Ralph Vaughan Williams

I've been waxing lyrical for awhile about music and classical music, latin hymnals and the like. But I neglected to mention the heavenly prose in music form of Ralph Vaughan Williams. His specialities were drawing upon and reinventing masterpieces of the Elizabethan era and writing the English landscape into classical music.

If any of you readers have been to England, feel akin to the English, carry English heritage in your family, likely Vaughan Williams work will strike a chord with you.

My favourite pieces I've yet heard are The Lark Ascending, Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis and the Sinfonia Antartica.

The Lark Ascending (1908) is actually by the lines from a poem by George Meredith and typifies the English landscape. You can literally hear the lark ascending and descending gracefully through the sky in this beautiful piece. The lines are as follows:
He Rises and Begins to round
He drops the silver chain of sound
Of many links without a break
In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake
For singing till his heaven fills,
'Tis love of earth that he instills,
And ever winging up and up
Our valley is his golden cup
And he the wine which overflows
To life us with him as he goes
Till lost on his aerial rings
In light, and then the fancy sings.

Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1910) draws on the work of Thomas Tallis, whom some of you may remember as a character in the very popular TV series the Tudors. S.W. Bennett states this theme is the masterpiece in which Vaughan Williams' originality of style and form first attained complete realization, and it has remained ever frensh and touching. ... A marvel of instrumentation, it is also a very subtle one, employing only strings, with interplay not only between the two full string choirs but also between the solo strings and the main body in each choir.
This is perhaps why this piece really catches me, because I have a soft spot for strings.

Lastly the Sinfonia Antartica was composed, in 1949, for the Ealing Studio's film "Scott of the Antarctic", this symphony is heroic in scale, imaginative in use of tone-colour and strong in quality of thematic invention. Each movement has a literary superscription, for the listern to read siliently, not to be spoekn aloud as part of the work.

For a euphoric listening experience, give these three pieces a try.

99

3am. photo booth in Montreal metro station. there were black balloons inside. eve of nuit blanche Montreal.

Vinyl advice

I went to Toronto the other day (as said in previous post on Stabat Mater - Pergolesi) and although I did not leave the store with said piece, I did leave the store with two other albums:

Bon Iver: For Emma, Forever Ago


Joni Mitchell: Hejira



(*note: both these albums were written when the artists were solitary, and one living in a cabin in Wisconsin, the other travelling through Wisconsin. weiiiiird!)

And upon getting home I played Bon Iver. But I ran into some difficulties - and thus I'm going to share this with you in the hopes this never happens to you. New LP's are made with smaller holes, because the technology or the process of making it is not the same. So I put Bon Iver onto my turntable and could not get it off again. ie: it was stuck on the centre pin.

The solution:
a) if you relaize the hole is too small before you put the LP on your turntable, find a way to widen the centre pin hole by using a file or sand paper. It doesn't take much.

b) if you realize the hole is too small after you put the LP on your turntable, with two people, have one person lift the LP from two sides - it's flexible and apparently won't break (speaking from experience) while the other person turns the disc of the turntable to create fiction between the LP and the centre pin.

Et voila.

ps. if you want to connect your computer to your stereo system read this eHow that's easy to understand with clear step by step directions.

Lanterna Magica

Ich habe bildur zu lanterna magica.
Ich liebe meine lanterna magica sehr.

(...)
my attempt at German for today.
I was given for my Birthday a magic lantern made in German. Are you wondering what a magic lantern is? Well, it is everything up to and beyond magical!

A magic lantern is like the first version of a film projector. It's got mirrors and lenses all over the place (the magic part, that makes you confused) and was (back in the day) lit with a candle, but mine is electric (good thing, I think). The film part is actually glass slides that are hand painted. It took this long (basically a whole month) to figure out how to use it. But with the help of my personal 12 year-old engineer and some ingenuity I (we, including said engineer) did it.

and voila - feast your eyes!

stabat mater dolorosa

I've been haunted by the composition of Stabat Mater by D.G. Pergolesi since March when I had the chance to go to Repentingy, QC (impossible to say suburb of Montreal, just beyond Charlemagne, which is the suburb where Celine Dion herself is from!) to see it performed.


