Thoughts From The Leaf Game (24)

1. Wow bad goal let inby Gustavsson

2. Poor defence but still another bad goal by Gustavsson

3. Wow this Kessel kid is good

4. This Hagman kid ain't bad either...

5. That being said, both these guys carried the team tonight

6. You need wins like that to build character and confidence. A reward to the team for not quitting and a reward for all the fans who didn't quit watching.

Thoughts From The Leaf Game (23)

1. Two quick goals to start for the good guys

2. Two quick goals to tie for the other guys

3. Get another lead and squander it

4. Gustavsson has looked shkay the last few games he has played...

5. That being said, does this team just not want to play defense for a full game?

6. Another much needed win, season grand total: 5...it is a testament to fidelity and idiocy to be a lifelong supporter of this team.

The Weather Report (one foggy evening)

Traffic lights shine out from behind traces of clouds, all around the the streets the clouds come down to the ground. There is a chill in the air common to these late moments of November. The road bends in front of us, but being familiar can be navigated through this creeping fog.

If you look to the right, over the bridge, you will notice that the city has disappeared, vanished, poof, gone.

Everything that stood is gone. The city has gone.
Tomorrow it will return
when this lifts, but it will not be the same. It will look the same, often feel the same, but someone this night, under the cover of these clouds has come and replaced the city and left a false one behind.

We look over our left shoulders and in the park there are magic yellow lights that lead to a forest full of of our imagination. As we walk away from home, it disappears behind us.

It’s eerie she says

I’m inclined to agree. There is no fear however tonight, just mystery and adventure.

We turn back, the way is familiar once more. Everything reverses. A green machine cuts a crescent through the night somewhere inside the city that can no longer be seen.

Thoughts From The Leaf Game (22)

1. Poor Vesa Toskala. That man just cannot catch a break.

2. How is Dwayne Rolosson 40 and still playing so well? Incredible

3. Leafs are playing with some urgency

4. Nice comback being three down and coming back to tie, excellent work...

5. That being said how do you manage to fire that many shots on net and only get three goals. At least we get a point right?

6. This is just the same story as before, the Leafs sure can shoot the puck, just can’t score enough. It's been five years of the same.

Thoughts From The Leaf Game (21)

1. Giving up the first goal to Ovechkin mitigates the damage of giving up yet another first goal...slightly

2. Good response by the Leafs, they are playing hard, playing like they have something to lose

3. Toskala is playing well again. Good for him, he needs to string together some strong starts.

4. Both teams are trading chances, the pace is pretty entertaining...

5. That being said, Ovechkin still looks off pace and I think he might be playing slightly hurt still

6. A much needed victory if only to temper the growing chorus of pitchfork wielding townspeople

FOR THE LOVE OF WORDS!!!

Just a few days ago, amidst much fanfare and drooling, it was announced that the Kindle was coming to Canada. Immediately I raised my left and smacked myself on the forehead muttering a tiny bullshit into the mix. I had hoped that we would only be able to get pirated versions of the Kindle into Canada, not for any anarchist middle finger to corporation reasons, but for the saving of books.

I love books. My mom was the first to instill the love of reading in me. As a kid I demanded books be read to me. When I would begin to fall asleep my mom would pull the old trick of skipping pages and I would suddenly wake up and make her go back to the missed sections, so much had I memorized each and every Seussian sentence. That love has sustained and followed me through my life. I took books everywhere. I always had a book with me. Mostly I was always bored, a person with a roving mind that could only be quieted by the pondering and fussing over books and stories. I took books into classes, hiding them under my desks and stealing sentences while teachers were instructing, sticking them in back pockets and reading while outside sucking down a cigarette at the butt hut. I would even take them into mosque and read throughout prayers and religious ceremonies deriving much more spiritual satisfaction from stephen king and J.D. Salinger than from praying to a God I wasn't sure I believed in (or rather one that might believe in me). Books for me were everything, solace, pleasure, escape, fancy. A good night for me included knocking down some chapters in a story and marvelling over how some authors got tone and setting just right and letting myself get swept away in stories and ideas.

