WHAT MOVES ME

As a kid in my Oxford classroom, back in the late 70s, I was studying the effects of glaciation on eastern Ontario for my Geography A Level. And so it makes sense to me that when I moved unexpectedly to Canada the next year, I found comfort in the eskers and drumlins north of Kingston, the erratics scattered like thick-skulled trolls in bereft farmers’ fields, the grass scraped over like a sickly scab. I also listened to an awful lot of The Clash and The Undertones, The Cure and Echo & The Bunnymen. These bands kept me going.

I saw Echo & The Bunnymen play at the old Masonic Temple on Yonge Street in Toronto. This was 1982, maybe? The lead singer, Ian McCulloch, thought he was something special, and he was right. He also thought his band would be bigger than U2 and, in the early days at least, it was neck and neck.

Their second album, Heaven Up Here, might be their best. NME made it their record of the year, is how I remember it, and I wore that record out and then bought another copy. That second one was lost in a basement flood out in Harrowsmith (long story) and so now I own a third.

I came across this version of one of their very best songs while texting tonight with a friend, swapping reminiscences about Roxy Music and Nathalie Merchant, Belle and Sebastian. The drums here race like a horse over those icy fields I leaned on as a lost teenager. And McCulloch is out there giving Jim Morrison a good run for his money. Music, I have long realized, moves me still, more than anything save a good book, a perfect short poem, only these days it’s on way dodgier knees.

NEW LISTING - 1049 HWY 2 EAST

An extraordinary home made from a blend of sandstone and limestone, finished on three levels just east of downtown Kingston.

NEW LISTING - 58 EARL ST

58 Earl St is something special. Walkable in minutes to the downtown core and to the water, the hospitals, City Park and the University, the location feels as perfect as a front-row seat. With large principal rooms and high ceilings, excellent natural light and grown-up perennial gardens front and back, it’s a winning ticket, a dream made from perfect angles in double-brick and immaculate plaster.

NEW LISTING - SOLD!

To distil things to their essence, 131 Raglan Road is a downtown bungalow with parking, a short block from McBurney Park, with two bedrooms and a marvelous finished walk-out basement that's mostly above-grade. But sometimes distillation is just wrong. Click through for much more.

35 Manitou Crescent East

My dad’s house. It’s been a long time coming, and a process not without its complications, but it’s ready for you now. A big old Amherstview side split with the best garden I’ve seen in that part of the world.

I only lived here for a few months. We’d been in Canada less than a year, and the Mississauga job that got us through Immigration didn’t work out. Dad took something new near Kingston, and he and my mum bought 35 Manitou sometime between lunch and dinner on a Saturday afternoon. I spent long evenings that winter either alone or in Dale McKergow’s basement just around the corner, drinking warm Molson Export and listening to Talking Heads: “And you may ask yourself, ‘Well, how did I get here?’” Truth is, I think I’m still working on the answer to that question and, well, if you buy the place maybe I can finally move on.

RECENTLY SOLD

MUSINGS