prison song 08

prison song 08
by Joe Blades © 2006

not many words in the stress
the ramrod back twisted in sleep
restless tossed pillows and
covers too warm too hot too moist
head drenched in night sweat
better that attempting sleep
on a straw-filled bag or under
a bridge or in a muddy trench
the papers for my release
have been delivered by bicycle
but i must stay wait until
my time is done and my cellmate
returns as this casemate must
never be closed during the hours
of monday to saturday: 10am to 5pm
then to the credit union and
a pint of picaroon’s best bitter
during or after the thunderstorms
there’s a writer’s starter kit
on a nearby desk—white paper
and a ceramic jar of typewriter
keys (some assembly required)
claw hammer found on brunswick
street a sign of reconstruction
or building something ahead
(like that path closed: detour
around art gallery sign found
those many years ago while
living in the post colonial
inn near the bottom of regent
street that now is a table)
a whisky last night loosened
my back’s knot and wound mind
with the onset of light rain
i’d like a coffee or black tea
—something warm and bracing
royal canadian legion pipeband
highland dancers and redcoats
parade queen street to city hall
the highland games about to begin


T-shirt: Highland Radio 1996
loc: FAA casemate
temp: 24 C
sound: The Barra MacNeils “Clumsy Lovers Set”

prison song 07

prison song 07
by Joe Blades © 2006

property of fredericton tourism
not—though i feel slavish stuck
here in public artistic isolation
in the hole—took the sticker
off the patio umbrella base
not the property—no thanks
once had a property of alcatraz
souvenir t-shirt from mouse
finally making it to san franciscio
months after our foiled attempt
on $49 employee discount rates
calgary to frisco return flights
(banff springs where we
worked and all cp hotels
owned by canadian pacific air
in a short-term flipflop deal)
made it down valley and over
the wall around the world
into the foothills beyond—bow
river all the way to cowtown
airport and hours of waiting
for a red-eye out of toronto
we settle across several chairs
after check-in at the counter
armed guards with german shepherd
dogs patrolled almost empty corridors
until sometime in the early hours
of tomorrow when a fellow
canadian pacific employee
came over and said our flight
was cancelled because the plane
was returning to toronto after
blue smoke filled the cockpit
—something electrical or
electronic—they put us up
for the rest of the night
in the airport hotel and offered
to reschedule flights in the morning
(but this was to have been
a days-off mad dash to golden
gate bridge city lights bookstore
and so much more still not seen)

T-shirt: Highland Radio 1996
loc: FAA casemate
temp: 20 C
sound: Baraka Bata "Banboo"

prison song 06

prison song 06
by Joe Blades © 2006

a leather clay slab-built tray awaits
after ursula gives it the slip
and the chartruse slip dries
i will stamp symbolic drawings
made words not cuniform in the clay
lazy letters twist sideways
like many a rancher brand
spacing uneven yet interesting
this this old manual typewriter
with its compact carriage and
self-reversing black & red ribbon

(like the reversing falls downriver
where the incoming tide pushes
back and rises from it low)

back and forth—unless i were
to stare at the ribbon and not
the words struck from it
wouldn’t know whether it reels
left to right or right to left
as i lever lift the paper to receive
each new line of mundane words

the clay tablet slower
to compose words upon—
character by character face up
to be seen and aligned vertically
rotated 180 degrees to impress
for two and one half hours
until the poem is dinosaur
tracks in river mud marked
and set aside to dry slowly

after midnight thunder and light
show and shower till the bars
last called and ejected spent
customers like chicken wings
with the meat stripped off
small bones piled on the side
of the takeout plate sidewalk

after that and waking refreshed
energised a few hours later
steamed-up humidity is back
with cumulus clouds building
in fierce sun blue sky afternoon
during a concert of fiddle and bodran
buozouki djembee and keyboard
on pillared guardhouse porch

T-shirt: Dragon's Breath Kingston Brewing Company
loc: Soldrs Bk munition casemate
temp: 26 C (feeling like 35 C)
sound: The Cure, various

prison song 05

prison song 05
by Joe Blades © 2006

phat rain traps me within
army intelligence space
either too open to draw
or too busy-full for people
to want to enter and interact
the walking tour under umbrellas
stands out in the open
listens to key sounds bounce
off stone walls yet they don’t
step in here out of the wet
and i’m not working
in a no step zone
like on airline wings
or landmined side of gorge
eleven years after war
it’s not been cleaned up
not been made safe
for anything but viewing
from the cleaned-up highway
side of this gorge road
from pale into sarajevo
i’ll be there again after
doing time in the garrison
district downtown fredericton
physical discomfort knots me
backless chairs and stools
nothing like the night owl
waiting on banks on the tisa
well-travelled moose and jelen
torture on our heads tugs
our hearts to grow and live
this song has hope woven
into its coffee- and beer-
dyed fiberous lines taut