I still take books everywhere. I still always have a book with me.

Now I find myself mistrustfully confronting an age where print is dying at an alarming rate. We have grown into a world of instant gratification, fingertip controlled world where we demand things right away. It is a nano world, clamorous for information the second it becomes available. We live in a world that feels like it's getting smaller, we try to de-clutter, downsize and "edit" our own lives down to sparse details that make it relevant. How much longer then can books survive in this climate that seems hostile to the book itself? The book now takes up space, it is another thing to add to a pile, another ting to throw out or get rid of, a weight. It isn't the story that is dying, it is the medium, the presentation of the story that is changing. I admit it is with regret and no small sense irony that I type this. My message here is being broadcast on virtual paper with virtual words. Though if I had the choice it would be written and packaged with a cover, something you could pick up and leaf though and not need an internet connection to access. Something more in partnership with the concept of leisure.

Books to me are personal. I dog ear pages. I've dropped many books, mussed up many dust jackets, torn some pages and had books fall apart and clumsily taped them back together. I've highlighted some books, and underlined many others, jotted noted in sections. Even writing my name on the inside cover to convey ownership. I've made them mine no matter how I got them, once they were mine I made sure they stayed that way. I gave them my touch, my little mark of saying I read this and this is what I felt while doing it.

There are also the other nuances of books, the typeface chosen by the author, the picture of the author at the back, the cover design, the counting of pages to the next break, chapter or section. The smell of a new book, the feel of a new book, the feel of a book once loved, the oldness of the pages and the feeling that someone has been there before, the sound of flipping pages and the crinkle of the page as you turn it in anticipation eagerly seeking the next word. For me holding onto a book is a weight worth keeping.

Books can also be a conversation starters. I once got into a conversation about Marcel Proust with an elderly gentleman for six subway stops when he saw me reading the first book of Proust's "In Search of Lost Time." Seeing someone read a book in the open is a entrance into what that person is feeling, and brings back memories of what you might have felt when reading the same thing.

You can't do this on a machine. The is nowhere to dog ear a page. You can highlight but it makes it such a static response. It becomes dull and grey, full of pixels. Books don't run out of batteries and don't need you to adjust screen settings. You can lend a book to a friend but lending a machine to a friend seems downright silly. I would rather turn a pages then scroll up and down. Putting your hands over the pages in a book in oddly sensual but over an E-reader? It's just dirty, you have fingerprints you now need to clean up so you can see the screen and text clearly again. Books can be twirled, tossed and treated with more ease than a machine. Do that with an e-reader and you might have just royally fucked up your investment.

You could counter this and say that you can hold hundreds of texts on one device saving the burden of carrying and lugging all those texts around. I would argue that makes it more of a compendium to a book collection rather than something to replace it. Of the things in my one bedroom apartment I value most, I choose my bookshelf. It has been lovingly arranged in sections and by authors. It isn't because I want to show how many books I've read, it shows me however what I have read, what I value in literature and words. It serves as a personal time machine, I look at the shelves and see where my imagination has been taken, how my ideas have been formed though time. Its a visual representation of my love and learning, it shows how I've grown as a person, what genres and authors I've read and kept with me. I go back to those books many times over, re-reading them, looking at them and seeing how my thoughts on the books and their ideas themselves have evolved, changed and grown with the passing of time. As I continue to read the shelf cannot hope to contain all I purchase and keep, so books start being stacked. It looks messier just as my ideas and psyche push my mental boundaries of neatness and chaos. Books begin migrating to different places in the apartment wherever an inch of space can hold them. I fail to see this as a burden, I see it as a joy, an absolute, wonderful joy that allows me to express the love of literature I continue to cultivate and nurture and harvest. An E-Reader would be handy say if I was on a sabbatical or sojourn where I could not take the physical weight of all these books with me, but it would never replace the feeling of coming home and slowly choosing just the right book by looking at it on a shelf, in its place amongst others, handling it, find a spot to sit or lie down and opening it, cracking the spine a little and sinking into it without the feel of plastic or sound of whirring machinery peeling away form the experience. The emotional weight of the books, the journey through them, the journey of receiving them, far outweighs the physical burden of weight a books might have.


