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The Current Transcript for April 24, 2020

Host: Matt Gallaway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

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Nova Scotia Music

Guests: Reeny Smith, David Myles

SOUNDCLIP

[Music]

MATT GALLOWAY: This week, Nova Scotia and the whole country have been shaken by horrifying violence, and it comes in the midst of a pandemic and an unprecedented quarantine. The news is heavy and we're all feeling it. And so if the grief and the pain and the fear feels overwhelming to you at times, you should know that you are not alone. And it's with that in mind, at the end of a very tough week that The Current is devoting an entire show this morning to music and stories that soothe and heal. There is, as one of our guests reminded us yesterday, a lot of good and a lot of love in the world still. And so many of you sent stories of things that are bringing you joy in these anxious times. And that is where we are headed today. David Myles is a singer songwriter in Halifax, Reeny Smith as a soul and R&B and gospel singer in North Preston, Nova Scotia. They are friends and collaborators. And this morning, they're going to share some music and stories with us. A bit of a virtual kitchen party through your CBC Radio one. David and. Good morning.

REENY SMITH: Morning.

DAVID MYLES: Good morning.

MG: Well, we're listening to David is with guitar melody that we used instead of our theme. You recorded that recently. And music is such a big part of people's lives at the best of times, but also in the worst of times. What is the role that music has been playing for you this week?

DAVID MYLES: I think, you know, this week and every week it's a place of reflection and a place to commune, you know, with other people and with oneself. And I guess, you know, your spirit in some fashion, it's such a magical pursuit. And it does have the ability to unite people like very, very few things can. It's the thing that got me into it in the beginning. You know, I was so interested in that ability that you can have people in the same place or not, in this case, you know. But we pulled people together through music and we feel things together. We shared things. And music has the power to do that more than almost anything.

MG: Reeny, what about for you? What kind of music are you listening to these days? What has been not just a tough week, but certainly a tough few weeks?

REENY SMITH: Yes, I mean, it's been a tough time, especially here in the Maritimes. For me, it's always been the same thing when I need to be uplifted. You know, spiritual songs or or inspirational music or sometimes just really even some of my favourite artists. It's tough when you try to find some sense of peace and some sense of good in times like this. But I find that the songs that I grew up hearing, my parents, my grandparents sing, those bring a some sort of peace and some sort of comfort for sure.

MG: Songs like what? You grew up in the church.

REENY SMITH: Absolutely. You know, all hymns like it is well with my soul. Amazing Grace. How Great Thou Art. You know, just songs that kind of can take your mind and put them in a more positive space and just kind of transform where you are in inside to somewhere where you can have some type of, you know, mental calm.

MG: Tell me more about that when you hear a song like Amazing Grace. Where do you go?

REENY SMITH: For me, I'm a very spiritual person. So it's definitely a deep connection, almost like a being in a meditative state. It just transforms me to it to a different place altogether. Just really taking myself from reality and placing myself in in the lyrics and really just making met real in my present state and my in my present mind state. I think one thing I learned from growing up in church was how to connect to music emotionally, instead of just having it be a song and really just having it become a part of the emotion and having that emotion be portrayed through the song as you're saying.

MG: We've seen that over the course of this pandemic, David, but certainly in this last week where in Nova Scotia, the Nova Scotia Kitchen Party on Facebook has, what, two hundred thousand members?

DAVID MYLES: Yes. Amazing. It's amazing. I mean, people it's funny, I remember the saying growing up that a sorrow shared is cut in half and a joy shared is doubled. And it has never felt more true. It's just a little harder to share those things because we're not seeing each other as much. It's harder to congregate. And so we're finding ways through social media and everywhere else to reach out to each other and say, listen, we're here, we feel, and we're together.

MG: There is something special about the role that music plays in the daily lives of people in your province. And this applies across the country and around the world. But we're seeing it through that page. What is the place of music for people in Nova Scotia?

DAVID MYLES: Well, I mean, I think it's different for everybody, you know, but it's major. First of all, there's a lot of people who play it at home. It's not just about listening to music on records. It's about playing it with their family. I mean, I spend time at Reeny's house. I haven't spent time in Reeny's house for a little while, but it's the most musical environment I've ever seen in my life. I mean, honestly, it is a beautiful thing to witness. And there are a lot of families, I guess, that grew up with just music in their house. They were making it for themselves. Even in my house growing up, we had two pianos. It was a clarinet. I flew to trumpet a violin.

MG: It's like a music store.

DAVID MYLES: It's like music store. I'm one of four kids range from a big family to, you know, and we play with our siblings. That's how we learn and we play with their parents and those kinds of things. It's kind of passed down. So that's pretty important.

DAVID MYLES: You can talk about music or you can play music. You're going to play a song for us. David, what are you can play?

DAVID MYLES: I'm going to play a song called Pair of Shoes, and it's a song I wrote probably about 10 years ago, but it felt appropriate for the moment because it is about sharing in in grief and in that experience.

MG: This is a little different for us. Let's hear it, live on The Current. This is David Myles. A song called Pair of Shoes.

DAVID MYLES: [Singing: Pair of Shoes]

MG: That's fantastic. Thank you.

DAVID MYLES: Thank you.

MG: That's Nova Scotia Singer-Songwriter David Myles and song Pair of Shoes. He is joining me from Halifax, along with R&B and gospel singer Renae Smith. It's a special edition of The Current. We're focussing this morning on stories of joy, things that bring you a little bit of a smile and a bit of lightness in what has been not just a dark week, certainly a dark week for people in Nova Scotia and right across this country. But a difficult time for many people over the last several weeks. When you try to figure out, David, what song would be suited to the moment that you're in. How do you go about assessing that? It's difficult to figure out what the right words are, let alone the right song at a time like this.

DAVID MYLES: It's really, really tough. You know, I mean, I want to bring- I think hope is really important. You want to be real. You want to talk about what's going on. It felt wrong to play something super upbeat and super happy. I got lots of those songs. I'm an upbeat, happy guy. I think it's important to recognise that this is a very difficult time. But ideally, find a song that has hope in it and has that idea that we're in this together. We share these things. And so that's why I thought of playing that song there. So it was tricky to define the right one because you want to get it right.

MG: Reeny, you talked about the role of music in your own family. David says that you have the most musical household that he can imagine. How if people in your community been responding to this tragedy, to the pandemic, and you find that that music helps them and helps you in the broader moment that we're in right now.

REENY SMITH: Yes, for sure, I think it definitely hit home in our community for sure. It's tough. It could have been any one of us that day. We don't know really what the full outcome could have could have been. So everybody's just grateful and thankful that we have another chance to really just try to try to make something great of the life that we have. Not everybody can say that today, unfortunately. One thing about our community, we're very musically driven. Doesn't matter what household you go to. There'll be music playing. There'll be people singing and there'll be people dancing for sure. It's always been something that has been very therapeutic for us. So we definitely always have that in the household. Doesn't matter which home you're in.

MG: You're donating the royalties from your song Survive to Hospitals in Nova Scotia. Tell me a bit about that.

REENY SMITH: Yes, I came up with the idea after I received a note from the Dartmouth General Hospital asking me to just use whatever influence I have to really encourage people to stay home and practise social distancing. And at the end of the video that I ended up doing, I sand Survive. And people messaged me and they were just so, so encouraged by the song and the message that it was giving at the time. And so I decided then to start the radio campaign and to donate the funds to our frontline workers who were working so hard to help us all stay safe. And, you know, just try to deal with this pandemic and whatever funds are made are to help provide any medical equipment, whether it be face mask, gloves, I mean, whatever can be used for really.

MG: That's a really generous thing to do. And it speaks to the moment that we're in. I mean, we're really seeing people step up and show the best of who we can be in a really difficult moment. All right. Absolutely. You're going to sing a song for us. Why did you pick this song? It's a song that people will know.

REENY SMITH: This song, I think it has a message that is, you know, so fitting for it for this time, people need hope. People need inspiration. And more than anything, we all need each other. We all need to rely on each other and help each other and really be the crutch for each other.

MG: David, you know what's coming. What should we expect from this performance?

DAVID MYLES: I am just so happy to be here with Reeny. She's such a great person. And you can just sense it from hearing her talk. It's making me emotional. But I'm really excited. She's an incredible musician. And I have heard her sing this song before. And it is it's magical. So I'm really excited that she's now sharing it with the country. It's a beautiful thing.

MG: Reeny, ready?

REENY SMITH: I am.

MG: Bring the magic. This is Reeny Smith performing live on The Current. On CBC Radio.

REENY SMITH: [Singing: Brindge over Troubled Water].

MG: From North Preston, Nova Scotia, that is Reeny Smith live on CBC Radio One on The Current and her version of Bridge Over Troubled Water. That was fantastic.

REENY SMITH: Thank you.

MG: My goodness, David, what did you make of that?

DAVID MYLES: Beautiful as I know, she just always lays it down. She always lays it down, we've gotten a lot of gigs singing together. Really. I always joke. We played the Montreal Jazz Festival a few years ago. I was so nervous. And we get onstage and we're rocking and I could just looked Reeny and her sister Hailey and they were both dancing and having such a good time that it completely rid me of all my nerves. I felt so good because I just knew there such a and incompetent great musicians. It's awesome.

MG: You have both been really generous in performing live. It. It's a bit of a different thing for us, but as I said, it's been a long week and people could use a bit of relief. What is the thing? Just really quickly, we're almost out of time. But what is the thing, David, that's bringing you some joy in these times?

DAVID MYLES: My kids. I'm actually full time with my kids right now. My wife was working a full time job. I have a five year old and a seven year old, two girls, Maria and Sylvia. It's busy.

MG: It's a lot is.

DAVID MYLES: It's a lot. But, man, it's I'm grateful. I'm grateful to be home with them and spending time with them. And they they're amazing.

MG: And Reeny, for you, what brings you a bit of joy?

REENY SMITH: Kind of the same thing as David. Just being with my family. And I'm quarantining with my parents and my sister, just being around family, having them around just makes everything a little bit easier.

MG: Music is a powerful thing. And in the best of times, as I say, it can take you to a different place. And in those dark times, it is that light that you often really need. Thank you both for bringing a bit of light to us this morning. And be well and take care.

DAVID MYLES: Thank you.

REENY SMITH: Thank you.

MG: Reeny Smith and David Miles from Nova Scotia performing live in their quarantine homes. A little bit of something different, as I said, for you on The Current this morning. CBC, we'll be broadcasting the two hour vigil this evening. It's called Nova Scotia Remembers will feature more music as well as messages of support. Starts at 7:00 in the evening in the Maritimes, 6:00 Eastern. And if you're in Atlantic, Canada, you can listen on CBC Radio, watch on CBC Television. It'll be broadcast nationally on CBC News Network on Jim. And you can watch online as well. Just go to CBC, Nova Scotia. Well, the CBC News is next. And then.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: Birds chirping]

MG: This spring has sprung and at least some parts of the country comes with familiar chirps and tweets. We'll talk with the renowned birder David Sibley on this special edition of The Current I'm Matt Galloway. We're back in six minutes. Stay with us.

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Birds

Guests: David Sibley

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

MG: These have been some tough times we have been going through, especially this week, especially for our friends in Nova Scotia. People are looking for a bit of a break from some of the heaviness. So today we are immersing ourselves in stories that lift the spirits, things that bring joy. Still to come, couch surfing, getting a whole new meaning in the times of COVID. Find out how to travel the world from the comfort of your sofa a little bit later on. But first, the birds are back in town.

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: Birds chirping]

MG: Maybe you've noticed with the weather warming up in the world a little quieter these days that you can really hear the birds chirping. The renowned birder and author David Sibley has been recording all of this, singing from his own backyard.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: Bird chirping]

MG: Maybe being cooped up little these days, you've noticed more of our feathered friends, perhaps more closely outside your window. It turns out there may be more going on out there than you even realise. And that is what David Sibley has been discovering while writing his most recent book, What It's Like to be a Bird. David Sibley, renowned birder, is in Deerfield, Massachusetts. David, good morning.

DAVID SIBLEY: Good morning.

MG: What a pleasure to have you on the program. What are we listening to there? Tell me about what you recorded.

DAVID SIBLEY: That's a several different white throated sparrows, different individuals, and they sing. It's a bird that's common across Canada in the summer. They spend the winter in the U.S., but they're one of the renditions of their song is Oh Sweet Canada, Canada, Canada and a clear whistle. It's a really, really special bird feeder for all of us. And we get them just moving through on their way north right now. There's also a cardinal singing in there, northern cardinal. And a few other species in the background. But that was mostly white throated sparrows.

MG: What are you seeing in the backyard these days?

DAVID SIBLEY: Well, it's a really exciting time of year, a lot of birds are moving north. Is it just a flood of birds coming north right now out of the southern U.S. and Central and South America? These little tiny birds that some of them weigh, only 6 or 7 grams and they're migrating thousands of miles, heading north to their breeding grounds in across Canada. And so right now here in Massachusetts, we're seeing the first yellow rump warblers starting to show up, [unintelligible] warblers. And in the next week, just a week from now, it's going to be so different. It's amazing how this happens in the spring. So by the 1st of May, there will be 30 or 40 new species that have arrived here, a scarlet tanager, rose breasted gross beaks. Many species of warblers. So it's just a really exciting time of year for bird watching.

MG: For a lot of us, the crows beaks are the real sign of spring.

DAVID SIBLEY: Yes. So flashy. Yeah. And yeah, I can't wait for them to show up and should be any day now. And then in the next week or so we should see the first one here.

MG: We have used your guides for years and you're known for these guides from around the world. You have delved a bit more in this new book Into a Bird's Life. What have you learned about what it's like to be a bird?

