Entry in two completely unrelated parts

• Nine Nations of North America
  
  OK, I have got to read this book. It's probably somewhat outdated, as it came out in 1981, but the politics & geography geek in me is enthralled by this map:
  
  
  
  The premise is that our current political boundaries between countries and states are meaningless, and that a better organization of North America would be one in which the geography respects the actual cultural/economic differences between the regions. Personally I rather doubt it, as some of the cultural differences between Canadian and American approaches to, say, gun control, socialized medicine, foreign policy, the environment, the role of religion in education and politics, the military, the economy, etc go a little deeper than the author seems to give them credit for. Never end a sentence with a preposition. I would not want to be part of a country ("Foundry", capital: Detroit) where there was a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and not a lot of socialized medicine, even if it did share much of the same ethnic & economic background as Ontario. And I doubt that a lot of people in the author's new New England (capital: Boston) would like to have no right to bear arms and little/no military.
  
  Then again, the book was written in 1980, when (to my memory, at least) those kinds of differences were not quite as entrenched as they appear to be now. And I haven't read it, so for all I know the book may have taken those factors into account.
  
  Anyway. The book sounds way cool. Also, it makes me laugh that Alberta would be part of the "Empty Quarter" ;)
  
  
• Choir: Our director taped one of our last rehearsals for the upcoming choir concert, and for one of the songs we sound a lot better than we normally do in concert. And that song is my favourite on the program too, which is nice, because it's always really disappointing when he tapes our concerts and the one song I most wanted to hear isn't worth listening to - baby wailing in the background, or the sopranos totally missed an entry, or somebody in the audience was wrestling with gum wrappers throughout, or whatever.
  
  No such problems here. It's beautiful. And it's Stephen Hatfield too, which is always good, and it's got a Celtic folk tune in there, and... ::sigh::
  
  Labour of Love (Take Me Somewhere), by Stephen Hatfield.
  
  (Chorus)
  Take me somewhere (carry me somewhere)
  Take me somewhere (carry me somewhere)
  Take me somewhere (carry me somewhere)
  Carry me on...
  
  Carry me to somewhere, wherever
  Carry me to somewhere, wherever
  Carry me to somewhere, wherever
  Carry me on,
  To where there are people like me...
  
  They brought me to the doctor,
  She said it's the clearest case I've ever seen,
  This kid needs a ransom,
  She needs a genie,
  She needs a ship sailing where
  She was always meant to be
  
  ( Read more... )

Lloyd Alexander

Wow. One of my favourite childhood authors ever.

( Author Lloyd Alexander dead at 83 )

Link to the story

Link to Wikipedia entry

Not that there's any really good way to die, but I must say dying at age 83, after a very successful career, and two weeks after the death of your spouse of 61 years, seems rather easier than many other ways you can go.



RIP, Mr. Alexander. And thank you.