IF MUSIC BE THE FOOD OF LOVE...

Hanns F Skoutajan

“And he plays the piano good,

like a real piano player should:

Horowitz, hear, hear!”

It wasn’t Vladimir Horowitz, (1903 - 1989) who “ tinkled the ivories”  at Southminster United Church last Wednesday noon, but Mauro Bertoli, a young Italian born  pianist. He played on the beautiful Heintzman, a 9 foot concert grand, built in 1905 that for many years was the stage grand at the venerable Massey Hall in downtown Toronto. Indeed, years ago Horowitz himself had played this very instrument.

Roland Graham, the organist and choirmaster of Southminster United Church in Old Ottawa South (Bank Street and the Rideau Canal), and if I dare say, “impresario,” has initiated and directed Doors Open for Music at Southminster, a Wednesday noon-hour series begun earlier this year. This fall it will comprise 11 concerts that are affordable to all, a freewill offering at the door will be appreciated.

Bartoli who has a long list of accomplishments is presently Artist-in-Residence at Carleton University. He, at an early age, has acquired an international reputation that spans his homeland, Latin America, the United Sates and Canada.

His presentation on Wednesday in my estimation rivals any piano concert that I have attended. It was a wide-ranging repertoire  from Johannes Brahms  (1833 - 1897), the Intermezzo and concluded with George Gershwin’s (1898 - 19370) inimitable Rhapsody in Blue.  Schumann and Liszt were also part of his outstanding performance. 

But what brought me to my feet with loud “Wows:” and “Bravos” was his rendition of Allegro da Concerto  by Enrique Granados (1867 - 1916). I hurried to acquire his disc containing that performance after the show.

Speaking to Graham after the concert which by the way brought 150 people to Southminster’s hard pews, I marvelled at the rich resources of musical talent that is found in Ottawa and indeed across Canada. We are much more than “hewers of wood and haulers of water” or the modern equivalent thereof. Roland’s concerts showcase much talent giving young artist an opportunity to be appreciated.

Granted, these are short  concerts, more than hors d’oeuvres but a little less filling than a main course, enough to introduce you to performers  and music, some familiar and others a pleasant and surprising introduction to “now for something entirely  new.”  If Mauro Bartoli’s concert presages what is to come then my outburst of “wows”  at last week’s concert should be prolonged throughout the season.  All of this proves that Ottawa isn’t an entirely boring government town but indeed is rich in culture.

Across the country and abroad as well, churches have taken on the role of concert hall There is nothing new in that.  Even in the Middle Ages cathedrals hosted musical events, granted most of them were of a “sacred” nature, but then that‘s what most music was about  What better place for that Food of Love than a house of worship.  Rejoice in this rich heritage. Enjoy and support it! 

SQ 27/09/2013

Addendum:

For those in the Ottawa area who are able to take advantage of these concert the following is the line up of performances until Christmas:

Next week, October 2,Peter Woods, saxophone  and Brian Browne, piano, will make the case  for Jazz in Sacred Spaces, that is music in the modern vein to enhance Christian worship. 

In the following weeks there will be Lunchtime Lieder with Laurent Deleuil, baritone accompanied by Justine Pelletier on the piano. On subsequent  midweek concerts our wanderlust will be spirited by Vaughan William’s Songs of Travel with Jeff Boyd accompanied by Graham  himself. Other exciting  presentations will be Come Dance With Me  played on the piano by Katarzyna Musial, (Oct. 23). 

Graham has chosen from his own choir a chamber group  to sing Palestrina’s Missa Papea Marcelli ( Oct. 30).

From Vienna, one of my favourite cities and my father’s birthplace, to Paris, my wife’s favourite city, will feature  a piano duet  of Ioulia Blinova and Ruby Jin, (Nov. 13).

On November 8 Carolina Leonardelli will perform Paysages on harp which is sure to be enjoyed.

For a total change of pace look forward to Nov 20 to thrill to Mike Essoudry, Francois Gravel and Linsey Wellman, percussion, piano and woodwind.

