ghosts of departed quantities

detail from a dream

2008-07-20T11:25:00.002-04:00

before i forget:

a restaurant i walked by in a dream a few nights past (such a minor detail, really, that i didn't remember it until the next day) was called "herbs and carcasses".

uh?

buried with friends / smothered in hugs

2008-03-27T22:11:00.005-04:00

as i was drifting off to sleep the other night i decided that, instead of being cremated, i'd rather be buried in a coffin filled with mixtapes made by people i've known.

but those mixes would not include CD's. they're too blade-like to be comforting.

[viewed: the decline of western civilization]

more than one year later...

2008-03-26T10:14:00.004-04:00

sometimes i wonder how it is that i can sleep for such long periods of time, and how i can let so many things just slip away, and how i can get so fucking far behind in everything.

tyler, i feel like a shit for not responding to your e-mail yet. i'll be getting to that today.

other than that, i'm just trying to wake up, wipe the slugs off my face, and get ready for a new day.

file under: of cumpleaños

2007-02-28T23:42:00.000-05:00

today my better half gains a bit of ground in the age race.

the first time she came to nyc for a visit, i told the waiter at that restaurant on india row that it was her birthday. that was when they played the famous "happy birthday, everybody" song on the cheap overhead speakers. i will always remember the little swivelling disco light that was on, and the clunking noise it made as the different colored lights rotated around and around.

clunk clunk clunk

happy birthday, N. growing older with you is fun!

file under: warp factor five

2007-02-26T08:34:00.001-05:00

changes to one of the subway lines has created some local buzz recently, mostly over a re-activated station that's been closed and/or used for conductor training for the last few years. none of that really excites me, but i do love the "journey into space" feel this youtube vid conveys.

(originally covered by our local mavens of transporculturation, spacing wire, btw)

file under: geekout in the multiverse

2007-02-24T05:53:00.000-05:00

it occurred to me yesterday morning that mark borchardt could easily be related to bubbles, and that american movie in general forms a kind of unbounded, milwaukee-by-way-of-nova-scotia cultural continuity with the trailer park boys that's eerily reminiscent of those heady crisis on infinite earths days. worlds colliding!

[and here's a totally unforseen score for our whoknows whatpop fans out there. nice!]

file under: late nite edition for fellow night shifters

2007-02-23T14:57:00.000-05:00

i will say this about my upcoming transition back to the daylight world: no more "beers for breakfast", which will be a little sad.

have a good weekend, everybody.

file under: wishing well

2007-02-20T23:41:00.000-05:00

MA was one of the people who went to that fabled private school of my youth. we didn't really know each other - we hung out in different circles, had no common "hobbies" that would have coordinated our trajectories, etc. he had 2 older brothers, which, in my mind, meant he must've inherited the benefits of their own personal struggles and realizations to some extent, even if that came mostly in the form of hand-me-down clothes (plus books, movies and music, i would suspect). at least that's how i explain my lasting impression of him being just a bit cooler than the rest of us.

he ran with the track team for a while when we were 8th graders. after a week, he quit coming to the practices. still, he gained my respect by running in black chuck taylor hi-tops and spitting a lot. i remember wondering if he was a smoker or something; he spit so much! it was funny - kind of anachronistic, like a 50's thing (especially with the chucks and buzzcut he was sporting at the time).

a year or two later, we would have a first period history class together. i came in one morning to find him with headphones on, listening to the story of the clash on his walkman. i didn't know much about them at the time, but seeing that tape case on the desk (combined with seeing another state of mind over the previous summer) somehow helped flip a switch in my brain. punk rock (via college radio) would enter my life shortly.

after i left the academy for the big public school on the westside, JMS would sometimes update me on what people were up to. he once mentioned that MA was in some kind of disciplinary trouble because he was growing facial hair in direct opposition to the academy's dress code. that's about as rebellious as any of us were in those days.

a few years after that, while i was attending my first semester of college in san antonio, some friends hopped in my tiny car and we went up to austin for a pixie's concert (they were touring to support trompe le monde at the time, although i was only familiar with bossanova at that point). in the crush of ecstatic college students pressed together near the stage, MA and i unexpectedly bumped into each other.

"what are you doing here?" he yelled in my ear, to which i could only yell back "seeing the fucking PIXIES, dude!!!" we both made the fuck yeah face and turned our attention elsewhere.

many years later, an alumni newsletter from the academy (which still finds its way to my mom's mailbox to this very day, surprisingly) mentioned that MA had a degree in mathematics and was trying to make it as a writer in santa fe. having sucked so badly at math for most of my life (yet finding it very fascinating to read about, so long as i didn't have to demonstrate a talent for it), i was admittedly jealous of such an update. he still seemed just a little bit cooler than the rest of us.

not long after that, JMS told me that he had been shot and killed during a new year's celebration in austin, apparently the result of a gun being used to ring in the new year. he and his wife had just had a child, from what i remember. he had just turned 30. i couldn't think of anything more tragic, and the news weighed me down for a long time afterwards.

i don't know why i was recently compelled to google the names of people i knew from the academy who've died, but doing so returned a web page dedicated to MA's memory. next to a photo, his mother has written about the things she'll remember him by.

i can't deny that there was a time (not long after 9/11) that i thought i should have died rather than him. during that time, when that acrid, burnt smell permeated nyc for months and months, lasting deep into the winter, there were a lot of people i thought should still be alive instead of me. i don't necessarily feel that way anymore, but MA remains somebody i wish we could have back.

file under: conspiracies in lower case

2007-02-19T23:22:00.000-05:00

i swear, at some point i'm going to create a blog devoted solely to all of the weird coincidences occurring these days.

for instance: having a bit of extra time at work last night, i googled the names of 3 people i knew from my short-lived private school days who've died tragically over the last few years.

i discovered that the one i probably knew the least, RE, had a scholarship fund set up in her honor. what a great tribute, no?

imagine my mild surprise, then, at seeing her name on the list of patients in the hospital tonight. granted, it's a common enough name; but that timing is wicked.

i'm not trying to suggest that these things happen more in my life than anyone else's, or that they're anything more than random weirdnesses. but at the risk of coming across as a total paranoiac, keeping track of them all might be fun.

possibly even... illuminating.

file under: more crisis talk

2007-02-18T23:52:00.000-05:00

[a restrained patient in one of the isolation rooms calling out to the counselor standing in the doorway:]

come clo-ser!
come clo-ser!
come clo-ser!
come clo-ser!
come clo-ser!
come clo-ser!

nights like this will end soon, but i don't want to completely forget the little moments that made up a lot of my time here.

file under: dream of leaving minimum security

2007-02-17T23:46:00.000-05:00

i'm walking along labyrinthine grey hallways in some kind of jail/detention center, avoiding all of the "cells" (no bars, just office-like doors with room numbers beside them on the wall). i eventually find an unmarked metal door, with no doorknob or handle. i kick at it firmly to get it open. a cement staircase comes into view. i head down the stairs, but am not sure what floor i'm on or whether i've set off an alarm.