T-shirt: blue whale petroglyph
loc: FAA casemate
temp: 23 C
sound: Charlie Haden and Pat Metheny "Message to a friend"

prison song 04

prison song 04
by Joe Blades © 2006

barracks room upstairs locked
through the windows see beds
the fireplace in the end wall
a table with tin plates and cups
earthenware bowls and pitchers
or water or milk or ale or . . .
and the archaeological services
office is not welcoming—sign
on the door states visitations
by appointment only as if
british army ghosts carry
daily planners with them
disembodied and waiting

happy birthday on bagpipes
for someone out of sight
yet within hearing range

the wooden everything
within SOLDrs Bk A intact
no cold weather destruction
of table chairs and cupboards
for its short-term burning
for warmth or its illusion
evident after all the army
allocated coal was consumed
anything burnable would do
even doors and window frames
whose removal simply admitted
more wind and drifting snow
in the miserable long cold winter
far from home across the atlantic
and some never made in back
died and were interred
in the old burial ground
established 1784 between
brunswick and george streets


T-shirt: Sage Hill Writing Experience
loc: munitions casemate
temp: 19 C, raining
sound: Pocket Dwellers, "A.I."

prison song 03

prison song 03
by Joe Blades © 2006

no going upstairs today
the way gated and padlocked
no soldiers sleeping up there
no spit-polish boots and
brass buttons on wool coats
they’ve the day off life
down in the river valley
or they’re inside themselves
guarding their fortified tea
while i crave relief not possible
acrylic medium drying clear blue
with night star speckles-spangles
on fallen roofing slate now
housing an account of giants
and castles in ireland—
scrap of a scrap of petite
artmaking in this casemate
a month or so back before
she escaped to port maitland
across the bay of fundy and
southwest down the coast
of nova scotia for the summer
a month from now i will be
taxing down the runway
at yfc leaving fredericton
for the last time this year
flying to montreal then east
in an arc over greenland
to munich and onward east
to budapest and way away
from where i am waiting now
for day to end and another
to begin—get on with it!


T-shirt: Odawa Pow Wow
loc: Garrison District Soldier's Barracks
temo: 19 C
sound: Lenny Gallant "Destination"

prison song 02

Joe Blades © 2006

sweetgrass on compound air
post-military establishments
saturday afternoon songs and
dreamcatcher making workshop
more water in the air that inside
our bodies walking through grass
bright green with wet droplets
the car after being emptied
of chocolate factory tour
recorded music and road maps
gets returned with a note
that it drifts to the right
possibly because it has east
of canada newfoundland plates
i just want to sleep the day
away—not work on the slate
or the pounding black keys
the blank staring paper
after carving green eyes
for my stags standant at gaze
fused elements banner-device
black tea in today’s mug
a quiet quiet afternoon
can’t easily maintain public
face appearance this damp day
sounds of guitar playing drift
across from stone guardhouse
without vocals or bodies seen
a guard not a soldier prisoner
in the gaol from too much
last night in their blood
chilled by torrential cold
july rain and little clothing
in the hour after last call
caught sneaking back
into the compound worse
than attempting to leave

T-shirt: Odawa Pow Wow
loc: Garrison District Soldier's Barracks
temo: 19 C
sound: Terry Kelly "Tribute"

roving weddingTV

Coming up York Street from Victory Meat after I signed myself out of the casemate for today. Wedding party photo shoot on the Brunswick St Baptist lawn. Above is a chance photo taken while my hands were hung with grocery bags. The bride obscured by a bridesmaid. Someone being told . . . The getaway car was also well-dressed.


T: Scream in High Park (2000)
loc: ComCtr
temp: 26 C
sound: Bullfrog Bullfrog

prison song 01

by Joe Blades © 2006.

back in the stone hole
the humidity limps me
like the damp facecloth
i cannot have in here
might choke on that
might tear it into strips
as a tool in my escape
through hammered square bars
of wrought iron painted black
stone walls not going anywhere
as redcoats march outside
with bagpipes and drums
i don’t know if it’s safe
to type this on paper
or if in the hole i should
commit to memory only
the words of my songs
sing them inside
my stressed head
not even mouthing
them breathless air
nothing to do but wait
sit here weakened
pace and look outside
think think think
what to do where i’m
no potter with slip
brushed on clay vessels
words rise and fill
space complete with
sounds from the past
embedded in the walls

(pottery on display by Ursula Sommerer).