(photo credit: wikipedia (unfortunately))

In a tiny, very elaborately decorated church, a wonderful singer tugged on my heart strings as she sang this lament for the Virgin Mary.

It's probably one of the greatest latin hymnals ever written, and you'll see why if you ever hear it. (which I beyond highly recommend!)
You can see the lyrics in Latin and English here . Given my slight obsession with this piece of music, I went to a record shop in Toronto the other day and searched desperately for a recording of it to no avail. I then ordered it online and will be receiveing it soon and then my listening woes will be put to rest.

Also bearing the title Stabat Mater is a very interesting essay by French linguist and psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva.


(photo credit: http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr)

Her essay postulates that we do not have adequate discourses on maternity, the only ones being through Religion (with the Virgin Mary) and Science. Kristeva's main concern with this essay taking a close look at the Virgin Mary, is that due to the demise of religion in Western culture, we no longer have a satisfactory discourse on motherhood.

The essay is dense but interesting and she breaks it up with her own understanding of motherhood along the margins. This creates an interesting, yet disjointed read. You can read it in the Julia Kristeva Reader edited by Toril Moi .
For an interesting summary of what Kristeva focused most of her writing on read this .

Specific needs

There are things we need in life. Sometimes logical, sometimes necessary. Necessity changes between individuals. Primordial needs.

In 2007 I needed to see the retrospective of Lousie Bourgeois work at the Tate Modern in London, UK. and I did. with much ecstatic pleasure.

In 2010 I need to see "The Inexhaustible Image...image epuiser" an exhibition of photographs and installations by Angela Grauerholz at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, ON until september 26.

Not only is Grauerholz a photography, the medium that captures me and turns my insides backwards, with its liquid intensity, melancholic reality mixed with fictious scents, but she focuses her lense on memories and the ever important archive and collection. These four little words - photography, memory, archive, collection - make my stomach flip and my mouth water like the smell of vinager in a fish and chip shop. Does anything more capturing really exist?

Brief bio: Grauerholz was born in Germany, studied literature at university and then came to Canada to pursue an M.A in photography at Concordia university.
Documentary style photography highly influenced her work immediately and her oeuvre is laced with a nostalgic sense of this still en vogue style of image capturing.

What is most captiviating about her images though is the sad, empty, and familiar feeling behind the hazey way she manipulates her images.

Two very interesting projects to check out = SENTENTIA I-LXII and an infinite sized archive, "Reading room for the working artist" (check it out here).

North calling

I have dreamed of going to Nunavut, stepping out onto that mysterious land, barren and isolated and totally foreign to anything I've yet seen. A land so cold, it's almost uninhabitable. An ancient land, with an ancient culture and ancient peoples. It's the newest Canadian province, but the Inuit have been living there for centuries, long before any of us or our ancestors ever set foot in this vast country.

Baffin Island in particular calls my name.
There are people living in the tiny villages on this island who were born in igloos and hunted seals and fish to eat their dinner, and now live with cable TV, highspeed internet and Fast food. It baffles me that these things can reach even the most remote corners of the world.

I'm not sure exactly what it is that calls to me, and surely it's partly my romanticizing of the idea of the North. Cold. Foreign. Isolated. Far away. Something many artists/art spirits like me long for. It's also the culture, the legends. Living off the land. Hunting seals and eating their meat raw. Even though I like the idea, I'm sure if I was faced with the need to kill a seal in order to eat my dinner, I would not be capable.

But, also, that no longer exists. These people do not live off the land anymore. Their land is melting. The glaciers are melting. The icebergs are melting. and this is a terrifying thought to me.

Imagine standing on metres of ice, knowing they are melting away, flowing down, filling the oceans and lakes. What will happen when all the glaciers have melted? What will life be like then? for these people, and also for us.


This reflection was brought on by my watching part of Billy Conolly's "Journey to the Edge of the Earth" last night. This was a TV series that spawned such interest they published it into a book. The book has more gritty detail you get in reading, while the TV series shows you through the moving image exactly what he saw. Conolly is a comedian yet he sees this land with realism, with a real open sadness too. Very interesting and a good way to cast aside all our romantic ideas about the natives and the north.

