{"id":18439,"date":"2025-08-18T10:10:04","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T17:10:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/?p=18439"},"modified":"2025-08-18T10:10:05","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T17:10:05","slug":"changing-seasons-short-form-literature-and-weekend-football","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/changing-seasons-short-form-literature-and-weekend-football\/","title":{"rendered":"Changing seasons, short form literature and weekend football"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Clouds continue to hang around here in the wake of our first Pineapple Express storm of the season. The Music By The Sea Festival wrapped up late last night (I was home again after midnight) after three full days of community music-making, with a few professional ringers thrown into our midst. It was a multi-generational event which sprang out of a group of local Bowen Island families who were long time regulars at the Nimblefingers Festival<\/a> in Sorrento, BC. As a result there was a strong core of bluegrass and Americana music-making at MBTS, which suits me fine. Bluegrass is like folk jazz. Simple chord progressions and beautiful melodies<\/a> and harmony singing<\/a>, but incredible virtuosity on the instrumental side<\/a>, including a strong value on improvised breaks and solos. It is massively accessible music, but for the performer the sky is the limit in terms of technique<\/a> and creative possibilities<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Importantly, the gathering brought together many Bowen Islander, including several who left the island years ago. The music scene when I moved here was rich and vibrant and diverse and it withered a little as we made the transition between the 1970s-1990s nearly intentional community of interesting characters to a place where property became a financial investment. Since COVID, our demographics have radically shifted and there is more of a feeling of intentional community again. People are moving here for something other than what might be a decent return on a real estate investment. Make no mistake, this is still a massively unaffordable place to live, and our best efforts to address it are swallowed in a context of general inaction and apathy about structural policy solutions. But. There is a revival of community going on here, and I met many people this weekend who are my neighbours and with whom I know I will be making music this year and into the future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I love short forms of writing.<\/strong> Poetry, short stories, short novels. And aphorisms. There is something about the pithy wisdom contained in a single sentence that can make it powerful. A well crafted aphorism has a rhythm to it as well. It swings, like a jazz lick. And like a lick, it evokes something timeless and connected to an ecosystem of meaning. Peter Limberger lives aphorisms too and here he writes about two medieval aphorists<\/a>, Baltasar Graci\u00e1n (1601\u20131658), a Jesuit priest who wrote The Art of Worldly Wisdom<\/a><\/em> and Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613\u20131680), a French nobleman who wrote a collection of Maxims,<\/a> while also pointing to his favourite, Nicol\u00e1s G\u00f3mez D\u00e1vila.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes questions are like aphorisms.<\/strong> One has to be careful asking questions that are beautiful in their own right. Questions occasionally try too hard to impress. They aim too much for a response that is in awe of the question itself. Mary Oliver<\/a>\u2019s \u201cWhat is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?\u201d is one of those. But asking \u201cWhat time is it?\u201d Is a question that dances ever so lightly on the fence between genuine curiosity and profound insight in its own right. Tenneson writes<\/a> \u201cI used to see people more often resist these kind of questions. It was resistance that saw some fluff and said, \u201clet\u2019s get to the real work.\u201d These days, oh gosh, so many more people recognize these questions are the real work. Or are the real contexting that helps us get to the real work.\u201d Amen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Life is just a long conversation<\/strong> that we drop into for a bit. Patti Digh<\/a>: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Life, then, is less about owning the discussion and more about showing up to it. Listening well. Speaking honestly. Departing graciously. And trusting that the conversation\u2014like life itself\u2014will carry on.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Perhaps the real measure is not how loudly or how often we speak, but how we change in the process. We arrive thinking we understand the argument; we leave having been shaped by the voices around us. We are participants, yes, but also apprentices to the human story\u2014learning from those who came before, influencing those who come after, even in ways we\u2019ll never know.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Some day, someone else will walk into the same parlor after we\u2019ve gone. They\u2019ll hear the echoes of our words, softened by time, folded into the larger chorus. They may not know our name, but they will inherit a conversation made\u2014if we\u2019ve done our part\u2014slightly kinder, richer, and more open than when we found it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A decent start<\/a> to the Premier League season for Tottenham.<\/strong> After an early goal from Richarlison, Spurs were a bit disjointed for the rest of the first half. They came out ganagbusters in the second though and Richarlison scored his second from a beautiful scissor kick off a Kudus delivery. Kudus impressed with his flair and quickness. Brennan Johnson scored the third for an emphatic win in the end. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest TSS Rover to turn pro <\/strong>is Aislin Streicek, who played for us in 2022 and 2023 and who was signed by Celtic FC to a two year contract. She made her first appearance yesterday coming off the bench in a 2-1 win over Hearts.<\/a> Watching and helping young players turn professional is why we do what we do at our little second division Canadian club.<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clouds continue to hang around here in the wake of our first Pineapple Express storm of the season. The Music By The Sea Festival wrapped up late last night (I was home again after midnight) after three full days of community music-making, with a few professional ringers thrown into our midst. It was a multi-generational event which sprang out of a group of local Bowen Island families who were long time regulars at the Nimblefingers Festival in Sorrento, BC. As a result there was a strong core of bluegrass and Americana music-making at MBTS, which suits me fine. Bluegrass is …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[52,100,8,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bowen","category-football","category-music","category-notes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piBp1-4Np","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18439"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18455,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18439\/revisions\/18455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}