Stina's Trip » Music

Québec in pictures

admin — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:25:22 +0000

Here is a sampling of the photos I took while in Québec. Many of the first pictures are from the Chants de Vielles festival, a three-day gathering that celebrated old-time music and storytelling. It then segues into Québec City images. On the bottom, there is a mix of extra thumbnail pictures. All of these photos you can enlarge with a click.

In Québec, my only regret photographically is that I never got a picture of those huge, plastic animals that sat on top of various businesses in the countryside. Seriously, I saw a giant horse atop a stable and a dog perched above a kennel. Inexplicably, a restaurant boasted a dinosaur. Oh well.

Diane Marie and Françoise, two Québec woman who made my stay in the province amazing. Along with a third friend, they do storytelling performances together and have even put out a book of one of their stories. Thank you, Françoise, for letting me park at your home.

What soy beans look like up close, Québec.

Dad teaching daughter how to play the saw, Chants de Vielles festival.

It occurred to me, while watching this woman play the saw for the first time, that learning something is a very solitary and personal thing. (Chants de Vielles festival)

Parading through the streets of tiny Calixa-Lavallée at the close of the Chants de Vielles festival.

Jamming at the Chants de Vielles festival.

One of the most famous vielle players in the world, Gilles Chabenat. What is a vielle, you ask? Well, it's hard to say exactly, but it sounds like a mixture of an organ, violin, accordion and kazoo, if that makes any sense at all. Chants de Vielles festival.

The organizer of the Chants de Vielles festival and his son, greeting people as they arrived for the last concert.

A look-see, Québec City.

Busking in Québec City.

A visiting Dutch couple's pup, Québec City.

Spider building a web, Québec City.

Watch me

admin — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 14:23:35 +0000

(PORTLAND, Maine) — Thank you, Sam Roberts.

That’s the most honest lead sentence I can conjure, and I don’t believe, even with time to reflect, that I will come up with one much better. I’m currently in quaint, seaside Portland, Maine, and I saw the Sam Roberts Band live at the Port City Music Hall soon after I arrived here. That was four days ago now, and I’m still stunned.

Roberts is a fellow out of Montréal (strange, how I have left Canada but perhaps not fully), who does rock with a strong beat and indie undertones. Unlike the beautifully sad, cerebral music for which I often go, Roberts is straightforward, with rifting guitars and pounding drums that pull you right out of your head. His stuff isn’t introverted nor delectably dorky, and perhaps that is what had kept me away since I was introduced to him about a year ago. Tuesday night, however, as I listened to his full set, I was into it. I was dancing, even, which I hardly ever do. It was a treat.

Watching someone make music, even rocking stuff, is incredibly intimate. I had forgotten this. How often do you get free reign to simply stare at a man for an hour as his sweaty, gyrating body disappears into a kind of trance? Roberts and his band looked like they went to another world. They were jumping around and pounding their feet into the stage. Roberts would often close his eyes while he tilted his head and poured himself into the mic. Sometimes his voice had so much power behind it that the hipsters around me hollered and raised their hands in reverence. There was nothing theoretical nor witty nor philosophical about what we listeners were feeling. It was just real, and I was ecstatic to have landed there.

Being in an audience is a rarity for me, but I know that doesn’t have to be the case. Everywhere, people can’t help but perform. Part of my trip, I’m starting to see, is making the effort to see them. When someone is truly transported on stage, I am as well. Once you get a whiff of that good stuff, you only want more.

While I’d love to attribute this realization purely to seeing Mr. Roberts, I know that’s not the case. These feelings really began to crystallize about two weeks ago, in Québec — thanks to another dynamic guy who treated the stage underneath him like he owned the thing.

Jean-Marc Massie, beating his saw.

The Québecker in question is Jean-Marc Massie, a professional storyteller whose aura of creativity (and pheromones) is so thick that it’s almost surprising you can’t see it. Along with fellow storytellers Simon Gauthier and Marc St. Pierre, he was the opening act at Chants de Vielles, an annual folk festival in the Québec countryside that celebrates all kinds of performers. Before he got on the stage, I was skeptical about how much I would care about what he had to say. The prospect of spending a few hours hearing a story told in a language other than my own sounded exhausting.