I hope I get there before it's all melted away.

overhaul part deux

I haven't fully reflected on my 'overhaul' of this blog.
But what I have thought about is a vision for it.

Like I said in 'Overhaul part uno' - originally I came to this blog conflicted by technology in regards to the photograph and our monotonous capturing of every day life (of which I am guilty too) (thanks to the digital camera). I dabbled for a year in medium format holga and polaroid photographs, until funds ran low for such costly films (Polaroid being nearly extinct, being reprinted now at extrodinary prices).

Then, I moved away, to Drummondville QC and into sequestered land. and neglected this blog for a year. Moved, and shifted visions.

Now I'm back in internet blog land, for awhile, and I need to sort out what I'm doing here.

What is this blog about and why?

I've decided it's about the things I love in life, which are photography, art, travelling, cooking, music.

And thus, this is what I'm going to blog about. and have been, too. mostly.

I suspect in the coming months my vision will change again as I embark on a new journey - graduate studies at the Universite du Quebec a Montreal (imagine appropriate accents over e's and a's as necessary).

And I, as always, hope you will continue to read.

e minor scale

On a recent trip to my favourite thrift store of all time - the one and only Grimsby Benevolent Fund (home of 25c knitting needles, 2.50 chess tables, 25c vintage patterns from the 70s, and many other treasures) - I made the purchase of two vinyl records. Which I will now describe for you. Here.

1) Sir Edward Elgar: Enigma Variations, Pomp and Circumstance and March for India.
I picked this one up mostly for the Enigma Variations. The variations's are actually portraits of his closest friends and family, including his wife Alice. If you listen to them you will certainly recognize the first which was featured in the Matrix. Pomp and Circumstance is a good 'ol British marching tune. You can imagine the Queen being greeted by her people whilst waving her wave to this piece. March of India I have not totally absorbed.

2) Antonin Dvorak: Symphony no. 9 in E minor. I heard it performed in Drummondville. Then I heard it on the radio and said 'That's Dvorak's New world symphony. Then I bought it at the GBF.
This is probably Dvorak's most popular symphony ever written. And according to the orchestral director of the Drummondville Symphony Orchestra, it is one of the most popular symphony's ever written. It was written during Dvorak's stay in the United States. Very uproarious, triumphant, dramatic. All the things Dvorak succeeded at. It is more commmonly known as The New World Symphony or From the New World Symphony.

I also have an ear for anything in E minor. These pieces always strike a particular chord with me. I cannot resist them. (see/or hear rather Elgar's cello concerto in E minor, and a favourite Nocturne by Chopin also in E minor). Something about E in it's minor that does it for me.

remember that time....

Remember that time when I wrote about the HST and how we should get off our high horses and stop complaining? Well I just paid my first HST on a swimsuit top and tank top at the Superstore last night - $2.46. Thanks Government of Ontario for taking my $2.46. Jerks.

Money sucks.

In other news, I'm going stir crazy, and I'm miffed at the MTO and OSAP.
OSAP is checking information on me with the MTO which probably means they are verifying that there is a vehicle registered in my name, which I didn't claim on my application, becuase it can't really be seen as colaterol (?) since I still owe money on it. Anyone want to buy my car? Please do, I don't want it anymore. I'm further miffed (even more miffed) at the MTO for charging me to renew my plates TWICE. What kind of system is that? A stupid, retarded (in several ways) messed up system that doesn't function properly. The online system would not let me renew the plates online, but actually let the charge go through on my credit card. Then I had to go into the office, buy a new copy of my owenership which I no longer had, a temporary sticker, I almost forgot to put on. Then I had to search for a place that I could get a drive clean test done and on the hottest day in Haides I ended up with my mom in the elbow of Stoney Creek at Chris' garage.
Not a pleasant experience.

Then I had to go back to that dreaded Licening office in downtown Grimsby where there is always a line up out the door (yes, out the door) (that means a wait time of at least 40 mins) to get my plates renewed again and for them to take $74 from me again! WTF.


