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The editorial staff at JazzProfiles thought it might be appropriate to memorialize Marian's passing by re-printing this feature which originally posted on January 13, 2013 as "Marian Mc:Partland: The Key of D is Daffodil Yellow."
The quaint subtitle is from a 1970's interview with Marian that the esteemed writer Whitney Balliett conducted and then included in an essay about her which was published in The New Yorker magazine.
In retrospect and from so very many vantage points, Marian was one of the greatest teachers Jazz ever had.
She was a heckuva piano player, too.
Is hard to imagine the Jazz World without her.
One thing is for sure, it won't be the same now that she's gone.
© -
Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
"I went into the
House in , and I was there most of the next eight years. The best trio I had was Hickory Bill Crow on bass and Joe Morello on drums. Sal introduced me to Joe one night. He was at the bar, a skinny bean pole in a raincoat, and he looked like a studious young chemist. I asked him to sit in, and I was flabbergasted. I'd never heard anyone play drums like that. When Mousie Alexander, who was with me then, left, Joe joined us, and I was so enamored of his playing that I let him play a lot of solos." Salvador
Marian McPartland looks up at the ceiling and laughs. "Whenever I think of Joe, I think of swinging. It was impossible not to swing with him."
There are two things I like best regarding the following essay.
The first is that it is about Marian McPartland, one of my all-time favorite Jazz pianists.
The second is that it was penned by Whitney Balliett, one of my all-time favorite writers.
Whitney's essay was originally published in the early 1970's in The New Yorker Magazine, a learned publication for which he wrote on the subject of Jazz for many years.
The piece antedates Marian's Piano Jazz, an NPR program that would bring her well-deserved acclaim and more than likely a lot of enjoyment as her program consisted of interviews with just about every exponent of Jazz piano on the planet.
A marvelously talent Jazz pianist and often overlooked, I will always be grateful to Marian for bringing drummer Joe Morello into my life by way of her Marian McPartland at the Hickory House, a 10" Capitol LP [574] which was recorded in September, 1954.
In his piece, Whitney talks about
and Jazz in New York as though they were the center of the civilized world. Of course, each was at the time. New York
This is a lengthy piece that for all intents and purposes reflects on a world gone by.
It's a fascinating story about a singularly talented woman who has contributed so much to Jazz over the years.
Amazingly, at it's conclusion, Marian would add another forty years to its telling!
Although Marian is in retirement today [Whitney died in 2007], the editorial staff at JazzProfiles thought you might like to share in a revisit with Whitney and Marian, chatting away in her cozy flat – one day, when the world was young.
© -Whitney Balliett, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
"Four scenes from the life of Marian McPartland, the unique and graceful English-born jazz pianist. The first scene takes place early in the spring.
She is seated at a small upright piano in a corner of an elementary-school classroom on
Long Island. She has the polished, easy, expectant air that she has when she is about to start a set in a nightclub. Her back is ruler-straight, she is smiling, and her hands rest lightly on the keyboard. And, as always, she is impeccably got up. Her blond hair, shaded by pale grays, is carefully arranged, and she is wearing a faultlessly tailored pants suit. Twenty or so six-year-olds, led into the classroom a few moments before by a pair of teachers, are seated at her feet in a semicircle. She looks at a list of kinds of weather the children have prepared. "All right, dears, what have we here?" she says in a musical English alto. "Did all of you do this?"
There is a gabble of "yes"es.
"Hail, snow, hurricane, cloudy day, rain, twister, fog, wind, the whole lot. Now, I'm going to pick one out and play something, and I want you to tell me what kind of weather I'm playing about." She bends over the keyboard and, dropping her left hand into her lap, constructs floating, gentle, Debussy chords with her right hand. A girl with a budlike face and orange hair shoots a hand directly at her and says, "Rain, gentle rain."
"That's very good. It is rain, and gentle rain, too. Now what's this?" She crooks her arms and pads lazily up and down the keyboard on her forearms. She stops and smiles and gazes around the faces. There is a puzzled silence. A boy with porcupine hair and huge eyes raises a hand, falters, and pulls it down with his other hand. "Fog," says the little girl.
Marian McPartland laughs. "That's very close, dear, but it's not exactly right." She pads around on the keyboard again. "What's like a blanket on the ground, a big blanket that goes as far as you can see?" The large-eyed boy shoots his hand all the way up. "Snow! Snow! Snow!"
"Right! But what have we now?" Dropping her left hand again, she plays a quick, light, intricate melody in the upper registers. "Twister!" a pie-faced boy shouts. "No, hurricane," a boy next to him says.
"Could you play it again?" one of the teachers asks.
"Well, I'll try." She plays the melody, but it is not the same. It is a delightful improvisation. There are more notes this time, and she plays with greater intensity. "I think it's wind'' the orange-haired girl says.
"It is wind, and wind is what we get when we have one of these." She launches into loud, stabbing chords that rush up and down the keyboard and are broken by descending glissan-dos. She ends on a crash. "Twister! Twister!" the pie-faced boy cries again.
She shakes her head. "Now, listen, listen more closely." Again she improvises on her invention, and before she is finished there are shouts of "Thunder!" "Lightning!" "Twister!"
"I don't think I'd even know what a twister sounds like," she says, laughing. "But the rest of you are very close. Which is it —thunder or lightning?" She plays two flashing glisses. "Lightning!" a tiny, almond-eyed girl yells.
"Very, very good. Now this one is hard, but it's what we have a lot of in the summer." She plays groups of crystalline chords in a medium tempo. It is sunlight. A cloudy day and a breeze and a hurricane follow, and when the children's attention begins to wane, she starts "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head." The children get up and stand around the piano and sing, Two of them lean against her. She finishes one chorus and starts another, and at her behest the children clap in time. She gradually speeds up the tempo until the clapping is continuous and the children, hopping around as if they were on pogo sticks, are roaring with laughter. She finishes with a loose, ringing tremolo. The teachers thank her and sweep the children out of the room. She takes a lipstick out of an enormous handbag and fixes her mouth. Then, in the empty room, she starts noodling a medium-tempo blues. But soon it is all
there: the long, tight, flowing single-note lines and the rich, sparring chords; the flawless time; the far-out, searching harmonies; the emotional content, passed so carefully from generation to generation of jazz musicians; and the balancing, smoothing taste. She plays three or four minutes, and then, as a group of ten-year-olds comes billowing through the classroom door, she switches to the Beatles' "Hey Jude."
Marian McPartland lives in an apartment on
East Eighty-sixth Street. It is on the seventeenth floor, and it faces south. From the windows of her compact living room, the and the Empire State and Chrysler Building are knee-deep in an endless wash of brownstones. There is a small terrace, with chairs and a couple of boxes of geraniums. A grand piano, which faces away from the view, dominates the living room. Paintings hang on two walls, and the third is covered with photographs, most of which she is in. The business end of the piano is covered with sheet music and musical manuscript, and there are careful stacks of records on the floor below the photographs. She is wearing a flowered top and pants and a big leather belt, and she looks mint-fresh. She makes tea and sits down facing the panorama. She is extremely handsome. Her face, with its long, well-shaped nose, high forehead, wide mouth, and full chin, is classically English. She smiles a great deal and keeps her chin pointed several degrees above the horizon. She has the figure of a well-proportioned twenty-year-old. New York Hospital
"I've been teaching four or five years," she says, crossing her legs and taking a sip of tea. "Clem De Rosa, a drummer and the musical director of the
, got me going. I teach about six weeks out in that area every year. I started out doing assemblies with a quartet and then with a trio, but I didn't think we were getting across to the kids. Last year, I went into the classrooms with just a bass player, and this year I'm doing it by myself. I love to work with the little ones — especially the slower ones. I guess it has to do with listening. I'm trying to make them shed their fidgeting and their fears and make them listen. Very few of us ever learn how. I think I was first made conscious of it when I was in kindergarten in Cold Spring Harbor High School and we had a teacher who used to take us on long walks in the woods and fields and make us listen to the birds and the wind and the water lapping in brooks. During the summer, I teach and play at college clinics, and it's terrific fun. Musicians like Clark Terry and Billy Taylor and Gary Burton do a lot of it, too, so there are always wonderful people to play with, to say nothing of the kids themselves. I wish there had been clinics and such when I was growing up. Becoming a jazz musician in those days, with my background and my sex, was like pulling teeth. It just 'wasn't done,' as my father used to say. I was born in England Slough, near . But we moved to Woolwich a few months later, and then to Bromley, Kent, when I was about four. Bromley was much nicer than Woolwich, which resembled Windsor ." Astoria, New York