The second last in this years series , Nov. 27, will be a Benjamin Britten Birthday Bash with Dillon Parmer, tenor, Gary Dahl, baritone and Matthew Larkin, piano.

December 4 appropriately will usher in the pre Christmas season with Advent Mysteries sung by the Southminster United Church Choir directed by Roland Graham.

   

          

BLESSING THE MOURNERS

Hanns F Skoutajan 

The horrific bus- train crash near Fallowfield Station on the outskirts of Ottawa ( Sept. 18) has affected many of the people of Ottawa. Everyday thousands entrust their lives to drivers and their vehicles and occasionally these fail.  At Fallowfield it resulted in 6 deaths and numerous injuries. The incident has been described graphically by many of the survivors. 

We all have our stories to tell of accidents or close calls. I remember in my latter teens one night returning from the movies in Belleville with a carload of my friends. To the west of the city the county road follows the CNR double track main line  and then crosses over it. As I approached the unprotected cross-over a freight train came from the west. I stopped to let it pass and then proceeded over the eastbound tracks when a westbound freight came roaring by. Its approach had been obscured by the the previous train and I was unable to hear its whistle. Remember, this was in the era of those mighty steam engines. 

I slammed on my brakes and came to a stop on the eastbound tracks no more than a car’s length from the oncoming train. I was shaken although my passengers were too involved in smooching and thus oblivious to the precariousness of their lives.  We continued home safely.

Last Wednesday evening as my spouse and I returned from sitting our granddaughter we recalled the people who at that moment were in deep grief, including the wife of the bus driver. Undoubtedly there were many devastated as well as relieved people in  Ottawa that night.

It reminded me of the saying that in the midst of life we are in death. Incidents such as this make us aware of the shortness and uncertainty of  human life.

One of the positive things that happen on the occasion of  a catastrophe is that people are drawn together. Already bunches of flowers have been placed along the tracks and transitway, many of them by total strangers. Let no one disparage these acts of compassion. They give witness to a human bond that extends beyond kith and kin.

They also say something about the human community in which we are bound to one another . Sometimes it takes tragic events to remind us of our belonging. 

As I proceeded over the tracks that night long ago I was deeply shaken . My girlfriend sitting close by my side was conscious of my upset. Did she move a little closer? I could not help but think of the consequences that might have been - the grief, the carnage, the lost lives. I thought of my own parents having to inform my relatives  overseas of the tragic event of the loss of their  only child who was about to enter university, as was the case of several of the victims of the crash at Fallowfield. 

I have often travelled from Ottawa to Toronto by VIA rail and enjoyed the comfort of modern train travel. I recall the train slowing as it approached the suburban station. I noticed the traffic halted along Woodroffe Avenue to let the train pass. Never did I give a thought of what would someday occur at this very place.

The people who gathered at the Nepean Sportsplex throughout the day and into the evening had at least this comfort that they were not alone. “A grief shared is a grief diminished” is a well known saying. When we embrace and mingle our tears  we share our common humanity. No, it doesn’t change anything , but yes it does.

One of the duties of a clergyman, a profession which I practiced for over forty years, is to be with people in all sorts of circumstances, happy and sad, in hospital rooms and at gravesides. I soon learned that it wasn’t what I said that counted most but my attendance. This is what is known as the sacrament or gift of the presence that conveys sentiments that words fail to fully express. It is a sacrament that requires no ordination to celebrate. It is the gift of love that travels over unmarked roadways connecting human lives near and far.

May those who mourn be comforted by the love of fellow humans. They are after all the hand of God.

SQ 19/09/2013  

                                       HAPPY AND EQUAL

                                                                      HANNS F SKOUTAJAN

Are you happy? A recent poll of some 130 countries has placed Canada in 6th place of happiness.  Number one is Denmark. Having visited the famous Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, which opened in 1843, with its amusement park of great rides and eating and drinking places I can vouch that Danes are a happy people, particularly their children. But that is not the only or primary reason  for the Danish being in first place in happiness or for any of the people in the top 5.

