New Year’s Party playlist | New Year’s Playlist

Happy New Year! Anyone left standing? The only way to make it to midnight and not have the party fizzle out is to keep things lively. The music below should help with that.

Hogmanay playlist

1. The Barra MacNeils Haven’t Got a Care

2. Matt Mays Queen of Portland Street

3. David Myles So Blind

4. The Stanfields The Dirtiest Drunk

5. Two Hours Traffic Heros of the Sidewalk

6. Paper Lions Travelling

7. Old Man Luedecke Baby, We’d Be Rich

8. George Canyon Drinkin’ Thinkin’

9. David Myles How’d I Ever Think I Loved You

 

For the big finish at the critical point, either of the two versions of Auld Lang Syne from below would be perfect.

1. The Barra MacNeils Auld Lang Syne

2. Matt Andersen Auld Lang Syne

 

And because we all like to sing along:

 

Should old acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind
Should all acquaintance be forgot
And auld lang syne

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne

And surely you will buy your cup
And surely I’ll buy mine
And we’ll take a cup o’kindness yet
For auld lang syne

We too have run around the slopes
And picked the daisies fine
We’ve londoned many weary foot
Since auld lang syne

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne

We too have paddled in the stream
From morning sun to night
But the seas between us broad have roared
From auld lang syne

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne
We’ll take a cup o’kindness yet
For auld langs syne

 

Walkable planets project | walkable planets project

One of the joys of living in a city like Toronto is the wonderful discoveries that you make during your daily routine. One of these discoveries was the walkable planets projects, an art installation in the Christie Pitts area. One of the sadder parts to living in Toronto is that the artist has taken the project down at the request of the city.

Artist Jode Roberts (more here) created a series of signs and installed them along Grace Street and Gore Vale Avenue. The signs were similar stylistically to typical street parking signs in an attempt to fly-under-the-radar with city hall because no permit was obtained. There was one sign for each planet in the solar system (except poor old Pluto who was bumped off the stellar list) and they imparted a quirky factoid about the relative sizes of the planet versus the sun.

The project spanned a two kilometre stretch of street scape with each sign’s distance from the next in proportion to the actual distances the planets are apart from one another. Clearly, I found and photographed these last summer.

Read more about the project in the Toronto Star here.

Saturn sign

Jupiter sign

Five books set in Nova Scotia | Nova Scotia Books

book

The days just after Christmas are delicious in many ways. There are lots of leftovers, cookies and chocolates abound and there’s no more wrapping. Things settle down a little and you can sleep in, stare into space and read.

Here are five great books set in Nova Scotia. They are all available on Kindle and Kobo so the best part is that you can start reading without leaving the house!

1. The Birth House by Ami McKay kindle kobo

2. Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald kindle kobo

3. No Great Mischief by Alastair MacLeod kindle kobo

4. The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill kindle kobo

5. The Bishop’s Man by Linden MacIntyre kindle kobo

 

 

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