P R O S E
Dear Sweet+Salty Friends,
I’ve been wondering lately how long we are meant to say “Happy New Year”. I was of the mind it was a one and done thing that happened only at 12:00am on January 1st. The phrase compliments the Christmas Trees I’ve been seeing waiting patiently in frozen sidewalk purgatory before they’re turned into this summers garden mulch. Ah, summer. The thought of my favourite season sends the opposite of a chill down my spine. A similar sensation to what I felt today as I blew the hair dryer up the back of my sweatshirt, puffing it out like a balloon.
I am learning some new adaptations for life in the cold city. How long does it take people to adapt to a frozen winter and a swamp hot summer climate? It blows my mind how some folks don’t even use gloves! Their faces don’t turn red like a cooked lobster like mine. It does hide the blushing though. Lesson one, when waiting for the bus in the cold, it’s better probably just to walk. Lesson two, learn how to wrap a big scarf so it covers most of your face. Lesson three, I already knew, have a long winter coat and high winter boots, bonus points if it’s a bright colour to stand out amongst the standard black winter garb.
A friend of mine out west says they’ve been getting tons of rain. I only hope a little of that can move southward to help those in need of water right now. Part of me misses it dearly, the rain. The smell of the wet evergreens mixed with salty air on a crisp day. Nothing like it. But lord, am I ever enjoying the sunshine here. I don’t recall the last time I had this much sunshine in January.
Despite the light, I feel like a sleepy bear these days. Very well fed and ready for bed by 6pm. I have a strong “GTFOFTH" (get the fuck out of the house) policy whereby at least once a day I leave the house. Still having a hard time finding work, I am doing my best to enjoy this temporary retirement.
One great thing I’ve done with my boredom is join the Jewish Community Centre on Spadina and Bloor. Initially it was because of the the saltwater pool and the steam room, sauna, and whirlpool where you can be in the buff. I quickly realized I might as well try some weight machines and perhaps a fitness class (It’s only been a decade or so since I’ve done anything like that consistently). It is certainly a great way to spend winter.
I came to a difficult acceptance today that I am out of shape. It’s easy to be mean and disappointed in myself and ask “what’s the point? how did I get here?”. Even though the scale hasn’t really moved in the last few weeks, and I’m still getting lobster faced and winded in Zumba, my dear friends remind me these things take time. A couple of ladies in the change room today reminded me it’s never too late to start. I feel the alternative to working hard to getting oneself healthy and “in shape” is working hard to fend off sickness. Heck I’ve been off the sauce now for a few months too. These aren’t small feats. It’s a lot of work to slow down a tornado that’s been going hard for 37 years. But slowly, surely, we unravel and re-pattern and allow ourselves to shine.
Lots of love and HAPPY NEW YEAR!
S H O W S + S O N G S
January 19th w. John Borra | The Communist’s Daughter, Toronto
January 23rd w. Empire Thief | BSMT 254, Toronto - Tickets
February 13th (my one year Toronto anniversary) | Bluebird Bar, Toronto
February 28th w. a delicious dinner | Magasin Général La Pêche, Gatineau
March 2nd w. The Sunday Night Revue | Irenes, Ottawa
A little trip to Terra Nova…
M U S I C
F E A T U R E D F R I E N D
Z I N N I A
Where are you? What'd you have for breakfast? And what are you up to today?
I am currently in the Helena Regional Airport waiting at one of the two gates for my flight to Toronto via Denver. It's blindingly bright outside to the point that mountains, sky and runways are hard to see - pulsing with this swirling white light. It's the end of my little Christmas chapter here. My three brothers and their partners plus baby Frankie June left a week ago and I stayed on to teach kids art and play a few shows. Every time I come home to Montana, I really immerse into this whole other part of me that belongs to my family, and slow time, and the mountains, and this big wide, handsome sky. I spent last night in the local hot springs pool with a sweetie talking about music, and this morning I had walnut bread, eggs fried in bacon grease and very buttery potatoes even though I keep trying not to eat dairy.
What three things in your life are you most grateful for right now?
