Waiting for a Light to Change

The downtown core can be a lonely place, after dark.

Even at the split of a major street. Even at one of Ottawa's major attractions.

The long arm of the traffic light holds vehicles in one place, while others, of varying size, move on their merry way.

Keeping a lone pedestrian from continuing her solo journey.

All, captured, over 20 seconds, waiting for a light to change.

Judgy in My Old Age

Who am I kidding? I've always been judgy.

I remember the place from a few decades ago. To call it a dive was an understatement: furniture was worn and uncomfortable. The menu was a small step up from reheated TV dinners, and the service was nothing memorable, at best.

You could enter from the outside, on the far end of the mall or walk in from within the shopping promenade. The name probably came from before the neighbourhood was built up, when you could look out onto the green fields of the farmland.

The first renovation was a major improvement, with a raised dining area that looked onto the stage, where local bands would perform to the redneck masses. Though smoking was banned indoors, the clientele reeked of nicotine from fulfilling their habits a short distance outside, still covered from the elements.

The only thing going from the pub was that it served more than Labatt's and Molson's. Though I don't touch Guinness or Lug Tread anymore, it was considered the only place in the community where you could get elevated ales.

The latest renovation is a giant leap from the pub of the past. A long, welcoming bar features two dozen or more taps, at least half of which rotate quality craft ales, both local and from abroad. The service is always friendly, welcoming. And despite the folks behind the bar spouting off the talking points of brews, provided from the sales reps, they like to sound like they know a lot about the suds they pour.

I started dropping in just over a month ago, finding it a good place to wait out DD16 while she attended a piano lesson or worked out at the nearby Karate school. I had enough time to have one pint at the bar before retrieving her and scooting her home. I've exchanged names with the folks behind the bar, shaken hands, and commented on the beer that they were offering. While I quietly sip my pint, I look at the silent sports on the TV screens, observe the folks at the neighbouring seats or nearby tables, and unintentionally eavesdrop of the conversations around me.

The first conversation I heard reminded me that while the atmosphere of the pub has cleaned up, the regulars haven't. The asinine talking points from conservative headlines, utterly devoid of substance to back up the flat statements. Men in their mid-thirties, talking of behaviour that I grew out of in my late teens or early twenties. Laughter at jokes that were tasteless decades ago but utterly offensive now.

I try to block out the conversations, bury my face in my smartphone, looking for a distraction while I enjoy my ale and pretend I'm in a better place.

I return, of course, killing time while my daughter pursues worthwhile activities, because the beer is good and the service is friendly. Each time, I sit, I sip, I listen, I look, and I judge.

At my age, with my life experiences and other venues by which I can compare, I feel I've earned the right. I can form my opinions and not feel bad for what goes through my head as I sip from the glass.

I can be judgy in my old age.

For all I know, the regulars, who see this short, dumpy, middle-aged guy who sits by himself, are judging me back.

Moving the Moon

I would move Heaven and Earth for you.

Or the moon. Whatever. It's cool.

I was standing at the corner of Elgin and Laurier streets, waiting to cross toward City Hall. I love that corner, love that combination of the past and present. A stone church before steel and glass towers.

With twilight upon me, the city lights glowing, it was a beautiful sight to behold.

When I returned home and began processing my photos for the evening, there wasn't much to do with this photo. The exposure was good, there was lots of colour. I only added a bit of contrast and boosted the colour saturation by only 10 percent.

I wanted to crop the photo to a 16x9 size, but the half-moon was high in the frame, well above the Shopify tower. Cropping the photo would cut out that moon.

Unless, of course, I moved it.

I rarely manipulate the position of objects in my photo, but on such a clear night it seemed a shame to block out the moon, so I moved it, lower and more to the right-half of the photo, where the building down Laurier left a lot of open space.

I was tempted to erase the stranger in the bottom-right corner, but that was going a little far...

Black and White Project: Week 8

Throwback Thursday: Last Weekend in Korea

All of our possessions of the past two years had already been either sent home, placed in storage at a friend's house, in Seoul, or stuffed in our backpacks. The only thing left to do was to say our goodbyes.

It was hardest to say goodbye to Kyung-hee, who had been our dear friend since nearly the beginning, who had helped us adapt to life in Chŏnju, set us up with a Korean network, had come to our aid whenever we needed assistance. We loved her like family, would never forget her (I wished her a happy birthday, through Facebook, just last week).

Our friends from Ottawa, who had come to Korea about six months after we had arrived in the country, but were there for different reasons, would also be remaining after DW and I returned home. Saying farewell wasn't easy—we had seen them at least once a month for almost a year and a half—but we anticipated seeing them again, eventually, back home.

On that final weekend, as we were saying goodbye, we were also saying hello to yet another friend, Andy, who was a mutual friend to our Ottawa comrades and was visiting them for a few weeks. That weekend turned out to be a reunion, a gathering, and a goodbye.