"My family was upper-middle-class and conservative. All my mother's side lived around
Slough and Eton and . My great-uncle sang at Windsor Chapel at St. George's , and my grandmother lived in The Cloisters, on the grounds. Queen Elizabeth knighted another great-uncle, and now he's Sir Cyril. He and Aunt Sylvia came over when I was working in Windsor Castle at the original Hickory House in the fifties, and they were shocked and mystified by the whole scene. Uncle Cyril took me aside, between sets at the club, and said, 'Margaret' — I was born Margaret Marian Turner — 'Margaret, does your father know what you're doing?' My father was a civil engineer who was involved with machine tools. He was an avid gardener, and clever at everything he did. When I was quite little, he made a goldfish pond with all sorts of pretty rocks on the bottom. He let me help him, and it was a great source of pride. I was Daddy's girl, in spite of the fact that I think he would have liked me to be a boy. My mother always used to say to me when she was annoyed, 'You're just like your father, Margaret — pigheaded!' I think they did quite a lot of bickering and carrying on. My mother was rather a critical person, but I suppose it was her upbringing. It was forever 'Do this, do that, pick up behind you, don't be late.' I was harassed by it, and it took me years to grow out of it." New York
"My schooling was of the times. I started in at a one-room school, where I drew pictures of little houses with snow falling. Then, for less than a year, I went to Avon Cliffe, a private school run by two well-meaning women. I was a frog in the school play, and I was not pleased by that. There was a nursing home, next to the school, where my grandmother spent her last days, and she'd wave to me out of the window every afternoon when I left. After that, I was sent to a convent school. My sister, Joyce — there were just the two of us — was always ailing with bronchitis, and I think my mother enjoyed hovering over her. But I was the strong, healthy ox. Even so, I was scared of some of the nuns. I was hopeless in some subjects, and they were always grabbing me by the neck and locking me in the laundry room. My mother said I'd have to go to boarding school if I didn't shape up. I didn't, so they put me in Stratford House, in a neighboring town. It was a nice school for nice girls from nice families. We had a matron with a starched headdress and we were told when it was our turn to take a bath and we were taught how to make a bed with hospital corners. I couldn't stand the school food or the smell of cooking, and I got sick headaches. But there were good things. I think I learned how to string letters and words and sentences together on paper. And I designed the school emblem — three sweet peas, entwined. It was quite beautiful. And I wrote the school song. "
"I had started playing the piano when I was three or four. It was at my great-uncle Harry's, and the keyboard was all yellow. And I remember playing, sitting up high on a stool, at kindergarten with children all gathered around. My mother would make me play for her friends, and while I played they all talked. When I finished, she'd say, 'Oh, that was very nice, dear.' I was angry, but I wouldn't have dared pop out with 'You weren't listening!' I didn't realize that the pattern of my life was already set. I still play while people talk and then applaud. When I was nine, I asked my mother if I could take piano lessons. She said, 'Margaret, you already play the piano very well. I think you should take up the violin.' We went up to
and bought a violin, and I took lessons, but I never enjoyed the instrument." London
"I played in concerts and competitions, but then my teacher died, and that put an end to it. I was studying elocution with Miss Mackie, at Stratford House, around this time, and I had a crush on her. I used to ask my mother if she'd invite her over for tea or dinner. Mummy was a nervous hostess, but finally Miss Mackie came, and it was she who advised my parents to send me up to the Guildhall School of Music, in
. My parents were always saying, 'You better think of what you're going to do after school; we aren't going to keep you forever,' which made me feel like a bit of aging merchandise. I went up to London and played for Sir Landon Ronald, who was the head of the Guildhall, and I got in. I commuted every day from Bromley, and I really worked. I studied composition and theory and piano, and I won a scholarship in composition. I took up violin again, because we students had to have a second instrument, and I studied singing with Carrie Tubb, a retired opera singer. The other day, I came across six pieces I wrote then. They have titles like Tas Seul' and 'Reverie,' and actually they are pretty well put together. But I'd never claim then that anything I'd done was good. The reaction would have been immediate: 'How can you be so immodest, Margaret!'' London
The telephone rings, and Marian McPartland talks for a minute. "That was Sam Goody's. They want more of my records. Some women buy fur coats; I have my own record company. It's called Halcyon, and I've put out four albums to date — three with myself and rhythm, and some duets with Teddy Wilson, which turned out surprisingly well. Sherman Fairchild helped me get it going. He died two years ago, and he was a great jazz buff and a friend for twenty years. Bill Weilbacher, who has his own label, Master Jazz Recordings, gives me advice, and a small packaging firm handles the distribution and such. A printing of five thousand LPs costs around fifteen hundred dollars. Whatever I make I put right back into the next record. The big companies are impossible, and a lot of musicians have their own labels. Stan Kenton has his, George Shearing has his, Clark Terry has his, and Bobby Hackett has started one. I think this do-it-yourself movement is terribly important, particularly in the area of reissues. What with all the mergers among recording companies, I'm afraid of valuable records being lost. Not long ago, I wrote the company that recorded me at the Hickory House in the fifties and asked if they intended reissuing any of the albums. I think they'd have some value now. But I got the vaguest letter back. So they won't reissue the records, nor will they let me. It's not right. I think that musicians should get together catalogues of everything they've recorded and perhaps form some sort of cooperative for reissuing valuable stuff. Anyway . . ."
Marian McPartland laughs, and says she is going to make lunch.
She sets a small table and puts out pumpernickel and a fresh fruit salad. "I was listening to everything indiscriminately at the Guildhall, and I was beginning to learn all sorts of tunes. I have fantastic recall, but I don't know where half the music that is stored in my head has come from. I also started listening to jazz — the Hot Club of France, Duke Ellington's 'Blue Goose,' Sidney Bechet, Teddy Wilson, Bob Zurke, Art Tatum, and the wonderful Alec Wilder octets. I was playing a sort of cocktail piano outside of the classroom, and once, when my piano professor at the Guildhall, a solemn little white-haired man named Orlando Morgan, heard me, he said, 'Don't let me catch you playing that rubbish again.' Well, he never got the chance. One day I sneaked over to the
West End, where Billy Mayerl had a studio. He played a lot on the BBC, and he was like Frankie Carle or Eddy Duchin. I played 'Where Are You?' for him, and a little later he asked me to join a piano quartet he was putting together — Billy Mayerl and His Claviers. I was twenty, and I was tremendously excited. The family were horrified, but I said I'd go back to the Guildhall when the tour was over. My father charged up to to see 'this Billy Mayerl/ He didn't want any daughter of his being preyed on, and he wanted to know what I'd be paid — ten pounds a week, it turned out. So my parents agreed. The quartet included Billy and George Myddelton and Dorothy Carless and myself. She and I were outfitted in glamorous gowns, and we played music-hall stuff. We played variety theaters — a week in each town. We lived in rented digs in somebody's house. If it was 'all in,' it included food. Some of the places were great, and they'd even bring you up a cup of tea in the morning. Meanwhile, my family had moved to London Eastbourne."
"The tour with Billy lasted almost a year, and then I joined Carroll Levis's Discoveries, a vaudeville show, and I was with them until the early years of the war. By this time, my family had given up on me. But my father would catch me on his business trips, and he'd come backstage and wow all the girls in the cast. I was going around with the manager of the show. He was a comedian, and he was also Jewish. My father would take us out to dinner and he would manfully try not to be patronizing. But it was beyond him. He would have liked me to work in a bank or be a teacher, and here I was playing popular music and going around with someone who was not 'top drawer.' I don't think it was real anti-Semitism; you just didn't go around with Jews and tradespeople. When I was five or six, and my mother found out that one of my friends was the daughter of a liquor-store owner, I wasn't allowed to see her anymore."
The phone rings again, and Marian McPartland talks with animation. "That was my dear friend Alec Wilder. He wanted to know if I'd done any writing today. He's incessant, but he's right. For a long time I procrastinated and procrastinated. I'd start things and let them sit around forever before finishing them. Alec gave me a set of notebooks, and I jot ideas down in them in cabs and at the hairdresser. Tony Bennett recorded my 'Twilight World,' which Johnny Mercer wrote the lyrics for, and it's just come out on Tony's new LP. Johnny is another great friend. One evening, he and Ginger, his wife, and his mother came up here, and Johnny sat right over there by the piano and sang about fifteen songs. It was a marvelous experience." Marian McPartland clears the table, and sits down in the living room with a fresh cup of tea.
