Glenn Kubish

  Here a three little things that made for some happiness and gratitude this past week:                                                            1. Snow dome   Shelagh named the tune right away. She’s good at that. She knows what’s playing wherever she is, kinda like a virtual assistant, but real-er. The Pretenders, Middle of the Road, she’ll say, when we’re in a noisy restaurant where I hear only a cacophony of voices and cutlery. This time it was a symphony she picked off. We were in the car driving back from breakfast. The radio was on CBC FM. “Sibelius,” she said.  I first heard his Symphony #2 more than 30 years ago on vinyl at her place in Queen Mary Park, Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic. We experienced the music again in 2019 when Alexander Prior and the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra pumped...

I woke up with sore chest muscles. I have no chest muscles, so this was a different feeling. It was the kind of discomfort that made me go back and conduct a mental inventory of anything done different the day before to have pulled things out of shape. I did go for a good bike ride in the snow yesterday. Nothing out of the ordinary there. At one point I did get off my bike and lie on the ground  to compose a low-angle pic of three miniature cycling figurines in Faraone Park. Kinda different, a bit chilly, but, really, nothing to have stretched my chest. I again didn't do any pushups on a day when I again didn't get to the gym. Nothing strange there either. So, what happened? I remembered. Sibelius happened. My chest this morning still registered the effect last night of my jumping out of seat C-138 in the upper level of the Winspear Centre, walking to the balcony rail and clapping, hands over head, and clapping harder, hands higher over head, while, below, Alex Prior ...

I stop for cranes. In my defence, so does Knausgaard: There were few things I found more beautiful than cranes, the skeletal nature of their construction, the steel wires running along the top and bottom of the protruding arm, the enormous hook, the way heavy objects dangled when being slowly transported through the air, the sky that formed a backdrop to this mechanical provisorium. And, with apologies, so did Sibelius in the Kuolema andante. Cranes with cement payloads stop me on the Oliverbahn. They stop me because skyships are worth stopping for. On Monday, the crane atop the Stantec Tower starts to come down. Necks will crane up. While contemplating things above, these words, to the tune of The Lord's Prayer, came to mind. Sure, it creaks. It is a tribute to those who build. Tower farther That art in heaven Yellow'd be thy crane Thou hauled up tonnes Now will be undone And brought to earth sometime around March 11th. Gift us t...