Gladstone's voice

I liked this article in/from Kottke and decided to explore it a bit:

http://kottke.org/10/08/gladstones-voice

So, this Gladstone fellow...

William Gladstone was very nearly Abraham Lincoln's exact contemporary, both born in 1809 (Lincoln was 10 months older), only he was born in Liverpool, not Kentucky. He was a legendary orator and liberal lion, like an approximation of Lincoln and Ted Kennedy. He served as a member of parliament for almost 50 years, including as Prime Minster four times, before retiring in 1894. (Could you imagine if Lincoln had lived until 1894?)

In a career lasting over sixty years, he served as Prime Minister four times (1868–1874, 1880–1885, February–July 1886 and 1892–1894), more than any other person. Gladstone was 84 years old - still physically vigorous albeit with failing hearing and eyesight - when he resigned for the last time, making him Britain's oldest Prime Minister.

He also had a great nickname: G.O.M., for "Grand Old Man." His Tory counterpart Disraeli called him "God's Only Mistake."

no, not G.O.B., but G.O.M.



anyway, his relation to the Gladstone hotel in Toronto is as follows.

The Gladstone was named for Gladstone Avenue, which was named after British prime minister William Ewart Gladstone. The hotel's monthly newsletter, the Gladstone Bag, is named for the suitcase style, also named for William Gladstone.

The Gladstone was one of the first ten hotels in Ontario to receive permission to allow patrons to drink and play shuffleboard in a licensed alcoholic area. At one time the Gladstone Hotel was the last place to obtain hard liquor before reaching Hamilton.

Ok.. that's part one of this post. In part two I'm gonna take a look at the phonograph, Thomas Edison, and good vibrations.

Schedule

So here's my schedule for the fall term...

Monday

10-11:30
Contracts
Mac400

11:30-1
Property
Mac001

2:30-4:30
Public
Mac202

Tuesday

1-2:30
Criminal
Mac400

2:30-4
Torts
Mac201

4-5:30
Contracts
Mac201

Wednesday

9:30-11:30
Public
Mac202

11:30-1
Intro to legal res.
Mac201

Thursday

11:30-1
Criminal
Dun12

1-2:30
Property
Mac001

4:30-6
Torts
Mac201

Friday

10-11:30
Contracts
Mac400

19 hours for the week, with Tuesday looking a little tough checking in with 6 straight hours. Apartment is all set up now too, and orientation week is going swimmingly. Kingston, is Kingston. Pretty much everything I expected... errr, it's been two days.

The apartment is actually pretty great! Everything you could ever want within walking distance (7 minutes to class, 2 or 10 minutes to the closest grocery stores, downtown location), and because it's facing the back of the street it's been nice and quiet, so far. I'll try to post some pictures at some point.

Skipped an orientation toga party tonight at the Elysium (In Greek mythology, Elysium was a section of the Underworld. The Elysian Fields, or the Elysian Plains, were the final resting places of the souls of the heroic and the virtuous, and apparently kitty corner to my place), and meet my upper year buddy tomorrow after a few mini-classes in the morning. Oh, and the sponsorship freebee gifts are already rolling in... here's my haul from today.



And what a haul! Even a laundry bag!!!

Tryin' To Live My Life Without You

So after previewing it at Adam's house a few months ago I picked up Bob Seger's Nine Tonight live album, and am loving it. It brought back some good memories...





This isn't the 1980 live Boston version on the album, but it works ok.

I used to smoke five packs of Cigarettes a day
It was the hardest thing to put them away
i drank four or five bottles of wine
I kept a glass in my hand all the time

Breaking those habit was hard to do
But nothing prepared me for the changes
That you put me through

Tryin' to live my life without you babe
Its the hardest thing i'll ever do
Try and forget the love we once shared (yeah)
Its the hardest thing i'll ever do

I had the worst reputation in town
For chasin' all the women around
I thought changin' my way of livin' was hard to do
But theres nothing could prepare me for the changes you put me through

I've done everything i tried to do
But its gonna take a miracle to get me over you

Tryin' to live my life without you babe
Its the hardest thing i'll ever do
Try and forget the love we once shared (yeah)
Its the hardest burden i'll ever know

Tryin' to live my life without you babe
Its the hardest thing i'll ever do
Try and forget the love we shared
Its the hardest burden i'll ever know

Tryin' to live my love without you babe
Hardest thing i'll ever do
Try and forget the love we shared
Its the hardest burden i'll ever know

Tryin' to live my life without you babe
Its the hardest thing i'll ever do
Try and forget the love we shared
Its the hardest burden i'll ever know

"Tryin' To Live My Life Without You" is a song written by Eugene Williams, originally popularized by soul singer Otis Clay. It has since been covered by several other artists, most notably Bob Seger on his 1981 Nine Tonight album.

