Category Archives: Around the Watercooler

Cookies, Chocolate Milk and the TC10K

You may be wondering what cookies, chocolate milk, and the TC10K have to do with a blog professing to be for writers, artists, and theatregoers. In my defence, I.ve stuffed this blog into the all encompassing ‘Watercooler’ category (where a lot of the blogs seem to be heading these days which leads me to suspect I.m engaged in too many extra-curricular activities…). But there is a connection! Hear me out, gentle reader!

I.m not sure about you, but as a writer, I spend a lot of the time snacking. Cookies (Dad.s), nacho chips (plain with salsa or guacamole), cereal (Maple Crunch), and ice cream (especially blackjack cherry and vanilla combinations) are a particular weakness. I.ll either be writing, and hit a writer.s block. Or I.ll be thinking, and the solution won.t be forthcoming. Or I.ll be reading, and my mind is drifting off to la la land. Then I hear a small voice, ‘Maybe if you have some cookies, ice cream or [insert choice of snack here] it will help things along’. Well, who am I to argue against such good advice! And it IS good advice. Sometimes at least. There.s certain times of day–especially in the mid afternoon when the blood sugar hits that drowsy level–when a sugar bomb is a nice picker upper. At that time of day, the coffee option is already exhausted (from all the many cups earlier in the day…). The catch, is it seems like I.m reaching for snacks all day all the time!

Gentle readers will recall from the last blog was written all about the exciting and devastating Second Law of thermodynamics. Well, if there is a Second Law, there must be a First Law and this is what the First Law says:

The first law of thermodynamics is a version of the law of conservation of energy, adapted for thermodynamic systems. The law of conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system is constant; energy can be transformed from one form to another, but cannot be created or destroyed. The first law is often formulated by stating that the change in the internal energy of a closed system is equal to the amount of heat supplied to the system, minus the amount of work done by the system on its surroundings. Equivalently, perpetual motion machines of the first kind are impossible.

From the point of view of the artist, that means that, to maintain an average body weight, input must equal output! Now, it certainly feels like when I.m thinking that I.m using prodigious amounts of brain energy. But, between you and me, maybe that bowl of decadent ice cream supplies more calories than the prodigious output of brainwaves burns! Now, multiply the ice cream by a couple of cookies, a bowl of cereal, and so on (this doesn.t even include the regular meals which are in addition) and we have a real problem in the weight department! This is where the running comes in. Not only do you get to burn calories. You get a chance to go into the great outdoors. Or, I should say, you get to venture outdoors. That was a weird sort of writing slip that tells me I.ve been sequestered too long. And you can make it social by running with friends or a group. To me, running (along with some basic weight training) is perfect for cookie consuming artists to achieve the coveted balance between input and output.

This morning, I ran the TC10k (the local rag, the Times Colonist sponsors the eponymous race) with my diligent running partner LH. Clocked in at 55:16 which was faster than last year. But not as fast as the 48 minute personal best. Or was the personal best 46 minutes? My memory seems to be telling me 46 minutes but my better judgment is saying 48. Funny how they disagree most of the time. I also like how the timing service breaks down the results. In the men.s 40-44 category, I was 157 of 305. That.s the best I could do this year. I was trying to keep up with two other runners, exchanging positions with them over the last kilometre until they gave it their final kick in the last 100m. I just couldn.t find the next gear and with my heart beating like a cannon, I had to watch them break away. Kelly Wiebe, the winner, came in at 29:08. Wow! in the men.s 40-44 category Jim Finlayson led the field at 31:36. Congratulations to them! And thank you to LH for all the fantastic training runs! The best thing about the run was the cookies and chocolate milk from the Thrifty Foods volunteers. They are the best! And of course, breakfast at Floyd.s. You know, you have to balance input with output!