DAVID SIBLEY: Yes, it just this book it started as a as a different- started as a children's guide to birds. And I wanted to include a little sort of amazing facts about the birds. And the more I started researching those things, the more I learned. I just there's so much that's known about birds that isn't widely known. And I just as I read through the scientific research, I learned so much about birds abilities and adaptations and and started to get a sense of what it's like to be a bird. There's no way to know for sure, but there are a lot of things they do that we can't even imagine. They can see ultraviolet light. So when they look at, if a bird sees a rainbow, it's seeing a whole extra band of colour beyond Violet on the rainbow. And they process visual information more than twice as fast as we do. So where we see a movie because pictures at 30 frames per second, our brains can't process that quickly. So we see a moving picture when it's flashing by 30 frames per second. But the birds can process that information more than twice as fast. So looking at one of our movies, they would see a slide show, just a series of very fast still pictures. And that's one of the ways that they navigate. Flying 20 miles an hour and weaving through twigs in the forest. They can do that because they're processing the visual information so quickly. They can actually see an approaching twig and dodge around it.

MG: Oh, that's amazing, so you always wonder if you see the bird and it goes swooping into the force and you think, how is it doing that and not crashing into the trees, you're able to do that because their brains are processing things so much faster.

DAVID SIBLEY: Yes, so they can track the approaching objects much better than we can. We see a blur and they see a clear image of a twig coming at them. I think they would make outstanding goalies.

MG: We are now in this time when we're stuck at home. And one of the great joys of birdwatching is going somewhere and perhaps travelling to see birds. When you are stuck at home. What are the possibilities of just birding in your backyard or off the balcony of your condo?

DAVID SIBLEY: Yes. And that's one of the great things about bird-watching is that you can literally do it anywhere. If you have a window, you can look outside and see birds. And and if you keep watching, you will see different birds. The birds move around so much, that's their great superpower. They can fly. They appear. They disappear. They moved thousands of miles or they just move around the neighbourhood. But but you can be sure that looking out your window, you're going to see different birds. They sort of bring the experience to you. If you're stuck inside, birds are the one thing that you can look for and actually. See something different. And right now, like I was saying this this is migration time. This is when the birds. Birds are moving all over the globe and millions and millions of birds are coming north right now. And the next few weeks is going to be a huge transformation of the birds in your neighbourhood. So it's a really exciting time and you can really just sit in your backyard or look out a window and watch and you will see this going on. New birds arriving.

MG: A lot of us are stuck at home with kids and we're trying to figure out ways to entertain them and for them to entertain themselves while perhaps we're working from home. What is the guidance? Because to some people who've never sat and looked at the bird, the whole idea of that can be overwhelming. I'm not sure what I'm looking at. What should I be looking for? What do you do for kids? Can I create that sense of of curiosity in them?

DAVID SIBLEY: I think kids, I think, like to know something about the birds. It's not just what the bird is, but where it's from, what it's doing, what its special abilities are. And that's a lot of what my new book is about. But the first step is just noticing birds. And if you haven't been bird-watching before, just looking around, kind of paying attention to sounds, tracking down the sounds and trying to find the bird that's making the noise. Watching for movement and focussing on that. And look for birds along the edges, sort of hopping around on the lawn at the edges of your lawn or at the tops of trees or sitting on wires. Those are places where you're likely to see birds. But just noticing them and finding them is the first challenge. And once you've discovered one and gotten a look at it, then you can use some online resources or get a field guide to learn what its name is. And then you can dig in to learn a lot more about it.

DAVID SIBLEY: You're the guy that people go to. I mean, you write the guides. People come to you and they come to you for years and years and years. Do you still have that sense of wonder?

MG: Oh, absolutely, yes. I learn new things about birds all the time. And this I mean, this book that I've just finished was an incredible eye opener. I learned so many things. A lot of things that I thought I knew that turned out to be wrong and a lot of new things that I never imagined. But yes, it's just it's still exciting to me every day to go out and look at birds and wonder about them and be amazed that you still have.

MG: That is really encouraging for all of us. I think it's a real pleasure to talk to you, David. Thank you.

DAVID SIBLEY: Thank you.

MG: David Sibley is an American bird expert and the author and illustrator of the Sibley Guide says he'd like he want books on birds. And you are interested in trying to figure out what is on your wire. That's the book. And those are the guides that you go to. His new book is called What It's Like to Be a Bird.

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What the pandemic's 'peace and quiet' could mean for giant pandas mating in captivity, Banju

Guests: Jim Harkness, Karin Marley

This is The Current on CBC Radio One special edition of the program. We're focussing on things that bring us joy in the midst of some dark and difficult times. My name is Matt Galloway. From flights of fancy to a story involving some bare necessities. For more than a decade, Ying Ying and Li Li were keeping their relationship strictly platonic. Something has changed in the past month, though. The two pandas were caught by staff at the Ocean Park Zoo in Hong Kong, getting frisky with each other. Is it a sign of hope for a threatened species? Maybe just isolation, boredom? Jim Harkness is one of the world's foremost experts on pandas and their mating habits. He is in Minneapolis. Jim, good morning.

JIM HARKNESS: Good morning. I just ordered David Sibley's book online from my local bookstore. It sounds amazing.

MG: As we're talking, the man does a little bit of shopping. What did you think when you heard that these two pandas had found their mojo after more than a decade?

JIM HARKNESS: Well, I was delighted that pandas have a lot of trouble breeding in captivity in zoos. And it may be that all the people gawking at them is one factor contributing to that. So it is possible that the greater peace and quiet that they've had helped create the mood.

MG: Is that why you think that this is happening now? I mean, it sounds obvious in some ways. Get people out of the bedroom and maybe things will happen.

JIM HARKNESS: It could well be, you know, giant pandas that there's kind of a unfair knock against giant pandas, that there's some sort of evolutionary dead end or that they're bad at breeding. You might have heard this. And in fact, in some zoos, they'll show videos of pandas mating to other pandas to try to teach them how to breed, because there's this notion that they don't understand how mating works.

MG: Like panda pornography or something.

JIM HARKNESS: Yes. These famous panda porn, that's actually a real thing. And the fact is, in the wild, in the forest, pandas do very well. Thank you very much. They breed at about the same rate as many black bear populations. But when they're cooped up in a zoo with, you know, people with in white coats, with clipboards watching them and tourists and such, their success rate is quite low. And this is always been always been a challenge for zoo keepers. And so it could well be that simply giving them a little more peace and quiet has helped out.

MG: And in that respect, what is the overall health of the species right now?

JIM HARKNESS: Well, the numbers have improved over the past couple of decades because of much more strict protection in China. The panda, giant pandas, only live in China. And the Chinese government has set aside larger and larger areas to protect them. Right now, there are about, I mean, it's a it's a rough number between 1800 and 2000 pandas living in the wild. And then a couple of hundred more in captivity. And the wild population seems to be stable or growing, but that's still not a high number. So they're they've been taken off of the list of most highly endangered species, but they still are a threatened species.

MG: And that's why something like this, a development like this is so important.

JIM HARKNESS: Yes, I think that, you know, in the past the temptation would be, well, people want to see pandas and they're not breeding successfully, so maybe we need to take a few more out of the wild so that we have them in zoos. And if you can have a self-sustaining population in captivity, then you don't have that risk that pandas might be taken out of the wild. And the real goal should be to make sure that, you know, that the pandas are left on their own in the forest and that pandas that are in zoos can really take care of their own population replenishment.

MG: What are the benefits of keeping them in zoos, keeping any of them in zoos?

JIM HARKNESS: Well, there are certainly different viewpoints on that. I think that the I think that the principle benefit really is public education and giving people a sort of an emotional connection to these large, rare animals that only live in extremely remote habitats. So you would, you know, it's very unlikely that somebody in Toronto or Vancouver is ever going to see a panda in the wild. I've only seen a panda in the wild once about 25 years ago, despite having studied and worked on their conservation for much of my life. So the idea that people can form that sort of emotional bond with them is going to, you know, one would hope, make people more interested in conserving them. And I think that's really the main reason people sometimes say, well, if we have a captive population, then we can breed pandas and release them back into the wild. And there's really no evidence that that can be successful right now. You know, there are a few species like the California condor where they were down to just a few individuals and captive breeding became necessary. And now that has helped contribute to replenishing the wild population. But for most species like pandas, the main thing really is to give them time and space and peace. And, you know, nature, as we're learning from Li Li Ying Yang nature is very resilient. If if people just give it a chance.

MG: What was it like as somebody you said, you know, has spent much of your life in this world and has studied and worked in conservation for a long time. What was it like when you saw the giant panda in the wild?

JIM HARKNESS: Oh, it I was sort of in shock. Some researchers had actually put a radio collar on a young panda. And so we were - and even with a radio collar, it took us the better part of a day in these very steep, 45 degree angle mountains with in dense bamboo habitat to finally track down this individual. And it was lying on its back and pulling up bamboo shoots and just chewing on them the way that you might do on a celery stick. And I thought we would just watch it from a distance. But the researchers I was with pulled up a bunch of bamboo shoots and put them in my hand and said, offer them to the panda.

MG: Oh, my goodness.

JIM HARKNESS: And so I crawled forward. And, you know, these are these are very these are bears. So it's got a big head and big teeth. And when I got a couple of feet away, it just reached out of hand. with its paw. And I flacked the bamboo shoots into it and it immediately began crunching on them. And, yes, my heart was in my throat and it was, even more so, about 30 seconds later, that big paw came back empty again. So we quickly grabbed some more and put them in. And we were able to lie there on the forest floor, feeding it for about 15 minutes or so until it got up and it just vanished into the forest like, like a flash. You know, they look so big and ungainly, but they, when they're in their own habitat, they're extremely graceful and quick.

MG: What an amazing moment. Jim, it's great to talk to you. Thank you.

JIM HARKNESS: Thank you, Matt.

MG: Jim Harkness is, the China country director for the National Geographic Society. We were asking over the last couple of weeks, what is it in these unusual times that we are in? That is bringing you a little bit of joy, but a good news story. Something great that's happened to you in a pretty anxious moment. Trudy Beaton wrote us from Vancouver Island. She has been using this time to pick up a new hobby and to surprise a. New friend. So we called up Trudy to find out more.

SOUNDCLIP

TRUDY: I've lived in Merval, which is north of Cortney for about 27 years, and Mike lives across the pond behind us. He's been a neighbour for all that time and I barely spoken more than a few words to him maybe once a year. And I ran into him in early March when I was walking a dog along a trail by his house. And we ended up talking about music. And I told him that I was learning, trying to learn to play the banjo. And then about a week or two later, he called to see if I wanted to play banjo with him.

[Music]

TRUDY: So M is middle.

MIKE: Yes.

TRUDY: Brush is... Then. Oh, I see.

[Music]

TRUDY: He ended up coming up the trail to my house from the well with his banjo on his back and a hiking pole. And he'd actually walked over the beaver dam between our homes to get here, which was really sweet. So a couple of times since the pandemic, we've sat on my lawn 10 feet apart and he comes over with his instruments and some other neighbours join this. And we play bluegrass together. And I'm a beginner and he is incredibly generous and helpful and good humoured. And it's just been a lovely positive outcome from all of us being socially isolated, just members of the community coming together to play music.

MIKE: One, two, three, four.

[Music]

TRUDY: I never thought that I would have a relationship with him, I just thought that we were neighbours and both kind of keep to ourselves to seemed like a miracle.

[Music]

TRUDY: Well-practised.

MG: Trudy Beaton and her neighbour Mike in Merval, British Columbia. Thank you, Trudy, for getting in touch. A lot of you did. With stories of good news, things that are making you smile. We asked you to tell us something good. Karin Marley, senior producer The Current is here to read some of your letters. Hello, Karin.

KARIN MARLEY: Hello.

MG: Alissa Sauerbrei wrote in from Kingston. One very special thing that happened this past week was watching my son take his first steps. My husband, daughter and I all got to witness this special moment together. We likely would not have witnessed this milestone altogether if we were not staying home because of COVID-19. And she adds much love to all the frontline workers. That's from Alissa Sauerbrei's in Kingston.

KARIN MARLEY: Susan Buckley in Kabul Hill on Vancouver Island wrote with a really nice story about her grade, her grandson's grade. One school principal at the Millbee Nature School. Last week, Kim Andric, in collaboration with teachers, parents and aides, launched the Love Train. This is a convoy of teachers and families driving to every student's home to deliver the message that we love you. They decorate the vehicles with colourful hearts, surprising the families by setting up at the end of the lane with a boombox cranking out dance music. By the time you realise they're there, there is a socially acceptable dance party going on in the middle of your street. There's no way to describe how wonderful it feels to see important people in your life who you haven't seen in five weeks dancing at the end of your lane. The joy, the fun, the love, the inclusion is profound. Even though we are living a satellite in the moment, the rest of the constellation is out there. At the end of our little party, the principal threw a bouquet of daffodils across the street.

MG: That's fantastic. We're speaking with David Sibley, the brilliant bird watcher and author. This comes from Mary Lu Beaupre from Ottawa. To relieve the stress and boredom of social isolation. I often watch the Wild Bird Unlimited Owl Cam, which is part of Cornell University. The cam is set in an owl box where three barred owlets hatched in mid-March. Their mother tenderly cares for and feeds her young ones, while the male provides birds, squirrels, mice and fish to feed the family. These moments of watching are, for me, very meditative and peaceful, and they provide a firm affirmation of life and renewal. More of your stories, of things that have put a smile on your face. Coming up over the course of this special edition of The Current. Thank you, Karin.

KARIN MARLEY: Thank you.

MG: Karin Marley, our senior producer, you can tell us, is an easy question in some ways. What's the best thing that's happened to you in a difficult time? And you can let us know through the Web site, cbc.ca/thecurrent click on the contact link. You can tweet us @TheCurrentCBC or send us an email thecurrent@cbc.ca. Coming up, how to travel the world from the comfort of your couch. You're not going anywhere, but you might want to be somewhere else. We'll give you some suggestions in a little bit. I'm Matt Galloway. This is a special edition of The Current. We're back in 90 seconds.

