This is it. Up a little early but still my kick at the can. I knew it was big time when I saw the notice earlier today, Monday, at BlogsCanada. So in this my edition – 007– of the Carvinal of Canucks, I would like to share some links to great blogs by and about people not where they might be as well as some of my thoughts on blogging. Why dislocation? I have been a little dislocated for most of my life but only in the most banal ways of no real interest to others. As a kid, my Scots immigrant parents dressed us up in identical Marks & Sparks shorts and sent us off into new elementary school, a living hell in Sydney Mines, Cape Breton, after the first big move from Mississauga. MacDonalds of various genetic strains took turns giving me and my brothers fat lips. So I have a soft spot for the dislocated. Right under the nose.
The first of my daily reads is Michael Demmons, a Newf’ who has lived in Atlanta, Georgia for five years and was himself a host of the Carnival of Canucks a few weeks ago. His web siteDiscount Blogger presents the view of a Canadian in the USA, a gay man in a fairly intolerant times and a libertarian in a world of sheep. The best thing about the place is the great debate by people with a firm understanding of their positions combined with a welcome for civilized disagreement – even allowing anyone respecting the rules to post on Sundays. While posts are largely about US politics, he admits his outsider perspective when giving a position. He is moving up into the dreaded A-list zone but hopes are high that he will maintain his edge.
Having moved in another direction is my number two and another great site for debates from a North Country New Yorker living for years in little old PEI. One of the oldest of the old school techies I know, Humblebub cares little for gurus, usability consultants and lawyers. Especially lawyers. His site is largely a homebrewed mix of local provincial politics, web techie news, and by times rude observations on life. Today haiku broke out. His recent recollections about members of the older generations of his family from the counties around Adirondack State Park are his best writings yet.
My third site of the dislocated is not a place for debate but for a view of Canada’s national capital through a recent arrival from the Maritimes. Lana’s photo blog’s, called Place and Thyme, gets my attention with its clean design and views of a winter in Ottawa, where wind chills of minus 40 are not uncommon this time of year.
Fourth is Ghost of a Flea from Toronto by a UK archeologist author has an alarming amalgam of news items from digs and sites around the world combined with something of an inexplicable fixation for Kylie Minogue, who rates for me somewhere around Princess Anne on the sweetie scale.
Fifth comes the most important blogging Canuck, Dean Allen, Industrialist, in France. I understand I owe my referral log code to him and thank him for the joy that brings as well his interest in the life of another dislocated Canuck, Big Connie Black.
A couple CBC types with interesting if intermittent blogs rank sixth and seventh: Matt Rainnie, host of the drive home show on CBC Charlottetown and Donna the Existential Dishwasher who works with CBC Winnipeg, both formerly of Halifax. I don’t know if Matt takes his Guinness (vitamin G) but it seems a constant in Donna’s mobile life.
A few sites for me best express what it might be to be mid-twenties feeling out of place and time in the early 21st century. My eighth place blog is run by Mandy who regrets missing Duran Duran by 20 years. Phillip Clark of Halifax, my number nine, is burning the candle at both ends in what appears to be a couple of bands while clubs all around him are shutting down. A recent bar crawl post was both alarming and too familiar. [I just can’t figure out what a pub crawl with him and the Accordian Guy would be like…except everyone’s favorite organic chemical in black liquid form would be involved.]
Number ten – Chumptastic – writes about the bar band fan’s life in Kingston Ontario or the road to Peterborough most weekends and is an important source of Sarah Harmer location around the town.
Recent celebrations for his PR card and life in the cold of Canada are some of the topics atArthur about a lad from the Netherlands landed in Halifax. Where else can you find out aboutpre-sliced packaged apples.
A bluenoser in Montreal ranks my twelfth: Blork writes about what was for dinner, jobs he has held and posts photos about winter in Montreal. I hate the Habs but love the city.
Unlucky thirteenth, last and frankly least is the #1 Dead Blog I Want Revived. Anton North, a guy from Northern Ontario who in 2003 was working in Iqaluit, Baffin Island which is about a couple thousand kms north of here. Too many blogs are about the same topics little understood and analyzed incorrectly. If blogs are to be useful at all it is to put you in touch with someone else whose life you will never live, who you may never meet. You thrive on hubs in this stuff, folks who will link to you or post replies when you suck. Blogs like Anton’s die from a lack of a hub more than anything. Go find new writers – who don’t write about Iraq, rss or one of the other 14 swell topics filling 98% of blogspace – and add them to your hub.
Well that is it. Canadians on the move and writing about where they find themselves. Tomorrow – who knows? Maybe more. Right now kids gotta bath and me gotta snooze.