Peter Rukavina's Podcast

It’s unseasonably warm this January in Charlottetown. Or, rather, unseasonably warm, then cold, then warm, then cold. Today is warm. Or warmish. And it is raining. Hard. Here’s the sound I hear in my office of the rain hitting the side of The Guild.

At The Cannon in East Hamilton. Great coffee. Very good waffles.

One of the most helpful services offered by our provincial government here in Prince Edward Island has always been Island Information Service. By calling the easy-to-remember 902-368-4000 telephone number, I can talk to a friendly, helpful, knowledgeable information specialist who can help me navigate the complex thicket of the bureaucracy. Except that now I can’t. When I call that number now, rather than a friendly voice on the other end, a robot answers the phone and asks me to navigate a telephone tree: “for tax questions, such as property tax, deed registry, HST and pensions, press 2,” and so on. Setting aside the wicking away of the helpful personal service, this approach is fine if your query happens to fall into one of the 5 options offered. But citizen questions are often more complicated than that, and it’s difficult to tell which bureaucratic box to tick. Talking one-on-one with Michelle or one of her colleagues would always result in an answer; tapping to the robot can quickly get frustrating.

Compelling real political protest in front of Province House meets a fake Father of Confederation and his confused-looking tourist group on a Sunday morning.

Oliver and I spent a lot of time today talking about an app that could be used to make your life easier by doing things like deciding what restaurant to go to, or deciding what to order once you’re there. He came up with the name “EasyLife” and we recorded a little podcast, while swinging in the hammock at the Gardens of Hope, on the topic.

Saturday morning at the Charlottetown Farmer’s Market.

Walking from picking up the mail up the street, past Zion church, across the street to Church Street and by St. Paul’s, where a lone piper stood under a tree, sheltered from the rain. Across Queen’s Square in front of the Coles Building and along Richmond Street to work.

Many, many years ago I happened to be present on the day that Stefan Kirkpatrick was born. His parents were good and trusted friends, and I was happy to be a part of both that day and the early part of his life that followed. When Stefan was two-going-on-three years old, I was, for a heady couple of months, his nanny. In El Paso, Texas. Which is a longer story for another day. One of the elements of our daily life during that period, Stefan and I, trapped in suburbia on the cusp of America, was a cassette tape of The Three Little Pigs. Stefan loved that tape, and wanted to listen to it over and over and over and over. And over. I am, I think, a patient man at heart, but the 339th listening of The Three Little Pigs almost pushed me over the edge. But I survived. That I was able to emerge with my faculties intact from that nannying experience was, in no small way, what gave me the confidence to think that I had it in me to be a father; I owe him a great debt for that. Young Stefan is now slightly less yo

At this hour, Sonia Painchaud, an estimable musician, is playing on Victoria Row as part of the Franco Festival. Alas she is playing to an audience of approximately nobody, give or take. Which is a shame, because she’s really, really good. You have another 20 minutes to seek her out.

I’ve returned again to the task of sorting through my various bits of sound scattered across servers and hosts. Deep among them I found this recording of Oliver when he was three years old, singing a song about pie.

Recorded yesterday at the PEI Bluegrass and Old Time Music Festival. For kicks, listen to the first episode of our podcast from 10 years ago.

Oliver and my parents and I are spending the day at the PEI Bluegrass and Old Time Music Festival in Rollo Bay. Here’s a short taste of the Farm Hands Quartet from Nashville.

I landed in Boston 3 hours ago and it’s been pouring rain since. Things died down a little as I stopped for supper at Mi Jalisco in Milford, but as I emerge, 30 minutes later, it’s raining as hard as I’ve ever seen it. Here’s a taste.

This was left as a voicemail at the office this afternoon. It’s the kind of thing that they’d bring in a tech from forensics to analyze. Curious.

On Friday night after the performance of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time at the Gielgud Theatre in London, I started recording the sounds of London. I started the recorded while walking from the theatre to the Piccadilly Circus tube station, and kept recording for 22 minutes, down into the station, through the turnstiles, down to the platform, onto the Piccadilly line west, off at Earl’s Court and up to Earl’s Court Road where I stopped recording. It was was a bustling night: the streets were full of people and sounds. You’ll hear music, tube announcements, the sounds of the street. Listening to it now, it’s an intriguing was of reliving the experience; much better and richer than a photograph. I think the sounds alone the way are distinctive enough that you should be able to follow along.  The journey runs between 10:00 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. London time on May 13, 2016.

I recorded the bells of St Paul’s Cathedral in London while walking up Ludgate Hill and along St Paul’s Churchyard on May 15, 2016 after the St Bride Foundation Wayzgoose.

A snippet of the klezmer band that played at Luisa and Olle’s 10th anniversary party. They were very good and very spirited.

I stopped for a snack at Malmö C (the central train station in the city) last night. There’s a piano in the waiting room and a group of young people were clustered around it picking out tunes, the last of which was the opening refrain from Celine Dion’s Titanic theme. Or was it?

I have been an unremitting fan of  Jane Siberry since the very beginning. She released a new album, Ulysses’ Purse, earlier this year, a release that, despite my unremitting fandom, I did not discover until earlier this week. My favourite track is Five & Dime; it is hard not to love a song with this line: But lead her to a ledger of a hopeless nightmarish accounting mess and she can bring the columns back to life with her numerical tenderness As is usual and right with Jane Siberry, you can both buy the album and download its various components freely, as your needs and abilities dictate. You can also simply send her money via Paypal, which is the easiest way to complete a transaction: no shopping carts or registrations required. Whatever way you choose to confront the album, I recommend you do so: it’s complicated and lovely and rich and melodic and confusing with a dizzying arrange of talented collaborators, including David Ramsden, Rebecca Jenkins, Mary Margaret O’Hara, and kd lang.