Here's some wanted or unwanted advice: DON'T BUY A CAR. ride your bike instead. Just make sure you do it in the morning or evening and not in the heat of the afternoon to a road that is not accessible by car or you might end up with heat stroke and stuck in the middle of nowhere with the lake lapping invitingly below you but you can't actually access it. True story.

On a brighter note, upon looking through, categorizing and alphabetizing my mom's vinyl collection I realized she owns the J.S. Bach Goldberg* Variations performed by the one and only Glenn Gould. So happy. So in love with Bach.

Also heard Clair de Lune by Claude Debussy last night in (unfortunately...) Twilight (but I kind of liked it) and this is the new classical album I would like to invest my hard (not) earned money in. Or my refund from MTfreakingO whenever that happens. Of course I dream of finding (if any of you cyber readers out there ever do please buy for me and i will reimburse you!) The Elgar Concerto performed by Jacqueline du Pre on vinyl - equally the Saint Saens and Dvorak and Hayden cello concertos, but the Elgar above all - and equally the Cello suites by Bach - the first of which I am in the process of learning, performed by du Pre or Cassals would be equally enjoyable, but for now I can live with dreamy Debussy. Enough to send you into euphoric sound heaven on an unbearably hot day.

Thus Debussy is in my future and either 1) Broken Social Scene's new album, 2) Feist's newest album, which I love love love love looooove 3) Dark of the Night or 4) She and Him which I'm curious about but have never heard. What are your thoughts?

In other news, I want to go to Tobermory.

Found

The day I left for England, September 14 2005, my mom wrote me a letter. This was my first big adventure, and the longest time I had ever been away from home. In it she wrote a really beautiful poem, one of her favourites.

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars
of light.
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,
the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders
of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is
nameless now.

Every year
everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know,
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it
go,
to let it go.

In Black Water Woods by Mary Oliver

(In distance, we grew closer).

wish list

In my langor of this unemployed summer I am wishing for a few things:

- Ice cream and Creamier: two monographs on curating featuring international curators who choose emerging artists. Phaidon never lets me down.

-
Rotterdam Dialouges: The Critics, the curators, the artists. Newly published and based on three symposia held at Witte de with in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, this book brings together what happened at these three symposia. mmmmmmmm.


- While in Toronto with Angie last week we walked into a splendidly delicious bike shop on Bloor St and in the window was an Abici purple cruiser . Yes purple. Yes Italian. and One day when I have a job and can afford to drop 900 big ones on a bicycle (yikes!) it shall be my new wheels. Until then, we stay steady with the trusty steed Rashleigh Peugeot. Let's not be too Bike Snobby though, Peugeot are nothing to sniff at.
Anyway, check out this cool blog.
and then... swoooooooooooooooon!

- Becoming a ludite (I like to think i'm becoming a ludite with my use of typewriters and analog cameras etc) means that you really like retro/vintage type technologies. And thus I have become obsessed with the vinyl record. My mom already has a pretty awesome collection of jazz, as well as classical, my kind of thing. I'm working on the contemporary collection. Thus to add to my collection next will be Blue by Joni Mitchell and The Goldberg Variations by J.S. Bach (possibly my favourite composer of all time) performed by the infamous Glenn Gould. I do now have in my possession (sort of) (thanks to my mom) a master works collection of Bach performed by Glenn Gould as well as the Well Tempered Clavier. This will make for some good listening in my st-urbain pad in downtown MTL.

- taking this course might help make my dreams of speaking German come true. This has been a dream unsuccessfully pursued as of yet, due to my lack of immersion in the German language. I don't know who really thinks learning a language is easy, becuase I certainly don't. I worked my butt off to get to where I am in French now, that means constant everyday working on it, and then some. even night time working, and in my dreams working on it.

- to help with this German learning wish would be to do another one of my wishes, to work at a gallery in Vienna. oh yes. Vienna is my dream city. I love it and I want to be there. So perhaps I can find an internship opportunity at a gallery such as this .
Photography, art + german + vienna = maeva very happy!

- I might settle for an intership in London, UK as well, or even MTL. But I think Europe next summer might be all but essentail.

Thus concludes my wish list. for the moment.

photo booth

*let's all take a moment to reflect on photography*

Impermenance.
Permenance.
Instanaity.
Print vs. digital.

