Peter’s Sister Mary Matters

I have always tried to live my life according to a number of tenets. Some are arguably limited in scope. For example, I view beer drinking as a perishable skill. Others are much more “pigeon-holed”, such as, despite what many of my military aviation buddies may think, I truly believe that a McDonnell Douglas F-4E Phantom II in “Europe One” camouflage is a thing of beauty indeed.

Others are more universal in application, however. One of my nearest and dearest is that I have always tried to have strong women in my life, even if only on the periphery. Today’s column is about one of those women, my late sister Mary.

DOUG THOMPSON – RISING TO THE TOP AT MOTOWN

Sometimes meeting your heroes can be very disappointing.  They could just be having a bad day or had a fight with their significant other or their manager, or recently received bad news about a pet project…or as is sometimes the case, they could just be an asshole.

On the other hand, some heroes exceed your expectations and then some.

The Stories Behind the Songs – Part Two

It’s snowing!!!! Not those big, fat, fluffy flakes where one can almost cover your face. But it’s snowing…. Sigh. The grey, dull days of January with just a mere hint that the sun actually exists…..which begs the question, why doesn’t Bell Canada hold their “Let’s Talk” campaign on Blue Monday? That makes infinitely more sense than say, Robbie Burns Day. Why in heaven’s name would you pick the 25th of January for mental health awareness??? According to a number of sources, the term “Blue Monday” was coined by holiday company Sky Travel in a 2005 press release. Cliff Arnall, at the time a tutor at Cardiff University, had come up with a light-hearted formula to determine the most depressing day of the year which commonly falls on the third Monday in January. It’s now a worldwide phenomena. Everyone has jumped on the bandwagon and the term is used repeatedly by companies and organizations (there’s even a BlueMonday.org) and stories in all sorts of media abound. Newspapers recommend taking the day off, there are various sites that will calculate, on a yearly basis, which Monday is going to be “blue” so you can prepare…..the power of suggestion. Although the entire idea is considered pseudoscience by the scientific community, Blue Monday is not going away anytime soon. Did you know mosquitoes are attracted to the colour blue twice as much as any other colour?

Cameron Carpenter – 10 CC – At the Library

I once was a voracious buyer of books. I would browse the delete bins and pick up biographies left and right and then look for the hot new releases. I would stack ‘em up and plow through them. Times have changed. The bookshelf is overflowing (I have a hard time getting rid of things) and current economics dictate spending my money on more vital things. This has not stopped me from reading but now I get almost all of my books (CD’s and DVD’s for that matter) at the Toronto Public Library.

Roxanne Tellier – Popping the Top off Covers

Music’s a funny thing; sometimes a song will hide in the grooves of an album, unloved and unwanted, until someone uncovers the gem and makes it their own. A struggling songwriter may dream of the day that a megastar covers their work; in the right hands, a number one hit can make the writer a fortune in publishing.

Roxanne Tellier: Bad Boys/Bad Girls

Lord Farlsworth, that magnificent cougar-faced beast, has been waking me up at ever earlier hours (4:15 a.m. today … a new record!) with yowls that pierce through a sleep-sodden brain. If ignored, Lord F pounces on little Jay, my delicate flower of a girl cat. Since he outweighs her by 10 pounds, and she can’t stand him, a classic cat fight, complete with Siamese screams, ensues, and I’m getting up, damnit, like it or not.

But the crazy thing about the Jay/Lord F battles is that, once physically separated, the tiny Jay will then search the house to find him. It’s a classic “good girl” love/hate relationship with a “bad boy.”