And it was, but in the best way.

As soon as he and his posse strutted onto the stage, it was as though they had grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. My wandering mind shut up, and my attention was on them completely. Massie was at the front of the stage, the other men at the back. As Massie began to talk and whip his body around, his two companions backed him up with the sounds of a keyboard and musical saws. I had little idea what Massie was saying (something about a person with gold growing out if his head, maybe?), but it didn’t matter. His body language did. He ran from one end of the platform to the other. He crouched down low and pretended to whisper and then jumped up quickly and began to shout. Behind him, there was a full stock of unconventional iron instruments, and he kept grabbing them throughout the performance. He underscored important moments of his story by hitting the stage with heavy chains. Behind him, there were about a dozen tire irons hanging from the ceiling, which he hit occasionally with another iron. The effect was like listening to the clang of demonic wind chimes. He beat bongo drums as if he was angry with them. By the time he jumped into the audience and played a bugle-like thing in my face, I was amazed.

It’s so rare to see that much passion in front of you, and I found myself wanting to bottle it up and save it for later, for use when I need some motivation. I think we spend so much of our day hiding our emotion, keeping an even keel for the sake of momentum. To see someone completely letting himself go was such a release. As I watched him, I realized how desperately I want to be that emotive and unselfconscious. The idea of being able to put yourself out there so fully took the wind out of me.

Simon Gauthier, taking a different approach with his saw.

After Massie’s performance, we talked a little bit, and I told him how much I appreciated his work. He looked flattered, and I think for a while we did vibe off each other, talking about the few things our shared, limited vocabulary allowed. I wasn’t, however, able to fully convey what had touched me about his show. It made me feel powerless to feel something so strongly and yet not be able to convey it. Perhaps he got my meaning through osmosis. I’d like to believe that. The next day of the festival, we talked again, and he kissed the top of my head as a way of saying goodbye. Is that a Québec thing? I don’t know.

My lack of eloquence with Massie is probably partially why I walked up to Roberts after his show. It was a relief to be able to fully explain to someone how much his music and energy had affected me. It felt so good to be woken up, and I had this need to tell him so. Thankfully, he seemed happy to hear it. He was smiling, his eyes still shining from the show’s juice. We talked for a few minutes about his tour and my trip, and he invited me to see his show in New York. He gave me travel advice, and I gave him the address for my blog. I walked away from him and the music hall feeling effervescent and hopeful. On the way back to my trailer, I didn’t even get lost, which for me is like a tiny miracle.

Sitting, stunned, in my little home, I remember my interior monologue being incredibly simple, as it often is after good things. “Wow” I kept thinking, and “Thank you.”

It takes a mess of help to stand alone

admin — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 18:02:52 +0000

(ANCASTER, Ont.) — When things become good for a while, it’s easy to get complacent. While I was in London, Ont., I was parked in the driveway of an amazing, friendly woman, and I got used to having to someone to care about my day and to joke with. Here, in the village of Ancaster (near big, scruffy Hamilton), I’m parked outside a home belonging to Paul, the editor of a Canadian naturist magazine. He is a sweetheart. He’s letting me stick around for a while until I get some of my writing done, and he is very much concerned with whether I get enough to eat and have a good place to work. This kind of caring and help floors me. I don’t expect it, but my God, it is great to have.

Kerri-Anne and her daughter, Emma, were my awesome, sweet and warm hosts in London.

This represents a new way of thinking for me. When I left on this trip, I kind of imagined myself as a cowboy, being on my own, facing the tough world and pushing through my fear of it. Now, that’s only part of it for me. I feel lucky now, not embarrassed, when someone is willing to help me out. It is rare and special, and I might just finally feel comfortable enjoying it.

I know when the shift came. It was almost a week ago, back when I was in London. I met a guy and was immediately intrigued by him. He was at a pub and was tall and lanky and wearing 3D glasses. It turned out that he is friends with seemingly all of my host’s friends, and a plan was devised that he should come to her house soon and hang out with her, me and another guy and watch movies. The next night, he arrived with homemade profiteroles, and the four of us went through Once and Before Sunrise, both of which make spontaneity and creativity look like utter magic. Those are the kind of films that make you fall in love, and so I did, in a way, with him. After the TV was turned off, it was past 3 a.m., and he and I started a conversation that lasted until the morning. I won’t go through the details because some of them are embarrassingly raw to me, but the end result was a real dialogue that touched my heart. Our interaction was completely platonic, but we did fall asleep together on the floor, and he did hold me for what felt like hours. I had no idea how much I needed that.