When this weekend was finished, DW and I would board a plane at Kimp'o International Airport and head further south-east, to Hong Kong, and later downward, to Singapore, where we would take buses and trains northward, over the next month, through Malaysia and all over Thailand, before flying from Bangkok to Seoul, for one more night, and then back, at last, to Canada.

But on that final weekend in Korea, we spent an afternoon in Seoul, saying hello to Andy and goodbye to Kyung-hee, sharing tea and wandering various markets and shops. Nineteen years ago, next week.

Happy Thursday!

Wordless Wednesday: Smiling In Winter

Spoons, February 9, 2018

Unforsaken

Photo by DW: Page, AZ, in 2015

Fifty-one days have elapsed in 2018. In that time, I've picked up my Nikon D-SLR on only two of those days. After a year when my camera seldom left my side, I feel unarmed.

Like a knight without his sword; a Jedi without his light sabre.

With 29 Brown Knowser posts, so far this year, only two contain photos that were shot in 2018 with my D-SLR. The rest either use stock images from the Internet, old photos from years and cameras past, or others, shot with my Android phone or my Canon pocket camera.

I haven't cast my number-one camera aside, I haven't forsaken it. This week, I bring it back into service. Not to replace the cameras that I'm using for my 2018 project, but because I feel that I need all of my photography tools at my disposal.

My break is over. It's time to get back into the hobby that I love so much. To do more that just carry old cameras that will help me fulfill my current project.

If It Rhymes With Wrong, It's Wrong

One of the first things that DW and I learned to do, before we left Canada for South Korea, in 1997, was to learn how to read the written language, Hangul.

It's not a particularly difficult language to learn. The alphabet has 24 characters that are blended together by the syllables that comprise a word. DW and I learned the sounds that each character make and then learned how to pronounce each syllable cluster and read out words. This practice, surprisingly, took only a few hours to master, and by the end of our second day of studying, we could read words pretty quickly.

Our goal was to identify various words that could help us in our travels. For example, we wanted to be able to recognize our city's name—Chŏnju, or Jeonju, as it's more commonly written now, or 전주, in Hangul. In our first few days in Korea, we would practice by reading the words out loud, such as the destinations that were next to the numbers on city buses, or on buildings as we passed by them, on said buses.

We couldn't comprehend the language but it was a huge advantage in looking at the menu on a board outside a restaurant to know what kind of food they served, or to identify a bank, or recognize the way toward downtown.

One of the things that I found rather quirky about South Koreans was the pronunciation of my home country, Canada. It made me think that the first people to hear my country's name was from someone from the southern United States: it came out as "kay-na-da."

And then, I saw how Canada was written, in Hangul.

캐나다

The second character of the first syllable group, the one that looks like a squished H, has the vowel sound ae, like when you say "hey."

No wonder the Koreans were mispronouncing the name of my home and native land: they were misspelling it.

I tried to educate my students over the two years that I taught English, letting them know that if they wanted to truly pronounce Canada properly, they had to spell it the way it truly sounds. And I would write it on the blackboard.

가나다

(My students were always fascinated when I wrote their language out.)

During the 2018 Olympic Winter Games, in Pyeongchang, South Korea, I always cringe when I listen to updates on the radio and I hear our Canadian journalists botch the pronunciation of this north-eastern region. If only they knew the language, they might find it easier to sound out.

It's probably because the English translation of this word uses 11 characters. I've heard it enunciated as "pee-on-chahng" and even "pie-ong-chahng," where the vowel in the last syllable has an open "ah" sounding A. But the worst pronunciation is "pyong-chong," where the vowels have an open O sound, as in the word "wrong."

I'm talking to you, CBC Radio One. To my favourite morning-show host; to the guy who gives the hourly updates from the Land of the Morning Calm.

In Hangul, this region of South Korea is written with six characters in two syllables: 평장.

In Hangul, this region is pronounced "Pyung-chahng." The first syllable rhymes with rung; the  vowel in the second syllable has the same sound as in the word awesome.

Try it out loud a couple of times.

When I studied journalism, many years ago in college, we had a class in broadcasting. When we put copy together to read out loud, if we came across a word that had a tricky pronunciation, we wrote it out phonetically. Hearing Pyeongchang read aloud on the radio, it seems like that method has been thrown out the window. Or someone is writing it, phonetically, incorrectly.

CBC, if anyone from your radio shows ever reads this blog post, take it from someone who has lived in South Korea and learned the language, who taught his students the importance of correctly pronouncing his own country by writing it phonetically, in their own language. Please honour that great land by saying the name right.

Two syllables with vowels that make an uh and an open A sound. "Pyung-chang."

If either syllable rhymes with wrong, you, too, are wrong.

Black and White Project: Week 7

Black and White Project: Week 6

Wordless Wednesday: Bank Street to Queensway via Canal Skateway

My Rockwell

DW calls it my version of a Norman Rockwell painting.

