Flute Junket

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Always on the lookout for unusual spots to play, it’s almost like I’m constantly on assignment scouting out interseting spaces to record in. This latest was a particularly surprising ‘flute junket’ – junk being the operative word!

Fine acoustics can pop up where you least expect them…check out this massive interior!

It may be odd to admit, but I have never done a ‘dump run’ here in Toronto*, and for a long time I wondered what this would look like.Yesterday I offered my wheels to take a ripe load of garbage down to the waste disposal site off of Commissioner’s Road, within, uh, spitting distance of the Leslie Spit.

After having driven onto the weigh scales by the booth and waiting patiently in queue between mammoth city garbage trucks, we were initially denied entrance. Apparently we had the wrong hours, and the booth attendant - just doing his job - was adamant that we should come back later, despite placations to the contrary.

In the end we were granted permission to drop our bags of garbage in this most evocative location. Joey, the site manager, suggested that the resident flocks of birds swooping through the vast interior reminded him of the Amazon House at the Metro Zoo, which is exactly what I was thinking as I played through this old seasonal chestnut, one of several soundfiles captured that memorable day at the dump.

     * This isn’t entirely true - it was part and parcel of my experience as a kid to take heavy bags of stinky garbage once in a while to the dump when staying at cottages back in summers gone by, where we would always be on the lookout for black bears scavenging in the mountains of garbage carved out of the wilderness. Not actually sure if I ever did see a bear, although there was that one time we drove through the dark and did an atypical night-time drop-off, and an image of mysterious, wild eyes furtive in our headlights is burned into my memory. Regardless, it sure was fun to see who could throw the bags the furthest! That particular night, I think we threw the garbage bags more quickly than usual – without the usual discus-throwers type of wind up, and hustled back into the safety of the awaiting car!