one floor down and i walk into a wide lobby with the words "main level" painted in black near the ceiling. there is a lot of sunlight coming through windows and sliding glass doors, with people busily walking in and out. a man with a HUGE camera is positioned just outside the exit, taking pictures of everyone who leaves.

expecting to be tackled by cops at any second, i set down a metal cafeteria tray i've been carrying as non-descriptly as possible (fearing all the while that it will identify me as an inmate), and begin to stroll very casually towards the exit. i can hear the shutter of the big camera near the door clicking away, but no one stops me or sounds an alarm. getting out of there takes forever.

once outside, the day is bright (late afternoon?) and it looks like it's just rained. KW from work is walking away from the building as well, and we joke about my jailbreak. i'm wondering if there's a bus or something i can hop on to get further away, but i'm not familiar with this city (austin?) and can't figure out where the bus stops are.

seriously, though: escaping is so much easier when your dream doesn't involve orange jumpsuits.

file under: a question to the world

2007-02-16T23:56:00.000-05:00

where is katie handmaker these days?

file under: almost famous

2007-02-15T23:57:00.000-05:00

while it may not be the most riveting account on record, it's still somewhat gratifying to see one's very own street profiled in a free weekly.

it helps alleviate some of the insecurity that comes with living in the vaguely square, vaguely suburban-feeling fringe of the the city's urban core. it makes owning up to being a midtowner just a little bit easier.

file under: frozen hearts club

2007-02-14T23:48:00.000-05:00

as it is in toronto:

so shall it be in abq:

but then, what part of north america hasn't been assaulted by snowdrifts recently?

file under: risen from the grave!

2007-02-12T23:51:00.000-05:00

i'm trying to be back, but there's not much to say (other than the fact that, as NB mentioned earlier, i start a new job shortly that will allow me to bask in the sunlight of our approaching spring).

honestly, i'm a little intimidated by this new job. it's going to be busier than my current situation, and in an area i'm not too familiar with. learning curve ahead! shit.

but it will be nice to walk amongst the rest of humanity for a change. i guess the night life won't go on forever after all.

file under: a nominee

2007-01-27T23:52:00.000-05:00

i love the endlessly vertiginous length of this photo.

awesome.

whether you're someone who does things like vote for blogs or not, you might want to consider this site.

file under: signal drop

2007-01-26T23:24:00.000-05:00

i have recently lost the ability to reply to people's e-mail within a reasonable amount of time. i don't know what my problem is, but it's just not happening.

i go through this from time to time, and it's never anything personal; i just can't make myself tackle my inbox, no matter how ridiculous it gets.

so if you're one of the many that hasn't heard from me in a while, please forgive me - i must've already used up all of my monthly e-mail points for january.

i will write soon.

file under: of love and funeral pyres

2007-01-25T23:39:00.000-05:00

it was funny to see that a photo of the fire station i used to live across from when i first moved to seattle was in the local "news" today.

when N and i were walking around the old neighborhood in october, she was amazed at how crackhouse-like my old building was: chain link fence, not a lot of windows, grey stucco everywhere. it was like a little piece of south-central l.a. had relocated to more overcast climes.

walking around with her brought such memories back, though! like fire trucks blaring their sirens at all hours of the night, for instance. i know it nearly drove me crazy at times, but the dog living right next to the fire station had it infinitely worse.

and i had forgotten all about the plaid pantry (a convenience store located to the left of the station - you can see it in the photo!). it was open 24 hours, and it was there that i received a very unexpected welcome from my newly adoptive city - in the form of a walrus-mustachioed guy in a little pickup truck offering to blow me at his house (conveniently located right around the corner). i demurred, despite his "it'll be cool; you know, real casual" sales pitch.

what can i say? something about the guy and his truck said hunting knife to me.

file under: whoknows whatpop (pt. iii)

2007-01-24T05:06:00.000-05:00

hopefully by now, the exercise looks familiar to those interested in playing along at home. i know it's juvenile, but whenever it's brought up with friends, their answers always surprise me. i therefore want to pose further questions. have i no shame?

the impossible topic this time around is favorite albums. define that last term however you want - i'll accept whatever constraints you lay out there. greatest hits packages? box sets? homemade mixtape? 's all good, cuzzo.

some of my own choices actually surprised me a little bit this time. in order to verify those unexpected answers, i re-listened to and re-evaluated some older favorites and found them slipping down the list (some completely out of the top 10 for the very first time ever!).

i've also noticed that nostalgia has begun to play a huge role for me in this ongoing game. have my boundaries been set? have my tastes calcified? have my plates really fused, so to speak? it was inevitable, i guess.

so without further ado, the 10 albums i think of as my favorites at this early morning hour (in rough but definitely not absolute order):

01) sonic youth - goo
02) the stooges - fun house
03) horace andy - skylarking
04) guided by voices - bee thousand
05) king tubby - essential dub

06) the clash - combat rock
07) mf doom - operation: doomsday!
08) run-d.m.c. - run-d.m.c.
09) yo la tengo - i can hear the heart beating as one
10) erase errata - other animals

what are yours?

[next week: food-related!]

file under: in the neighborhood

2007-01-23T23:34:00.000-05:00

after a very good vegetarian dinner at JS and VF's house (the texture of that fake chicken was seriously amazing), we all walked to queen street in order to catch our various forms of transpo for the night's further activities - N going home (work tomorrow! hahaha); JS and VF going to a birthday party for a friend's cat; and me heading off to my night shift (as usual).

on the way, JS was telling me about his times living a few blocks away from the hospital where i work, about how a prostitute jumped into the passenger seat of the van his dad was driving on the day JS moved in. the neighborhood he and VF live in now has its share of addicts and crime as well, but he was telling me it has a sense of community that the area around the hospital simply doesn't have.

as if to prove that point somehow, i was only two steps through the front door when i walked into an unfolding mise en scene in the hospital lobby: 3 security guards standing in front of a homeless man who was so inebriated he could hardly keep his head upright. he had apparently plopped down in one of the wheelchairs in the lobby and was trying to leave with it. security had explained to him that he couldn't just take a wheelchair with him, so he kept yelling "BUT I CAN'T WALK!!!"

i could hear him yelling from the other end of the long hallway, on my way up the stairs and around the corner, to my desk behind electronic swipe doors.

BUT I CAN'T WALK!!!

BUT I CAN'T WALK!!!

BUT I CAN'T WALK!!!

file under: life in a day

2007-01-20T23:16:00.000-05:00

when was the last time i worked 7 days straight?

really, it's not that much of an accomplishment; and yet, finishing everything up and taking that one glorious day off before starting all over again seems so major right now.

[anyone else remember that song, by the way? it reminds me of the new wave girls i lost sleep over back in those pre-historic jr. highschool days.]

file under: whose eyes will it have?

