Glenn Kubish

Happy end of the week, y’all. Besides the return of winter-weary crunchy ice, here are three things that left behind tracks of happiness and gratitude this week.                     1. Resources   Somehow, I’m finishing up teaching a strategic communications planning course at MacEwan University. I enjoy hanging out in the academy where inquiry is still a thing. In school, I’m still a fish hooked by the question mark. The students are clever, and I’ve had a strong supporting cast for this one-of-a-kind experience. The doc came by to talk about diagnosing things properly, either medical situations or communications challenges. Rely on your heuristics, your shortcuts, as you assess the nature of a problem, he said, but don’t let them become prejudices. When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, but keep zebras in mind, he said.   J-P reminded the students there is no such thing as the general public. Be specific, she said. Son shared...

And, so, we've made it through another week up here on the northern range… Looking back, here are three things that left behind tracks of happiness and gratitude. Three Things, episode 103:                                                  1. Palimpsest    The years are all starting to run together now, but I think it was late 1987. I was at The Howlin’ Wolf nightclub off 97 Street downtown, on stage were Ian Tyson and the Chinook Arch Riders and the song they were letting loose on was the polka picaresque, the saga of the doomed Carlos Zaragoza and his fighting rooster, Gallo del Cielo. My dancing partner was the pretty Miss Shelagh McAnally.  The dance floor was a joyful blur. During a break in the action, we said hello to Tyson. He signed Shelagh’s white shirt. He signed the guitar strap I had brought along, just in case. “GOOD LUCK GLENN,” he pri...

Happy end of the week, y’all! Here are a few things that left behind tracks of happiness and gratitude this week.                   1. Well, well, well   I don’t need to know if there actually is a term for the accumulations of snow and ice that build up inside the wheel wells of automobiles. If you live in a wide-open winter city where occasional driving is a fact, you know what I’m talking about: those dinosaur-tooth-shaped accretions that are so strangely satisfying to kick loose.   [insert that sound here] Evidently, I am not the only one who enjoys this. Take a look at surface parking lots these days. They’re dotted with these mashes of potatoes. There’s a routine. Car comes to a stop, ignition is turned off, and, then, before the driver heads for the mall, it’s kick-kick-kick with the heel, leaving behind, when the car again moves away, four mounds of snowy slop—four cairns of winter.   Whatever they’re called, there is s...

The Voice may be a slick American reality show that, incidentally, says a lot about what reality is in America these days. But for Albertans like me, The Voice is Ian Tyson. Now, I could struggle and backspace all night trying to find the right words to describe the gravel and the sky and the highway and the Rockies and the motel rooms in Tyson's voice, but it would all be so many inert words compared to the pleasure of listening to that voice as it evaporates. Not really taller My mother was a big Tyson fan, maybe back to Ian & Sylvia days. His cowboy music found me in the '80s around the same time I was also listening to Rush, Culture Club, Thompson Twins and Duran Duran. Boy George lasted as long as his mascara, and every now and then I have a pickchah/pinned to my wall and her name is rio/and she dances on the sand come into my head with the power of a recombinant virus. But I fight them off. Rush abides, but, for me, Tyson still lives.  Ian Tyson s...

Here are some magpie thoughts, and how they chattered to each other this morning. On Twitter, this woke me up: Karen Unland  ‏ @ KarenUnland Bravo. MT  @ babiak : Provoked by  @ ChrisLaBossiere , I woke up and started a "web log" about  # yeg .  Edmonton as magpietown . Very cool. Like a magpie in a dumpster, it just fits. On the trail out to this new blog, who do I see already on his way back but El Viejo himself -- the great Ian Tyson. I have always been a Tyson fan. He has helped teach me how to see where I live. And if he thinks the magpie rises to the timelessness of song, I just sing along. Magpie D E Some say (some say) you're a bold deceiver A D E I say (I say) you're a true believer A Magpie D E A You know the west ain't never gonna die D E Just as long as you can fly Edmonton as  magpietown. It fits. Like the E chord over...

So that I don't forget this, I am going to write it down. There is a great scene in Mad Men season 3 in which a hungover Kinsey sits at his desk, devastated. He is working on a project for Western Union and is actually competing against Peggy for Don's approval on it.  He is as upset this morning as he was elated the night before when the idea, maybe the best idea in his life, had come to him. But now it is gone. Not because it wasn't good. But because he didn't write it down. It is a short scene. Kinsey recounts the empty outcome of the conversation with the office custodian, Achilles. Peggy: Are you ready? Don's expecting us. Kinsey: I've got nothing. Peggy: What a relief. Mine's garbage, too. Kinsey: No, I had something, something incredible. But I lost it. I didn't write it down. Peggy: Oh, I hate that. Kinsey: It might have been the best idea I ever had. I did everything. I talked to Achilles. I spent last night recreating every detail...