Hope people are surviving the heat. I am taking refuge in our mostly air-conditioned house, but Ms. Marsupial works outside for a living and is really hoping this ends soon...
The heat here is bad today - around 35°, and humid. We had a rain shower yesterday evening and it just steamed. So did I. Then we had a power cut for three hours. Worse, I had to drive to Mississauga today, which, as is well known, is at the uttermost end of the Earth, being full of mad drivers* and on the edge of a Pit of Fire if you go too far. We made it home safely, thankful for our car's air conditioner. Not so good at home, with no air conditioning. They say it may drop all the way down to 32° tomorrow.
*I knew I was back in Mississauga when we were in the left lane and another car did a U turn round me from the right lane. Pretty much normal, that is.
32C? Grab your cardigan! I've adapted my schedule so that from ca. 10am to ca. 5pm I stay in my a/c'ed flat. I was participating in a webinar when I heard the rain strike yesterday afternoon. Thank the Good Lord, I thought. I was hasty in my gratitude. When I stepped outside, because of the temperature differential, my glasses immediately fogged with ambient moisture. As a friend of mine says, (deliberate malapropism) "It's not the heat - it's the humility."
That sounds about right - I've only been in Ottawa twice, and on one occasion it was Amazon, the other definitely Siberia!
Lovely place all the same ...
There is a possibly apocryphal story of an Italian ambassador trying to explain to his foreign ministry that they needed both air conditioning and central heating, and encountering resistance to this incredible notion.
To the Maoist group in my undergrad years, Enver Hoxha was something of their hero. Some went so far as to (claim to) study Albanian. That was not the only claim of theirs that I found suspect. They loathed the Trosktyites and Marxist-Leninist clubs, and most of all, Social Democrats, more than garden variety capitalists. I think that the capitalists, not being members of the fractious family, were merely on the "to-do list".
As a footnote, some wag wrote a letter to the editor in the student newspaper, parodying the Albanian Maoist club, and signed it Nathan (I think it it was) Skanderberg. Brilliance.
re: the Maoists loathing the Marxist-Leninists...
In Canada, the group officially named "Marxist-Leninist", aka the CPC-ML, were the Maoists, until they went over to Albania in the mid-70s, over the Theory Of The Three Worlds and Mao's alliance with the US.
Did you mean to say that the Hoxhaites loathed the Communist Party Of Canada, ie. the Moscow-aligned party?
(By the way, on the off-chance that anyone's interested, the Encyclopedia Of Anti-Revisionism On-Line has archived hundreds of articles from the various Maoist/Hoxhaite groups operating in Canada and the USA from the 1960s to the 1980s.)
In Canada, the group officially named "Marxist-Leninist", aka the CPC-ML, were the Maoists, until they went over to Albania in the mid-70s, over the Theory Of The Three Worlds and Mao's alliance with the US.
Did you mean to say that the Hoxhaites loathed the Communist Party Of Canada, ie. the Moscow-aligned party?
Yes - that was my intended meaning. I was referring to the early to mid-1980s.
I have several times been more impressed by CPC and CPC-ML candidates at all-candidates meetings during general elections, than I have been by speakers from the three main parties.
That sounds about right - I've only been in Ottawa twice, and on one occasion it was Amazon, the other definitely Siberia!
Lovely place all the same ...
There is a possibly apocryphal story of an Italian ambassador trying to explain to his foreign ministry that they needed both air conditioning and central heating, and encountering resistance to this incredible notion.
I'm guessing that's apocryphal. I think a foreign ministry would be aware that there are numerous places in the world where the temperature swings from one extreme to another during the year.
Central heating and air conditioning are both widely used in Korea, at least in commercial spaces. Though If I had to guess, I'd say that among people who have one and not the other in their homes, heating would be by far the more popular choice.
In Canada, the group officially named "Marxist-Leninist", aka the CPC-ML, were the Maoists, until they went over to Albania in the mid-70s, over the Theory Of The Three Worlds and Mao's alliance with the US.