Speaking of snacking brings me to the topic of concentration. Have you noticed that the most elite artists–besides being gifted–have a phenomenal power to concentrate their efforts for many hours at a time on a single problem? That.s fascinated me. No food, no drink, no distraction. Just a laser like focus. How do they do it? In part, it must be that they.re so drawn into their work that the outside world melts away. No, perhaps it.s more than that. It.s like they draw themselves into what they.re doing, whether it.s practising a musical passage, working on the solution to an equation, or mentally thinking through a paradox so that their consciousness becomes part of whatever it is they.re focussing on. And they would admit nothing that would disturb their concentration. Gould worked late at night in the Eaton.s auditorium or far away at his cottage on the Great Lakes. Einstein would regularly inform his wife that during the hours between this and that time he could not be disturbed. Steve Jobs had a wardrobe of twenty black mock turtleneck sweaters so as to save himself the distraction and brainpower of having to select what to wear. Which leads me to this point: maybe there.s mental techniques I could be practising to increase concentration?

That.s a question for another day. Now the rigor mortis of the TC10k seems to be setting in, how unfortunate. So, gentle reader, until next time I.ll be taking the day off from Doing Melpomene.s Work because, well, I deserve it! But in the meanwhile, enjoy the Dancing Heron from Richard Hunt who graces all the t-shirts! I like the crazy bird. It looks like someone has stolen his fish! Or perhaps another interpretation is possible?

TC10K-Dancing-Heron-300x300a

Warren Buffett Speaks by Janet Lowe

Looking at which categories I.ve been posting to lately, it seems like I.ve been standing around the watercooler for too long: lots of watercooler posts and few posts on writing the book or on books and plays that I should be reading. Damnation! But here I recall some good advice from one of my professors. What he said was that it is good to read outside of your field of study. Was it Keith Bradley? Or no, now I remember. It was wisdom that Bradley imparted on his student Leslie Shumka who in turn imparted it on me. It.s good advice because it.s true. Read too much and too long into your own field and you grow stagnant. With the same data, you.ll come to the same conclusions. You grow stagnant. Better to read outside your area of comfort. Become like the long forgotten Renaissance Man. We laugh at him today as a ‘jack of all trades, master of none’, but remember, the world had been fairly static until then, and then, well, all of a sudden, things just took off.

Well, man cannot live on writing alone. Especially when writing is costing the author!–domain renewals, hosted WordPress fees, commissioning artwork for the cover illustration, the opportunity cost of writing instead of working, and so on. So it.s good to read books on investing. Which brings us to Warren Buffett Speaks: Wit and Wisdom from the World’s Greatest Investor by Janet Lowe. This is a small hardback from the library that caught my eye. For a long time, I.ve wanted to learn more about the Oracle of Omaha. Why? Well, he.s made a lot of money. But a lot of people have who don.t interest me. Unlike all those hedge fund guys, Buffett seems to be one of the ‘good guys’. A straight shooter. He.s also not based out of Wall Street but has kept his office in the midwest. He lives in the same house he.s had since the late 50s. And also, everyone has an opinion of him. In my education as an investor, it.s time I formed my own. Hey, maybe I will be able to make some money as well! Because writing this blog sure isn.t doing anything for the pocketbook!

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The book is divided into sections about investing, work, family, life, and work. Lowe subdivides the sections or chapters into headings where she quotes two or three times to illustrate his point of view on a given subject. It.s a nice sort of book you can read at the end of a day and still get something out of it. I don.t know about you, but sometimes I.m pretty brain dead by the end of the day.

He.s got a folksy sort of wisdom that is easy to forget in the fast paced world. For example, under the ‘Be Honest’ heading in the chapter on life, he says:

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you.ll do things differently.

It always surprises me the amount of confidence successful go-getters have. Gates, Ellison, Jobs, and Shatner (don.t know how I associated him with the others) were also like this:

I.ve never had any self-doubt. I.ve never been discouraged. I always knew I was going to be rich. I don.t think I ever doubted it for a minute.

Sign me up! Here.s another one that left an impression on me. The message is simple. Surround yourself with people you look up to:

I choose to work with every single person that I work with. That ends up being the most important factor. I don.t interact with people I don.t like or admire. That.s the key. It.s like marrying.

