ottawa – Page 9

My Love of Music and Black History Month

March 2.2023

When Beau Dixon came to town, I had to go and see him at the Meridian Theater in Ottawa. The ninety-minute show promised Beau’s music, blues, rock, and soul, my favorites. I must have gotten one of the last tickets on the balcony in the last row. But I did not complain; the back row has good acoustics and Beau’s music is loud.

It is Black History Month and Beau had a scripted, fast-moving show displaying black music at its best, playing songs from Bob Marley, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, and others. I came to listen to and enjoy my favorite type of music and ended up learning about the contribution of black music to North American culture.

Beau showed his multi-talented musical genius by playing the harmonica, and keyboard and singing. It was a tour de force and brought back fond memories.

My first job after finishing graduate school at the University of North Carolina was in Norfolk, VA, and I just had to build a stereo system to listen to my music. I still remember the high-quality Harman-Kardon component system, that I built. Testing the system, I played my favorite pianist, Oscar Peterson, at full blast when there was a banging on the door of our rented apartment. Scared that management might throw us out for being too loud, I cautiously opened the door to discover a black pastor. I turned the volume down and asked him to come in. Before explaining that he was looking for donations for his church, he congratulated me on playing “excellent religious” music. I had Oscar Peterson playing his composition “Hymn to Freedom”, an ode he wrote for the freedom marchers in the 1960s. With such an introduction, I had no choice in my mind but to offer a large contribution to his church.

Listen to Oscar Peterson playing his composition in Denmark, in 1964.

The other memory took me back to when we went to listen to Oscar Peterson playing at Norfolk State College in 1973. Oscar gave a rousing concert with mostly spirituals, and the audience was rocking along with his playing. We may have been the only white folks in the audience that I found a bit eery but in those days there was still much segregation by skin color and this was a black college.

Beau drew a mixed audience in Ottawa. A large percentage of the people were black and their enthusiasm showed in the tapping, stomping, and singing along with many of the songs. It was an appreciative audience and I also could not help myself but start stomping with my feet. My neighbor was swaying from left to right, nudging me constantly. Some in the audience jumped onto the floor and danced while others stood up and clapped to the sound of well-known songs like “Hound Dog”, popularized by Elvis Presley in 1956, but originally recorded by “Big Mama” Thornton in 1952. As Beau explained, many famous songs originated from black people but were popularized by white folks.

Listen to the first recording of the song by Big Mama Thornton in 1952.

Throughout the meticulously curated show, Beau engaged the audience with his charm and infectious energy. And his singers not only performed well-known songs but also talked about black Canadians’ contributions to our society, such as Viola Desmond, a civil rights activist from Nova Scotia; Lincoln Alexander, the first black member of Parliament and Lieutenant Governor of Ontario; Drake, the rapper, Michaelle Jean, previous Governor General of Canada.

One highlight of the program was when Beau’s singers performed “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, which is the hymn of black people; a song I have not heard before. The audience responded by standing up and singing along with the band; it was a highly emotional experience.

Listen to the hymn performed by the Amanah AME Zion Church choir, from Knightdale, NC, in 2022.

Although I went to hear my favorite music and I was not disappointed, I learned much about the contribution black culture made to Canadian society.

My Musings at Ottawa’s Ski Hills

February 25, 2023

We sat outside on Adirondack chairs nursing a coffee in the sunshine. The temperature was around freezing. Next to us, young people drank beer, taking a break from snowboarding or downhill skiing. The flat valley at the bottom of the mountain buzzed with the young crowd, some people getting ready with rented skis while others picked up their skis leaning against the ski stands. It was a noisy atmosphere with laughter, and rock music blasting out of loudspeakers at the lodge.

I thought back to Covid times just a couple of years ago when we had to “distance ourselves” from each other and preferably avoid people altogether. This was the total opposite, with the crowd milling around with no masks nearby. What a pleasurable and positive change I thought!

John, a grizzled ski instructor, took our grandchildren for a ski lesson, their first time on skis; they live in Durham, NC with hardly an opportunity to ski. John introduced himself to the children and asked softly about their names, where they are from, and what other sports they play and enjoy. Then they went off to the “magic carpet” for their lesson (the magic carpet is a conveyor belt that takes beginner skiers up the hill while standing on it). We heard later the lesson started with skiing in a circle on one foot, pushing with the other foot. The upshot of the lesson was that the children came back and jumped on the ski lift accompanied by their father and aunt and came down on the steep hills with gusto, with maybe a fall of two.