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De Botton, Cyrano

Guests: Imre Lodbrog, Barbara Bowring, Dan Chaisson

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway, you're listening to a special joyful edition of The Current. One of the toughest things about being asked to stay close to home is that feeling of confinement. By now, lots of people are feeling restless. It'll stir crazy, ready to roam. One of Britain's most popular philosophers believes that though we may be limited to just a few rooms now, right now is the perfect time to explore the most mysterious of locations. Our own minds. Here's Alain De Botton.

SOUNDCLIP

ALAIN DE BOTTON: At some point in the 16 50s, the French philosopher and mathematician Blessed Pascale jotted down one of the most counterintuitive aphorisms of all time. The sole cause of man's unhappiness, he wrote, is that he cannot stay quietly in his room. Surely having to stay quietly in one's room must be the beginning of a particularly evolved kind of psychological torture. What could be more opposed to the human spirit than to have to inhabit four walls when potentially there would have been a whole planet to explore? And yet Pascal's idea usefully challenges one of our most cherished beliefs that we must always go to new places in order to feel and discover new and worthwhile things. What if, in fact, there were already a treasury inside us? What if we had, within our own brains, already accumulated a sufficient number of awe inspiring, calming and interesting experiences to last us ten lifetimes? What if our real problem was not so much that we are not allowed to go anywhere, but that we don't know how to make the most of what is already to hand? Being confined at home gives us a range of curious benefits. The first is an encouragement to think. Whatever we like to believe, few of us do much of the solitary, original, bold kind of thinking that can restore our spirits and move our lives ahead. The new ideas we might stumble upon if we did travel more ambitiously around our minds while lying on the sofa could threaten a mental status quo. An original thought might, for example, alienate us from what people around us think of as normal. Or it might herald a realisation that we've been pursuing the wrong approach to an important issue in our lives. Perhaps for a long time, but a period of quiet thinking in our room creates an occasion when the mind can order and understand itself. Fears, resentments and hopes become easier to name. We grow less scared of the contents of our own minds and less resentful, calmer and clearer about our direction. We start in faltering steps to know ourselves slightly better. Another thing we can do in our own rooms is to return to travels. We have already taken. This is not a fashionable idea. Most of the time we are given powerful encouragement to engineer new kinds of travel experiences. The idea of making a big deal of revisiting a journey in memory sounds a little strange or simply sad. But what if we were to alter the hierarchy of prestige a little and argue that regular immersion in our travel memories could be a critical part of what can sustain and console us, and not least is perhaps the cheapest and most flexible form of entertainment to help us focus more on our memories? We need nothing technical. We certainly don't need a camera. There is a camera in our minds already and it's always on. It takes everything we've ever seen. Huge chunks of experience are still there in our heads, intact and vivid, just waiting for us to ask ourselves leading questions like, so where did we go after we landed? Or what was the first breakfast then like? We talk endlessly of virtual reality, yet we dont need gadgets. We have the finest virtual reality machines already in our own heads. We can right now shut our eyes and travel into and linger amongst the very best and most consoling and life enhancing bits of our own past. In the end, the pleasure we derive from any journey is always dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on a destination. We travel to if we could apply a travelling mindset to our own rooms and immediate neighbourhoods, we might find that these places could become no less interesting than faraway foreign lands. What then is a travelling mindset? Well, receptivity, appreciation and gratitude might be its chief characteristics. And crucially, this mindset doesn't need to wait for a far away journey to be deployed. A walk is the smallest sort of journey we can ever undertake. It stands in relation to a typical vacation as a bonsai tree does to a forest. But even if it's only an eight minute interlude around the block or a few moments in a nearby park, a walk is already a journey in which many of the grander themes of travel are present. We might, on such a walk, catch sight of a flower. It's extremely rare, properly to delight in flowers when one can at any point take off to another continent. There are so many larger, grander things to be concerned about than these small, delicately sculpted, fragile manifestations of nature. However, it's rare to be left entirely in different by flowers when the world is narrowed dramatically and there is global sadness in the air. Now flowers no longer seem like a petty distraction from a mighty destiny. Rather a genuine pleasure amidst a litany of troubles, an invitation to bracket our anxieties and a small resting place for hope in a sea of difficulties, we will one day recover our freedoms. The world will be asked to roam in once more. But during periods of confinement, we might come to cherish some of what is granted to us when we lose our customary liberties. It cannot be a coincidence that many of the world's greatest thinkers have spent unusual amounts of time alone in their rooms. Silence gives us an opportunity to appreciate a great deal of what we generally see without ever properly noticing and to understand what we have felt, but not yet adequately processed. We have not only been locked away, we have also been granted the privilege of being able to travel around a range of unfamiliar, sometimes daunting, but essentially wondrous inner continents.

MG: That's the philosopher Alain de Botton.

[Music]

MG: The song you're about to hear has an unusual origin story.

SOUNDCLIP

[Singing] English 1 2 0, English 3 5 7. I am nobody. Who are you. Nobody too. Pleased to meet you.

MG: That's peculiar. I don't know if you caught the lyrics there English 1 2 0, English 3 5 7 and then a few lines inspired by the poet Emily Dickinson. I am nobody. Who are you? Nobody too. Song is called Cyrano. It was commissioned by a professor as a gift to his students. An English professor. Dan Chaisson teaches at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Dan, good morning.

DAN CHAISSON: Good morning.

MG: How did you come to commission a song for your students?

DAN CHAISSON: Well, you know, I'm a longtime reader and admirer and contributor to The New York Review of Books, which has this incredible kind of throwback classified section in the back of the paper. So I was just perusing it one morning, looking through, you know, different options of places to rent in Europe and pining for the old ways. And I found a peculiar ad advertising the services of an aging, charismatic French rock star who would write a song on commission for two hundred dollars.

MG: As you do here.

DAN CHAISSON: As I do it.

MG: Can you tell me more about the ad and what it was in seeing that, aside from just what you've sketched out, which is intriguing enough, but what else caught your attention and got you thinking?

DAN CHAISSON: Well, I was, of course, our term here at Wellesley College, as in every college in America, was interrupted by the coronavirus. I was thinking about ways that I could, I don't know, enhance the experience for my students who had to go back to their homes and were sort of, you know, holed up in their basements. So I thought, well, let's see if he wants to write a song for my classes. That was the original thought.

MG: What was it like? We've seen this as, to your point, across the world where classes and they can be elementary, secondary post-secondary classes are suddenly put on hold and you have to learn how to learn from a distance. And that relationship that you have with not just other students, but with those leading the class is completely different. What's that been like?

DAN CHAISSON: Well, my my way of thinking about it as a class is a story. And this was like a story interrupted before it had a chance to unfold. So, you know, suddenly we were our narrative of our class was interrupted. And it was unclear about at the time about how it would be taken up again. So I thought that this would be an interesting way to sort of an interesting twist or narrative turn in the story if I surprised them with a little a little work of art, a little song.

MG: And so you reach out to commissioned this song. What do you ask for in the context?

DAN CHAISSON: I gave only two instructions. I was amused by the idea that this melancholy French rock star would sing a song to the coarse numbers of my classes. So I wanted those numbers in the refrain. And I wanted Lodbrog to think about the poem. I'm Nobody by Emily Dickinson. What you mentioned in your intro.

MG: Tell me about it. For people who aren't familiar, maybe their time in English, 101 has long passed them. What is it about that poem that is so striking to you?

DAN CHAISSON: Yes. Well, Dickinson is we would we would say now a reckless She-She by the end of her life didn't leave her home. And she maintained a web of correspondences with strangers through letters. And this poem is, in a way, a kind of letter to intimate strangers across time or across space. It asks a sort of invites you as a stranger to come into her confidences. So I thought that was a pretty interesting prompt for my for my rock star to think about.

MG: Those are the only things that you asked for. Nothing else.

DAN CHAISSON: That's right. I just wanted his imagination and creativity to play out however he imagined it.

MG: Did you have any sense as to what you would get back?

DAN CHAISSON: No, it was a lark. It was truly a lark. I wanted something to do with my time. Hickman's little adventure to go on. And I thought, well, $200 wasn't a lot of money to risk.

MG: The melancholy French rock star in Imre Lodbrog is here, along with somebody who goes by the name simply Lodbrog Agent. Good morning to you both.

IMRE LODBROG: Good morning.

LODBROG AGENT: Good morning.

MG: Here you are indeed in Lord Brog. Is this something that you do a lot of write songs for strangers who see a personal ad in the back of publication and they decide to get in touch?

IMRE LODBROG: It's glitzy to start a fully career. I've been writing songs of my life, but it's my dear agent who has this idea she made me what she calls a hired gun and have people come and request her songs about, I would say wherever, whoever. Something that's happened in their life. It's always something intimate and it's either a person or a fact. And hence to the principle that now I call after this song, actually, making it clear the principal [unintelliglbe] Which is if you know the here's the piece is like speaking for someone I know. But of course it has to resonate through yourself also. So that's the way I proceed instinctively every time.

MG: So how do you do that? I mean, the only thing that Dan said he was interested in is that the names of the class English 1 2 0 in English 3 5 7. And then a little bit from Emily Dickinson. When that's what you get in terms of a brief. Where do you go from there?

IMRE LODBROG: Where I go with my imagination in an empty class, two empty classrooms. And I see good student. And I address them. That's the way it is.

MG: And then a song appears.

IMRE LODBROG: But also, of course, with the interaction of the absent professor. And so I'm just the go betwee.Voice.

MG: Your agent has a big role to play in this, agent of no name. It was your idea to advertise?

IMRE LODBROG: No, no, no. It was not my idea.

LODBROG AGENT: It was my idea.

MG: Okay. So why do you why did you put that ad in The New York Review of Books?

LODBROG AGENT: Well, Imre has as he mentioned, he's been writing songs for a very, very long time. And and they're they're just great. And when I discovered them, of course, what I said was wear them a lot. But then all my life and and why don't other people know about his songs? So instead of scheming in various ways to to get this out into the world and he's in the game, you know, he seems to be up for whatever challenges I pose. So this was one idea that came up. And actually, when I first had this idea, we were here in New York City and I thought maybe I'd put flyers on cars or, you know, with this offer of personal songs. But then then I got an idea to put it actually in the classified ads. And so that's what came of it.

MG: Why would you do something like that? I mean, you've kind of hinted at it, but what do you think is is offered in that idea of having somebody write a song, a personalized song?

MG: Well, well, it has a little bit to do with the origins of my getting to know Imre. And maybe we can just make, Imre do you mind?

IMRE LODBROG: No, no, no. Please.

LODBROG AGENT: So. In point of fact, like Dan, I am also a university professor, teaching in the Department of Performance Studies.

MG: Not an agent.

LODBROG AGENT: Well, I'm also an agent. I'm a secret agent. Maybe a double agent.

IMRE LODBROG: And so I also, I do some performance art and I make some music. But so I've been posting some of my music online. And I discovered or he discovered, I don't know who discovered who embraced music online. And then we started following each other.

IMRE LODBROG: I was in France by then.

LODBROG AGENT: Yes, he was in France. And I was here in New York. And we started following each other. And then one day in my stream of people that I follow, I found a song. And you want to tell what the song was?

IMRE LODBROG: Well. It was a very weird process because I make making sure. But I'm very - must make clear two points. First. I'm a very shy guy. And the second, I've never been running after chasing any anybody. And I wasn't in the mood. I was not in the mood to at this point. But mostly I was charmed by that voice that I heard in the distance. Very simple little tune. So it was covers[unintelliglbe]and I don't know, I really don't like is to can explain what went through my mind. But I wrote a song in about 10 minutes and I posted it in the name of the song was Barbara Browning, which is the name of my dear agents' right now. And and it was very heavy song in terms of lyrics, very, very light in terms of music. And I posted it and then I said, oh, I shouldn't have done that. I was going to to withdraw it. Take it off. But the days were cast. And so maybe you can tell the rest.

MG: What happened, Barbara, the song that is written for you?

LODBROG AGENT: Well, I just discovered it in my stream, he didn't even send it personally to me. He just posted it on the Internet and I discovered it. And so in in retaliation and made a ukulele cover of one of his songs. And I just posted it in, you know, with no personal message to him. And then shortly after that, we just began collaborating. And it just so happened that I had a chance to do a performance in New York. And I invited him. And it just so happened that his son worked for Air France so he could get a free ticket. So he hopped on a plane and came. And he's been here, you know, off and on for six years.

MG: And so this is the big picture in terms of who's creating this song and how the ad ends up, Dan.. Dan, did you have any idea in your communication back and forth with the person that initially thought was Ladbrog's agents and now we know is Barbara? Did you have any sense of what was going on?

DAN CHAISSON: Well, it becomes, again, a story about the Internet because, yes, people were reaching out to me and telling me that this is Barbara Browning is a name I knew I didn't know that she was Lodbrog's agents, but I knew that she was a great artist and scholar and novelist. And I was having this detail filled in by strangers on Twitter really, is how I found out. And then they were kind enough to send me a copy of their jointly written memoir, which is really beautiful. And it tells a story. So I recommend people pick that up.

MG: You get the song out of this collaboration. Tell me about the moment that the song arrives in somebody's e-mail city or something like that, the attachment.

DAN CHAISSON: That's right. It came in in two ways. The first wave was the song itself. I'd been telling my family about this little caper that I had gone on. I put it on our home stereo system without saying anything. We were playing ping pong and suddenly the lyrics cut their fears and they could hear that this was the song that I'd been looking forward to. That was step one. Step two, I'd asked them to do a video because I'd seen their wonderful videos online. And about a week later the video appeared and we sat down to watch it and incredibly moving. The song is beautiful. It's set in this kind of desolated, you know, quarantined New York. And yes, it was a two to step epiphany.

MG: Did you do this for your students? How did your students react?

DAN CHAISSON: I think they were thrilled. I think they were overjoyed. You know, I posted it to our online blog and I heard back immediately from them. Of course, since I'm personally sort of all about the hustle I had in mind writing a piece about this experience for The New York Review. So I was having to time my unveiling of the song with my classes and my publishing of the piece. So that was my that was my process.