But there.s no point in just reading. Reading should be a prelude for action. Now, in my non-registered investment portfolio, 10% is dedicated to small cap Canadian stocks (generally stocks with a market cap of a couple hundred million up to 1.5 billion). I had been holding it in an exchange traded fund (ETF), iShares ticker XCS.to. It has fees of over half a percent a year. Considering that the real return of stocks (ie after inflation) is four or five percent a year, the fee represents over ten percent of my real return! Over many years it adds up–compounding works for you (as Einstein said it.s one of the wonders of the world) and it also works against you! I.ve thought about ditching the ETF in favour of a small basket of individual holdings. For one reason or another, instead of doing it, I had been thinking about it. Successful people, I.m learning, Just Do It. It usually works out well, unless, of course, you are Tiger Woods, in which case, it is better not to do it and not even to think about it!

Okay, so the stocks Buffett likes are ones that have a moat around them. It.s hard for competitors to take away their market. He.s into railways right now for this reason. He also has a litmus test: buy a stock if you are confident that–if you couldn.t trade it or even see it.s day to day value for ten years–you.d be confident it would have done well. Other things: he like consumer staples and discretionary stocks. He.s always got a Cherry Coke and a Dairy Queen ice cream in hand because he owns them! I imagine soon we.ll have images of him feasting on Kraft Dinner with some Heinz Ketchup (which Berkshire Hathaway has recently bought). So, I sold XCS.to. The nice thing about XCS.to was that it was well diversified, holding over 200 little flailing stocks, some of which would disappear and others which would explode in value. I decided on 20 holdings for my Buffett clone portfolio. Here.s what I bought:

K-Bro Linen (provides linen to hospitals and foodservice, not many publicly traded competitors)

Western One Rentals (in my former career rented tons of equipment from them at a great cost, why not buy it? Plus the stock has just collapsed with the pullback of oil into the $40/barrel. Perhaps good entry point)

Clearwater Seafood (they have the license to harvest a lot of crab, shrimp, scallops off Canada.s coast and it seems everyone is eating more seafood these days)

Capstone Infrastructure (governments increasingly turning to private sector for energy solutions. Should be recession resistant industry with growth opportunity)

Boston Pizza Income Fund (I.ve ate here for years, might as well own it)

Liquor Stores (recession proof, outlets mainly in Alberta and BC. Actually, with conditions in Alberta, we will shortly see how recession proof it really is!)

High Liner Foods (most of their sales are actually to restaurants and institutions. Rising fish consumption should help out this stock. Too bad they gave up their fishing vessels in the 90s)

Student Transportation (one would think a school bus company responsible for ferrying kids to school would be recession proof)

Premium Brand Holdings (an interesting consumer staple stock: they.ve cornered the sliced meats and sandwich corner of the market, owning Freybe.s and Grimm.s among twenty or so other brand names)

Morneau Shepell (sort of an analytics type company that advises other companies on how to manage pensions, health care benefits, and so on. You.d think reading the news on unfunded pension obligations there is a need for these guys)

Intertape Polymer (they make packaging materials. With more and more stuff getting shipped all over the world, there is demand for what they do)

Northwest Company (they own shopping centres and grocery stores in remote locations)

Descartes Systems Group (named after the French philosophe who calculated ways to make bus routes more effective. They are a logistics company which streamlines international shipping and receiving. I wanted at least one information technology stock in the portfolio)

Chemtrade Logistics (they just sell chemicals all over the world, been watching it for a long time)

Great Canadian Gaming (defensive moat around this industry because it.s hard to get licenses!)

AG Growth International (they sell wheat silos around the world. It seems like a sleepy stock that will do just fine in the long run)

New Flyer Industries (they make BC Transit buses and buses for a lot of other cities too)

AGT Food and Ingredients (worldwide supplier of pulses, ie beans and things. They will benefit from the shift away from wheat and people looking to eat a staple that is environmentally friendly to produce)

Innergex (renewable energy sources, mostly hydro. Should be recession resistant)

Boyd Industries (everyone needs to replace windshields or fix the fender bender at some point)

Mostly consumer staples and industrials. Notice anything?–yes you got it: no financials! Here.s what Buffett had to say about banks:

It has always been a fantasy of mine that a boatload of 25 brokers would be shipwrecked and struggle to an island from which there could be no rescue. Faced with developing an economy that would maximize their consumption and pleasure, would they, I wonder assign 20 of their number to produce food, clothing, shelter, etc., while setting 5 to trading options endlessly on the future output of the 20?

