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The "plan" has been delayed until I can cross the border with proper identification papers, which should be arriving very soon, depending on the Nova Scotia citizenship office that serves the entire country. There isn't much to describe until I actually am on the trip itself. Generally, the trip involves going almost 2000 km by bike one way (and preferably back) across diverse terrain in the United States alone. A mailinglist of goons who want to live vicariously through my unnecessarily overwritten e-mail pieces is established and entry is possible by posting e-mail addresses in the comments and perhaps a future negotiation of sage-compatible cattle. In the meantime, Flickr's taken over as a showcase of photographs, so please follow the pollentrail to greener fields.
Of note are the Carmanah Valley photos when the camera stopped working (in the rain, but the camera wasn't actually repaired properly from the salty aneurysm.) Canada's tallest known tree, a 95 meter tall sitka spruce appropriately named the Carmanah Giant, resides by the creek along Vancouver Island's west coast, the area that many of you know from logging protests in the early 90s as foreign corporate logging entities received entitlements to Vancouver Island's last few acres of old growth. The kicker is that this tree does not stand out at all. All the trees are bigger than I can cut down and have the neck strain effect, where if I have to pull back my neck as far as possible to see the branches of the tree (and still have the top be out of view), then it's a "big tree." The Giant is just a "bigger tree" than all the other "big trees," which makes for a constant stunning terrain of fallen logs that you must struggle to climb over and follow for many paces upon a lush carpet of moss. To imagine that the entire southern coast of BC and all of lower altitude Vancouver Island hosted trees of this girth makes any man green with envy. Beth Orton's video for Concrete Sky looks like it was filmed in the Pacific Rim Park (down to the convergence of the creek into the ocean) and gives you a good idea of how the sensation of suddenly turning from thick rainforest into wide open water feels.
Go Home Productions - Papa was a Clock (Temptations + Coldplay)
Fuller found this mash-mixer, Mark Vidler, who seems to have a fair bit of a following, being featured on MTV and all. His website is full of downloadable mash songs that rival the original, mostly drawing from American/British rock'n'roll back when the rock was bound by contract to also roll. Fuller and I discussed why the Temptations' vocals are so sublime based upon the theory that current mainstream black musicians seem to be obsessed with cars, jewelry, mansions, and (expensive) women in order to out-wealth and out-materialize the greedy, wealthy white man. Apply that case to the soul singers of the fifties and sixties, trying to out-civilize the clean-obsessed atomic-family-friendly heartthrobs of the era. The clean-cut, white collared, tamed hair look was mastered by the Temptations and the pop vocals are stronger than most caucasian bands that ever saw the light of a black and white variety show. Really, doing a great job of out-culturing the culture-ridden white man. This mash-up in particular has been on the loop for a week, and Vidler's other mash-ups are keepers too.
Beth Orton - Anywhere (Two Lone Swordsmen Mix)
Beth Orton, British song-manufacturer. Wikipedia says it better than I do.
..Oker