T: Quod nos non necat, etiam maxime laedit
loc: FAA casemate
temp: 26 C
sound: Tom Waits The Best of Tom waits

Highland Radio 2006

Aye, it's that time of year again! Next Friday, 28 July, CHSR 97•9 gets overrun by Highland Radio—the annual 3-day special broadcast from the site of the New Brunswick Highland Games and Scottish Festival.

Highland Radio on CHSR webcast and 97.9 FM. in the greater Fredericton-Oromocto listening area will cover the 25th New Brunswick Highland Games and Scottish Festival on the grounds of Old Government House, 51 Woodstock Rd, Fredericton, NB. For info on the Games visit their website or telephone 506.452.9244 or 1.888.368.4444.

I'll be on air on Friday, 7-8 pm, with my Scottish Ashes, Paper & Beans poetry show. Then I'll spin 1.5 hours of Dzo's Celtic Music with everthing from Ashley MacIsaac to The Arrogant Worms to Howie MacDonald to The Orthodox Celts.


T-shirt: "I Will not make boring art"
loc: comCtr
temp: 22 C
sound: Bob Marley & The Wailers Babylon by Bus

FAA Artists-in-Residence: Joe Blades and Ursula Sommerer

Fredericton Arts Alliance Artists in Residence 2006 Summer Series

Located in the Soldiers’ Barracks Casemates in downtown Fredericton (corner of Carleton and Queen), the Artists in Residence series presents local professional artists and fine craftspeople for one- to two-week residencies. Artists will create an outdoor studio space providing the public with a wonderful opportunity to talk with them, learn about their inspiration and creation, and witness professional art in the making. Each week two new artists will be on location to offer their expertise and ideas to the community.

Joe Blades and Ursula Sommerer

July 22– July 28

Established Artist: Joe Blades is a visual artist specializing in photography, creative writing, hand-bound bookbinding, and trade book publishing. During his residency, he will likely be doing a mix of writing, bookbinding, and mixed-media/Intermedia object d’art construction for upcoming exhibitions.

Emerging Artist: Since graduating in the spring of 2005, Ursula Sommerer has set up a pottery studio and has works represented in stores and galleries in all Atlantic provinces, Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba. During her residency she will be working on sculptural bases and slab work in clay.

The Casemates are open daily from 10 am to 5 pm Monday to Saturday, and 12 to 5 pm on Sundays. All are welcome and there is no charge for admission. Donations are gratefully accepted.

1st Annual Chocolate River Festival August

1st Annual
Chocolate River Festival August 25-27, 2006

Events:
Friday August 25 7:00 PM Festival opening and book launches. Tribute to Canada's Peoples Poet Milton Acorn, meet Traditionalist Medicine Woman Carol Desjarlais and Guest Poets.
Log Cabin Restaurant, Hopewell Rocks Motel & Country Inn,
Hopewell Cape, New Brunswick.
Free Admission

Saturday August 26 8:30 AM Canadian Poetry Association 21st Annual General Meeting and Breakfast.
Log Cabin Restaurant, Hopewell Rocks
Motel & Country Inn, Hopewell Cape

10:00 AM Poets' Walk, Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park Entrance. Participants must pay the price of park admission

1:00 PM Book Launches and Signings.
High Tides Cafe, Interpretive
Centre, Hopewell Rocks Park

2:30 PM "You Got Mail: Postcard Poetry Workshop".
Hopewell Rocks Motel
$5.00 Admission

4:00 PM Talking Circle and Smudge with Traditionalist Medicine Woman.
High Tide Cafe, Interpretive Centre, Hopewell Rocks Park.
Free

Festival dinner: two locations
5:00 PM * Dinner With Host Poet.
Interpretive Centre, Hopewell Rocks
Park 5:30 PM * Dinner With Host Poet.
Hopewell Rocks Motel & Restaurant

7:00 PM MAIN EVENT Raffle, Sweetgrass Ceremony, Native/African Drumming, Classical Guitar, Guest Poets.
Log Cabin Restaurant, Hopewell Rocks Motel & Country Inn, (big orange roof), Hopewell Cape.
Admission 'buy a book'. Limited seating of 120 so come early!