Hahaha that is pretty good! But consider this. 5 out of 25 is just 20%. He.s thinking of the US. In Canada, financials today account for 35% of the TSX Composite!!! OMG run to the hills! Sure, we need banks and brokers. Lending, allocating capital to where it.s required, etc., is all good. But when over 1/3 of the market is tasked with moving money around, it.s got to make you wonder: is it necessary for  the financials to be so big? How I think of it is this: a biological metaphor. If finance is like an arm or a hand (it.s moving around money so that.s one way of thinking about it) it works when it.s in proportion to the rest of the body. When the arm is five times longer than it should be, it just gets in the way! Think of all those roid monkeys out there. They change their anatomy so that things are no longer in proportion. And they will pay the price. Maybe not today. But certainly down the road: the heart just can.t take it.

Okay, so when I started the new portfolio, some of the stocks weren.t cheap. Buffett is a value investor. K-Bro Linen was actually frighteningly expensive. But I reckoned that I held them in XCS.to anyway, so it was good to make the change. Actually, it feels good to have done something. Having done it, it feels like it was the right thing to do. We.ll see in ten years. In the meanwhile, I.ll be fixing my car at Boyd (actually, bicycle, I lied!), eating out at Boston Pizza, renting from Western One, eating High Liner at home, using Innergex hydro…you get the idea! From now on it.s just money in the pocket baby!

Synchronicity

Do you believe in synchronicity? You call an old friend the same moment he picks up the phone to call you. Or you publish a paper on some arcane topic and find out a colleague halfway around the world has come up with the same idea independently and at the same time. Or you.re walking on the beach, reminiscing on your childhood dog: it would have been her birthday. Just at that moment, another dog comes bounding towards you as if you were old chums, same breed. You ask the owner the dog.s name and find out the name.s the same as well. Synchronicities are meaningful coincidences. Or coincidences so striking that they break the brain in thinking about them.

Diligent readers will remember the blog yesterday about the Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa Goldberg Variations concert. During the after concert question period with the artist, there was an extended discussion of Glenn Gould.s interpretations of this work. Well, how long has it been since Gould.s captured the headlines?–lo and behold he did it this morning on Yahoo Finance:

How Apple and Its Products are Inspired by Canadian Great Glenn Gould

What are the chances of that–that I would hear a talk on Gould and see him on the next day.s headline? Hard to say. But it feels almost as though the coincidence is meaningful. Sort of in the same way dreams feel meaningful. You feel it but it.s hard to put your finger on the significance.

Today was a big day for synchronicity. It.s almost as though one leads to another. Before the concert, I had gone running with my friend LH. We.re in training for the TC10K. The route takes us along the Gorge Waterway by the bridge over the Gorge Narrows. LH was saying there had been a big commotion there in the last few days: a fellow had jumped off the bridge and was floating face down. The firemen had sent a whole brigade down there and succeeded in reviving him. It.s speculated alcohol and a broken heart may have played a role. Well today, I was reading Goethe.s Egmont. In that play, Clara ditches Brackenburg for Egmont (I can see why, Brackenburg.s a doting sort of ninny). Brackenburg.s reaction to being dumped, however, caught my attention: he thinks to throw himself in the water and to sink face down. I imagined that maybe it was the tragedy of Brackenburg playing out again. Only not in Brussels but on the Gorge hundred of years later in some sort of eternal return.

Tillicum02Gorge Narrows

I.m the last person that would believe in mystical crap. The only thing I believe in is in doing Melpomene.s work. But the idea of synchronicity is fascinating. I had been introduced to it at the right age. When I was seventeen, EA.s father lent me a copy of Jung.s Memories, Dreams, and Reflections. It was Jung that came up with the idea. He collaborated with Wolfgang Pauli of quantum mechanics fame (ie the Pauli Exclusion Principle) so there is some scientific credence. But of course scientists look more towards Littlewood.s Law than synchronicity to explain coincidental events. Here.s how Jung described synchronicity:

All natural phenomena of this kind [eg exceedingly rare coincidences] are unique and exceedingly curious combinations of chance, held together by the common meaning of their parts to form an unmistakable whole. Although meaningful coincidences are infinitely varied in their phenomenology, as causal events they nevertheless form an element that is part of the scientific picture of the world. Causality is the way we explain the link between two successive events. Synchronicity designates the parallelism of time and meaning between psychic and psychophysical events, which scientific knowledge has so far been unable to reduce to a common principle.

