Peaux des lièvres / Hare Skins

Sharon sent this today, after the first snow in Toronto. A video for a song by the Montréal band Tricot Machine (Knit Machine). It was animated using some 700 specially-knit sweaters.

Lovely song, too. A bit breathy, like winter should be.

CBC Radio 3 profile here.

The piano intro reminds me a lot of this Pierre Lapointe song, “Le lion imberbe”/The beardless lion.

from snowbird to bluebird–Donald Sutherland works the phones

This from the LA Times this week, about Donald Sutherland putting in time at the Century City phone bank, calling for Obama. “Snowbirds” are Canadians who head south for the winter, usually to Arizona or Florida. They typically avoid politics like the plague, being on “vacation” for the long haul, and live in their glocal pods. They even have their own AARP-AAA-like association. Sutherland bucks this trend here by working as a “bluebird,” calling voters in swing states to tip the color scale, even though he is not a citizen (awesome).

In a familiar voice, the caller told the person at the other end of the line that he was volunteering for Barack Obama and looking for Rita.

“It’s Donald Sutherland calling from California,” he said.

…

From the Century Plaza and other call centers spread across the state, they placed more than 3 million calls to battlegrounds. There are so many of them that in some places they even have a name, “bluebirds,” people from blue states who flock to Republican strongholds and swing states to help Obama win.

Sutherland, a Canadian, could not vote or make a campaign donation vote. But he could volunteer. Careful not to speak too loudly, so as to not disturb other callers sitting nearby, he took a brief break to explain why he was making phone calls, and turned passionate.

“You have a man who has intelligence, sensitivity, judgment, intellect. You can see the heart. You can see the hope,” he said. “This is the most important election in the world.”

Can you imagine getting a call from Klute to tell you to get out the vote? In the photo above, I like to think he is using his break time to call up to Alberta. I think he is saying, “Hello, this is Donald Sutherland calling from California. Stephen Harper? No, really!! Again??? That neo-con guy ruining the economy, the guy with the arts cuts, and the most openly religious Canadian leader in eons? Really?!?”