Sunday August 27 1:00 PM Poetea Brunch.
Peck Colonial Tea Room, Hopewell Hill

1:00 PM Book signing and Informal Discussion.
High Tides Cafe,
Interpretive Centre, Hopewell Rocks Park

Participoets from Israel, Maine, CPA, Writers Federation of NB, and the League of Poets . . .

* Meals are the responsibility of the individual.

Contacts
Margaret Eaton, Phone (506) 382-6146
Email mairead@nb.sympatico.ca

Richard Doiron, Phone (506) 855-7884
Email lebard@nbnet.nb.ca

Chocolate River Poetry Association
c/o Donna Allard
331 Elmwood Dr - Suite 4-212
Moncton NB E1A 1X6
Tel: (506) 871-1004
Email: chocolateriver.poets@gmail.com
Website: chocolateriverpoets.moonfruit.com
CPA website: www.canadianpoetryassoc.com

APB, 18 July 2006

The station program logs last night showed yesterday's date as Tuesday, 17 July 2006. Maybe I was in an alter-verse?

Was a very simple show. Three pieces:
Henry Rollins stand-up comedy-rant "No One is Fax Exempt"
Mary Elizabeth Grace poem "Madda Madda Rose"
Sean Virgo short story "Bolt"

Only two more live episodes of Ashes Paper and Beans scheduled, plus a Scottish Ashes Paper and Beans special program 7-8 pm, Friday, 28 July as part of this year's Highland Radio marathon broadcast by CHSR 97•9 FM for the 25th Annual New Brunswick Highland Games and Scottish Festival here in Fredericton.

As of 8 August, Ashes Paper and Beans episodes from the archives will be broadcast for who know how long, or until I'm able to resume being live [On Air].

Wanted: One Left Arm

Fredericton—already getting a heightened allotment of arts news coverage because the litigeous descendents of New Brunswick's own Lord Beaverbook claim they, and not the gallery own hundreds of artworks in the collection of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery—can now add "sculpture vandals" to it's list of attractions.

Are the WANTED posters and reward for Venus di Milo's missing limbs still good? What are the Top Ten on Interpol's Most Wanted Missing Art Appendages list? How often have the limbs, ears, nose or other parts of figure sculptures been damaged or destroyed? The act of defacing public art is only seconds younger than the act of making art. They are fraternal twins.

Perhaps a Crime Stoppers video could be made about this act of art vandalism in the weeks leading up to last night's Culture Crawl 2006—Sculpture event: "Call 1-800-222-TIPS, if you know anything about this crime . . . " It might work. It would certainly be a great PR boost for Gerald Beaulieu, this summer's artist-in-residence at Gallery Connexion and his already acknowledged sometimes controversial sculptures.

One might think that the city encourages this delimbing behaviour . . . Many nights, especially summer weekend nights, open windows admit the sounds and/or noise of nightlife people travelling to and from the clubs. Mornings find branches torn from trees, small trees—especially the cage act ones set in beautification sidewalks—snapped in half, flower plants ripped from window boxes and gardens, window boxes ripped from houses, broken bottles and windows, drop-kicked mail boxes, late night fast food garbage and vomit on steps and sidewalks, et cetera. A few years ago, an artist friend had the wreath on her door set on fire during the night. It's not the wind that does this . . .

Not to be outdone, at this very moment a city work crew is outside my window. One of the crews that used to use the famed SLOW MEN WORKING IN TREES signs. Chainsaw and hand-held saws leave tree limbs scattered across sidewalks and road. Behind them comes the cleanup crew with a Vermeer chipping machine so not in the spirit of Johannes Vermeer, the 17th c. Dutch painter.

T: StormTech
loc: comCtr
temp: 16 C
sound: Tthe Brian Jonestown Massacre Strung Out In Heaven + chainsaws & a wood chipper

Mini-launch: ellipse no. 77

Join ellipse for a mini-launch of issue no. 77, featuring haiku by women writers from Québec, writing and translations in Catalan, Italian, Spanish, German and English, and beautiful artwork by Fredericton artist Whitefeather. The launch will take place during the Culture Crawl, in the Underground Café, Charlotte Street Arts Centre, 732 Charlotte St, Fredericton, NB, from 5 to 6:15 on Thursday, July 13. Information: festival@ellipsemag.org.