I realize it is inevitable that we will move to a paperless world. Our environment dictates that this will come to pass and it might be a better planetary solution. In the case of news it is an essential step forward. While I miss sitting with a newspaper and taking my time to go through the paper, in a constantly updating world where information is rapidly changing an E-reader is a good thing. I refresh news sites all the time because the information is constantly being updated and a simple morning paper becomes an anachronistic idea an hour after you've finished reading it.

Books don't change however. Once they are published (unless they are translations that need updating) they are what they are. They are rooted to their moment. There is no instant update for books. They are the whispers we seek in the dark.

More and more we type, we submit online, though the access of books is far more manageable than the internet. Books can be clandestine, can succeed where access has been blocked or threatened. Books can be passed, through secret hands far better than electronically monitored sources. They are hidden treasures that within contain hidden treasure of our hidden treasures. They are the messages we seek and send out.

The one thing I will miss the most if this truly does come to pass, is the sheer happiness I get from finding and discovering used bookstores like Seekers on Spadina and Bloor or the BMV at Yonge & Eglinton. Little gems or big ones anywhere in the world. Even if I never purchase anything there, but to go and spend time looking through collections, leafing through pages, finding just the right book. Finding a quirky shop or quirky owner, having impromptu discussions with them about books or hearing their thoughts on what you are buying. Spending time gazing and marveling at all the words and the freedom they project in a large store or seeing hundreds upon hundreds of books crammed into a small shop, wiping the dust off and examining the book. Finding something you've always wanted to read or something you read a long time ago and want to make part of your collection once more. The small things about book hunting that make it a pleasure to keep doing it over and over.

Maybe that's what it comes down to, I'm a collector of books, I am a collector of words. No machine can replace that. Machines break, they fizzle and sputter and require updating, collections do not require updating, only additions and I plant my flag on this land and invite you to join me on my island, where we can exchange words and books until our eyes close.

Thoughts From The Leaf Game (20)

1. Not one, not two, but three first period goals!!! Where did this Leaf team come from?

2. Carolina looks like they're storming back...

3. Blowing three goal leads and two goal leads is inexcusable

4. No matter the result, the shootout is an awful way to end a hockey game...

5. That being said, FIRE THIS COACH already. They just aren't listening

6. New slogan for the team --> The Toronto Maple Leafs - Where Goalies Come to Die.

Thoughts From The Leaf Game (19)

1. Toskala played a pretty solid game, again another game that was not his fault.

2. Phil Kessel is giving his all, it's a shame he has barely anyone to play with

3. What the hell has happened to Luke Schenn? Sophomore slump or big city pressure finally cracking the armour?

4. Mike Fisher is a bonafide Leaf killer...a centre that can play a two way game...

5. That being said, without a bonafide centre on this team, it reinforces how valuable Mats Sundin was to this team. Point per game player, at up 20-25 mins of ice time, a leader...you lose someone like that, it takes quote some time to recover

6. It is a source of pride and consternation that Leaf fans in the Ottawa region are louder than Leaf fans in Toronto. Its fun to hear but incredibly disheartening when you hear (or rather hear nothing from) Leaf fans at home

Thoughts From The Leaf Game (18)

1. Another game, another first goal allowed. While it isn't his joke, Jim Hughson nearly made me pee when he said it was a news item from the Department of Redundancy Department. Him and Ron Mclean should totally write a tv series for the CBC.

