Shimmer the Deprecator

Shortbreads?!!!

Baguettes maybe.

Liquid night

Today the river was the most beautiful liquid black I can ever remember, set off by shoulders of soft grey ice. I kept staring and staring. These images hardly do it justice.

( Three more images: one is 700x350. )

Christmas cheer

In the mail today I received a Christmas package from wonderboymi. Leave it to Brian to compile an outstanding Christmas CD with everything from Bessie Smith to Bette Midler. The cover even features one of my winter images. Talk about Christmas cheer me up. Thanks BW.

I have also been listening to Loreena McKennitt's Christmas album, To Drive The Cold Winter Away (1987), thanks to bitterlawngnome.

McKennitt is an artist not to be missed. She is an outstanding performer of Celtic music, and has expanded to incorporate other folk traditions.

The title of this album is ironic. McKennitt has an unique voice: so bright and clear it is otherworldly. Combined on this album with spare instrumentation (harp and little else), it gives me the goose bumps.

I prefer her later recordings (The Mask and the Mirror, 1994, The Book of Secrets, 1997) that explore her warmer lower range, which effectively sets off her eye-smarting high flights. She also fuses the Middle-eastern rhythms and rich folk instrumentation that have won her a place near the top of my favourite contemporary artists. For an example, listen to one of my favourite songs: Marrakesh Night Market (mp3 download: other formats are available on her website).

Having said that, I'm delighted to finally add her Christmas album to my library. Unfortunately this world-class Canadian artist has not recorded anything for several years.

Snow

androkles asked to hear about snow. What does a writer do but go out and experience something before he writes about it?

Dad was on the phone this afternoon telling me it's going to melt soon. I decided: if I'm going to tell about it I better get out there now. Sure enough, the temperature was hovering just above freezing. Along Kingsmill Avenue I could hear water dripping from the gutters.

We all know what it means when there's powder on the ground and the temperature hovers around freezing: snowball weather. Unfortunately I couldn't find anyone in the park who looked eager for a snowball fight. I could only think of one way to get into it.




Packing snow feels like fire in the bare hand, and softly abrasive. It has a refreshing taste, almost metallic. Cynics will tell me that's air pollution, but it tastes the same up North where the air is even cleaner than Guelph.

Snow is an effective heat and sound insulator. It prevents the soil from losing too much heat in winter, protecting plant roots and hibernating animals from freezing. It also muffles sound. In forests where deep snow mounds against trees on every side, the air sounds dead on a still day. If you dig a cave into a deep snowdrift, no sound passes in or out. It all gets absorbed.

When I walked today through the powder snow that fell in the park yesterday, distant sounds like the drone of the Owens Corning plant were muted. The loudest sound was the crunch of my own boots on the path.

Everybody says snow is white, and it's true, but that hardly expresses the colour of snow. Shadows, like the ones around the sides of a footprint, have a purplish cast, while the bottom of a print reflects the sky's brightness. On a clear morning these cool shadows contrast distinctly with the sun's golden flush.

Cicada

For ghostsandrobots and others of my friends who like them, check out this image.