Mini-lancement : ellipse no 77

Dans le cadre de la soirée Culture Crawl, la revue ellipse lancera son plus récent numéro au Café Underground, Centre d'arts de la rue Charlotte, 732 rue Charlotte, Fredericton, N-B, de 17h à 18h15, le jeudi 13 juillet. En vedette dans ce numéro, des écrivaines et des traductrices de diverses langues qui nous présentent des haikus, des poèmes et une nouvelle en français, en catalan, en italien, en espagnol, en allemand et en anglais, ainsi que de magnifiques oeuvres de l'artiste WhiteFeather. Renseignements : festival@ellipsemag.org

recently found words

On the front step on the apartman built when I stepped outside this past Saturday morning, SCA steed in hand, to move fast and clear my head for thinking. "R E T R E A T" seems a significant found fortune word in these trying times.


Monday afternoon, after mailing to the author a final shipment of a book now declared Out of Print with full reversion of all assigned rights, I walk toward the river and the approaching thunderstorm on my route homeward. Came across this incredibly faded ___P sign. How many years has it been here to weather itself this way? Incredible. A good find, me thinks.


While taking the CDs for last night's Ashes, Paper & Beans episode out of my carrying case a little piece of paper fluttered and made for the rough, the live wire landscape under the mixing board in CHSR's Master Control Room. An actual sentence, this time. A message. Guidance. Seemed linked to the two previous finds. It became the entry to end my artist journal started 14 May 2006.

Retreat • Stop • Look for the flare •

T: SFRJ
loc uncomCtr
temp: 20 C
sound: Sex Pistols Never Mind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols

ABP, 11 July 2006

Second show of the month, another day with thunderstorms.

I'm too tired from last of sleep the previous night and from the ongoing high heat and humidity to be lively on Ashes, Paper & Beans. Started the show with Michal Lally's long poem "Where Do We Belong" followed by Gerry Shikatani's "Wish (for bp)".

Second half of the show started with "Rush Hour", the title track from the CD by Catherine Hunter followed by tracks from Carnivocal: A celebration of sound poetry (Omnikron & Red Deer, 1999): bill bissett "Opening Chant" • Stephen Cain, from: "Alpha Bites, A Primer, Rhinoceros, Pome for Viktor Shklovsky" • W. Mark Sutherland, "On Dissecting the Larynx", "Hiroshima" • Nobuo Kuboto and W. Mark Sutherland, "Lullaby for Kurt Schwitters" • Verbomotorhead, "Fat Summer".

shirt: SFRJ
temp: 19
loc: uncomCtr
sound: Never Mind the Pollocks Here's the Histrionics (Darren Knight Gallery & Revolver–Archiv für aktuelle Kunst, 2003)

Joe @ Poems of the Week

Next Monday, 10 July, a poem of mine, from Casemate Poems (Widows & Orphans), will be one of two poems to go live for a week on the Parliamentary Poet Laureate's Poems of the Week webpage.

T-shirt: Moose by Red Crane
loc: ComCtr
temp: 24 C
sound: Buddy Guy, Heavy Love

Malca Litovitz

Somewhere, recently, I heard something about a new poetry collection by Malca Litovitz. Possibly it was when Mick Burrs and I were talking at the Art Bar Reading Series in Toronto on 30 May.

Today, I received real information from the publisher, Antonio D'Alfonso. Guernica Editions' 2006 catalogue says this: "In First Day, Malca Litovitz’s third collection, childhood memories, love, nature, and battles with illness are depicted on a broad canvas of lyrical and prose poems. Malca Litovitz’s first book, To Light, To Water (Lugus, 1998), won the Canadian Jewish Book Award in 2000."

Malca died almost one year ago on 18 July 2005. On the 19 July episode of Ashes, Paper and Beans I rebroadcast Susan Helwig's interview with Malca (from In Other Words CKLN, Toronto; recorded 24 January 24 1999) and I read the following poem:

At The Moonbean Cafe

At night, after an evening of poetry,
moon and fish hang from floors.
Carol Leckner’s blue scarf matches her eyes
and Mick Burrs’ grey scarf is feathered.
Joe Blades’ blond mane gleams in darkness—
his face scrubbed clean,
his Jeanius notebook is flooded with colours,
mysterious memoranda, and our collective breathing.

A man with a face as sweet as honey-cake
intones Yiddish and paints Mick Burrs.
Oh, the ZEN in Berzensky
makes the I in Litovitz fly
and dance like Anne Szumigalski—
one block past Grace Street,
straight on till morning.

We say our poems
then evaporate like the foam on cappuccino.

       —Malca Litovitz
           12 November 1998
           Toronto

(Reprinted from At the Moonbean Cafe (Toronto: Guernica Editions, 2003. ISBN 1-55071-182-2) by permission of the publisher.)

