Last roar of the dinosaurs?

The conflicted world needs to keep a careful watch over the machinations of xenophobes, but I take heart from the youthfulness of the majority of their detractors, who have grown up with friends of other cultures, other skin colours, other religions, other persuasions, who simply don't see the relevance of right wing prejudice to their own lives. The next (my grandchildren's) generation is likely to be even more oblivious. At least, I'm assuming so.

Here, on July 1st, Ottawa was full of people celebrating the diversity of Canadians. Elaine and Piet, visiting us from the Netherlands and experiencing Canada Day In The Nation's Capital for the first time, commented on the striking multi-ethnicity of the good-natured, well-behaved crowds, as did we. Walking up Rideau / Wellington Street onto Parliament Hill in the afternoon, we spotted long African robes, long Indian robes, First Nations' feather head-dresses, mini-skirted cowgirls, east Asian and South American families, veiled Muslim ladies from the middle east, Bengali musicians ... all proudly and excitedly Canadian, so it seems, the children of all colours blowing toy bugles or wearing freebie moose antlers on their heads. When the inevitable cloud-burst came, everyone either huddled in doorways or got soaked to the skin together.

Across the Atlantic, today (July 2nd), London saw an estimated 30,000 young people demonstrating in favour of staying in the EU and vociferously celebrating European unity, even though the referendum has been and gone, against their wishes. Over there, on the last day of campaigning, Gordon Brown said:

The Britain I know is the Britain of Jo Cox. The Britain where people are tolerant, and not prejudiced, and where people hate hate.*

Right wing Facebook pages from North America, Britain, Australia, are full of unreferenced video clips of riots, burning flags, "menacing hordes" of Islamic immigrants or refugees, juxtaposed with sentimental pictures of Jesus, such wearisome nonsense. In Germany, PEGIDA's all male, self-appointed chorus in Germany chants, Wir sind das Volk! but they're not.

The day before the British referendum I prepared an over-optimistic, anticipatory blogpost rejoicing that the xenophobes have had their day. And that we'll hear their roars becoming increasingly frenetic as they see their values being overturned. Shocked by the outcome of the referendum, I didn't publish that post, but it ended like this:

... "patriots" who talk of "freedom" apply such words only to themselves; their allegiance is limited and their concept of freedom is very narrow. Their heyday was in the 19th century and their nationalist fervour and fears still belong to the 19th century; we saw the tragic outcome of that sort of thinking in the 20th century wars, but it's the 21st century now, and, like it or not, we are the citizens of a shared world these days and must function as such.

In spite of the setback, I have not changed my mind.


* I hope this is what "The 48%" was, and still is, demanding, although I can't be completely sure, because some of them are now quite viciously condemning their compatriots who voted to leave Europe --- condemning the older, more impoverished, less articulate population of Britain, who in many cases have valid grounds for complaint, despite the dismal fact that immigrants are their scapegoats. I hate to admit it, but there are signs of hate and prejudice on the left side of the political spectrum too.

An experimental week

In order to see whether or not he can cope with retirement, my husband Chris, who'll be 67 by the end of this year, has begun a new, experimental régime, whereby he takes five working days off work every four weeks (75% of his previous hours––the new contract took some time to arrange, because other employees wanting a reduction usually ask to work for 80% of the time). This week is the first try, and so far I think it has gone well. It seems a much better idea than for him suddenly to give up his job altogether.

Having returned from Kingston on Monday, we went hiking round Wakefield yesterday, and today spent a couple of hours cycling up and down the Rideau River bike trail, about 23km, discovering a new bridge for cyclists across the Rideau River. Our walk through Wakefield among the wild flowers, butterflies and bees was, as always, extremely relaxing, so much so that I actually fell asleep in a chair at the mill beside the stream during the afternoon. Next time we go we'll park at the Mill, because we noticed that they have a free plug-in there for electric cars. On the way back to the car this time we saw two girls sitting in a barn loft dangling their feet over the edge, perhaps the same ones who'd brought a pet ferret for a dip in the river earlier. Life moves at a slower pace, in Wakefield. Another discovery there was a new extension to the Wakefield trail.

