candicebshaw.wordpress.com

The deadline to submit your opinion regarding the mega quarry in Melanchton has been extended to July 11th – that’s tomorrow. This isn’t just a big deal to the people in my community. Aside from the vast environmental damage described in the above video, The Highland Companies have in no way documented or projected the consequences of a failure in their system of dewatering, pumping, and reinsertion of water. If the environmental implications don’t irk you, you might feel concerned about a company from the United States purchasing our farmland under the guise of a Canadian company that plans to develop the province’s largest potato growing operation.

Please submit an objection to the Melanchton mega quarry, no matter how brief, to the Environmental Registry of Ontario tonight. This can be done easily at their website here. It makes me sick that this is happening in the community where I grew up and where my family still lives. It should make you sick as an Ontarian and a Canadian.

It also helps to repost about the quarry so others are informed. If submitting an objection is a bit too time consuming, you can always sign this petition in under a minute: here

Here are a few helpful links if you’d like to read up on the issue:

Quarry info @ The Council of Canadians Blog

stopthemelanchtonquarry.ca

Quarry info @ the NDACT website

The Proposal Notice at the Environmental Registry of Ontario website

As I washed the breakfast dishes this morning, I was lucky enough to hear to the Kronos Quartet play a few songs live on the radio. They were introduced under the genre of ‘New Music’, which can be described as a modern form of classical or art music. I soon learned that the Kronos Quartet, originally formed in the 1970′s, have a massive repertoire that ranges from Jimi Hendrix songs to Philip Glass arrangements, Tom Waits accompaniments to commissioned songs by African, Latvian, and Azerbaijani composers. I got the feeling that no matter what they play, it always sounds new; even through the speakers of my tiny kitchen radio, their music was absolutely captivating and mind-opening.

They performed their beautiful take on Blind Willie Johnson’s “Dark is the Night”, followed by a cover of a Bollywood song completely unknown to me, and finally what I think was an original composition. Each song had me glued to the radio until the final sendoff. This afternoon I did a quick search online for the quartet, which revealed a pretty badass cover of Foxy Lady, and a recording of Sigur Ros’ Flugufrelsarinn. My very favourite was a live (and heart-breakingly incomplete) recording of the quartet covering Svefn-g-englar, my very favourite Sigur Ros song. Hearing that soaring cover live would be incredible.

Tonight they’re playing the Luminato Festival at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Performing Arts, for those spontaneous enough to get there by 8pm!

I’m being a bad blogger. I do get my computer back tomorrow though, so expect more than the odd video here soon.

Summer and Winter by Rozefire

I’ll be leaving
In the fairest of the seasons.

When beautiful, amazing things fall out of the sky, be ready to catch them.

Find more about Sarah Kay and Project Voice.
See Sarah Kay on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam .

And on a more intellectual note.