The next day we tried to interest the grandchildren in other winter activities such as cross-country skiing and snowshoeing, which they found boring. And they lasted a short time tobogganing because they had to walk up the relatively short hill. So we changed plans and went back to downhill skiing the following day.

Emily, a high school senior, took the children for another downhill ski lesson the next day. The children bonded instantly with Emily when she explained she had two siblings the same age as they were. Emily took them up the ski lift and taught them to keep their skis parallel, and showed them how to turn. In two amazing lessons, the grandchildren, aged 13 and 9, were flying down the steep hills.

During the ski lesson, we took a walk along the hills and noticed the real estate development taking place around the slopes. There is a modern hotel and condos built that, we heard, were owner-occupied or rented, according to a woman walking a dog with whom we engaged in a conversation.

She had a strong accent, and I inquired where she was from. She proudly explained she came from Bosnia 17 years ago when she married her Canadian husband and started working in a café making sandwiches that she had never made before. That was surprising to me. I thought everybody knew how to make a sandwich, but she said she was a “professional woman” and perhaps she worked in an office back home. But she advanced her career and is a financial person at Carleton University today.

During the last seventeen years, she has become a true “Canadian”, she said. As an example of what she meant, she related that when she goes home, she tells people not to smoke in her presence. It took me a few minutes to digest this aspect of being a Canadian; I was not aware of it. To emphasize her point, she said that back in Bosnia, people tell her she is more Canadian now than Bosnian. She confided in us she has no intention of going back home. Considering that she has a Canadian husband with a good government job in Ottawa and a high school-age daughter here, it would make sense for her to carry on with her life here in Canada.

Although she had a place close by, she was not a skier. She was an immigrant and although some come from Europe, most immigrants to Canada are from China and India today, where skiing may not be popular and available to the extent it is available in Canada. I noticed perhaps a dozen Asians among the hundreds of skiers on the hills. This, of course, may change in the future as more immigrants become used to the local climate and culture.

We moved from Washington, DC to Ottawa in 1971 and had become keen skiers in no time; both downhill and cross-country. And our children took up all the winter sports. Having graduated from high school here, the children moved on and left the area. Their children have not had the opportunity to ski; except when they come to visit us. And this is how our grandchildren from Durham, NC came up and discovered downhill skiing this year. I am sure they are dreaming of coming back for more skiing.

An Open Letter to Ottawa City Planning

February 15, 2023

I linked up to a “public engagement” zoom meeting on a proposal to build a one-story medical imaging facility at 1485A Merivale Road, replacing the current facility a short distance away.

The proponents presented a most unsatisfactory site plan, resulting from the shape of the site, which is accessible only via a two-lane driveway. It is a back lot, facing a major arterial, Merivale Road. And a vacant and decaying one-story building is on one side of the driveway and a gas station is on the other. If this project goes ahead, I could just conjure up a garish sign advertising the imaging facility, because it will be invisible from Merivale Road.

And access to the site is only possible by driving north on Merivale. Considering the over seventy parking stalls proposed for the development, I can envision a few hundred cars making a right turn entering and leaving this facility each day.

Complicating access to the proposed facility is the gas station next door, which also has hundreds of cars turning in and out, and a traffic light a hundred meters away that causes the stacking of lanes on Merivale every time the light turns red. I have always experienced long waiting times trying to get onto Merivale from the gas station because of the traffic congestion. The proposed facility will only make this situation worse.

Since I would drive south on Merivale to visit this proposed facility from my house, I would have to make a U-turn to drive north on Merivale to enter it. I would think twice about using this facility the second time and choose another imaging center, more accessible to me.

One could ease the traffic problem by opening a driveway on the east side of the property and working with the owner of the adjacent shopping center (behind the Barley Mow) to continue with the driveway behind the shopping center, exiting onto Capilano Drive. Turning left onto Capilano would bring you to the traffic light on Merivale, from where both south and northbound turns are possible. I strongly recommend opening a driveway on the east side of the property, exiting onto Capilano, and providing a second access and exit point to the site.

Besides access problems, the siting of the proposed building is unattractive. Why should a modern medical building be accessed via a long driveway surrounded by a gas station and a vacant building and then a parking lot before entering it? The scheme reminds me of shopping centers with acres of asphalted surface parking up front along the road, with strip malls behind. Surely, we can do better than that!

