The Brown Knowser

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.

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 th...

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 ph...

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 ...

Spoons, February 9, 2018

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.

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 sai...

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 subd...

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!

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 cha...