In The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett make the point that egalitarian societies are invariably happier people. And Denmark, and indeed all of the Scandinavian countries, are societies that stand out as free and equal.

Our neighbour, the people of the United States, have ebbed and are now far down the line of happiness, 16th, along with Greece, Spain, Portugal  and Italy. When compared with Canadians, who share so much with our southern cousins, the US who prides itself for its freedom and democratic ethos , is nevertheless a far less egalitarian society.

“If the United States  was to reduce its income inequality to something like the average of the four most equal rich countries ( Japan, Norway, Sweden and Finland)  the proportion of the population feeling they could trust others might rise by 75%.... rates of mental illness and obesity  might similarly be cut by almost two thirds, teenage birth rates could be more than halved, prison populations might be reduced by 75% and people would live longer  while working the equivalent of two months less a year.” So argue the authors of the Spirit Level. Equality and the resultant happiness   affect every facet of our lives.

Surely it is a worthwhile goal to aim for  rather than following slavishly  in the footsteps of our neighbour.  We are a happier people precisely because we have been less successful in building as unequal a society as has America. We are, however, well on the way of adopting and emulating their ways.

The United States prides itself as being a beacon of democracy for the whole world, in Biblical language “ a city on a hill” and indeed many throughout the world still admire the United States and would give anything to live there. Unfortunately many who have  immigrated have found it a less than happy experience.

Milton Friedman,  of the famous Chicago School of Economics, the prophet of capitalism,  admitted that he was not fond of democracy.  He states “one of the things that troubles me  very much is that I believe a relatively free economy is a necessary condition for a democratic society. But I also believe that a democratic society, once established , destroys a free economy.”

For Friedman and his disciples, many of them in Canada, a free economy trumps a free society. In that economy the gap between the rich  and the middle class, to say nothing of the poor,  has spread exponentially over the last thirty years. 

Writing in the CCPA Monitor, the monthly publication of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives is an article by Joseph Stiglitz, a former chief economist of the World Bank, that states that “The International community must face reality. We have an unmanageable, unfair, distortionate global tax system that is pivotal  in creating the increasing inequality that marks most advanced countries today.”

In the same issue Murray Dobbin,  a B.C. -based writer on economic, social  and political issues writes, “Capital in its drive for complete freedom from community and society, has outsmarted itself.  In  Canada the largest corporations are now sitting on some $700 billion that they can’t invest in productive activity because demand  for their products by cash-strapped consumers has flattened, 7% of them are unemployed and 14% of youth are unable to find jobs.

Nevertheless advertising continues to dangle goods before the eyes of consumers who can acquire them only as they max-out their credit cards and live in deep and unrelenting debt.

The result is an unhappy society, a divided citizenry estranged from  one another by their inequality. They have become beholden to the powers of mega corporations many of whom have jettisoned their Canadian work force in favour of cheap labour in third world countries.

What is required, Wilkinson and Pickett affirm is “ a society which knows where it wants to go.... coupled with the urgent task  of dealing with global warming. In all these settings we must speak out and explain the advantages of a more equal society.”  and thus  a happier people. It can be done, indeed it has been achieved in those countries that precede us in the happiness poll. They are a measure of the possible.

I encourage you to read the above quoted book, The Spirit Level as well as subscribe and read  the CCPA Monitor to become people  who are informed and value democracy  and equality more than did Milton Friedman. 

SQ 14/09/2013

Other writings can be found at MYQUEST and SKOUTAJAN’S PAGE    

THOSE FALLING LEAVES

Hanns F Skoutajan

It’s not real, the colours that are now emerging along the city avenues and throughout the countryside.

Many years ago when I was  a student in Germany my parents sent me a bundle of prints by the Group of Seven. I decorated my room with these paintings and invited my fellow students to my chamber turned art gallery. 

“Its not real,” they remarked,” the colours are too bright and undisciplined.” Used to the more classical traditions of art  they were skeptical of the work of Canadian painters. One would have thought that Van Gogh  and the Impressionists would have prepared them for something more lively.