Did you mean to say that the Hoxhaites loathed the Communist Party Of Canada, ie. the Moscow-aligned party?
Yes - that was my intended meaning. I was referring to the early to mid-1980s.
Thanks for the clarification.
I first made the acquaintance of Hoxhaites in the late 1980s, when their romance with Albania was still in full bloom.
At the time, they were publishing a magazine with the deceptively generic title The New Weekly Magazine. With the ongoing collapse of Yugoslavia in the early 90s, they started running editorials threatening hellfire on anyone who laid a hand on Albania.
Any army that has ever marched on Tirana has left their bones in the ground!
I have several times been more impressed by CPC and CPC-ML candidates at all-candidates meetings during general elections, than I have been by speakers from the three main parties.
Indeed. An old philosophy professor of mine, Danny Goldstick, frequently ran for the CPC in Rosedale, a rather strange riding, which despite bearing the name of the wealthy enclave, is rather heterogeneous, including the carriage set, St James Town (a collection of high rises which is rather poor and has Canada's highest population density), Regent Park, Moss Park (RP recently revitalised; MP rather more desperate), and Cabbagetown (an eccentric Victorian neighbourhood). Anyway, Prof Goldstick never received more than 200 votes, but was quite popular at the all-candidates meetings for his wit and his aggressively rumpled suits.
Jacob Penner and Joe Zuken were famous Communist city councilors in Winnipeg, with Zuken serving until the early 80s.
Can't say I ever saw a member of the CPC-ML get elected to anything higher than students' union, which is not surprising if you've ever met some of them. Gilles Duceppe of the BQ was a member of some other Maoist group in his younger days.
In one of my previous jobs, I had to attend a number of Jewish community functions in Toronto and had the occasion to lunch with JB Salsberg, then a columnist for the (now sadly deceased) Canadian Jewish News. Salsberg has served as the Labour Progressive/CPC MLA for Saint Andrew's division in Toronto from 1943-1955 ("Make the Rich Pay!"). According to Wikipedia, the then Conservative Premier (Leslie Frost) admired him sufficiently that a township just south of Geraldton in northern Ontario was named after him. I told Mr Salsberg how much I enjoyed his columns and he was pleased with this, telling me that Ottawa would do much better if they would only follow his lead.
We discussed anti-semitism in Canadian life for a few minutes and he wagered me that Canada would see a woman as PM before it would see a Jew. I told him that as a public servant on duty I could not gamble, which seemed to amuse everybody. But I remembered this, and later that month made a serious bet (a bottle of Hennessy) with a well-known feminist activist to this effect, who was swearing up and down that women were inalterably blocked from such advancement in Canada. To her credit, she presented me with the bottle in front of a Women's Studies panel at the Learneds after Mrs Campbell's appointment, to the merriment of some and the death glare of others.
Lots of rain yesterday, and a bit cooler today. Just came back from bike ride down by the lake. Beaches pretty full though I think some semblance of distancing still. Hopefully the more reasonable temperatures will continue to hold this week.
On the topic of communists, when I was in undergrad I had two contemporaries with the same last name. One was (and still is) deeply enmeshed in the Conservative parties (both the relevant ones in this part of the world). The other one sold Socialist Worker on the steps of the main Arts and Science building. I have no idea what actually happened to him.
Lots of rain yesterday, and a bit cooler today. Just came back from bike ride down by the lake. Beaches pretty full though I think some semblance of distancing still. Hopefully the more reasonable temperatures will continue to hold this week.
On the topic of communists, when I was in undergrad I had two contemporaries with the same last name. One was (and still is) deeply enmeshed in the Conservative parties (both the relevant ones in this part of the world). The other one sold Socialist Worker on the steps of the main Arts and Science building. I have no idea what actually happened to him.