Now the thing about Jung is that he.s a damn fine writer. I.m one of those people who cares less  about fact and is more persuaded by style. Shoot me. But, mystical crap aside, couldn.t the world be organized around the mind in some sort of meaningful way where synchronicity is possible? After all, science tells us that to break down a quantum state (Schrodinger.s Cat or wave/particle duality) a conscious observer is required. If a conscious observer can ‘do’ something to the world by the act of observation, couldn.t some of these ‘coincidences’ be ascribed to the echoes of consciousness? Okay, sorry, that was off the deep end!

But one thing is for a certainty. By watching out for synchronicity, the wonder and mystery of being alive are increased when we think we have seen it. We do not live in a universe which feels neither obligation or compulsion to us. And that today is good enough.

Do you believe in synchronicity? Or what do you believe? Littlewood.s Law perhaps? But what fun is that?

Goldberg Variations (Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa April 19, 2015)

A few weeks ago while having coffee at QV.s, a flyer caught my eye of a pianist, arms outstretched by the sea. Black and white. Very professional. It was an advertisement for Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa, who would be performing Bach.s Goldberg Variations at St. Mary the Virgin in Oak Bay.

I was hemming and hawing about whether to go. Yes, it would be a nice concert. But then my budget had gone a little bit over this month. Going online, it looked like in addition to general admission, there were ‘artist’ or ‘underemployed’ tickets. But then there was an additional surcharge to purchase online. No thanks. They also had tickets at Ivy.s Bookshop. So there.s where I went. I.ve never purchased the ‘discounted’ tickets before and, to be honest, I felt awkward. The store was quite busy too; I had to wait for it to clear out a little bit. There really was no logical reason for that, but that.s me. So I asked the lady, ‘Ah, I wonder if you have tickets for the show and if there.s requirements for the discount tickets?’. To which she had the best reply, ‘Well, sir, you would know best!’. Tickets in hand it was a good day.

Arriving at St. Mary the Virgin, the usher takes the ticket and I ask her where the best place to sit is. She.s also a piano player and points out if you sit close to the front on the left, you can see the pianists fingers. Good idea. St. Mary the Virgin is an Anglican Church. Modern architecture. It.s interesting how they achieve the height and the open space in the nave. The nave is laid out with a central corridor with pews on the left and right. The weight of the roof is transferred into the foundation by means of a glulam or engineered wood structure. The spans did not necessitate intermediate supports so the impression–especially with the graceful curves built into the glulam columns–is one of effortless openness. Looking around, another surprise: 6′ Baldwin, not Steinway. My first piano was a Baldwin. A little spinet. I.m very fond of Baldwin and it makes me happy to see them.

Now for the music. Did I tell you I was excited?–I.ve heard this piece hundreds of times but never live. Here was my chance. I wasn.t wearing my watch, but from asking my kind neighbour, it appears the concert began just after 2:35 and ended just before 3:30. So this Goldberg clocked in at just under 55 minutes. Not absolutely sure though. Since I.m a good Canadian, here.s the obligatory Gould comparison. His schizophrenic 1955 recording clocks in under 45 minutes and the mechanistically meditative 1981 recording comes in at 52 minutes. At 55 minutes, Iwaasa.s able to bring out the lyricism of the piece. You can hear the spaces between the notes a little bit–I alway enjoy that, the sound of the decay. You can tap your foot to most of the variations, but not all of them. It reminded me how rhythmic Bach can be. Forward driving. Music flowing over itself, beside itself, tumbling out of a limitless reservoir. It seems a shame that a lot of these forward driving rhythms were lost in the Classical era.