Tomorrow, till the afternoon of Canada Day, a couple of old friends are coming to visit us, with whom we've kept in touch since we first met them in Apeldoorn in 1978. Elaine speaks English with a Dutch accent but was originally from Canada; Piet is altogether Dutch.

Summer outing in a Cessna 172

Monday afternoon, 27th June

We are home again from Kingston. PTN made an untoward noise of protest on start-up, which means we'll probably have to replace her starter soon, but there was no problem with our take-off on Runway 19. At 1200ft asl we were already in cloud, first flying above the dazzling white clouds at 5000ft, then in and out, then more in than out (too bouncy for my liking), then over the top again as we reached the Ottawa Valley, finally doing a "vectored LPV approach" towards Gatineau. Chris said he'd never practised one of those before and that it was interesting to be doing it for the first time "in real IMC," not breaking out of cloud until we'd dropped to about 1200ft, during a long final on the "suspended / unsuspended" RNAV approach to Runway 27, when we cancelled our IFR flight plan, able to change our destination to Rockcliffe because the morning mist had been broken up by the sun into scattered cumulus. We had been warned of windshear on the descent and Chris told me to stop fussing because we were up here now and had to land the [insert emphatic adjective] aeroplane somehow, we didn't have any choice. In the event the expected turbulence wasn't too noticeable and we landed safely at Rockcliffe in a crosswind from the south that suddenly disappeared as we passed the aviation museum, so the plane bounced a little along the runway. Lots of anecdotal material here for future groundschool classes! 

 The rest of this post was written yesterday.

*****

Sunday evening, 26th June

We had a plan to go away today, to spend a night or two on the Isle aux Grues in the St. Lawrence river, northeast of Quebec. When I rang the hotel on the island I found they had no vacancies, and I was reminded that it was the St-Jean-Baptiste weekend, when Quebeckers traditionally take a holiday. I also noticed that the weather forecast for Quebec wasn't good. Onto Plan B therefore, a flight in the other direction. We have never been to Owen Sound which looks like a nice place to stay and has an airport, so I booked a room at the Great Western hotel on the waterfront.

Weather systems in North America, 2016-06-26

This morning we looked at the aviation weather pages and Chris declared that he was not willing to fly towards a huge frontal system stretching from Hudson Bay to the mid-western States, generating a line of heavy thunderstorms, associated with a low level jet stream with 60 knot winds. The thunderstorms were forecast to reach Owen Sound at about the same time as we would: not good! So I cancelled the hotel booking and we flew to Kingston instead. (This is the second time we have been thwarted by rough weather from visiting Owen Sound. We shall try again before long.)

The Wolfe Island ferry

All the same, we had a very pleasant day today, a calm flight, a pause by the lake near the airport where a mother duck was watching her ducklings bounce through the little waves breaking on the shore, a fish and chip lunch followed by a visit to a 2nd hand bookshop, then a ride on the free ferry to Wolfe Island where we sauntered around before sailing back to town again an hour later.

The island is named after General Wolfe who is adulated in this part of the world (the historic plaque on Main Street describing him as a paragon of virtue), though not in Quebec. There's a General Wolfe Hotel, too. At first glance the island has a rather lazy, old fashioned atmosphere, as if we'd floated back to the 1960s, with hippy types living in one of the run-down roadside cottages. We bought drinks at a roadside shack with plastic tables on a shady lawn and I found a local art show at the information centre. I was interested to discover that you can rent bikes on the island and spend the day touring around it that way. It's an appealing suggestion. Not today though, too hot. It was too hot to move at times; the breeze as we crossed the water on the jam-packed ferry was a great relief.

Abandoned marina on Wolfe Island

Local art exhibition at the Wolfe Island Information Centre

View from our hotel room: Kingston's market square

Once back in Kingston we checked in at the Sheraton Four Points and lay on our comfy bed, where we both immediately fell asleep.

It had cooled down by the evening so we walked along the paths by the water as far as the yacht club and back; for supper we found a flowery outdoor patio at an Asian restaurant on Ontario Street. I ate an excellent Cambodian wonton soup followed by a blackcurrent ice at the gelato place opposite. We did some more sitting and gazing in the park where young couples were energetically practising swing dance in the park pavilion near Queen's University and saw the sunset and the many wind turbines turning on Wolfe Island, a light coming on at the axis of each one as night approached.