2007-01-19T04:57:00.000-05:00

earlier tonight, we stopped mid-channelsurf to catch a part of the O.C. featuring seth cohen walking through a pseudo-dreamscape, his voice echoed out to spacy effect. apparently, he was in some kind of altered state of consciousness in search of his spirit animal.

we moved on once the show resumed its characteristic and customary direction, but not before N commented that it was as if our brains had just made babies in tv-hood for a moment there (to the extent that i like druggy things and she, you know, likes california.

not to mention adam brody).

file under: hypnotised by the tiniest part of the day

2007-01-18T05:21:00.000-05:00

going up the subway station's escalator on the way home, i look down just in time to see (stuck in the crevice between escalator plate and topmost stair) one dirty green grape, uncrushed but quite grimy.

as the upcoming steps pass out of sight and into the escalator's inner workings, the edge of each stair gently brushes past the grape, touching it just enough to rotate it along its axis.

i therefore see, as i pass this grape while de-escalating, that it is rolling rolling rolling in place, endlessly, to the sound of the elevator's monotonous rumble.

file under: whoknows whatpop (pt. ii)

2007-01-17T05:11:00.000-05:00

as mentioned earlier, thinking and talking about favorite things amongst friends has produced some surprising (and, at times, revealing) answers.

what's odd is that i'm finding it a bit of an awkward subject to broach as often as i'd like to. i mean, i wouldn't mind knowing everyone's favorite movie, or song, or album, or book. but in reality, i've only asked one co-worker about such things, and i was so painfully conscious of my forced off-handedness that i decided to avoid the topic with other people. not everyone cottons to the nerdy stuff, after all.

but still, it's hard not to engage in such list-making activities, once the seed has been planted.

and it is with that admission in mind that i bring up favorite books.

now, i'm not as well-read as some, but i've spent many a day curled up on the sofa with a book tented over my face (often snoring my brains out). but at some point, the pleasure derived from reading a good book started to wane, and in its place came the vague sensation of being emotionally manipulated. i therefore started reading more non-fiction than fiction about 10 years ago. that transition will most likely turn up in the second half of my top ten, which might go something like this (in a very rough but not absolute order):

1) gravity's rainbow, by thomas pynchon
2) on the road, by jack kerouac
3) nine stories, by j.d. salinger
4) alice's adventures in wonderland and through the looking glass, by lewis carroll
5) city of glass, by paul auster

6) leaves of grass, by walt whitman
7) introduction to zen buddhism, by d.t. suzuki
8) the golden bough, by james frazer
9) bend sinister, by vladimir nabokov
10) cometbus #45, by aaron cometbus

so what are yours?

[next week: albums!]

file under: whew

2007-01-16T23:39:00.000-05:00

after holding our breath over the last 24 hours or so, i can gladly report that we're now a two-income household. congrats to N on the good news!

maybe i can continue to avoid extradition to debtor's prison, after all....

file under: concerning the spiritual eternal

2007-01-14T23:39:00.000-05:00

alice coltrane passed away on friday. hearing about it somehow helped explain why the city felt just a little bit colder upon my return home from a too-short visit with RP and BB.

file under: daytrip to exurbia

2007-01-13T17:12:00.000-05:00

we are off to see city friends, and from there we are off to see yet more friends in the outer rings of the in-between city.

file under: (market) penetration in the centerfold

2007-01-12T22:10:00.000-05:00

while flipping past jeopardy earlier tonight, we were shocked to slowly realize that every category on the screen was named after a rock band (plus one category possibly just named "bands", although we didn't see it clearly enough to verify that). i guess that's better than seeing "bruce willis" as a category, which i did see on a previous occassion....

the contestants were a bald man in military uniform, a female "foreign affairs officer" stationed in canberra, and a rather bland looking (by way of over-martha stewartization) tv news producer.

their categories?

"the replacements"
"big star"
"the fall"
"husker do" [sic]
"the english beat"

holy shit. are we that old now? has the world turned so much that bands we once had to slowly discover from hanging out in record stores and reading rockist specialty rags are now fodder for throwaway "general knowledge" gameshow punchlines? and all for the benefit of dinnertime tv audiences everywhere, no less?

what exactly is that, anyway? a co-optation of bygone heroes? would "commodification" be more accurate, or more inflammatory? how about "collaboration"? it all sounds so juvenile, so lacking in nuance.

this must be the way our youth will be encoded into the 21st century, registering as not much more than an opportunity for nostalgic parents to revel in tv's backgrounded bon mots, all to the embarrassment of their disinterested teenage children.

file under: epiphaneal glandulation

2007-01-11T23:40:00.000-05:00

i first heard about the spirit molecule from SH. he told me something about that "other dimension" most participants swore they went to, and he also told me it was happening right in our own backyard for free (if you were lucky enough to get in on the trials).

so it's kinda funny to me that i'd find ABQ in the "news" again (or at least one link removed, via metafilter) not many days after having SH on the brain. maybe he was, in fact, on my pineal gland, known to produce trace amounts of DMT in the body (and reportedly releasing it in dreams).

and while we're getting mildly brainulationary, i'll throw in the additional weirdness of finding out about robert anton wilson's secession a week or so after noting a holiday for a group i first heard about through the illuminatus trilogy.

crazy!

file under: who knows what pop culture lurks in the hearts of men?

2007-01-10T23:48:00.000-05:00

a recent little compilation project i've been working on (inspired entirely by an annual compilation project N has been conducting for an impressive 6 years now) has me thinking about favorites.

no matter how well you might know somebody, the songs or books or films they hold closest to their hearts can still be, when revealed, quite surprising. some of that clearly has to do with the ridiculousness of picking a favorite of anything - for most of us, there are just too many factors involved (that don't necessarily lend themselves to easy comparison, of course) to really come up with a satisfying answer.

but still: we can't help but build our lists. it's actually, factually an indicator of obsessive-compulsive disorder! yikes.

after thinking about all this on the subway ride home from work, i abruptly asked N what her favorite movie was. her answer surprised us both (i had guessed lolita, but was wrong - i'm betting that it's a contender for favorite book instead). that kind of surprise seems to go hand-in-hand with such questions; it definitely accompanied the majority of answers to my query about people's favorite song of all time.

a little later, i even went so far as to badger a well-respected culture worker (who happened to be on the phone with N at the time) with the same question. what is his favorite movie? hopefully, he'll get back to us on that.

while drifting off to sleep at about 10am, i started to formalize a top 5 (or at least a first approximation thereof), although a top 10 might be needed to get all of the crucial ones in there. does it matter what those movies are? why am i even bothering to jot them down?

fucking lists.

as of this moment, arguments could be made for:

01) my own private idaho
02) the big lebowski
03) fitzcarraldo
04) rockers
05) beat street

while the second 5 might come down to:

06) cry baby
07) american movie
08) orfeu negro
09) river's edge
10) mulholland drive

so what are yours?

[maybe we'll do one for books next week.]

file under: today's headlines

2007-01-09T23:32:00.000-05:00

on january 9th:

in 475 AD, unpopular byzantine emperor zeno is forced to flee his capital (then known as constantinople).

874 years after that (1349), the jewish population of basel, switzerland, is rounded up and incinerated, believed by residents to be the cause of the ongoing bubonic plague.

82 years after that (1431), judges' investigations for the trial of joan of arc begin in rouen, france, the seat of the english occupation government.

