Blane

I'm down in the absolute south of the photo and its been damn cold here! Brighton (city of about 300,000) has been at a virtual standstill all week, which has been interesting. My work has basically been optional all week. Here's a few shots from today:

Sunset Rubdown - You Go on Ahead Sunset Rubdown from Black Cab Sessions on Vimeo.

saw it tonight and it looked fantastic. HUUUGE moon.

Haven't seen a thread on this yet. Hope I didn't miss it! Totally subjective, of course, but here are 20-odd albums that utterly seduced me this decade. Tried to put them really roughly in order, but way too tough. Subject to change as others mention albums that I forgot all about. Overall a pretty great decade of music I think! Bonnie Prince Billy - Summer in the Southeast (gorgeous) Leonard Cohen - Live in London (reminded me of everything there is to love about Mr. Cohen) Broken Social Scene - You Forgot it in People Smog - A river ain't much to love Radiohead - Kid A A Silver Mt. Zion - Born into trouble as the sparks fly upward Bonnie Prince Billy - Greatest Palace Music (a bit of a cheat, but the reworked versions of these tunes have been a fixture on my playlists for a solid 3 years, so I had to include it) My Morning Jacket - Z Panda Bear - Person Pitch Miracle Fortress - Five Roses Modest Mouse - We were dead before the ship even sank/The Moon and Antarctica (another cheat. I couldn't decide which one was more worthy. Love them both!) Godspeed you black emperor- Lift yr skinny fists like annenas to heaven (I started the decade by moving to Montreal and immediately fell for these guys) Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam (by far my favorite of their albums. Constantly in rotation) Wolf Parade - Wolf Parade/Apologies to Queen Mary (had to include both as they're so closely related. Like the rawness of the original better, but the extra songs are winners) Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (still thinks this kicks Soft Bulletin's ass any day of the week) Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago (short and sooo sweet) Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (still remember the first time I listened to this. Blew me away) M. Ward - Transfiguration of Vincent (my vote for underrated album of the decade) Arcade Fire - Funeral (love it).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/nov/30/canada-tar-sands-copenhagen-climate-deal remember when people liked canada?

Hey all, Just a reminder, think about gift certificates with Kiva.org as christmas presents for your web-savvy friends and family. Kiva's a micro-lending site where you can give loans as small as $25 to help entrepreneurs in the global South with projects that can help them escape poverty. When they repay you the money you've lent them, you can lend it on to somebody else, so that the effect keeps going and going. I'm not affiliated with them in any way but have been using the site for a few years and really think it's an interesting initiative. Anyway, off the soapbox now.

Thao with the Get Down Stay Down. and you should too.

Peru's great. Haven't been to the north, but I recommend the Peru-to-Bolivia odessy. Do-able in a month and really fun. Bolivia's cheaper too.

a great sounding source for the show is the FOB Schoeps mk4 recording. Don't have it on hand myself but it's pretty widely available.

strangely, I know the perfect guy for this job

Had to give my friend my ticket to this, and so disappointed to miss some of my favorite artists sharing the stage. Hopefully they do a european leg to their tour!

well, thanks for the vibes y'all! They must have worked. WEnt really well and had lots of positive feedback from everyone. No major revisions, just some proof reading. Time to go get pissed I suppose.

heady vibes welcome. Tomorrow's the day.

http://www.stillepost.ca/calendar/montreal/month.php best show calendar I know of for the city. Also check out the Casa del popolo/sala rossa calendar in case something got missed

mardi 27 octobre / Tuesday October 27th ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * Mardi Spaghetti: Brad Barr (guitar) / Joe Grass (guitar) + Lori Freedman (clarinets) / Jean René (viola) / Josh Zubot (violins) Le Cagibi, 5490 St-Laurent 21h / 9 pm http://www.lorifreedman.com http://crouchedhead.com http://www.myspace.com/mardispaghetti Brad barr finally playing with the montreal franco avant-garde scene. Great fit I believe. Great venue too.

thanks! About 1/2 way through now and loving it

Thanks for the informative reply. I don't know my external, nor the pro-dean really, so i'll only know part of the room. I think there are 6 or so on the panel. I can use powerpoint, which i'll probably do just as a way of keeping myself on track and on time. will probably try to use photos to spice it up a bit. Looking forward to getting it over with!

Hi all, The clock is ticking down on my seemingly-interminable career as a student and i'm less than a month until my doctoral defense. Exciting but also kind of nerve-wracking. ONe of those "one-shot, don't fuck it up" events in life. I remember there are a few people on here who've gone through it before and wonder if they have any suggestions. Particularly I'm trying to figure out how to fit 4 years of work into a 20 minute presentation. Any suggestions on how best to structure it? Any other tips? Thanks!

Canada Arts Council might be a good starting point.

very strange indeed. I dont' think i"ve ever come across the Divan shut on a regular night. Perhaps some issues.

apologies if this has already been posted...

Sorry but there will be no Rainbow Unicorn action this year (though it would have been nice to do a Swayze hat-tip with the famous Chip'n Dale centaur on a unicorn avatar). Last year's mediocre showing proved that you kinda have to be able to follow hockey fairly closely if you want to have a bit of a shot at doing well. It'll have to wait 'till i'm back in Canada again.

I 2nd the fritters. I basically use zuchini everywhere. Stir fry, home fries, soup, you name it.