Chip and Fred

The week has not been altogether depressing. On Wednesday I attended another of those Doors Open For Music concerts at the Southminster Church, as mentioned in my penultimate blogpost, and it was as satisfying as I'd anticipated. Frédérick (Fred) Lacroix was the pianist and Charles (Chip) Hamann was the oboe player who announced each item as the concert progressed.

At one point he asked rhetorically, "Is there anything Fred can't do?" and a female member of the audience piped up, "He can't have a baby!" (Laughter.)

The first piece, Lacroix' own Sonatine pour hautbois et piano, was a world première, its structure inspired by Baroque music, apparently, incorporating inversions of the thematic material and canons, of a sort, in the first and last movements. It began with a yearning and swirling "middle eastern" theme: "the oboe is a moody instrument," said Chip, who has been principal oboist in the NACO since 1993. His friend Fred often works with him at the University of Ottawa and composed this work for him. Its second movement is "as jazzy as possible, but not too fast," a conversation between the two instruments, and the third movement (lentement) is contemplative. In contrast, the final movement  is "vigorous" (vif), with a changing metre. Apparently the accompaniment quotes from a favourite Mozart sonata at one point, but I didn't spot this.

The next item on the programme was also Canadian, by a female composer I had not heard of, an anglophile called Jean Coulthard who died in 2000 aged 92. This too made a wistful start, "gently flowing", but it livened up towards an impressively virtuoso ending. Chip confessed that the performers were "still figuring out the notes and things" for this one, but they seemed to me to have mastered it: false modesty!

The two of them are preparing for a Chamberfest concert later this summer, with much the same programme.

There followed a lament for the victims of AIDS written by Marjan Mozetich, called Calla Lilies, which the performers thought appropriate as a tribute to the people who'd died in the Orlando shooting.

"Neither in the major nor the minor, like the British weather", the next piece was a Sonata in C (Op. 100) by the English composer Edmund Rubbra, written in 1958. For the middle movement of three, the Elegy, Chip said something about "one-ness in an era of fragmentation"––yes, we need a strong dose of that––and the final Presto had a beautifully rippling accompaniment.

The last item was Ravel's famous Sonatine, originally for piano but transcribed for oboe with a piano accompaniment in this case by an oboist, David Walter, of the Paris Opera orchestra. Chip Hamann called it "astonishingly concise and beautiful." I find it gorgeous; I confess to having a great weakness for Ravel's music.

Anger and tears from across the Pond

These are some of the reactions I have seen on Facebook this morning, from my British friends (and their friends), to the result of the EU referendum:

• I know that [Facebook] is probably going to be a wall of text today from everyone weighing in their two cents and I've tried to stay out of all of that until now, but I am so, SO gutted that the older generation have chosen to limit MY generation's future all because of your xenophobic, Little England mentality. A victory for paranoia, xenophobia, right-wing populism. Nigel [Farage] "has his country back" and it's in tatters.
• The turkeys have been convinced that they're not turkeys. And that Christmas meant free unicorns for every turkey.
• Sadly, I fear it actually means they will be well stuffed, roasted, and served with extra pigs in blankets.
• My anger was spent at the appalling misinformation and ideological blinkeredness by rich politicians with no understanding or empathy with the people this decision will effect most. Now I'm in tears.
• Im still in the anger phase of my grieving process.
• I’m so angry. A generation given everything: free education, golden pensions, social mobility, have voted to strip my generation’s future.
• Very sad. Words fail me.
• Well, the British electorate voted in the party they deserved, but this....! Will any EU country have me? More importantly will they realise, for example, the falling pound, is their fault or will they find someone else to blame?
• I'm still a European ... just with my freedom and choices severely limited.
• I was seriously considering spending a year teaching somewhere in Europe next year. Guess I'll have to scrap that idea.
• Britain ... oh dear, you idiots! Travel to mainland Europe is about to get a lot more expensive ... no more EU enforced affordable mobile coverage, no more European wide medical treatment (EHIC gone, leading to inflated travel insurance), and poor exchange rates. One of the more trivial consequences, but an illustration of the everyday impact this likely leave vote will have.
• Devastated. Baffled. Mainly Ashamed.
• Cameron's legacy will be forcing an EU referendum which has divided the nation and resulted in our exit from the EU, of which only a small majority of the electorate desire, followed by a new PM put in place without the mandate of the electorate.
• I'm going to say that the root cause is bonding with other human beings by blaming the people who are not in the room for everything.
• There's one sentence that springs to mind, "Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” A very sad day for the likes of me, for all who dream borders and nation-states would be a thing of history, an error of the past ...
• What have we done? Allowing the general public their say? We are not the experts. It's ridiculous! It shouldn't have come to this!
• The only glimmer of hope is that most young people voted to stay in. Now we all need to engage more in politics and confront all lies and bigotry where we see it. Even in our own families. We cannot afford the rise of the right.
• Right, so now we're in the odd position that MPs have to make a decision that the majority of them don't want. If the EU offers a deal saying "we'll continue our relationship exactly as before except that you won't have a say any more" would they accept it?
• I was with a group of pensioners yesterday (all male except for me) and they were overwhelming Leavers. I think there's a nostalgia for pre-Thatcherism, without remembering the bad things ...
• Youth voted 75% to Stay. I am ashamed for my cohort who wanted out.
• If you voted leave, you have swallowed the lies of the fascist manipulating right wing racist press.
• Too horrified to post anything useful.

