Raymond Tomlin is a veteran journalist and educator who has written frequently on the political realm — municipal, provincial and federal — as well as on cinema, mainstream popular culture, the arts, and technology.
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Bedroom pop. Who’da thunk that such a thing even exists?
Bedroom pop is a sub-genre of Lo-fi (“low fidelity”), defined in 2019 as a DIY musical genre or aesthetic in which artists record at home on their own equipment, rather than in traditional recording spaces, the music characterized by contemplative lyrics, bedroom pop a contemporary indie re-invention of the once popular emo or dream pop musical genres.
There are a great many bedroom pop artists, but the most celebrated is Claire Cottrill (born August 18, 1998), known professionally as Clairo, an American recording artist from Carlisle, Massachusetts who wrote Pretty Girl, a lo-fi-produced song that attracted over 30 million views on YouTube.
At 16 years of age, Clairo wrote and produced Pretty Girl employing studio equipment in her bedroom (the equipment sometimes referred to as a digital audio workstation), as well as Pro Tools production software, while also recording and editing the video before uploading it to YouTube.
Home studios have been popular for decades, but have become ever more refined as computer technology has become increasingly sophisticated, enabling ever higher quality music production. One of VanRamblings favourite artists, Imogen Heap (who we interviewed and wrote about in 1997, at the outset of her career) records all of her music in her kitchen, where she’s set up a home studio that revolves around the use of Pro Tools.
As it happens, VanRamblings discovered bedroom pop during our recent bout of illness, when all we could manage to do most days was plunk ourselves down in front of Netflix — where we were very pleased to see that Crystal Moselle’s acclaimed Sundance and Tribeca award-winning film, Skate Kitchen, simply appeared out of the blue (and unheralded, but not by us) one very fine day, as one of the varied viewing options.
Vibrant, alive, poetic, superby shot and and richly informed, Ms. Moselle’s follow-up to her award-winning, one of a kind documentary, The Wolfpack, her fiction début emerges as the most accomplished film about skater culture since Catherine Hardwicke’s 2005 American biographical drama, The Lords of Dogtown (which is also available on Netflix).
The story goes that Moselle spotted two of the girls on the subway, introduced herself as a filmmaker, and asked if there were more girls like them. Indeed there were, all forming a feminist, sex-positive, shred-happy collective called the Skate Kitchen. Some time later, Moselle’s film arrived in Park City, with all the kids playing a version of themselves.
And who do you think the featured music artist on the soundtrack might be? Yep, you got it — none other than Clairo, who wrote and produced Heaven for the Skate Kitchen soundtrack.
So, while VanRamblings reveled in our discovery of Skate Kitchen on Netflix, we were also introduced to Clairo, and the contemporary musical genre known as “bedroom pop.” And now, you are familiar with Skate Kitchen (a must, must watch!), the work of Crystal Moselle, the musical genre of bedroom pop, and its most acclaimed progenitor, Clairo.
You know what’s exciting about life? That you get to discover something new, something that just yesterday you knew nothing about, every day.
Do you suffer from the occasional bout of gastro-intestinal distress? Most people do, and at best find it to be uncomfortable and discomfiting.
At times, that gastro-intestinal distress can flare up to such an extent, a person becomes bed-ridden, as was woefully the case in February and March with VanRamblings, in the process gravely depleting one’s energy.
Some years back, research scientists at Melbourne, Australia’s Monash University developed an eating regimen called the “low FODMAP diet”. Simply eliminating and reducing specific, high FODMAP foods proved to be such a salutary resolution to the alleviation of gastro-intestinal distress in patients with digestive disorders that many years later, the low FODMAP diet has become the default treatment for most digestive disorders.
High FODMAP foods are not well tolerated by most people’s digestive system, and should certainly not be consumed by persons who suffer with digestive disorders, whereas low FODMAP foods are well tolerated, lessening or even eliminating gastrointestinal distress
FODMAP is an acronym that stands for Fermentable Oligosaccharides Disaccharides Monosaccharides and Polyols.
In plain language?
FODMAPs are specific carbohydrates that are poorly digested by the vast majority of people (that’s you and me). Since these foods are not absorbed by the body, these short chain, sugar-laden carbohydrates travel through the digestive tract where they become fermented, resulting in painful gastro-intestinal distress, severe lower abdominal pain and discomfort, bloating, inflammation and a range of bacterial disorders that cause severe gastric distress in a person’s digestive system, more often than not resulting in discomfiting stomach cramps, bloating and problems with a person’s elimination system. In other words, not a lot of fun.
Twenty years ago, at the strong suggestion of our family physician, we eliminated dairy from our diet (probiotic lactose free yogurt, and Daiya coconut cream yogurt are just fine, though). Brad, our doc for the past 36 years, has also long been on our case to eliminate wheat from our diet — which we’ve now done, fortuitously and much to the benefit of our health.
We’re now consuming products, and baking and cooking at home with foods made with buckwheat (there’s no wheat in it!), brown rice, tapioca, almond and other non-wheat flours. We made a great, fluffy Strawberry Cinnamon Dutch Baby (with organic brown rice flour, eggs, raw turbinado sugar, and almond milk) yesterday morning for breakfast — mmmm, good.