MG: As you said, this is in some ways all about the Internet. What is it? This whole process tell you. But the moment that we're in. Dan?

DAN CHAISSON: Well, I think it's amazing that we're all collaborating strangers. I don't think we are strangers anymore, the three of us. But we were strangers together. And it gets kind of ironic that it all was launched through the very low fi print classifieds of the New York Review of Books, which is sort of a Proteau has sort of a Proteau Internet, though it's so old fashioned that I think email addresses started to appear in those ads about five years ago.

MG: Imre Lodbrog, a.k.a. Sebastian, what do you think of this moment? And the sense of the opportunity for collaboration in this way? JNow this kind of thing can happen where it's to Dan's point, it appears in an ad in the back of a magazine. But through the miracle of the Internet, you end up creating something that speaks to the moment that we're in. This there's this sense of isolation.

IMRE LODBROG: Yes. Well, I would say it's good aspects of Internet with me, because I could [unintelligible] a lot of bad aspects of my opinion. I'm not a great fan of Internet. But how can I not acknowledge first these places, I must say through Internet. It's through a music thread from the Internet that we met Barbara and I. And also, this is a it seems to be fantastic resonator for these kind of things to happen to the sort of uncanny. And so this for me is the good aspect, the beautiful aspect of this magic thread that is invisible through a thing in the air. And that can connect people in the distance for the best. And that's what I'm trying to do, is to keep it for the best.

MG: I'm glad that you aren't connected. We're going to play the song in the meantime. Thank you, all three of you, and be well.

GUESTS: Thank you. Thank you.

Sebastian Regnier is the songwriter who goes by the pen name of Imrie, Lodbrog, Barbara Browning, Lodbrogs agent, Teachers, Performance Theory and fiction at New York University. Dan Chaisson is a writer and professor at Wellesley College. He's the guy who asked for the song to be written. This is that song. It's Cyrano.

[sc].

[Singing] English 1 2 0, English 3 5 7. I am nobody....

MG: The CBC News is coming up next. And then in about six minutes time.

[Muisc].

MG: Let's be honest, these days, you may not be as excited as Huey Lewis was to be cooped up with your partner in quarantine. We'll talk about how love can flourish even when we're feeling a little stuck. I Matt Galloway. This is a special edition of The Current. Stay with us.

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Love

Guests: Liz Tran, Dev Aujla, Tyler Cohen

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current.

[Music]

MG: Feel better? Yes, you do. Still to come, how the gang down on Sesame Street is navigating COVID-19.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sesame Street Song]

These are tricky times and we have all been negotiating something that is difficult to process. We end the extended editions of The Current have been talking a lot about how we are coping with the new reality. It's the question that you asked people, not how are you doing, but how are you coping? How are you keeping it together? Today, we're taking a bit of a break from talking about what we've lost. Instead, we're dedicating this show to telling the stories that let a little bit of light in. And so up next, finding love in a hopeless place. You might remember in the before times when we all left our houses to socialize. If someone asked you to recommend a date night spot, you might say, well, you could go to this restaurant. You might go to the theatre. You could go and walk along the beach. Maybe you would go to the bowling alley. I think it's safe to say that going out at sea on a cargo ship would be pretty low on the list of places you might suggest someone go on a date night. Not so for Dev Aujla, who found himself getting cabin fever on his 10th date with Liz Tran. We've reached Dev in Victoria, British Columbia. Dev, good morning.

DEV AUJLA: Good morning.

MG: How did you end up on a date on a cargo ship?

DEV AUJLA: Well, you know, it wasn't expected. Liz and I had gone on a couple of dates and she then phoned me and told me that the time wasn't right. The astrologer, her astrologer told her it wasn't the right time. And so it was like, okay, I've gone away to a friend's wedding and he's flying back from Europe to New York where I lived. And I saw a cargo ship out of the window. And I was like, I wonder what it'd be like to travel on a cargo ships and know what it feels like to travel around the world that slowly and know what it's like. My grandparents travelled on a boat from India to Canada. And so when I got back, Liz called me back up and was like, hey, what if we went on a date again? I was like, sure. And it was literally like maybe a couple of glasses of wine. And I was like, let me tell you about this cargo ship I saw, what would it be like. And she's like, I'll go with you. I was like, yes, sure. Just thinking it was another day, like thinking I'd be like, oh, yeah, let's just oh, it's a joke, you know. Yes. Let's go to partnership together. Yes. So the next morning I get a text, I text her and I'm like cargo ship. Thinking that it all it would lead would be to us at dinner at a restaurant. And then she texted back and she's like, sure. And in about 20 minutes later she texted me and said she'd booked it, and we would be leaving in two weeks. So we ended up, two weeks later, and we hadn't even spent more than five hours together. It was, that was it. We hadn't, we never spent the night. It was purely just that, just we don't even know each other. And it was like right after this. So we ended up leaving from Halifax to Liverpool, England, and flying to Halifax two weeks later. And that two weeks was really strange because like we both didn't really want to get to make any arguments and just to make sure everything was just okay. We bought books on ship racks. Was just like kind of a weird time. And then in Halifax, two weeks later, we ended up driving up in this little van into this boat. It's 14 stories tall. 3800 hundred containers into the middle of the boat and being put into a small room with two single beds that smell like sewage and diesel. And it's probably 11:00 p.m. at night and just be told to stay in this room. We'll come get you tomorrow.

MG: Oh, my goodness.

DEV AUJLA: It was just it was like all metal. It was. And it was the least romantic place in the world. I can tell you that much. I remember going on for a kiss, just like, no, this is not happening.

MG: So you get on this thing and how long is the voyage?

DEV AUJLA: The voyage was 10 days long.

MG: 10 days. So how did the first couple of days go?

DEV AUJLA: Well, the first couple days were actually ended up kind of falling into a nice little rhythm. We read a lot. We ended up talking all these like simple conversations that would just normally, you know, was basically like every day was like a month of normal dating in real life, you know. So by day three it was like, I love you. And like by day five, things were okay. By day eight, it was like we were arguing.

MG: Okay, not to pry too much, but tell me, day eight in detension. That's always interesting. What happened on day eight?

DEV AUJLA: So by day eight, it's like she wanted us to be more social. There's about ten other passengers and 18 crew members. She wanted to see more social. I think I snored. It was just like, you know, all these different things. So there's like more space. And I remember like walking away from our argument and there's nowhere really to go. So it's a big boat, but there's a very small area you can actually stand in. And so I remember walking to the front of this ship and I sat there and I was just like thinking and replaying every conversation that we'd had. And, you know, at this point, if I was in New York, I would have gone to a bar with my friend and be like, yeah, whatever, you know, it's all her fault him and just sort of moved on. But I sitting there and I was like, you know what? Maybe she's right. Maybe we do need to be more social. Maybe she has told me maybe I didn't listen. And I remember walking back and going back to the room and saying, I'm sorry. You know, you're probably right. And there is something about- and she said back to me, I'm sorry. And we just kind of like decided at that point, you know, that we kind of turned a corner. And I really believe it's because of the isolation and because we were stuck in a small space with nowhere but our thoughts and our conversation with each other. And we landed in Liverpool two days later and we checked ourselves into a four star hotel, the nicest thing we could possibly find. And I think we went to a movie, Mission Impossible or something. And then we flew back the next day and we decided on the way back that we were just going to just be together.

MG: Liz is listening. Liz, good morning.

LIZ: Hi.

MG: That's quite a story. Why did you decide it was a good idea to buy these tickets to get on the cargo ship in the first place?

LIZ: Well, you know, Dev has made it seem like this amazing romantic voyage. You know, he said, I want to be able to experience the way my grandparents travelled, to note the distance of the sea in my bones. And so it sounded really fun to me. And I'm also a really literal person. So when he texted me cargo ship question mark, I didn't realise he was joking. So I just booked it because I thought we were actually going.

MG: Was the tiny room that smelled like sewage and diesel, was is it as nasty as as Dev's suggested?

LIZ: It was even worse.

MG: Even worse.

LIZ: Bad fluorescent lighting pouring down on us. And I just you know, we arrived into a room after all this anticipation and we looked at each other. And in a romantic comedy, it would have been the moment to kiss. But I don't even think we could do it because it was just such a, you know, sterile circumstance. So we just kind of sat down on our individual beds and unpacked our belongings.

MG: What about that day eight, when things get a little tense and dev- storms off to wherever he could go on the ship to have his moment? You're there in the room. What was going through your mind?

LIZ: Well, it was especially worse because we were meant to dock on day nine, but because of some problems at the port, we couldn't dock until we were going to be about two days late. Now, remember, just, you know, we weren't even moving at this point. We're just waiting to go in. And so at this point, it hasn't been any Wi-Fi. You know, we don't have any phone access. There are hardly any other people there. And so it wasn't just our argument, but it was also just being in the space, not being able to leave. That was so frustrating. And, you know, I thought from the beginning, I thought at the end of this, we're either going to be broken up or we're gonna know this is the real thing. And I kind of thought, I guess this is the moment where I find out.

MG: Was a part of you thinking, I've made a terrible mistake. I'm on a cargo ship with a guy that I haven't really known that long. Maybe we don't like each other. And maybe this is not such a good idea.

LIZ: Yes, definitely. And you just have all that time to think about those questions because you don't have anyone to talk to you. So I was doing the same thing in the room. But then when he came back, me apologized and we talked it out and we realised, okay, this is a person who I can work through arguments with and I can be with because that's a huge part of relationships as well.

MG: And now you're engaged.

LIZ: Now we are engaged.

DEV AUJLA: Now we're engaged. And at my parents house in Victoria, BC, in isolation, again.

MG: Has isolation on the ship, giving you some tips and better understanding as to how to be isolated, back on land, Dev?

DEV AUJLA: Yes, well, you know, like funny cause we packed up everything and all our belongings in 24 hours in New York. And it was the sooner they started doing it and getting everything in one bag and heading for the airport. It was like, that was our conversation. You know, I was like, well, you know what? This can't be that bad. It's definitely any better than two single beds in a metal room in the middle of the sea. And we can do this. We've done it before. And let's go to see what happens on the other side. And you know, it really did have the same feeling. And we just know we can do it.

MG: Liz, if Dev comes back to you with some sort of other, he says politely, hairbrained scheme are you got it. Take it as literally as you did in getting on the ship?

LIZ: No, you. We've actually gotten to a nice rhythm now that, you know, we have been living together and we're engaged where every time he has, he's full of really amazing ideas like let's back pack to South America. Let's take the trade Trans-Siberian Railroad. I always say, is this a now plan or is this a five year plan?

MG: It's a great story and it worked out wonderfully. Congratulations and thank you. And stay safe.

DEV AUJLA: Thank you.

MG: Dev Aujla is a writer and Start-Up consultant, usually based in New York City. We reached him and his fiancee, Liz Tran in Victoria, British Columbia. You might think that social distancing isn't exactly ideal for falling in love, but might be just the time for watching other people try to find love.

SOUNDCLIP

Hi, I'm Richard and I'm 30 years old and I'm here quarantiend in San Francisco and I'm excited to be the first bachelor on the Quarantine Bachelor Show.

MG: Our buddy Richard there as part of a new quarantine dating show on Instagram. It's called Sheltered in ve and it is something.

SOUNDCLIP

Hi, guys. I'm Kenzie. I'm 23 years old and I'm currently quarantined in Reno, Nevada. I'm super excited to start and experience. Some things you should know about me are that I'm super competitive and really outgoing. I'm looking for someone that shares these same qualities and also has a great sense of humour.

MG: And it turns out that thousands of people are tuning in to see contestants like these go on virtual dates.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: All right. I wanted to say something. First and foremost, I noticed you went to Utah.

VOICE 2: I did. Yes.

VOICE 1: I lived ten years in Salt Lake City. My dad, my uncle. They're all still there.

VOICE 2: No way. That's so cool. I love Salt Lake. It's like my favourite place in the world.

VOICE 1: Really?

VOICE 2: Yes. My little sister, actually lives there.

MG: The show even has a classic rose ceremony. But instead of the lucky chosen one getting offered a rose in this show, they get a roll of toilet paper because these are the times we live in.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: So, if possible, final row, McKenzie, would you accept my row to go on a date with me after the quarantine.

VOICE 2: I will. Yes. Of course.

MG: The quarantine dating show is starting its third season. You should keep in mind that a season only takes a week just like everything else these days. Time is kind of an abstract concept. Tyler Cohen is a Stand-Up comedian and one of the creators of the show. Tyler, good morning.

TYLER COHEN: Good morning. How are you doing?

MG: Well, I'm okay. How exactly does Sheltered in Love work? We got a little taste of it there.

TYLER COHEN: Sure, Sheltered in Love works by having one main contestant every week on our show who we hope to match with their perfect person for the quarantine. We call them a quaran-couple, if you will.

MG: Quaran-couple.

TYLER COHEN: That's right. Over the course of a season that we introduce this person to five great contestants and have them go on rounds of speed date, meet and greet and eventually through two ceremonies where people are eliminated so that eventually they wind up with the right person.

MG: Tell me where the idea for this came from.

TYLER COHEN: That's the big question. I was actually on a live dating show in New York City before I moved over to San Francisco, and I thought the concept of doing a date live in front of an audience on a stage was so fascinating that I wanted to start a similar show in California when I got there. And once I started my new job, I met my co-founder Jimmy, and we started planning for this live dating show. We had all the venues set up. We had everything ready to go. And right before we were going to launch the shelter in place and the quarantine worldwide happened and we thought that we were going to have to wait for who knows how long before we could start the show together. Until he gave me a call one day that we should do this on Instagram. I think it would work.

MG: Why would that be a good idea to go on a blind date, on a stage in front of an audience?