I've had a copy of this poem pinned to my wall ever since first receiving it from Malca. I was surprised at the time. Pleased. Was even more surprised when it became the title poem for her second poetry book. That was a memorable night indeed. As were the times I went into Malca's classes at Seneca College. I still have a sheaf of copies of one-page reports about one of my classroom sessions that were done as a writing assignment by her students.

T-shirt: Mojo Club
loc: unComCtr
temp: 25 C
sound: Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, Architecture & Morality

Poem for Barry Colpitts

Barry Colpits is a folk artist with a wicked sense of humour. His specialty is wood carvings that he paints in bright colours: animals and people, Jesus and devils, Mounties. Even his truck is painted and the box ringed with fish. Atop one of the bookscases in my studio, I have a crow made by him with a pink tongue and bright blue eyes with eyelashes.

Early in 2005, I was asked if I could write a short poem that he would paint somewhere on the outside of his house. I thought about it for a while . . . Started writing and rewriting and eventually, last May, faxed a tight little eight-line poem to my parents. They drove it over to him. He painted it on the back of the house in June. Coming from his studio-shop you can't miss seeing the poem up on the second storey wall. It gets a great many comments from visitors. Everything at his place elicits response.

Sometime later last summer I made it to Nova Scotia and was able to visit Barry. That's when I took the photo (above) of his painting of my poem. I've finally gotten around to having printed a postcard of the poem-photo for both of us. A box of them were waiting outside my door this morning (along with a few copies of the next issue of ellipse magazine). Nice delivery.


If you're ever driving Highway 7, the Marine Drive, on the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia, keep your eyes peeled for his house in East Ship Harbour. You can't miss it. Be sure to drop in. Look around. Bring a piece of Barry's humour into your home.


T-shirt: Mojo Club
loc: comCtr
temp: 21 C
sound: The Weakerthans, Reconstruction Site

footwear

I love footwear. It avoids broken glass and other unexpected nasties on the sidewalk and road.

APB, 4 July 2006

For the USA's day I started the show with Alix Olson, from New York City, with "Deadbeat Daddy" and "America's on Sale". Next was the first half of the ALTA Bilingual Reading #12 from 2003 in Cambridge MA: emcee Alexis Levitin; Beatriz Hausner reading from "The Strategist's Death"—her translation of a story by Alvaro Mutis; Enrica J. Ardemagni reading from her novel translation What Have You Done? written by Jose Castro. The Show ended with three cuts from the CD Carnivocal (Red Deer Press & Omnikron Publishing): Claude Gauvreau with "Jappements à la lune". Verbomotorhead with "Monks of the Holy Throat" & "Fat Summer".

T-shirt: Gaspereau Press
loc: comCtr
temp: 19 C
sound: Pocket Dwellers, Limited Edition EP

Found Photo du Jour

"Love
Sukura
7 months
March 2006"

Found at 1:08 AM, 2 July 2006, in front of the Hertz rental office on the corner of King Street at Westmorland Street, Fredericton, NB.

T: Joe Canada
loc: comCtr
temp: 14 C
sound: home fireworks & Bon Jovi "In and Out of Love"

Canada Day, eh

Drapeau du Canada dans la fenêtre. Little Joe Canada Moose sitting here thinking of his cousin overseas. No, not the ones on the island of Newfoundland—though they did travel over water from New Brunswick to The Rock. No he's thinking of Moose in Senta, travelling about with Lara on the big adventure, her walkabout.

I need sunblok and water, need recharged batteries and camera, need a bike ride before England v Portugal in a World Cup football quarterfinal game @ noon—that 61" HDTV @ The Taproom with great beer on tap, need food and a shower, a close shave.

Yo, Canada, this is it! This is your day. Happy GST Reduction Day! Wear some red and white! Do a little flag waving! Give a whoop or two!

It's a beautiful day. I'd fire up the barbecue if I had one. I'll be missing a Canada Day weddingTV special across the street—red and white baloons line the centre aisle. Instead, after some footie watching, I'll wander through the crazy riverside cram of Fredericton's annual Canada Day blok party with two music stages (Hardcore Trubadours one of the two main acts, rocking old country tunes done well), food and stuff vendors, kiddy rides, a "green" parade in late afternoon, fireworks at 10:30 over the river as the concerts end. It's the biggest crowd gathering of the year in this town. They claim it's the country's largest neighbourhood block party.

T: Joe Canada
loc: comCtr
temp: 20 C
Sound: Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie's "The War of 1912"