Here’s a pdf of the definitive list of low and high FODMAP foods.
A month ago, VanRamblings had never heard of the low FODMAP diet (you’ll want to watch the Monash University produced video available in the preceding link). Fortunately, VanRamblings’ friend (and saviour, as it happens) Maureen Bayless — we’ll be writing much about Maureen in the months to come, given her pivotal role in seeing us through our seven month cancer journey back in late 2016 and early 2017 (quite simply, we wouldn’t be here without her) — came to our rescue with information on and a suggestion to adopt the low FODMAP diet (which had worked wonders for friends of hers, she said), and one month later, our energy has returned and the symptoms of our digestive disorder have been reduced by 80%; most days, anyway. We really are feeling much, much better.
All and all, the low FODMAP diet has been a snap to adopt, resulting in little change to our daily eating habits. Oatmeal — love it, and that’s still on the menu. Peanut butter on rice cakes. Almond milk rice pudding made in our Instant Pot (which, by the way, is on sale for half price at Best Buy this week, with the sale ending tomorrow, so you’ll want to rush right out to acquire this must, must, must, must have kitchen appliance).
The latest 10-function (with sous vide!) Instant Pot on sale at Best Buy til Thursday
Cantaloupe, pineapple, strawberries (organic, of course, cuz non-organic strawberries are at the top of the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen list of pesticide-ridden, cancerous foods), blueberries and every other berry, save blackberries, are also on the approved low FODMAP list.
There are a great many low FODMAP beverages that are readily available. Lots of approved low FODMAP sweeteners are also on the list. SPUD.ca have hundreds of gluten free / low FODMAP foods available. Save On Foods carries dozens of gluten free products, and has in fact dedicated a whole long aisle and refrigeration case to gluten free and low FODMAP foods. The same is true for Real Canadian Superstore, and most bulk food stores (for years, we’ve visited regularly at Kitsilano Natural Foods, now located at 1st Avenue and Yew, open 365 days a year, with a friendly staff).
We sorta miss apples, and have found a way to get around not being able to eat garlic (which we love!) and onions — most recipes that require garlic and onions also require oil, so we just cook the garlic and onions in the oil, infusing the oil with the taste we love, then remove these allium foods. It’s a small price to pay to not eat celery, cauliflower, and some mushrooms — when, in fact, if one is careful, one can eat small amounts of each of these foods, including wheat-based foods (but only one slice of bread a day).
Still, long term use of the low FODMAP diet is not recommended, even by those who developed the diet at Monash University, and as you’ll read in the article by respected holistic nutritionist, Julie Daniluk.
In fact, Monash University scientists make changes to their recommended list of low FODMAP foods weekly, while suggesting that one acquire their low FODMAP app to stay on top of their latest findings, and as a helpful and necessary aid when out grocery shopping.
Their scientists also recommend adding back high FODMAP foods, one by one, after 8 weeks on the diet to determine their impact on your health.
Monash University scientists are also big proponents of adopting a vegan diet, and eliminating sugars, as Ms. Daniluk recommends. As a supplement to the low FODMAP diet, VanRamblings’ doc also recommends a regimen of Align Probiotic, should one’s digestive disorder rear its ugly head.
So that’s what been happening on the health front in VanRamblings’ life since the beginning of the year. Fortunately, we’re now feeling much better, and as we’ve written earlier, as long as our health holds out — and we’re doing pretty darn good, we think — our intention is to continue to publish daily on VanRamblings through the end of June, more sporadically in the summer, while ramping up our federal election coverage full steam ahead throughout the months of September and October, until year’s end.
Passover is a major, biblically derived Jewish holiday, a commemoration of Jewish liberation by God from slavery in ancient Egypt, their (our, for VanRamblings is a Jew) freedom as a nation under the leadership of Moses, commemorated by the story of the Exodus as described in The Five Books of Moses, most especially in the Book of Exodus.
As with Passover and the theme of liberation and freedom, that too is what our democracy promises us, and that is what Canadians will be voting for come this October, in Canada’s 43rd general election.
As Canadians find themselves at the beginning of our country’s quadrennial federal election season, those of the Jewish faith today celebrate the midway point of Passover, which commemoration began this past Friday evening, and will end late on this upcoming Saturday evening.
As the Jewish celebration of liberation, freedom and democracy draws to a close in just a few days, Canadians’ celebration of the three central tenets of democratic life across our nation is just now beginning.
Commencing with publication of VanRamblings columns effective this upcoming Monday, April 29th, VanRamblings will provide our own idiosyncratic insight into a variety of subjects, including the recent Jody Wilson-Raybould ‘scandal’ (sure not to please many), the state of our provincial governance (ditto, although overall, we’re supportive of our New Democrat government), and Vancouver’s municipal government — of which we will be somewhat critical, but much less so than you might imagine.