TYLER COHEN: That's a good question, too. I find that typically with dating shows, you're only seeing celebrities interact on these dating shows. These hyper attractive and sort of out of touch with reality people like kind of drumming up this drama on these dating shows that are wildly popular and you never really get a chance to see regular people go on a date. In fact, the only regular people you see go on a date are you and the person you're on a date with, usually. And when I was on this live show in New York, I realised that it is fascinating to watch normal people on a stage, on a date, because you put yourself in those situations and it feels real.

MG: What was it like being on a blind date in front of a live audience?

TYLER COHEN: Nerve wracking. Definitely vulnerable. But it's kind of cool because all those moments that you have a really smooth line or a funny joke you want to say on a date. Imagine doing it and then a room of people laughing or applauding. It's hilarious.

MG: And the laughter could be not like that they think it's funny, that they think it's ridiculous and they're laughing at you, not with you.

MG: But you've got to roll with the punches, you're doing something ridiculous as well.

MG: And so on this show, what's it like for you to watch these interactions on these videotapes as people try to figure out each other virtually?

TYLER COHEN: Yes, so in Sheltered in Love. I find it fascinating to watch real connections emerge from an online date. I mean, we're using Zoom meeting connections and and watching people like start to really form a bond with one another. And I think that that's fascinating to see it, to see that that's possible. Something I didn't think was even remotely possible before we had started the show and then just watching these dates unfold in real, meaningful ways. In fact, the first two seasons we had, those couples are still talking daily and they've even gone on hikes together and have plans to meet up in person after quarantine.

MG: Is it important for you to say that real meaningful ways? Because people could dismiss this and say, well, come on, they're not meeting face to face and none of this is actually going to amount to anything, once we get out of the quarantine that we're in.

TYLER COHEN: Yes, I think it is important to clarify that these are meaningful connections because we started this as a silly wage, entertain people in a positive light during a very tense time. And it turned out to be something that in both seasons has worked in a meaningful way to develop a real relationship with people who are still talking everyday with one another and hope to get that real in-person first date. So I think it's important to point out that it's actually working. And the truth and myself and Jimmy, the two co-founders, were just as surprised as the thousands of people tuning in.

MG: Why do you think people are tuning in? I mean, it's shows like this. You think it seems like it was in another lifetime ago. But at the beginning of the quarantine, people were starting to watch Love Island and things like that and kind of bringing all of that. Why is it that these shows now are really popular do you think?

TYLER COHEN: Well, I think it's with the time with direct commentary on how dating is right now and so many people I know about - and we're getting stories told to us after we started the show. So many people are going on these first dates over face time or over resume. And and the whole dating landscape has shifted where that is now the only way you can start to meet people and form a connection. So I think watching other people do it through our show helps normalise that a little bit and get a little bit of an example for what that date would look like and how much fun it can be.

MG: Your day job is as a Stand-Up comedian or, you know, becoming some sort of relationship consultant on the side.

TYLER COHEN: As a stand up comedian, that my hobby, actually. My day job. I work at Yelp right now. But yes, I would say that we're getting pretty good at playing matchmaker. And I would love for a future where I can do more of that full time.

MG: Tyler, good luck. Congratulations. Thank you.

TYLER COHEN: Thank you so much, Matt, I appreciate it. Cheers.

MG: Cheers. Tyler Cohn is a Stand-Up comedian. He's also the co-founder and co-producer of the Instagram dating show Sheltered in Love. He was in New York City. Instagram dating shows aren't the only way that we're looking to connect with each other these days. How about this?

SOUNDCLIP

DAVID KEEGAN: Hi, my name is David Keegan. I'm a family doctor based at the Cummings School of Medicine at the University of Calgary. A week ago, I was picking up some groceries at Costco and you had to line up to get in. And what started out as a nice brisk breeze became just really cold. And so I did some lunges to warm myself up. And then I thought, hey, let's do a group workout. I turned to the lady behind me, Maureen, and said, what do you think? She said, Sounds great. So then I called out and then said, hey, we're in this Line-Up, let's do a workout together.

[From line up] Two. Three. Five. Six.

DAVID KEEGAN: So I led them in squats, some lunges, some good core activity and some stretches and other things, making sure to give my guidance about how to do these exercises, right, to prevent injury and so on.

[From line up] Give your shoulders back, keeping your torso upright so you want your feet apart.

DAVID KEEGAN: And it was fantastic. People just snapped, right. They were just game to go. And it was cool that in the space of like a second that people went from a cold and feeling maybe a bit miserable to warm and happy and not just warm in temperature. It was just a great time.

[From line up] Six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

DAVID KEEGAN: Now, when I workout, holy cow, I have a whole bunch of different songs that I love. I guess the one that is guaranteed to get me jumping around and happy no matter was to be Run Runaway by Great Big Sea for my home land. Take care.

[Song]

MG: Big tune for a big workout. Thank you, David Keegan, for that. We were asking for stories of joy, things that have brought you a little bit of light in what has been a difficult time. This from Marian Freeman in Vancouver, who writes Yesterday, As we walked in our neighbourhood, we saw a fun site, young boy, maybe 8 or 9 years old, who had invented a one man baseball game. He stood at home plate, face the backboard, threw up the softball, hit it as hard as he could, and then ran after it. He was very good at it, hitting the ball each time. So at least it was a base hit. We gave MCV high five and a smile and continued on our tour of Spring Gardens. That from Marian Freeman in Vancouver. This from Marie Bishop from Paradise, Newfoundland, who writes, So here in paradise. I feel so fortunate to live in a neighbourhood surrounded by my siblings back in the day. My dad bought some land and gave us each a plot as we married off. We call it the compound. We used to all hang out together on the weekends until now. So my brother decided a great way to be social and distant would be to do a video chat bingo game on the weekend. We call it hillbilly bingo. $5 for three cards. All proceeds going to a local charity. It's a fun way to connect. Something to look forward to. And a small weekly donation to the gathering place. I hope everyone is staying home and staying safe. That from Marie Bishop in Paradise, Newfoundland. We're dedicating today a special show to things that bring, as I say, a little bit of joy into your life. These are tricky times and it's hard to process all of this. This week in particular has been really hard for so many people. Within that difficulty, though, there are opportunities for joy and for light. And so that's what we're shining the spotlight on. This morning, we'd love to hear from you if you have suggestions. A story of something that has brought you some joy. Tell us the best thing that's happened to you this week. You can let us know through the Web site, cbc.ca/thecurrent. Click on the contact link. Twitter @TheCurrentCBC or it's the email at thecurrent@cbc.ca. Coming up. It's spring in some parts of this country, less so in other parts of the country. Grab your gloves, topsoil, travel. The gardening guru Ed Lawrance will join us. That's in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway. This is a special edition of The Current. Stay with us.

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Gardening, Sesame Street, Raptors DJ

Guests: Ed Lawrence, Leslie Carrara-Rudolph, Abby Cadabby, 4Korners

[clip] [/clip]

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. One of the perennial joys in life is perennials. Annuals to flower power is an expression for a reason. Many of you will agree. Carol Williams of Victoria, B.C., wrote us to say, While walking my dog around a neighbourhood in Gordon Head, I noticed a sign in the front garden of a home expecting it to be' stay off the grass or don't pick the flowers. Instead, the sign said, Please help yourself to the daffodils. We have plenty. It made my day. Abigail Fisher Lang wrote us this from North Vancouver. I have a large camellia bush and have been clipping the blossoms, tying them into little nose gaze and placing them out front in a basket with a handwritten sign. Camellias for you and a friend. Help yourself. My street has lots of passers by, and I was surprised at how many people picked them up and even left. Thank you notes. I have met so many neighbours who stopped to chat, socially distanced, and it's been such a tonic. How such a simple gesture can make such a difference. These are things that we are highlighting today, things that bring us a bit of joy in a difficult time. Ed Lawrence knows a thing or two about happiness and the happiness the gardens can bring. He's an author, gardening expert on CBC Ontario, today's Gardening phone-in show. He's also the former chief horticultural specialist at the Governor-General's residence and other official residences in Ottawa. Ed Lawrence, good morning.

ED LAWRENCE: Good morning, Matt. Nice to meet you on radio, finally.

MG: I listened and, you know, I'll be honest, thought about calling in, but I thought maybe that would be impolite given that I work here. But I will ask you a question a bit later on this time of the year when it's spring in some parts of the country and perhaps less so in others. How much joy do you get from this time of the year as a gardener?

ED LAWRENCE: Oh, goodness. Watching the crocus pop up, that's like, it brings light into our our souls and just seeing the change, not just the cultivated things, but, you know, along the roadside, seeing where somebody once upon a time threw in some day lilies that the green like pale green sprouts are coming along. And not only get out on the roadsides too much, but I've been the designated chopper sort of in our house. So I do get to see up and down the line. That and the fact that, you know, the sprouts coming along, I have garlic that popped up all easily a month ago. As soon as the snow was gone, it was there. The snow came again. It stayed there. I mean, and the tones, the tents and shades of green that we live with now, we don't see for the rest of the year.

MG: In these difficult times, what do you think gardening can bring to somebody?

ED LAWRENCE: Oh, boy. It's a it's joy. It's a Zen activity. It is as good as a meditation because in and of itself it is a meditation. You're concentrating on something. You're getting in touch with yourself and the soil, be it in a pot, on a balcony or on the ground, actually digging and working in that soil. There is a smell there. It's very tactile. There's a feel to it. There's the joy, that miracle of putting a seed in the ground and coming back and seeing that something has popped out of that. Apparently an earth little ball, a hard ball of seed you had has suddenly become a sprout. A friend sent me an email with a photo the other day of his grandson transplanting some sunflower seeds. It looked like maybe bird seed that the young lad had sprouted in a pot. But just looking at it, it warms my heart, you know? If you put a child's hands in the soil, the miracle is that the kid will grow. And let them get their hands in the soil. It's even better. They never forget it. It will stay with them all their lives and the growth inside of coming in contact with the earth. We live on that. We walk on daily and seeing it from a different perspective. And the perspective is get your hands in. I mean, mud pies are good for us.

MG: If somebody wants to spend some of this time gardening for the first time and they've no idea where to start, what's the first thing, the first piece of advice that you would give him?

ED LAWRENCE: Oh, boy. Kiss. Keep it simple, silly. You're a starter. And starters like you don't jump into the deep end. Get a few things that you like. Grow flowers that you like that are simple, preferably. I mean, if you start with success, you will continue if you start with the esoteric things and don't really know your way around what you're doing with them. You're going to have problems, obviously. Grow something to eat. It'll keep your interest high. And it's important that we produce and eat our own food locally. This is a start.

MG: There might be people who think you need to have a plot of land or a backyard or something like that to be able to get going. So many of us live in vertical communities now in apartments and condos, and they don't have access to the back garden. What can they do?

ED LAWRENCE: Vertical gardening is great fun. What you can do, get something a large well, as large as you wanted go so you can get a planter box. You can make a planter box on your garden. The bigger you make, it means the more hauling you have to do to get the soilless mix to the planter. And I say soilless mix because you don't want to put extra weight on the balcony unknowingly causing damage in some cases. Not that the condos aren't well built and drawn, boy, at that kind of height. You want something stable if you're up higher make sure it's attached so that in wild wind storms it's not going to fly off and do crazy damage. Use this soilless mix. It's easier. It's neater to get up there, soak it well, level it off if you want to skip the stage. And you know, for beginners it's not a bad thing by some of the plants already started or by seedlings that have been started and plant those in rather than putting the seed in and waiting for it, which in itself is a great joy. However, if you don't have - now people have time right now. Yes, it's true - But if you don't have facility to put trays out inside and nurture things around in the warmth that the seedlings need to start with in order to get ahead of the game to be growing when the sun is up and out of it, it's better if you can buy some of the plants and start that way. Right now, we're 28 days or four weeks away from the 22nd of May, which is the start of the May 2 4 weekend. That's usually the frost free date forests in southern Ontario. We know that's flexible. It can change. But as a target, you've got four weeks to get seeds going now to be able to put them out frost free after. You can always covered things, if there's going to be a frost.

MG: Just a few seconds left, it would be rude to have the great Ed Lowrance on the line and not ask him a question. Is there anything I can do to increase the size of the fruit on my wild raspberry bushes?

ED LAWRENCE: When's the last time you gave them anything to eat?

MG: That's a good question.

ED LAWRENCE: Okay, compost is all they need, put an inch or two, five centimetres of compost around under the bushes does two things, as it rains and the microbes in the soil start picking it up, you feed the soil, it'll feed the plants. But having that layer across the top also is holding the moisture in. That gives them a much better life. Cool their feet and give them that moisture. Hold it in with the compost that is feeding them. You're ahead of the game and they're going to get bigger as you go. The key is there's not so much nitrogen that you'll stimulate leaf growth at the expense of having no fruit. I mean, your lovely emerald green leaves are great on St. Patrick's Day, but on fruit bearing plants, you want the fruit. So not too much nitrogen and compost gives you that balance.

MG: Ed, I could talk to you all morning. In the meantime, happy gardening. It's a great pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you.

ED LAWRENCE: Oh, thank you so much, Matt. Monday on CBC, we're gonna be looking at sources of seeds and what to do to start. So 12 o'clock start of the show.

MG: Excellent. Thank you. Ed Laurence's the gardening expert on CBC Ontario today gardening phone-in show. He's the former chief horticultural specialist at the Governor-General's residence and other official residences in Ottawa. This is a special edition of The Current on CBC Radio One. We're talking about things that bring us joy. I'm Matt Galloway Tom Powers, host of Q. Hello, Tom.

TOM POWER: Matt, here's a question for you. How do you how do you get the berries on your wild raspberry bush to grow?

MG: Well, according to Ed, you'd need a little bit of compost.

TP: You can't have Ed Lawrence on the program and not ask him a question. Here's, I think a follow up, though. How do you do it under five feet of snow?

MG: Yes. Spring is coming. Spring is coming in some parts of the country sooner rather than others, it seems. I like to believe it.

TP: How are you, man? What what a joyful show this is today.

