I, Miss Winter

Here are some of the original snowpants photos that were the inspiration for this blog when I launched it last March. Though it may have morphed into a place where I rant, comment and merely whine, the original intent of this site was to bring attention to the goodness of a real, good old-fashioned Canadian winter.

I was never a winter lover. In fact, I sometimes feel guilty for causing global warming because I used up so many childhood wishes wishing winter would disappear and never come back. My parents used to drag me skiing at a pretentious private ski hill in Collingwood, a sport which I never mastered and never enjoyed, especially after that time I had to come down from one of the baby hills in a stretcher due to an impromptu meeting with a tree halfway down. My favourite part of skiing was sitting in front of the fireplace in the lodge with a hot chocolate in one hand and a Garfield (or a little later, a V.C. Andrews) book in the other.

I am at odds with myself on global warming. It is hard not to enjoy the warm, sunny, unnatural weather we Torontonians are experiencing. It is hard to complain when the sun is shining and you're wandering around in December in a t-shirt. It is hard not to agree when a chatty stranger on the TTC or in the elevator comments, "Beautiful day out there, eh?"

With typical human behaviour, I never noticed how much there is love about winter until it was taken away from me. It's the little things: rosy cheeks, wet socks drying on the heater, the smell of wet wool gloves. It's about how alive you feel after you've been outside on a really cold day, and how great it feels to go inside and get warm.

So, from a serious convert, I wish you a cold, snowy beautiful winter. Bring it on Old Man Winter!



Performing a reasonable facsimile of "skiing" in Collingwood, Ontario.




Me and my sister Sara outside our childhood house in Thornhill. Note the gigantic snowbank.




My mother, Donna, in Leaside, circa 1945.




Me, dogwalking in Logan Park, winter 2004.

Is It So Wrong to Hate Christmas?

Well it's that time of year again, according to the advertising world. Can you feel the Christmas cheer in the air, or is it just the sound of children double-clicking away at their online wish lists?

I hate Christmas. I hate the red bows and early bird sales, the propaganda and the not-so-subliminal advertising, the piped-in carols and oversized bells hanging from the ceilings of the mall. I hate the lines of tantrumous children threading its way through the malls from the Santa Photo Booth. I hate the parents cementing weird triangulations into their children's unconsciousness about the relationship of red plush, white fur and consumerism. I hate that people think it's wrong and mean-spirited to hate Christmas, the assumption that everyone loves Christmas because it's a time to share with your family and that I am having to write about this already in NOVEMBER. I hate being forced to buy presents I can't afford and to hurry up about it because Christmas is in just 2 days. If I want to buy something for someone, I do it-- all year long. I can't think of a better way to show someone you love them than by picking them up something small, and unexpected simply because it reminded you of them.

I hate that yesterday, on yet another snowless, warmer than average November afternoon, I was trapped for an hour by the Santa Claus parade and completely prevented from getting to Avenue and Prince Arthur from Spadina and College even though I was on my bicycle. Not only could I not get across Bloor Street, I was forced into a suffocating melee of children screaming for Clifford the Dog (??!!) and parents wearing ridiculous red and white springy Santa hats and lining the streets with their disposible Starbucks coffee cups. There were police marching on horseback, clowns, bagpipers (which I normally love) and cheer-leaders hyping the crowds with a "Merry...?" "CHRISTMAS!!" "Merry...?" "CHRISTMAS"!!!call and response, while the parade marched slowly and serenly forward, alongside the glassy fronts of the super high-end stores that line Bloor Street. I half expected to hear the cheer-leaders call out: "Ok kids!!! Who do we want??!! Holt.....?" "RENFREW!" "Holt...?" "RENFREW!!!!!!!"

Don't get me wrong, I am a diehard romantic. The kind of girl who puposely wears a flourescent pink velvet coat, hat and gloves in the darkest grey of winter because I believe in the power of cheer, of kindness and good intentions. I believe people have the ability to make each other smile, and I look upon it as my public duty to appear in my flash of pink, to combat the dreary sea of black grey and white that everyone else succumbs to when it gets cold. So, I understand the appeal of Christmas, the original intent. I am even ok with the religious ideology, though I can't say it's my thing. What I hate is being forced to experience Christmas with every inhalation from before Thanksgiving has even arrived. I don't actually hate Christmas. I hate what it has become. I hate that I am forced to hate Christmas.

I was wearing that coat yesterday, while trying to get to school. It must have clashed something awful with the look of disgust and anger on my face as I ineffectively waded my bike and I through the caroling, frothing crowd. I imagined children looking up at me, bursting into tears I as walked by saying "Mommy...why does that mean lady hate Christmas so much?" Because, little Virginia, it has become a farce. A hypocritical, deceptive prosthesis attempting to be what it can't be, and possibly, never was. Bah humbug.

Suck it up, wallet.

So, I finally bit the bullet and got myself a new computer. My father nearly choked to death when I told him how much it was-- "Jeezus Christ, Kate. I just bought your sister a computer and it was only twelve hundred dollars!!!(sputter!!!gasp!!)"

