EXCERPT FROM THE MEMOIRS OF SUSANN ENNS In spring preparations for Mennonite Collegiate Institute (MCI) Sängerfest and Graduation took place. I was given parts to perform in both. The big Sängerfest was held in a big tent rigged up and supported by poles. We had no sound system and had to learn how to project
... read more.The 49th Parallel
Blogish
SUSANN KLASSEN GRADUATES FROM THE MCI
FOR THE YEAR THAT WAS
Published today in Jerry Jazz Musician (Online, Portland Oregon) in response to a quick call for a piece of music and some words about how it helped get us through 2020. THERE IS TOO MUCH DEATH A new poem by Victor Enns Time does not care whether it’s Covid-19 Or covert militias that kill, funerals
... read more.Now
I’m getting organized for another work week; having had some Christmas (and my first turkey sandwich today) and going back to the city on Dec.27 to visit my brother and January 2nd to see my shrink. Somewhere in there kids possibly also, though we already had a lovely roast dinner, with the tree up, a
... read more.Towards Boundary Creek
RESEARCH NOTE 1. Boundary Creek Let’s begin. Let’s begin with trains. This beginning fell on my head before dinner, which I enjoyed. First solid food in days, roast beef, baked potato, vegetables for show and the family vegetarian. For sharing her cheese cake and my grandson, she can be any thing she chooses. Let’s begin
... read more.Cecil Taylor – “Dvořák in Reverse”
Cecil Taylor died on April 5, 2018, a connection to remember as the same day as my amputation. I’ve still not finished my hard bop essay, and the connection in the late 50s would be some hard bop sessions and performances with drummer Max Roach, and Taylor’s own hard percussive style.Taylor was regarded as one
... read more.Passages
Jim Harrison (December 11, 1937 – March 26, 2016)I was introduced to the poetry of Jim Harrison in the 1980s, likely by Ted Dyck who also introduced me to the poetry of Ed Dorn. Here’s one of Harrison’s early poems in 1961. “Kinship.”
... read more.Something I read today.
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/11/20/art-monstrous-men/ Monster Seeks Minder This essay starts someplace and goes somewhere else. The hyperlinked Paris Review essay may explain what I know I need to do, and am getting to, likely too late …but the conflation of being a sexual predator where it starts, as a man a monstrous man to make art, whereas all
... read more.50th Parallel on the waterfront
Recalibrating I am settling in to my new home on 1st Avenue in the Waterfront Front Centre, handicapped accessible, built and managed by the Betel Home Foundation. The Life Leases have the benefit of the view at the front of the building; I have the benefit of living close to the water, five floors up
... read more.My Life is More of a Gravel Road, Really
Sunday Drive along the 49th Parallel My brother took us for a Sunday drive running parallel to the 49th parallel visiting his birth place in Killarney, the remains of Whitewater and Lena, and the remains of our paternal grandparents and uncle in the Lena cemetery. Lots of gravel roads, and reminiscing about differing memories. Margaret
... read more.