MG: This is about trying to give people, as I say, there is one of our guests yesterday was talking about this. She was from Nova Scotia and she said that there's still beauty and love in the world, despite a lot of the really bad news that people are absorbing right now. And that's kind of what we're showcasing in spotlighting this morning.

TP: Well, I'm excited. Later on in The Current today, I'm going to be talking to Jonathan Torrance in Nova Scotia about just about that about how east coasters tend to deal with grief and loss at a time like this. And right now, I want to show you another kind of joyful story. So you're Sesame Street kind of guy, Matt?

MG: Absolutely.

TP: Sesame Street, new special, Elmo, Grover, Cookie Monster and Abby Cadabby, who's the new hit Sesame Street Muppet. And they've been trying to figure out new ways to play together while keeping their social distance. So I spoke to Leslie Carrara Rudolph, the woman behind Abby Cadabby, to talk about how Sesame Street is talking to children and talking to them about COVID-19 and how they pulled off a singalong with Lin-Manuel Miranda. And also, man, if that wasn't joyful enough. Yes. Abby Cadabby dropped by to take a listen.

SOUNDCLIP

TP: Leslie, welcome to the show.

LESLIE CARRERA-RUDOLPH: Thank you, Tom. Hello, everyone.

TP: How did you guys decide how you were going to tackle this thing? How did you guys decide the tone you were going to take in talking about COVID-19?

LESLIE CARRERA-RUDOLPH: I think we're about modelling, you know, behaviour. And, you know, we take our characters from the point of view of a child like at age four, you know, Elmo and Rosita. And they're part of a community. So they you know, we're community there. So when these kids are of the quarantine, we really take it from a character point of view and how they're feeling about it. And we've all tackled feelings. You know, Abby's from a divorced family was you get dealt a lot with military outreach. We've done kids with incarceration. We've had, I've had a mother who has experienced food insecurity and homelessness. We always start from the heart. I know that sounds kind of corny, but that's where we have our emotions and our feelings. So we really have to get inside what our characters are feeling and remembering that they're friends with the world and their community. So I think we just started with our own truth of how we feel and how kids feel and try our best to give us circumstance. And we had this world circumstance put ourselves out there and just say, gosh, no, I'm feeling these things. You're not alone. Here's how I'm going through it. And give a child a voice.

TP: We're going to play a clip from Abby Cadabby right now. But I'm thinking of her listeners who are maybe unfamiliar with her. Can you briefly just tell us what she's like?

ABBY CADABBY: Wow. I'm right here, Tom.

LESLIE CARRERA-RUDOLPH: Abby I got this.

ABBY CADABBY: Whatever. Hi everyone. Well, I'm a [unintelligible], I'm in forward and that I live with my family and I have grandparents and grown people, that helps me be the best that I can be. And they were just the most powerful [unintelligible]. Okay.

LESLIE CARRERA-RUDOLPH: Thank you. All right.

TP: Thank you, Abby, very much, very much appreciate it, Abby. Thanks for getting in there.

LESLIE CARRERA-RUDOLPH: That was nice. But in reality, Abby, I loved her because I grew up with very [unintelligible] grandparents and all these things, and she comes from the world where it's very much in nature and science and animals and fairy tales and, you know, may you make mistakes, but then have the resilience to keep trying, get things right. So she's trying. Like for me, a post between Gracie Allen and Daffy's Duck and Barney. She's a go getter. I feel like Abby is the world's puppy dog. You know, she's always wants to play with you. She's happy and she's so full of love.

TP: I want to play a clip of Abby talking about how she's dealing with her own stressful feelings during this time. Take a listen.

SOUNDCLIP

ABBY CADABBY: I can just give myself a hug. Self hug. And it's really nice to hold myself real tight. Then I take a deep breath and I feel comforted. Well, if you're having those feelings, too, you give yourself a nice big hug.

TP: I was just talking the other day to Gary, the Unicorn, who's a very kind of famous unicorn in Canada on CBC Kids. Do you know Gary?

LESLIE CARRERA-RUDOLPH: Yes, I do.

TP: Gary is also giving e-hugs or virtual hugs at this time. You know, what does it mean for you to be able to kind of reach out and help kids and teach them how to hug their friends during this time where they might be stuck inside?

LESLIE CARRERA-RUDOLPH: It's big question. I know it sounds pretty simple, but when a lot of it is just sometimes you feel like you are alone in how you're feeling and when you physically put your arms around you and you hug yourself and you think of the people in your life that you love and being able to physically do that and take a deep breath and calm yourself, you know, knowing that those thoughts are coming from a place of love, like hug around your heart to make them pay for love. And a lot of times when we put content or we show modelling on Sesame Street with our characters, it's just an opportunity not just for the kids, but for the caregivers or the parents to witness how a child feel. And it's an open door for them to be able to talk to them and play with them, but just gauge how they're feeling. That best thing being expressed for a lifetime, the things that we're doing aren't just for the kids, but they're for the parents. Now, I don't know if I answered the question. I'm kind of shy about this because I'm truly humbled to be able to be a part of Sesame Street who's working so hard to help children through this humanity with kindness.

TP: I can tell you and you've been answering them beautifully. Can we talk about that special on TV last week, Sesame Street Elmo's playdate? Tell me a little bit about the idea behind the special and getting to work with Muppets from so far away.

LESLIE CARRERA-RUDOLPH: Oh, well, you know what? We are such a tight family, you know, and we have such huge respect for each other. We all have the same. There's no question where everybody's heart and their mission is, you know. So we're like, we have all this trust between us. What was weird with the technology, you know, we had each other in our ear so we could listen to like a Zoom some Elmo so we couldn't see each other. I think that is true artistry, because you have to really listen and key and go person part in such an intense way could normally we're right next to each other when we're performing. We've been that many years been in each other's arms. You get to know each other's heart and rhythm. And I think it's really a testament to all the incredible performers on Sesame Street. You know that we are able to do that.

TP: Speaking of being far away from another, I want to play this. So this is all the Muppets, including your character, Abby Cadabby, your co-pilot, Abby Cadabby, checking in with each other by video call. Take a listen to this.

SOUNDCLIP

ABBY CADABBY: Did somebody say crafts?

ELMO: No body said crafts, Abby.

ABBY CADABBY: I just wanted to share something I made. Isn't it cute. I made a platypus out of a paper bag. I used construction paper for the flippers and then I used pens for the eyes. Isn't it cute? His name's Bruce.

TP: That is Abby Cadabby showing Elmo her paper bag, Platypus. Before we go forward.

LESLIE CARRERA-RUDOLPH: Foresee my love, perhaps, on people.

TP: You sneak it in. For people who are home right now. Maybe kids right home might be thinking about putting on their own shows. Right now, they're their own puppet shows or their own Muppet shows, their own little sketches. What do you say to them?

LESLIE CARRERA-RUDOLPH: I say go for it. I think right now the arts are truly offering talent and also to when a kid makes a puppet character, then they're making a friend just an extension of themselves. And I think the arts are how we collaborate with our spirit. So if I can't say something as me, maybe Abby can say it better, or another character that I had an extension of myself. So this is such a character defining moment for all of us, you know, and I'm just astounded by the humanity and the art. And, you know, the kindness as a superpower that's out there. And I'm honoured to be part of Sesame Street whose mission is that. So many other people right now are doing amazing, beautiful things. So lots of rainbows in the windows and in the hearts and in the music and in the artistry that's out in the world right now.

TP: Leslie, thank you so much. Say thanks to Abby.

ABBY CADABBY: Love and joy to all. Twinkle out.

MG: Twinkle out. Tom Powers speaking with Leslie Carrara-Rudolph, the woman behind Sesame Street's Abby Cadabby. We are spending this morning on The Current talking about joy. It's not a lot of joy for sports fans these days, especially if you are a Toronto Raptors fan things might sting a little extra. The NBA suspended its season right when the Toronto Raptors were in second place in the Eastern Conference. A lot of us crossing our fingers for another shot at the title. One person who might be missing the Raptors more than most is D.J. 4Korners. He's the official deejay for the Toronto Raptors. He's responsible for getting thousands and thousands of people dancing in their seats. And now he's not. 4Korners, good morning.

4KOURNERS: Good morning. How you doing?

MG: Well, I'm okay. What do you miss most about being at Raptors games?

4KOURNERS: I miss the energy, the absolute energy, playing music that many people. While the games are going on. I mean, you saw the playoffs last year. I mean, it was just coming around the corner when we were looking forward to that happening again. And we really, truly believe that we have the opportunity to win another chip with some more dip. And that's just not happening right now.

MG: What is that like? I mean, we've been in the stands. People have watched the games, perhaps. You're the guy who's kind of orchestrating the excitement in many ways. What is it like to be there in the arena with thousands and thousands of people and you play a tune and people lose their minds?

4KOURNERS: It's absolutely unreal. I mean, I've been deejaying in nightclubs and concerts and such for a really long time. But playing at the games is not the same thing. It's a different type of energy. It's like people of all walks of life, young or old, every nationality and we're all joined by the love of sport and the love of our team. And when I drop the right record and everybody goes crazy, it's like I can't even describe how it feels.

MG: What did it feel like to be there in the heart of that championship run?

4KOURNERS: You know what? People have been asking me that question for almost a year, and I still can't describe it quite, quite how I felt in words. It was just such an incredible experience. The whole ride, like it was it wasn't even just one moment. It was a series of moments for like two and a half months. And it just kept elevating and elevating and watching not just the city, but the entire country and the people around the world joining with us. And everybody was just on that. We the north movement. It was a crazy, crazy time. I'll never forget it.

MG: And so now it's not happening. And as you mentioned, the team was in a great spot, surprising a lot of people with a lock in the playoffs. And who knows where this team would have gone. What are you doing now?

4KOURNERS: Well, I know where it would've gone. We're going to win another [unintelligible].

MG: I like it. I like your confidence.

4KOURNERS: I don't know if you remember last year when we spoke. I called it.

MG: You did indeed.

4KOURNERS: We were going to win. I said it called it from October. So I really felt like we were going to win it again. In the meantime, like I'm at home, I just watched a lot of reruns of the games from last year's playoffs like a lot of Canadians did. I've been playing music and doing the livestream nights and just that's on social media and I've been recording music from my home studio pretty much and eating a lot.

MG: Like all of us, put on putting on the COVID-15.

4KOURNERS: Well, I see my girlfriend and I, we're locked in here together and we just started working out yesterday. She's been a gym person, but I'm not at all about the gym. But I mean, if there's ever been a time, now's the time.

MG: Do you find a lot of us are reassessing things that maybe we took for granted in what we're calling the before times. Are you thinking differently about something like sports? Sports is a distraction, a diversion from from some of the big news and the heavy news of the day. But it means a lot to people who are thinking about it differently now. Now that you can't watch it, now that you can't be part of it.

4KOURNERS: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I've been watching basketball my entire life. I've been playing basketball my entire life. I've been the Raptors deejay for fifteen sees it. And at this time of year, it feels really strange to not have that as part of my day. And I know it's affecting so many people. I'm watching like people are speaking about how the [unintelliglbe] is going to be coming back and people who do not watch golf or like I'm going to watch because I need some sports. I watch anything right now. So like, we're really we're really missing.

MG: In the absence of a season resuming. The Raptors are still the defending NBA champions, right?

4KOURNERS: We'll see. That's the thing. That's the one silver lining on all of this is however long with happens, we're still the champs the entire time. So I'll be wearing my ring until somebody dethroned us.

MG: You have the ring?

4KOURNERS: I have a ring. Yes.

MG: It is heavy and diamond filled as it looks on television.

4KOURNERS: It's pretty friggin obnoxious.

MG: You don't have a packed arena, but you have an audience coast to coast to coast and you've got a tune for Raptors fans who are missing their team and missing their sport to get up and dance at home. You said it.

4KOURNERS: Yes, absolutely. This record is my most, it's a record that I put out actually in February. So just before the lockout and it was made with the intention of us speaking about the playoffs and how we're going to be coming in hot because we're not laying down. We're going to win this championship again. And then this happens. I flip it. I feel like now it's for when we get out of quarantine. We're going to hit the streets, hit the stadiums, hit the world really, really hard. And everyone is coming in hot when we leave. So this song is called Coming In High.

MG: 4Korners.

4KOURNERS: Thank you. Take care.

MG: D.J., 4Korners. Jay Bazaar. And cheerio. It's Coming in Hot.

SOUNDCLIP

[Song]

MG: Coming up on The Current, a special edition about Joy. Measha Brueggergosman will be here. We'll also be giving you a little bit of homework, creative writing workshop. You get to write the story. Details to come. I'm Matt Galloway. This is a special edition of The Current. Stay with us.

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Pandemic University, Stargazing

Guests: Omar Mouallem, Nathalie Ouellette

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

MG: Today, we are serving up a bit of a tonic for all the bad news. Bringing you some stories to soothe and lift your spirits, talking about the things that bring joy to our lives in these difficult times. We will look to the skies and gaze at the stars. But first, we're off to Pandemic University to enrol in a joyful, creative writing class for these dark days.

[Music: Theme]

MG: While COVID-19 has been wreaking havoc on most universities, sending them scrambling to move academic life online, one has been inspired by these times that we are in. It's called Pandemic University. The pop-up school of writing opened its virtual doors last week. Omar Mouallem is the freelance writer behind the venture. He is in Edmonton. Omar, good morning.

OMAR MOUALLEM: Good morning, MATT.

MG: How's school been so far?

OMAR MOUALLEM: Oh, it's going it's going swimmingly, actually. We're nearing three hundred and fifty students.

MG: What is Pandemic University?

OMAR MOUALLEM: It's a suite of virtual creative writing classes, so everything from screenwriting to true crime, mystery to narrative non-fiction and writing that book proposal that you've been kicking down the road for, you know, God knows how long. So I am very lucky. I was able to recruit 10 insanely talented writers from around the world, all of them with a connection to Canada. And yes, we're offering these classes and you can come in and learn from a master.

