Glenn Kubish

  Here is this week's Three Things podcast . The podcast is my experiment in trying to notice what I notice, and not what is noticed for me by the algorithm. 1.  Life and Death Valley In the MacKinnon Ravine park, between the trailhead at 149th Street and the Groat Bridge, there are, by my count, 17 wooden benches embedded with memorial plaques. “In memory of Darlene James. Be present. Cherish the moment,” one says. The children of Lorna A. Flett quoted Yeats and said their mom “enjoyed poetry, nature and the peace of this river valley.” “In loving memory of Mar Walker 1923-2004 who watched the seasons change along this path for over 40 years.”  I do the math on another plaque and exhale as I realize Baby Xavier Grey Thompson would now be going into Grade 2.  Bill Osadchuk was “a true gentleman who loved running in this river valley.” Kayleigh Butler was 27 years old when she died. Josef Lapes co-founded Pemco Construction Limited. On the plaque of  Kervin ...

  Tough, tough week or not, I try to notice three things that made me happy or grateful. So whatever part of me does the noticing gets a bit of exercise, and offers some resistance to everything else that would do the noticing for me, you know? Here's this week's Three Things podcast. 1. Sibilance From far away, I still hear the sound of the gigantic traffic signs in the U.S.—the ones high above interstate lanes that spell out in Highway Gothic an exotic sounding city up ahead. That’s how I first experienced  “Salt Lake City.”  I’ve never been to Salt Lake City, but when we were in Vegas a few years ago I read the Salt Lake City sign out loud like a poem. The Killers have a new album now. It’s different. It’s got a song called Quiet Town, another rock song about drugs. The song is dark and shadowed, its conspiratorial mood is conjured in part by the poet’s use of the letter s. I quote here without permission, but with admiration. Listen how the s’s in the first nine lines...

  Seriously. Happy end of the week, friends. Here's this week's Three Things podcast where I try to notice, without the help of an algorithm, three things that made me happy or grateful from my little life in Edmonton. 1. Bon Ton mots The next time you’re in the neighbourhood, at Bon Ton on 149th Street deciding between the poppy seed danishes and the blueberry danishes, take a look behind the display case, up over to the right. There, hanging in a frame under glass on the wall are pages from a red notebook. Its cover is bent and creased down the middle. The coils are twisted. It had been in Hilton’s pocket, by the look of it. Hilton had owned the bakery. He died last year. The notebook pages contain the mission statement for Bon Ton, in Hilton’s hand, in black ink. It’s obvious from the way the pages are preserved that the bakery believes that the ink flowed from his heart. “To establish Bon Ton as the premier distributor of the finest baked goods in Alberta”, he writes, “sev...

  Happy end of the week! Here are three things from my little life that made me happy or grateful (or gratefully bewildered) this week. The podcast . The transcript: 1. Trumpeter Sean My brother-in-law Sean is a jazz musician of some note. He fronted the Edmonton Jazz Ensemble back in the day. He teaches at a college in New Jersey. We got to chatting in email about a new song by Bleachers, which turned into a kind of treatise on how musicians perform together. They can do so at a high level only if they’re as good at listening as they are at making their own noise. Here’s Sean from that email last week. To play in an ensemble, I have to listen to myself through focusing on your playing. Fortunately it is not difficult to hear myself since I am the closest to my instrument, but since I’m closest to the instrument and the sound that it’s creating, I hear it and it’s yet harder for me to hear the other players, which is why I must focus on them. I have spent my life honing listening s...