I added a post myself:

"This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land, 

Dear for her reputation through the world ... .

...England, that was wont to conquer others, 

Hath made a shameful conquest of itself."

(Shakespeare)

Quite a queer concert, with serious overtones

The doors of Southminster Church in Ottawa have been "Open for Music" every Wednesday lunch hour for the past few weeks, and I have attended most of the concerts in the series. Tomorrow's recital looks very promising, featuring the world première of Frédéric Lacroix' Sonatine pour hautbois et piano, to be performed by the composer and Charles Hamann, first oboist in the NACO. Mr. Lacroix teaches piano and composition at the University of Ottawa and is respected as a fine musician hereabouts. They're also going to perform pieces by Rubbra, Ravel and others.

Last week (June 15th) I sat on the front row for a very different sort of performance by Tone Cluster, Ottawa's "choir for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender people and their allies," as it says on their website. They are also known as Quite A Queer Choir. Our friend Gianluca is its VP and Concert Co-ordinator. This concert was dedicated to the victims at the gay nightclub in Orlando where three days previously a man had gone berserk and killed 49 people, injuring 53 others. In any case the audience knew that this was to be a concert with a message, entitled Issues of Note. Every item was performed with a particular social issue in mind and every item was sung with passion, our grief at the recent news giving the concert an extra dimension.

Even before the choir started singing they were interesting to look at, dressed in black with bright red accents, scarlet shirts or neck wear, scarlet hair decorations, or, in the case of one of the baritones, with a pony tail, short skirt, high heels and a scarlet cummerbund.

The first piece was the heart-tapping, thigh-slapping, finger clicking White Winter Hymnal, followed by the spirited Alhamdoulillah, a song of welcome to Syrian refugees. Then came Words (on an anti-bullying theme) and the traditional spiritual, Bright Morning Stars Are Rising, incorporating a solo by Gianluca, which they dedicated to the victims of AIDS / HIV. Keeping their audience in an emotional state, they continued with an arrangement of a disturbing song, I Don't Like Mondays, about a shooting by a schoolgirl, and the catchy I Dreamed of Rain which I have heard them sing before.

... I dreamed of freedom and the moon rose,
And peace spread over the land ...

Tone Cluster performing 'Hernando's Hideaway'

The transgender baritone sang a solo during the choir's rendition of Loch Lomond (another catchy enough tune to stay in one's head for days), recalling the partings due to war, and then they sang the Tibetan Om Mani Padme Hum, a celebration of "cultural diversity ... as important as biodiversity!", which started with a very deep bass drone, effectively done. We also heard a piece in French, Je te retrouve, and "something completely different", Hernando's Hideaway, with plenty of movement from the choir, swaying their arms and waltzing. The sister of a choir member had written Come Sit With Me, which according to the introduction dealt with equal marriage, followed, to my surprise, by a Renaissance madrigal about a dying swan, Il bianco e dolce cigno. I wonder if they have ever tried Gibbons' madrigal, The Silver Swan, along similar lines.