I understand the owners of this property also own the land occupied by the vacant building (1485 Merivale Road); why not combine this lot with the subject one accessible only via a driveway and locate the medical facility closer to Merivale Road? A sign on the building would provide identification and relegate parking to the back of the site. Part of the additional lot could be used as a park fronting Merivale Road, providing an attractive green entrance to the medical facility.

Much discussion at the zoom meeting focused on the proposed use that is not the “highest and best” use of the land; that a much taller building is allowed on this site. But the owners, two doctors, demurred; they said they are not developers and not interested in building more than the medical facility. Is it possible that zoning in Ottawa allows more development than there is demand for it? That all arterial roads zoned for highrise development is overkill?

Merivale Road will not benefit from this proposal from an urban design point of view, and it will make traffic much worse. But, what is confusing or missing is, what is the role of our city planning department in all of this – are they not empowered to look at the project in a more holistic way, rather than each individual project at a time without regard to what else may be being proposed in the nearby area which impacts not only on the traffic but the “neighborhood look’?

The lesson I learned from this experience is that, unfortunately, each proposal is looked at without reference to the surrounding community. So, each site has to have its unique entrance. That kind of thinking leads to many driveways, one to each property, and an awful lot of unnecessary paving. For example, look at the Salus development on Capilano Drive, close to this proposal. That project has its driveway paralleling the long driveway to the Curling Club. Would not a combined driveway save pavement?

In conclusion, the traffic issue could be alleviated by making a driveway on the east side of the property and continuing it to exit onto Capilano Drive, providing another access to the site. Further, adding the vacant property would enhance the view of the building from Merivale, used either as a park or by locating the proposed building closer to Merivale.

In the current proposal, the Emerald Plaza Shopping Center has a service drive right adjacent to this property. Would there be a way to use and combine the service drive with the entrance to this site? Yes, I know, different property owners, etc. But we should be thinking more in terms of “planned unit developments”, contiguous areas, and not in terms of individual lots. Just my opinion.

The Death of the Single-Family Home on a Quarter-Acre Lot

February 3. 2023

The house on a quarter-acre lot, which has been the Canadian dream, is under vicious attack. The quarter-acre lot in planning terms is the R1 zone, which occupies over half of the land of Canadian cities. In Ottawa, the R1 zone occupies over 50% of the land; in Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver, it is over 60%, while in Montreal it is 45%.

But the R1 zone is “exclusionary” cry social advocates, citing the shortage and unaffordability of housing, to absorb people arriving in Canada’s cities from the hinterland, and from abroad. R1 is the culprit and therefore, it must be eliminated to permit higher densities, putting two and three dwellings on the quarter-acre lot.

But how can the R1 zone be “exclusionary” when more than half of the land used in cities is zoned R1? To me, the word exclusionary conjures up images of elite golf clubs; high-end tennis clubs, and similar facilities with entrance requirements that a minority of people possess. And by a minority, we usually talk about the “top” five percent or even the top one percent of people.

In 2016, fifty-three percent of dwellings were single-family detached homes in the R1 zone in Canada, and I would not call this metric exclusionary. The rest of the Canadians live in apartments and condominiums.

I realize municipalities could use zoning for excluding certain groups of people by specifying minimum lot and house sizes, which could make purchasing a house unaffordable for some people. It happened to blacks in parts of the United States (until it became illegal to do so), but I have seen nothing in Canada to illustrate that zoning has been used to exclude a specific group of people from a community.

I studied city planning at the University of North Carolina where Professor Chapin wrote and taught the classic and long-used textbook “Urban Land Use Planning”. According to him, zoning has been a tool to regulate development, generated by employment growth, creating a need for housing, schools, and commercial development.

We have been fortunate in Canada to date, being able to expand the urban boundaries of our metropolitan areas, to provide for growth and reasonably priced housing. Now, suddenly, we find that environmental concerns, greenbelts, and natural boundaries like water and mountains constrict some of our cities concurrent with our radically exploding immigration intake, creating an unprecedented demand for housing.

The government solution to the housing crisis is to densify our communities, and one approach is to permit the doubling or tripling of dwellings that occupy half the land of our cities. And that is the R1 zone. Conclusion: it has to be done away with. Ontario recently introduced legislation to triple the population of the R1 zone by allowing three dwellings on the quarter-acre lot instead of one, starting in the summer of 2023.