He may have become an investment tycoon. A Chicago friend was expelled from the Communist Party USA in 1950 for cosmopolitan tendencies (his wife was Jewish) and joined with several other comrades who were expelled for "Bachmanite deviationism" (I may have misheard the name, as the only Bachmanite deviation I could find was a breakaway from the Missouri Synod). They joined together, buying resort property, then got into stocks in a big way and remarkably succesfully, with the slogan that only those who truly understand the flaws of capitalism and build a comprehensive analysis of its contradictions can expect to profit by its downfall. When he died in 2009 (at my feet, quite literally, on a Jamaican beach), this community college teacher was worth several millions in (morally debased) currency.
On vacation for the two nest weeks. A bit of a bus man's vacation since I am spending it taking an online course on teaching online. Luckily most of the work is asynchronous with about 1.5 hours of synchronous learning per day.
A Chicago friend was expelled from the Communist Party USA in 1950 for cosmopolitan tendencies (his wife was Jewish) and joined with several other comrades who were expelled for "Bachmanite deviationism" (I may have misheard the name, as the only Bachmanite deviation I could find was a breakaway from the Missouri Synod).
As the Red Menace is on our minds, I ran into the most recent CPC provincial candidate the other day working on his vegetable allotment. He very kindly gave me the last of his sorrel even though I had not voted for him at the recent provincial election. He had not heard of the Bachmanites either, but a corporate search for Wisconsin informs me that the Bachmanite Investment Group (BIG) is still reporting.
I have fond memories of it as it's the one I grew up with. Anglo-Catholics viewed it as a threat as the United Church collaboration made it dangerously Low Church.
I think it probably got daggers drawn from more than one side though. Bizarrely when I was in a undergrad the compromise book was the US Hymnal 1982. Nothing really wrong with with it, but I am still puzzled by the fact that a group of people who literally couldn’t agree on anything else could agree that it was better than the red book.
It was universal in the United Church, but it did have its flaws. It had to please two churches with different traditions and the United Church has its own spectrum. There wasn't room enough to have all of what everyone wanted. Everyone felt short-changed.
That was the main criticism the United Church leveled at it when we replaced it, and Voices United gave us more of what we wanted as a church.
It was universal in the United Church, but it did have its flaws. It had to please two churches with different traditions and the United Church has its own spectrum. There wasn't room enough to have all of what everyone wanted. Everyone felt short-changed.
That was the main criticism the United Church leveled at it when we replaced it, and Voices United gave us more of what we wanted as a church.
A common criticism of the current Presbyterian Book of Praise is that the thing is too heavy. I heard that for years and never paid much attention. Then I developed arthritis in my wrists... They were right. But almost all churches have a screen now, so it's not such a widespread problem. How long until we have airline style screens in the pew backs?
It was universal in the United Church, but it did have its flaws. It had to please two churches with different traditions and the United Church has its own spectrum. There wasn't room enough to have all of what everyone wanted. Everyone felt short-changed.
That was the main criticism the United Church leveled at it when we replaced it, and Voices United gave us more of what we wanted as a church.
A common criticism of the current Presbyterian Book of Praise is that the thing is too heavy. I heard that for years and never paid much attention. Then I developed arthritis in my wrists... They were right. But almost all churches have a screen now, so it's not such a widespread problem. How long until we have airline style screens in the pew backs?
Screens are heresy. Thats why you rest the humm book on the hymn book on the back of the pew in front of you while singing.
When we were in St. John's, we used the "old" blue Anglican hymnbook (the one published in c. 1930), which was fine (and hadn't Messed About With The Words).
In Freddy they use Common Praise (or "Comic Praise" as D. used to call it), which weighed a ton, and compounded the felony by having some of the most ghastly rewrites of the words you could imagine ...
In other, unrelated news, almost six months to the day since they left the house in Fredericton, my belongings are due to arrive in Edinburgh today. It may be a somewhat emotional reunion.
