The Arkells are a great power pop 5-piece band from Hamilton, Ontario that I’ve heard live and enjoy very much. I last wrote about them in 2013 with these pics from that show, a shot of the band in action, and me with lead singer Max Kerman.
Today, I found a video they’ve recently done that casts the five bandmates with their fathers. It’s funny and kind of sweet. I hope you enjoy it as I have.
As I’d documented as recently as this past June, when I posted here about my visit to Toronto for the annual NXNE festival, the city has a fabulous music scene, with many great local bands and dozens of superb venues. I’m excited to see that now a coalition of artists, promoters, and civic officials have banded together to promote the cultivation of music as an economic driver in the city. View the video here or above: http://ow.ly/Ba3kh
To chronicle my recent Midwest August vacation, I’ve used Storify, the Web platform that lets bloggers incorporate social media posts in with their own writing. Once a piece is published on Storify, you can grab a handy embed code and paste it in at your websites, where it populates precisely as you’ve composed it. The piece is titled “By Train—STL to CHI/CHI to CLE/CLE to NYC, August 2014.” You may click here to read it at my page on Storify, or over at The Great Gray Bridge. I do hope you enjoy reading it, and if you also happen to enjoy writing sequential, diary-like narratives, I recommend you try Storify. It’s my second one, after “Great Music & Great Times in Toronto for NXNE, June 2014,” which includes travel and tourism info about Toronto, notes on restaurants, bookstores, shopping, and architecture, along with my music coverage of the NXNE festival, and which has now had more than 765 readers.
Seen somewhere in upstate NY aboard #LakeshoreLtd from Cleveland to NYC. @Amtrak pic.twitter.com/5aPteJdJd3
— Philip Turner (@philipsturner) August 19, 2014
Canadian train travelers, I’m sure VIA Rail gives you headaches at times, but consider yourself fortunate you don’t have Amtrak as your national passenger rail carrier. On our recent vacation, my wife and I flew to St. Louis, and after seeing family for a few days there, began voyaging back east on the rails. From St. Louis, we took Amtrak to Chicago, arriving almost ninety minutes late that night. After three days there we took a 9:30 PM train, the Lakeshore Limited, that actually left at 10:30, then arrived the next morning in Cleveland at 9:30, instead of 5:30. Following three days in Cleveland, we boarded the Lakeshore Limited again, a 5:50 AM train that left at 7:10. It arrived thirteen hours later in NYC, about two hours later than its scheduled arrival.
In the course of these trips we learned that Amtrak doesn’t really own the track its trains ride on, and is thus subject to the schedules of the freight haulers who do own the rails. I love train journeys, but Amtrak makes it really hard to love it at all.
On @Amtrak heading from STL to Chicago where @GallupKyle &I will be hanging w/Stan Klein of Firecat Projects. pic.twitter.com/r6ClnML9Rg
— Philip Turner (@philipsturner) August 12, 2014
New 'antique' Shoeless Joe baseball mitt in shop at Missouri History Museum. "Say it ain't so, Joe!" pic.twitter.com/tZfyeiWjXx
— Philip Turner (@philipsturner) August 8, 2014
Having a great time on vacation in St. Louis with my wife Kyle, son Ewan, and his best pal, Nolan Marsh. Soon, my wife and I will be on our way to Chicago, then Cleveland.
‘Two New Holes Mysteriously Appear in Siberia’ http://t.co/I4IJUNBZk4 #headlinesyoudidn‘tseeintimemagazinebeforetheinternet
— Robert Wright (@robertwrighter) July 29, 2014
This tweet of author Robert Wright that I shared linked to a TIME magazine story about mysterious craters in Siberia, and an aerial video view of the holes in the earth.
Later, I read another story, in ThinkProgress, suggesting that the emergence of these holes in the earth may well be the result of permafrost melting in the Arctic tundra, auguring an accompanying release of tons of methane gas, a worrisome development that if correct bodes ill for its effect on the global climate. Here’s a screenshot from the article by Ari Phillips.
The next day, I read Fred Barbash’s Washington Post article about the appearance of huge sea sells in the Arctic Ocean, where only ice has been seen before. These two discoveries leave little doubt in my mind that the coldest places on the planet are warming in ways that are having a dramatic effect on earth and sea.
This can’t be good–“16 foot wave swells reported in once-frozen region of Arctic Ocean,” reports @FBarbash. http://t.co/0erAo3W4kD — Philip Turner (@philipsturner) July 30, 2014
— Philip Turner (@philipsturner) July 30, 2014
In completing my coverage of NXNE, the Toronto music festival I attended June 17-24 as accredited press, I’ve used Storify, the platform that lets bloggers incorporate social media posts in with their own writing. Once a piece is published on Storify, you can grab a handy embed code and paste it in at your websites, where it populates precisely as you assembled it. The piece is titled “Great Music & Great Times in Toronto for NXNE 2014,” “a collection of illustrated social sharing culled from my timelines 6/17-6/24, w/commentary; links to bands & venues; plus content I’m borrowing with acknowledgement of & appreciation for other music fans who shared about NXNE, creating a visual diary of the festival.” Please click here to read it on Storify, or here on Honourary Canadian. I hope you enjoy reading the piece which includes travel and tourism info about Toronto, offering some notes on restaurants, bookstores, shopping, and architecture, along with my music coverage.