"In , I volunteered for ENSA, which was the English equivalent of the USO. I traveled all over
with the same sort of groups I'd been with, and then I switched to the USO, which paid better and which meant working with the Americans! Boy, the Americans! The fall of , we were sent to England . We were given fatigues and helmets and mess kits, and we lived in tents and ate in orchards and jumped into hedgerows when the Germans came over. At first I played accordion because there weren't any pianos around. I met Fred Astaire and France and Edward G. Robinson, and I worked with Astaire in a show that we gave for Eisenhower. We moved up through Dinah Shore , which was all rubble, and into Caen , where I met Jimmy McPartland. A jam session was going on in a big tent, and I was playing, and in walked Jimmy and saw me — a female white English musician — and the my-God, what-could-be-worse expression on his face was clear right across the room. But it was a case of propinquity, and in the weeks to come it was Jimmy on cornet and me and a bass player and whatever drummer we could find. We'd go up near the front and play in tents or outside, and it was cold. He annoyed me at first because he almost always had this silly grin on his face, but I found out that it was because he was drinking a great deal. Somewhere along the line he said, 'Let's get married.' I didn't believe him, so one morning I went over to his place very early, when I knew he'd be hung over and close to reality, and asked him if he really meant it, and he said sure and took a drink of armagnac. I guess I was madly in love with him. We were married in February, in Belgium , and we played at our own wedding. Aachen
"When we got to
, early in , we went straight to Eddie Condon's, in the Village. I was so excited I couldn't stand it. Jimmy sat in and so did I, even though my left wrist, which I'd broken in a jeep in New York , was still in a cast. We stayed for a while with Gene Krupa, then we went to Germany to stay with Jimmy's family. A colonel with our outfit had given the news of my marriage to my parents when he was on leave in Chicago . My father was stiff-upper-lip, but Mummy told me she cried a whole day. I guess my not telling them first was a rotten thing to do, but we were so isolated. You couldn't just pick up a phone at the front and tell them you were going to get married. But when Jimmy finally met them, he charmed them completely. My mother was really crippled with arthritis by then, and he made her laugh, and Jimmy took my father to the movies. They told me, 'He's not like an American. He's so polite/ In Chicago, I became greatest of friends with Jimmy's daughter, Dorothy, who was very beautiful and just fifteen. Jimmy had been married before, and Dorothy had been their only child. Jimmy had sent a lot of money back from England Europe, and the first six months in were spent hanging out and treating people. All anybody seemed to do was drink, including Jimmy, and eventually it got to be one crisis after another. I left him a couple of times, and once I even booked passage on the Queen Elizabeth. But it was all done without much thought; I seemed such a brainless person then. And I think I must have been quite awful to Jimmy. One of Mummy's dire predictions was If you become a musician, Margaret, you'll marry a musician and live in an attic.' And that's exactly what happened; our first place in Chicago was a furnished room in an attic. But there were a lot of nice times, too. Jimmy and I started working together, and Jimmy was always marvelous in that he was proud of me, he wanted to show me off. We worked with Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan and Anita O'Day, and I met Duke Ellington and Count Basie. And we'd go fishing up in Chicago and sit there by some lake and cook fish and eat them and watch the sun rise. I had learned all the good old Dixieland tunes from Jimmy, but I was also listening to the new sounds — Charlie Ventura and Lennie Tristano and Charlie Parker. Wisconsin
"Jimmy and I had split up, musically, by the early fifties, and my first gig all by myself in
was at the St. Charles Hotel, in America , and not long after that I left for St. Charles, Illinois . I played solo piano at Condon's and then I went into the Embers, with Eddie Safranski on bass and Don Lamond on drums. Coleman Hawkins and Roy Eldridge were brought in as guest stars, and we backed them. I was so nervous I had to write down what I was supposed to say at the close of each set. I played Storyville, in New York , and then I went into the Hickory House in , and I was there most of the next eight years. The best trio I had was Boston Bill Crow on bass and Joe Morello on drums. Sal introduced me to Joe one night. He was at the bar, a skinny bean pole in a raincoat, and he looked like a studious young chemist. I asked him to sit in, and I was flabbergasted. I'd never heard anyone play drums like that. When Mousie Alexander, who was with me then, left, Joe joined us, and I was so enamored of his playing that I let him play a lot of solos." Salvador
Marian McPartland looks up at the ceiling and laughs. "Whenever I think of Joe, I think of swinging. It was impossible not to swing with him. And whenever I think of swinging, I think metaphorically. Swinging is like being on a tightrope or a roller coaster. It's like walking in space. It's like a souffle: it rises and rises and rises. The fingers and the mind are welded together. But it's dangerous. You have to leave spaces in your playing. You can't go on like a typewriter. Sometimes I do, though, and I leave no note unplayed. It's hard to say what goes on in your head when you're swinging, when you're really improvising. I do know I see the different keys in colors — the key of D is daffodil yellow, B major is maroon, and B flat is blue. Different musicians spark you into different ideas, which is why I like to play with new people all the time. Especially the younger musicians. They're fearless. Joe used to play enormously complicated rhythmic patterns once in a while and confuse me, and I'd get mad. Now I'd just laugh. Playing with lots and lots of different people is like feeding the computer: what they teach you may not come out right away, but it will eventually. Unless you have a row with someone just before you play, your state of mind doesn't affect you. You can feel gloomy, and it will turn out a marvelous night. Or you can feel beautiful, and it will be a terrible night. When I started out, I had the wish, the need, to compete with men. If somebody said I sounded like a man, I was pleased. But I don't feel that way anymore. I take pride in being a woman. Of course, I have been a leader most of my career, and that helps. I don't feel I've ever been discriminated against job-wise. I have always been paid what I was worth as a musician. So I feel I've been practicing women's lib for years."
"The Hickory House was a good period for Jimmy and me. He was on the wagon and we were both working, and we lived on the
West Side. For the first time in my life, I began spending all my waking hours doing things that had to do with just me, and one of them was a big romance that went on, or off and on, for years. But I wanted to keep things together with Jimmy, and we bought a little house out in Merrick, Long Island, and Jimmy's daughter came and lived with us. Joe Morello left in to join Dave Brubeck, and it was terrible, but he had to move on. In nineteen sixty-three, after the Hickory House gig was over and I'd worked at the Strollers Club, in the old East Side music hall called The Establishment, I went with Benny Goodman. I thought I'd be perfect for Benny, because I had worked so long as a sideman with Jimmy, and of course Jimmy and Benny played together in as kids. But I had the feeling I wasn't fitting in. Bobby Hackett was in the band, and he'd tell me, 'Marian, don't play such far-out chords behind Benny,' and I'd say, 'Well, why doesn't Benny say something to me?' One night, Benny and I had a couple of drinks, and I told him I knew he wasn't happy with me and to get someone else. All he said was 'Oh really, you don't mind?' and he got John Bunch. So all of a sudden, nothing seemed right — my work, my marriage, my romance. When I got back to Chicago , I started going to a psychiatrist, and I stayed with him six years. He was tough but very good. He indirectly precipitated a lot of things. The romance finally broke up, and I cried for a week. Jimmy and I got divorced. I didn't really want to do it, and neither did he, but it turned out we were right. Jimmy hasn't had a drink in five years, and I'm twice as productive. We've never lost touch with each other. We still talk on the phone almost every day, and he stops by all the time. In fact, he said he'd come by today." New York
The doorbell rings, and Marian McPartland jumps up. "Speaking of the devil! That'll be the old man now." Jimmy McPartland comes into the living room at ninety miles an hour, gives her a peck on the cheek, plumps a big attaché case down on the coffee table, takes off his blazer, and sits down. McPartland is sixty-five, but he doesn't look over fifty. His handsome Irish face glows, and he is salty and dapper. He is wearing a striped button-down shirt and a foulard tie and blue checked pants.
He carries his considerable girth the way Sydney Greenstreet did — as a badge rather than a burden. His credentials are all in order — the founder, along with Bud Freeman and
Dave Tough and Eddie Condon, of the school of jazz; the first and foremost of Bix Beiderbecke's admirers ("I like you, kid," Beiderbecke told him. "You sound like me, but you don't copy me"); and a still lyrical and inventive cornetist — and he wears them well. He opens the attaché case. It has a cornet in it, and several hundred photographs. He puts the cornet beside him on the sofa and dumps the pictures on the coffee table. "My God, will you look at these, Marian," he says, in a booming voice. "I found them the other day out at the house, and some of them go back thirty or forty years. There's your father, and there we are, with Sarah Vaughan and Charlie Shavers and Louis Bellson. And here we are on the ship coming over. Look at you in the GI togs and look at me. Thinsville." Chicago
She leans over his shoulder and giggles.
"Here we are playing in that pub in
Eastbourne when we went to visit your family.
And here you are holding a fish we caught in
." Wisconsin
"They should be put in a book, Jimmy. They'll just get lost." McPartland pulls a tape out of the attaché case.
"A guy gave me this on my South African trip, a couple of weeks ago. I'd never heard it before. We made it in
in . You were on piano and you wrote the arrangements. It'll surprise you." England
She puts the tape on a machine, and Bix Beiderbecke's "In a Mist" starts. A complex ensemble passage introduces a Jimmy McPartland solo. "Listen to that intro," she says. "How awful."
"It's not, it's not. The clarinet player is out of tune. You know, I don't sound bad. Not bad at all." The tape finishes, and McPartland opens his mouth and points at one of his upper front teeth. "Look at thiff," he says to her through his finger. "The damn toof if moving back. Walking right back into my mouf."
She stares at the tooth, frowns, and straightens up. "You should go to Dr. Whitehorn, Jimmy."
"I don't know. I think I'll have to move my embouchure. I've already started, and it's a bitch of a job — changing an embouchure youVe had almost fifty years." He walks over to the window and puts his cornet to his mouth. He makes a little sound halfway between a puff and a grunt, takes the mouthpiece away, makes the sound again, takes the mouthpiece away again, and so on for two or three minutes. The room is silent except for the mysterious little sounds, but suddenly three or four full notes come out. "There. That's better. But it's going to take a hell of a lot more work."
"Jimmy, are we still going out to dinner?"
"Sure, babe. That Brazilian place around the corner you like so much."
"I'll go get dressed."
McPartland goes through his embouchure priming process once more. Then he shuffles through the photographs. "Marian is amazing. There's no one I'd rather be with as a person, as an all-around human being. I have terrific respect for her as a musician and as a person. She's talent personified. Musically, she has that basic classical training, and she's meshed that and her jazz talent. She's just begun to do it really successfully in the past two or three years. And she's a great accompanist. She flows with horns and singers like a conversation. Marian didn't have good time when I first heard her. Her enthusiasm was overwhelming, and she'd rush the beat. I'd tell her to go along with the rhythm, to take it easy. She sounded like Fats Waller, and, in fact, the first tune I ever heard her play was his 'Honeysuckle Rose.' It was in this tent in
. I go in and there's a girl playing piano and she looks English. I thought, God, this is awful. I wouldn't play with her until I'd had a couple of drinks. I proposed after six or seven weeks. Real offhand. If it doesn't work out,' I'd say, 'you can just go back to Belgium .' She tried to act real GI, but I could see she was a fine, well-bred person and not a England juvenile delinquent like me." Chicago
"My father was a boxer and a musician and a professional baseball player with Anson's Colts, which were the forerunners of the Chicago Cubs. He didn't take a drink until he was twenty-one, and then he never stopped. My brother Dick and I built a reputation as tough little punks, and we were almost sent to reform school, but my mother saved us. She was a schoolteacher from
, and she knew German and worked as a translator in court for all the Jewish people. We were hauled up before the judge, but he knew my mother and told her he'd let us off if she moved us to another neighborhood, and she did. She was a wonderful woman, and she always treated me like King James himself. She had seven sisters, and her name was Jeanne Munn. I'd go to her father's house every Sunday — his name was Dugald Munn, and he was an inventor — and I'd get fifteen cents for listening to him read from the Bible. He had a wee bit of a brogue, and I couldn't understand a word he said. So visiting Marian's parents was like being in an English movie to me. They were mid-Victorian in style. Her mother was in a wheelchair and very well-dressed and very particular. Everything at a certain time, everything regulated. Tea at four, dinner at eight. If I was late coming back from fishing or golf, Marian's mother would say, 'James, you're late. We've started our tea/ Her father, who was a great engineer, used to knock his brains out in his garden, and I'd help him until the pull of golf or fishing got too strong. He was a nice, conservative gent." Glasgow
Marian McPartland has been standing for some moments in front of the sofa. She is in a Pucci-type dress and white boots, and she has a fur coat over one arm. "Daddy once slapped my hand for saying 'Blast it!''