Yet I did. I needed someone to hold me without expectation on either of our parts. I loved hearing his stories. Unbeknownst to me, I needed someone to tell me what it was like to own a house, to have been married once, to bike around Italy and not talk to anyone for days. It was weirdly perfect, and I can’t imagine my trip without him.

A spot of forest at London's University of Western Ontario.

So, the idea that this journey is truly about solitude really is silly. Being lonesome and being able to be by myself is all part of it, of course, but so is every human interaction I have along the way. From this aforementioned fellow to the Macedonian lady working in an A&W who gave me directions yesterday, I’m beginning to realize how much everyone I meet matters. I’d like to believe that I have always known this, but now it’s crystal clear. They are as much a part of my trip as I am. It feels good to finally put that to words.

(Note: I’d like to give a special thanks to Stephane, Kerri-Anne, Stephanie, Paul, Dave, James, Sookie, Michael, Richard, Melanie and Nicky, among so many others)

Say Canandaigua five times fast

admin — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 18:04:54 +0000

(CANANDAIGUA, N.Y.) — Before I write anything else, I must write this: Wegman’s. I have seen the light and it is the miles of food aisles in this regional grocery store chain. Trying to explain the beauty of this place, I can only think of anecdotes, such as the entire beer section dedicated to Pacific Northwest micro brews and the displays of food grown by local farmers. In Marin County, where I was mostly raised, I think chains are seen as a little dirty. The IKEAs and Krispy Kremes and Safeways are historically wedged in far-off parts of the Bay Area or are simply kind of grungy. At any rate, many don’t seem prized, but here, people LOVE Wegman’s. They celebrate it. What a different mentality. I have no idea what state of mind I prefer. I do enjoy the food palace’s opulence but also feel like a slight tool because of that.

This is definitely the cutest thing I saw in Canandaigua. This little family was right by the lake.

It’s nice in Canandaigua. This is the kind of town that people are proud to be from, the kind of spot that people stay in or return to, or at least that’s my sense of it. I’m not sure how big it is, but it’s large enough to have a community college, Panera Bread Co. (which, thankfully, has fast, free internet) and hefty amount of traffic. The downtown is cute, and the jewel of this place is really the lake, which shares the town’s name. It’s big, filled with bright, white sailboats and lined with tons of people on blankets, park benches and bikes. Today and tomorrow, there are a few festivals going on at the water’s edge, and of course I’ll check them out. I always like stuff such as that, community efforts that I’m not actually emotionally involved in. My lack of attachment gives me free reign to just enjoy them — and then leave whenever I want.

By the way, I suppose I wouldn’t be jumping into writing this morning if I didn’t feel so sober. Recently, an old man I’ve been friendly with sexually harassed me in a sad way. He asked me to kiss him, and I said no, and it’s no big deal, except that it reminded me how damn vulnerable I am out here. It made me lonely. What I really want to do is call up a certain friend and have him talk to me, about anything, but I think that would be uncouth. If I can’t deal with these sorts of things on my own, then what’s the point of the trip? Self-reliance is the idea — though a big bear hug from someone I care about would be lovely right now.

It’s weird to have to find your comfort wherever you can, preferably without coming into contact with anyone. When I’m lonely, that’s the time I absolutely don’t want to strike up a conversation with a soul. I don’t trust myself enough right then. So, I try to shut up, wake up and look around me. Last night, when I was in that state, I ended up downtown, in front of a free concert hosted by a trio of string-playing middle-aged guys. They were working a banjo, guitar and fiddle, and the music was sweet. There was a large, pastel-wearing crowd of older people and families, and they were clapping and smiling at all the recognizable folk offerings. By the time the group played some kid songs while wearing Muppet masks, I was in love with all the musicians. When they closed their set with “This Land is Your Land,” I was grinning, trying to hold on to the innocence of the moment in my mind.

As I already wrote, I do love those kinds of community things.