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Archive for July, 2009

The First Nations art of birch bark biting

Posted in Angelique Merasty, Bruce Byfield, First Nations art, Jadeon Rathgeber, Pat Bruderer, Personal, aboriginal art, art, art appreciation, indian art, native art, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 31, 2009 | 6 Comments »

When you first hear of birch bark biting, it seems so unlikely you might assume that someone is having a joke at your expense.
But the truth is, birch bark biting is one of the most intricate and least known of First Nations arts. Concrete knowledge of the art is hard to come [...]

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Walking away from a gig

Posted in Bruce Byfield, Personal, careers, employment, freelancing, jobs, journalism, revisions, self-employment, writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on July 27, 2009 | 3 Comments »

If you’re a freelancer, you tend to be haunted by the thought of lacking work. Yet today, against all my freelancing instincts, I walked away from a source of income without having anything to replace it. It was not a step I took easily, but I had no choice if I wanted to keep [...]

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An evening’s return to pre-computer days

Posted in Bruce Byfield, Personal, lightning, reading, thunder, writing, tagged , , , , , , on July 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

sterday, my work on the computer was interrupted by a sustained thunder storm. The storm lasted for hours, so I lost an opportunity to work, but, in doing so, I rediscovered my former pleasure in reading as my dominant leisure activity and in writing by hand.
When the first of the thunder rolled out above me, [...]

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The bracelet that wears me

Posted in Bruce Byfield, First Nations art, Henry Green, Northwest Coast Art, Personal, art, tagged , , , , , , on July 20, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Nineteen months ago, I bought a three inch copper bracelet by Tsimshian artist Henry Green that depicts Raven and Mouse Woman. I had wanted a first-rate Northwest Coast bracelet for years, and this one far exceeded my expectations, with its size, material, and design combining to make it a unique work of art. I rarely [...]

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Some changes I’ve seen

Posted in Bruce Byfield, Personal, changes, tagged , , , , on July 15, 2009 | 1 Comment »

When I was growing up, I was amazed that my parents could recall World War II and the abdication of Edward VIII. Similarly, the thought that Queen Victoria was on the throne when my grandfather was born, or that his life spanned the development of the first airlines to transcontinental flight made him seem [...]

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Dragon crossing

Posted in Bruce Byfield, Personal, campus, humor, university, tagged , , , , , , on July 13, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Looking back, I sometimes think that my youth was not nearly as mis-spent as it should have been. A case in point: the night I helped to erect the dragon crossing.
The idea began as a joke at the university Medieval Club. Newly moved out from my parents’ house and feeling I had missed out on [...]

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Converting our old vinyl

Posted in Bruce Byfield, Personal, USB turntables, folk music, music, vinyl records, tagged , , , , , , on July 9, 2009 | 2 Comments »

I’m old enough to have live through four formats for home music: vinyl records, cassettes, CDs, and computers and portable devices (I’m excluding 8 Tracks, which I never used). With each change of formats, some of my music has been left behind, especially since much of my music collection is from small distributors, some of [...]

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The society around the pool

Posted in Bruce Byfield, Personal, humor, swimming, swimming pool, tagged , , , , , on July 5, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

One of the few services we receive for the maintenance fees in our townhouse complex is a swimming pool that opens a third of the year (I’m excluding the landscaping service that cuts the grass every week and consistently destroys the beauty of the cherry blossoms by pruning the trees down to nothing a month [...]

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