McPartland digs a frayed envelope out from under the photographs and pours out a lot of German currency. "We used to go into people's houses over there and rifle them. That's where all this came from. Some of it is inflation money from after the First War. It was a terrible thing to steal like that, but everybody did it."
"You used to appear with bagfuls of old cobwebby wine bottles."
"I was just well-organized. Once, you needed a piano for a special show, and the colonel gave me the name of this collaborator in the town. I got eight guys together and a truck, and we went to his house and there was a beautiful piano. Brand-new. I told him he'd get paid for it, and we brought it back to the theater."
"I was really impressed," she says. "You said you were going out to find me a new piano and you did. It was one of your finest moments. Let's go and eat, Jimmy."
It is Marian McPartland's opening night at the Cafe Carlyle. It is her fourth long nightclub gig of the past year, the three others having been at the Cookery, in the Village, and at the Rowntowner Motel, in
. It is in some ways an odd engagement, and it suggests the country mouse's visit to the town mouse. The Cafe houses, for eight months of the year, the elegant and fashionable supper-club singer and pianist Bobby Short, and it is not the sort of room one associates with jazz; indeed, no out-and-out jazz group has ever played there. By nine-forty-five this evening, when the first set is scheduled to begin, the room is filled, largely with friends and well-wishers. There is a table of business acquaintances, most of whom are amateur musicians. Barney Josephson, the owner of the Cookery, is at ringside with his wife. At the back of the room are Alec Wilder and Jim Maher, the writer. Jimmy McPartland and Clark Terry are at another table, and nearby are Clem De Rosa and pastor John Gensel, of the Rochester . Marian McPartland sits down at the piano, and she is a winsome sight. The room, with its fey, old-fashioned murals and rather dowdy trappings, is out of the late thirties, and she brings it brightly and instantly up to date. In the light, her hair is golden and bouffant, and she is wearing an ensemble that has clearly been thought out to the last fold: a close-fitting cranberry turtleneck, a gold belt, brocaded cranberry and gold palazzo pants, and a gold pocketbook, which she plunks down on the piano. She looks calm and collected, and, smiling slightly to herself, she goes immediately into a pleasant, warming-up version of "It's a Wonderful World." (Her accompanists are Rusty Gilder on bass and Joe Corsello on drums.) Despite her outward cool, she sounds jumpy. Her chords blare a little, an arpeggio stumbles, her time is a second or two off. In the next number, a long, medium-tempo "Gypsy in My Soul," which she introduces as a carry-over from the days at the Hickory House, she begins to relax, and the glories of her style come into full view. Marian McPartland came of age when pianistic giants roamed the earth — Earl Hines, Fats Waller, Art Tatum, Bud Powell — and their footsteps still echo dimly in her work. Lutheran Church
But in the past five years she has moved beyond adroit adulation into her own, special realm. It is, in the way of Johnny Hodges and Sidney Bechet and Tatum, an emotional, romantic, and highly inventive one. (Her sheer inventiveness is frightening; her ceaseless ideas sometimes trample one another.) Her slow ballads suggest rain forests. The chords are massed and dark and overhanging, the harmonies thick and new and almost impenetrable. And her slow blues are much the same: the tremolos are mountainous, the arpeggios cascades, the blue notes heavy and keening. But her slow blues also have a singular Celtic bagpipe quality. Her foliage is thinner at faster tempos. There are pauses between the stunning, whipping single-note melodic lines, and her chords, often played off beat, are used as recharging way stations. Her notes have room to breathe, and her chordal passages are copses rather than jungles. "Gypsy in My Soul" is sumptuous and crowded, and so is the theme from "Summer of '42." But then she moves lightly and swiftly through medium-fast renditions of "All the Things You Are," part of which is translated into contrapuntal, Bach-like lines, and "Stompin' at the
," which is full of laughing, winding arpeggios. The room is swaying and rocking, and before it can subside she drops abruptly into a delicate, veiled ad-lib reading of "Little Girl Blue." It is a hymn, a lullaby, a crooning. Savoy
A bushy, luxuriant slow blues goes by, and then she pays Alec Wilder tribute with a gentle blending of his three best-known tunes — "I'll Be Around," "While We're Young," and "It's So Peaceful in the Country." They are fresh, mindful versions, and Wilder, listening intently, looks pleased. She closes the set with a rambunctious, homestretch "Royal Garden Blues," and after the applause, which is long and cheerful, she stops briefly at Wilder's table. He asks her how she feels. "I was flipping at first," she replies. "But then the marvelous vibes from all these dear people got to me, and it began to feel very good. Very, very good, in fact. I think it's going to be a nice date."
The closing video montage features Marian,
Bill Crow on bass and Joe Morello on drums performing a 1954 version of "Tickle Toe," Lester Young's famous hit with the Count Basie Band.


text:
This release does not have a Play Store Description, so we grabbed one from version 18.104.22.168_190628:
Manage your files efficiently and easily with ASUS File Manager! ASUS File Manager helps you handle all your files whether they are stored in your device's memory, microSD card, local area network, and cloud storage accounts.
By default, ASUS File Manager allows you to copy, move, rename, delete or share files to and from any of your storages. It also lets you browse and access your files by category.
Key features
Experience and enjoy these features that ASUS Manager has to offer:
– Your light and savvy file explorer: Search, access, save, move, delete, or share files that are stored in your smart device's internal storage to or from a microSD card, LAN, or Cloud storage accounts and vice-versa.
– Access files in LAN and SMB: Manage files within your LAN (local area network) and SMB (Samba) network.
– More storage options via Cloud storages: Supports cloud storage accounts such as ASUS WebStorage, Dropbox, Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive
– Suave and smooth multimedia streamlining: Stream multimedia files such as music or videos or open documents, pictures, or photos stored in any of your Cloud storage accounts
– Save disk space by packaging files: Compress files to save space of your storage and extract compressed files in Zip and RAR formats
– Easy file browsing: Browse files easily by category right from File Manager's home screen: images, videos, music, applications, downloaded, and favorites.
– Disk tools: Storage analyzer, recycle bin and hidden cabinet let you manage your disk easily.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Some people want "a little extra" to enhance medical or surgical hair restoration (hair implants). Other people are temporarily or permanently unable to grow hair and are therefore not candidates for transplantation. And some may want to avoid any type of surgical procedure (hair implants) or may be attracted to the promise of unlimited density and fullness.
In these instances, the answer may be nonsurgical hair addition or replacement. Twenty years ago or more a nonsurgical hair addition or replacement would have been a device called a toupee, hairpiece or wig. In the Twenty-first Century, toupees have disappeared from our vocabulary and a broad variety of hair devices, or hair extensions for hair loss, have come into being to address the need for nonsurgical hair addition or replacement.
The modern definition of a nonsurgical hair addition or replacement is "any external hair-bearing device that is added to existing hair or scalp to give the appearance of a fuller head of hair." [Mahoney MJ, Nonsurgical hair replacement. In: Stough DB, Haber RS (eds.) Hair Replacement. Surgical and Medical. St. Louis: Mosby; 1996:399-411]. Covered by this definition are hair weaving, hair extensions for hair loss, hair fusions, hair pieces, hair prostheses and hair-replacing wigs. The material used to extend or replace hair may be human hair (from the patient, if possible), hair-like synthetic materials, or a combination of human hair and synthetics.
When custom-made under the supervision of a specialist, hairpieces and replacements can meet very real needs of selected patients.
Who is a Candidate for Nonsurgical Hair Addition or Replacement?
Total hair replacement by a prosthesis or wig may be an effective temporary measure for a person with temporary total hair loss caused by chemotherapy or a medical condition, and an effective permanent measure for a person with a genetic condition that renders them unable to grow hair. In situations where the cause of the hair loss is not known, patients should see a physician before choosing a nonsurgical hair addition.
Hair Additions and partial hair replacements may be effective measures for a variety of persons:
- A patient with inadequate donor hair to provide transplants for all desired scalp areas may find satisfaction with a hair addition recommended by the hair restoration surgeon.For example, scarce hair follicles in the donor area may be used to provide a natural hairline in the frontal area of the scalp and a hair addition used to fill in the crown area.
- A person who is considering hair transplantation, but is not yet ready to commit to the surgical procedure, may use hair additions as a half-way measure until transplantation is undertaken.
In rare instances, a medical condition may rule out surgical hair transplantation. Hair additions under the guidance of a physician hair restoration specialist may be a satisfactory alternative to transplantation.
Working with the Physician Hair Restoration Specialist
Choosing hair additions or replacement requires more than simple selecting "off-the-shelf hair." Considerations that should be taken into account include:
The hair addition or replacement must be designed to be esthetically pleasing. For example, the hairline should be correctly placed, hair volume and density should be adjusted to avoid "too much" or "too little", and a total hair replacement should look exactly like a full natural head of hair. Good esthetics requires an experienced specialist.
The material used for the hair device, as well as the materials used in hair-to-hair and hair-to-scalp attachment must be safe for use by the patient. Medical conditions such as allergies to adhesives may make some materials better than others for the individual patient. The variety of choices for hair addition (hair weaving, hair extension, hair fusion, etc.) may be confusing for the patient. To make an informed choice, patients should investigate different devices and actually examine closely someone who is wearing a system in which they are interested. Researching on the Internet is a particularly effective way to learn about the devices and materials that are available. Patients should be wary of fancy, technologically intriguing names and find out what is truly different in a particular device.
Long-Term Care
Hair additions and replacements require regular, long-term care. Hair additions and the scalp underneath must be kept clean by regular cleansing. A condition called seborrheic dermatitis (commonly referred to as dandruff) can develop from failure to keep the hair addition and scalp clean. Total hair prostheses and wigs also must be maintained in a clean condition, and the scalp regularly cleansed.
