The grey elephant stands outside again. Winter showed up for 3 days and for a while I could even have snow fights with my dog until this curious 12 degree weather appeared and stole it all away. Jasmin and I went to see Rogue Wave last night at the Horseshoe and while they were entertaining, the opening band was a lot of fun and deserves to be my 2nd review.

This review really began in my mind somewhere into the beginning of their song People…

“I’m estranged by the motives of megaphones.
And the plastic bags stuck in trees.
Rolling up every street
Chaotic Sunday shopping sprees.”

I totally dig on those plastic bags stuck in trees. There’s one right behind my apartment and every day I walk my dog I stare at it and consider climbing high enough to pull it down. It’s been stuck there for 3 years now, it’s completely ridiculous.

The Ghost is Dancing live is a sight to see; it’s a raucus, joyous Indie Carnival. I was shocked to read on their homepage that they’ve only been playing together live since August. I was quite impressed that they were able so hold such a tangle of instruments, vocal parts, and interludes together on stage. While I thoroughly enjoyed the show for their energy and creativity, I longed to bring their CD home in the hopes of making sense of the pandemonium I had witnessed on stage.

I must say, I was slightly disappointed but not altogether surprised that the energy and emotion they present on stage was hard to fit into their recording. The production seemed to be lacking, but certainly the music feels better formulated and coherant, ripped to mp3 and queued on my ipod.

The Ghost is Dancing shares a place with other Canadian acts such as The Arcade Fire, Of Montreal, and Wolf Parade in their sound, and while I don’t mean to classify their obvious creativity, they follow in the trend of large orchestral acts like Broken Social Scene. I counted 7 members at the live show including 2 lead guitarists, a bassist, a keyboard/percussionist, a drummer, an accordian player and a saxophonist. Their music contains the high energy, fast and pounding bass drum, slow lamenting accordian and wide eyed lyrics of a team of minstrels playing for their very lives at a satanic bar mitzvah. Each of their songs, while unique, follow down the same garden path into the dark woods at night where the tempo drives us into a frenzy before finding themselves on the trail back home at last.

As a reader, you’ll be happy to know that you can listen to The Ghost is Dancing for free by visiting their MySpace. I suggest you check them out and say hi. Also don’t forget to go see them live, you might even be lucky enough to score a sweet balloon hat.

The sky stands behind the city like a giant grey elephant, both dwarfing and hiding the buildings in the horizon. A layer of fog, like dust, settles in the distance. Everything looks cold, and dull, and silent. The lights and bells of Christmas have just started to decorate the night, but until the snow falls and December laughs it’s first jolly laugh, the days and nights are silent and still behind the back of a great grey elephant.

Joy is to be found indoors. These are the nights of candles and shadows; of dinner served with gravy and evenings spent holding cups of tea beneath blankets and falling asleep before midnight. I can feel Christmas I can’t wait.

Personally I read music reviews like I skim ingredients; I find they are so full of name dropping and vague references that I have to bounce from paragraph to paragraph just to get the main ideas I’m looking for. What other bands does this one bring to mind? Is the album enjoyable to listen to? Is it worth my time? With their Toronto show coming up on November 27th I wanted to write up a quick review for anyone who might want to check them out, and prove that I too can name drop and reference myself like a library.

Having dominated my playlists in the past 2 weeks, Rogue Wave has left an impression on me. Zach Rogue’s songwriting skills are diverse if not lacking in focus. His soft, warbling voice are sometimes all that relate track from track, however the effortlessness of the transition is what makes this a standout album. While bands like Bloc Party and the Arcade Fire completely dominated my iPod for a few weeks and haven’t been played since, Rogue Wave is with me to stay. The album trollops in sounding like the Beetles’ Eleanor Rigby without the strings, and then entertains with at least 5-6 solid tracks before issuing a quiet goodbye.

The accoustic atonement of Salesman on the Day of the Parade is the standout track, a singing apology that which, despite it’s true meaning, echoes “I’m so sorry for what I’ve done” in the heart of every listener who has ever had to make these words their mantra or longed to hear them in their past.

The only track that loses me a bit because of it’s nonsensical hook, Publish My Love also seems to have found it’s way the furthest into the mainstream appearing on The O.C., however despite my annoyance with it, it still remains a solid and catchy song.

Continuing through a diverse transition of sounds an genres, Medicine Ball sounds distincltly inspired by The Decemberists as Zach’s voice suddenly peaks into a punk/country rock which may or may not be the lament about losing weight. Other tracks like California and Temporary round out this album with soft guitar and sentiment.

