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To Live in the Age of Melting: Northwest Passage
"Oh for just one time, I would take the Northwest Passage To find the hand of Franklin, reaching for the Beaufort Sea Tracing one warm line, through a land so wide and savage To make a Northwest Passage to the sea" * i. Vagus There is a remarkable nerve that travels through the human body, Called the Vagus Nerve. Also known as the rambler, or the Wanderer, Vagus is the longest nerve in the central nervous system It wanders from brainstem to colon, along the way connected
Make & Break Harbour
At the Stan Rogers Tribute last night, I sang Stan's beautiful song "Make and Break Harbour", also featuring my own little addition, sort of a contemporary "update" to the issues the song (written in 1976) so poignantly addresses. Here are the words to my new section, as requested by several audience members... 37 years since this song was written 21 years since the cod moratorium so much can change in a single generation and we’re singing to keep them alive, to remember them: the one-piston
Would you want to be a girl in 1895?
Would you want to be a girl in 1895? Would you want to be a girl, would you want to be a lady? Well keep in mind your rights and freedoms, baby! Travel back in time, let’s travel back in time. In hopes of being helpful, we have made a little list Of some things a girl could do, and those from which she should desist And by “desist” of course I mean things you shouldn’t do, if it was 1895, and if it was you who
A Letter From Annie Londonderry’s Granddaughter
Dear Evalyn Parry, My grandmother was Annie Londonderry My cousin Peter sent me your CD. I have just finished listening to your ballad about Annie, And I want to tell you what it did for me. I had a loving relationship with my grandmother. She died when I was sixteen. But unfortunately for her children, the repercussions of her exploits were not always of a positive nature, and until today, I have struggled to be free: of resentment at the impact of her journey on my family. But they say
Oh Come On Come On
She thinks she wants change, but will it take a disaster before everything will move a little faster She wants to feel the difference, she wants to hold it in her hand Something hard enough to feel an impact when it lands Oh come on, come on In her dreams she’s in a theatre, which is filled up to the brim the crowd is chattering and the show is about to begin Her seat is in the front row: this ticket was a gift
Open Letter to Igor Kenk, Bicycle Thief
Dear Mr. Bicycle Thief: I’m writing to you with the belief That you are the one who stole my bike five years ago And if this letter seems somewhat delayed, it’s only since they came and took you away That I understood what I had to say, so now I’m writing to you I went to the warehouse, but I didn’t find anything, the police told me it wasn’t that surprising Since apparently they were all just parts to you, and you took them apart
World of Spin
Spin spin spin spin spin spin Spin spin spin spin spin spin it’s easy to get dizzy in a world full of spin, when you try to keep your eyes wide open trying to see through all the stuff there is to buy into, Trying to cultivate a thicker skin, impermeable to the spin doctors and the special offers, the whirling turnstiles, changing hairstyles the spinning cursors on lap top screens, the whirling screens of slot machines, the city Spin spin spins, spin spin spin Spin
Names of the Chains
Look at us, all locked up: we are all in a row! Look at us all shopped up: we are in the mall, uh oh! I’ll take another, take a t-shirt or a sweater and so? So what if these are not our own names emblazoned on our own breast, no: They are the names of the chains, they are the names of the chains They are the names of the chains we wear What kind of choice is a mall full of chains? What kind of choice
Amelia Bloomer Sings for Fashion Reform
Listen ladies, you’ve got me to thank for Letting you show a little more of your leg, your legs! I’m not talking about your shorty-shorts, your hot pants, leggings or your skinny jeans Not even in my dreams In my day, a woman couldn’t show her ankles Not even the legs of a table could be seen it would be deemed obscene to show the length of your leg your leg, your legs, your legs: your political legs My name is Amelia Bloomer I endorsed those long baggy pantaloon-ers That you see in
Instructions for learning to ride a bicycle, by Miss Frances Willard, 1895
Strange as this paradox may seem You will do this best by not trying to do it at all You must quickly make up your mind Or as quickly, be cast in yonder mud puddle Two things must occupy your thinking powers To the exclusion of every other thing: First the goal Second, the momentum required to reach it! Do not look down! Do not look down! Do not look down, like an imbecile upon the steering wheel in front of you: that would be as wise as for
She Rides
SHE RIDES spin me like I have already spoken like a spoke holds its tension like it's together that the spokes are the invention of a wheel that a wheel is only as round as it's tension that a wheel is a round invention She gets on her bicycle, She gets on her bicycle, She gets on her bicycle: she rides! Fragile as bodies soaring through the city on two-wheeled cycles through the traffic and people steering clear of the potholes and car doors and the streetcar tracks tuned into our
Radio