337 years after that (1768), philip astley stages the first modern circus (in london).

25 years after that (1793), jean-pierre blanchard becomes the first to fly in a balloon in the united states.

54 years after that (1822), portuguese prince pedro I of brazil decides to stay in brazil against the orders of the portuguese king joão VI, starting the brazilian independence process.

17 years after that (1839), the french academy of sciences announces the daguerreotype photography process.

19 years after that (1858), anson jones, the final president of the republic of texas, commits suicide.

3 years after that (1861), the "star of the west" incident occurs near charleston, south carolina. it is considered by some historians to be the "first shots of the american civil war."

21 years after that (1882), oscar wilde gives his first lecture on "the english renaissance of art" in new york.

23 years after that (1905), russian workers stage a march on the winter palace that ends in the massacre by czarist troops known as "bloody sunday", setting off the russian revolution of 1905.

11 years after that (1916), the ottoman empire prevails in the battle of gallipoli, as the last british troops are evacuated.

13 years after that (1929), the seeing eye is established in nashville, tennessee, with the mission to train dogs for assisting the blind.

22 years after that (1951), united nations headquarters officially opens in new york city.

21 years after that (1972), the rms queen elizabeth is destroyed by fire in victoria harbour, hong kong (a photo of which amazes and creeps me out at the same time, of course).

[fun fact! the wreck was featured in the 1974 james bond movie the man with the golden gun, and was portrayed in the film as a covert base of operations for the british secret service.]

14 years after that (1986), kodak leaves the instant camera business after losing a patent battle with polaroid.

9 years after that (1995), valeri poliakov completes 366 days in space while aboard the mir space station, breaking a duration record.

12 years after that (2007), i read about all this for the first time (via wikipee).

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

it might be nothing more than a hallmark of middle age, but over the last 6 or 7 years i've become much more affected by history's sweeping vistas. the happy confluence of living in nyc and meeting a gang of smart-plus-staunch marxists got that particular ball rolling, and now i'm finding more and more of the past to be incredibly involving.

[and while we're at it, bon anniversaire to les demoiselles, whose tough countenances once gave a young man pause.]

file under: shine on, you crazy diamond

2007-01-08T23:31:00.000-05:00

there's a friend who's been more like a brother to me, and he's having a tough time these days. we talked on the phone briefly about it, but there was too much to say and i ended up feeling a bit of the old evasiveness coming through.

i'm too far away to be of much help to him, but he's in my thoughts tonight.

work on your things and get better, SH. i wish i could do something from up here to help.

file under: regarding the waiter holding forth at brunch

2007-01-07T23:37:00.000-05:00

1) we guessed him to be 23-25.
2) he was super-skinny and sported a vaguely jarmusch-like pompadour of brown hair.
3) his rockabilly gear was understated (black button-down shirt, dark jeans, modest star-shaped belt buckle, black van hi-tops instead of boots).
4) his voice was amazingly loud. like, amazingly. that yawpbox could drown out even the heartiest of table chatter.
5) he wanted to make sure everyone could see that he knew the words to the songs he liked, which he proved by singing them loudly just ahead of the song itself.
6) he was friendly, but in an overly-familiar way.
6.5) he put sunglasses on at some point (wayfarers, i think).
7) he draped himself uncomfortably in a chair from the bar and drank water for what must have been 20 or 30 minutes. we referred to this portion of our brunch as his poseathon.
8) he never brought us our check and bicycled away when the table of local musicians left.
9) the brunch was good, regardless.

[update: N tells me his belt buckle was not a star, but rather the hammer and sickle of the fallen soviet union. that must deserve at least +3 extra snazzy detail points.]

file under: post-apocalyptic future, here we come

2007-01-06T23:48:00.000-05:00

seriously, wtf is up with humanity these days?

i need a drink.

file under: holy day for chaos

2007-01-05T23:46:00.000-05:00

make sure to wish the discordians in your life a happy mungday today!

file under: does any of it help?

2007-01-04T23:42:00.000-05:00

a few weeks ago, i ran across this great summation of what's wrong with the war in iraq. it's provided food for thought ever since.

today, a small trail of links eventually led me to this article, in which a handful of high-profile neoconservatives disown their horrific gift to the world. according to them, the stupendously incompetent white house administration is to blame for the entire mess.

as contrite as they present themselves, it's clear that the temptation to dump responsibility on a lame duck president was just too convenient to pass up. with any luck, their forlorn conclusions that american neoconservatism may have suffered a fatal blow because of prez dub will prove to be true. it never made much sense in the first place and clearly doesn't fucking work. assholes.

and what does it mean when my oft-cited once-left dissenter expresses anger and shame at the execution of the man he's been resolutely committed to deposing for the last 20 years or so? what was he expecting, really? has he been paying attention to the way things have been going at all? jesus christ, man!

are there any true internationalists left these days, or has that worldview become hopelessly compromised by foreign policy designed to gouge out advantages for one's own country?

it's all pretty dispiriting today.

file under: the heart is a lonely hunter (apparently)

2007-01-03T23:29:00.000-05:00

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

i didn't quite believe it, so i took the test again to see if the results would change. they did not.

i feel like such a friggin' dude right now.

file under: nothing changes

2007-01-02T23:24:00.000-05:00

had i made any kind of resolution a few nights ago, it most likely would have been about being more diligent in my daily life. i therefore would have opted to do the more responsible thing today (ie, clean house, stock up on groceries and cook at home) rather than what we actually did (ie, eat brunch out, catch the early showing of pan's labyrinth in the VIP theater, buy CD's and DVD's, and eventually order spring rolls for dinner - the har gow was excellent, by the way, as was the thai spicy eggplant with tiger shrimps).

we had heard such good things about the movie, i think both N and i were a little underwhelmed. in particular, i couldn't quite figure out why the film opens by telling us the year is 1944 when the spanish civil war was over by 1939 and the spanish did not officially enter into WWII at all (technically speaking, although they allowed nazi germany certain privileges not extended to the allies).

i don't get why that year was specified at all. wouldn't an earlier year have made more sense if the background of civil resistance was so crucial? is there something about 1944 in spain that i'm not aware of, because my understanding is that any real struggle against franco was over and done with before the 40's even began....

or did i hallucinate the year everything takes place? did it really say "1934" on the opening screen? and if so, is the optimistic high note the film ends on merely a wishful "fairy tale" to ward off the persistance of the franco regime, which continued well into the 70's?

much like that other movie involving spaniards (which also, incidentally, features a newborn male child pointedly symbolizing the beginnings of a new world), the intentions of the director aren't as clear as it might initially appear.

file under: enters annum porcine

2007-01-01T23:24:00.000-05:00

after the trainride ending the 10 days of seeing our favorite people in some of our favorite places; after accepting the fact that calvin seems to love us more now than when we left (shout out to distance + time on that one) and that speedy the plant looks pretty damn good for only being watered twice during our trips; even after waking up again for brunch at over easy (the dagwood was ridiculously good again) before doing some post-christian shopping; i think we're ready to get down to facing the year ahead of us.

file under: the end

2006-12-21T08:07:00.000-05:00

before we fly off to our snowy vacationland in the southwest, i'd like to take this opportunity to share some favorite video flotsam discovered this year.

in no particular order, here are some things i liked:

1) presets ruling it [intentional pixelation fuckups! yes!!!]
2) junior lipsynca nationals
3) rap cat holds it down
4) trash talking chickens
5) too much genius from chappelle to handle
6) [plus 1 to grow on]
7) [and maybe a forgotten laff attack for good measure]

happy holidays! let's make 2007 fun, okay?

file under: lessons learned

2006-12-20T23:31:00.000-05:00

it is entirely possible, without resorting to the time-honored technique of soiling oneself, for one person to stink up an entire emergency department.

file under: ballad of the drunk asshole in bed 17 (in 3 parts)

2006-12-18T23:38:00.000-05:00

part i:

"i'm gonna piss myself! I'M GONNA PISS MYSELF!!! I'M GONNA PISS MYSELF!!!"

[15 minute intermission]

part ii:

"nurse! NURSE!! HEY, NURSE!!! NURSE!!!!! FUCK YOU!!!! FUCK YOU!!!! FUCK YOU!!!! FUCK YOU!!!! FUCK YOU!!!! FUCK YOU!!!! FUCK YOU!!!!"

[15 minute intermission]

part iii:

"we'll see if it's funny... when you die!!! WE'LL SEE IF IT'S FUNNY WHEN YOU DIE!!! WE'LL SEE IF IT'S FUNNY WHEN YOU DIE!!! WE'LL SEE IF IT'S FUNNY WHEN YOU DIE!!!"

[fin]

file under: not so frightful, to be honest

2006-12-17T23:38:00.000-05:00

i used to work with marcus, a guy from barbados who told me i had problems in my body because i actually enjoyed cold weather. to him, cold basically meant anything less than 80 degrees farenheit, so i didn't really pay attention to his assessment of my wellbeing.

but it's basically true: i do indeed like cold weather. i'd rather freeze than melt any day of the week. moving further north therefore was not a problem at all. it was something to look forward to, in fact. it would be colder, for sure! and for more of the year!

thus, it is with a healthy portion of both confusion and disappointment that i relay the fact that toronto's weather of late has been downright balmy. what is up with that?

thanks to a handy new google sidebar N installed on the computer, i can see, at a quick glance, that the lows in ABQ have been consistently lower than the lows up here (despite the highs also being higher - much higher when the sun is out). i have twice now relished that moment when the temperatures equilibrate (around 1am or so last time, i think).

which is funny, because most people innocently assume new mexico to be like mexico in the weather department: a warm and sunny vacation getaway for snowbirds who can't hang. maybe with fruity drinks! with maybe a little montezuma's revenge thrown in as well.

for reals, though: my ass has been more frozen on more occassions in the 'burque (usually hoping to GOD the car warms up before i actually shiver myself to death) than anything i've experienced up here. yet. i don't think the 20 lbs. of extra blubber i'm packing these days accounts for my new tolerance to frostbite entirely.

file under: pie plates in bible times

2006-12-16T23:17:00.000-05:00

it's always nice to see someone's new apartment, and have drinks 'n' snacks and converse on a variety of topics. and exchange gifts! and even see a bad movie featuring the host's father as an extra in a pub scene.

but what may have been most intriguing was the chatty digression that may have revealed the host's firm belief in alien life forms having visited mankind throughout history.

i would not have guessed that about SD, and i really like that he felt comfortable enough amongst friends to reveal that little tidbit. i'm not 100% sure he wasn't kidding, though.

file under: canada saves the future (again)

2006-12-15T23:06:00.000-05:00

now, it's not exactly a singular event in history, but reading this article (even though it wasn't about my own hospital) was VERY ENCOURAGING.

(announced on another anniversary of some note, funnily enough)

file under: masks of beattie (like shocks of mighty)

2006-12-14T23:37:00.000-05:00

it's been on several times, and even i can't believe that i often stop to watch it, but those homespun one-man teleplays performed by actor rod beattie (aired on the bravo channel) fascinate me.

to watch an aging, slightly bug-eyed yet undeniably sonorous man dressed in overalls slog through what often feels like a community theater project borders on that "unwatchable" flavor of pathos at times, but the solo performance aspect of it adds something just surreal enough to hook me eventually.

he plays old men! women! himself, even! sometimes he throws in a few vocalizations for the various animals down on the farm - cows, chickens, sheep. it's entrancing, and i don't even like rural tales! [a later thought: maybe it's another one of those minor forms of possession i like so much.]

i can't explain it. it basically makes me reconsider my dislike for hee-haw after all these years....

anyway, there's something vaguely cultish about watching wingfield, like it's mere presence on the screen opens doors that shouldn't really be opened by people who dwell in the daylight world.

file under: a felicidade

2006-12-13T23:40:00.000-05:00

the highlight of the night, easily, was watching black orpheus while N worked on some stuff.

beautiful! and it reminded me of how hard i fell for samba a few years ago.

file under: the deep end

2006-12-12T23:39:00.000-05:00

although i used to enjoy likening the cold blackness of deep water with outer space, over the last few years my thinking of such environs has made a turn towards something like dread.

it's not that i'm an awful swimmer or anything; i'm no spitz the second, for sure, but i'm not exactly afraid of drowning in a bathtub, either. i actually used to like public swimming pools - there was something comforting about the overwhelming presence of chlorine and the clear, clear water that i can't quite explain.

but natural bodies of water are another story. they freak me right the fuck out. i can't quite say why, but the thought of floating near the surface of some expanse with murky depths makes me want to, shall we say, lub the land. it doesn't really make sense, even to me.

within the last year or so, that dread has manifested a silver lining-like thrill of fascination in the form of tv shows about shipwrecks. my first real taste probably came with a documentary on the endurance, whose bleak story has literally caused me to lose some sleep on a few occassions.

after that, any coverage of divers flitting about graves of the sea could transfix me for hours.

thus, i was both thrilled and a bit nauseated to learn that a new, well-preserved relic has been found on the bottom of lake ontario, more than 60 meters underwater (shudder) with both masts still intact, rising "upward in the dark waters."

ack!

file under: hi-fiving la morenita

2006-12-11T23:33:00.000-05:00

anyone festivating?

file under: a week with 2 mondays

2006-12-10T23:30:00.000-05:00

it's occurring to me now that i haven't worked a double shift since i was a teenage busboy.

file under: the usual melodrama

2006-12-09T08:43:00.000-05:00

yesterday my curiosity got the better of me. i found myself going to a matinee showing of apocalypto, after about 8 hours of deliberation on the ethics of such a move.

that's no joke, either. while at work, i spent a good amount of time thinking through whether or not it was acceptable to support a movie produced and directed by a religiously fanatical homophobic anti-semite, no matter how visually stunning the movie might be.

