Larocque and Roll

Guelph and back: a musical journey

Wow – it’s been forever since I posted a playlist. Bear with me as I try to remember how to do this. It’s a short playlist, fortunately.

~ House of Pain, Shamrocks and Shenanigans (Butch Vig Mix) – You know that scene in Formula 51, where Samuel L. Jackson’s character is driving away from the warehouse he’s just blown up? This is the song that’s playing. And it’s a kick-ass St. Patrick’s Day song (definitely not traditional.) Plus, “shenanigans” is a word that just doesn’t get used enough these days.

~ Jesse Dangerously, Righteous Badass (Fancy’s 45s Mix) – I first heard this one on a CBC Radio 3 podcast, and was charmed. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment I decided I loved it, but it was somewhere between the line “badder than the Necronomicon” and the mention of his resemblance to Hacksaw Jim Duggan (oh, the flashbacks to the Saturday afternoons of my childhood, watching wrestling with my dad).

~ Apollo Sunshine, Magnolia – This is one of many songs added to my cart that I can’t remember why I added it in the first place. Ultimately, it’s not important because it’s a great little song – there’s layers on layers of sound carefully pieced together in 3/4 time. (It also makes me think I should do a playlist of songs about flora, except that the only songs on it would be this one and Sarah Harmer’s Oleander. I’ll get back to you about this.)

~ Tiga, 3 Weeks (12″ Mix) – A very fine break-up song. And you can shake your booty to it.

~ John Frusciante, Omission – Every time this song starts, I think it’s Jane’s Addiction. It’s also the one I skip every other time around.

~ Electronic, Get the Message – A song from my high school days. I have fond memories of this one, let me tell you. What those memories are… well, that’s a different story. Let’s just say I can vividly recall parts of the mid-1990′s when I hear it.

~ Prodigy, Spitfire – Loud and raucous. Good for a chase scene or a beatdown scene in a movie. Also skipped every other time around.

~ Tiga, You Gonna Want Me – Despite the poor grammar, it’s another fine booty shaking song, with the added bonus of the keen vocal stylings of Jake Shears (of the Scissor Sisters.)

~ Busta Rhymes, Touch It – I’m not at all fond of the lyrics. The reason I downloaded it is because it has an interesting beat, and I could use it to practice some of the smaller, more controlled moves we learn in bellydancing. That is, if I ever get around to going back.

~ Brazillian Girls, Jique – Different-sounding. Not recommended for driving, especially on the 401 in moderately heavy traffic, because it feels right for a stunt-driving attempt. Which, because I am always a careful and considerate driver, I didn’t do. No siree.

I also spent considerable time listening to Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black, which is just phenomenal. It’s brassy and tough and honest, and she’s got an incredible voice.

And on the last few trips I’ve taken, I’ve taken a few podcasts to break up the monotony. This time out, I had a various episodes of CBC Radio 3, Savage Love, and the official Grey’s Anatomy podcast.

A little bit of this and that

Lots of things to update, and not much time in which to do it. Between the thunderstorms and the whole “getting ready for work” thing, let’s see what I can tell you about.

~ Last Thursday was the only day of the year where you could legitimately say, “Go Rebecca! It’s your birthday! We’re going to party like it’s your birthday!” and have it be accurate. For those of you keeping score at home, it’s the 31st time this has happened.

~ Most of the time I experiment with cooking, it turns out okay. Occasionally, it turns out badly. And on rare, shining occasions, it turns out better than expected, which was the case with the spinach sauce I made to go on some leftover penne noodles at the beginning of the month.

It’s a carton of baby spinach, tossed into the food processor and chopped until it’s all shredded into tiny little pieces. Then you make a white sauce (two tablespoons butter, two tablespoons flour, one cup of milk; melt the butter, stir in the flour until smooth, and then slowly add the milk in parts) and dump in the spinach. Pour on cooked noodles, stir, and serve. Tasty! And a pretty colour!

~ I’ve been experimenting with knitting multiple projects at the same time. Normally, it’s all I can do to finish one project, yet I’m finding I like having several things on the needles, so I can switch projects when I get bored. One of my recently completed projects is a tea cozy for my little teapot.

My teapot – it is both short and stout. And now it has a sweater!

~ This past weekend was my sister and b-i-l’s annual ball hockey tournament. At first, it looked like this would be the first year the weather wouldn’t co-operate and we’d have to play in the rain. In the end, we played in the mist [1] and the mud, and no one got injured. Also, a good time was had by all. My photos are here.

~ Had I more time, I’d post the playlist I listened to on the drive from here to Guelph and back. It’s dope, yo.

[1] Isn’t that a Sigourney Weaver movie – “Ball Hockey Players in the Mist”?