Looks like I’ve lost another hero to love, guess I should have known. And some days it’s all too easy to judge, out here on my own. Love has come, done it’s work: took the edges of you: the edge I held on to chorus: oooo, oooo, oooo....oh, oh, oh, love sounds sweet, love sounds so sweet, love sounds sweetest on the radio back in the old days, love was hard: you kept dropping your keys into the water in the middle of winter and watching them freeze. now I’m driving the high ways
Canada Dreams of California
Canada’s always dreaming about California Everyone always sings about their love Here we are in a tent, West Virginia: Mountains, and the shiny stars above. Big dipper hangs upsidedown in Australia: Water there goes backward down the drain. We’ll drive off in opposite directions, Find ourselves together once again. And the summer leaves a sunburn, like a memory But while your kingdom waits patiently for rain, the North star is calling homeward: Her love the shiny tracks, and I, a train. Canada’s always dreaming about California, Everyone always wants what they can’t have We
NOTES ON “CAMP”
This song was written for Ecce Homo's 2009 production of "Leni Riefenstahl vs the 20th Century". I played the part of Susan Sontag. While the play was based primarily on Sontag's essay "Facinating Fascism", the "Notes on Camp" song served as an epilogue to the show. The music is original, and the lyrics were inspired by, and many taken directly from, the seminal 1964 essay, "Notes on "Camp", by Susan Sontag. Many things in the world have not been named Even
Please Stop Following me
How many years ago did I tell you the story of a woman who fell, and then couldn’t get over me? Accident prone, or merely crazy? she wouldn’t stop calling, she lay in my doorway, and I asked her politely Please, stop following me. They say it’s a small world, and I have found it true: I found a new job, and she found it, too. I found a new home, I tried to start anew but opened my closet, and found her standing in my shoes; I asked politely Please, stop following
After the Revolution
Sunday morning, after the revolution we drove home, made the beds we would lie in. Pockets full of papers and the papers full of headlines; (took some pictures just to prove we had a good time) now I’m lying here, while the fires still burn outside. Wake up in the morning, heads full of sleep and we listen to the news as we drink our coffee. Didn’t need to be there, you can watch it all on TV, but now we know that they’re only telling half the
Bucket of Time
When I saw you there, like a truck driving too fast in the wrong lane, there’s gonna be a crash And when I saw you there, well you know it had been so long I forgot the words to our old song But you wish fate had brought us a white picket fence, you say there’s no such thing as coincidence, you’re trying to turn back time but time runs on, it’s a leaky faucet and I couldn’t catch all those drips in a bucket even if time
The Stone and the Bumblebee (a love story)
The Stone and the Bumblebee fight that night after dinner. Stone sits in her chair, Bee flies through the air furiously. Stone says "I...", Bee says "Why can't you be more like me?" Stone says "You never let me finish my sentences". That night the Stone and the Bee are having their differences. They lie on their bed like princess. Bee says "Stone, why won't you speak?" Stone says "Bee, why won't you sleep?" Bee says "I feel a pea underneath all these mattresses. And it's driving me
Drive Thru America
My friend Katie's got a white horse, and on it she will ride, can't find god in the city, so she's going to the countryside, what will she find? I've got friends all over the place, think I'll drive 'round to see them, stop and play a few tunes, 'cause music is my freedom, so I set out driving Drive through in America, drive through in America,drive through in America, Drive through America I've got gasoline on the palms of my hands: the life blood of a nation I
Always
Let me introduce myself, my name is Always; I like to think I'm a girl's best friend... I fit into your purse by folding myself small-ways; I know I'm just the means to an end! oh the end is clean, the end is out of sight. the end still smells fresh at the end of the night.... So lay me down in your panties; I'll protect you from the auntie when she comes to visit again, and she does.... yes the auntie comes to town like the house guest from hell: she
The Gay Rover
I'm a rover, seldom sober I'm a young lass, gay and free I'm always single when I'm drinking Never a man will marry me! "Oh my young lass, fair and pretty, I've been watching you," said he "Gold and silver and riches a-plenty will be yours if you'll marry me!" "Oh young man, I thank you kindly for your offer grand," said she, "but not by your great jewels nor your riches will I ever tempted be, 'cause... I'm a rover, seldom sober I'm a young lass, gay and free I'm always single when
This one is for
the non-conformers and the system buckers it's for the girly men and the lady truckers the organic farmers, the local food growers the old-school, mechanical, push lawn mowers the two wheel riders, the trouble makers the public-transportation-takers it's for the girls who cut their hair, and the ladies who refuse to shave it's for everyone who has ever been brave it's for the time you didn't behave it's for those who remain hopeful when hope seems lost it's for my first year women studies prof hell, all my patient first year
Parry v. revision : who will win?