Both hair additions and hair replacements should be inspected regularly for changes in color or texture. A hair addition can be expected to last about 18 months before it begins to lose its natural appearance and needs to be replaced.
Cost of Hair Additions and Replacements
Custom-made hair additions and replacements are generally more satisfactory than off-the-shelf products, but custom-made products are more expensive. As discussed above, hair additions usually must be replaced as they lose their natural appearance over time. Immediate and replacement costs of hair additions and replacements should be considered when making a decision because the long-term investment can be substantial. Hair transplantation involves much greater initial cost, but because the results are permanent, may ultimately be less expensive when compared to costs of hair additions over time.
Changing to Surgical Hair Restoration
Some people may grow dissatisfied with the maintenance and cost associated with wearing a nonsurgical hair addition and decide to have hair transplantation. Many have made this transition successfully and are pleased to have their own natural hair growing again. Certain precautions, such as not wearing the hair addition for a specified time after the surgery, should be discussed with the hair restoration surgeon to ensure the best results.
Synthetic Hair Implants
Synthetic hair has been implanted into the human scalp for more than 30 years, with varying degrees of success. The use of synthetic hair implants is currently banned in the United States due to a number of side effects reported in the 1970s. In some countries other than the U.S., synthetic hair made of newer polymer fibers produced by companies in Japan and Italy is being used as implants in patients who have inadequate natural donor hair for transplantation. Clinical trials of synthetic hair made of these newer fibers are being reported in medical literature and may be discussed in future updates.


text: Ever heard of greylisting? Greylisting is a powerful way of reducing spam to your mailserver. Greylisting in short means that when someone wants to deliver a mail to your mailserver it will simply reply "Please come back later". That is something all RFC compliant mailservers do and when they do come back the mail is accepted. Most spammers and spam software are not compliant and not patient enough to try again. You will be surprised to see how effective this is. Anyway, follow the links below to really learn about it. There are as always pros and cons so do your homework before you put it on a production server. Greylisting.org Greylisting on Wikipedia There are several implementations of greylisting and it can be done with most any server. I will show you how to do it on a Debian Sarge with Postfix running as MTA with Postgrey. Install Postgrey I assume you have a working Postfix installation. Requirements for postgrey are: - Perl >= 5.6.0 - Net::Server (Perl Module) - IO::Multiplex (Perl Module) - BerkeleyDB (Perl Module) - Berkeley DB >= 4.1 (Library) First we install the postgrey package with : Code: apt-get install postgrey This will install the postgrey server on your machine. Now we might want to change some settings. The most annoying thing with greylisting is that it impose a delay on the delivery of mails. I find the 5 minute delay that is default to be a little too long so I set it to 1 minute. If you wish you can change this by editing /etc/default/postgrey. Change the default : Code: POSTGREY_OPTS="--inet=127.0.0.1:60000" to Code: POSTGREY_OPTS="--inet=127.0.0.1:60000 --delay=60" However I would suggest changing the defaults only after you have verified that everything works as expected. Now start the postgrey policyserver with : Code: /etc/init.d/postgrey start The Postgrey policy service should now be up and running on port 60000. Let's configure Postfix to use Postgrey. Configure Postfix The Postfix configuration files are located in /etc/postfix. Edit /etc/postfix/main.cf and add check_policy_service inet:127.0.0.1:60000 to the smtpd_recipient_restrictions. It should look something like this : Code: smtpd_recipient_restrictions = permit_sasl_authenticated, permit_mynetworks, reject_unauth_destination, check_policy_service inet:127.0.0.1:60000 Now all we have to do is to reload the Postfix configuration with : Code: postfix reload Simple and nice. Sit back and enjoy the absence of spam //Erk PS. This is really not a ISPC specific HowTo but I thought I would post it here first.


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Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Monday, July 30, 2012
The Greek Tragedy
Greece is a country that cannot be ignored. That is true in terms of current events but is also just as true when taking a broader, historic view. Alongside ancient Rome, probably no other culture in the world has had so great an impact as Greek culture, much of which was adopted by the Romans. All of our founding ideas about good government, philosophy, reason, medicine, history etc were all built on Greek foundations. Christianity as well, first grew up in the more Greek-dominated half of the Roman Empire and Christianity would have had a much harder time in its formative years were it not for Emperor Constantine the Great who later founded the city of Constantinople and more or less established what became the Greek Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire. After the fall of Rome, it was the Eastern Empire, the Greek Byzantines, who continued to hold on, who defended the Church, fought off the invasions that came from every side and under rulers like Emperor Justinian or Emperor Heraclius, even managed to somewhat rebuild the crumbling edifice that was Imperial Rome. But, in a way, the Greeks were TOO successful. The Byzantine Empire became such a tempting prize that coups became commonplace and even the word "Byzantine" became synonymous with intrigue.
Rather than fighting foreign enemies, the Byzantines fought each other for power and external warfare was increasingly left to hired mercenaries while Constantinople became wealthy and prosperous as the hub of all trade with the near and Far East. It is ironic that, during this period of decline, the Turks, who ultimately became the arch-enemy of the Greeks, were actually invited into the Empire by the Byzantine Emperor to help suppress rebellions in the Balkans. Calling in outsiders to deal with internal enemies ultimately proved to be an unwise policy. If the assumption was that the Turks could be easily manipulated and expelled later, they were very much mistaken as to Turkish strength and determination. Unfortunately for the Greeks, once the Turks had their foot in the door, the combined powers of Christendom were never able to force them out again. One also cannot help but notice the difference with today, when Greece is so indebted and in such dire financial difficulty, that the city of Constantine was once the most fabulously wealthy city in the world. How things change. The Greeks spend several hundred years under Turkish rule but, eventually, that changed too. The Greek War of Independence attracted volunteers from across Europe and moral support from countries across the western world. The war was finally won in 1829.
In 1913, King George was assassinated by an anarchist and was succeeded by his son, King Constantine I. Due to the fact that he was the first king born in the independent Greece, and the first to be Greek Orthodox, he was proclaimed by many of his subjects as "Constantine XII" heir to the legacy of the last Byzantine Emperor. Greek pride was still alive and well. However, the reign of King Constantine I was soon overshadowed by the outbreak of World War I in which many wanted to enter the war on the allied side in order to attack Turkey, but in which the King, knowing how exhausted the army was since the Balkan Wars, wanted to stay out of. His preference was to remain neutral but it was a neutrality that the allies did not always respect. Factions emerged, for and against the war, with some Greeks acting on their own to occupy parts of southern Albania. Pressures increased and eventually King Constantine abdicated in favor of his son and Greece did enter the war on the allied side which won Greece some more territory, though they never regained the highly symbolic prize of Constantinople. In the following war with the new secular government in republican Turkey, Greece lost some of her prior gains which caused a great deal of dissatisfaction and government turmoil, opening the era of conflict between the liberal republicans and the conservative monarchists.
A great deal of negative material has been written about Metaxas and his government, many referring to him as a dictator. However, he never encouraged the sort of cult of personality seen in most dictatorships. Everything was done in the name of the King and the monarchy was always given pride of place in national life. His aim was not to transform Greece but to strengthen the Greek kingdom, defend Greek culture and restore a sense of patriotic national pride among the people. The need for a strong country was clearly felt with the outbreak of World War II in which King George II naturally favored Great Britain and the allied powers. This caused tension with the Fascist regime in Italy and when Mussolini demanded certain privileges from Metaxas he refused and Italy invaded Greece from Albania. Mussolini had expected to make short work of the Greeks but after coming to power Metaxas had greatly strengthened and modernized the Greek military and they were stationed in the right place in excellent defensive positions.
King George II was finally able to return home but it was to a homeland torn by civil war, with a shattered infrastructure and facing economic crisis. Less than a year later George II died and was succeeded by his younger brother King Paul. In many histories today, King Paul is subject to a great deal of unfair criticism. The fact is that during his reign the Kingdom of Greece came roaring back to life with American aid from the Marshall Plan, a surge in tourism and the good relations with foreign countries established by King Paul on his many tours. During his reign, one of the few times there were no major problems with rebels but a period of peace and stability in which the people could enjoy their constitutional monarchy, Greece rapidly recovered, rebuilt and prospered. It was a great success story. But, of course, republicans never take "no" for an answer and they continued to try to encourage discord and to spread every sort of slander against the King and the Royal Family. When economic growth began to slow they were quick to point to the monarchy as the cause of the problems. In fact, King Paul had shown financial common sense and had actually cut his own salary, cut his own expenses and even handed over to the government valuable royal properties. To republican ideologues, of course, none of that mattered.
King Constantine II finally came into open opposition to Papandreou over his effort to take control of the army by naming himself defense minister as well as prime minister. The King offered to appoint anyone Papandreou might choose for the post but refused to allow him to fill it himself. Papandreou refused the offer, ultimately resigned and a succession of weak governments followed as both sides tried to enlist the support of government officials. Papandreou took the radical step of openly trying to rally the people in opposition to the King. The results were mixed but this populism frightened the other politicians and made it impossible for the King to form a stable government. All of this worked together to create a fear by members of the army that the communists would take advantage of the situation to seize power. In 1967 a military coup was launched led by a brigadier general and two colonels. Within a few hours the whole country was under their control with leading problematic politicians and subversives arrested and troops stationed outside the royal palace.
