bowling trophy

Friday

Elaun & bag

Bake sale ladies

1959 Christmas book with swell graphics

Saturday

Jay & Emolin

Elaun

Yummy breakfast

Willow

The only tool you’ll ever need

My favourite thing about this annual rummage sale is the smell of onions frying (I wish I could capture that in a picture). I usually have a smokie or european wiener slathered in onions but breakfast was so filling I didn’t even consider it.

Yesterday I took my parents to church to have their Easter basket blessed by the priest. The car was filled with the heady and intoxicating aroma of garlic sausage (good thing I love it).

Ukrainian Easter breakfast at my parent’s house is a meal I eagerly anticipate each year.

Some people put candy eggs and chocolate bunnies in their baskets, but my folks are old school and that’s just fine with me. Their basket includes fresh horseradish (the big root on the left), ham, ham sausage, garlic sausage, boiled eggs, Ukrainian Easter eggs decorated by my very talented niece (not for eating, of course), green onions, garlic, cottage cheese and sweet Easter bread (babka).

Butter studded with cloves in the shape of the Orthodox cross.

Another of my niece’s hand decorated eggs. Her detail work and steady hand are amazing.

A relish of pickled beats and fresh horseradish. This is my favourite. Be careful not to get any on your clothes or tablecloth - the red never comes out.

Canada goose

One car pile-up

My friend Elicia posted this picture of herself on her myspace blog recently. She traded a tiki mug for this hand-knit sock monkey tuque (that’s wool hat for you non-Canucks). If you want to knit me one, the pattern is here (I don’t knit or iron, thank you very much).

I love anything to do with sock monkeys. A few years back I bugged my friend Nancy to make me one for my birthday and to my surpise and delight she did. Thanks Nancy. Hug!

She covered up the eyes by mistake with the mouth/nose patch and put the ears on top of its head instead of on the sides, so it looks like the ears are its eyes. In fact, it looks more like a sock frog than a sock monkey. A blind sock frog at that. Matter of fact, Blind Sock Frog is its name.

Link: The Sock Monkey Experience

Oh the weather outside is frightful, but the return of church rummage sale season is so delightful.

I passed on these 3 rattan barstools for $20 which I know I’ll regret on that distant day when I finally have a tiki bar in my house:

I bought this CD for a buck - not the kind of music you expect to find in a church basement:

Meow Records of Prince George B.C. is the best record store in Canada according to a vote conducted by CBC Radio 3. Two Edmonton record stores placed in the top 10: Sound Connection and Listen Records.

In honor of International Record Store Day, here are the record stores of Edmonton:

None of these is my favourite record store, though. I’d have to say these are:

Les Classels: en spectacle

The 60s were a golden age of gimmicky bands in Québec: Les Classels dressed all in white (including their hair), César et les Romains wore togas and sandals, Les Excentriques wore metalic pink tuxedos. These groups mostly recorded French cover versions of American and British hits of the day. Les Classels also recorded some songs in English, as well as original songs (in French) by their guitar player Jean Clément Drouin and their manager Ben Kaye. Then the 70s came along and singer/songwriters like Robert Charlebois ruined everything.

Les Classels on YouTube:

While researching this post, I came across this:

René Angélil (on the left) in a band called Les Baronets. Just think: if they’d had the enduring success of The Beatles or the Stones, today Céline might be a lounge singer in Chicoutimi.

Edmonton is going to be the site of an international Leonard Cohen festival this July. There’s been an annual Leonard Cohen Night held here since 2002, but this is a bigger event with concerts, poetry readings, visual arts, open mikes, Cohen-centric city tours, academic talks, and delegates attending from around the world. Featured performers include Jann Arden, Serena Ryder, Tom Rush, and Australian band Monsieur Camembert whose concert is called “Famous Blue Cheese.” One notable absence will be the great man himself. Cohen avoids these type of events, and will in any case be in the thick of his own world tour, which won’t be coming to Edmonton or any Canadian cities west of Ontario. A pity, really, since at age 73 how many tours can he have left in him? (I suspect he wouldn’t even be doing this tour if his former manager hadn’t swindled him out of his retirement nest egg). Cohen’s been here before, of course - most famously in 1966 when he wrote Sisters of Mercy. I saw him perform in 1988 (supporting I’m Your Man) and in 1993 (The Future). At one of those concerts he told of another chance encounter in Edmonton, this time not with young girls in miniskirts, but with a gathering of Chinese poets in a restaurant (I’ve forgotten the details of this anecdote and maybe I don’t even have this much right - maybe someone who was there can refresh my memory?)

Cost for the entire event is $145 plus tax - a bargain. Website.

Ruth Wallis: Here’s Looking Up Your Hatch

Ruth Wallis was the queen of risqué novelty tunes in the 40s, 50s and 60s, selling hundreds of thousands of records without the benefit of radio play. She and her husband formed their own record label, Wallis Original Records, in 1952 because the major labels weren’t interested in artists who specialized in double entrendres. Wallis wrote all her own lyrics and music - more than 150 songs in total. In 1966 she started recording for King Records, who also purchased her back catalogue (King was also James Brown’s label). The songs on this record include The Admiral’s Daughter, De Gay Young Lad, Hawaiian Lei Song and Johnny Had A Yo Yo.

click to enlarge

I think Ruth’s records have aged better than similar “party” records because of their superior production values (she always hired excellent session players and arrangers), her talent and as a songwriter and singer, and her sense of fun, which is more impish than smutty.

The saucy chanteuse died shortly before Christmas last year.