Here's the Otis Clay version.



Btw, here's Andy Gibb completely destroying the song.



Gawd that's so fucking bad. I can't listen to that, and neither should you.

There doesn't seem to be much (easily obtainable) information on Eugene Williams though...

Seger has claimed that he recorded the song to show how the Eagles stole the song's melody in their song "The Long Run". Seger highlights the similarities between the two songs in the arrangement his version, in the bassline especially. I can't find "the Long Run" online (how sad :(, but here's a cover of it, and you can figure out how much The Eagles suck for yourself.

Hummus

While on the topic of good foods, here's some good hummus.



Errr.. I'm no hummus connoisseur, but I know good hummus when I taste it. And this is some good hummus. If you can't read it, it's Roasted Garlic and Onion Hummus from Sunflower Kitchen, and it's delicious. Strong garlic flavour for those that like it.

It doesn't seem to be available everywhere, and where it is available it doesn't seem to be there all the time. But if you can find it, get yourself some.

Stephen Hawking, Leonard Mlodinow, the anthropic principle, and God.

When asked if I believe in god (or just a god... any god...) I often fall back on the answer that although I don't believe in any superior being interacting with humans in any sort of way, even after death, I do believe that that there must have been something out there that started this whole universe thing going. I mean, what put all the elements out there in the first place? Why not just nothing?

Well, that qualification for the existence of a god may not be necessary anymore. Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow (remember him?... the random numbers guy who spoke at the Perimeter Institute.. ) have released a scientific explanation to the origins of the universe without the necessity of a god.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704206804575467921609024244.html

"As recent advances in cosmology suggest, the laws of gravity and quantum theory allow universes to appear spontaneously from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.

Our universe seems to be one of many, each with different laws. That multiverse idea is not a notion invented to account for the miracle of fine tuning. It is a consequence predicted by many theories in modern cosmology."

We don't need the almost 1000 comments on this article in the WSJ at the time of posting to tell us that this is obviously still quite a controversial conclusion. However, it would be really interesting to read up on the particular aspects of the laws of gravity and quantum theory that do predict spontaneous creation of universes. Hopefully there'll be a layman's book out soon?!

--

ps. Is 'god' capitalized? I've heard this before but here's a pretty good article summing it up.

"Confusion is caused by the fact that Christians don't typically ascribe a personal name to their god - some use Yahweh or Jehovah, but that is pretty rare. The name they use happens to be the same as the general term for the class that being belongs to. It's not unlike a person who has named their cat, Cat."...

Sunday the 5th, Toronto walking tour

Looking to get out of the house Sunday afternoon? Try this:



Back alleys have a rather seedy reputation, disregarded primarily as the sites of rats and garbage. But Graeme Parry has taken it upon himself to shed light on the oft-ignored beauty of Toronto's laneways. Sunday's tour will weave through the labyrinth of alleys in the Queen West, Trinity Bellwoods, and Little Portugal areas, showing walkers the brilliantly coloured, innovative street art sprayed on walls and garages, and the cottages and homes lining the lanes. Parry, who has been offering these tours for seven years, injects a unique perspective on the city's legacy of decay and rejuvenation. Meet in front of Pizza Pizza at corner of Queen and Bathurst streets, Sunday 1 p.m., FREE.

CBC Retrobites

Good morning!...

Old CBC interview bites for yer ass.

Aldous Huxley on tranquilizers and mescaline. Follows to alcohol... need to follow up on this dude...


Margarat Atwood on death, food and babies.



Leonard Cohen (CBC Retrobite with Adrienne Clarkson)


Bobby Fischer on chess and female 'players'...