My family came to Canada and settled on an abandoned farm in northwestern Saskatchewan. There was little of fall colour there. Poplars haven’t  a very imaginative nature. A few years later, after the war’s end my father sold our quarter section of dirt and bought a brand new, post-war Chevy that allowed us to peruse the eastern Ontario countryside where we had come to live. Thus in the fall of 1947 we first experienced the colours    that exploded along the banks of the Trent River and the plethora of lakes of Hastings and Frontenac counties. We had never seen anything like it, but we knew that it was very real. This, our new homeland was a land of colour.

We have a few more weeks to marvel at our environment before a blanket of snow covers and warms the ground for another season. For five falls I enjoyed the campus of Queen’s University  in Kingston where the colour of leaves in Macdonald Park mingled with the grey limestone buildings on the Old Ontario Strand. Now living in Ottawa across the river from wonderful Gatineau Park I cannot help but be reminded of our precious heritage.

In the last chapter, indeed, the final paragraphs of my book Uprooted and Transplanted, I briefly describe my arrival “back home.” I and a group of expatriates who had fled the Nazi take-over of our Sudeten homeland 50 years earlier, were coming to the end of our nostalgic visit to our land of birth.

“Our plane wings its way over Europe and the Atlantic Ocean. Time stands still as the sun hovers just above the left wing of the jet for quite some time. By mid-afternoon we had crossed the sea and were approaching land and descended to Robert Stanfield International Airport in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

“As we skim over the tree tops  short of landing I behold the glory of the autumnal colours. We are home  where new tasks await us  ‘ to stand on guard‘ as the Canadian national anthem  has it, to be a socially responsible people in a land where all too often      we forget  that, like our natural resources, humans are precious. Let’s not abandon each other.”

No other time than the autumn are we made aware of the wealth of our natural environment. The rich red of the maples  that mix and blend with the green and panorama of other vegetation, the shimmer of the waters of lakes and rivers and the autumn sky, cannot help but enthral us. We have a few more weeks to marvel at nature’s annual  miracle. 

‘To stand on guard’ sounds rather militaristic but it is much more than that. It means striving to keep our waters clean, protecting our trees from the developers shovel and our air pure from contamination by industry. 

Each evening I observe a groundhog feeding on the plants in the park behind our home. Its his too. We share our land not only among us humans but with all living creatures.

The spirituality of our First Nations people is much more closely linked to their environment than is found among western religions for whom the environment is something to be exploited,  except perhaps among the Franciscans whose patron St. Francis after whom the new pope has called himself. Hopefully he can awaken Christians to a greater appreciation of the beauty and sacredness of all creation.    

“Balance” is the name of the game. My fellow students in Germany  who admired (? ) the art of A Y Jackson, Tom Tomson  and J E H MacDonald  failed to notice   that there was a balance on the artists palette. Later on coming to Canada they sense that this riot  of colour was very real indeed. And its coming soon, Enjoy! Preserve! 

SQ O8/09/2013

Also see MYQUEST 

 FROM THE HALLS OF MONTEZUMA TO THE SHORES OF TRIPOLI 

(The title refers to the Official Hymn of the US Marine Corps)

Hanns F Skoutajan

“I have a dream!” Fifty years ago those four words sounded again and again from the podium under the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. Thousands had gathered and were energized by the power of those words. They rang across the United States and indeed around the globe.

President Obama himself is a sign of the impact of that dream. But he also warned that the dream is anything but fulfilled. True enough there are no more lynchings, passengers on a bus can sit anywhere they want, “whites only signs” have disappeared , children black and white are educated together, well more or less.  The pejorative term “nigger” has largely disappeared from the American vocabulary. 

But the dream needs more fulfilling as Obama pointed out. Blacks still vastly predominate in the prisons of the United States. They are also more likely to be among the poor. One can go on. But the amazing thing about that dream is that all of the fulfillment was accomplished in peaceful ways, at least on part of the blacks and many whites. King’s movement was non-violent. 