probably over a year ago, N and i had a very similar discussion in our kitchen concerning reggae performers. could we listen to buju banton with a clear conscious, for example? and if so, were we obligated to determine how other performers felt about gays? or women? or god? or the war in iraq? clearly, that very quickly becomes a ridiculously slippery slope that left us scratching our heads over where to draw the line on such things (open advocacy of hate notwithstanding, as "boom bye bye" helpfully illustrates).

we finally returned to that old, well-worn maxim - that artwork must be judged on its own merits, however morally relativist that may sound. how basic is that? it's application to possibly detestable artists is more involved than you might initially think, though.

and on this point, apocalypto might complicate mel's current status as sociopath du jour. the film turned out to be little more than an action movie, albeit set in a uniquely exotic time and place. yes, gibson does try to tie in the decadence and dissolution of the mayan culture with the state of affairs today, but any parallels he hoped to highlight only prove to muddle whatever statement he was trying to make with them. if we think of america today as the maya of yesterday, then whose sympathetic perspective are we watching this film from? the insurgents? is the film just a warning to our leaders about the history of empires? does that mean he's heralding the "new beginning" that christianity clearly represents in the timeframe of the movie at hand? does that mean that islamofascists will see this as an inspiring fable about the fall of the west? i doubt gibson intended that; whatever he did intend is equally unclear.

it makes one wonder whether all the leftover controversy stirred up from the passion of the christ was used to attract attention to an otherwise predictable movie. the only food for thought that apocalypto ultimately gives boils down to just that: whether or not gibson, who plays a good crazy person, would be savvy and manipulative enough to stir the entertainment pot so effectively.

file under: dream of oppressive weight

2006-12-07T17:37:00.000-05:00

after lots of flitting, panoramic dreams of walking with N through massive apartment buildings, tying to decide which one we wanted to live in (probably inspired by a series of photos i ran across a few days ago of battleship island), i had a very short but disturbing dream just before waking up.

in this last dream, there is nothing to see - it's all black (i think i'm basically waking up). i know i'm in bed, sleeping face down. i have a very sudden memory of running after a red rubber ball as a baby (there is a photo of me, maybe 6 or 9 months old, holding the red ball that i'm dreaming about).

anyway, as i have this flash of past events, some unseen but very heavy thing sits on the edge of the bed next to me, its weight causing the mattress to dip downward severely. i try to roll over and sit up, but my body is essentially unresponsive. i try saying something to N, who is asleep beside me, but i can't get my mouth to form words. my brain is basically struggling against the dead weight of my body.

eventually, after long moments of focused effort, i'm able to sit up and grab a part of this amorphous thing that's next to me on the bed. i try to lean back and pull it down a bit, like a wrestling move, but it doesn't budge (too big, too heavy) and i think to myself, "what the hell is this thing?"

that's when i fully wake up. N is not, in fact, asleep beside me (she went out to run errands hours ago). there are no lights on in the apartment and it's completely dark (even though it's only 5:30pm or so - winter daylight!)

it's funny, because i ran across a website devoted to lucid dreaming earlier this morning. that feeling of trying to get my body to move is reminiscent of such things.

but the ominous feeling of that brief dream also reminded me of a recurring dream i used to have as a kid, where i'd be pinned against the ceiling of my room by something evil that i could not see. those dreams always scared me.

file under: way to go, brain (upcoming trip to ABQ edition)

2006-12-06T05:00:00.000-05:00

while flipping past what looked like yet another city confidential episode, i just caught a slurred "-xico" from narrator paul winfield (who always sounds like he's never far from a tumbler of bourbon when narrating). three channels further down the line, i decided to turn back and check to see if, you know, he may have been talking about new mexico, because i'm always oddly proud of my homestate showing up in the news (runaway brides and UFC fighters included).

sure enough, a familiar green roadsign marking the city limits was on the screen when i turned back, followed quickly by shots of central avenue (one featuring the sign for the house of pancakes where i first discovered the wonders of endless coffee refills accompanied by angsty journal writing).

not much later, still flipping around, N asks me to go back to a commercial for a show she's interested in checking out (which, we soon discover, features an actor from another show she has been known to obsess over. that actor - now that i think about it - reminds her of me. for the record, i don't see the similarities at all).

while watching the commercial, the background landscaping looks familiar - bright, arid, dotted with scrubby little trees. i say to N, "that looks like it could be shot in new mexico". the fact that the show has a paranormal theme makes me think it's set in roswell. but no. the show is shot, in fact, in my hometown. which we're visiting in a few weeks. brainulation otra vez! i'm telling you, it happens often around my wife.

also: holy shit. sign me up for this. like, immediately.

also: two surnames i ran across tonight i'd love to unravel the etymology of:

- seagraves
- tarbat

awesome.

file under: wave of brainulation

2006-12-05T05:15:00.000-05:00

i've been working on this juvenile music project for the past couple of weeks. i've assembled the majority of the component parts, and the need for a working title has started to arise.

as i've been thinking about what to name this thing i'm working on, it occurred to me that something related to sonography might be a good place to start. after googling "sonar map" and other such permutations of possible keywords and then scouring wikipedia articles on related topics, i came across the term echolocation, which seemed like a good thing to write down for future title consideration.

imagine my surprise, then, when i dropped in on slate to read their daily summary of major u.s. newspapers to find this on the main page.

that, my friends, is what has come to be known as "brainulation" (named after a "therapeutic device" we saw demonstrated in a streetfair during one of N's first trips to NYC. the name of that device? "the orgasmic brainulator", whic was little more than a metal claw with rubberized nubs attached that grip and release the subject's head).

brainulation has become a commonly used term in our household (as has the mildly sarcastic comment, "way to go, brain", when the brainulation is not entirely appreciated) because i am halfway convinced that N has very strong brain waves which somehow skew the direction of pop culture in strange ways. believe me, it's happened a little too often for these instances of brainulation to be nothing more than simple, random collisions of coincidence in this cold, cold universe we call home.

anyway, that echolocation thing is a textbook example of brainulation: i became mildly obsessed with an idea over a day or two and then i found the idea reflected back at me quite unexpectedly in some media outlet in a location i have a habit of checking.

now, i'm sure this happens to everyone. of course it does. and of course everyone goes "whoah! dude!" when it happens and then promptly forgets all about it, because it's invariably too trivial to even qualify as trivia.

maybe conspiracy theorists are born from stuff like this; the susceptible ones among us come across some weird anomaly and then get lost in a chain of flawed reasoning welded together with "and if so!" statements that make less and less sense the longer the chain gets.

but does it happen more often to some people than others (because it happens to N, like, ALL THE TIME)? and if so, is it simply some kind of subtle environ-mental (see what i did there, dude?) cue they're tuning in to, like picking up neglected pieces of the future that don't matter? if so, could that propensity be used to, for example, pick winning numbers for some upcoming lottery? OR is this really how people become full-blown crazy, rushing out to buy lotto tix based on nonexistent connections and meanings we're weaving into our own private mediaverses?

file under: my debt to the hoff

2006-12-04T23:30:00.000-05:00

had to get a new OHIP card this morning, which means a new OHIP card photo was in order. as much as i hate having my picture taken, i was more than happy to "re-do" my current photo, if only because it was taken on the first day of a temp job many moons ago. i was therefore wearing a tie. and it wasn't a cool tie, either. it was a mediocre, inoffensive workplace tie. those are the worst kind of ties, if you ask me. they're the turkey subs of ties, if you know what i mean.

so this morning, as i'm standing in front of the white backdrop at the OHIP office and wondering if my shaggy hair is completely out of control (it was windy this morning), it occurs to me that i'm going to need to produce a halfway convincing smile in a second. there was a long moment where i just didn't have much of a smile in me, and the fear of a strained and blatantly fake smile forever captured on a piece of identification began to bloom in my heart.