Our Lady Joy of All Who Procrastinate uses the old blue for the pews, but Tallis for the choir. It seems to work. Several of my choir friends liked the Red, but I have been told by older parishioners that it was too heavy and they didn't need the musical notation. I have been at a few churches where they use screens and found them hard to read from my pew, so I just hum along. My singing voice is such that this pleases both my neighbours and the company of saints.
What is Tallis? (Or is there a subtle joke here I'm not getting...)
I grew up with the Red, and never really had anything against it. My undergrad collegiate choir (and Congo, of course)* used the US Hymn Book 1982, which I had nothing against, but I didn't see a huge difference between it and the Red Book. Our two big Anglo-Catholic parishes in Toronto use the old Common Praise and the New English Hymnal (respectively) for their solemn masses. The NEH is a fine book, especially for the musically inclined, but I understand it may not be for everyone. I've rarely used the new Blue Book, but it does seem to be a textbook case of hymn book by committee.
*(autocorrect insists on the capitalization - I would be surprised if the Hymnal 1982 had found its way to either Brazzaville or Kinshasa but perhaps autocorrect knows better than I do)
Our Lady Joy of All Who Procrastinate uses the old blue for the pews, but Tallis for the choir. It seems to work. Several of my choir friends liked the Red, but I have been told by older parishioners that it was too heavy and they didn't need the musical notation. I have been at a few churches where they use screens and found them hard to read from my pew, so I just hum along. My singing voice is such that this pleases both my neighbours and the company of saints.
Voices United includes musical notation as standard. The followers of John Wesley would have it no other way, it even includes his Directions for Singing.
What is Tallis? (Or is there a subtle joke here I'm not getting...)
I grew up with the Red, and never really had anything against it. My undergrad collegiate choir (and Congo, of course)* used the US Hymn Book 1982, which I had nothing against, but I didn't see a huge difference between it and the Red Book. Our two big Anglo-Catholic parishes in Toronto use the old Common Praise and the New English Hymnal (respectively) for their solemn masses. The NEH is a fine book, especially for the musically inclined, but I understand it may not be for everyone. I've rarely used the new Blue Book, but it does seem to be a textbook case of hymn book by committee.
*(autocorrect insists on the capitalization - I would be surprised if the Hymnal 1982 had found its way to either Brazzaville or Kinshasa but perhaps autocorrect knows better than I do)
Obviously I was overthinking this - I wondered if Tallis was some kind of hymn book substitute for choirs - like some kind of mini-screens so they wouldn't have to carry books around with them.
(Sibelius is the name of a music publishing software, so I thought why not Tallis for an electronic hymn book?)
I'm pretty sure I have heard your parish's choir sing (yea even the works of Tallis himself) and they are indeed a fine choir.
You have indeed opened a whole new world of possibilities, where we might give proper Elizabethan names to our communications devices. I must think more on this.
When we were in St. John's, we used the "old" blue Anglican hymnbook (the one published in c. 1930), which was fine (and hadn't Messed About With The Words).
Oh, I’d be willing to bet that hymnal messed about with the words here and there, or carried forward some earlier word-messing.* If it didn’t, it’d be the only hymnal in history I’m aware of that didn’t. It’s just likely that any word-messing was in ways that are familiar or not too noticeable or jarring.
* Indeed, hymnary.org suggests that hymnal includes “O God, our help in ages past” rather than the original “Our God, our help in ages past.”
And as for the name of the elusive Marxist faction, might we be thinking of Schactmanites? A US trotskyist faction, founded by Max Schactman, who himself later drifted rightward.
In other news, it's 33 degrees in Toronto as we speak. Just took my bike down to the lake where it is a bit cooler, but not a lot cooler.
Interesting. This part of Korea is having what I think is it's coolest summer since at least my arrival in 2001. 22 degrees and overcast, at a time of year that's normally scorching.
Toronto has some things going for it. Summer is not one of them. The endless grey, the bone-crushing humidity, the horrible heat: No. Thanks. Fleeing to Muskoka, the Kawarthas, Wasaga Beach, etc. makes perfect sense. It may still be horribly hot and humid, but there may be occasional sunshine and air movement, or may even cool down briefly after rain.
I tried to describe to prairie relatives why summer in Toronto is so abysmal: "It's like being wrapped in a hot damp dirty duvet, inside a bus garage."
In short, summer in Toronto is ass. No amount of talk about Toronto Island or Caribbana will convince me otherwise.
Yup. We normally stick around for most of the summer, for various reasons, but it's been particularly bad this year because Covid has closed down so many things that normally make Toronto interesting.
Hoping to get away in August for a few days to cottage country to visit my parents. It's a little ways away (north of Ottawa on the Quebec side), but that also means further away from the heat.
Comments
Thanks for posting this - a fascinating blast from the past.
*I knew I was back in Mississauga when we were in the left lane and another car did a U turn round me from the right lane. Pretty much normal, that is.
Lovely place all the same ...
There is a possibly apocryphal story of an Italian ambassador trying to explain to his foreign ministry that they needed both air conditioning and central heating, and encountering resistance to this incredible notion.
re: the Maoists loathing the Marxist-Leninists...
In Canada, the group officially named "Marxist-Leninist", aka the CPC-ML, were the Maoists, until they went over to Albania in the mid-70s, over the Theory Of The Three Worlds and Mao's alliance with the US.
Did you mean to say that the Hoxhaites loathed the Communist Party Of Canada, ie. the Moscow-aligned party?
(By the way, on the off-chance that anyone's interested, the Encyclopedia Of Anti-Revisionism On-Line has archived hundreds of articles from the various Maoist/Hoxhaite groups operating in Canada and the USA from the 1960s to the 1980s.)
Yes - that was my intended meaning. I was referring to the early to mid-1980s.
I'm guessing that's apocryphal. I think a foreign ministry would be aware that there are numerous places in the world where the temperature swings from one extreme to another during the year.
Central heating and air conditioning are both widely used in Korea, at least in commercial spaces. Though If I had to guess, I'd say that among people who have one and not the other in their homes, heating would be by far the more popular choice.
Thanks for the clarification.
I first made the acquaintance of Hoxhaites in the late 1980s, when their romance with Albania was still in full bloom.
At the time, they were publishing a magazine with the deceptively generic title The New Weekly Magazine. With the ongoing collapse of Yugoslavia in the early 90s, they started running editorials threatening hellfire on anyone who laid a hand on Albania.
Any army that has ever marched on Tirana has left their bones in the ground!
Indeed. An old philosophy professor of mine, Danny Goldstick, frequently ran for the CPC in Rosedale, a rather strange riding, which despite bearing the name of the wealthy enclave, is rather heterogeneous, including the carriage set, St James Town (a collection of high rises which is rather poor and has Canada's highest population density), Regent Park, Moss Park (RP recently revitalised; MP rather more desperate), and Cabbagetown (an eccentric Victorian neighbourhood). Anyway, Prof Goldstick never received more than 200 votes, but was quite popular at the all-candidates meetings for his wit and his aggressively rumpled suits.
Can't say I ever saw a member of the CPC-ML get elected to anything higher than students' union, which is not surprising if you've ever met some of them. Gilles Duceppe of the BQ was a member of some other Maoist group in his younger days.
We discussed anti-semitism in Canadian life for a few minutes and he wagered me that Canada would see a woman as PM before it would see a Jew. I told him that as a public servant on duty I could not gamble, which seemed to amuse everybody. But I remembered this, and later that month made a serious bet (a bottle of Hennessy) with a well-known feminist activist to this effect, who was swearing up and down that women were inalterably blocked from such advancement in Canada. To her credit, she presented me with the bottle in front of a Women's Studies panel at the Learneds after Mrs Campbell's appointment, to the merriment of some and the death glare of others.