After only about a year of life the military regime came to an end in 1974 and the republican constitution was declared illegitimate. King Constantine II expected to return to Greece but, again, he was betrayed and yet another referendum was organized with the usual troublemakers in favor of keeping the republic but, most troublingly, with many supposed monarchists refusing to take a stand. Again, the outcome was less than honest. The King was not allowed to return to Greece to meet his people face to face and campaign on his own behalf. Not surprisingly the result was 69% in favor of a republic and the King has remained a monarch-in-exile ever since. Since the birth of the new republic, Greece has often resembled a power-sharing enterprise between the Karamanlis and Papandreou families. The socialists have held most political power from the beginning and over the years turned the country into a very top-heavy bureaucratic state. In 1981 Greece joined the European Union and in 2001 adopted the Euro. With easy money on loan from the EU, the Greek government plunged down the road to economic ruin as politicians bought votes by promising more government spending, more subsidies, more lavish pension plans and so on which put the country into massive debt.
Can Greece survive this current disaster? The country has certainly survived worse, however, it will require some honesty and hard decisions. The people will have to admit the mistakes that have been done, such as getting rid of the monarchy or thinking one can get something for nothing, and then press ahead with hard work and determination. It will be difficult, but it can be done. If the will exists, there is a way.
Sunday, July 29, 2012
A Word on King Umberto I
Umberto I was a "good" King, there should be no doubt, who did the best he could in all circumstances. His assassination was a tragedy for Italy and for the world as well as it was part of a trend of anarchist assassinations. Even for the United States as it was the regicide of Umberto I which inspired the anarchist assassination of U.S. President William McKinley the following year. Additionally, if he is to be criticized for using the troops in Milan in 1898, Vittorio Emanuele III should not be so criticized for not taking the same action in Rome in 1922.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Mad Analysis: The Olympics
Something else I love is the United Kingdom. I have good reason to. I speak English, I have ancestors buried all over Great Britain and Ireland, I studied British literature at university, I love the British monarchy, the British Empire, those great old British values of hard work, determination, ambition and stoic courage. I love the culture, I admire the great heroes of British history and the whole, long British story. The United Kingdom has a matchless record amongst the countries of the world and one that every Briton should be justifiably proud of. All that being said, as I watched the opening ceremonies on Friday night, I'm sorry, but I thought it was horrible. I kept waiting for it to get better and it only seemed to get worse and worse. There was very little about that whole 'performance' I could even recognize as British. I began to wonder just how out of touch I am with the mainstream of the land of so many of my forefathers. Is this how the British think of themselves? Was that display an example of what defines the modern United Kingdom? Grubby faced laborers, suffragettes, storybook villains, socialized healthcare and clips from sitcoms (some of which were American)? No bold explorers, no Sir Walter Raleigh, Lord Nelson or Captain Cook but Harry Potter, Mr. Bean and the NHS? Really? And, by the way, I have nothing against Mr. Bean, he's very funny, but is a comedic daydream of cheating in a foot race the best way to open the Olympic games? And I really didn't understand at all the little episode with the young couple and the salute to pop music. Were they even supposed to be British? Am I terrible person for wondering?
What was I expecting? I can't say exactly but maybe something with Irish dancers, Welsh choirs, some Scottish highlanders, something English in the Tudor era fashion, maybe a nod to the navigators who sailed forth from the shores of Britain to plant the seeds from which sprung the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and so on. Of course celebrating the legacy of the British Empire would never be tolerated but when I think of celebrating the best of what it means to be British, British culture and so on, I don't immediately think of commemorating the industrial revolution in interpretive dance following by a salute to the National Health Service, 70's disco dancing and clips from The Cosby Show. To everyone who was impressed and enthralled by it all, I do apologize for being blunt. I hope I don't receive the Romney treatment but in the opinion of this viewer, I can hardly come up with anything positive to say. I don't get it. To me, it seemed awful. Just awful. Yes, the industrial revolution was a hugely important event in history and Britain led the way in that, but do you really want huge belching smokestacks as part of the opening ceremony of the Olympics? And why was Mohammed Ali there? Seriously, to me, that just seemed embarrassing. Let the man be and have his privacy and stop using him for a living history exhibit.
Nonetheless, as I said, I still like the Olympics, I will put aside all of that mess and watch and enjoy the games, focusing on the athletes who have worked so hard to get where they are today. Despite all my problems with what goes on at the Olympics, I still think that is a lesson worth showcasing: hard work, discipline and determination pays off. Just don't try to be funny. And here's hoping the closing ceremonies will be done with a little more class than the opening show. Okay, feel free to tell me how totally wrong I am and what a great show it was, I am prepared…
Friday, July 27, 2012
Monarchist Profile: General Isidro Barradas
Throughout 1818 and 1819 Barradas fought with the Third Division of Brigadier Jose Marie Barreiro and he won further fame for his stirring speech and heroic charge at the battle of Pantano de Vargas on July 25, 1819 against Simon Bolivar. In that incident he dislodged some 500 rebel troops with only 80 grenadiers. He was commended by his general for this but not long after the royal army was all but wiped out in the disastrous August 7 battle of Boyaca, which Barradas only narrowly survived. Afterwards, Barradas moved to Cartagena de Indias, joining the garrison there and was given command of a grenadier company from Leon. In the ensuing battle of September 1, 1820 he was badly wounded but again cited for great heroism in the face of a numerically superior foe, earning the Cross of San Fernando for his bravery. Subsequently transferred to Cuba he was given command of a line battalion of infantry when King Fernando VII, after moving to Seville, received Barradas after being restored by the campaign of the "Sons of St Louis". It was Barradas who was entrusted with the royal decree proclaiming the restoration of the absolute monarchy to be sent to the commanders in Cuba.
Only the year before, the Mexican government has passed the "Law of Expulsion" which ordered the deportation of all foreigners in Mexico and the Spanish were particularly singled out. This greatly offended Spain and finally there was some international sympathy for taking action, particularly when the British Duke of Wellington said his country would not object to Spain attempting to regain Mexico. In the summer of 1829 Brigadier Isidro Barradas arrived in Havana and began gathering an expeditionary force of between three and four thousand men which he embarked for Mexico on July 5 in a fleet of one ship of the line, two frigates, two gunboats and fifteen transports. Many of the men assembled were Spaniards who had been expelled from Mexico and they had convinced Barradas that with just a little show of force the Mexican public would rise up to restore the authority of the King of Spain.
Unfortunately, things seemed to go badly from the start. A heavy storm in the Bay of Campeche dispersed the Spanish fleet and it took weeks for the ships to reassemble off Veracruz and one transport with 400 troops had to divert to New Orleans for repairs. When they finally moved off Cabo Rojo near Tampico the heavy seas made it almost impossible to land the troops. After scouting the area the Spanish finally put ashore and had a minor clash with a Mexican patrol on July 31 near Pueblo Viejo. Meanwhile, at Tampico, a Mexican army was assembling under General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Although he lacked the numbers to launch an immediate assault, Santa Anna besieged the Spanish army at Pueblo Viejo. Despite what Barradas had been told the Mexicans did not rise up in support of Spain and the army of Santa Anna only grew stronger while the Spanish forces were weakened by fever, endemic in the coastal lowlands and exacerbated by the dwindling supply of food and clean water. Barradas held on, hoping for rescue or some political shift in Mexico but it was to no avail. Finally, on September 11, 1829 General Isidro Barradas had no choice but to surrender to the combined forces of General Santa Anna and General Manuel Mier y Teran.
General Barradas remained in France for the rest of his life, having a son there and living in quite poor conditions. Yet, as King Fernando VII was on his deathbed, Barradas wrote him a last letter, asserting his innocence of the charges against him and pledging his loyalty to the King and his daughter Princess Isabella. After the King died the Carlist faction tried to enlist the support of General Barradas but, though he was somewhat sympathetic, refused to break his oath of loyalty to the new Queen Isabella II. He died in Marseille on August 14, 1835 after a lifetime of service to his King and country only to end it the victim of lies and injustice.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Defending the German Empire
In East Africa the German settlers established large plantations while others established a beer brewery in China (a tradition that continues today). However, in the early days, there was definitely a brutal element to German occupation, which is not uncommon when new peoples encounter each other. German civil and military officials wanted to set up orderly and efficient governments and immediately begin development. They had little time for dealing with natives and when the German presence was attacked colonial armies were deployed to eliminate all opposition. The most brutal of these were the expeditions against the Herero in German Southwest Africa and the Maji Maji in German East Africa. The armies sent to suppress these rebellions showed little mercy, if any, and all too often their brutality is all that is remembered today. It would be unfair, however, to use these incidents to paint the German Empire as a whole in a negative light. When the German public learned of the details of what had happened they were outraged and registered their anger in the next election which almost brought down the government. This had the effect of bringing the colonial administration to have a change of heart and from then on the native populations would be dealt with in a much more humane way.
The Germans made it official policy to care for the natives under their protection, made forced or any unpaid labor by natives a criminal offense and genuinely determined to look after their welfare. The natives could be advised but never coerced. Slavery was wiped out, ranches and farm communities were established and both native Africans and German settlers profited from the development. Schools were established as were hospitals and rural clinics. Missionaries were also ever hard at work, converting the natives with varying degrees of success and building new church communities. Research laboratories were established, many plantations having their own, to develop new methods of pest control and new fertilizers to increase livestock and farm production. In China, the little town of Tsingtao became a model city with broad streets, German-style housing, electricity, a modern sewage system and purified drinking water. No other area in China had a higher concentration of schools or a more widely educated populace than German Tsingtao. Even the ardently republican Sun Yat-sen referred to Tsingtao under German rule as "a true model for China's future".
