The Brown Knowser

If you know anything about Ottawa artist Andrew King , you know he's a bright, creative, talented person. His whimsical, joyful artwork has fascinated me for many years. Andrew is also an amateur historian, and his love of the Ottawa area, Eastern Ontario, and beyond drives him to blog about lost pieces of our history, from the remains of sunken ships, missing planes, or long-lost towns, Andrew has chronicled our past and its mysteries in a blog and in books . This past weekend, Andrew launched into something new, in light of the current COVID-19 pandemic, with the hope of lightening everyone's spirits. (I used the words launched and current on purpose.) Accompanied by his partner and fellow artist, Alison Fowler, Andrew headed to Manotick's boat launch, off Bridge Street, to set a piece of art down the Rideau River. Last week, Andrew built a small, wooden boat, in the vein of his artistic style, in the hopes of setting it along the Rideau, where, by good fortune, ...

Week 3 into this COVID-19 social distancing, and if you're like me, you're starting to climb the walls. My family and I have coped by keeping busy. Apart from working from home, we've been getting out each day to take walks, grabbing our cameras to try to keep it interesting. As with last week, I'm sharing a song that captures some of the social distancing that we've been exercising, in an effort to mitigate the spread of the Coronavirus. How are you coping? Share your thoughts in the Comments section. Take care and stay safe.

One of the things that drew me into buying my Ford Focus, in 2012, was that it was a good looking car. It had interesting curves, especially around the headlights and taillights. It had sexy lines. The other front runners, while DW and I were car-shopping, were the Hyundai Elantra and the Honda Civic. In 2012, the Civic was a Plain Jane (my apologies to all the Janes out there), both inside and out. The Elantra had nicer lines than the Honda, but neither came close to the look of the Ford Focus hatchback. And when the dealership had a white Focus in its showroom, in the Titanium trim level with a bonus, black-and-white leather interior, I fell in love. Let me be clear: the look of a vehicle is not the determining factor in what I buy. A vehicle must be, first and foremost, safe. It has to protect my family in the case of a collision. Second, the car must be fuel-efficient. With the cost of gas in 2012, I wanted a car that wouldn't need to be filled up more than once a week,...

Each night, there is a window through which I must pass if sleep is to be achieved. And, for the third time this week, this window's been missed and awake I'm made to lay. Today's gonna be a bitch.

 

As we enter our second full week of isolation and social distancing in order to combat COVID-19, I thought I'd share a song that has periodically entered my head, starting when my CBC morning radio show, Ottawa Morning , asked listeners to help them compile a playlist for these times. I suggested this song, along with another one, which I will share next week. How are you doing? Happy Monday! Stay safe.

DW and I are doing our part in self isolating during the COVID-19 pandemic. We are both lucky enough to have jobs where we can easily work from home, using Google Hangouts to keep in touch with our co-workers. I have a desk that is set up in our basement; she is set up at our main computer workstation, in our dining room. Meanwhile, our kids are chatting with their friends through social media and are binging on Netflix and Amazon Prime. But we still feel that we need to get outside for fresh air and exercise. Every day, this week, we've taken some time to get on trails around the city: the Chapman Mills Conservation Area, Mooney's Bay, Hog's Back, the Arboretum, and along the Ottawa River. We've also reached out to friends who are in the same boat and also want to get outside. We arrive in separate vehicles and keep a healthy distance from one another. Just because health officials are stressing that we avoid crowds and exercise social distancing, they a...

The following is an excerpt from Gyeosunim , the sequel to my novel, Songsaengnim: A Korea Diary . As I mentioned in a previous post , the sequel will move through different periods in time: 1988, 1998 to 1999, and 2019. This excerpt is liable to change or may be removed from the final manuscript. The loneliness seemed endless but was finally broken by the loud rattle at the door and a man entering the holding cell. An armed guard was with him but stayed outside as the door closed and locked again. The man was in his fifties. Tall and thin, but fit. He had a full head of hair, though cropped short and showing the early signs of greying. He wore a uniform that looked neither like the police or military. It displayed no badge, no name, no medals. Nothing gave away his rank, if any. In his hands, he held a dossier. It wasn’t thick with papers, not that I would expect many files, if any, of me. I was a nobody: my passport said I was Canadian and nothing about me said that I was anyt...

