Stan Burfield Blog - London Open Mic Poetry Archive

London Open Mic Poetry Archive

How'd she get in there? Then out?

5/2/2017

After plunking on the computer a while, I wandered out to say hi to Linda. But she wasn’t in the living room, or the kitchen. Or the bedroom or bathroom. But I had definitely heard some sound coming from somewhere, so I was sure she hadn’t gone out. The only other place she could be was out on the balcony. But she wasn’t there either. So I gave up and called her.

“Yeah?”

Hard at work on some obscure thing. I never did find out what. Part of her new spring balcony design.

FACEBOOK LIKES...8...Robert Gregory Seaton, Linda Eva Williams and 6 others
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Before the leaves

4/26/2017

Just before the leaves popped out, Linda and I found this beautiful bit of nature south of Wallacetown. And right away she discovered a big patch of very-rare burgundy trilliums! She was so happy! Trilliums are one of her favourite flowers.

From Facebook: likes...27...Patricia Black, Amber Dawn Pullin and 25 others
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Comments
إبراهيم أشعياء عوض burgundy Trilliums are a welcome change from the plain white ones!

Heather Roberts Cadsby Lovely! They are known as wakerobin and are, to put it politely, ill-scented.

Stan Burfield Ah. Thanks. I'll tell her.
Stan Burfield Here's where we were if anyone wants to check out the Trilliums or the trees or both. https://www.google.ca/.../data=!3m6!1e1!3m4...

New Year's Day, 2017.

1/1/2017

From Facebook: likes...22...Cambridge N Calvin Keenan, Patricia McClung and 20 others
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Some of Linda's Christmas decorations

12/31/2016

Linda and her Christmas display

12/14/2016

Linda finished her balcony Christmas display just before the snow came a couple days ago. She likes it out on the balcony so she can lay on the couch and look out at it all lit up in the evening. And the snow finishes it off just right.

Facebook likes:...12...Patricia McClung, MaryLee Bragg and 10 others
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Brandi Michielsen Wonderful idea, displaying a winter wonderland on the balcony. Plus it saves the cleanup in the living area if pine needles / fir tree branches are involved in the decorations.
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 13 December at 19:32

Linda made whole wheat scones.

12/12/2016

Tester at work.

Pass.

Next.

Facebook likes:...16...Linda Eva Williams, Barbara Green and 14 others
Comments

Jenny Getsinger Nice benches. Did Linda make the cushion covers too?
Like · Reply · 11 December at 23:21

Stan Burfield Yes, and the buffet.
Like · Reply · 1 · 13 December at 13:16 · Edited

Jenny Getsinger Lovely!
Like · Reply · 11 December at 23:24

Stan Burfield She's always puttering on things.
Like · Reply · 2 · 11 December at 23:25
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Jf Pickersgill My wife has never said the following to me but she did think it was hilarious when a comedian said it on T.V. "My wife walked into the room while I was watching a football game and showed me some food she had in her hand while saying, 'Here. Taste this. I think it might be off.'"
Like · Reply · 13 December at 10:04

Stan Burfield Ha ha. It sounds awfully familiar somehow. But I can vouch for these scones. They were definitely on. :)

Old photos

11/27/2016

My Vancouver friend Gord McCaw just gave me an incredible inspiration via a post of his on looking at a photographic display in the Vancouver Art Gallery. (Gord is a photographer of note himself.) I have all these ancient negatives from homestead days on the prairie and in log-cabin country up in the North. They're just sitting there because nobody can relate to them, I thought, because the people in the photos are all dead and there are very few descendants who care anymore. But what I can do is look carefully at each one for visual, human, historical, artistic content, and crop them to help emphasize it. It had never occurred to me before that I could actually crop them! https://www.facebook.com/gord.mccaw/posts/10153921529096356
Photo: My dad plowing with the Case steam tractor before he went blind.

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Seeing Linda off

11/26/2016

Seeing Linda off to the train to visit her sister in Burlington. I'm a bit anxious. Woke in the middle of the night to a dream of fire. It was just a dream.

From Facebook: likes... 14...Violetta Josefina Martinez, Brandi Michielsen and 12 others
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Cindy Cameron Napper Great photo of the 2 of you Linda your hair looks great short

I really like this photo. Linda in first day of snow.

11/25/2016

Balcony finished?

9/23/2016

I think Linda is finally approaching finished on the balcony. She made the bench from an old bed frame that someone threw out. The mirror was her bedroom mirror. She built the railing from Home Depot wood. The couch cover is an original old vintage chenille bed spread. The plants are Mandevilla.