They are a versatile choir indeed. The last two items were Eric Idle's Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life (famously sung in Monty Python's Life of Brian) –– they had fun with that one –– and Gently Walk On The Earth, composed for Tone Cluster and premièred at MosaiK.

I came away very affected by this experience; it took the whole of my bike ride back to Sandy Hill (where I bought a coffee) to calm down.

This week

After my all-day boat trip on Opinicon Lake and Sand Lake (see my previous post), the rest of the week wasn't exactly humdrum, either.

四君子

On Monday evening Nancy (Jingnan Xue), my latest Mandarin teacher, came to introduce Erika and me to some Chinese words for flowers and stayed a while for tea afterwards, which we drank from my little Chinese cuplets. We learned about the importance of peonies, chrysanthemums (júhuā 菊花) and osmanthus (guìhuā 桂花) in Chinese culture, where people say that the shadows on the face of the moon are osmanthus bushes. The "Four Gentlemen" (sì jūnzǐ 四君子) of China are the chrysanthemum, plum blossom, orchid, and bamboo. Lotus flowers on their straight stems represent people of strong will and integrity. A rose (méiguī) represents a temperamental lady, whereas a waterlily would stand for a fragile, southern beauty. The Chinese word for narcissus (shuǐxiān) means water fairy. I learned that it is bad manners to bring a potted plant as a gift to someone in hospital because the implication would be that they'd be staying there for a long time, although potted plants as a New Year's gift are far more acceptable.

On Tuesday I attended a Garden Party –– the 4th annual recurrence of UWHAW's Voices for Afghan Women –– a posh event for 120 people, where I was busy taking photos and taking notes on the speeches. I'll write a separate post about this.

On Wednesday I cycled along the banks of the canal on a warm and sunny day to witness a remarkable midday concert given by Tone Cluster, aka Quite A Queer Choir. That too deserves a separate blogpost. 

Thursday was the day of the lunch party for my German friends at Dagmar's cottage by the Gatineau River where we gave leaving gifts to two diplomat friends who by the end of the summer will be living in Hamburg (Ulli) and Almaty, Kazakhstan (Uschi); we lingered beside the river sitting in Dagmar's colourful Muskoka chairs and admiring the sparkle of mica in the rocks in her steeply sloping garden. 

Annika on a Steinway grand

Then in the evening I accompanied Chris on a Steinway piano at the local "Steinway Piano Gallery" during another concert, this one organised by his singing teacher, Christine. Chris sang Schubert's Der Wegweiser and Heidenröslein and the other male student, Brendan, sang Elton John's Rocket Man and Let Her Go by someone called Rosenberg. What a contrast. Everyone performed with serious commitment anyhow, and the children had made progress since this time last year. A young woman called Anna who was an ex-student of the studio performed pop duets (by Glen Hansard and The Tenors) with Brendan and with Christine. The "recital" was followed by fruit and cookies.

 

Yesterday morning, Friday I took part in an AGM presenting two reports and joining in the sometimes rather heated discussions. We had our usual friends to supper at our house yesterday evening as well, which was mostly soothing, although we did have a discussion about the relative merits of Elton John and Schubert which stirred me up, rather (Chris too). L'esprit de l'escalier ... in retrospect, what I should have said is that it's like asking how the Laurentian hills compare with the Himalayas. To illustrate their points, Laurie and Don played us recordings of Candle in the Wind by Elton John and songs from Lloyd Webber musicals on their smart phones and Chris countered with the Liebestod from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, after which there wasn't a lot more to say, really.

Today, Saturday, I went swimming before lunch. Afterwards Chris flew me from Rockcliffe to the other side of the city, to Carp, where we met a very recently arrived, Canadian government sponsored, Syrian refugee couple, for the sake of taking them and their interpreters for a ride in the 'plane. We were introduced to everybody by Chris' friend and colleague, Patrick. The little girl, Chahed, was three years old (she sat with her mother in the 'plane) and Achmad, her brother, was one-and-a-half. None of the family has come to grips with English, yet, but Chahed could say "Bye bye" when we left, and her brother was grabbing the airport's petunias and trying to say "Flower."