PART A. Introduction Under this charter We can still push farther Under this charter We can still push farther And who do we honour, and what do we honour, and in whose honour, Your Honour, my honour, our honour, in whose honour should I address my thoughts today? To the honour and dignity, for instance, say, of any woman who has found that that the letter of the law sometimes stands in the way: that a decision that's been written doesn't address what lies beneath and needs to be re:dressed, put to the
14 (for December 6)
December 6th is Canada's National Day of Rememberance and Action on Violence against Women: it commemorates the date of the "Montreal Massacre" in 1989, where 14 female engineering students were killed by a man screaming he hated feminists, at L'ecole Polytechnique at the University of Montreal. 14 reasons to remember: 14 reasons to mourn 14 reasons to be strong and proud you were born a woman December 6th is a dark building that haunts me a number I can't erase from my memory with every year that
Weed-free
There’s this crazy debate that’s going on out there about what to do about chemical lawn care. It’s about the citizens who object It’s about the trickle-down effect That is, the trickling down of what you put on your lawn into the earth we share and from there into the groundwater and it’s about where the children are supposed to play when the lawns are toxic and the companies say “please don’t shut us down! Just give us more time! Sure, we know it’s poison, but isn’t it fine to give the people what
Once in a blue moon
Once in a Blue Moon: Minneapolis, Minnesota. With my book and my pen and behind the counter a girl with blue hair serves the java and Ani Difranco provides the backdrop of yet another alternative coffee shop just like the one I worked at way back when we had her first album then the one with both hands, now use both hands, oh no don't close your eyes I am writing graffiti on your body, i am drawing the story of how hard we... I find myself tight inside, a seatbelt of
Lost in the library
Lost in the library This poem was written and recorded live for the CBC Radio event Chapter & Verse, at the National Library of Canada in 2004. The theme we were given to write on was "Lost in the library". Here's what I came up with.... I was beginning to wonder why you were never coming home it was dinner time again, and I found myself alone so I called you on your phone when you answered you whispered, “just a sec, I’ve gotta step outside†and I started
The Anne in my mind
This piece was written for a CBC songwriting event at Hugh's Room in Toronto, 2005, as a response to the theme "My Favorite Book". I'm afraid my choice is not very original I searched my bookshelf, trying to be intellectual obscure, unique, a book that no one else would find, I searched my heart and the far reaches of my mind but in truth, for me, no other book compares and it all comes down to the colour of hair... we are a small percentage of the
Bottle this!
Bottle This! Just hold on before we go any farther -- I want to take a moment to talk about water. That liquid that you're holding, that bottle in your hand, you thought it was water you were drinking, not a corporate brand. You thought it was cleaner and safer, and better for your health, but were you thinking about who profits from the wealth of the public water that's been taken for free and sold back to you for an exorbitant fee? Listen my friends, listen up folks: Aquafina
Love in the greater Toronto area takes public transportation
i. The Yonge/University Line We begin our journey at Mount Pleasant and Eglinton: walking from school to the subway station me and my grade ten crush, circa 1987 he was in grade 11 and his name was Mason. As we walk and we talk I feel my words start to flutter like my language is melting, my sentences butter I wish he would slip a word my way I wish I had something smart to say or if he would or if I could or if I knew where this might be going, where is
My Swedish roommates
My tribute to everyone's favorite DIY, Scandanavian furniture empire... hear it on Small Theatres, Ivar and Sten, Ivar and Sten: I feel like I’m living with big Swedish men in my bedroom and bathroom and kitchen and den: my burly companions, Ivar and Sten. Klinga and Omar, Duktig and Benn, My home is so organized since they moved in, and I never get lonely because I’ve got them, they’re quiet and stable, old Duktig and Benn. Maybe you’ve had a roommate that make your life rough, who doesn’t pay phone
