Happy Covid Halloween 2020!

 

Canada Geese at Meadowbrook Golf Course

 Morning walk, 18 October 2020.

Our Sparrow Friend

This little sparrow said, "take my picture and put me on your blog." And so I did.

 

"Montre-moi par où on commence. Dis-le-moi au creux de l'oreille", by Marc-Antoine Côté

 

". . . A new work of public art outside the building, “Montre-moi par où on commence. Dis-le-moi au creux de l’oreille,” by Quebec artist Marc-Antoine Côté, stands two storeys tall. Made from 2,700 kilograms of metal — mainly aluminum — the sculpture’s title roughly translates to “Tell me where we start. Whisper it right into my ear,” which invites passersby to interact directly with the work, to the point of stepping right inside of it if they wish. “By going inside the sculpture, people get a perspective that’s completely different than what they see from above, from the surrounding buildings or from the ground,” Côté says." (Quoted from a Concordia University publication.)

 

October walk to Meadowbrook Golf Course

We don't need more condos, we have enough of them. What we need is to preserve the little bit of nature that we have left in the city. Here are some photographs of the short walk to Meadowbrook Golf Course; last summer the sides of the road were stripped of many of the trees that made this a pleasant walk, but nature is resilient, it is slow but nature is returning. Of course, there is a developer lusting after every square inch of land they can get their hands on, they want to build more cheaply constructed condos. We need to protect whatever land we have left, land that hasn't been turned into these monstrous condo buildings.  

 

Birds in the bird bath

Nothing has brought as much happiness this summer as seeing birds in our bird bath. I change the water in the morning and then, later, the birds arrive, sitting in the water, dunking their heads under the water and flapping their wings so the water sprays over them. Even today, 7 October 2020, there was a big fat robin sitting in the water by himself. It's not particularly warm outside, maybe + 15 C., but there he is, enjoying himself, having a great time. When he leaves the feathers on his head are all sticking up and spiky, like some kid trying to look sharp.

 

Resonances (2018), sculpture by Mathieu Gaudet

Mathieu Gaudet's Resonances is located at Ecole Judith-Jasmin in the West End of Montreal. It is made of poured black concrete; the sculpture is a wave, it can be any type of wave; for instance,  "resonance" is defined as

. . . the phenomenon of increased amplitude that occurs when the frequency of a periodically applied force (or a Fourier component of it) is equal or close to a natural frequency of the system on which it acts.

But "resonances" also suggests something different, it is to "resonate", to identify with something, or

to have particular meaning or importance for someone : to affect or appeal to someone in a personal or emotional way. 

And one resonates with this sculpture, perhaps one thinks of a beach and waves approaching where one is sitting, or it might suggest a metaphysical perception of life and open the viewer to new ideas. 

Resonances works on different levels of meaning. As an object it is utilitarian, it is a partition separating the entrance to the new building from the larger green area of the older building to which it is attached. I think the sculpture gives the entrance a feeling of privacy and intimacy; the entrance to the new building is secluded, the ornamental grass giving it a feeling of solitude, of being in nature. It is a wave, showing how a new idea may begin with a single thought and then grow into something much larger and more profound. 

Another level of meaning is metaphysical, the sculpture is a long black object, black and in some ways forbidding, but also elegant. You have two elements at work here, water and earth, and they are often considered in opposition to each other. A wave is always changing and this wave changes as sunlight plays off of it. The shadow of the sculpture, black like the sculpture, is a second wave, and both are impermanent, temporal, subject to either the long term change of material deteriorating or to the short term way sunlight changes one's perception of something. In either case, change is always present, whether short or long term.