Nautical Song Circle, Victoria, BC?

Subject: Nautical Song Circle, Victoria, BC?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 27 Jul 05 - 08:55 AM

According to their website (Click here!) there's a bi-weekly SATURDAY Nautical Song Circle happening at the Bent Mast Pub in the James Bay neighborhood of Victoria, 512 Simcoe St. Things get started around 7:30 pm and run to 9:30 pm.

My wife and I are planning to visit Victoria in late August and were planning to drop in on this gathering. However, the website lists a series of Wednesday dates while stating that the gatherings take place on Saturdays. JD, the webmaster, has not responded to repeated e-mails for clarification. Does anyone in the Victoria area know for sure what day these song circles take place? We were counting on attending one on Saturday, August 27, but if it's really on Wednesday, August 24, we'll have to find something else to do.

It's not unusual for websites to be out of date but this is evidently not the case here. What's posted appears to be a 2005 schedule.

Perplexed,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Nautical Song Circle, Victoria, BC?
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 27 Jul 05 - 12:11 PM

Hi Charlie

I just spoke to John's missus and she assures me the Nautical Song Circle is every other Saturday - not on Wednesdays.

In August they will be the 13th and the 27th. If you can't be here for either of those, fear not, there's a regular Song Circle on the other two Saturdays. I'm sure if you wanted to sing a chantey they'd ne happy to accomodate.

Alas, I will be out of town all of August or I would have loved to meet up. Have a great time in Victoria!

Subject: RE: Nautical Song Circle, Victoria, BC?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 27 Jul 05 - 12:38 PM

BigPinkLad-

Thanks for confirming the day of the Victoria Nautical Song Circle. It's hard to do this from 5000 miles away.

I'll plan to attend on Saturday, August 27th, but I'm sorry I'll be missing you.

I'm planning to lead 3 songs that I've arranged for singing from the poems of Cicely Fox Smith. They include "Hastings Mill," "Lumber," and "Pacific Coast" all of which are set in the greater Vancouver area. If you'd like a preview of the lyrics and how I sing these songs please check my personal website: Click here!

We'll actually be staying in the James Bay neighborhood and it will be great to be able to walk to the Nautical Song Circle. Does anyone else know any more details about this Circle. There's a lot of information on the website: Nautical Song Circle

But be aware that the dates listed are from an alternative universe.

Cheerily, Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Nautical Song Circle, Victoria, BC?
From: radriano
Date: 27 Jul 05 - 01:33 PM

Hey Charley,

If you do go to the sing please say hello to Jon Bartlett and Rikka Rubesaat (if they show up) from me.

Richard Adrianowicz

Subject: RE: Nautical Song Circle, Victoria, BC?
From:
Date: 27 Jul 05 - 01:43 PM

Did they move to Victoria from Vancouver region?

Subject: RE: Nautical Song Circle, Victoria, BC?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 27 Jul 05 - 01:59 PM

Richard-

I'd be delighted to pass on your good tidings but I believe Jon is based in Vancouver, a long ferry ride away from Victoria. He's also out of town at a gig that weekend so I'll miss him when I am prowling Vancouver earlier in the week, and while I'm singing in nearby Steveston at a house party.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Nautical Song Circle, Victoria, BC?
From: radriano
Date: 27 Jul 05 - 02:07 PM

Drat! Too bad he'll be away. I believe Jon said he took part in the Victoria sing though.

Subject: RE: Nautical Song Circle, Victoria, BC?
From: Metchosin
Date: 27 Jul 05 - 02:27 PM

See you there Charlie!

Subject: RE: Nautical Song Circle, Victoria, BC?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 27 Jul 05 - 02:57 PM

Metchosin-

I'm looking forward to it.

Here's an excerpt of C. Fox Smith's thoughts about Victoria Harbour, looking back from her return to England (from SAILOR-TOWN DAYS, 1923 pp. 181-182):

"They were talking of improving the Outer Wharf at Victoria when I was last there; indeed, they had begun to build a pretentious breakwater and concrete piers which, so far as I could make out, nobody wanted in the least.

I hope they have not improved it – or, if they have done, I hope that at least they have left the old piers with the piles upon which teredo navalis had been so busy that one always felt a delightful uncertainty whether the next Blue Funnel liner that chanced along might not give it an extra nudge and send the whole thing galley-west.

I hope the water still goes singing through them tide by tide, and that the planking still gives through its interstices those green glimpses of jade-coloured water beneath. I hope there is still that sound as of ghostly sailormen along the wharves, and voices talking away in strange tongues, and that the gulls still mew and pipe and sit in long rows upon the sheds as they used to do. I hope the old sheds still hold their old mixed smell of nitrates and whale oil and Chinese bales … and that the Chinese firemen still play fan-tan in the evenings, squatting on their heels on the forecastle head of the Blue Funnel liner … I hope these things have not changed; for it is one of the bitter things of life to find a place changed that has shared your dreams.

I think I will go again, one of these days, and see … It may be I shall still find ships at the lumber mill, though not the ships I knew. It may be that still, at high noon in some street of China-town, when the shadow lies on the white-hot pavement in dark pools, in some dusk room with a dwarf tree in a blue-and-white pot in the window they still play the same little tune on a two-stringed fiddle of China: a little tune of a few notes that seems to have neither end nor beginning – dropping like a thin thread of silver into the hot gold of the afternoon…"

I can trace elements of several of her poems in the above musings. Maybe we'll find her initials on an old piling!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Nautical Song Circle, Victoria, BC?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 28 Jul 05 - 07:17 PM

It's now been confirmed from two independent sources that the Nautical Song Circle is operational on Saturday evening, August 27, at the Bent Mast Pub in James Bay.

We'll also be doing a song party over at Steveston Village (Richmond) on Thursday, August 25th, the site of the historic Brittania Shipyard where C. Fox Smith also visited when it was primarily a lumber mill and shipping center.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble