Sunday, October 10, 2010

We’ll Travel for Miles in our Saturday Smiles

There aren’t many days I have wished would never end. Today however is one of them. In spite of not having had the deepest sleep last night, I at least awoke with a clear head which, considering the Friday night averages is no mean compliment. It helped too that upon awakening it was obvious that the day promised to be brilliant. As though to heap one successive bounty upon another, as we listened to CBC radio while sipping our morning coffee at the kitchen table and tapping busily upon our respective lap top computers we heard a reference not once but twice to my very friend, being thanked for his music recommendation “Come Saturday Morning” in answer to last week’s public invitation. As the song played, I stopped what I was doing to relish the lyrics, which capture exactly the type of day we ended by having, wonderful in every way.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

On the Cusp of Thanksgiving Weekend

There is invariably an atmosphere of anticipation as a prelude to a national holiday, or what perhaps as a concession to creeping Marxian philosophy is called a “public holiday”. The distinction may be nothing more than a diversion of one’s attention from the element of “state run” to the more palatable factor of “community”, though I am reminded of the dismissive comment of a denizen of an upper class ghetto that “Fairs are for the poor!” But I am getting off-point. This wasn’t meant to be a discussion of socialism or the proletarian revolution; rather I want to address and acknowledge what has become one of the most important annual holidays on the calendar quite outside political ideology or the functioning of capitalism. Indeed in the American vernacular Thanksgiving is all about excess and abundance, very much in keeping with the reputed tendency of our neighbours to the South to indulge themselves in the profits of free enterprise. But again I am losing the thread.