In the interim, we’ll leave you with our early prediction as to how the federal election will unfold late in the evening of Monday, October 21st …
With the Jody Wilson-Raybould ‘scandal’ fading back into the deep recesses of the consciousness of fickle Canadian voters, come Monday evening, October 21st, 2019, while the Liberals will end up losing seats in BC (5 – 8), Ontario (23+) and the Maritimes (6), they’ll pick up seats in Québec. The Conservatives will gain seats in BC (8 – 10), Ontario (23+), Québec (5 or more), and perhaps as many as a half dozen seats in the Maritimes.
Meanwhile, the NDP will be all but wiped out in Québec, taking their seat count down in that province from 16 (as of election night 2015) to one lone seat, that of the much-beloved Ruth Ellen Brosseau, in the riding of Berthier — Maskinongé. Meanwhile, the Greens are set to gain additional seats on Vancouver Island and in the Maritimes, and if Jane Philpott joins newlywed Elizabeth May’s ascendant Green party, a seat or two in Ontario.
Although we’re looking at an ugly election, as Justin Trudeau has predicted for months, the Liberals possess the most experienced and effective campaign team, are well-financed, and have in Justin Trudeau a born campaigner, who lives to interact with the electorate.
Andrew Scheer, sad to say, simply lacks Trudeau’s charisma, and although the Conservatives will gain seats in the next Parliament, we predict Scheer will not catch on with most of the electorate.
Jagmeet Singh, as with Trudeau, will also prove to be a first-rate campaigner, but what with 17 resignations and defections from his caucus in recent months, unless Mr. Singh catches fire with the electorate, the woefully underfunded federal New Democratic Party will find themselves having one helluva not-so-good time on the campaign trail.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth May’s political star is in its ascendancy, which will translate into votes for her from disaffected members of the Liberal, Conservative and New Democratic parties, resulting in an effective rump Green caucus in Canada’s next Parliament.
Take note: you read it here first.
After completing the writing of the above post, a friend posted a text message at the conclusion of a lengthy text tête-à-tête we were having on the upcoming federal election, resulting in the writing of the following …
For another, not too dissimilar projection, the Laurier Institute for the Study of Public Opinion and Policy’s Barry Kay last evening published his seat projection on the Global News website, giving one seat to Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party, and only two seats to Elizabeth May’s Green Party.
Source: Laurier Institute. Blend of polls from Nanos, Forum, Angus Reid, Leger and Mainstreet between mid-March and mid-April, derived from over 15,000 individual interviews. Link provided by VanRamblings reader (friend and politico), Jacob Kojfman.
Record-breaking cold temperatures across Canada and the U.S. Midwest this past winter had most easteners cranking up the heat and wishing they could hibernate.
Climate change is creating extreme conditions on both ends of the spectrum. With eastern Canada caught in the midst of a series of record cold snap throughout the winter, on the other end of the planet more than 50 wildfires were raging in Tasmania, Australia’s tiniest state. In fact, Australia has had eight of its ten hottest summers since 2005.
Last summer, the failure to pass legislation that would have reined in greenhouse gas emissions resulted in the ouster of Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
Meanwhile, according to the New York Times story linked to above …
” … (Turnbull’s ouster) could be a bellwether for the 2019 Canadian election, set for October 21st, in which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faces a powerful challenge from politicians aligned with the country’s oil industry. Conservatives have pledged to undo Mr. Trudeau’s plans to put a price on carbon nationwide if they take power. At the provincial level, Conservatives have won majority governments in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and New Brunswick after campaigning against the federal government’s carbon tax programme.”
Perhaps the fact that Prince Edward Island Green Party leader Peter Bevan-Baker is leading in the polls and on the threshold for a majority win in tomorrow’s 66th Prince Edward Island general election might be seen as a necessary and fitting backlash to the Trump-like, decidedly right-of-centre Conservative Party sweep that seems to have our nation in its grip.
April 22, 2019 poll for Maclean’s magazine indicates an historic win for the PEI Green Party in tomorrow’s precedent setting 66th Prince Edward Island general election.
All of which begs the question: with less than six months to go to the upcoming 43rd Canadian general election when is the Andrew Scheer-led federal Conservative Party planning on releasing the party’s climate change plan, particularly when as recently as December he refused to commit the Conservative Party to meeting Paris targets?
As the Star Editorial Board published earlier this year …
The Conservatives’ critique of carbon pricing has become increasingly incoherent.
On the one hand, they say, the Liberal plan is a tax grab. On the other, since 90 per cent of what’s collected by Ottawa will be rebated back to taxpayers and most will actually come out ahead, it amounts to “bribing people with their own money.” Again, on the one hand a levy of $20 a tonne to start is an onerous “tax on everything.” At the same time, they insist, it’s a paltry amount that won’t cut GHG emissions nearly enough. As the old joke goes, the food here is terrible — and such small portions!
Amid all this politicking and confusion, the advantages of carbon pricing continue to stand out.”
Make no mistake: the environment is very much on the minds of the electorate this year. The federal Liberal, New Democrat and Green parties have, each and every one of them, developed coherent and forward thinking strategies to fight climate change, and preserve our planet.
Andrew Scheer’s Conservative Party has not.
On this Earth Day 2019, that’s something for all of us to think about.