MG: Tell me a little bit more about why this was created. These are a difficult and confusing times for so many of us. And as I mentioned, universities, colleges, elementary schools, secondary schools have all been turned upside down by this time. Why did you want to create something like this?

OMAR MOUALLEM: Well, I mean, it started with a very practical reason. I'm a I'm a freelance writer. And, you know, very quickly into the pandemic, I just saw my my work disappear. I saw contracts get cancelled or indefinitely put on hiatus. I mean, you know, these were were very important. This was very important income for me, and I was talking with other writers and they were seeing the same thing or they were seeing situations where they were unable to tour their books or even really market their books, because people don't want to talk about much else other than COVID-19 or they were really busy because of the ad rates or rather because advertising has dried up so quickly in publishing that fees that they've been getting paid have just been slashed significantly. And so it's a tough time for a lot of industries, one of them is especially publishing and journalism, and independent writers often have to bear the brunt of that. So this was you know, it was just thought of as a way that we can, you know, have some small supportive income. Sell our expertise online using Zoom, because that's where everybody is right now. But it seems to have inspired something else that seems to have inspired a lot of people to get behind writers and supporting them and also to get behind that creative project that they've been putting off for way too long.

MG: Can you call - I don't know how this works. Can you call yourself a university.

OMAR MOUALLEM: You know, the one of the first things I did was check with Universities Canada and get their blessing, I guess. Let them know we are we are not claiming to be a degreed or accredited program. We are proudly unaccredited, in fact. And yes. So I guess we. We are pandemic university.

MG: It's official. That's fine.

OMAR MOUALLEM: It's official.

MG: The classes you mentioned, one of the really interesting titles to them. Quarantine is the best time to write that book proposal. Edge of Your Seat, Mastering Conflict and Tension, which a lot of people are dealing with these days. Writing from afar once. That's okay. Again, tell me a little bit about creating these courses, courses that seem very much to be tailored to the time that we're in.

OMAR MOUALLEM: Well, I mean, the titles are tailored to the times that we're in. It might it might seem ridiculous to to take out a travel writing class right now when when travel is like almost effectively illegal. But, you know, it will things will return. Things will go back to normal. And so, you know, we want people to look forward to have something positive to look forward to. But when recruiting, when recruiting the writers and when putting together the suite, I really just wanted to have as much variety as possible. And some of our more voracious students have taken all the different classes and some have just focussed on the non-fiction stuff or, you know, whatever it is that falls into their type of genre.

MG: Do you think that writing can help people get through this? We've been talking about joy and delight on the course of this morning, is this active, the activity of writing in the process of writing? Is it something you can actively change how people feel about the time that we're in?

OMAR MOUALLEM: I think so. I think so. And, you know, writing isn't always a happy act. I think it is always a you know, I think it is always a therapeutic act. And sometimes that's just what we need. Now, whether you're you know, you're working on a on a TV comedy pilot or you are writing about trauma. We have a class called Writing about trauma, including your own. I think that this is just something that is good for us right now if you have it in yourself to be creative. And I know that thousands and thousands of Canadians right now don't necessarily have that creative energy because they have loved ones in the hospital. They are mourning loved ones. And that, you know, that's understandable. But, you know, for for a lot of us, we're just cooped up at home. We know we're doing the right thing, but we're bored. And I mean, I got pretty, I got bored pretty quickly. And, you know, I was just spending maybe way too much time playing addictive puzzle games on my phone. I dabbled in some things. I made cinnamon buns. I dabbled in making an experimental horror movie with my toddler. And then I just needed a new project, some somewhere to put my, maybe it's just my nervous energy, somewhere to put my focus. And for me, that Pandemic University and I hope for a lot of people listening, that will be whatever creative writing project they want to take up.

MG: You have a lot of creative energy, clearly. Oh, I'd be curious to see the horror movie that you made with your toddler. In the meantime, when you launched this, what was the reaction like not just from the writing community and you talked a bit about them, but from the general public. What was the reaction like?

OMAR MOUALLEM: I mean, I've just been so overwhelmed by the positivity it's inspired. We've had six anonymous donors. And by that I mean that six people have purchased a full enrolment take that which is about 140 dollars Canadian so that someone else can take these 14 classes that we offer. It's really made, and we've been able to offer them to new journalism graduates who are struggling to get into the industry. People who've recently been laid off or seen their work disappear. We gave a couple of these, let's call them scholarships to writers, refugee writers and the Pen Canada Writers in Exile program. It's just it's, I don't know. It's amazing to see just this wild idea turned into something that means so much more to people than I could have imagined. And beautifully, we've been able to raise some money for the Canadian Writers Trust Emergency Relief Fund as well. So we've raised a thousand dollars so far and we've got another fund raiser coming up in the coming weeks.

MG: These are, it's a sign that I mean, there's a lot of good that's out there and people want to be involved and people want to be connected, even though we really can't be connected in the ways that we're used to being tied together.

OMAR MOUALLEM: I think so. I think so.

MG: There's a class that goes by the title of Like Disaster! And there's an exclamation mark at the end, which is why I said it that way. It's taught by the public and critic Michael Lista, who wrote a little something for us. This is the beginning of a story. And I say the beginning of the story because we want listeners to try to finish the story. Have a listen to the beginning.

SOUNDCLIP

The girl threw the cup with the string attached to the neighbour boy. She'd made a telephone that was just for them and had a cup of her own that she could talk to the boy through. The cup landed on the boy's bedroom window sill. Their parents had grounded them both, but she could still see him in his blue room with his Mickey Mouse clock on the wall. And she would wave and he would wave back. Sometimes he would dress up as Superman just for himself, and the girl would see him in his blue suit and his red cape and thought that he looked sad and brave. They used to play in the willow tree on their street, swinging from its long sweep branches and laughing until the street lights would come on and their moms would call them home. The cup landed with a thump. The boy opened his window and put the cup to his ear. The girl pulled the line tight, almost tugging him out onto the laneway. Her voice travelled like a song over the string. I want to tell you something, she said.

MG: It's Mike Lista with the beginning of a short, very short story that we are hoping our audience could finish for us. We want them to finish up in a minute or less, not some sort of 15 hundred page epic, but an end to that. That would be in a minute or less. Do you have any tips on how somebody would do that, Omar?

OMAR MOUALLEM: Oh, my God. I'm just hearing that for the first time. And it it's so beautiful. Did you have any tips? You know, I think just just go with your gut. Just imagine those two wonderful children and imagine their world as you see it and go with it. I just I can't wait to see all the different worlds that these two kids are going to live in.

MG: I want to tell you something and then know the whole universe could open up. And of course, people have to describe that universe in a minute or less. This is such a great initiative and I wish you the best of luck. Omar, thank you.

OMAR MOUALLEM: Thank you. And thanks for doing some happy news today.

MG: Cheers. Omar Mahlum is a freelance writer and the founder of the Pandemic University. He was in Edmonton. So your task is to finish the story if you need to hear the beginning again. We've posted it on Twitter @TheCurrentCBC. Now, you don't have to be on Twitter. You just have to look in your search engine and put @TheCurrentCBC. You'll find our account there and you can click and you can hear the beginning of that story. And then we want you to write the ending. No more than a minute long. If you can send us an audio recording of yourself reading it, great. Otherwise, send us the writing. You'll find our email address and the contact section of our website. Go to cbc.ca/thecurrent. On the web site is the link to the twitter feed as well so you can go there. And we want the conclusion to that story. Again, it doesn't need to be an epic. Needs to be the opposite of an epic a minute long. cbc.ca/thecurrent. The rest of the story is up to you. And now on the special edition of The Current in which we're talking about joy in difficult times. Look up way, way up. Things here on earth in the shadow of COVI-19, are pretty stressful, anxious and uncertain for all of us. There is serenity in the night sky, according to the UBC astrophysics professor Jaymie Matthews. We asked Jamie for his reflections on what is up there for us to see right now. He wrote this little essay for us. He's been recovering from a stroke. So our producer Samira Mohyeddin reads his words.

SOUNDCLIP

Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

How I wonder what you are.

Up above the world so high.

Like a diamond in the sky.

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star comes from a poem titled The Star, written by the English poet Jane Taylor in her book Rhymes for the Nursery in 1886. Star Light Star Bright is one of the most popular rhymes of all time. During your COVID-19 quarantine, you could use it to encourage kids to dream. So go outside and get a piece of starlight. On Monday, April 27, go out and look westward about 8:00 or 7:00 p.m. in Newfoundland, 8:15 p.m. in Toronto and 8:30 p.m. in Vancouver, the sun is set. You see the star, the only star in the sky. The star is about 25 to 30 degrees over the horizon. Only three widths of your hand at arm's length. It is not a star. It is a planet, Venus. The planet Venus will achieve its greatest illuminated extent. It is never brighter. When we see a stranger on the street, does he have the virus? And a stranger in the sky, maybe Venus has the symptoms of COVID19 fever. Fever is when a human's body temperature goes above the normal range of 36 to 37 degrees Celsius. Venus's temperature is 462 Celsius led would melt on the surface of the planet. Hot fever, cough, usually dry, shortness of breath. Venus's atmosphere is 96.5 Percent carbon dioxide. Went outside the home, keep two meters away from other people for the case of Venus. She is more than 68 million kilometres from Earth. More than 13600 millions of lengths of a mattress. You're okay, I think. If it's cloudy on Monday, wait for the next clear evening night for almost two weeks. Venus will be shining at her best in the sky before it sets. As your bright and tiny spark lights the traveller in the dark. Though I know not what you are. Twinkle, twinkle, little star. By the way, a planet like Venus does not twinkle. I'm sorry.

MG: Now, you know what to do on Monday, most of us are stuck at home, my next guest says that that is a perfect opportunity to learn more about the wonders of the night sky. Nathalie Ouellette is an astronomer at the University of Montreal. Natalie, good morning.

NATHALIE OUELLETTE: Good morning.

MG: When you look up at the sky with your trained eyes, knowing what you know, what do you see?

NATHALIE OUELLETTE: I do maybe seeing something a little bit different from someone who doesn't have an astrophysics background. When I look at the individual dots, whether they be planets or stars, I think about the physical processes that are powering them and how intense all of that energy is. But I do also try to take a step back and look at the whole thing together. I think that scientists can sometimes lose their wonderment of the objects that they're studying. But the night sky has been something that has been has fascinated me since I was a young girl. And I always try to reconnect with that young spirit and try to appreciate it the same way that anyone else can appreciate.

MG: I think we can all remember when we were kids and we'd lie on our backs. Whether you were in a city or whether you happened to be in the country and you'd look up and you'd see things, maybe you saw a source shooting star is awesome like go across or something like that. And you just kind of lost yourself and in your mind. What do you remember about about doing that when you were a kid?

NATHALIE OUELLETTE: So having grown up in Montreal, I didn't really have the benefit of having a beautiful, bejewelled night sky. What we could see with the light pollution was pretty limited. But I remember the few times during summer vacations when I could go out into the country. My father would bring my sister and me to a cottage somewhere, and then the full, beautiful night sky would be revealed to me and I would just sit in awe at all the things that suddenly became visible. And it just makes you think about your place in the universe. You feel so small, but not in a bad way. You just feel like you are an integral part of something much greater. And when you think about how all of the molecules that make up your body come from those stars beyond, you just feel really connected to the universe that way.

MG: Do you remember, a flyer of a question, you leave the best sky that you've seen?

NATHALIE OUELLETTE: Yes. The best guy that I've seen and I was very fortunate to see it, not very many people go there. It was in in Chile in a place called the Atacama Desert. And it's a very high desert. Many thousands of meters up in altitude. And it's where we put some of the best telescopes in the world. I was there on an observing mission. And it's very, very eerie because it is a dry terrain, very rocky, almost. What I would assume Mars would be like. And there are usually little structures where the astronomers are supposed to live while they're there, but they wanted to obstruct the terrain as little as possible. So they actually built the structure underground. So when you come out of the visitor centre where you're staying and you look around, you don't see anything else other than the night sky all across. And there's no light pollution. So it's a beautiful sky and it's also the southern sky. So not one that I'm familiar with. So it feels like you are on another world.

MG: That sounds incredible, by the way, but it's completely opposite from where so many of us are now stuck at home. And some of us are in cities or many of us are in cities. You've mentioned light pollution a couple of times. How do we overcome that and still see what's out there? Is there any way to try to game that?

NATHALIE OUELLETTE: And obviously, when you are confined to just your home or your neighbourhood, you can't really control how your neighbourhood and how your city lights the streets. So there's a there's unfortunately a limit to how much you can see. Sometimes even just a matter of having in your backyard the fence single a little bit higher can sort of block out some of the surrounding light and help you a little bit. But I think something that's really promising is that the dark sky movement is getting a lot of traction and a lot of cities are also trying, starting to appreciate not only the astronomical advantages of reducing light pollution, but also the benefits to humans and animals and also just our energy efficiency. So we're starting to see some what we call urban dark sky oases popping up here and there. And I know that in some parts of Montreal and other cities are trying to build little spots in parks where you can go just, you know, a short drive from home to see the night sky.

MG: Where are you getting and how are you getting your sky these days? I'm assuming that's something that ends up being addictive. Once you start to see what you can see and know what you know, that that's the kind of thing that that you become accustomed to and that you want to see more of. So in these isolating times, how are you getting your sky?

NATHALIE OUELLETTE: So unfortunately, I'm getting my sky mostly through to other people. And that's a very different from the experience that you get when you go out in nature, but because the different areas in Quebec are sort of closed off to each other and it's understandable to try to prevent the spread of the disease. And I'm getting most of my sky fix from talking to my colleagues. And so we talk about the exciting research that we're doing. Or, you know, a lot of the people I work with work in a field called exo planets, and they're trying to spot new planets that are orbiting stars other than the sun. And so they will be going through their data and suddenly they spot a planet. And, you know, everybody gets on a Zoom conference call or they start talking to each other and chat and then you feed off of each other's excitement. So I'm getting a lot of my Skype fix through my colleagues.

