Bella the Great Dane does ballet and yoga. No more ballet, please.

Bella the Great Dane, a set on Flickr. Latest Bella pics: after today's trip to the dog spa!

Last night, we had a scary few minutes. Remember Bella and Dog Yoga? Downward dog, the "sleeping cat", the "dog doughnut", and the Sphinx (and many others--search my Old Blog for more)?  Last night, it wasn't yoga. Last night, she was practising ballet on the tile floor... and did the splits. Dog splits. She slipped on the floor and became stuck with her back legs apart. No I didn't take a picture. One person trying to lift a stuck, 150lb dog who is whimpering and scared is no joke... Two of us trying to lift her didn't work either. In the end, Dylan and I carefully pushed and slid her across the tiles to the carpet, where she was able to get up. Thankfully, she appears unhurt, and is not showing any signs of injury or pain. I think it was just scary. And that applies to the humans involved, too. There is now a rug over the tiles.

I left my heart in San Francisco (but doesn't everyone?)

Here is the full set of my photos from Marillion's concert on June 29th at the Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco. Just a few... about 200 or so! To see them all click on the link.

If you were there, you might see yourself. If you were not there, you should have been. Next time, OK?

(See also two reviews:  http://alison-toon.blogspot.com/2012/07/monday-and-little-more-sanity-marillion.html  and http://alison-toon.blogspot.com/2012/07/marillion-and-that-grin-on-my-face.html)
 

I was not the official photographer (despite someone chasing me down the street, asking for a picture, because they saw the the photo pass... that was hilarious... maybe I should wear a photo pass at all times?). The official 2012 North American Marillion tour photographer is Andy Wright of Point and Shoot Imagery  Visit his site for pictures of the entire tour--and if you were lucky enough to have your photo taken with the guys, that's where you need to go. (Yours truly, with family, #13 in San Francisco.)

I am planning on going to one of these: http://www.marillionweekend.com// Probably England... will I see you there?

To find out more about Marillion, to hear (and buy) their music, go to marillion.com

Older music photos

Uploaded some old photos to Flickr: Calvin Russell, Peter Hammill. Bill Frisell too. May add some Quintana Roo later (wonder what happened to them?)

  Photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alisontoon/

Monday, and a little-more sanity... Marillion review

There are bands that move you, make you laugh, make you cry; support your anger and angst and share your joy; are with you through thick-and-very-very-thin; there are few who hold you so close you can feel them breathe.

Marillion do just that. And more.

Since last Friday night, maybe more people understand it. The ones who came along to the show at the Fillmore, not quite knowing what to expect. Maybe dragged along by an enthusiastic partner. Or just knowing the Fillmore's reputation for the bands that perform there. They joined the line of long-time fans, some of whom had been travelling around the USA, seeing as many shows as they could; others, like myself, who had to be happy with just one.

Happy, indeed I was. Still am. It doesn't fade.

And I brought my three (grown-up) children. They've been listening to Marillion as long as they can remember; a bit like second-hand smoke. They are hooked too... in a good way.

There was a line outside the Fillmore from before 6 pm, with the show not due to begin until 9 pm. Marillion are not well-known in the USA, and yet the line was there, in the street, on a cool San Francisco evening. (For all the talk of flowers-in-you-hair and Californi-so-it-must-be-beachy, San Francisco can be darn chilly; all that fog rolling in, the wind sneaking up-and-down the hills and between the tall buildings. Drive a few miles north, south, or west, and the temperature goes up twenty or more degrees F. Go in October if you want summer in San Francisco.)

 

Lucky enough to have meet-and-greet passes, we waited in the Poster Room. Posters from all the class acts from the late sixties onwards: Jefferson Airship (Starship too), Greatful Dead, The Doors, Hendrix a few of the early ones. I didn't see a Tim Buckley poster, but there had to be one there somewhere. Surely? We chatted with a guy who had worked at the Fillmore for the past nineteen years. Oh yes, he'd seem some shows.

I bet he hadn't seen anything better than this. Not like this. "Not as much as this."

The set opened with Splintering Heart; Steve Hogarth leaning from the balcony like a vocal Quasimodo or Phantom... then into Cover My Eyes, no doubt making a little girl (or more likely, her dad?) happy (they'd been parading a poster up-and-down the line as we waited outside).

The Other Half. Fantastic Place. Great Escape... Easter. Afraid of Sunlight. Power, from the upcoming Songs That Cannot Be Made album. King... and a beautiful Rickenbacker guitar. Sugar Mice. Man of a Thousand Faces. Neverland. What did I forget? Estonia? (Or was that in my dreams?)