From Facebook: likes...30....Lynn Davis Bertie, Kathleen Gahagan and 28 others
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Cambridge N Calvin Keenan I love Linda's Magical touch 💜
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 5 September at 14:47

Linda Eva Williams How incredibly cozy and inviting-looking.
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 5 September at 15:15

Meredith Moeckel Really beautiful! She could make a lot of money just suggesting/consulting to others. And won't the Mandevilles turn into a vine? Please tell Linda BRAVO from me! You're a lucky guy! :)
Like · Reply · 5 September at 15:48

Stan Burfield I will. And I think a vine growing all over everything with those beautiful flowers is what she has in mind.
Like · Reply · 1 · 5 September at 16:05
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Sue McMaster Beautiful!
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 5 September at 16:03

Tina Pickard Lovely..
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 5 September at 16:24

Sharon Berg That is truly lovely... and inviting. She has enriched your surroundings!
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 5 September at 17:51

Karen Troxler I 💘 that she built these things herself! Talented lady!
Like · Reply · 1 · 5 September at 22:04

Stan Burfield She struggles at it. She's not a natural carpenter by any means, but she's getting the hang of it slowly.
Like · Reply · 2 · 5 September at 22:15
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Peggy Roffey Really lovely!
Like · Reply · 6 September at 12:40

Linda relaxing after having completed a very strenuous task, something to do with her toes.

9/23/2016

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Debbie-David Currie Oh how I would love to be doing that right now! You deserve it Linda!
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 30 August at 16:39

Cambridge N Calvin Keenan Loving your honey haven Linda , have. A great evening 🌹
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 30 August at 18:47

Meredith Moeckel Good for Linda! And this is a different view from the usual pics you post from your serenely decorated balcony! :)
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 30 August at 20:43

We'll see...

8/28/2016

We'll see
Breakfast out in the morning air,
mind still mumbling over some strange dream
as it picks its slow stumbling way towards possibly
a fresh day.

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Linda and I biked down to Springbank Park's Rose Garden. I enjoyed her enjoying what makes her happy.

7/18/2016

From Facebook: Likes....21: Peggy Roffey, Paula Dawn Lietz and 19 others
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Wendy Clark Perron · Friends with Paula Dawn Lietz
so beautiful

Edward Hopper: Woman in Train Compartment

6/21/2016

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A perfect day to stroll in the woods.

6/16/2016

The most shocking coincidences happen to me all the time!

5/24/2016

Yesterday I emailed Frank Davey asking how he's doing these fine days, only to be told he was in Budapest, and would be in Vienna today, then on to other fabulous places. I said I envied him. Well, today at some point I looked at my emails and there was this photo he had just taken from his hotel room. That's the Danube River down below. So I said, "Nice view!! I guess you must have heard the Blue Danube Waltz a few times by now." Then I got up and turned the TV on. And there was a movie playing called The Great Waltz, a 1972 biopic of Strauss! It was about 20 minutes into the movie. And within 2 or 3 minutes of turning on the TV, we were in the great ballroom, and, for the first time in the movie, The Blue Danube was being played, with Strauss on violin!

Can you beat that? Pretty hard. But I have no trouble matching it.

Barb Langhorst, Silvia Palacios and Cambridge N Calvin Keenan
Comments

Cambridge N Calvin Keenan That's magical 💜
Like · Reply · 1 hr

Aldous Richards I love synchronicities like that. They seem to stop time for a second, just so you can appreciate the magic. smile emoticon
Like · Reply · 1 hr

Silvia Palacios Eso es maravilloso
That's wonderful

Spring in February

2/20/2016

May it last, but without a lot of killer frosts destroying all the new buds. Photo in London, Ont.

Penn Kemp, Yvonne Maggs and 2 others like this.

Time warp!

2/4/2016

35 years later, my old Vancouver friend Gord posted the photo (the one in the previous post below) of me wearing the same sweater I was wearing just now as I sat in front of my computer when that earlier me in the same sweater popped up on the screen! I looked down at my sleeves and back at the screen astonished. It was like my young self and I were sitting at the same table in some kind of time warp!

Also, it's weird how long this sweater has lasted. I wear it every winter. I bought it on my 7-month backpacking trip in 1981. I was thumping along into the last cold month of the trip, just inside Northern Ontario (walking from BC) and I was beginning to freeze at night in my tent, trying to sleep shivering. I finally came to a little town, went straight into its clothing store, bought this, and wore it all day and all night until the snows came for good near Thunder Bay. This was 3 years before Gord took the photo in the cafe.