MG: We've heard a bit about Venus. Is there anything else that people should keep an eye out for?

NATHALIE OUELLETTE: Yes. So right now, it's actually a pretty good match with a shooting star, as it was mentioned in Jaymie's essay. We have the [unintelligible], which is a meteor shower that peaked just on Wednesday, but it's still relatively active right now and we'll be for a little while. If you look towards the northeast, and it's all throughout the night, you can spot the constellation Lyra or the liar. Well, it's like a harp instrument. And you'll see shooting stars coming from that radiant point. So as I mentioned, the peoples on Wednesday and still be active for about a week. And we have the benefit of having the moon under the horizon. So we have a darker sky to see those shooting stars right now.

MG: I love the fact we were talking with David Sibley earlier, who is one of the great birdwatchers of our time, and he still has after 50 years, the sense of wonder in terms of what he sees. You still have this too.

NATHALIE OUELLETTE: I do. I definitely do, and I feel very fortunate that I haven't lost that sense of wonderment. And I've been able to pursue the thing that gives me such a sense of all. But as I mentioned, it can be very easy for scientists to sort of get tunnel vision and lose sight of all of the wonderment that we used to have as younger children about the object that we're studying. But I try to reconnect periodically with that. So in 2017, I saw the total solar eclipse. I went down to the US on a road trip to see it. And that was, it's not at all a scientific endeavour. It was completely an emotional and spiritual endeavour. But it got me to reconnect with the reason why the universe fascinates me so much on an emotional level. So I try to periodically reconnect that way.

MG: It's good advice for all of us. I think. Nathalie, thank you. And take care.

NATHALIE OUELLETTE: Thank you. Thank you, Matt. Thank you.

MG: Nathalie Ouellette is an astronomer at the University of Montreal. Time to say goodbye to our listeners in Newfoundland and Labrador. Have a great weekend. We'll talk to you on Monday for everyone else. We're back in 90 seconds time. Nova Scotia's own Jonathan Torrens will tell us about a vigil for his home province. And we'll speak with Measha Brueggergosman about how she's using music to soothe her emotions, but also the emotions of others in her home province. That's coming up. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current on CBC Radio One.

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Soprano Measha Brueggergosman on why she chose Ave Maria to remember the victims of Nova Scotia shooting

Guests: Measha Bueggergosman

MG: This is a special edition of The Current. We have been spending the morning bringing stories of joy, things that add a little bit of light in a difficult and dark time. Music is one of those things that can do that. Obviously, Tom Power knows that extensively, not just as somebody who plays a lot of music on a show, but, of course, as a musician as well. Tom.

TP: Matt, it's beautiful to hear Renee again. You know, next weekend was supposed to be the weekend we were all going to be together, all sort of East Coast musicians at East Coast Music. Of course, that's not going ahead. And, you know, Alan Doyle said something really powerful to me that a long ago, he said, which is which, by the way, is the the ultimate in East Coast namedrop. Alan Doyle and Danny Williams said something about Rick Mercer in there as well. Alan Doyle said he said that this is like kryptonite to us because East Coasters can kind of overcome anything as long as we can get together. And you know what happens when we can't. You know, and I've spent so much time, you know, Matt, and it's an experience that I think is is not unique to East Coasters, but I feel that we feel it a lot is that, you know, when a tragedy happens, a God knows we've been through a lot of them and even have even a death in the family or something like that, even a young death in the family. People will still get together that night and sing songs in their living rooms and sing songs of the parlours. And, you know, just to hear the music and how people are coming together during this time is inspiring, but not surprising to the people of Nova Scotia.

MG: We'll see a little bit of that this evening.

TP: Certainly. I want to talk a little bit about this vigil that's happening tonight. You know, in honour of the victims of this horrible shooting. I got to speak to Jonathan Torrens. You know, Jonathan Torrens, know from Street Sands and Trailer Park Boys, Mr. D and all that. And he's made a career out of reflecting Canada's character, especially the character those in the East Coast. And I spoke with Jonathan from his home in rural Nova Scotia. You know, not that too far from where it all happened about how people are supporting each other in the face of this unspeakable tragedy and about the vigil for this horrible tragedy. Take a listen.

SOUNDCLIP

TP: Hi, John. How are you?

JOHNATHAN TORRENS: Hi, Tom. I'm well, how are you?

TP: I'm okay. You're in Belmont, right?

JOHNATHAN TORRENS: Well, funny story, my bedroom is in lower Onslow and my kitchen is in Belmont. So my 9-1-1 calls go to Belmont's, but my mail comes to lower Onslow. If you wanted to be specific.

TP: How close were you to everything that happened that night?

JOHNATHAN TORRENS: I guess it depends what you mean by close. Geographically, not so much. Though, the details remain unconfirmed. We certainly were told to sequester ourselves in our basement during that Sunday morning when his whereabouts were not entirely certain. There was some action in our own backyard, literally. But close in terms of knowing, certainly some of the people whose lives were lost, parents of classmates of our girls, and certainly too close to home. But all things considered, I consider myself very lucky it happened near us, it didn't happen to us.

TP: How's the community doing?

JOHNATHAN TORRENS: Well, to your point in this part of the world where personal space invaders. So it's hard to tell at this particular juncture. You know, the odd trip that we might make for gas or to the store. You see lots of tartan, lots of Nova Scotia flags, lots of hearts on people's front lawns. So if that's any indication, you know, people are heartbroken and wanting to find ways to express, you know, their sadness and their pride in their communities.

TP: So how did the vigil idea come about?

JOHNATHAN TORRENS: Well, I keep having the sentence: when you don't know what to do, do something popped into my head. And I got a Facebook message from a woman named Tiff on Sunday night saying, we're residents of the community. We're putting together a vigil. Would you consider contributing a video? And like most East Coast people, I said, sure, I'd be happy to. What can I do? Can I reach out to for you? Do you need any help? And by, I don't know, Wednesday midday. This became something the governor general of Canada is involved in. The prime minister of Canada is involved in. Sidney Crosby, George Canyon, all people with Nova Scotia connections. So it is, as you can appreciate from a production standpoint, trying to put together what has suddenly become a national special without the benefit of human contact. And so no control over athletics or sound quality, for example, which is not the point. But I think the happy by-product of that is some of it will be town councillors from here submitting videos on a Motorola Razr and some of it will be gorgeously shot music videos submitted by some of the performers. The other nice aspect of this is that not a single person we approached - and in fact many ended up approaching us - not a single person we approached said, I can't. Not interested. No, thanks. And imagine for some of these performers Natalie MacMaster's performance. I can't even say the words Natalie McMaster without welling up. Her performance is just so beyond moving. It's a duet. Put it that way. I'll tease it that way. Everyone said yes. And that's the nice kind of reminder of what a community is about. If even one of these people said no, it wouldn't be the thing that it is.

TP: What's that going to mean to the community, you think?

JOHNATHAN TORRENS: Well, I don't I don't know. In some ways it's too soon and too raw and too fresh. But you can't hug one another right now. Like this, the concept of lockdown upon lockdown was inconceivable. I mean, there are no words for any of this. But then suddenly to discover in the wake of these incidents that, you know, you have it pretty good. I just worry about the survivors because there were a lot of people that witnessed a lot of things that survived. And the blanket of that grief just feels so heavy for them. And I know all Canadians because it's the way we're wired want to do something, but it's hard to know what to even do when there's nothing you can do.

TP: You know, it's been interesting just getting texts from, you know, friends of mine in the U.S. who write me and say, oh, I'm so sad to hear about the situation in Nova Scotia. What's Nova Scotia like? And as much as I have, you know, such great feelings for Canada. I think this also put an unfortunate lens on Nova Scotia as well. I think about someone like you who has spent their career reflecting Canada back to itself. Now, what I want to say about Nova Scotians, what do you want to say about the resilience?

JOHNATHAN TORRENS: Well, I always say in one anecdote in this part of the world. Most places you ask someone how they're doing and they would say, great. In East Coast Canada, when someone does how you do and there's a good chance the answer's going to be not too bad. Which means some degree of bad is just a given. Managing expectations, a gene we've built in four generations, so it's hard to imagine today. But I just want people to know we're not doing too bad.

TP: John, thanks so much. And we're also appreciative of the work you do. And my heart breaks for everybody back home and in Coast Canada. Thanks. Thanks for talking to us today. And stay safe.

JOHNATHAN TORRENS: Mine does, too, Tom, thanks for your time.

MG: Tom Power speaking with the actor Jonathan Torrens. CBC will provide national television and streaming broadcasts of the Nova Scotia remembers. Vigil starts tonight, 7:00 p.m. Atlantic. And you can listen to it as well through the CBC. Listen app. This is a special edition of The Current. My name's Matt Galloway. We are talking at the end of a very difficult week for people, obviously, in Nova Scotia, right across this country about things that bring us some joy in, things that offer us a little bit of light in a dark time. Measha Bueggergosman is a general award winning soprano, opera singer. She is one of the best voices this country has produced. And she has recorded a song in support of the community affected by the shooting. Measha joins us this morning from Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia's and Apples Valley. Meesha, good morning to you.

MEASHA BUEGGERGOSMAN: Hi, Matt. How are you?

MG: I'm great and glad to talk to you. How are you doing?

MEASHA BUEGGERGOSMAN: I'm doing well. You know, it's a very trying and challenging time that it's always in these times when people's goodness can also come to the surface as we reach for each other for comfort. And as we try to encourage each other the best, we know how and the best way I knew how was to record something that might bring comfort into this very difficult space.

MG: Tell me a little bit about music and the role that music plays for you in difficult times. We were hearing earlier from a couple of performers and they talked about the music that has brought them through difficult times. What about for you?

MEASHA BUEGGERGOSMAN: Well, it's interesting because, you know, the music that I reach for to comfort myself, isn't the same music that I reach for this thing to comfort other people. And I have a very strong faith. I serve in the name of Jesus Christ, you know, and when I reach for something to bolster my own sense of service, it's always praise and worship, hail songs vessel, the old hymns, things like that that really kind of feed my soul. And it's when I'm reaching for other people in their distress, empathizing with their heart, I have to forget about my own personal preferences. So when I recorded the Ave Maria for the families affected by this massacre, my own included, I really wanted to put the put repertoire out there that would call to mind, you know, the services that we can't congregate for, the gatherings that we can't be a part of, a ceremony to death that we have here in Western culture that includes repertoire like Ave Maria. And that was my impetus for poor recording that I recorded. Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child as an acapella spiritual day, you know, posted on my socials just as an initial response. But the other media was really for the families, really for the ceremony of what we're all going to be experiencing, you know, this evening when we tune in.

MG: And the first thing that you would do is go on and record music.

MEASHA BUEGGERGOSMAN: It is you know, I know that my voice is a gift from God. I know that it really is just mine to steward over. And I can't be stingy with it. It is my living so, of course, they safeguard it and, you know, all the business stuff. But really, at its core, it's meant to be offered in service. So, yes, my first instinct is I feel helpless and just like everybody else. But I know that I have something that can bring real comfort. And it isn't, it has nothing to do with me. I'm simply the person stewarding over it in this voice. And I'm so grateful for it. And it has brought me comfort. But I think more importantly, it's meant to be given to those who maybe can't voice in the way that I view this collective pain we all share.

MG: This has been no as saying a really hard week, certainly for people in your province, in the country's hearts, or with people in Nova Scotia, but for people across the country. It's not this week. It's the last few weeks. It's this long tunnel that we're in and no one knows entirely how we're going to get out of it. And we've been talking a lot about that, but we have also been talking a lot about the fact, as one of our guests from Nova Scotia said yesterday, that in the midst of this, there is still joy and there's still love and there's still goodness in Vienna.

MEASHA BUEGGERGOSMAN: Absolutely.

MG: Where what you're one of the most joyful people that I know. What is it that brings you joy?

MEASHA BUEGGERGOSMAN: Well, you knew as someone who has undergone a tremendous amount of hardship, I see God is poising us for an opportunity. Every tragedy presents the opportunity to reach out. Every, everything that we can't control gives us an opportunity to see what we have. And I refuse to descend into despair. If there's a sliver of hope, there is always opportunity for something new to be born. And I know that so many people are suffering. And I get it. I mean, I really do get it. And I'm not somebody you can be like, rah, rah, let's just pretend this isn't painful because it is painful. But I also know that we, in reaching for each other, often fulfil the need that we lack. And so when those of us who are suffering from depression, those of us who are moved away and isolated, those of us who are losing people and have lost people, you know, we all knew someone affected by what is happening globally or what is happening locally and nationally. And it is always that still small voice that brings that person to mind that you have to answer the call, answer the call to reach out to that person and the joy that will come as a result of reconnecting in a real way just because you wanted to call someone, just because you wanted to hear their voice, just because you knew that they were on their own, I think is what is going to rebuild us.

MG: You're one of the best. And that's so great to talk to you. You're so generous in, not just speaking on a really difficult morning at the end of a difficult week, but also in recording the song that we're going to play now. Measha Thanks. Measha Bueggergosman, general award winning soprano, opera singer, concert artist, best selling author. Her new album, Measha Jazz, will be released on the 30th of April and you can download tracks from her Web site, including an absolutely gorgeous version of Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child. You'll find that at Measha.com. In the meantime, this is Measha Bueggergosman and Ave Maria.

SOUNDCLIP

[Song: Ave Maria by Measha Bueggergosman]

MG: Measha Bueggergosman, beautiful stuff. That is our program for today. As I mentioned, tonight's CBC broadcast a two hour vigil called Nova Scotia Remembers Music and Messages of Support begins at 7:00 p.m. Maritime, 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time. And if you're in Atlantic Canada, you can listen on CBC Radio or watch on CBC Television. That's The Current for today. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. Take care of yourself and each other. I'll talk to you on Monday.

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Friday April 24, 2020 Full Transcript

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