Waking up heartbroken

I had the great delight of waking up to Meaghan Smith a few days ago, to a delightful little song called called Heartbroken. I love the Swing beat and the old time cartoony feeling in the instrumentation and her warm clear voice. I could see her singing with Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys. At this point I’m ready to buy the album.

Then the CBC announcer says the voice and the girl is from London Ontario. Whoa! That is worth looking up:

I grew up in London, Ontario, Canada. We couldn’t afford cable, so to avoid doing homework, I occupied myself with other activities, like drawing and singing. And with three (mostly fuzzy) TV channels to choose from, I ended up watching a lot of animated movies and old musicals.

And with her parents deeply into music of all sorts, that just goes to show that London, the creative city is once again a most fertile middle-class backwater where things are safe to bloom. But to blossom, yes, we need to go elsewhere:

I opted to go to school for animation in pursuit of my drawing,… I graduated from college and moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia, for a job in animation. I also decided to tackle my fear of the stage, and began to play shows locally.

Well, that certainly warrants a post at cartoon life :-) Here is a page of vids at Youtube and her MySpace page with more songs and another interview at LAist and a video with her own animations.

London’s No Prorogue Rally

http://noprorogue.ca/london/

Date: Saturday, January 23

Time: 12:00 – 1:00 pm

Location: Victoria Park – Richmond and Central Entrance

Rebecca Solnit, The Current, Elite Panic

Excellent interview on The CBC’s The Current this morning with Rebecca Solnit. It answered some questions. Here’s a Google link on Elite Panic.

Update; 01-21-09

Link to the interview on the podcast page:http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/podcast.html19/01/10: Pt 3 – Disaster Writer Rebecca Solnit on why terrible disasters can generate remarkable communities.

click to listen 19/01/10: Pt 3 – Disaster [mp3 file: runs 27:45]

20 landscapes

Annie Leonard’s ‘The Story of Cap & Trade’

Third time’s the charm

Stephen Harper's Reformatory Graduation Photo

Snowbird

Stephen Harper Prorogues!

harper-to-shut-down-parliament at The Globe and Mail.

the-short-parliament at Macleans.

Random Nexts 11

us three on the road – Donna, Anthony and Tycho in Vietnam

Modernism and the Cinematic City – a film course in Edinburgh. Manhatta, a 1921 version of Koyaanisqatsi

Morning Drawing – drawings

Quekadoodledoo! – adventures of a duck in Singapore

The Last Muggle to Read Harry Potter – don’t spoil it for her!

The Real Good Stuff – some well chosen music videos

Update, December 22, 2009 - The Diary of Aggie E. showed up in my tag reader this morning, so, it was easiest to add her to this recent post. Yep, it’s about her trip in Nepal.

Howlaleua!

Parliament begins

From Scott Feschuk’s caption contest, Barbara Ann Scott  bears the Olympic torch into the House of Commons. My entry, corrected:

Update dec 15: Alas,I am not in the finals.

A hawk in the treetop

At Wolfe and Wellington 1:39 pm Sunday December 13th 2009

Strike while the weather is hot.

I bet those bus drivers are glad they’re not driving in this weather.

Split ‘em while you still got ‘em

Peter Mackay defends his head

Once again, our glorious government from Macleans: http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/12/08/the-commons-support-for-the-troops-if-necessary-but-necessarily-support-for-the-troops

John Baird channels James Cagney

John Baird refutes torture allegations