FREE SOUL MINING: A MUSICAL LIFE PDF Daniel Lanois,Keisha Kalfin | 230 pages | 08 Nov 2011 | FABER & FABER | 9780865478596 | English | New York, NY, United States Soul Mining : A Musical Life by Daniel Lanois (, Trade Paperback) for sale online | eBay Uh-oh, it looks like your Internet Explorer is out of date. For a better shopping experience, please upgrade now. Javascript is not enabled in your browser. Enabling JavaScript in your browser will allow you to experience all the features of our site. Learn how to enable JavaScript on your browser. NOOK Book. When I was a child, as far as the eye could see, the river was often covered by miles and miles of floating logs making their way to the paper mill. That heavy sulfur smell in the air was taken for granted. The riverside road was flanked by log mountains, long-nosed cranes pouring Soul Mining: A Musical Life mysterious solution—one step closer to paper pulp. My parents lived on the Quebec side of the river, the French side, in a government housing community by the name of Projet Dusseau. We were French Canadian. I spoke only French until Soul Mining: A Musical Life age of ten, and I remember having a wonderful upbringing in that community. I never thought much about the fact that we were poor. The Quebec landscape was fascinating to me. Wooden bridges were covered up like birdhouses to keep the snow away. Wooden staircases with roofs were a common sight. If the snow piles up too high, and the weather goes mild, you might not be able to get out till springtime. Chains wrapped around tires for better traction. Cars commonly equipped with tow ropes and battery booster cables. This maple- sugar country is very aware of the power of seasons. In those parts, preparation for survival comes naturally, even Soul Mining: A Musical Life a young boy. Preparation for survival is always in the wings, constantly kicking at your shin—even the shin of a young boy. The varying densities in the journey from maple water to maple syrup to maple sugar are dependent on how long one keeps the water boiling. Much like the winemaking valleys of France or the Bourbon-making valleys of Kentucky, the maple-sugar-making valleys of Quebec produce their limited quantities and fine vintages, with taste relative to the quality of the local soil, the intensity of the sun, and the tender love and care of a specific maple-sugar farm. I remember the springtime ritual—the pouring of boiling maple water into the white snowbanks. Sunday church runs, people wrapped in furs—the house of God was the house of cooperation. Yes, the house of God was a crossing point for relevant village information. The barter system was in use then. My eggs for your wood, my plowing for your corn, and so on. She really knew how to work the maple sugar. These old recipes were closely guarded. Kids walked to school in those days—I liked that about the project. We were on the Soul Mining: A Musical Life of rural land and so my brother Bob and I wandered everywhere after school and did whatever we wanted. We were fascinated by the writing on the sides of the railcars, like Canadian Pacific Railway, Canadian National Rail; others were more specific to provinces and towns. Rolls of steel coming from the west, cattle cars, empty flatbeds, boxcars with open doors—we made up stories about their sources and destinations. A ceramic tile factory by the name of Primco was our second backyard. Bob and I collected various discarded tiles and would make up games with them. A few of the Primco workers were sympathetic to our curiosity, slipping us a few irregular tiles to expand Soul Mining: A Musical Life little homemade building set. I loved the smell of that factory. They had kilns burning all the time, and the nonstop action appealed to me. It must have been a kick to see the faces of two brothers sticking their heads inside the Primco windows, looking for tile handouts. Even at that tender age, Bob and I loved the feeling of productivity. It was a happy childhood, and I was oblivious to the fact that my parents were having marital problems, until I Soul Mining: A Musical Life hearing arguments in the night. Bob, my younger brother, Ron, and I slept in one room, and my parents slept in the other. The arrival of my sister, Jocelyne, meant that we had outgrown the two-bedroom Soul Mining: A Musical Life. My dad was hitting not only the bottle, but also my mother. Ma jolie, how do you do? Ontario, they did go near la ville de Toronto Now my tears, they roll down, tous les jours And I remember the days, and Soul Mining: A Musical Life promises that we made Oh Louise, ma jolie Louise, ma jolie Louise After my mother had had enough domestic mistreatment, she put the four kids on a train and took us from Quebec to Hamilton, Ontario—about a five-hundred-mile journey—and never looked back. Her brother had found work in Hamilton near Toronto as a bartender, and had managed to purchase a rooming house that we lived in the back of until my mom got on her feet. My dad was not happy about all of this, and so a few months later he came to fetch his boys. We were walking to school and he pulled up; we were happy to see him so we jumped in the car and that was it—five hundred miles back to Quebec. My dad was doing carpentry work in town, and Soul Mining: A Musical Life during the week we lived by ourselves. He would come to visit on weekends—we had a blast. We were twelve, nine, and five. My dad was a greaseball, as were his friends. They were the smart-dressing kind of greaseballs—no jeans. They were Soul Mining: A Musical Life and dapper, and as this was the tail end of the fifties, there was a lot of excitement about cars. A two-tone Chevy and all, lots of looking under the hood. My dad was a good dancer. He was funny and looked sharp—very charming, and women like men who are charming. So much gets overlooked in the name of charm. It was a macho time and I liked it. My dad and his friends were hunters. There was a lot of mythology about the ways of the woods. I remember my dad teaching me how to walk in the woods. He had learned from the Indians; it was Soul Mining: A Musical Life about being at one with the wilderness—one step and Soul Mining: A Musical Life a pause to listen. Humans are only Soul Mining: A Musical Life guests in the woods. In the way that a sailor never underestimates the power of the sea, the hunter never forgets the ways of the woods. Soul Mining: A Musical Life have much hearing power; they Soul Mining: A Musical Life a clumsy human intruder from far away. The listening pause between every step puts a human closer to the instinct of the animal. Wintertime adds another dimension to the ways of the woods. The snowbanks hold secrets. One careless footstep might disturb the peace. Only experience can teach what terrain lies underneath the mysterious white snow. When the weather is hot, the flies can eat you alive. The sap running down from the Soul Mining: A Musical Life trees could be your savior. Old Jocko Proux, one of the elders of the community, had survived the woods for an entire week by covering his whole body with pine sap as a barrier against the flies. A marking on a white birch, connected with the marking on yet another white birch two hundred feet away, connected with a marking on yet another white birch another two hundred feet away, keeps a circling human going straight. The birch-to-birch technique is common knowledge as remedy for anyone lost in the woods. Preparation is a big part of survival in these isolated northern Quebec communities, many of which have no electricity. Soul Mining: A Musical Life seasons are the governors and dictators of all human behavior. If you want ice for your icebox in the summer, then you must cut your ice from the lake in the winter. Ice cutting is a collective effort: a group of men, bucksaws in hand, cutting through two feet of ice. The ice is lifted out of the water with massive pliers and placed on skids to be dragged back to shore. The gaping hole has a slippery edge. One mistake and somebody might drown. Remarkably, the sawdust acts as an insulator and keeps the massive blocks of ice intact for the entire warm season. The family that does not fill their icehouse in the winter will not be able to keep their fish cold in the summer. When my dad left us in the cabin, we pretty much did whatever we wanted. Bob and I shot rifles a lot, and Bob got really good—he could have been a sniper. I liked the smell of bullets exploding in my face. We three boys—we all loved shooting those rifles. We had a. There was a sandpit nearby where we shot arrows into the sky. We closed our eyes and waited for them to land, and sure enough they did, sometimes right next to us.