Gandhi’s ways have proven more effective in bringing about change. It won India’s independence.  King and his associates walked in his footsteps.

I have a dream that disparities  and injustices still so rampant in our world can be resolved in non-violent ways , that people of different religions and skin colour, language and ideology will live together in peace and harmony. 

But I also have a nightmare, particularly in these days as the guns of war resound throughout Syria, as thousands die by cruel means and other thousands flee their  homes and stream across the borders of Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan.

My nightmare has been sharpened by American sabre rattling as the US prepares “to punish” Assad for his atrocities. Assad is not a nice man, nor was Saddam Hussein. However, the question is whether this “punishment” will make any difference to the Syrian leaders and its people other than bring them more death and destruction. 

Ann Wright, a retired US army Colonel and former diplomat who has served in virtually every hotspot on this globe shares my nightmare. In an article published in Common Dreams ( Aug 31) she lists the possible consequences of cruise missile deployment from US navy ships in the Mediterranean:

“As U.S. warships gather off the shores of Lebanon to launch Tomahawk Cruise missiles at targets in Syria, we can make some educated guesses of what the “unintended consequences” could be:

1. Syrian anti-aircraft batteries will fire their rockets at incoming U.S. missiles.
    
2. Many Syrians on the ground will die and both the U.S. and Syrian governments will say the deaths are the fault of the other.
    
3. The U.S. Embassy in Damascus will be attacked and burned, as may other U.S. Embassies and businesses in the Middle East.
    
4. Syria might also launch rockets toward the U.S. ally in the region—Israel.
    
5. Israel would launch bombing missions on Syria as it has three times in the past two years and perhaps take the opportunity to launch an attack on Syria’s strongest ally in the region, Iran.
    
6. Iran, a country with a population of 80 million and has the largest military in the region untouched by war in the past 25 years, might retaliate with missiles aimed toward Israel and toward nearby U.S. military bases in Afghanistan, Turkey, Bahrain and Qatar.
    
7. Iran could block the Straits of Hormuz and impede the transport of oil out of the Persian Gulf.”

Her nightmare is no mere dream but has about it an air of irrefutable reality. A Middle East conflagration is a very real possibility.

The difference between a dream and a nightmare is between peace and violence, between the way of Rosa Parks of Montgomery, Alabama and Bull Conners of LIttle Rock, Arkansas fame.

The US and the United Nations face a daunting situation to which there is no simple solution militarily or negotiated. Peaceful action has never been construed as an easy road. Results are never guaranteed. On the other hand, violence guarantees one thing, more violence, death and destruction. Iraq is proof of that.

Martin Luther King’s dream is not an easy dream. There is no ready made solution to the Syrian crisis. However, my hope and prayer is that the US Congress will not grant Obama his wish but opt in favour of non-violence.

I know some of  you will say, “Dream on!”

SQ 01/09/2013

   

THE SHADOWS LENGTHEN AND THE EVENING COMES....

Hanns F Skoutajan

My spouse and I were avid campers. We particularly loved Killbear Provincial Park near Parry Sound, Ontario. The essay below was first published in my book The Road to Peace: Memories and Reflections Along the Way.  As the days visibly shorten and summer seems to portend its end, I reflected on those final days of camping.

WOOD NYMPH OR WATER SPRITE

There is a sweet sadness about the fall. It is how mourning ought to be, an acceptance of the inevitable, of natural change, nature’s ageing process which leads from the seeming eternity of summer to an awakening of the passage of time. Suddenly one morning there is a change in the air. It is not only cooler  but a different texture can be felt in the warmth of the sun. 

It was Labour Day and throughout the campground  one could hear the tinkling of metal tent poles as they were being dismantled, a familiar sound indeed. There exists a kind of last day routine among campers. A reticent urgency to return home manifests itself among them. They are not quite holidayers any longer. They sense that ahead of them stretches the long slow drive back to the city with its traffic jams in cars loaded to the gunnels.  Thoughts of tomorrow’s resumption of the workaday life intrude rudely on the mind  that has been used to relaxing in what had seemed like a timeless sun. The young campers anticipate school with a variety of emotions  from sheer horror of classroom confinement  to the joy of meeting old friends again. 

By noon the exodus is well under way. Trailers are hitched up and creak out of their comfortable place among the trees. “Byes” can be heard  from a variety of voices as vacation acquaintances depart. “Stay in touch!” is a much heard farewell word. Thus loaded with boats, bicycles and lawn chairs, they rattle down the road toward the gate. It could be sad  but somehow they have already entered a different space and time.

By mid afternoon the woods are almost empty. The squirrels are well aware that it’s all theirs now  although they will soon discover the absence of the fast food supply that was once so plentiful. The beach which is usually crowded with sun worshippers  is almost vacant. Do the sea gulls miss them? The tour boat with almost empty decks still glides past  at its usual time, but its wake goes unwelcomed  by rubber rafts  and swimmers bouncing in the waves. The roar of seadoos has finally died, thank God.  Out on the Sound  the sails have largely disappeared. Convoys of cruisers  are heading for their berths in port. There is every indication that the season of pleasureful timelessness is over.  The first day of fall may still be several weeks away but  here in the park there is no doubt that a season has ended.

We are fortunate to be able to stay another day, a time of special quietness which we enjoy. As evening comes the setting sun puts on a final show. Only a few spectators gather on the rocky ridge for one more look. A strange camaraderie prevails among us . We are the few, the remnant, quite different from those who have left. That night there is an absence of campfire smoke which usually hangs heavily among the trees. The night seems darker, certainly quieter. A feeling of mystery pervades the groves.

Change is ever mysterious but now it takes place before my eyes. It also unfolds within me and between myself and my spouse. We have another night and day together. We spin out the time, visit once more those familiar places, the rocky ledge, the island, and paddle along the now deserted shores, take a final dip in the water that’s certainly cooler now.

We witness a figure emerging from the woods. She walks  pensively across the sand, then stops. Her hands go to her hips. She faces out toward the sea and looks into the past. What events does she recall? After a few moments she turns and retraces her steps, more slowly now and disappears among the trees, a kind of parting grace.

Finally, we too are ready, our time has also come . There is now no one left to bid farewell except the maples, oaks, the rugged pines, the rocks and sand, the water and the autumn sky. The car is packed, the trailer hitched. Our camp has lost its lived-in look. 

I see her in the rearview mirror, standing there directing me as I nudge our camper from between the trees out into the road. Sadness clothes her summer-warm features. I see her among the vegetation taking on a mellow glow , framed in the car mirror, like a colour slide . It seems as though she belongs among those trees, her natural abode. 

A strange thought comes to my mind. She must remain here to be found again another year. I feel as though I am leaving her . Perhaps she is unreal , this summer friend  with whom I played and loved and shared these weeks . Is she perhaps a wood nymph  or a water sprite who for this season  has taken on mortal flesh? And now she waits as I depart. She waves good-bye.

Already I see her taking on a phantom-like transparency . She turns and walks  toward the distant glistening shore. Once, twice, she motions me to go. The mirror blurs , tears becloud my eyes. I shut them hard and squeeze their lids  and then open them to see a new reality. 

The car and trailer bump onto the pavement , my partner and I are on our way.

SQ 28/08/2013

ON LAND, IN SEA AND IN OUR EARS

Hanns F Skoutajan

“One of the world’s most sophisticated and beautiful nations ( Canada, our home and native land) is being ransacked by barbarians,” so writes George Monbiot in the first paragraph of his most recent book “Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea and Human Life.” 

The barbarians that Monbiot refers to are “the nation’s elected government. The world has watched  in astonishment as your liberal, cultured, decent country has been transformed into a thuggish petro-state.”

Monbiot has spent much of his career as a journalist and environmentalist, working with others to defend  the natural world  he so loves. It is obvious that he has a high regard for Canadians, all the more reason for taking his harsh words seriously.