The German East African army was innovative by the extent to which they integrated German and native African troops in the same units. They found that including a greater ratio of Europeans in African units increased their overall effectiveness by combining the tactical training of the Germans with the knowledge of the terrain and survival skills of the Africans with the result being a highly effective combat force which prevailed over everything the Allies threw at them. Prior to the war, agreements had been made to try to keep Africa uninvolved due to the fear of colonial officials from various countries of the effect on the African populace of seeing Europeans killing each other and using Africans to kill other Europeans. However, General von Lettow-Vorbeck was not about to sit idle and he determined to fight an aggressive war and force the Allies to divert an inordinate amount of men and material to use against him that could have been more decisively employed in more vital areas such as the western front. In that, he succeeded brilliantly and was able to survive for years, totally cut off from outside assistance, displaying a remarkable ingenuity in fabricating what was needed and sustaining his army almost entirely from living off the land and captured enemy stores. It remains one of the most astounding campaigns in military history and one marked by exceptional humanity and gallantry on both sides.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Battlefield Royal: Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland
nd Foot Guards. As he grew older his parents expected him to follow a career in the Royal Navy and eventually become the Lord High Admiral. However, after volunteering in 1740 the Duke found that he didn't care much for life at sea and instead decided to devote himself to the army. In 1741 he was made colonel of the 1st Foot Guards and began his formal military career. During King George's War he saw his first action in Germany, having been promoted to major general in 1742 and posted there. He was with his father at the victorious battle of Dettingen where King George II became the last reigning British monarch to lead his troops on the battlefield. Cumberland was wounded in the leg and promoted to lieutenant-general afterward.
In 1745 he was given the top command of the allied British, Hanoverian, Dutch and Austrian forces gathered in Belgium. Full of youthful aggression and with little experience, his first impulse was to throw caution to the wind, invade France and march on Paris. Fortunately, his advisors were able to dissuade him from such a suicidal move and instead he moved his forces to relieve the town of Tournai which was being besieged by the great French marshal Maurice de Saxe. The result was the battle of Fontenoy, a hard blow to Cumberland and a historic victory for France. Being up against Marshal de Saxe, Cumberland was quite simply outmatched. Numerically each army was about even but de Saxe was one of the great captains of the age and a greatly experienced military man having previously served under the likes of Peter the Great and the brilliant Eugene of Savoy. During the battle the Duke of Cumberland showed great determination but also a single-minded fixation on seizing the town of Tournai, ignoring the danger to his flanks and failing to take some basic precautions. The defeat could be attributed to his own personality and his inexperience. The allied army was badly mauled and Cumberland was forced to retreat to Brussels. Ultimately, this disaster for British arms inspired the exiled Jacobite court to decide that the time had come to strike down the House of Hanover and restore the Stuarts to the British throne.
The Duke of Cumberland did not pursue them too closely as he was still trying to gather together as large an army as possible. The Jacobites still had some fight in them as well, which was proven at the battle of Falkirk where the Jacobites defeated General Henry Hawley. However, that was the last Jacobite victory and their defeats were much more numerous. The Duke of Cumberland pursued them out of England and across Scotland, allowing his enemies to be worn out by hunger and privation before cornering them at Culloden Moor. On that famous battlefield the Jacobites launched their last, desperate attack and were completely annihilated. In the aftermath, Cumberland had wounded men shot and launched a campaign of pacification that was shockingly brutal with many Scots being killed indiscriminately, homes burned, livestock killed or confiscated and large areas of the country simply devastated. "Bonnie Prince Charlie" had escaped but Cumberland had his revenge on those left behind. In most of Great Britain and the colonies Cumberland was cheered as a great hero, their deliverer from "Papist tyranny" and their savior from the "Jacobite Menace". However, in the highlands, his cruelty toward the defeated earned him his lasting nickname of "Cumberland the Butcher". It was fully deserved.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Favorite Royal Images: Grace and Ranier
Monday, July 23, 2012
Images Page
Monarch Profile: King Carlo Alberto of Piedmont-Sardinia
In 1821 King Vittorio Emanuele I abdicated, leaving the throne to his brother who became King Carlo Felice. However, he was, at that time, in Modena and so it was Prince Carlo Alberto who had to act as regent until he returned. That year a revolutionary movement took up the tricolor and demanded a constitutional monarchy as well as Savoy leadership in a movement to unify the states of Italy into one kingdom. Prince Carlo Alberto was sympathetic to these ideas and granted the first Piedmontese constitution. The very traditional and conservative King Carlo Felice, however, was certainly not and as soon as he returned to Turin he revoked the constitution, cracked down on dissident elements and sent Prince Carlo Alberto to join the French royal forces in Spain that were fighting to restore the absolutist King Fernando VII to his throne, hoping this would help put his priorities in order.
King Carlo Alberto went to work immediately, tearing down the internal customs borders in his kingdom to advance a free economy. Although sympathetic with some of their nationalist aims, he also suppressed the conspiracy of the adherents of Giuseppe Mazzini because he would not tolerate republicanism or anything which threatened the monarchy. As his later actions would prove, this was not out of any desire for arbitrary power on his part but because King Carlo Alberto (wisely) believed that republicanism would only divide and weaken a country, leaving it vulnerable to attack by more powerful neighbors. He was determined to defend the rights and freedoms of his people but realized that a monarch was necessary to do so rather than placing the freedom of the people at the mercy of self-serving political representatives. Rather, he looked to the examples of the constitutional monarchies of France and Belgium where traditional structures were preserved and individual rights were respected. In his model, however, the role of the monarch would be much more central and carry more authority in the political process.
Things came to a head with the Revolutions of 1848. It was in that critical year that King Carlo Alberto earned his "magnanimous" title by enacting the constitution that would serve throughout the remaining years of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia as well as throughout the life of the Kingdom of Italy; the Statuto Albertino. Previously he had remarked that it was his desire for the liberation of Italy that caused him to oppose a constitution but when it became clear to him that this movement was the way of the future, he adeptly got out in front of it and earned the respect and admiration of his people by codifying in law their rights and representation in government while reserving final authority for the King. The Italian tricolor became the new national flag of Piedmont-Sardinia with the arms of the Savoy Royal Family as its central motif. Absolutists from Madrid to St Petersburg condemned the King for taking this action, taking the side of the reformist movement, yet the communist revolutionaries Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels singled out King Carlo Alberto as their greatest enemy. The absolutists, they argued, were discredited but Carlo Alberto had robbed the revolutionaries of their greatest propaganda weapon by making himself the champion of the freedom of his people.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Mad Analysis: Individual Responsibility
Not even one hour had passed before I started to hear the 'talking heads' bring up the need for stricter gun control, added security at theaters, questions about how the alleged killer was raised, questions about whether the movie itself was related to the murders (and why the alleged killer referred to himself as "the Joker" (it was a Batman movie if you haven't heard]) and if the film industry bears any blame for what happened. This really annoys me. More than that, it disgusts me because it seems to relate to what I think is one of the most devastating root problems that exists today. What happened in Colorado is the fault of NO ONE but the one who pulled the trigger. That's it and that's all. Anything else takes away from the one and only person who should bear all the guilt for this tragedy. Stop harassing his parents, stop harassing his old professors and stop trying to blame Hollywood. Some people are just evil and some relatively good people just snap one day and do horrible things. No law can ever or will ever prevent that from happening.
This irritates me especially because it is proof again of just how little individual responsibility is left in modern society. How many years ago now was the Genovese case? Have things gotten any better? I don't doubt that things may come out that might help explain somewhat why this person did what he is alleged to have done but I don't want anything to in any way take away from his own personal responsibility for the horrible crime he committed. I don't like the way his father was hounded from his home to the airport on his way to Colorado. It's not his dad's fault that he did what he did. I don't care if he had the world's greatest dad or the world's worst -he was a grown adult who made his own decision and one of those decisions was to gun down tens of innocent people. The guilty party is the guilty party and there the list should end. I really have no patience for the whole 'the movie made me do it' or 'society made me do it' or 'the music made me do it' or 'the video game made me do it' or 'my overbearing parents made me do it' or any of the other of countless excuses that always come out at times like this.
I still want everyone to know that I am certainly under no illusions as to the effect that the media and the entertainment industry has on society. I like some pretty violent and horrifying movies myself, but there are some that even I think cross a line. There are at least a few that I've simply heard about that I am convinced would destroy the soul of anyone who watches them. I've never been in favor of censorship in my life but, in recent years, I have had to change that position because of some very extreme cases. We should endeavor to have a healthy society after all. What we cannot do is blame the actions of one person on anyone else or in any way lessen their guilt and individual responsibility by trying to make the responsibility shared. If I do wrong there is no one to blame but myself. I do the crime, I do the time. Likewise, if I make a dumb decision, no one should be forced to help me out of a mess caused by my own stupidity. I shouldn't have to bail you out for your mistakes either. If you have friends or family that want to help you out, fine, but you cannot blame me for your mistakes which is what you are doing if I am forced to help you out of them.
No one seems to have any grasp at all of individual responsibility these days. Even among those one would think would be the greatest champions of it, we do not have unanimity. There are relatively few in this day and age who champion individual "rights" but there are fewer still who stand up for individual responsibility. Everyone wants the "rights" but not many seem to want the responsibility. For example, why do so many libertarians and (all) Objectivists/Randists support abortion? They say it is because they support individual "rights" and individual choice but it seems to me that by supporting abortion you are supporting individual irresponsibility. Being stupid and getting pregnant are individual choices but getting an abortion is just a medical way of escaping the responsibility of your own actions and choices you already made. One side of the political spectrum tends to throw all individualism out the window but even on the other side of the scale, everyone seems to want to have their cake and eat it too. No one wants to be responsible for their own actions and these days we seem less and less forced to do so.
For example, just take the film everyone was seeing at this theater where the tragic mass-murder took place. Notice how many young children were among the victims? Some were extremely young. What were they even doing there? Personally, I was shocked to find out the movie was rated PG-13 and even more shocked when I looked it up and found that the previous "Dark Knight" movie was also PG-13. Aside from the original movie with Adam West (my first Batman), I don't think any of the Batman movies have been suitable for small children. If I had children, I wouldn't let them watch stuff like that at such a young age. But, of course, how many parents are simply willing to abdicate their responsibility to the MPAA to determine if something is okay for their children to watch? I don't think I'm being too extreme when I say that I think we should each be responsible for what we do. I don't think we should we are all responsible for everything and I don't think we are all responsible for nothing. I don't think we should be called upon to be responsible for or care about everyone but we should at least care about how family and those immediately around us. That's all.