Iwaasa.s playing is very clean. Light on the pedal. While I could.t see the pedals (obscured by the pews in front), I could see when she was applying the pedal because her calves were visible through a slit on her dress. If that is too prurient may I be struck down! This was Sunday and I was in church after all! To me, clean playing means well thought out playing–no ‘hiding behind the pedal’ as it were. The shape and nuance of each line comes out by the strength of the mind.s interpretation. Another thing that I was thinking of is how full bodied a piano sounds in real life. It must be one of the harder instruments to record. Either that or it must be hard for speakers to reproduce its range. The parts of the Goldberg that descend into the nether registers exude weight.

There was fun after the concert as well. They had an question and answer session with the artist. This was cool. They should do this all the time. The organizer asked the first question. It turns out Iwaasa.s portfolio consists of many modern works and premieres as well written by living composers. He asked how it was like playing something by Bach (who, we were reminded at the beginning of the concert, would have celebrated his 330th birthday recently). She responded that well, you couldn.t email or call the composer to ask for performance input *laughter*. She also talked a bit about the relationship between interpreter and composer as a kind of ‘dialogue with the dead’ which I thought was a neat idea. By the way, she.s very well spoken. I asked the second question on her decision on the tempo. Actually a two part question: also asked her whether she had experimented with different tempi. To which she replied that she decides what tempo to play by the vibe from the audience: it.s not a ‘one tempo fits all’ scenario. I thought that was a very good answer. It reminded me of one of Furtwangler.s responses when asked the same question: he said he figures out the tempo ‘by listening to the music’. Sometimes the best responses are the simplest. As to different tempi, part of the question depends on how much risk she wants to take on stage. With so many crossings over of hands the breakneck speed can be dangerous! There was another question by the church organist who admired how her playing brought out and was faithful to the structure of the piece. They talked a bit on the tripartite structure of the Goldberg and I thought of how wonderful that there was all this order and form in Bach.s music. Like a cosmos unto itself. There were many other questions: did she like the 1955 or the 1981 Gould?–she admired the ‘exuberance’ of the 1955 recording but listens more to the 1981 recording. But prior to the performance she stayed away from Gould in order to find her own voice. Who were her mentors?–her teachers. She also mentioned that her pedagogical roots were three removes away from Beethoven. Fascinating! Also learned that the Goldberg Variations were written for a patron who wanted something to listen to to combat insomnia. There was a comment that it would be hard to fall asleep listening to this piece. Then a correction that it wasn.t to put people to sleep but to have something to listen to to ease the insomnia. She also talked about how, as the variations go further from the main theme, sometimes Bach would recall them by inserting contemporary songs with lyrics along the lines of ‘Now come back…’. And so on. A splendid idea to have a question and answer session with the artist.

In the program notes, Iwaasa cites a passage from Kundera.s The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. Kundera in turn cites Pascal:

Variations are like a voyage. But that voyage does not lead through the infinitude of the exterior world. In one of his pensées, Pascal says that man lives between the abyss of the infinitely large and the abyss of the infinitely small. The voyage of variations leads into the other infinitude, into the infinite diversity of the interior world hidden in all things.

The abyss between the infinitely large and the infinitely small is of course the section Pascal headed with the words infini – rien number 418 in Lafuma.s numeration and 233 in Brunschvicg, otherwise known as Pascal.s Wager. Pascal.s Wager is the existential plight of man, who, suspended between infinity and nothing must wager with God or against God, though reason will not help him make the correct choice. It.s interesting because it attempts to justify faith on probabilistic grounds: there is nothing to lose and everything to gain if you wager with God, so why not go with the odds? For Kundera, the abyss of the infinitely small is the unbearable burden of lacking the being we loved. The variation form for Kundera.s Beethoven is the exploration of this infinitesimally small yet infinite loss. This makes sense for Beethoven, who, always the titan, would have (metaphorically) taken the left hand side of Pascal.s Wager, wagering for art and against God, ruing his loss forevermore. But I can.t help but to think that Bach, with his blue collar faith, would have wagered with God and with all the odds on his side so that there would be in the Goldberg Variations a joyful God of sixteen measures, full of life, love, and hope.

And that.s what I heard in today.s performance: the exuberance of all life unbounded, all the voices tripping over one another in the exuberance of the variation form. Thank you to Iwaasa for a wonderful performance and thank you to the Oak Bay Matinée Concert Series for bringing it all together.