It's how the young woman was captured. Walking with purpose, preoccupied. Burdened but not overly encumbered. The oversized, gold purse, hanging off one arm without a care: the oversized, pink duffel bag, too large to be a gym bag, filled but not stuffed, slung over the shoulder.

The reddish-brown hair, tied up in an elaborate bun, so as to not get in her face and, perhaps, distract her from reading the display on her white smartphone. White background, so most likely an article. Clearly, not a photo. The device rests gingerly held in her hand, could easily be knocked free, though she carries it with confidence.

An experienced New Yorker, walking the empty platform of the 23rd Street Station, in Manhattan's Chelsea district. Two blocks west of the Flatiron Building and along 7th Avenue.

Her black coat, open, reveals a black skirt cut above the knee, but the coat itself drops lower. Her multi-coloured scarf is as subdued as the colours of the tiled platform and wall. Gold sandals: one, in mid-step, shows that the heel is strapless, comes away from the foot with each stride. She'll kick these off, carelessly, when she reaches home.

She's gone, in a second, never knowing that a camera was trained on her as she walked past the elaborate station sign.

It's a simple shot, one that I almost didn't take. I had only had my camera for two months, was still learning its capabilities. I was adjusting the ISO, trying to get it at the best level for a hand-held shot, practicing against a deserted platform, six track widths away. At ISO 1100, I could shoot at 1/125 of a second with the aperture all the way open, at f/2.8. My 24-70mm lens was at maximum magnification.

The train on my side was fast-approaching, so I knew I had to take my final shots now, before my view would be blocked and I would have to board the train. As I focused, I saw a person approaching from the right-hand side. I was going to wait until she passed by, but in a second I realized that she had to be in the shot to make it interesting. As she approached the centre of my frame, I shot.

DW calls it my version of a Norman Rockwell painting. It certainly captures a moment in time. A young woman, either oblivious to what's happening around her or without a care, caught up in her own affairs, on the screen in her hand, as she makes her way through the city.

Winter Scenes

When you live in the National Capital Region, it doesn't matter what Wiarton Willy says, or any of the other rodents that have been made arbitrary symbols of the state of the season. Six more weeks of winter would still be an early thaw.

We may as well get out there and enjoy it.

Happy Monday!

Black and White Project: Week 5

Beer O'Clock: Sunsplit IPA

I don't know why I haven't reviewed Dominion City Brewing Company before now.

I visited their brewery, more than years ago, after they first opened their doors. Their shop was much smaller than it is today. I tried several of their first offerings: their Earnscliffe Brown Ale has great malted flavours and is an easy-drinking ale; the Earl Grey Marmalade Saison, uniquely sublime.

It wasn't until I visited the east-end brewery, last month, on a Brew Donkey tour, that it dawned on me that a review was way overdue.

On that tour, I tried four samples: a Winding Down the Bines Wet Hop Ale, a Belgian-style winter ale, Julebryg, and their deliciously decadent stout, Gomatose Ice Cream Stout. They were all very good—in fact, I brought home some of the stout—but one IPA stood head and shoulders above them all.

I haven't yet figured out the difference between West-Coast, East-Coast, or New-England when it comes to a style of IPA that, for me, seems to have the same characteristics: citrus-infused hops, tropical and citrus flavours, and a full-bodied finish. Some day, I'm going to have to sit down with an expert, and one of each style, and go through their distinctive subtleties.

Whatever their characteristics, there is one thing I know: I love this style of IPA.

So how does Dominion City's New England-styled IPA hold up? Let's take a look.

Sunsplit IPA (6.5% ABV)
Dominion City Brewing Company
Ottawa ON

Appearance: an unfiltered, cloudy, pale orange, almost like grapefruit juice but with more saturated colour. The head is a creamy off-white that settles to a firm cap.

Nose: lush, citrussy hops that revealed more grapefruit and tangerine. Hints of pineapple.

Palate: bitter grapefruit rind and peppery flint. There are solid citrus flavours that subdue any tropical notes. The flavours wash solidly over your mouth and bring a long-lasting finish.

Overall impression: as I said before, I don't know the true difference between New England IPA and a West Coast IPA, and this offering from Dominion City doesn't help me clarify those differences. But what this ale does is please my palate, my nose, and warms me on a cold winter's day. This is a flavourful IPA with lots of driving hops and a citrus powerhouse. I could drink this IPA all day long.

Beer O'Clock rating: 🍺🍺🍺

I wish that this brewery was more centrally located in Ottawa. It's Beacon Hill industrial park remoteness is far of my beaten path, and I can only hope that my local LCBO stores stock this and other Dominion City brews. But when I do find the time to make the easterly trip, I know that it's worth it.

It may have taken me more than three years to review this brewery but it won't be the last time.

Cheers!