I was saddened to read of the death of former Member of Parliament, Member of the Legislative Assembly, and Speaker Wilbur Macdonald this morning.

I could not help but think back to the warm summer afternoon of June 27, 2006 when, from the public gallery in Province House, I witnessed him hold forth at some length so as to keep the Legislative Assembly busy while, behind the scenes, the Pat Binns government sought to put the finishing touches on its electoral redistricting plan, An Act to Amend the Electoral Boundaries Act (the “Cletus Dunn map,” as it had come to be known).

With the introduction from the Speaker, “The hon. Member from Belfast-Pownal Bay,” he began (you can follow along in the day’s Hansard, starting on page 3,304):

I rise to speak on the budget which we had brought in in the spring. It’s an opportunity for me to talk about my riding and about what is taking place in the province.

One of the things that has really happened in this province in the last number of years is the expansion of the economy. I think it all started with the industrial malls a number of years ago and is continuing over the last number of years. The federal government has also contributed to that in Charlottetown and in Summerside.

At this point he departed from his prepared notes to address the issue of the lawnmower making noise outside, clearly audible in the background, something that had been on my mind as well:

I must say every time that this House opens that lawn mower seems to be going outside. Is the guy going over and over the lawn or what is he doing out there? If it’s under the department of public works, I wish the minister would tell him to take off. Go someplace else. He can cut the grass in the morning, then we can hear one another. But he’s been going for the last two hours and I don’t know where the lawn is. But anyway.

From there he continued for more than 4,200 words and 30 minutes, covered topics ranging from the lobster fishery to the Northumberland Strait to Lord Selkirk to wind power to the quality of the roads in his district to the life expectancy of males and females.

Eventually the Act to Amend the Electoral Boundaries Act was ready for introduction, and so Macdonald got the nod and finished off with the same good humour he started with:

Mr. Speaker, I could go on for a little longer, but I think I have spoke long enough. I will adjourn the debate.

While Macdonald was simply doing his loyal best to keep the puck in play, his speech, looking back 14 years, is a thorough survey of Prince Edward Island through his eyes, and we are the better for it, and for his years of service as a legislator.

(Audio from the Legislative Assembly of PEI Video Archive).

My friend Dave Atkinson mused that an oral history of how I learned the things I learned the other day came to be learned.

So I recorded one.

In this brave new world we’re all jacked into Zoom (or, maybe, Jitsi) all day long. We’ve been at this for a month, and it’s remarkable how little most of us continue to pay attention to video and audio, as if living the Dick Tracy future is enough, and we don’t really need to be concerned with seeing and hearing other clearly.

Here in my office I mostly use the “Display Audio” microphone built into the front of my Apple Cinema Display. It’s always been good enough. But, I wondered, could I do better.

So I dug the old Live from the Formosa Tea House audio setup (Apex 435 microphone, Behringer 802 mixer) out of storage, bought myself a line-to-USB cable, and set everything up beside my computer to see if that would prove the audio quality.

If you listen to the same here, I think you’ll agree that it did.

I’m taking it out for a real ride in 15 minutes on my weekly conference call with my colleagues in New Hampshire.

I’m also using the opportunity to promote the brand (get your Vegetable Gardener’s Handbook by The Old Farmer’s Almanac today!):

Recorded eight days ago (8 months in quarantine years) on the Charlottetown waterfront at the end of a drive in the countryside on a sunny Sunday.

On Thursday morning I was immersed in a video conference, with the personable Josh MacFadyen, when I got a text message:

As Oliver was across the street, at home, and “five machine” sounds a lot like “fire machine,” which is something someone might say when the house is burning down and they are panicking, I immediately ran across the street to rescue Oliver.

Oliver was fine.

The buzzer on the clothes dryer had gone off, and Oliver was simply, helpfully, letting me know.

Here’s how the text message got to me:

Oliver was upstairs in bed.

The dryer’s buzzer went off.

Oliver has a Google Home in his bedroom, so he asked it to call me:

OK Google, call Peter.

The Google Home dutifully called my office number.

