The Oppenheimer Report - 3/16/15

"Puddlejumping"
 

Today, Sunday, I went for my first walk of the season on our frozen lake. It’s something I like to do, but this winter has been so particularly cold and harsh that I just didn’t feel like venturing out much. Besides, since late December, our front lawn has been under about four feet of snow, and it’s a bit of a wade to get down to the shore. So, I went out for that walk today. It was relatively warm, the sun was shining, the sky was blue, the lake was a vast moonscape of snow-covered ice, and I walked about a half mile down the shore and back. Over by the mouth of the nearby Magnetewan River, where the water never freezes, there was a crowd of people and a bunch of snowmobiles. Some of the people were wearing orange vests, and my immediate assumption was that someone, either on a machine or on foot, had fallen through the ice. I figured I was watching some kind of rescue operation. Then, I heard the high pitched screaming of snow machines, and realized that this was a puddle-jumping rally. Puddle jumping, for those of you who do not know, is the practice of driving snowmobiles over open water. Having built up enough speed, one can hydroplane over open water with a snowmobile. I suppose this is a thrill, as long as one’s snowmobile does not conk out midway. I am told that there are competitions involving this practice, and that the some or all of the snowmobilers attach ropes and buoys to their machines so as to have something with which to retrieve them when they sink. This is the part that particularly puzzles me. I’m not exactly sure what the driver is supposed to do, now relieved of his or her “floatation device” and bobbing around in open ice water, but perhaps they wear wet suits  and life jackets underneath their winter wear. People tell me that some of these daredevils travel long distances over open water, sometimes many miles. Perhaps this is some kind of weird right of spring around here. On one of my ice walks a few years ago, I came upon a party at the one ice fishing hut out on our lake, and there were quit a few snow machines parked there. One guy had an ATV with tank treads mounted instead of wheels, and I remarked to the owner that it must go through any kinds of rough terrain. His answer surprised me: it will travel through almost anything, but slush. On my walk today, the surface was exactly that, slush.

Last Thursday night, I hosted my second edition of Lyrical Workers, my radio show on Hunter’s Bay Radio about songwriters and song writing. This one went a little smoother than the first one, and I was a bit more conversant than I had previously been. I had a little practice, because, on the Wednesday before, my producer and collaborator Juan Barbosa and I did an interview on the HBR live show Talent on the Bay, hosted by fellow songwriter Sean Cotton. We talked about my upcoming album, and my new radio show, and about the novelty – for me anyway – of recording an album of songs in a studio. Oddly enough, these live radio interviews and performances do not make me nearly as nervous as does being in the studio alone and hosting a three hour show. There, I am responsible for manning the mic and the equipment, and without elaborating, there is much that can go wrong. During the day, there are people on site to assist, but starting in a week or so, I will be on my own for this evening show, and that terrifies me. Just another cliff to jump off; it’s getting easier.

Final notes …The beginning of this week marked International Women’s Day, wherein the world acknowledges and promotes the achievements of women throughout the world. I read a disturbing article in the New York Times over the weekend about women’s shelters in Kabul, Afghanistan, and about honor killings in that country. We in North America are slowly working towards gender equality, but it is still inconceivable to me that other cultures still consider it permissible and acceptable to disfigure, torture, and kill a woman on the grounds of infidelity, and many other "offenses". My acceptance of other cultural practices stops when it includes enslavement, torture, or murder. And that morally repugnant cultural aberration is practiced in North America. Apple introduced its new computer watch thingy, and perhaps that is the next big thing, but I can’t see it. Then again, Luddite that I am, I never thought I would use my phone to access the internet, but I have done so  on occasion. The Juno Awards took place last night and Canada's music elite assembled in Hamilton, Ontario for the event. Hamilton's own The Arkells were big winners, and  80 year-old singer songwriter Leonard Cohen won Best Album ( Popular Problems), beating out rock band Nickelback. I'm a big Cohen fan. Nickelback, not so much.

Spring is almost here!

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2015 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED