1.8.07

Soundtrack For The Night.

Road trips make for fun travelogues, and better anecdotes, but what they do best is package a whole week of experience into one tangible moment. For me, that's usually done with music.

In Newfoundland, that was Wagner's Ring Cycle. CBC was the only radio station I could find in those rocks, and since I was driving out to a viking settlement in the middle of a storm, the mood was too perfect for me to complain.

In Halifax, the song was Hawksley Workman's "Almost A Full Moon". Why? No fancy symbolism here -- that's just what I was listening to as I fell asleep in my rental car in an underground parkade. It is a great song, though... it's actually a recipe for pumpkin soup, with the title repeated incessantly in the background like a mantra.

Ottawa 2005: Dance Me To The End Of Love, Leonard Cohen. What can I say? I was at a wedding.

Ottawa 2006: Jumping Jack Flash, the Rolling Stones. What can I say? Elite Beat Agents is a fantastic game, and I finished it during that trip.

So, what about Yellowknife? I'm tempted to say "Go West" by the Pet Shop Boys, but really, that sort of karaoke lightning and thunder happens every time my friend Jason and I are together for too long.

Actually, my official soundtrack for Yellowknife, I turn to Kytami. She's a violinist from Whistler that eschewed the Royal Conservatory for her mix-master friends. The resultant sound is eclectic and electric. But more than just being nice to listen to, it's the sound of the Northwest Territorities. The strings of her violin humming over the thumping beats are like the crying winds, rushing over the heavy foundations. They're like the bush planes touching down on the lake, kicking up a spray as the sky meets the water.

Blast. I'm getting overly poetic here. Sorry about that.

Let me try this again -- the entire trip was a series of unexpected and incongruous discoveries. So's her music... and the sooner I re-discover each, the better.

This now concludes our ten-day writer's block, in which your faithful blogger could not seem to say "I had fun in Yellowknife". Please tune in tomorrow, when we return you to your regularly scheduled commentary about life in Medicine Hat, and/or Bangladesh.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I had fun too! I can't seem to summarize it either - Is there such a thing as being too amazing to put into words?!?