There are two kinds of photograhpy (that i'm aware of) that involve instanaity and print. One is the Polaroid, which is now coming back thanks to the Impossible Project (see side bar Impossible Project link). The other is the photo booth.

The film Amelie probably made the photobooth infamous and instantly desireable.

Anyway. that is my short reflection on Photography. I'll have you all know right now I am not a fan of digital photography, and when your computers crash and you loose all your photos, you will know why. (this has never happened to me, I'm just highly wary of trusting technology so much. It's not as trustworthy as we might think.)

Lastly, photo booth photos from my adventures in Toronto last night.
Me and Angie. At Union Station.



These photos make me happy and sad. Being in a photo booth is so fun and usually painful due to the tiny seat. But it makes me sad to think that Angie is far away in Saskatchewan.

It's a lesson in understanding the vastness of our land.

overhaul

Inspired by Julie. Julie who is going for the Jugular.
Good call, and I think it has been a good wake up call for me too.

Since reading Julie's Jugular post I've been thinking a lot about my blog. I often feel very torn about blogs and the internet. It is true that you can reach anybody you want through the intenet, yet the internet is so vast, unending even, that how does anyone ever come across my blog anyway? and what would draw it to them. So I think I started to recline into a comfortable maeva zone of musing on my own love affairs in life.

But what are those anyway?
When I started this blog after returning from Corsica I needed to reflect on technology and art, photography and technology, as well as my life. Some seriously amazing changes happened at that moment - new job, new home, new people. Things were changing. But now this idea (for this blog) has been in a lull for well over a year. and I neglected it for well over a year as well. But this (the neglect part) could also be interesting.

Anyway, I'm starting to feel like an internet flake. During the time at home, baking tons of cookies and lolligaging about at home, in the garden, knitting, watching movies, reading, playing music (to listen to and to play) is all fine and dandy, but where are my thoughts these days? where are my inspirations and desires?

So, this is an overhaul baby.
And Maeva is going for the Mother load (sounds better than Maeva and the Jugular, unless you folk out there in internet land can come up with something even better!)

More to come in part deux of overhaul mania.

Margaux the stray kitty

Couldn't resist posting a photo before my film is developed!
Sweetest little kitty ever.

miscellaenia, montreal and a bake sale!

I just developed my first 35 mm film in about a year and a half yesterday. There is nothing like leaving Village Studios (my local photo developer of choice) and hurridely opening the envelope to see my photos. All the waiting is worth it for that moment.

This particular film was in my camera for probably a year, There were already photos on the film when I decided to pick my camera up again. I started to open it and then realized there might be a film inside. So I went into my makeshift darkroom and low and behold found film inside.

The first photos are what were already on the film. Miscellania from over a year ago.

A tree that was hit by lighting on the Niagara Escarpment:


Bottles. In a window.


This was the last photo I had taken all that time ago, and since I decided to open my camera to find out if there was film inside, I ended up taking a double exposure by accident. Thus this photo includes the oldest tree in Grimsby, and my friend Sherrie's beautiful livingroom window in her old apartment in Outremont.




Next. I recently went to Montreal, the true European capital of Canada (in my humble opinion), to sort out my disasterous lease and apartment situation, see my lovely lovely Saskatchewan friend Angie and visit my lovely lovely vieux chunks friends in Drummondville. Angie is a saint and went apartment hunting for a day in the pouring rain with me. We walked to the very east end of Avenue Mont-Royal to see a really crumby apartment, our shoes were totally soaked as were we, and then had to walk all the way back up Avenue Mont-Royal to get to the metro. It was epic. and that evening she made a delicious Hungarian Mushroom soup.



The next day was sunny and warm and so wonderful out. So we went on an excellent walking adventure.

First we walked from Ave Wiseman and Ave Bernard, in Outremont, to "Le Depanneur" - I think my new favourite of all times restaurant. (I don't have many, but this one I really realy liked!) In one of the hottest spots in Montreal - nestled between Mile End and Outremont, this little resto has everything - exposed brick walls, live music, cozy couches and odd tables to sit at, bunting for decorations and best of all very handsome waiters. I cna't comment on the waitresses yet since we only had handsome waiters that day, but maybe they only hire good looking peeps! I will investigate further ;)

Alors, Le Depanneur. We also drank delicious tea and ate delicous food here.



