As you recall Rasputin the mystic attached himself like a parasite to Mother Russia attempted to seize Tsardom isolated and lost in mystic haze graze on the oligarchs thievery masked in the international banking haze devoid of reality after locking his wife in a monastery to dilly dally with a ballerina who ended up in floating heads in a marina Poor Ballerina focus on building back the empire of holy mother Russia pardon me a la style of Prussia we are waiting for you in a war crimes trial unless you continue to poison opposition members with plutonium in a vial enjoy your cuppa Supreme leader a la Stalin you desperate vermin
When you watch “Audible” which is nominated for best Documentary Short in the upcoming Academy Awards you may take a sympathetic view of a deaf football team along the lines of feeling sorry for them and hoping they win the upcoming homecoming game after losing to another deaf school football team from Texas after a 42-game win streak. I might have taken that view but after watching a few indie films and “The Sound of Metal” my sympathy I feel is misdirected and ignorant. This deaf football team and deaf people don’t want our sympathy. I think they want our respect. This road of respect may take you some time to travel but on the other hand you could be spinning your wheels in the mud of sympathy.
I could write on and give you a summary of the film but I feel I have made my point which is as much as a film critic can ask for.
Enough said other than respect the deaf as they have much to teach “us” who lack the attributes the deaf have. They are no lesser human being than “us”. Ditch your sympathy. It is not appreciated. The deaf are “us”.
Today was my first full day in Sofia so I took the tram into the city centre and had breakfast of a slab of bread and some strange green soft drink without a label. The green Blob Juice seems to be the only soft drink in Bulgaria. The architecture in the city centre was beautiful as opposed to the drab and ugly high rises that predominate in the suburbs. I went to a supermarket to get some milk but it tasted sour and I could only drink half of it. Hopefully the other soft drinks were going to be better. While walking to the tram stop I ran into some greasy type looking guy that wanted to change western money with me giving me a song and dance how his mother was ill and needed Western money to buy medicine. No thank you. I said I would meet him later tomorrow at 6 for the deal but was just saying that to get him off my back. I realized after that I actually have no western money but American Express Traveller’s cheques.
I ran into 3 European guys from the west and their mouths dropped when they saw me, They asked how I entered the country with such long hair. They had come in by train and were told get your haircut here and now if you want to come into the country. Not only that the police could stop you in the street and pull you into a barber shop. So I quickly pony tailed up and tucked it under my collar. Having to dodge the haircut police is a new game for me. Talk about hippie hate! So I made it home and had some pear nectar I bought. It was just like the Fructal pear nectar in Yugoslavia. I went down to the cafeteria and had a salami sandwich for dinner. I walked around the ugly suburb getting many stares and I should change my name to Mr. Martian. It is very cold here at night. I came back to my dormitory and read until the power went out so there be nothing to do I went to bed. Being an uncultured beach bum it is off to the Black Sea beach scene to check it out.
If you are on auto pilot and hear “Mendoza” your mind will go bing bing and it will text you “Argentinian Malbec”. But there are some good Cabernet Sauvignons and Cabernet Francs there as well. The generous James Suckling gave this one a 95 and if history serves me correctly this usually means I’ll give it a 92 or 93. But history does not always repeat itself. On the nose it portrays itself as a serious and firm wine. It gives out a big blast of blueberry and blueberry jam in true warm weather Cabernet Sauvignon fashion. Lesser notes of raspberry and cherry with an undeniable creaminess.
On the palate there are some serious tannins. Hefty notes of blueberry, strawberry jam and a twist of charcoal and dark chocolate. The finish is tough and firm suggesting given the barrage of fruit on the nose it needs to age a couple of years before opening. It seems that it would be happy with grilled sausages, beef and lamb. It would be difficult to pair with a vegetarian dish but it just might suit a Mushroom Wellington if decanted an hour prior to pouring. Essentially for those with a cellar and time on their hands. The wine has been in oak for 10 months however the oak is not readily apparent.