Thirty-five years later, now basking in Linda's decore and company, I'm still wearing my favourite sweater. The tag has long since disappeared, all the buttons have been replaced, but there are no holes, rips, or unravellings and it's just as warm as it ever was.

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Linda Eva Williams And stylish! (Seriously: my fashion conscious daughter told me so)
Like · Reply · 1 · 2 February at 19:08 · Edited

Stan Burfield My God. That's a shock. Okay, I guess then I'll have to make this my winter uniform at the open mic! Thank her for the advice.
Like · Reply · 2 February at 19:46 · Edited

Meredith Moeckel You look absolutely marvelous!
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 2 February at 19:52

Al Broudy That's a fine sweater. You know, Stan, I don't know if I ever told you this, but I SAW you on that trip of yours. I was team driving with a real bastard name of Al "Fat" Thompson. We were eastbound somewhere in Manitoba, and there, in the right side...See more
Like · Reply · 1 · 2 February at 19:55

Stan Burfield WOW!!!! Ha ha. You would have been the second person I actually knew whom I met along that hike. I had figured that the chances are I would bump into one person I knew. But it didn't happen until the last day of my THIRD of three trips, hiking, canoeing, and bicycling. It was in St. John's NFLD, in a corner store, one of my old teachers in journalism school!! You would have been one too many, which is the real reason you couldn't pull that truck over and say hi. ....But wow, that's incredible. I remember the walking stick. Somebody had just thrown it out and I found it as I walked, one of those fairly impractical but beautiful ones, with a heavy brass knob at the top so it swings wonderfully. I actually took a photo of it. I stopped for a rest, my back against my sleeping bag, legs out in the grass and flowers, with the walking stick laying there. I'll try to find it after the open mic tomorrow. Wonderful story about you guys in the truck too!
Like · Reply · 1 · 2 February at 20:12 · Edited

Meredith Moeckel Really incredibly coincidental!
Like · Reply · 2 February at 20:41

Stan Burfield You're not kidding. You want an even more incredible coincidence, by far? It's in my new posting, about my big birthday surprise.
Like · Reply · 1 · 2 February at 20:43

Meredith Moeckel I'll be sure to look for it --- if not tonight then tomorrow when I'm on my laptop! HUGS smile emoticon
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 2 February at 21:02

Cambridge Keenan That's amazing ! De ja vu??? Serendipity !! That sweater becomes you
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 1 February at 00:34

Terry Creamer · Friends with JoJo Nora
Happy Birthday Sir I hope you had an Awesome day, you don't look a day over 40. 🎂
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 1 February at 07:07

Martin Hayter That is old...hey, isn't that the sweater Caesar was wearing around this time a few hundred years ago, you know, just before the Ides of March.
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 1 February at 13:10

Karen Troxler It proves it's best to buy quality.
Unlike · Reply · 2 · 1 February at 17:37

Stan Burfield I just checked for the label...non-existent! Same with the buttons. All replaced. But it's never had any holes or rips or frays...just keeps on going.
Like · Reply · 1 · 1 February at 17:41 ·Edited
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Stan Burfield 35 years old...I wonder if they would take it for resale at Value Village.
Like · Reply · 1 February at 18:02

Stan Burfield But no. It'll go with me into the grave.
Like · Reply · 1 February at 18:03

Martin Hayter It's important to have some casual wear beyond the grave.
Like · Reply · 1 February at 19:33
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Gord McCaw No, well, look, don't say nothing, uh, Stan, actually, well, how could you put it, it was 32 years ago...
Like · Reply · 1 February at 20:28

Stan Burfield no well don't say nothing but 32 years ago the sweater was 3 years old. wait. gotta finish my coffee.
Like · Reply · 1 February at 21:49

Happy birthday, Stan

1/31/2016

Gord McCaw‎ to Stan Burfield
31 January ·

Happy birthday Stan, here's a little gift for you. I've been going through some negs from the 80's and found this shot of you from March 2, 1984. We were having a fast coffee at the Aristocratic, which you may remember was at the SW corner of Broadway & Granville, where the Chapters bookstore has now been for many years...