When we were leaving, we asked the handsome waiter for directions to the nearest metro station and he drew us a map, that I kept, of course, becuase I'm like that. It led us here:


We thought for sure he led us astray when we climbed the stairs we saw and ended up on what seemed to be a highway! But a few mintues later after discussing the store "Jeans, jeans, jeans" in detail we ended up at Laurier station! So the handsome waiter didn't lead us astray after all!

On the way there, we saw this amazing shop and I want everything in the window. Especially that globe. I already have a globe (Aberfoyle market find at $15!), but I love that one too.



After eating at Le Depanneur, I went to get my haircut at Dru by Lucie on St-Laurent at Laurier.

Angie met me there and we went walking about. I think we were on Villeneuve when we saw this amazing little window display that just drew me in!



Also on Villeneuve one of my favourite shops ever:



I have no idea what street we are on here, but oh man (!). A dinosaur diorama. It was very detailed too.



Hence, yet another amazing adventure in Montreal. This city gets better with each time I visit it. And there will be many more adventures to come.


Now, at home, in Onterrible, I decided, since I don't have a job, I have a car to sell and I love baking, that I would have a bake sale in my driveway. Accomplishes all three of these tasks in one!

And this was my first bake sale:





New bake sale to come next Saturday!

Last but not least, my mom discovered in the midst of the bake sale that the Magnolia tree had finally bloomed for the first time:



New film locked and loaded ready to capture my dreams.
To come, Margaux our new (stray) kitty living in our garden, Montreal and Drummondville, again, and Angie's adventures in Toronto!

Bonne Fete....

a moi! :)

27 years young today! and so many things coming to fruition!

Here's a birthday cake photo from two years ago.



We have a serious birthday cake tradition in this house - every year its something very special. This year I wasn't sure what I wanted until I remembered the 1th birthday photo of my Strawberry shortcake cake with sparklers for candles and me standing on a chair with blonde pigtails and red wellies!

I don't have red wellies anymore, or pigtails. I also don't have any more polaroid film (given that it went under etc and has just re-emerged thanks to the impossible project!)

I love this photo because a) I look very fresh and happy. I had just a little while before re-landed in Canada from my year in Corsica. and b) our kitchen looks so 50s. Even the microwave looks like it's from the 50s.

hiatus

Dear attentive and dedicated readers!
I'm very sorry for the almost year long hiatus. You may or may not know, I moved to Drummondville QC. I had some interesting experiences there, and took some lovely photos. but I was not connected to the internet very often so I have neglected my photo blog for a long long time.
However, now I am back in Ontario for a short time, and I have internet again, and lots of time due to (temporary) unemployment!
So expect some new photos of the last 8 months and my time in la belle province soon.

Much love,
Maeva!

Home is where the birds sing

Home. Bike ride through the fruit orchards Grimsby to Beamsville Ontario.





Home. Break time from Oakville galleries on Lakeshore Rd. E, Oakville Ontario.







Home. Celebrating Victoria day a week early with sparklers.



Home. Taking the long road through a rain storm.





Home. My magical garden.

Nouvelle Écosse

On the occasion of a Wednesday off I would like to share with you my experience in Nova Scotia this past May.


Staple cloud photo flying over Canada on my way to the sweet little Atlantic province I dreamed of visiting for years.


I opened the blinds the morning after I arrived to see this - the village of Salmon River Bridge.




My first Nova Scotia beach.






My first Nova Scotia national park "Taylor Head". Fog. Grey sea and white sand. Eerie forest.


Abandoned house along the Eastern shore.




My second Nova Scotia beach that stretched for miles along a pennisula on the Atlantic ocean outside of the tiny village of Boylston.

My last day in Nova Scotia, after going to Cape Breton and driving through many a village I ended up at the Northumberland Strait for dinner. Stunning beach. waves and soft sand. PEI in the distant horizon.








and this is where I feel most at home - with nothing before except open water.