Killarney, Ontario

Remoteness in a vacation retreat is less expensive and more valuable.

We open our summer cottage soon. Located at the top of Georgian Bay near the village of Killarney, Ontario, it is a wild place where views like this are common and wildlife is so comfortable that a bear will occasionally stroll across our property. There are no other homes on that far shore because it’s land owned by the “Crown” (the government). It abuts Killarney Provincial Park, the most beautiful wild public domain in the province with its many crystal-clear lakes set amid the red granite and white quartz of the La Cloche Mountains.

Because we are located on a shallow arm of a bay that itself is an arm of Georgian Bay, we see very few boats and almost never have to endure the roaring insult of “personal water vehicles.” The calm is seldom broken. Which makes the place priceless.

Killarney is about 4.5 hours drive from Toronto, and thus out of reach for most weekend cottagers. So while humble summer homes within two hours of the city can easily sell for $500,000 to $750,000 these days (with very little shoreline, plenty of neighbors, and incessant boat traffic), you can still buy several hundred feet of picture-perfect shoreline near Killarney for much less. If it becomes available. Which is rare.

The trick is to stay for a while.

Neil Rocks

Patience is a virtue at a giant music festival.

Getting to see the biggest acts at Jazzfest can be challenging. In 2008, we tried to watch Stevie Wonder but 200,000 other fans had beaten us to the huge open space in front of the stage, so it was no longer open, not even a crack to slide into the area in front of the stage reserved for people willing to stand together like sardines.

Last year, we were smarter. Neil Young, one of our rock heros, was one of the final acts on Sunday. We watched the two acts before him on the main stage, standing for three hours so when Neil appeared we were about 150 feet from the front of the stage.

He rocked the place. I looked behind me at one point and could see no end to the crowd. It just disappeared in the distance as if the world was ending and people were lined up for the transport vehicles. Leaving to get a drink or use the toilet was a sure way to lose your spot. The crowd would have sealed up like a wall.

Neil’s final number was the Beatle tune, “A Day in the Life.” He pounded it out, gradually de-stringing his trusty black guitar for the final mournful chords, his band of aging rockers backing him up like an V-8 engine, his wife Peggy playing a wooden pipe organ in the background, Neil was classically disheveled and sweaty, his white shirt untucked from his old jeans, his wispy hair flying, his sunglasses big like hip welders goggles, caring little for appearances and all about the music.

As the photo above shows, sinister storm clouds swept in as he was finishing the set. The temperature — in the high eighties for the preceding three hours — dropped by about 15 degrees. It was almost spooky. One friend and I left and found refuge under a small vendor tent. Two other friends stayed for the Neville Brothers. My friends were drenched. They didn’t care.

Fats Takes A Stand

The indomitable Fats Domino, 82 years old this past February, not only survived the flood but rebuilt his garish bungalow immediately afterward. Fats is the Lower Ninth Ward’s best known and most visible resident, a stalwart amid the ruins.

Blown Away

One morning we hired a cab and asked to see the Lower Ninth Ward. It was beyond sobering.

Katrina hit New Orleans on August 29th, 2005. The devastation of the Lower Ninth Ward began around 9 a.m. when the levees of the Industrial Canal were breached. 

In 2008, it looked like two-thirds of the houses across three or four hundred acres had been torn down or swept away by the flood waters. Those that remained had filled with blackened water and decayed, their owners gone forever or contesting ownership with other relatives, leaving the abandoned properties in limbo. Some had enormous piles of moldy furniture and wallboard piled in front. Others were just empty toxic shells, scoured out and spray painted with instructions: “Do not demolish.”

One resident told us that owners who don’t mow the lawn or pay the taxes have their property taken by the city. Some people believe that nefarious forces are trying to out-wait the remaining owners to amass a huge amount of land for re-development.

Fais Do Do

That’s the name of this weather-beaten side stage at the Jazzfest, and it makes no sense. In Cajun, fais do do apparently means “go to sleep.” No way. The ground in front of this stag is worn concave from dancing. Every act — usually homegrown Louisiana-flavored music of exquisite quality — causes energetic movement. Sleep is out of the question.

Carrying on with a Married Woman

There are some things you should buy when the impulse hits because you’ll regret it later if you don’t.

This is one for me. Or it should have been one for me. I suppose it’s available over the internet. But I like the idea of buying Frank Sinatra’s mug shot in a junk shop in New Orleans, framed and hand-lettered by someone who probably liked it as much as I would have.

Sinatra was arrested in 1938 by the Bergen County, New Jersey sheriff for “carrying on with a married woman.” The charge was later changed to adultery, then dropped.

Dirty Dancing

I love to be in places where dancing breaks out.

Danceable music is standard fare at Jazzfest. Southern people like to move while they listen. On a dry day, after the grass has been worn away and dancing breaks out, you see a low-laying dust cloud rise around the feet of the dancers. Those in sandals become part of the earth. My friend Russ (above) can’t stop himself.

NYC by train: What had we been waiting for?

Globe and Mail

Published on Friday, Apr. 16, 2010 10:04AM EDT

Last fall, my wife Leslie and I did something environmentally commendable: We took the train from Burlington, Ont. to New York.

We loved it – for non-green reasons. In fact, we wondered why we had we been so stupid for so long. Why had we repeatedly endured the ritual assault of travelling to New York by air from Pearson International Airport – the parking, the shuttle, the waiting, the security indignities, the cab lineup, the traffic, the feeling like abused feedlot animals – when all along there has been a daily Amtrak/Via train departing from Union Station?

The comfort was dazzling. In business class, the seats are like oversized leather La-Z-Boys. There’s legroom enough for Chris Bosh, in snow boots. We packed artisanal cheeses, roasted vegetables, fresh baguette and good chocolate, eating luxuriantly while sipping red wine and gazing at the Hudson River.

Carry-on baggage? No problem. Carry on a steamer trunk full of books if you like.

There’s more. Parking in the huge commuter lot in Burlington was free. Ticketing and customs irritations were non-existent. There were no cabs to flag. And the round trip was only $220.

Yes, you have to make the time. But that’s also an interesting calculation. Airport waits are cramped purgatory. Train travel invites productivity. I worked on my laptop, in my recliner, without the usual distractions, for six hours on the way down and another six on the way back – nicely financing three indulgent days in the Big Apple.

Twelve hours after stepping onto the train, well rested and well read, we stepped off at Penn Station in midtown Manhattan and hopped the subway to our hotel. That too is green. Viva la Via.

Dressed for Action

Music isn’t just performed in New Orleans, it’s celebrated deleriously.

Every now and then, the huge festival crowd that moves unceasingly between the outdoor stages like a colony of bacterium is split down the middle by a vivid flow of ornate wildness, in the case above a singing, drumming, horn-playing passel of blue-suited, frond-waving, fedora-wearing, satin-gloved black men, one them not allowing his disability to restrict his hellaciousness. New Orleans loves a spectacle as much as a great performance. In fact, they merge routinely.