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Meredith Moeckel, Magnus Grendel Samson Coleman, JoJo Nora and 5 others like this.
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Stan Burfield That is such a crazy coincidence, Gord. I am sitting here right now as you post that WEARING THE EXACT SAME SWEATER!!!!!
Like · Reply · 2 · 31 January at 22:28

Gord McCaw Which is why, of course, I sent it...
Like · Reply · 31 January at 22:28

Stan Burfield Uh, Gee, Gord. You and I do go back a ways, but umm, you know... umm
Like · Reply · 1 · 31 January at 22:30

Stan Burfield When Lindas show is over, Ièll ask her to take an updated shot of the above.
Like · Reply · 1 · 31 January at 22:33

Gord McCaw That would be cool...
Like · Reply · 1 · 31 January at 22:33

Stan Burfield Just before I went on my bicycle trip: Thunder Bay to St. Johns
Like · Reply · 3 · 31 January at 22:35

Kathryn Alexander the Aristrocratic was the cafe my nana used to take me for hot choc and chicken in the straw I miss it
Like · Reply · 1 · 1 February at 00:11

Koral Scott This is amazing!
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 1 February at 08:12

Martin Hayter I remember the Aristocrat! THE diner's diner in Vancouver. Cool sign too. Shame about Chapters moving in...
Like · Reply · 1 February at 13:12

Stan Burfield Gord has a huge data bank of his own photos of old store signs. I'm sure he has one of this one.
Like · Reply · 1 February at 14:03

Gord McCaw Indeed I do, I shot photos of the Aristocratic close to the time of this picture, about a month before they stripped the 30 foot bands of white neon off the sides of the building. I'll post a shot later when I'm near the PC...
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 1 February at 14:37

Brian Dedora Risty...
Like · Reply · 1 February at 19:32

Gord McCaw I accidentally posted this to the wrong thread. I shot this photo of the Aristocratic on Jan. 28, 1985...
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 2 February at 00:14

Stan Burfield Great photo, and a beautiful cafe. Sad that it was torn down. Going by the wording on the sign, they expected to become a chain, not just a memory.
Like · Reply · 2 February at 00:22

Gord McCaw The Aristocratic was a chain, at the height of their success, in the 40's and 50's, there were a dozen Aristocratics, as the sign says, "all over town". There was one up in Marpole and another at Granville & Smithe, making three on Granville alone...
Like · Reply · 2 February at 00:31

Stan Burfield Wow, I had no idea. Viravek must have borrowed "all over town" from the cafe.
Like · Reply · 2 February at 00:33

Gord McCaw I like the way he used to say he was "going to town."...
Like · Reply · 2 February at 00:39

Stan Burfield Ha, yeah. I just listened to one of those tapes today. Just like yesterday. Hey, can I put in the tape of the Allen Ginsberg reading? (Then I'll post it, if it turns out any good.)
Like · Reply · 1 · 2 February at 00:42

Gord McCaw Fo sho...
Like · Reply · 2 February at 01:19

Stan Burfield Great. Suddenly the audience expands!
Like · Reply · 2 February at 01:20

Winter sunset

1/22/2016

In the spring and summer, the sun will set at the right side of this photo, if not further. The road down below is pointing straight west.

JoJo Nora, Penn Kemp, Frank Beltrano and 20 others like this.
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Yvonne Maggs
Yvonne Maggs Lovely ...
Like · Reply · 21 January at 18:04
Barbara Green
Barbara Green We really are wobbly on our axis, aren't we?
Like · Reply · 21 January at 18:20
Stan Burfield
Stan Burfield Yeah. You can really see it from up here. That road is pointing straight west, towards the summer sunset.
Like · Reply · 2 · 21 January at 21:20
Meredith Moeckel
Meredith Moeckel Did you add any green to this photo Stan? Just wondering since I've never seen such green in a sunset!
Like · Reply · 22 January at 09:01
Stan Burfield
Stan Burfield I did enhance the colour a bit, just increasing the colour saturation mainly, but it may have added some green. (I'm red-green colour blind.) The problem is that my cheap little camera washes out a beautiful sunset like this completely when there's a little of the actual sun in it so that the photo looks like a bright day-time photo. But it looks pretty close to the real deal here..
Like · Reply · 22 January at 14:12 · Edited

Meredith Moeckel
Meredith Moeckel P.S. What a beautiful view you and Linda have of sunsets! smile emoticon
Like · Reply · 22 January at 09:03
Stan Burfield
Stan Burfield Yeah. We would hate to move from here, just for that reason.
Like · Reply · 22 January at 14:13

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