Stan Lee on human psychology and Spiderman

The acoustics of different environments

A successful multi-instrumentalist and songwriter, Bird recently joined instrument and acoustic engineer Ian Schneller to create a novel live music experience, something they're calling the Sonic Arboretum, which premiered as part of the Guggenheim Museum's Dark Sounds series last month.

"Usually you think of acoustics in closed spaces because sound bounces off of things. But if you're in Zion National Park or the Sandstone Cliffs, you create this acoustical space with different textures of the plants in our area....And that's what we're trying to appropriate in this," says Bird (hence the botanical metaphor).

Bird uses his speakers almost like microphones. Using a loop peddle, he'll record and play back musical lines, controlling which horns amplify the sounds.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2010/09/andrew-bird-cultivates-a-sonic-arboretum.html

School dreams

So I'm starting to have dreams about law school, and school in general. These dreams have all been positive so far, but definitely indicitive of a life change.

The first one occurred a few weeks ago, where I was in and out of class from approximately 8am to 9:30pm. There was very little stress, just a sense of being quite exhausted by the last class. So weird. I mean, it's kinda cool how feelings come across in dreams despite not actually being expressed. Perhaps that's all dreams are, just feelings with limited expression. Anyway, there was plenty of teacher interaction and discussion after class in the halls, class mates met over lunch, and light reading during down time. Yup, that's what I have been dreaming about... uhh.. partly.

Another more recent dream included a english lit type class, where I could distinctly see the class reading a text by the author "Leon". The cover had a fox or lion, hand drawn, on the cover. I can remember the text as we read it together high school style. Being unfamiliar with anything Leon (in the dream and otherwise), some light research has brought up very little as well.

Léon the movie. Downloading, will watch in the next few days.

Looking at wikipedia, apparently Leon can refer to quite a bit.

Meh,... it probably means nothing, right? Or, maybe the feeling was more important? I mean, I remember looking at the text and feeling it quite unfamiliar. It looked interesting, but I didn't know it. I suppose I felt like others around me did, and maybe that caused a bit of apprehension, but nothing overwhelming. Anyway, that's about it for now on that.

Roncesvalles construction

A little more than a month into the second and final round of construction, residents and shopkeepers in Roncesvalles Village are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Track work is proceeding quickly. Comments like “Wow, they’re moving fast!” are commonly heard.



Track is in place on nearly half the street, and sidewalk replacement and road repair has begun in the south end. Several blocks are open in the south end, with more opening soon.

http://www.roncesvallesvillage.ca/?p=735

Of course, not everyone is happy all the time.

1. Starbuck's neighbour says:
   August 27th, 2010 at 10:01 pm

   Obviously you don’t live in the area where they are doing the damn construction at all hours of the day - well most hours of the day. They take between 6 pm and 11 pm off. That’s right. All of the neighbours at the top of the street have not been able to sleep for the past 5 nights because of the noise levels that are out of control. We sure hope that this damn construction is done soon, because I have come to hate the workers who are extremely disrespectful and I now hate all of the city who are allowing this to happen. To be honest I don’t give a rats ass if it takes longer as long as we can sleep and that means our kids too folks. So enjoy your new road.

   Your cranky ass, sleep deprived bitch of a neighbour who hates the city and everyone who works for it.

2. Keith Denning, Coordinator, RVBIA says:
   September 1st, 2010 at 1:02 pm

   Actually, I live very close to the Starbucks also, so yes, my family and I have been enduring this too.

   Installing the actual track is noisy, but this is nearly finished. Pouring concrete etc. is usually done during the day and is much quieter.

   The Roncesvalles/Dundas intersection is expected to be completely open on September 7.

Cottage Cheese

Geez, is cottage cheese the perfect food?



High in protein, low in fat, customizable - quality wise and price wise. Filling. Also, it's cheese. Cheese for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. It's a topping, it's a meal on it's own, it is fucking delicious.

Don't eat meat? Eat cheese and forget about it.

Also kinda perfect? Peanut butter. I have that in the morning on two pieces of toast and I don't have to eat until dinner.

Finally on this non-sequitur rant? I'm looking into a bread maker... any tips/suggestions?