UNTIL i noticed the small photo of david hasselhoff snuggling with 2 puppies, taped discreetly on the front of the camera. crisis averted!

clearly, those ministry employees must have dealt with years and years of bad photos before ultimately deciding to intervene against the endless moments (numerically speaking) of desperation and dread lived out in front of cameras in ministry offices nationwi - no, worldwide. see that? socialized medicine really can work!

file under: postponed!

2006-12-02T04:52:00.000-05:00

as alluded to here, some last minute glitches and uncertainties resulted in a cancelled trip to nyc. thus, calvin remains our feline expat for a while longer.

we can't tell if the ordeal has been any more draining than his regular existence, due mostly to the rigorous 20 hour per day sleeping regimen he's been maintaining for the past 11 months.

file under: going home (almost gone)

2006-12-01T03:37:00.000-05:00

it's hard to believe, but the little man is leaving us today.

file under: almost gone (going home)

2006-11-30T02:28:00.000-05:00

in exactly 3 weeks, i will be wrapping up my last shift of the year and preparing for a trip to that Dirty Old Town with N, after which we will spend a handful of days in the frozen northern climes of her youth. then it will be a new year. can you believe how quickly things are coming to a close? december is, like, friggin' tomorrow, yo. i seriously can't believe that shit.

file under: dotted lines visible from space

2006-11-28T23:28:00.000-05:00

having lived in this country for just under 3 years, i've got some major background reading to do before speaking with much confidence on the matter, but this whole situation seems to be a deft political maneuver intended to, on one hand, stall a more aggressive proposal from the bloc quebecois while, on the other hand, formally acknowledge something that most people assume to be blatantly obvious (namely, that quebec has a distinct yet amorphous cultural "identity" that is the extension of one branch of this country's co-founding communities).

of course, while harper's acknowledgement avoids any real political or legal transformation for QC (thus far, at least), it does seem to be one of those "gesture intended to signal major break from historical positions" things.

we'll see how quickly and how badly this vague declaration will be distorted by parties eager to expand its scope and meaning before more specific language limits the many possibilities for abuse.

[found this thread later, which has been informative and thankfully not too knee-jerky.]

file under: excerpts against interpretation

2006-11-27T23:30:00.000-05:00

part 4, first paragraph:

"in a culture whose already classical dilemma is the hypertrophy of the intellect at the expense of energy and sensual capability, interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art."

part 6, last paragraph:

"interpretaion, based on the highly dubious theory that a work of art is composed of items of content, violates art. it makes art into an article for use, for arrangement into a mental scheme of categories."

part 9, last few paragraphs:

"what is important now is to recover our senses. we must learn to see more, to hear more, to feel more.

our task is not to find the maximum amount of content in a work of art, much less to squeeze more content out of the work than is already there. our task is to cut back content so that we can see the thing at all.

the aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art - and, by analogy, our experience - more rather than less, real to us. the function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means."

and finally, part 10 in its entirety:

"in place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art."

[susan sontag ruled all the way back in 1964.]

how many bands have i been extremely annoyed with because their lyrics are clever or literate while the instrumentation is somewhat unremarkable? is that an unfortunate side effect of the written world reporting upon sound? have i lost hope in music's ability to communicate anything literal and concrete? is that why i'm liking noise so much these days? i'm not sure about any of it.

file under: catching fire

2006-11-26T06:54:00.000-05:00

walking to the subway stop early yesterday morning after work, the quiet downtown core was shrouded in the weirdest blanket of fog i've ever seen. where it was thinnest, you could see that the sky was blue above - no clouds to speak of. that made the fog itself look more like smoke from a de-centered fire, like you were walking either into or away from a disaster zone of some kind.

i'm sure it's simply what happens when the air reaches 100% humidity without the usual accompaniment of cloud cover. still, the technical explanation fails to convey the weirdness of the phenomenon, because that shit was seriously bizarre.

[update tuesday morning: about 8 photos of the fog can be found here.]

file under: an evangelical vision of geopolitical redemption

2006-11-25T05:10:00.000-05:00

after reading an excellent history of the players involved, i still had one lingering question: how could so many bright, ambitious, politically-seasoned people, who have been advocating action in iraq for about 30 years, have failed so miserably to anticipate the difficulties of their pre-emptive aftermath?

here's the best answer i've come across yet.

[and while we're on the subject, who do we google to find a well-reasoned argument for the necessity of the war, now that no one is even pretending there were WMD's or any link to the events of 9/11? the best i can find is an "it was inevitable" defense from my usual source of contrary opinion (and even he stopped "restating the case for war" after nov. 2003, apparently). i hope something out there is more compelling than that, because "inevitability" certainly doesn't go very far in justifying the unilateral rush to disaster that ensued. or is it simply that even the pro-war types have accepted that this whole endeavor can't be justified and that there's no point in talking about reasons anymore?]

file under: yes, virginia, there really is a thanksgiving

2006-11-24T04:52:00.000-05:00

N was scheduled to work a half-day on thursday, which means we both knew she'd be gone before i got home. that, in turn, meant that i wouldn't see her until i woke up thursday evening.

and that's basically what happened: i finally got out of bed a little after 7pm and then, on my way to the bathroom, noticed that there was ALL KINDS OF DELICIOUS FOOD in the kitchen! like, actual thanksgiving-type delicious food! wow! for a second there, it felt more like christmas, like waking up to bing crosby on the radio and presents under the tree waiting to be unwrapped.

N had orchestrated the whole thing (secretly, as is her wont sometimes) at least a few days ahead of time, obscuring the groceries as best she could in the fridge and on our makeshift "pantry". the scheduled half-day of work even fit in, as she'd be home in the early afternoon, all the better to get everything together while i coma'd away in oblivious slumber. how perfect!

and it was. we flew to seattle for the canadian thanksgiving weekend in october, so i was already resigned to foregoing the holiday completely this year (which, for just 2 people, can be an easy resignation to forego). but we still had turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, and even (perhaps most amazingly) pumpkin pie, something our high-end supermarket hasn't carried all year (not even during canada's own thnxgiving, much to our surprise and disappointment).

for that gift of unexpected holiday cheer, and for every other day that we spend together, i have to say that i am most gratefully thankful for my wife and for the love she never fails to show me.

file under: also

2006-11-23T12:02:00.000-05:00

happy thanksgiving, practicing americans!

file under: hissyfit

2006-11-23T03:25:00.000-05:00

one trip with calvin to the vet for his travelling papers, and the halloween image of a black cat possessed by some unholy power makes perfect sense.

