These last few weeks have been hectic ones for me. Not so much because of a lot of different things to be done, but because of the specific things.

Months and months of winter training and far too little time training on the water culminated today with the Queen’s-McGill Boatrace. I wish it could say it turned out to be worth it, but a fantastic loss wasn’t exactly what we were going for. Well, it was an experience worth having and I’m glad I did it. We were a hastily slapped together crew, some of us with as few as two days on the water for training since October. It was disappointing for sure, and if ever I wanted to use the phrase “pooped and demoralised”, this is it.

My final exams aren’t even over but I feel like today’s race, the last of my McGill Rowing experience, has given me my main closure. In two more days my undergraduate career will be finished, and within a week or two after that I’ll be back home for the summer before moving to the big T-Dot for grad school. One adventure over and another one begins.

So, as promised: How music can be like reading a book.

The fact that Dvorak’s New World Symphony is my favourite symphony can probably be traced back to my following along with the score while listening to it. We had a copy that was printed like a little novel, or a play with each instrument as a character. Following along while the instruments played made even the boring slow movements entertaining. It was quite like having someone read aloud to me.

Recently, from the Music Animation Machine, I came across this visualisation of Clair de Lune (which is, by the way, one of the best pieces of classical music ever). It, too, lets the eye follow along with the music and experience it in a new way. It also makes me want to have a piano again.

Occasionally I’m too lazy to go to bed. Really. I’ll be sitting at my computer or on my couch or something and know that it’s bedtime, but just can’t bring myself to go get into bed. I can be really tired and not even have anything interesting to keep me occupied on the internet, but I’ll still find something.

What I tend to do when this kind of mood hits me—since I know I can’t stay up forever—is get my pillow and blanket, curl up on the couch, and fall asleep there while watching a movie. My couch is actually just as comfortable as my bed, if a little more asymmetric, so it’s actually quite nice. I’m often asleep within 5 minutes.

This works better with some movies than others. It doesn’t have to be a particularly quiet movie, but it does help if it’s one where I can tell what’s happening from the audio alone. Otherwise I’m tempted to keep my eyes open and watch what’s going on. Typically this means mellow dramas with lots of dialogue more than, say, action films with big fight scenes.

I was going about this same routine a few weeks ago and ended up watching Garden State, which I had never seen. It’s usually risky to watch a movie for the first time while doing this—often I’ll either be too bored with it to be soothed to sleep, or too engrossed in it to remember to sleep. This one turned out pretty well though, for one reason in particular: Descriptive Video.

I’ve never seen a movie with descriptive video before. It was a lot like listening to an audio book. The movie is exactly the same as without, but in between lines of dialogue, a narrator will chime in with helpful descriptions of what’s going on:

“Andrew touches a wooden rail on a spiral staircase to his left,”

“Next morning, shafts of sunlight pierce rips in curtains above a couch where Andrew has been sleeping under a blanket. He sits up urgently. He’s got ‘balls’ written across his forehead.”

“Tim glowers through his pretty, almond-shaped eyes.”

Who writes these things I wonder? Are we really supposed to note the pretty almond-shaped eyes? Maybe not, but that kind of marration really does bring out features of the visuals I wouldn’t notice otherwise. It makes it great to listen to while falling asleep, but it also really enhances the film when watching it normally.

I really want to watch more movies with descriptive video now. It would probably be a bit disconcerting for movies I already know and love but it might also be kind of cool.

Next time: How music can be like reading a book.

This is the fourth in a series of posts on the books chosen for this year’s Canada Reads on CBC Radio. Previous entries: Icefields by Thomas Wharton, King Leary by Paul Quarrington, and From the Fifteenth District by Mavis Gallant.

When I first looked up this year’s books, Not Wanted on the Voyage by Timothy Findley is the one I was most interested in reading. While I was afraid that as the retelling of the story of Noah’s Ark, it might be preachy and religious, the summary I read hinted that it might be both a bit more humorous and a bit darker than that. It certainly didn’t let down. Though I did find myself at times wondering what elements were specifically motivated by biblical references, the story really took off on its own. It was much better once I stopped expecting things from what I know of the biblical story and let Timothy Findley lead the way.

There are a lot of dark and disturbing things in here. Yes, there’s cannibalism and the famous unicorn scene, but there’s much more going on than that. The consequence of the former and the motivation of the latter stay with me much more than the events themselves. The characters of Yahweh and Lucy are not at all what we might expect of them, twisting the whole picture around until it’s no longer recognizable. There is something sinister in the characters we might expect to be the good guys, and something holy where you’d never look for it.

I especially like the way the book wraps up. It is very interesting to consider what the flood changed, what ended up surviving on the ark, and if it could have gone any other way. Like other favourite books of mine (e.g., The Way the Crow Flies by Ann-Marie MacDonald, and 2006 Canada Reads selection Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden), Not Wanted on the Voyage has hooked into my head and won’t let go. Of the four Canada Reads books I’ve read so far, this is far and away my favourite.