I am forever and always grateful for my family: three brothers and Mother Theresa. We had some really hard years a decade and a half ago - hard chapters of mental illness and loss. We were so raw through all of that change and grief but we've landed on the other side with a real depth of love and this feeling of preciousness about the time we get to spend together. The second thing I'm grateful for is my close orbit of friends - I've always been lucky with a solar system of friendships that I feel so transparent and real in, and what a joy it is to be surrounded by that love. The third thing I'm grateful for is this flowing river of creativity in my life. For so long my art reflected my life and was the main access point I had to processing my inner world. I used my music and writing to understand myself. Lately I've been reversing that relationship and trying to let my art and approach to creativity inform my life - to take inspiration from the decades of creative intuition and improvisation while I create a life path going forward that is all my own.
What have you got on the go artistically at the moment?
I am about to release a second ZINNIA album - a real bar burner of a divorce rager called Dollar Store Disco. These songs grew out of the wreckage of a ten year marriage that crumbled a week before the pandemic. I was left alone in a Toronto basement suite with a possible mold problem to process the brutal hard-stop of music, marriage, and life as I knew it. I feel like I spent years laying on the bottom of a creek watching the waters of time just flow over me, waiting til I could name what I was feeling or know where my path was leading. The fury took a long time to find and the heartbreak even longer. When I had finally found my own pulse again, I flew my beloved band (Chris Pruden, Kat McLevey and Mackenzie Longpre) out to an old Croatian-club-turned-Catholic-church-turned-turned-recording-studio in Anacortes Washington that was filled to the brim with old analogue synths, pianos, organs, mellotrons, and drum machines and we spent a week sleeping on cots, making espresso, playing ping pong, and catching these songs. I used up all my money recording it as it seemed so urgent to capture while I was still feeling raw. Later on I lucked out in getting some Canada Council funding to finish the album - and I spent he fall of 2023 biking down to Michael Fong's Toronto studio to mix the album and taking photos with Oriah Wiersma then designing a cover with my brother Jon.
The album is coming out on February 7th, 2025 on my Montana label Anything Bagel. It is one part rage, one part escapism and one part broken. I love every inch.
If I passed you an instrument, what song would you play us right now?
I'm currently hooked on playing a new song I started writing after we played Dawson City Music Festival last summer. It feels like a change in my writing style and moves in quick bursts and rambles processing that particular type of grief for love stories, plans and the earth that are forever changing when you want them to stay. It's called River Runs Through.
What's been on repeat on your record player/streamer/tape deck/CD player/ et al.?
I got really hooked on three bands/musicians from Montana: Junior, the pond, and Anthony Sutton. In the late summer I played a few house shows with Junior and I can't get over their last album. Each singer in that crew has such a different approach to songwriting and I love how they all cradle the songs so tenderly with three part harmonies and woven viola. The pond is my brother Jon's music. He's got a hand stitched album coming out this year and I had the joy of adding some harmonies and viola while he was recording it. The songs are introspective and feel like you're staring deep into still waters til your eyes adjust to the cellular dance that swirls around the bright stones. Anthony Sutton (aka Vandolah) is a vagabond that I first met at a potluck in Toronto but later found again painting up an old union hall in Montana. His guitar work and words have an organic intuitive elegance to them that feels so comforting to me - like wind through dry grass.
If we want to find your work, where can we go?
Website | FB | Insta | Bandcamp
G O O D O C E A N N E W S
Who Goes There? Sea Otter feeding pits
By The Marine Detective on January 4, 2025
Sea Otters were completely wiped out (extirpated) with the last verified Sea Otter in Canada having been shot in 1929 near Kyuquot (NW Vancouver Island).
There are now over 8,100 Sea Otters off the coast of BC (Nichol et al. 2020). How did that happen? Around 89 Sea Otters were translocated to the outer coast of Vancouver Island from 1969 to 1972 (as a mitigation measure for nuclear testing in Alaska).
S A S S T R O L O G Y
with s.o.
A David Bowie Song as your astrological prediction for this month…
Capricorn - Moonage Daydream
Aquarius - Aladdin Sane
Pisces - Let’s Dance
Aries - Oh! You Pretty Things
Taurus - Dance Magic Dance
Gemini - Soul Love
Cancer - Life on Mars?
Leo - Fame
Virgo - Wild is the Wind
Libra - Cat People
Scorpio - Young Americans
Sagittarius - Five Years
Stay tuned in & turned on
x.o.
Love
S.O.