It was all... just... amazing.

First encore... Invisible Man. I felt it in the floor before it began. Like you know an earthquake is inevitable, just before it starts, you know what's coming, once you've lived through just one. Invisible Man is like that. It starts somewhere between your belly and your soul.

It's the lover who doesn't see you anymore. You cannot change them, you cannot bring them back to you, you cannot stop caring, nothing you do or say or feel or try has any affect on any one or any thing, least of all the one you care for. You have become invisible; or are you a ghost? And realising this, you cry... "I am perfectly sane..."

I think we have all been there. Right?

But who has expressed it?

Marillion.

I love that song.

And more... two more encores. We didn't want the night to end. I don't think it did. It's still going round and round and round in my head, and yes, the stupid grin is still stuck firmly in place.

"No one leaves you when they live in your heart and mind..."

Thank you Steve, Steve, Mark, Pete and Ian. Until we meet again. And we will.

Full set of photos:   Marillion at the Fillmore

 Everything you need:  Marillion.com

(And if you're looking for high-res photos, just contact me. See the Copyright blog, below, before copying. OK? )

Marillion, and that grin on my face

It's fixed. It's there forever.

That stupid grin that's been on my face since Friday evening.

Friday, June 29th at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco.

Marillion.

Marillion!

:-)  <--  there it is again. The grin. See?

Awesome, awesome, AWESOME show. And in this context, one AWESOME is never enough. So again: AWESOME!

Waited a long time for this... and many years ago, I made a promise that--should Marillion come to the USA--I'd take the whole family. So there we were: Dylan and Karli and I from up-in-Sacramento, and Jade from over-in-Brooklyn, all there.

If you've spend any time at all around me, you've already heard Marillion. So even if the name sounds unfamiliar--and in the USA, it might, though this tour may have changed that--you may know them already.

Like a song you remember from before you were born.
Like a beat of your heart.
Like everything you have ever lived and loved through.

Marillion: thank you for visiting. And thank you for taking the time to say hello. :-) 

:-)   <--  there it is again. The grin. See?

If you have never experienced a Marillion show, either in person or through a video (you can obtain DVDs etc. from http://marillion.com): it's... just... AWESOME.

OK. Evidently I cannot be more expressive or sane or coherent or informative right now other than saying AWESOME and grinning insanely. ("I am totally sane!!!). Going with Jade and Karli to Davis to watch football (the kind you play with your feet) at Karli's pub (de Veres). Maybe sanity will return later? I promise a more informative and sensible and less-emotional post later.

Well maybe ;-) 

You'll have to get rid of the grin, first, and that's not going to happen in this lifetime.

:-) <-- there it is again. The grin. See?

(Jade and I were given photo passes! Been a long time since I did music photography... not since Grenoble and maybe the late Calvin Russell? But heck, I still love it. Helps when you love the band, too.)

My photos: Marillion at the Fillmore, San Francisco, June 29th 2012
Jade's blog post and her photos:  From the Inside: Marillion
Marillion:  Official website   Facebook page

Preface/copyright

I'm going to write about the amazing Marillion show in San Francisco on Friday night... but first have to say this, because it's been going around in my head since I woke this morning to the sound of Muffin the cat scratching at the door. (So much for a sleep-in Sunday... the alarm was set just-in-case for 8 am, as we're heading off to DeVere's in Davis for the Euro finals.)

Copyright. It matters.

I do not earn all my living from photography (though that would be very cool), but it still royally P's me off when my photos are stolen. I have friends who do earn their living from photography, and it P's me off even more when I see it happen to them. And as for musicians, who put all their time, energy and soul--their lives--into making music for others to hear... and people steal it, thinking it's OK to copy and share because hell, everyone's doing it aren't they? Yep, Alison' P'd off again.

I was at an international conference recently, where one of the keynote speakers presented on the issue of copyright. Apart from the presentation being dry, bureacratic/academic, and for many non-English speakers, difficult to understand, it was a tad incongruous, as the conference was for localization (translation, global business, translation management etc. ec. etc.)  Though copyright--or the right of content creators to protect and/or earn from their creations--is, or should be, of huge concern to anyone today. Immediately a word, pixel, note is made internet-available, it can be shared, "liked", copied. The presenter proposed a paradigm shift: not prosecution, but enablement.

"Creators" want their work to be shared, seen, heard. And today's buyers have often grown up in a world where you "find" music/words/information/images on the web; you don't go to a record or bookstore and browse.

The presenter's premise was that rather than tracking-down and criminalizing that small subset of trackable "content thieves", we instead find a way to fairly compensate the creators. Globally. Fairly. At the moment when the content is shared/heard/seen/whatever.