2. This really isn't the Goalies' faults. This defence stinks.

3. Phil Kessel is doing all he can to keep the Leafs hovering at below mediocre

4. I like that Kaberle is taking a more hands on approach, being vocal and showing some leadership...

5. That being said, does not having an identifiable captain on and off the ice lead to less accountability for the team and the players?

6. If I didn't have to go to a concert on Saturday night, this would have felt like another Saturday night wasted. I remember looking forward to Saturday nights not so long ago, and planning my nights around hockey...kinda sucks to be a Leaf fans these days (and has for some time) though right now it feels worse.

National

Em and I recently went up to the Northern Bruce Peninsula to celebrate our two year wedding anniversary. We secluded ourselves in a cottage for a week with supplies and trepidation in between Tobermory and Lion's Head Ontario.

If you would pardon the hyperbole (for none is intended), the time we spent there was transcendent, something very moving and altering. Sparked by the quiet of what surrounded us, we were able to hear ourselves and to feel our own rhythms move in time through the great open spaces we met at each corner. Having just the two us together in one place reinforced the beauty of our decision to be with each other for a time as long as always.



Perhaps the most powerful of the whole trip was when we visited to of our National parks in the Region - Bruce National Park and Fathoms Five National Park. In each of those places we dug our spirits into the terrain and sucked into our lungs the air, so little corrupted by commotive human sprawl. We walked among 1000 year old cedars, teetered and stumbled across kilometres of rock. We sat on cliffs of escarpment, lined with paintbursh autumn colours to see coastlines of water slapshing, pushing waving and slapping away at rocks as it has done for thousands of years. These movements of water have created caves, nooks, juts and jags across vast stretches of land, a constant washing and taking of sediment back and forth.



We ate lunch one whipping windy day on a bedline of rocks, hearing nothing but water crashing in a dance with the whistling wind while the pnly other sounds we heard were two bald headed eagles flying overhead.

We once again walked new sections of the Bruce Trail, that has a startpoint/endpoint in Tobermory and lends itself to a distance greater than 800 KM finishing just near Niagara Falls. The Bruce Trail is an absolute wonder of not only this province, but this country, an unspoiled man made volunteer sustained trail, sustaining the idea that in concert human beings are the most important and worthy caretakers of this planet. The Bruce Trail is a direct proof that if people care deeply about their surroundings they will do small, little things that when looked upon in sum total are unparalled in their unselfish motive.

Walking through the Bruce trail and through the National Parks, I came to realize how important the National Park program is to me even though these were the first two National Parks I had been to. As Canadians we are charged with the upkeep and sustenance of a wide swath of varied land and climate. This should never be seen as a burden, rather it is a task we should all be proud to bear. To protect such natural beauty as best we can is an honour. The most awe striking places on this planet exist within this country, they are ours to hold and grow. Inside these places is the soft chatter of evolution, each of us trying to find our place in this world. From the mud grows the lungs of the world, hundreds and thousands of years old, like us stretching timelessly upwards, dependent on its surroundings and those who might chance to pass by for kindness and acknowledgment. It is a warming thing and sometimes an infuriating thing when we realize how much damage we do daily to our planet and our country, how we still do not stand up for our right and our responsibilities towards this land that has so far kept us in good faith and good stead.

It is my sincere hope that we never settle, that we fight, we sweat and set forth with clenched muscles and teeth to a future where the we sustain the Earth as much as it sustains us, that we breathe in harmony with our places anywhere and everywhere on this planet. I hope that one day we dig as deep as we wish our roots to be spread, to insist that our environment be a prominent part of our social contract and continuing National conversation.

If you have ever felt what I felt those days, if you had ever seen what i had seen those days, then you would not think me mad, you would think the world itself mad for its suicide.


peacelovefreedomjustice
-s

Thoughts From The Leaf Game (17)

1. Why not just start every game 1-0 for the opposition? Saves a commerical break at least
2. For the leading scorer amongst defencemen, Tomas Kaberle sure forgets how to play defence sometimes
3. Nice Two Goals by Kessel, way to get us back into the game...
4. That being said, Toskala was the real reason we were even in this game into the third
5. Exciting last 10 minutes...where was this effort for the previous two and a half periods?
6. Chicago is a team Leaf fan hope theirs turns into one day soon...
   