Oh history is accurate vis a vis James Suckling as I give it a 93.
(Tapiz Alta Collection 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon, San Pablo Vineyard Uco Valley, Mendoza, Tapiz Winery, San Pablo, Mendoza, Argentina, $19.95, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 403345, 750 mL, 14.2%, Robert K. Stephen A Little Birdie Told Me Rating 93/100).
Today is a big travelling day with Bulgarian airline Balkan Airways flying from Athens to Sofia in Bulgaria. Two very recent crashes are in the news. One a Pan Am crash and the other an Ozark Airlines crash in St. Louis. Woke up at 8 a.m. and could have slept in but that would have meant missing breakfast. Had a good hot shower wondering what the hot water situation in Bulgaria will be. I carefully put my ponytail behind my collar and put on the most decent clothes I brought. Cold toast and some cake for breakfast and I managed to get some more cake from an English couple who were not eating it. Taxi to airport and the flight was delayed for two hours so passengers got a voucher for a free beverage. After a two hour delay we boarded the plane full of seedy looking men in poor quality suits. On a Russian TU-134 which looks like a DC-9. The interior of the lane was a dull gray and the tables a slab of grey metal. The seats were small and the stewardesses very dour. Take-off was smooth and I must admit I was nervous given the two plane crashes. Lunch was amusing; a salami sandwich and a thick plastic cup they filled with mineral water. They didn’t announce the landing so when the engines suddenly switched power I thought this is it! But we landed on a bumpy tarmac. Everything is so green here like Canada. Customs was a breeze and they, unlike the paranoid East Germans didn’t bother to look at the luggage. I felt like a Martian with so many people staring at me and my long shoulder length hair liberated from its ponytail. I took an 84 bus into Sofia and then a number 10 tram. I managed to find a state tourist office which had a poster for a student dormitory and in the rain caught a #14 tram out in the suburbs. Loads of Iraqis and Turks around. Holding my money tight. I shared my room with an Italian student and popped out went to bed after listening to some opera as that was the only clear station the radio could pick up.
Wreckage from the Ozark Airlines crash; Photo George Sayer Plane crashes made the author nervous!
Mom’s last day. I woke at 7:30 and phoned Balkan Airways to find out that the next flight to Sofia Bulgaria was leaving Athens in 5 minutes so I’d have to wait until tomorrow. I then rang Overseas National Airways about getting Mom back to North America. We went downstairs and tore savagely into our breakfast. The waitress brought 3 helpings of toast and even then I wasn’t full. Upstairs to brush the teeth and off to Athens Airport. Great confusion at the Overseas National Airways counter. Is the plane going to Dallas or Los Angeles? Who knows where Mom will end up! I went to the roof and after two hours saw her plane take off to goodness knows where. Good-bye and good luck! I finally found a nearby airport hotel which I had a two-kilometre walk to get to as no taxi driver would pick me up. The long hair and knapsack made me the victim of hippie discrimination. My money is as good as Mr. and Mrs. Straightlacer’s. The hotel was $7 and it included breakfast and dinner. It was a very nice room. I wrote three postcards went to the beach and watched the sunset over the beach and came over to the hotel for a good dinner. I sat out on the hotel balcony for a bit and came back to my room and crashed out. Bulgaria here I come.
Well our last full day in Greece for 1973. A great morning swim and most likely my last in such beautiful waters as I head behind the Iron Curtain. After our morning swim a hot shower then breakfast of oranges, rusks and honey. We left for the docks at 11:30 and Michael the Dutchie was starting to drink beer and lots of it. We waited for 4 hours for the boat. Ferry schedules are rather unreliable in Greece! Mom’s temper is boiling and she is becoming angry with the poor Greek sailors. I just let it roll off my shoulders. Michael the Dutchie just keeps packing away beer. We arrived at Piraeus about 9 p.m. It was a nice trip as we had a couple of guitar players on deck class. We had a can of sardines, bread and grapes for dinner on board. After a long search we ended up in Glyfada a beach suburb of Athens at a nice hotel called the Riviera. Mom is super cranky I am getting a bit anxious about my trip behind the Iron Curtain. Yugoslavia was communist but a liberal communist country. Bulgaria is hard core communist. My goodness why am I heading into the wilds where so few Westerners go. What troubles will my sense of adventure get me in? I am going ahead with this and most likely because so few are willing to wade into hostile communist territory. I think about how curiosity killed the cat.