Seems fair to me.

It will take a while (a lifetime, if it's up to bureaucrats), to put such a legal framework in place (or even to work out how it might be done. It's just-a-little complex.)

In the meantime: if you want to reuse someone's photos, ask them first.

And if you want to listen to music, make sure the artists are compensated, either by buying the music from their websites or a store, or by using a music streaming service that pays the artists. Some bands give you samplers for free so that you can experience their work.

Check out http://marillion.com  for example.

(Or think about it like this: a gardener spends their entire lifetime, year-after-year, breeding a beautiful daylily that is unlike anyone else's daylily. Then some kid comes along and thinks, "that's a pretty plant", and digs up a clump to take home to his garden. Before planting it, his pals all take a root and take them to their gardens too. The next year, someone else takes a couple of divisions back home to Nebraska or wherever, and suddenly the plant is cropping up all over the planet. Did anyone even think of saying "thank you" to the guy who spent all the time nurturing and choosing and observing and planting and rejecting and trying again and again and again, until the beautiful flower appeared? I'm sure he is happy that so many people love his flower, but wouldn't it be nice to let him know?)

Rant over.

Go look and listen and explore. There's a lot of beautiful stuff out there. Enjoy it... and say thank you.

Garden update

Jade posted photos of the garden on her blog:

http://paradoxoutside.blogspot.com/2012/06/california-garden.html

Paris: love locks

Declare your love to the world, by naming a padlock and securing it to the bridge.

Paris: city in love

Gothic. Really.

Notre Dame de Paris. Last time I visited, the entire front facade was covered in scaffolding and hidden from view; under restoration. This time, it was clean and beautiful.

Church, you think: saints and good and Jesus and disciples and all. Well yes. And no.

The center panel is my favourite. "The final judgement". The fight for souls... good against evil. Evil cheats.

And there are saintly-faced men standing on strange beasts...

... or humans.

Scenes from nightmares, lovingly captured in stone.

Notre Dame de Paris. The bells, the bells.

Peas

The last of this year's peas from the garden. They went from unready to almost-dried during the time I was away!

Canon 30D error 99

Thought my digital camera had come to an untimely end--"error 99" showed up each time I tried to take a picture. Internet search revealed much doom-and-gloom, ranging from people who had cleaned the lens contacts to those who'd shipped the camera off to Canon for minor fixes to disembowelment (not forgetting being without favourite camera for far-too-long).

So I read the manual.

Who knew. There is a separate "time/date" battery which is cleverly hidden inside the main battery compartment. And it has an active life of "about five years". About as long as I have had this dear camera.

It cost me about 5$ to replace... and five minutes finding the info in the manual.

For anyone else who wants to know what might be causing Error 99 without buying a new camera: Canon 30D user manual (copy)

EDIT--a few hours later. So much for that smug fix... it is failing again. Back to Error 99. It was worth a try...  Can I go camera shopping now???

UPDATE: it cost $250 for Canon to fix it--it was the shutter assembly. Customer service told me what to do, how to ship, completed the data with me, and it was back home, safe, fixed and ready-to-go in under a week. They may have done themselves a dis-favour, as I didn't run out and buy a new one... but it's given me more time to save up for the Canon that I really want next!

What's in, what's out

Half-way through digging the third vegetable bed. Planted it with baby aubergine/eggplant plants and a row of tomatillos. I have no idea what I will do with tomatillos, but the seed packet looked cool. Also planted two rows of purple gladiolis, because I felt guilty that I hadn't found a place for them yet anywhere else.

Planted out the sweetcorn seedlings in a block not too far from the potato beds. Discovered that no matter how sprouted the potatoes from the supermarket are, they won't continue growing when you plant them. The proper seed potatoes are, however, flourising in their straw beds. Removed the supermarket spuds and planted green and yellow courgette/zucchini plants instead.

Planted cucumbers and kobacha and butternut squash plants against a neat folding trellis that I found at Lowes, plus a couple of the cucs on the bank where the pumpkins were last year. Found a strange mass of baby plants near the peas in the first vegetable bed. They look like baby pumpkins or squash but I don't remember spilling about fifty seeds in one place. Oh. That was where the pumpkins sprawled too. Maybe one left its seeds behind last year?

Planned where the tomatos will go. Fixed some more sprinklers, again. Moved a little more compost, but there's a lot more to move.

That was a good weekend but I feel like I'm running to catch up with a train that has already left the platform. Temperatures are already rising into the high eighties/nineties (farenheit) and the broccoli and lettuces and rocket won't like that one bit.