His passion is the restoration, or rewilding, as he calls it, of our damaged ecosystems. In his native Britain, particularly Wales and Scotland, he takes issue with sheep farming. He claims that it has absolutely devastated large areas of the country leaving virtual deserts with no trees.

A few years ago on a flight to Edinburgh  as we proceeded towards landing I was utterly amazed to see from my window hills upon grey hills  totally devoid of vegetation. Later hiking through the Ochill Hills east of Stirling  I saw at close quarters  the terrain  and the sheep that had shorn it clear. The only trees left were in crevices too inaccessible for the sheep to reach.

Monbiot wants such ecological devastation to be “rewilded,” that is restored  to what it once was.  Those same bare hills that I wondered about from the plane and later visited on foot , had once upon a time,  been covered with thick forest and hosted a variety animals now sadly missing.  And, as he maintains, it can be returned to somewhat that state but at a cost to the wool industry. There is a price for everything.

 Monbiot has travelled the world over  and has seen other devastation. Not only is he concerned about the land  but also the sea around us.  He harshly, but justifiably, attacks the fishing industry  which has virtually raked the ocean bottom totally disfiguring it, wrecking coral reefs, while sucking up the fish population indiscriminately.

He is not without hope for he believes and gives examples of nature’s resilience. Once its inhabitants/owners return to more responsible practices of farming and fishing the environment can make a comeback. What is lacking is not the means but the will.

My most recent read is a book called The End of Night: Searching for Natural Darkness in an Age of Artificial Light. Paul Bogard, the author, teaches creative non-fiction at James Madison University in the United States. His description of what a London and Paris might have looked like in the age of the gaslight is beautiful, when “The Old Lamplighter of long, long ago, made the world a little brighter” as the romantic song has it.  But that was before electric power transformed not only cities  but the world.  His book contain photos from different times that show how electric light has brightened the world  such that night seems to have been banished in a good deal of it.

We live in a 24/7 work world where employment schedules have totally changed the lives of working people. He interviews nurses in an emergency ward of a hospital, in factories where employees work in three shifts keeping machines running at all times, in stores open 24 hours a day and elsewhere.  Shift work has made family life difficult and indeed it has been the source of much illness for the many who have been exposed to light 24/7.

As I finished the two books it occurred to me that there was one more aspect of our living that had not yet been covered by my readings. I am sure that the subject of noise pollution has been written about and I am looking for a book with a title  such as “The Death of Silence.”

Both light and sound are made possible through electricity powered by wild water harnessed as well as atoms split, all of which impacts our environment.

Recently I have heard a documentary on the CBC  about noise in our restaurants and bars. My last venture out for dinner was in one of those blessed but scarce eating establishments where the sound system was not overwhelming and allowed us to converse without raising our voices. And by the way the food was excellent. At a bar that I visited a few nights earlier the clientele  vied with each other to be heard above the blare of the speakers  emitting what I suppose passes for music.  But, oh, I am getting old!  We are enveloped by sound and light.

Once again I must take you back to my youth. In the spring of 1939 after a five hour trek by horse and wagon my parents and I, our two friends and a bachelor moved into a remote, decrepit one room log shack in northern Saskatchewan. Later that evening when we had made our homes in the four corners of that one room we all stepped outside. For the first time in my life I encountered total darkness until the moon rose over the neighbouring woods. I also experienced total silence except for our own voices, the occasional hoot of an owl and the baying of coyotes. It was awesome and unforgettable.

I doubt that we can totally rewild as Monbiot advocates. Too much has changed. Our lives depend on power whatever its source may be. But there is no doubt in my mind that humans, and lets start with ourselves, must learn to live mindfully , mindful of our environment, the flora and fauna and of each other. It is becoming more than obvious to many, hopefully soon to most, that the sole arbiter of our economic decisions cannot be just “the bottom line.” There is more to life than what meets the accountant’s eye. 

SQ 18/08/2013