Muriel Grossmann is a really fascinating saxophonist who has been putting out many fantastic recordings over the last few years. This latest one, Devotion, is really interesting! Heavy blues influence this time.
Climate Change and Therapy
This article from the NYT really speaks to where I’m at; while I’m not in therapy for climate issues, the struggles are all real, the challenges all real.
Human well-being, the psychologist David W. Kidner wrote, has historically been linked to “participation in a healthy ecocultural context.” Living within a context that is obviously unhealthful, he wrote, is painful
This is amplified by living in a place that more than many others refuses to own up to the work and scale of transformation required.
The Wailing Mall - Alan Palomo
So far, I know nothing about Alan Palomo, but I’ll definitely be learning more after this track
Postcards - Lemon City Trio
Quite enjoying this album (which is oddly not listed on their Bandcamp?)
Autumn Lenses
A Letter to my MP
Living in Alberta can be enormously emotionally draining at times. My Premier is organizing a letter writing drive, driven by fear mongering, trying to delay action on greening the Alberta grid.
I decided to write my MP to counter said letter campaign, insofar as I can. My frustration was perhaps too palpable as I wrote, but sometimes frustration is all you have.
“Honorable Mr. McCauley
You’ll get a lot of form letters driven by TellTheFeds.ca
This isn’t a form letter: This a letter to say the opposite: I am disgusted by our province’s attitude regarding climate change. By spending time and energy attempting to slow walk regulation rather than taking action on climate, our government shows they lack ambition or interest.
Climate change affects us today. It will affect my children enormously.
So far, all the Alberta government provides is excuses, rather than engaging with the demands of Albertans to decarbonize our future; don’t take the barrage of form letters as meaning that inaction is acceptable
Inaction on climate is unacceptable.”
I CC’d Steven Guilbeault as well.
Turnstile & BADBADNOTGOOD
My most surprising music discovery in 2021 was the album GLOW ON by Turnstile. I never would have come across it except for, weirdly, a recommendation from The Economist. It was the wrong style, the wrong genre for what I was listening to… and it was fantastic. An incredibly strong album that I continue to put on, even as I really listen to nothing else like it.
Then out of left field this week, comes this:
A little EP of reworked versions of songs from GLOW UP with the help of BADBADNOTGOOD, it’s a lovely little treat.
Charging the EV on Solar
One thing I forgot in my last post was to show off what it looks like to charge our EV on solar.
This screenshot actually captures two charging sessions because we had to pop out for a bit; hence the break in the charging block.
Because the charge is very rectangular, you can ballpark the charge by eye here; say 4 hours of charging at about 8.5kW… so 34kWh or so (the app says 35.1kW so the estimate is pretty good).
Because we tend to only charge the car when we get down to about 30% battery, you can pretty clearly see the days we charge the car; a heartbeat in our consumption history.