I highly recommend this album as an unexpected one to pick up for fans of bands like Death Cab for Cutite, and the Shins, and for anyone enjoying this year’s abundance of rookie and sophamore indie talent and looking for something that follows that trend. I give it a 3.8/5.

I’ve loved cooking for myself since the day I moved out on my own. I seem to remember before that liking to cook, but spending most of my time damaging my mother’s cookware and picking eggshells out of my breakfast.

I wouldn’t say I’m a superb cook but I certainly try and I definately get a lot of enjoyment out of it. I love food, I love to eat, and I love to share. Over the years I’ve cooked lots of recipes, most of which I try once and never try again. To touch on the subject quickly, I’d say my favorite style of cooking is Chinese though my favorite meal is breakfast.

Cooking is a combination of some of my favorite things; it allows me to create something with my hands, it allows me to express myself through taste, and t allows me to be creative through the presentation.

This all being said, and considering that I’m still feeling uncomfortable jumping back into writing, I want to share a recipe I cooked recently and hopefully share more as I find and make them.

Baked Salmon with Bok Choy

The salmon was incredible – after baking it face down in the oil and butter for 5 minutes, it broiled to a nice crust for another 5 minutes and was perfect inside. I substituted some mango salsa I’d already had for the regular salsa and I made my own roasted red peppers so the sauce was really tasty. The bok choy came out a bit oily so next time I’d pat it down with paper towel to avoid that, and probably cook it a few minutes longer. It was definately good eats though, and I recommend it.

Recipe Link: Click Here

I’ve decided not to let this blog get into my day to day routine, so hopefully I’ll soon find a groove to write in, but for now if I sat around waiting for inspiration this page would stay empty for yet another year. Thanks for reading.

Sooner or later I find the time to resurrect this website; I spend 3 hours trying to figure out how to put Humpty Dumpty back together again and by the time the work is complete and I have to post, I’m out of words.

Jasmin and Peaches are so deep asleep behind my on my hand-me-down aging old floral couch that the squeeky, banjo picking hippie romp of Akron/Family hasn’t caused even a stir. I’m out of lime green coloured Naturally Flavoured Green Apple Sparkling Soda and obviously resorting to describing my surroundings. I forget how to blog.

It might be fun to do some music reviews in the future. In the new iPod liberated 60gb world of music I find myself in, I’ve managed to tear through the impressive selection of 2005 indie music and some of it is definately worth sharing.

Regardless of what the words say I think it’s very important to get them out. I sat watching the changing landscape of downtown Toronto through a car window yesterday thinking about writing and aging and how growing up I heard so many elders talk about the things they used to do when they were young. I believed I would never stop writing – yet at 26 I rarely write, and Wes seems to rarely play guitar, and Greg may rarely drum.

I’ve forgotten about the 3 part harmony.

Sooner or later I find the time to resurrect this website; I spend 3 hours trying to figure out how to put Humpty Dumpty back together again and by the time the work is complete and I have to post, I’m out of words.

Jasmin and Peaches are so deep asleep behind my on my hand-me-down aging old floral couch that the squeeky, banjo picking hippie romp of Akron/Family hasn’t caused even a stir. I’m out of lime green coloured Naturally Flavoured Green Apple Sparkling Soda and obviously resorting to describing my surroundings. I forget how to blog.

It might be fun to do some music reviews in the future. In the new iPod liberated 60gb world of music I find myself in, I’ve managed to tear through the impressive selection of 2005 indie music and some of it is definately worth sharing.

Regardless of what the words say I think it’s very important to get them out. I sat watching the changing landscape of downtown Toronto through a car window yesterday thinking about writing and aging and how growing up I heard so many elders talk about the things they used to do when they were young. I believed I would never stop writing – yet at 26 I rarely write, and Wes seems to rarely play guitar, and Greg may rarely drum.

I’ve forgotten about the 3 part harmony.

Well, we’re back now in Toronto. When we unloaded our packs I couldn’t believe how much we’d been carrying with us, especially after buying suveniers and duty free.

We finished off our day in Edinburgh by eating some fish n chips (the best in the world!) and hiking up to Edinburgh Castle. We were so late into the day that I decided to skip the castle tour in favour of heading back next year to see it for a whole day. Sadly we didn’t get to see a Tattoo either, as I’ve seen it on video at my grandparents house and would have loved to see it myself – but I’ll try for next year.

There is a company called HAGGiS in Edinburgh that conducts backpacking tours of Scotland and Ireland, so I have a starting point for planning next year’s trip. I can’t wait to head out again.

Oh, I bought my first real vehicle, a 2004 Ford Explorer Sport Trac in Silver Birch. I get to pick it up on Saturday morning so I’m really excited – hopefully this is the start of many road trips to come!

