the East Coast report

Kermit de frog reporting from St. John's, Newfoundland...
Okay, shag that. [An expression I have heard several times out here]

This afternoon I was witness to an astonishing sight. 989 accordionists played "Mussels in the corner" [which i hope doesn't mean what it sounds like] here at the folk festival in St. John's. The accordion revolution has begun. Read here. And Listen here.

So my ambitions for this visit were: to go medium-core multi-day hiking along the East Coast trail. And to swim in the Atlantic. So far neither of those dreams has been satisfied.

But hey, I was pretty destroyed when i arrived here Weds, drifting in and out of dozy consciousness for a day or so. It's my traditional mid-August dormant virus which awakes to feast upon me once a year. In short I am a young lady who must repose herself.

We've been hanging around St. John's instead, going to see amazing live music by young and old at the Ship (a pub); doing short hikes to Signal Hill and on the opposite shore; watching the amusing spectacles that several invading armies of clowns are staging throughout the weekend. And figuring out where people were hanged. Eating the yummy food to be had, sacking the giftshops for puffin magnets and bathsalts.

And of course, slowly expunging that nagging voice in my brain that reminds me "Yeah -- but wasn't this the land that God gave to Cain?" Clearly Mr. McGuinness has a lot to answer for. Like Quebec, it's a beautiful (though starkly different) with a people and a culture that is self-aware and down to earth and sees no need for external self-promotion. Self-contained and contented, and proud.

It's so sad that over half of this province's native populations cannot reside here because the current economy cannot support them. The province's residents together collected 916 billion dollars in dole last year. I realize this paragraph is written in the passive voice of a liberal. I don't believe this is necessarily the correct way of stating the facts. But this point of view reflects a certain toll evident upon the population.

And oh yes. Puffins. How dorky are they?