We have enough food to last us a couple of weeks. Enough water and beverages, too. We have enough toilet paper and tissues to survive the Apocalypse. DW and I are fortunate enough that we can work from home. I actually started feeling a head cold coming on, Tuesday morning, and so I left the office and worked the rest of the afternoon from my basement study area. Coronavirus illustration: 3D4Medical On Wednesday, my throat was sore and my upper sinuses were blocked, so again, I stayed home. As the news of COVID-19's spread grew over media, I listened closely but didn't panic. I had no fever, was not feeling lethargic. It was a head cold, I told myself. On Thursday, my head felt as though it weighed twice as much as normal, and all I wanted to do was sleep. I contacted the office to let them know that I was taking a sick day, let some friends know that I wouldn't be able to meet that evening for dinner, and went back to bed. Later that afternoon, still feeling...

The fact that Watson's Mill is haunted doesn't quite have as much impact as COVID-19 and everything shutting down around us. The real fear will be when we all run out of toilet paper. Wherever you are and however you're doing, stay safe. Happy Friday the 13 th !

Ugh... I can't believe I'm still at it, still banging out pages for my next novel, which I had promised myself that I would finish by the end of summer, 2018 (it was already years in the making). I then told myself I would get it done by the end of that same year, and then again by the time I was ready to head back to Korea, in May of 2019 (which was more than 20 years after I returned from living there, from 1997 to 1999). When I was in Korea, last year, I decided to take Gyeosunim in a different direction, and started writing it again (for the third time). I already had two timelines in the latest version, and after returning from Korea this time, I had a third timeline. If you've read my first book, Songsaengnim: A Korea Diary , you'll know that it takes place from March, 1997, to January, 1998, and for the most part follows my experiences during my first year of teaching English in Chŏnju, South Korea. But the main character, Roland Axam, is a different perso...

Photo credit: Gillian Flaccus, via AP Maybe, in the age of COVID-19, this is not such a bad thing. After all, the best way to avoid catching a bug from somebody is to remove any point of contact. And besides, all of the toilet paper and disinfectant wipes and gels are gone. (Ugh... people are stupid.) I've never liked shopping, have tried to avoid it at all cost. I especially hate shopping with family members, who seem to take a twisted delight at dragging me from store to store. For me, ordering online and having a package delivered to my doorstep is a stroke of genius. For more than a year, DW and I have been subscribing to Amazon Prime. At first, it seemed like an extravagance that we didn't really need. We rarely ordered anything online, save the occasional book or CD. When streaming or downloading music became the norm, and when DW relied more on her e-book, we almost thought that our online shopping would dry up. We started with a free, 30-day trial of Prime...

I would have never called my folks. Don't get me wrong: I have great parents who did an excellent job of raising me and my siblings. But when we did things that we weren't supposed to do, they weren't always great at the lectures that they devised for such occasions. Lectures do nothing. Besides, I would never have lectured my kid about underage drinking. I wouldn't be one to talk. I did the same thing when I was a teen. I did it at an even earlier age. There were times, when they were younger, when I told them that they would reach an age when they would want to try things with their friends, and that was okay, as long as they were in a safe place. I told them about how, when I was in my teens, my friends and I would find somebody who would be able to get us alcohol, and we would smuggle it into someone's basement, where we would crank tunes and get drunk. We did it, often, at a friend's house where his parents kind of knew what we were up to, but wou...

Even though I'm not a morning person, I will still drag myself out of bed in the wee hours so that I can hit the road, get into work before the masses, and get my day finished with enough time to enjoy the rest of the afternoon and evening. For years, I've been getting out of bed at 5:30. I'd shower, dress, and head out the door between 6:15 and 6:30, reaching the office no later than 7. By 3:00, my work day would be done and I'd be a free man until the next morning, when it would start all over again. For the past few months, my morning routine has been interrupted after DW fell down our basement stairs, badly breaking her right foot. Fortunately, that was the extent of the damage but because it was her right foot, she has been unable to drive. That meant that I had to help her get ready in the mornings, get her into the car, and drive her to work. I was happy to be able to help her but it also meant that my morning routine was out the window. It was fine. It m...