Your teachers lied when they said this wasn’t a popularity contest

1. Go to the CBC website and search for “M a n s b r i d g e heat v i s i o n” (leaving out the extra spaces). Because the kind folks at This Hour Has 22 Minutes want that to be the number 1 search for the week. And because they (and I) told you to.

2. Also at the CBC – it was recently brought to my attention that North Bay was in the top ten cities to be Hockeyville Canada, and then we made it into the top five. Go us? (I’d be more excited, but like I said, I just found this out and haven’t been able to whip myself into a froth of civic frenzy.) This amuses me because Noelville is also in the top five, and it’s less than an hour from here.

3. Band Madness is so much fun. It’s a full-on, battle-to-the-death, ladder contest between a series of bands [1]. Some of the matchups confound me (who the hell are the Aphex Twins?) Some of the matchups tear me apart (Leonard Cohen or the Dropkick Murphys? I can’t decide!) Some of results amuse me (The Clash are kicking Little Feat’s ass). There’s still some time to vote in this round – it’s still in the first round, and they’re being done in pools.

I’m not ashamed to admit I’ve voted for one of these three things on more than one computer – mostly my work computer and my laptop at home. But also a few of the circulation computers.

[1] Or, as we use to call them in fencing, repechages. But we were all snooty and French like that.

And all of a sudden, it got quiet

Sorry, I don’t have much to update you on lately. I continue to knit stuff and read books and work at a library, and my brain has turned to mush. So I lack the coherent thought processes to blog about these things in a pleasing and amusing manner.

Also, I still have a cat. Who ate his way into a bag of pitas last week, and figured out how to open the cupboard under the sink where my garbage can is. I got home and there were banana peels and potato peelings all over. Fun!

The ‘rents were up this weekend, and it was a nice, quiet visit.

Someone left a bag of kittens on my front steps the other day. I kid you not. My neighbour saw them, and had them taken to the Humane Society. I wasn’t home at the time. Who the hell walks up to your door, drops a bag of kittens, and takes off without even knocking or asking if you want to take them? Seriously? WTF?

Not only do I play one on television, I am one in real life

As y’all are aware, I am a librarian. I am also a very lazy person, which is why I don’t really spend all that much time writing about what’s going on in Libraryland – if you were truly interested in it, there are a hundred other people out there doing it better than I am. However, I’m also very opinionated, although I choose not to spew forth my many and varied opinions here (or at least, all that often). Something happened recently that made me want to climb onto my soapbox and voice my opinion.

A group of librarians have publicly stated that they will not add a book, titled The Higher Power of Lucky, to their collections because it contains the word “scrotum.” (here’s the response from the author, who also happens to be a librarian.)

Here’s what I think about this:

Firstly, the librarian’s and parent’s reaction is immature and childish, and more suited to fourth-graders than adults. In the context in which it is used (the character sees a snake bite a dog’s scrotum), the word is appropriate – it’s the proper word for the part of the anatomy being referenced. Would they have preferred the author used a different term for it? Are they too horrified that children might learn the anatomically correct name for it instead of calling it something cutesy and euphemistic, like “the thingy”? By stating that the appearance of this word will cause some kind of mental harm, are we not sending the message that there are parts of our bodies that are shameful and should never be talked about if we tell children, “You can’t read that because it contains a bad word”?

Secondly, since when is it our job as librarians to censor what people read? We’re supposed to make the books, the movies, the music, the artwork, the information, etc. available to all, and let the individual patron make up their minds. If I don’t like what an author or an artist has to say, then okay – I won’t read/view their work, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to prevent you from reading/viewing it and letting you come to your own conclusions. If a parent doesn’t want their child to read or watch something, then it is up to the parent to explain to the child why. Don’t tell us to remove something from our collection because you can’t be bothered to have a conversation with your child about your beliefs and values, or about how they feel about something they’ve read/watched/heard.

There are a number of reasons a library might not have a controversial work available – underfunding, it’s been stolen/gone missing, it’s difficult to obtain, it’s out of print/out of circulation, and so on. However, to stand up and say, “I’m not going to add this to my collection because it has a dirty word in it!” is shameful and a black mark on our profession.

And then there’s the whole backlash effect – any time someone says “let’s ban this book because it contains passages about witchcraft/the occult/sex/drug use/etc!”, a lot of people sit up, take notice, and say, “hey, I hadn’t planned on reading that, but now I’m intrigued!” Calls to ban books aren’t at all effective, because it only makes them more popular. Which brings me to this…

This past week was Freedom to Read week. A friend and former co-worker of mine has organized a banned book reading challenge to celebrate the freedom to read whatever you want without anyone telling you why you shouldn’t be able to. Sign up, indicate how many banned books you’re going to read between now and the end of June, and then report back when you’ve finished reading them.