Friday, July 20, 2012
Consort Profile: Empress Marie-Claire of Haiti
In 1800 Marie-Claire met the man she would one day marry at the grueling siege of Jacmel. Her heart went out to the poor, starving and suffering people of the city and she arranged a meeting with one of the besieging commanders, Jacques Dessalines, to persuade him to open a few roads so that she could bring some relief to the people. Dessalines agreed to this and Marie-Claire led a group of humanitarian volunteers (mostly women and children) into the embattled city carrying food, clothing and medical supplies. Wasting no time on formalities she helped prepare the food right on the streets to immediately feed the wounded and starving masses. The people were grateful and Marie-Claire was an instant celebrity, an angel of mercy who would never be forgotten. Dessalines would also not forget her and on October 21, 1801 the two were married. One cannot help but wonder how much choice she felt she had in the matter as no two people could be more dissimilar. She was elegant, friendly, warm, forgiving, patient and the very picture of compassion. Her husband was flamboyant, bombastic, capable of quite extreme cruelty and a habitual philanderer. However, Marie-Claire never made a scene and even legitimized and cared for as her own the numerous children her husband sired by other women.
On October 8, 1804 (after the massacres were finished) Jacques Dessalines was crowned Emperor Jacques I of Haiti and Marie-Claire was crowned Empress alongside him at the Church of Champ-de-Mars. It was hoped that this would be the start of a new and glorious era for an independent Haiti but for Marie-Claire, her time as Empress would be all too fleeting. The Emperor tried to keep the plantations in operation without slavery (they were the only source of wealth on the island) but the harsh measures he had to employ to do this left many feeling like little had really changed and their remained bitter divisions in the upper echelons of the new government. Soon a conspiracy was underway and after only two years on the throne Emperor Jacques I was assassinated in a coup in 1806. Empress Marie-Claire, re-titled Dowager Princess, who had only ever tried to do good for those around her, was cast aside and almost forgotten, living in poverty with precious little of the kindness she had shown being returned.
All these years later, in a way that was certainly not possible in their own lifetimes, Emperor Jacques I and Empress Marie-Claire have become something of an idealized couple. As the first emperor, Jacques I is today again revered in Haiti as a national hero and one of their founding fathers with few remembering his less pleasant actions. Empress Marie-Claire is remembered, rightly so, for all of her admirable qualities. They are often presented in popular art as a happy and ideal couple. This, of course, was far from the truth of the matter but by all accounts Empress Marie-Claire deserves all the praise and admiration she receives for her kindness, compassion and blind mercy to all those in need, toward anyone who suffered for any reason.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Lese-Majesty in Thailand
I have often said, when asked about this issue in the past, that if you are in Thailand and go around speaking derogatorily about HM the King, the lese-majesty law will be the least of your worries. You will be wishing for the police to show up and arrest you just to save you from the beating your likely to take from the ordinary people who admire and revere their beloved King and would not tolerate anyone defaming him no matter what laws existed about it. Of course, that in itself is something alien to most western countries. The leftist media elites particularly cannot even fathom the idea of a people being so devotedly loyal to their monarch that they would take great personal offense at any disrespectful words being directed at him. Mocking and ridiculing royalty has become so common in the west that it is simply expected at this point. That is a shame. Not only is it shameful, it is harmful and Thailand is actually quite correct to keep (and enforce) lese-majesty laws.
In virtually every modern monarchy the reigning monarch is expected to be a national symbol and a source of unity, a figurehead that everyone can get behind and support regardless of political faction or party. At least, that's how it is supposed to work. It should work. After all, if a monarch has no power to influence or enact legislation, there is no legitimate, practical reason for any faction to have a problem with them. They are supposed to be a living symbol of the nation as a whole, its history and culture and if you find something so vague as the nation as a whole objectionable, you're probably what would be classically defined as a traitor. However, we know that many people still do object to this; they're called republicans and they will ridicule and verbally attack the monarch in any way they can in order to advance their agenda. They are not punished for this and feel not the slightest guilt in the hypocrisy of using the very rights and freedoms their monarch provides them to attack the monarchy itself. By not enforcing laws that protect the dignity of the monarchy and allowing anyone to mock and ridicule the sovereign the monarch is robbed of their ability to stand as a figure of national unity. The Kingdom of Thailand understands this but relatively few in the west seem to.
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text:
After getting two college diplomas, 24-year-old Chelsea Pettipas is dreaming of buying her own custom-built home – and she has it all figured out.
Dozens of sketches show exactly where her bedroom, kitchen, dining area, bathroom and laundry facilities will be.
But the Pictou County, Nova Scotia Millennial isn't planning on saddling herself with debt for the next 20 years just to get into her own place.
"What I'm planning to do is buy myself a school bus," Pettipas said. "I'm looking online about how to convert them and my dad knows people who have converted them."
Admittedly, it's not for everyone but converting school buses is something that's been done by others, sometimes with spectacular results.
In South Carolina, for example, a Millennial couple bought and converted a school bus and then moved into it year-round with their young daughter.
That schoolie, which is what these school bus homes are called, has only 220 square feet of living space but includes two beds, a full bathroom, a kitchen, dining area, and a sofa which folds out into a guest bed. That home on wheels uses solar for its electrical needs.
Schoolies and the growth of interest in tiny homes, some of them having as little as 200 square feet of living space, are emerging trends, especially with Millennials, who want to own their own homes but refuse to be straddled with decades of debt and mountains of interest to pay off.
"My mind is made up," said Pettipas. "I don't want to rent. I want to own. It doesn't make sense to me to keep making payments on something that I'm not going to end up owning."
She figures she can buy a school bus at auction for under $1,500. The renovations, which she plans to do herself with the help of family and friends, are expected to run her another $18,500.
The total cost of the project? $20,000.
That's a lot less than the average cost of a house or condo, even if Pettipas does what she hopes to do and buys herself a lot on which to permanently park her schoolie. And it would mean Pettipas could be living in her own home debt free sooner than many other Canadians.
According to the Living Big in a Tiny House website, www.livingbiginatinyhouse.com, 68 per cent of tiny house owners are mortgage free compared to 29.3 per cent of other American homeowners. Tiny home owners can then put more aside in their savings accounts. A big source of saving for tiny house owners comes from being able to avoid interest payments on a mortgage.
Although houses cost less in Atlantic Canada than in many other parts of the country, paying the rent or mortgage is still a struggle for many in the region. According to the Financial Health Index released in November by Vancouver-based Seymour Management Consulting, 15 per cent of Atlantic Canadians worry about being able to cover the rent or mortgage.
And housing costs aren't going down. They're climbing.
According to realtor Royal LePage, home prices in Halifax are expected to climb another 2.5 per cent this year despite the new mortgage stress test that went into effect Jan. 1 and will make it harder for homebuyers to qualify for as big mortgages as in the past.
Royal LePage Atlantic president Matt Honsberger has gone so far as to say the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Canada's stress test for mortgages is unlikely to have any sort of significant impact on Halifax's housing market.
Other residential realtors agree.
In its housing market outlook, Re/Max is forecasting a two-per-cent bump in the average residential sale price, to almost $301,000 this year, up from just over $293,600, for the Halifax-Dartmouth area. Comparable housing in Charlottetown is expected to soar 13 per cent to hit just above $243,300.
The residential real estate markets in New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador are expected to see fairly flat prices, with only condos going up. Saint John real estate prices are forecast to go up only one per cent, mostly driven by a seven-per-cent bump in the average condo price. In St. John's, the average residential price is expected to stay the same even as condo prices rise eight per cent.
Among Millennials, some are turning to creative solutions to curb housing costs.
Scott Amirault, owner of Harvest Homes Renovations in Hampton, New Brunswick, makes tiny houses that look like cottages on trailers. So far, he's made two, including one for Millennials who used it to keep their housing costs way down.
"It was for a young couple just starting out," said Amirault. "They already had the land and the well and they were $28,000 all in."
Although there are some places in Atlantic Canada where a homebuyer could pick up a house for as little as, well, $28,000, the tiny house builder says these are hardly deals.
"If you bought a house for that kind of money you would probably spend that much fixing it up," he said.
The tiny houses he makes, though, are all brand-new material, with spray foam insulation in the walls, floors, and ceiling, and finished with solid wood siding to withstand being driven down the highway. They're also designed using modern space-saving techniques.
"Every square inch matters," said Amirault. "The steps that go up into the loft, they're all storage and the cross beams that hold up the loft are made out of metal so you can save a few more inches. It also has a tiny kitchen but all the appliances are in it."
In her home on wheels – fed with electricity from solar panels – Pettipas is planning to put all of the kitchen and cleaning facilities in the front of the bus, including a fridge, stove, washer and dryer, and cleaning closet beside the kitchen sink and counter. The clothes and linen storage will be across the aisle from a full bathroom in the middle of the bus. Her plans show the bed, bookshelves and a small place for her Bible will be in the back of the bus, below a skylight.
There'll even be a special place for her three cats, Winnie, Ginger and Ozzy, and her Jack Russell terrier.
"If I can find a piece of land to put it on, I would like to park it," she said. "Outside of the bus, I'm planning to make a big area with cat-proof and dog-proof fencing."
Even with that land, Pettipas figures she can have her own home for less $36,000.
Her parents, though, still aren't completely sure what to make of the idea.
"Do I want my daughter living in a school bus? Not really," admits her mother Debi Pettipas. "It's workable... but I don't know. I'd have to go back and look at the research she's done."
Still Debi Pettipas applauds her daughter's resourcefulness.
"I'm proud of her for thinking outside the box," said Debi Pettipas. "It's not like she's got definite financial security so she's thinking of other solutions."
To see the schoolie: www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7X2nOtwdUM