I’ll post pictures of the trip soon – and this time I actually will

Ryan

Hello from EDINBURGH!

Time on the internet has been few and far between, after all we’ve seen so many cities in such a short period of time that we’re almost always “on the bus”. We arrived in Edinburgh yesterday morning and already we’re preparing to leave on the train tonite. We’ll arrive back in London tomorrow morning just in time to check in for our flight home… it’s a bit of a sad feeling at this point.

Our basic itinerary was something like this…

August 2 – Toronto -> London
August 3 – London -> Brussels
August 6 – Brussels -> Amsterdam
August 9 – Amsterdam -> Copenhagen
August 11 – Copenhagen -> Berlin
August 13 – Berlin -> Prague
August 16 – Prague -> Frankfurt
August 17 – Frankfurt -> Paris
August 18 – Paris -> London
August 18 – London -> Edinburgh
August 20 – Edinburgh -> London
August 21 – London -> Toronto

What a crazy idea to make so many little trips in 3 weeks! Except of course we had an incredible time and couldn’t have hoped to see and learn about so many diverse cities in just one trip. And now we have so many places to revisit!

Today we will be exploring Edinburgh and hope to see you all soon when we return. Hopefully you have some nice weather waiting for us!

Love,
Ryan & Jasmin

Hello everyone, it’s been a long time!

As promised I’ve finally made it online long enough to update the long dead Online Epiphany. The last year has been a busy one which has mostly taken me offline when I’m not at the office, and now sees me with my girlfriend Jasmin on a northern Europe backpacking trip.

We started out on August 2nd in Toronto and caught an 8:30PM flight to Heathrow airport in London. From there we took a short bus to Gatwick to stay with an aquaintance of Jasmin’s family named Piki. After a lovely day with Piki exploring the burgs around London, we bought EuroLines passes and hopped onto the bus to travel to Brussels, Belgium.

Brussels is magnificent, as our first taste of the mainland and it’s tall tall buildings and cozy little streets, it did much to impress us – that is until we entered the Grand Place, where buildings, churches and a museum built in the late 1600s climbed the sky and surrounded us on it’s cobblestone streets. We immediately got our tourist hats on and sat down for les moules frites, which were the best mussels I’d ever had. Stuffed we went to sleep in a cozy hostel outside of town near an impressive botanical garden, and prepared for the next 2 days exploring a beautiful city. By now it was Friday, August 6th.

Next we hopped on the bus to Amsterdam, and unfortunately arrived too late on a busy Friday to get a room. We packed our things into a locker and prepared to tough out the night outside, exploring the canals and shops of the ‘Venice of the North’. After sampling some ‘coffee shops’ we sat down for a long night’s sleep on a bench, before awaking and booking into the first hostel we could find – and what a great hostel it was!

Our 3 days in Amsterdam were spent mainly exploring, being trapped in the tourist areas for most of the time but finally sneaking off to the Central Canal Ring to see some of the high rent areas of the city, and finally to see Anne Frank’s home. Many trips through the Red Light District at night showed it’s pretty overrated, but amusing to see the men leer and pick up the women for sale lining the streets.

From Amsterdam, we got onto yet another bus (this time a double decker!) and arrived in Copenhagen on Wednesday, August 12th. Since we’ve been here, we’ve decided that this is the most romantic city we’ve seen yet. Last night we sat in a gorgeous park, and then sat by one of the canals completely unaffected by what would have been tons of people and lights if we were in Amsterdam.

This morning we met up with Leon at Netgroup who gave us a driving tour of Copenhagen and has now brought me in to do a little work. Tonite perhaps we will check out the waterfront or the Tivoli, after we sneak over to a beach to swim in the ocean (which I haven’t done since I was a kid in Florida with my father).

I will try to write again soon, sorry for the abridged version, but I’ll have many pictures and stories when I return home on the 22nd!

PS. We have booked a bus for tomorrow morning to take us into Berlin for the day. We should arrive at 2PM and then will book another bus to leave Berlin at 11:30PM and take us to Prague. From Prague we’d like to see either Warsaw or Krakow before heading back towards the UK and hopefully spending our last 2 days in Edinburgh before heading on train back to London for our flight out. See you all when I return!

Love,
Ryan & Jasmin

Well, it’s August 2nd and Jasmin and I are off to the airport to begin our backpacking trip through Northern Europe. We’ve got nothing but our packs and our plane tickets and have opted for a decide-as-you-go approach this year.

We hope to have many pictures to post and thoughts to pass along. At least it will be nice to revive OE for the first time in well over a year!

Best of luck to all who read this – CHEERS!

Ryan & Jasmin