On the topic of communists, when I was in undergrad I had two contemporaries with the same last name. One was (and still is) deeply enmeshed in the Conservative parties (both the relevant ones in this part of the world). The other one sold Socialist Worker on the steps of the main Arts and Science building. I have no idea what actually happened to him.
He may have become an investment tycoon. A Chicago friend was expelled from the Communist Party USA in 1950 for cosmopolitan tendencies (his wife was Jewish) and joined with several other comrades who were expelled for "Bachmanite deviationism" (I may have misheard the name, as the only Bachmanite deviation I could find was a breakaway from the Missouri Synod). They joined together, buying resort property, then got into stocks in a big way and remarkably succesfully, with the slogan that only those who truly understand the flaws of capitalism and build a comprehensive analysis of its contradictions can expect to profit by its downfall. When he died in 2009 (at my feet, quite literally, on a Jamaican beach), this community college teacher was worth several millions in (morally debased) currency.
Ah yes, the long-forgotten CP-MS...
The funny thing about the old red hymn book is that it never struck as an especially bad book. But it seemed to make nobody happy.
Hope everyone in this part of the world is surviving our current weather. Uriah Heep-level humility, to adapt PG's friend's description.
That was the main criticism the United Church leveled at it when we replaced it, and Voices United gave us more of what we wanted as a church.
snip/ /snip
His allotment? Isn't that dangerously close to being a kulak?
A common criticism of the current Presbyterian Book of Praise is that the thing is too heavy. I heard that for years and never paid much attention. Then I developed arthritis in my wrists... They were right. But almost all churches have a screen now, so it's not such a widespread problem. How long until we have airline style screens in the pew backs?
At two metres by one metre? It's really up to the Central Committee, no?
When we were in St. John's, we used the "old" blue Anglican hymnbook (the one published in c. 1930), which was fine (and hadn't Messed About With The Words).
In Freddy they use Common Praise (or "Comic Praise" as D. used to call it), which weighed a ton, and compounded the felony by having some of the most ghastly rewrites of the words you could imagine ...
In other, unrelated news, almost six months to the day since they left the house in Fredericton, my belongings are due to arrive in Edinburgh today. It may be a somewhat emotional reunion.
I grew up with the Red, and never really had anything against it. My undergrad collegiate choir (and Congo, of course)* used the US Hymn Book 1982, which I had nothing against, but I didn't see a huge difference between it and the Red Book. Our two big Anglo-Catholic parishes in Toronto use the old Common Praise and the New English Hymnal (respectively) for their solemn masses. The NEH is a fine book, especially for the musically inclined, but I understand it may not be for everyone. I've rarely used the new Blue Book, but it does seem to be a textbook case of hymn book by committee.
*(autocorrect insists on the capitalization - I would be surprised if the Hymnal 1982 had found its way to either Brazzaville or Kinshasa but perhaps autocorrect knows better than I do)
Voices United includes musical notation as standard. The followers of John Wesley would have it no other way, it even includes his Directions for Singing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Tallis
The choir is elevated in its tastes.
(Sibelius is the name of a music publishing software, so I thought why not Tallis for an electronic hymn book?)
I'm pretty sure I have heard your parish's choir sing (yea even the works of Tallis himself) and they are indeed a fine choir.
* Indeed, hymnary.org suggests that hymnal includes “O God, our help in ages past” rather than the original “Our God, our help in ages past.”
Interesting. This part of Korea is having what I think is it's coolest summer since at least my arrival in 2001. 22 degrees and overcast, at a time of year that's normally scorching.
I tried to describe to prairie relatives why summer in Toronto is so abysmal: "It's like being wrapped in a hot damp dirty duvet, inside a bus garage."
In short, summer in Toronto is ass. No amount of talk about Toronto Island or Caribbana will convince me otherwise.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Hoping to get away in August for a few days to cottage country to visit my parents. It's a little ways away (north of Ottawa on the Quebec side), but that also means further away from the heat.