Yes, well, if I wanted a cheap, underpowered portable sandwich grill, I could also have saved myself the extra $2000 and bought a shitty little Dell laptop. But, I am a confirmed Machelor, and after having the oldest, slowest, cutest, little iBook at school for the last 5 years (the poor thing is nearly 7), I felt it was time to go all out. Like a man choosing a flat screen tv, I wanted the biggest, baddest, fastest one available. I am going to be graduating soon, and need to look like a "PROFESSIONAL" and the little computer with the big heart is, undeniably and unfortunately, on his last legs. The battery's dead, the latch is broken, it's slower than molasses in February and if you so much as LOOK at the screen the wrong way, it goes black. It's sitting pathetically in the corner now, staring over here at my new MacBook Pro, which is 20 times faster, 20 times smarter and 200% wider, giving me those puppy dog eyes...."you- you're, coming back right? Tha- that's just a loaner, right??!!!???" Poor little guy. He was my signifier that all the world does not have to be disposable. Even after they unplugged the airport card at school that let me get online ("sorry, you're computer's just too OLD! It's slowing down the system.") I was determined that only death would do us part. Well, little buckaroo, you fought a good fight. It's time to put you out to pasture. You're going to live with .....Grandma. Not the worst fate in the world. She's already Mac savvy, and has a nice little table in the living room where he can just lounge around all day, doing nothing but emailing and saving pictures of kittens to the desktop. He'll never have to move, so his screen will be safe, and I can visit him whenever I want. Hear that, little guy? Gonna live with Grandma!!! I swear he just wagged his tired, beaten up little tail..I mean AC adaptor....


xoxoxox
K

p.s. here's the real reason I wanted a Mac, don't tell my dad:




























God, I love Macs.

I Burst Boredom Easily

I promised to post the other Michael Jackson photo, so here it is. Sorry about the grainy-ness, the girl who gave it to me said her printer was on the fritz...


Anyhow. I have been struggling to write a new bio for upcoming applications to NXNE and other such festivals, and finally got one put together with the help of a few friends. For some reason, I thought it would be funny to put it through one of those internet translator sites, so here it is, from English, to French and back again. Enjoy. I thought it was quite hilarious. I will put in bold my parts that are most favourite me.

p.s. you can read the original at www.myspace.com/kateymorley

If Katey Morley was a caricature character, she would be transfering: a X Men esque Forms it shifter. Disdained woman more pleasant smaller and a lot less than the devilish Mystical one, but just as to set up, and just as fascinating strong to look at. She laughs at the comparison, "I am not sure if to be offended or to be flattered extremely, but I obtain your point. I have a hard time just fact a thing, I guess."

She can have a hard time sinks to just a thing, but this dj/chanteur certainly multitasks with the better one of them. You were able to see his Ame of Gypsy one of alterna-frousse legends of Toronto of fronting, or spied maybe his belting out the jazz in a parlor of the center city connected. You were able to stumble through his cheek the folk songs to coffee restaurant local, or on scene to one of the summer a lot of festivals. Or maybe you caught a summary of his turn and the grattement in any of dance clubs of Toronto more hot. She is as comfortable plinking far to the lightly out-of-the air baby grandiose in his parlor as her is with to take 800 happy dancers and in sweat in a frenzy describe circles of behind a series of platinum. She changes his role of also often as she changes its socks (everyday, in case you wondered) -- a human kaleidoscope of talent. The wire holding these socks together, your boundary on his vast trip and musical heady, is a rich voice and ochre-trempé that you will not forget soon.

She is been in comparison of Feist, Portishead, Rikki The Jones, Nelly Furtado and Emmylou Harris, but all of this singer songwriter withstands the catégorisation. His own music has strong elements of dry, folk noise and the jazz, but she sang for the artists of reggae, r', hip hop, the house equipments and freezes (you can hear it on the club success Perfecto of the Okenfold of Paul "Invading Privément" on the Dance Nation 2003). His varied voice and its honest words and observatrices do for an engages, listen the intimate experience that seeps in in slow and the ask repeat listen. "I hate it when the women write all these morose and pathetic songs of the lovers that have the injury them. Of course I do it, also, but I laugh usually by the time I finished the writing of the words. I do not remain."

A good thing, also, because it does for a pleasant and hybrid collection of airs. His next album "the Small Satellite" co-produit by Duncan Coutts, of Our Lady Peace, and the Decayed Scott, that gave Hates to Emily of Metric one she first leg increases, 8 years ago, and presents certain musicians of guest of Toronto more heavy: Jeremy Taggart (OLP), Maury Lefoy (Jann Arden), Louis Simao (Eliana Cuevas), Jody Brumell (Zepplinesque) to name someone. There is songs of the boys, just like the better friends, the lovers, teaching them, his dog, its parents, his apartment, and does not import what of other than catches his trip, his vigilant imagination.

His act in life is a must see. There is something of his fragile confidence, and his lightly left personality that very obliges. His energy is big and contagious and his band a door turning, stretched and great of gifted jazzers, tip them and the tared acknowledged. This all contributes to a funny fresh atmosphere and unique on scene; you could see to hit Katey far to the piano, or a xylophone, or sitting next to the piece of keyboardist to play an impromptu duet while it sucks on a melodica. "I burst boredom easily, and I hate the songs it done similar manner two times," she explains. "We are all A. D. D. Everyone not is it?"