Bibliophilia 2009

n the interest of keeping up this record of my reading, here is what I am currently reading and this list from now will be further broken down by month so I can scrutinize even further my reading habits.

Same chart symbols as last time, although addition of R to denote currently reading, F-[month] to denote month finshed.

January

1. The Athlete's Way - Christopher Bergland (F-Jan) [started in December]
2. The Beautiful and Damned - F. Scott Fitzgerald (F-Jan)
3. Proust Was a Neuroscientist - Jonah Lehrer (F-Jan)

February

1. Son of A Smaller Hero - Mordecai Richler (F-Feb)
2. The Winter of Our Discontent - John Steinbeck (F-Feb)
3. How Soccer Explains the World - An Unlikely Theory of Globalization - Franklin Foer (F-Feb)
4. Fifth Business - Robertson Davies (F-Feb)

March

1. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood (F-Mar)
2. The Tin Flute (English Translation) - Gabrielle Roy (F-Mar)
3. Memories of My Melancholy Whores (English Translation) - Gabriel Garcia Marquez(F-Mar)
4. The Watchmen - Alan Moore (GN) * (F-Mar)
5. The 12 Stages of Healing - Donald M. Epstein (F-Apr)

April

1. Tale of the Body Thief - Anne Rice (F-Apr)
2. Memnoch the Devil - Anne Rice (F-Apr)
3. Farenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury (F-May 1st)

May

1. White Noise - Don Delillo (F-May)
2. Sandman Vol.1 Preludes & Nocturnes (GN) - Neil Gaiman (F-May)*
3. Sandman Vol.2 The Doll's House (GN) - Neil Gaiman (F-May)*
4. Sandman Vol.3 Dream Country (GN) - Neil Gaiman (F-May)*
5. Sandman Vol.4 Season of Mists (GN) - Neil Gaiman (F-May)*
6. Dubliners (SS) - James Joyce (F-May)
7. Sandman Vol.5 A Game of You (GN) - Neil Gaiman (F-May)*
8. Sandman Vol.6 Season of Mists (GN) - Neil Gaiman (F-May)*
9. Crime and Punishment (English Translation) - Fyodor Dostoevsky (F-May)
10. The Unbearable Lightness of Being (English Translation) - Milan Kundera (F-May)

June

1. Sandman Vol.7 Brief Lives - Neil Gaiman (GN) (F-June) *
2. St. Urbain's Horseman - Mordecai Richler - (F-June)
3. The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand (F-June)

July

1. The Portable Jung - Carl Jung (edited by Joseph Campbell) (F-September)

August

1. ChiRunning - Danny Dreyer ( F-September)
2. Sandman Vol.8 World's End - Neil Gaiman (GN) (F-August)*
3. The Billion Dollar Game: Behind the Scenes of the Greatest Day In American Sport - Super Bowl Sunday - Allen St. John (F-September)

September

1. Jacon Two-Two and the Hooded Fang - Mordecai Richler (F-September)*
2. Neuromancer - William Gibson (F-September)
3. The Killing Joke - Alan Moore (F-September) (GN)
4. Arkham Asylum - A Serious House on Serious Earth - Grant Morrison(F-September) (GN)

October

1. Dead Souls - Nikolai Gogol (F-November)

November

1. Two Treasties on Government - John Locke (F-November)
   
2. Dreaming Your Real Self - Joan Mazza (F-November)
   

December

1. Of Human Bondage - W. Somerset Maugham (F-December)
   
2. Sandman Vol. 9 The Kindly Ones - Neil Gaiman (GN) * (F-December)
   
3. Sandman Vol. 10 The Wake - Neil Gaiman (GN)* (F-December)
   

peacelovefreedomjustice

-s

"This is a completed transmission log from the Freecity"