But my officer number automatically goes to voicemail, so Oliver left a voicemail (the one you can listen to above).

The voicemail went to my voicemail system, which is set to automatically speech-to-text transcribe voicemails and email them to me.

Which is how I got the text message “Five machine went off at home.”

Lower shields.

My friend Dave does a regular segment on CBC’s Island Morning called The Things We Do For Love, wherein he interviews people about their esoteric passions.

Tuesday morning Dave dipped into Pen Night.

Things don’t get much more esoteric than pen geeks talking about pens, inks and paper.

I’ve attached the MP3 that aired this morning.

Oliver’s got the death of a cold, so I made my way to the Charlottetown Farmers’ Market by myself this morning.

After a healthy amount of Duckduckgoing “how to cycle in the rain,” I decided I was not up for it, so I took the bus instead. It was a soggy walk from Subway to the market, but the passing cars were kind, and slowed down to prevent causing monsoons from driving headlong through the standing water.

In addition to being Thanksgiving-busy, the market was also Elizabeth May-busy this morning, as she made a quick campaign stop en (Tesla) route from Pownal to Cape Breton that included a lunch of Claudia’s Mexican food. And a lot of chatting with a lot of people.

It’s quite humbling to see May in action: her entourage is lean, and she is open. To everyone who approaches. It must be exhausting, and we all owe her a great debt for her tenacity.

I escaped from the melee on to the loading dock of the market for some quiet reflection, and recorded 30 seconds of the suddenly-torrential rain falling on the metal roof.

My friend Ann rescued me from a wet walk back to the bus stop by offering me a ride home; it was on her way.

Where I delivered a smoked salmon bagel and cup of tea to ailing Oliver. Who will, I think, spend most of the day sleeping.

Ten top simple field recording tips from Cities and Memory; includes:

You might think that’s only a gentle breeze, and it can’t possibly do anything to your recording, but IT WILL. Even a light wind sounds like someone’s ripped your mic in half, and will render your recording unusable. Use wind shields, use shelter, avoid wind at all costs.

The recording here is a classic example of it: riding our bicycles by the metal fence surrounding the Charlottetown Event Grounds on Saturday, I noticed the the gusty winds were making beautiful music through the slats. So I pulled out my phone and pressed “record,” trying to shield it from the wind. I failed. So you’ll have to take my word for it.

See also diy (do it yourself) from Quiet American.

Link provenance: William Denton to Radio Apogee to this exhortation to make field recordings of decent quality.

When booking a room at the lovely Latchis Hotel in Brattleboro, Vermont, you can select a “mountain view” room (with windows looking out on Wantastiquet Mountain, just across the border in New Hampshire) or a less expensive “interior view” room (with a view of, well, not much at all).

What they don’t tell you, however, is that an “interior view” room comes with a window that opens out on Whetstone Brook, which runs into the middle of town and into the Connecticut River. I left the window open last night and enjoyed the best sleep of my trip so far due its pleasant sound.

I arrived here in Brattleboro last night, after a short drive from Dublin, NH. This stop has become a trusted airlock between Yankee life and home life (2015, 2013, 2010, 2002), and this weekend was no exception: I had supper at the co-op across the street, and saw Downton Abbey in the Latchis Theatre downstairs.

Today I am heading north, stopping in Windsor at the American Precision Museum (it is Museum Day here in the U.S., so I was able to secure a free ticket!), and ending up at the home of my friends Valerie and Lars in Burlington for the night.

Oliver was dismayed to learn that the 2019 Island Fringe Festival wasn’t going to include any audience-participation activities in its launch event, as it had in previous years.

“For every problem, there is a solution,” I am forever telling Oliver.

So he reached out to Fringe officials and, to their eminent credit, the decided to correct this oversight, and added something:

DRAMATIC READING OF YOUR FAVOURITE SONG

Of course this parry required a thrust. And Oliver decided that I needed to participate too.

So I gave a dramatic reading of Kim Mitchell’s iconic Patio Lanterns, and Oliver recited Blackbird, by The Beatles, in his take on a Liverpudlian accent.

There is no extant recording of my performance. But I recorded Oliver’s.