'Tis the first Sunday of August...

Good morning all and a special good morning to my lovely girlfriend who I assume is doing well and enjoying herself in the wilds of Europa. So I find myself at the end of another week without girlfriend… another week slid into the routines of a single guy. I found a new open mic to play this week and it went fairly well, but wasn’t spectacular. I’ve grown stale on the harmonica... that’s the way it feels, anyway. The things I play are old and tired and I can’t find good musicians to play with to make me better. Not that I’m looking that hard. But it always cycles like this. I’ll meet someone new or buy a new harp or hear a new song… something will eventually inspire me. Not yet, though. I also have managed to get back into Jits twice a week. I was shooting for thrice but things keep getting in the way. Like this weekend is a long weekend with a statutory holiday Monday so the gym is closed for the weekend. Jits has been good. A black belt from Brazil moved to Vancouver to teach Jits and improve his English. He joined on at our school and so we've had a very different kind of training lately. It's intense, but good. I enjoy it and can feel my strength slowly returning. I've been drawing more but nothing worthwhile has come of it yet.

So I’m down at Nice café this morning to have breakfast before returning home for a cleaning binge. The café opens at 9:30 on Sundays and I didn’t manage to get here until 9:50 so the only seats available were outside. The weather is nice for outdoor eating but unfortunately it’s the worst place to sit for timely service. Oh well… it’s Sunday. Why be in a hurry? The other unfortunate part about being out here, though, is that the breeze carries on it an occasional hint of the dumpsters around the corner. Eugh.

Last night I went to watch the final performance in the annual fireworks contest that happens down on English Bay. I went on opening night and watched Canada and it was a pretty good half hour show. I skipped about 4 teams in the middle and then went last night to watch China’s show. I think the most concise explanation of last night’s show would be, WOW!

It was the most well coordinated and composed show I have ever seen, flowing along with an instrumental score and continually amazing the audience with rolling highs and lows of light and color that followed the music like a dance partner. They shot fireworks high and low and used a myriad of different types of explosion to gain and carry your attention through the show. They used colors I’ve never seen in a fireworks show (at least I don’t think I have) and built sets upon pianissimos of smaller, more subtle fireworks shot lower in the air. They shot rockets that exploded into a hundred thousand streaming points of shimmering light and then each of those points begat their own explosion and those points, yet again. Fantastic!

They began one set with low-fired bright white streams of light that arced slightly and lilted over gracefully like the leaves of a budding flower. They followed with small mid-level bursts of pink that showed like the closed bulb in the middle of a flower and then opened the bloom entirely with tall bursts of pink and purple. Once the crescendo reached its peak, the sky was filled with pinks, purples, whites and reds that lit the skyline of Vancouver like an artist’s palate. I’m so used to the standard red, white and blue of many American shows that I was thrilled to get subtle variations of color. Then there was the finale. Again, WOW!

They let the show die to nothing and let a calm hang in the air for a mere second or two then began a spirited charge towards the finish line with a launch of overlapping huge boomers that left the sky with explosion happening within explosion happening within explosion. It was a sustained version of most fireworks finales I’ve seen, with the crowd applauding the several seconds of high-intensity explosions. Then the real finale began. From what seemed to be the peak of their show, it got even more intense. I’ve been thinking about what I saw since last night, and the best I can describe it is that they were shooting 4-5 massive explosions per second for a good 10 or fifteen seconds and then for about 3 seconds kicked it up to fire 5-10 per second for 3 or 4 seconds… and then in one last burst of delight and surprise, they fired a final salvo that I’m guessing was about 30-50 rockets in 1-3 seconds. It was the most intense set of explosions I’ve ever witnessed! I was staring in awe when it happened and my mind couldn’t register what I was seeing/hearing for a split second. I jumped, but not in fright… in overload!

Boom!
Boom!

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!B
OOM!BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!BO
OM!BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!BOO
M!BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!BOOM
!BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!


Then… silence.

That lasted for about 2 seconds before every boat in the harbor and every car on the road let loose with a exuberant cheer of horns that was quickly joined by shouts so loud that we could hear them from across the water. It was phenomenal! And to think I almost didn’t go…

So, now with my fireworks report complete and my last cup of coffee nearing its end, I shall call it a morning here. Hope you all have a wonderful day and, for those of you reading from Canada, enjoy your long weekend. For my American audience, have a nice Monday. For my girlfriend, I hope you are having a wonderful time and enjoying your studio. (Sketch something cool that we can frame, eh?)