Thoughts From The Leaf Game (16)

1. Do this team like playing from behind? Another game scored on first

2. After two big wins, back down to Earth we come

3. Is this what happens when you name a starting goaltender in this city?

4. That being said, Gustavsson's defence totally left him out to dry last night

5. Matt Stajan's tenure in Toronto is looking shorter and shorter

6. Where is the pride in singing the National Anthem in this city? Especially for a Rememberance Day game? Even I sing it at home and there are many reasons I should not even care, but I do and am saddened that more people in this city do not...

Thoughts From The Leaf Game (15)

1. Scored first and at home! Is the ship turning?

2. Gustavsson is incredible in goal. He is the single reason the Leafs are turning it around now

3. Kessel finally has the monkey off his back and did it quickly in his Leaf career. Way to stay a step ahead of the curmudegeons in our lot

4. The Leafs look confident, are exciting to watch and look more comfortable playing with each other...that being said

5. After railing on the coaching in the early on and even with a great goalie backstopping the team to success, the coaching has to be applauded for getting the team to stay focused during a very rough start to the season

6. For the first time in a long time a Leaf crowd that showed some emotion. The bandwagon has officially opened its doors

Thoughts From The Leaf Game (14)

1. Another game, another first goal given up

2. Gustavsson looks shaky early on...

3. Great response staying in the game, keeping focused and not giving up,

4. That being said...a goalie that doesn’t give up is of the foremost importance and the key to giving your team the confidence to play themselves back into the game

5. This has still been a very sloppy game

6. A win and in regulation! Something is up with this team...confidence has suddenly started to re-appear.

Another 5th of November has come upon us and i take this time to reflect for a small moment upon the eternal message of the day, namely that government mischief is what bequeaths mischievousness in its people.
When we see a government abandon its duties of governance,
when a government forsakes modesty for pomp and celebration of itself,
when a government induces fear rather than eases it,
when a government begins to censor selectively rather than discourse freely,
when a government wishes to murder intelligence and thought in the names of freedom and profitability,
it is then that we must ask ourselves the following: why have we allowed this?, what will we do to stop this? and when will allow ourselves the liberty of our own discretion and afford others their liberty of theirs?

so then
remember remember the 5th of November
Gunpowder treason and plot
I see no reason gunpowder treason
should ever be forgot!

peavelovefreedomjustice
-s

"this is a repeating message from the still free city"

Thoughts From The Leaf Game (13)

1. Wow this goalie looks good.

2. So does theirs

3. That hit on Kessel almost induced a mass Leaf Nation suicide...

4. That being said he made everyone around him look better last night while taking 18 TOTAL SHOTS! (no goals however, welcome to Toronto.)

5. Two key players, make this team far more exciting to watch

6. It is an indictment on the NHL and their ludicrous post lockout point system that the leafs have a point in all the games they have lost. In competition somtimes there are ties no matter how well one team performs above another. I do not care if it helps the Leafs currently, this point system is a travesty on the nature of competition and what it should take to earn a single point in this league. Simply by tying a game at the end of a sixty minute frame is no reason for an award and this team and many others are very lucky in this “modern era” to be gain in the standings by losing games in overtime procedures.

Thoughts From The Leaf Game (12)

1. Scored First!

2. The Powerplay is coming along quite nicely. Nice to see it in action

3. See what happens when fans get cocky? Nananana,Heyheyhey thanks for getting us back in the game...

4. That being said, a win would have been the sweetest justice for that instead of the night ending the teasing manner it did

5. Two shootout goals, glove side. All year long glove side. All last season glove side. Anyone seeing a pattern here?

6. Without a consistent, reliable hard skating centreman, can Phil Kessel really be the saviour? Most likely a defining moment for Matt Stajan in a Leafs sweater