup. Dog people might be just as snooty as everyone else but they tend to momentarily bond with other dog people across the classes. Someone might not stop to talk to someone in the food bank line-up, but if their dog wants to communicate with a poor person’s dog, they are suddenly equals, at least for a minute or two.

            When the line started moving I went to step back into line. I had not stood in my place since I’d arrived because there had been constant smoking from nearby the whole time. During that period a couple of guys had taken position behind the two women just in front of me and a long line had formed behind them. I came forward and told the two guys that I was in front of them. The scowling, prematurely white haired man declared, “Not likely!” I affirmed that I was behind the two ladies but he challenged me by demanding to know why I’d been standing off to the side. I explained that I had been avoiding the smoke and argued that I shouldn’t have to breathe toxins just to keep a place in line. He countered that the city is full of poison. I told him, “The streets are full of piss and shit but that doesn’t mean I can take a dump on your shoes!” “I wouldn’t advise it!” he warned. “Well, there ya go” I responded, “That’s why I don’t want to be around people who are exhaling poison, and you shouldn’t either!” I took my place and he didn’t argue about it anymore.

            Later I heard him grumble about how little one gets from the food bank, but the e-cigarette guy behind him offered, “Every little bit helps is what I say!”

After a while the vaper was commenting that he didn’t see very much goose meat available in Toronto. He said that when he lived in Israel goose meat was offered on pizza as a kosher replacement for pepperoni. I looked this up later and found that there is a breed of goose that Israel imports from Spain, the meat of which tastes like pork.

The food bank opened a few minutes ahead of time. I got number 31.

Angie’s cold foods section had half litre cartons of milk, 1.5 litre cartons of milk and 1.5 litre cartons of cashew milk. She said, “Take your milk!” I inquired as to which milk I should take. She asked, “Which one do you want?” I told her that I’d take the small one, but she gave me two anyway. I slipped the usual bag of five eggs into the small pocket of my backpack. I’m glad to announce that, unlike last time, they all made it to my refrigerator unbroken. I got two small raspberry-chocolate Greek yogourts and a choice between a tube of frozen ground chicken and frozen chicken wieners. Although that particular ground chicken isn’t very good, it’s far better than hot dogs for preparing meals. It can go into a soup with some chicken broth, potatoes and spices, and then it’s not bad at all.

Sylvia’s section had lettuce and I didn’t want to just put something as moist as lettuce into my backpack, so I pulled out the plastic bag that I’d brought for bread and started to open it. Plastic bags are not always easy to open right away. One has to find which end to start and then sometimes to even get the open part open because the sides are stuck together. Sylvia seemed get impatient with me while I was trying and said, “Time is ticking!” or something like that. The lettuce was not in great shape but there were salvageable parts. There were lettuce leaves on the floor. There was also half a small cabbage and a bunch of celery that had gone brown in parts. She gave me the usual potatoes but a few more than usual and a very small onion. I took a bag of pre-chopped peppers but when I got them home and opened them for a salad they smelled like garbage so I threw them away.

My helper at the shelves was the woman I’ve been calling here “the bread lady”. I thought about asking her name this time but it didn’t happen. She kept apologizing that they didn’t have very much of a selection that day and so almost anything I asked for she gave me double.

There were no cereals and no canned beans or tuna. I took a container of tomato-basil bisque and she gave me two cartons of chicken broth. I picked a litre carton of coconut water with pineapple and she gave me another. I asked for some granola bars and she gave me a couple of handfuls of what she thought were granola bars. About five of them were Golden Grahams Smores bars and the others were Kellogg’s Vector berry burst energy bars. I didn’t want any crackers or cookies but that shelf did have a box of five Special K dark chocolate chunks and almonds bars. From a top shelf that had some single items I picked a bottle of balsamic fig dressing.

From the bread I selected a non-sliced loaf of whole wheat.

The food bank offerings were a little lower on protein than usual this time but there were a few more greens, which went well with the balsamic fig dressing. 

Broken Keg Conundrum

            On Friday morning I made my first effort to record my voice with the Shure microphone while recording both sound and video with Nick’s Nikon. I think I found a good height for the camera at about a meter and 19 cm above the floor, mounted the tripod, on seven big books and on my window ledge the camera was pointing just below my chest and I stood back about a meter and a half. I’ve got to move a bit to my right next time though because the video of my was crowded onto the right side of the screen.

The voice recording was much better than what the camera picks up but I had to jack my amplifier up to the maximum on the playback just to have comfortable listening from two meters away. It seemed to me that I should be able to hear it that loud at half volume.

            I spent some time looking into how to change the settings in order to increase the mic volume. Things like that were so much easier to find before Windows 10 hijacked my computer but I found that I could get to the Control Panel by going to Library Tools and typing “Control Panel”, then I clicked “Sound”, then “Recording”, then “Microphone”, then “Properties”, then “Levels”, then moved the mic volume to 100 and the Microphone Boost to +10.0 dB (though I have no idea what that means). The mic was louder after that but I didn’t try another recording yet.

            I started working on memorizing a song by Serge Gainsbourg that has very rapid-fire lyrics. They are simple but the interplay of the sounds of the words is very rhythmic and it’s a challenge to come up with an English version. I’ll do it though, of course.

            In the late afternoon I took a bike ride despite the fact that there was a chance of rain. I hadn’t gone for a long jaunt in a couple of days so I was itching to get some exercise. At Bloor and Sherbourne I passed a guy in his 40s or 50s, riding his bike at a casual speed while belting out Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen” – “All over St Louis, way down in New Orleans, all the cats wanna dance with sweet little sixteen.”

I rode to O’Connor and Victoria Park and then went back one block to turn right on Bartley to explore the streets that run north from it to Eglinton.

I stopped at Freshco on the way home where I bought a watermelon, a bag of cherries, two bags of grapes and two containers of yogourt. I did a price match on the grapes because they were cheaper at No Frills. I could have done a price match on the watermelon as well but since the No Frills price was $1.97 compared to Freshco’s $1.99, I miscalculated that they would round up the price to $2.00 on both. I figured later though that they would probably have rounded it down to $1.95.

When I got home I went upstairs to knock on David’s door. Even though I was pretty sure he wouldn’t take his half of the money I thought it appropriate to let him know that I sold one of his cameras the day before. As with the last two times he told me to keep it, which I admit was a relief because I was seventy cents short to give him $20.00 anyway. He gave me a 5-liter keg of Heineken, which he’d bought but had broken the tap while trying to open it. He also asked if I would sell some china for him the way I’d sold his cameras. They were four small saucers, two with the same Christmas theme by Royal Copenhagen, one with a Mothers Day theme and another with a father’s day theme, both of those by Porsgrund of Norway. He seems to think they are valuable so he wants me to find out how valuable and then set an appropriate price. I predict that they are not worth as much as he imagines. The two Christmas plates are personalized gifts from Brian Romagnoli, one to Colin and the other to Kenneth.

I sent a message to Nick Cushing about the broken keg, since he’s somewhat of a handy guy and he likes beer. He said he can open it but it would all have to be drunk right away, so I told him to pick a hot day to come into town.