I think that by doing so, we’ll destroy some of our attractive and historical districts. Allowing three dwellings where there is one now will lead to a haphazard and unsightly streetscape. Instead of the usual one car per dwelling, we’ll have four of five cars on the same piece of land and lacking parking space on the quarter-acre lot, on the streets. Traffic will increase on roads designed for low-density residential districts. Schools will have to be renovated to serve more children on limited sites.

So, you ask, what is the solution for the burgeoning demand for additional housing? I think that we’ll have to develop some new towns and/or attract our future development into peripheral small towns around our metropolitan areas.

Failing that approach, I suggest that densification in our single-family communities should be allowed gradually in places where the installed infrastructure permits additional development, or until after governments build the required infrastructure.

But the demise of the single-family dwelling on a quarter-acre lot has already started. In my community, doubles have replaced single-family units. In one situation, someone purchased two lots, demolished the homes on the land, and constructed three units. These small-scale redevelopments, to date, have bordered our community, but I foresee some enterprising homeowners in the middle of our community replacing their dwellings with a duplex or triplex, creating increased traffic and destroying the family-oriented nature of the community.

Sistine Chapel Exhibit Review: A Mixed Experience

Janury 27, 2023

Three Views of the Sistine Chapel

I was underwhelmed viewing the Sistine Chapel touring exhibit, produced by Entertainment Events Inc. (EEI) of Hollywood (showing only the ceiling frescoes painted by Michelangelo). The first showing of this exhibition was in Montreal in 2015, after which it toured the world and arrived in Ottawa in December 2022.

In Ottawa, EEI presented the exhibition at the EY Convention Center, in a large, industrial type of space, like an airplane hangar. It just did not have the aura for showing biblical scenes painted by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Chapel. What frosted me was the advertising for yoga classes at high prices, taught in front of the paintings. I found the combination of appreciating renaissance paintings with concurrent yoga exercises jarring. But the receptionist told us the yoga classes were fully subscribed; I could not see myself putting my body in yoga poses with great effort and appreciating the artwork simultaneously.

There were no brochures or handouts to describe and explain the paintings, this was Covid times. Instead, you had to bring your cell phone, to which you could download, via a QR code, the explanatory comments. Once we figured out the technical challenges, we found the commentary useful.

Before looking at the pictures, we listened to an introduction to how Michelangelo accepted a commission from Pope Julius II and built a scaffold to paint the ceiling at a height of sixty feet in the Chapel. Michelangelo used vivid and colorful paints on wet gypsum and completed the work between 1508 and 1514. EEI used high-definition photographs to reproduce the paintings in full size.

The full-size biblical scenes were twenty feet above the floor at the EY center, enabling viewers to see the pictures, including brush strokes, in granular detail; that was a major benefit of this show according to EES, compared to seeing the same pictures sixty feet above the ground in the Sistine Chapel.

This exhibition was attractive to art buffs and religious historians, especially those familiar with the Bible; but to me, it does not compete with seeing the real Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, which we visited in 2015. The comparison is like watching a football game on TV versus attending in person. It is hard to describe the excitement of walking through the Sistine Chapel with hundreds of people, all sighing with wonder at the pictures, even though they are sixty feet above you, and seeing not only the ceiling but also the walls, painted by other renaissance artists. But at the touring exhibition, one could take time to study the Michelangelo painted frescoes at a close distance without a crowd.

Although the excitement was tangible within the Sistine Chapel, there were detractions: some people took photos despite being warned not to do so. And the guards kept hushing people to be quiet. As well, when we went, the crowd filled the Chapel wall to wall, and the guards nudged us to move on to let the other visitors come in.

I found the best way to see the Sistine Chapel (if you have internet access and a computer), is to log in to https://www.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/en/collezioni/musei/cappella-sistina/tour-virtuale.html This site provides a virtual tour. You can look at all sides, plus the floor and the ceiling of the Chapel. If you want to see more details, you can enlarge the pictures. You may miss the excitement of being in the Chapel, but you do not have to travel to Italy, line up with hundreds of tourists at the entrance and have a limited amount of time to look at the paintings.

Walking through the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, and looking at stories told by the colorful frescoes, made an everlasting impression on me. I found this quote that reflects my sentiments: “Without having seen the Sistine Chapel, one can form no appreciable idea of what one man is capable of achieving” (Johann Goethe, August 23, 1787).

Having seen the original work, the touring exhibition was disappointing for me but would be attractive to people where the touring exhibition goes. If your city is not on the touring exhibition schedule and you do not have the time and money to visit the Vatican, the website above provides an excellent way to see the inside of the Sistine Chapel.

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