The Canadian television series “Visionary Gardeners” is a five-part series premiering March 7, at 9 p.m. ET on Vision TV and it runs for 5 weeks in half hour segments. It features avid Canadian gardeners with their own vision of what a garden is. You may think the series is about them and their gardens and that is true and of course that is interesting particularly if you are gardener. But these episodes may help viewers develop their own ideology of gardening. After all doesn’t a vision necessitate an ideology?
In “Northern Garden”, which airs on March 14th at 9 p.m. Adrienne Clarkson former television personality and Governor General of Canada and John Ralston Saul a writer, philosopher and intellectual muse about their small but dense urban garden in Toronto.
Adrienne Clarkson
It is becoming apparent to me that passionate gardeners are likely to have a coherent philosophy and ideology surrounding their gardening. I can’t divulge Clarkson’s or Ralston Saul’s philosophy of gardening as I’ll let you do that. It is interesting though that both had an exposure to gardening when they were younger. Clarkson was of humble background being the child of newly arrived immigrants where gardening for food was a way of stretching the tight budget. Ralston Saul and his brother used to grow fruits and vegetables they could enter in agricultural competitions. For Clarkson when you garden the earth is telling you something and can be an image for people into what paradise could be.
John Ralston Saul and Adrienne Clarkson
Ralston Saul is a proponent of a Northern Garden namely what has always grown in Canada and prefers perennials over annuals. He makes an interesting point that the English colonists to Canada acted as if they stood above the earth as if they could tell it what to do.
The beautiful cinematography continues in episode two. If you can’t catch it on Vision TV you can watch it free for two weeks after each episode airs at http://www.visiontv.ca. Note that it is only available for streaming on devices in Canada at the moment.
“Visionary Gardeners” is from Ian Toews and Mark Bradley of Victoria, British Columbia based 291 Film Company.
This morning it was not only screaming mothers but roosters crowing that awoke us. I went to the market to buy some oranges and peaches for breakfast. I bought three oranges for 30 cents and the vendor said he had “fine fine” peaches. They were badly bruised. He must take me for a chump. Using my limited Greek I said his peaches were rotten and walked away. It was oranges, rusks and honey for breakfast then off to the beach for three hours to return home for a lunch of rusks, canned sardines and watermelon. The Dutchies and us packed up getting ready for our trip tomorrow to Piraeus. We walked to a restaurant and got a table before a line up of people started. We had an unhurried meal and the staff was trying to get people in and out of the restaurant quickly. In Greece of 1971, they wouldn’t even serve your dinner until 7 and you could have a relaxed meal. Are there dollars in their eyes? It is even getting more difficult to find a room. The Greeks seem ruder and more impatient. We had a tasteless pastry at a café for dessert and went to see an old 1940 movie called Rebecca at an open-air cinema. It was a great movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock starring Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier
In Greece I have been woken up by motorbikes, church bells, flies and donkeys braying. But on this island it is screaming mothers and children. Up early to catch a bus to what we have heard is a charming little village. The 9:00 bus never materialized so we had a lemonade and coconut cake for breakfast. It was a 20-minute ride in an oven. We took a walk along the main drag of this small town and bought two pairs of leather sandals for $8. We also bought our ship tickets back to Piraeus. Mom lost her hat and as much as we looked we could not find it. We took the bus back to Paros and I had lunch and Mom a cold beer. Our beds were unmade. I had a siesta until 5 and we went with Susan to the beach for the swim. After a few hours on the beach we headed home.
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