seriously, i've never heard a domestic housecat make noises like that before. it was both extremely hilarious and also quite mortifying - the vet at one point apologized because he clearly would be unable to thoroughly examine the howling, hissing, thrashing demonspawn we had brought to him at 9:45 in the morning. what could i do but apologize to him, hoping to indicate that we weren't actually condoning or (god forbid) instilling this kind of behavior.

i mean, i knew the anal temperature probe was going to be bad, but the whole examination was so out of control that i didn't even know the probe had happened until N filled me in on it later (i was busy bolting the carrier back together at the time, as they were unable to get calvin out of the thing safely without dissembling it).

on the cab ride home, calvin was slumped against the carrier door, almost nodding off. he'd literally worn himself out struggling for 30 minutes with 2 veterinarians.

this does not bode well for his trip back to nyc in 1 week - i'll have to fit him into an even smaller carrier and try to convince customs that taking him out and inspecting him won't be worth the pain and suffering he will inflict upon them, the poor bastards.

file under: on this day

2006-11-22T04:46:00.000-05:00

JFK was assassinated 43 years ago today. to be honest, that never meant much to me. as a kid in the '80s, it felt like a remote event that had been talked about to death. over the last few years, though, it's started to take on more and more weight in my imagination.

and for good reason: an early victory against a scowling nixon on the televised debate, onto camelot, pink pillbox hats, marilyn monroe's birthday serenade (and suicide a year before dallas), the space race, cuban missle crisis, birth of the berlin wall, the opening wound that was vietnam, mobilization of the civil rights movement, not to mention the tragedies of the brothers (another death and chappaquiddick shortly thereafter), even onto the famous torch-passing photo of the president with a young and hopeful william jefferson clinton. there's so much tied into that knot of events! no wonder it's at the center of so much obsessive speculation.

throw in zapruder and the truly shakespearean minor character hand-wringing that was oliver stones examination, (even house of yes, if you like, possibly only for style points) and you have the greatest greek tragedy ever made on american soil.

file under: dérive-ination

2006-11-21T03:41:00.000-05:00

one of toronto's distinct urban features are these labyrinths-in-a-teacup (otherwise known as laneways) tucked away in various neighborhoods.

combining the romance of the secret pathway with the voyeuristic pull of private backyards, i instantly fell in love with these endless alleyways and spent much of my first summer here searching out their interconnections and endpoints.

it's easy to forget about them in the late fall/ early winter months; the chill sets in and you're not as inclined to do the dérive, if you know what i mean.

still, i felt a little wistful twinge when i stumbled across this announcement.

file under: caught! fate conspiring

2006-11-20T03:45:00.000-05:00

first came this, which i was happy to see in the hometown's free weekly (oddly vexing reader comment included).

but then came this, arrived at quite independently (yet apparently posted not long after the nod from the alibi).

i'm sure there are reasons for such things, like a conference on internetting in the area or something. it's the only connection i can think of between the two photos.

still.... i can't help but feel that this is really a secret sign just for me. but what could it mean? am i supposed to make a sojourn to calgary? for what purpose? is it a destiny thing?

que curiosidad, though. i mean, i've heard about heeding the call and everything, but...

a yodeling sausage?

what could it all mean? i'm at a loss.

file under: kriss krobviouss

2006-11-19T04:40:00.000-05:00

upon hearing that ludacris would be hosting SNL a few days ago, i said to nirmala: i wonder if luda, even if it was for just a second, ever thought about going by ridicuris.

har har, right? so imagine my surprise when luda's opening monologue featured keenan thompson playing a childhood friend from the neighborhood named rick barnes... AKA RICK DICULOUS.

coincidence or brainulation? you be the judge.

file under: 2 silents

2006-11-19T00:00:00.000-05:00

after finally seeing battleship potemkin, it was hard for me to believe two things:

1) that the film was shot 4 years after nosferatu, which i popped in immediately afterwards in order to kind of compare technical aspects. potemkin may lack some of what can only be described as the charming indie-eaque fx of nosferatu, but it seems to be light years ahead in nearly every other category.

2) that the battleship used in the film was made 20 years before filming began. seriously, the ship looked so modern i had to brush up on such terminology as pre-dreadnought vs. dreadnought battleships during the course of an investigative maelstrom. i'm sure that was part of the allure of basing a propagandistic film around the ship, the tidy historical event of the rebellion itself notwithstanding. using the ship's clean lines and massive volumes as a clear symbol of modernity in the service of communism was a truly masterful touch.

that doesn't necessarily make potemkin a better film (i think they're both incredibly great), but it is staggering to see the obvious differences between the two onscreen. admittedly, that may have to do with the copy of nosferatu that we own more than anything else, as the film's public domain status means the market has been flooded with cheap copies made prior to a restoration it underwent in 1994. in fact, all of the original prints and negatives of nosferatu were to be destroyed as part of a lawsuit settlement with bram stoker's widow! something clearly survived the ordered annihilation, though. much like the undead, IT WOULD NOT BE SO EASILY DESTROYED!

on top of that, the version i saw of potemkin was apparently from a 1976 restoration, so there's that to consider as well. but does that account entirely for the difference? i doubt it.

file under: missing

2006-11-17T21:57:00.000-05:00

screaming o.d. was still in the ER when i went back to work the next night. when i first sat down, she was talking about needing to leave because her dog had been alone for the past 3 days without food or water. one of the nurses tried to get her address and possibly the phone number of a friend who could check in on her pet, but she kept screaming, "i don't trust you!" everyone was relieved when she was eventually sedated.

that sorta reminded me of the time (when i worked at the rehab hospital) that the police called because they had busted down the door of a patient's apartment. he was an old guy, 92 or so and more or less senile. he only managed to live alone because his neighbors checked in on him so much. anyway, the police had broken in because the neighbors hadn't seen the old guy around for a few days, so they assumed he had died. he'd actually been with us for around a week by that point, recovering from a broken hip or something (i can't remember exactly). the police put his door back on its hinges and then used that yellow tape to keep others out.

i was trying to find out some kind of contact or next of kin information when he first came in, but all he could tell me was, "there's a chinese man who parks his car in my driveway, but i don't know his name or where he lives." that was literally the first person that came to mind when i asked him who we should put down as his next of kin.

how many of the elderly are that alone in the world, tucked away in their apartments or homes, depending on neighbors to help them get by? i'm sure the statistics are startling.

file under: PTSD (EVNTLLY)

2006-11-16T08:47:00.000-05:00

let it be known that last night was, for some unknown reason, the busiest night of the entire year. who would've guessed that a friggin' wednesday of an otherwise mellow week could explode into such disorder and disarray? i can't explain it.

one of the highlights was an attempted overdose patient screaming "heeeeelp meeeeeeee!!!!!" at the top of her lungs for hours (once she revived - around 4:30am). hearing that particular phrase over and over again was more distressing than you might initially think. i mean, it was sincere and painfully desperate.

i don't even know what part of her brain was actually functioning at the time, because she seriously sounded like an animal for long stretches, descending into these weirdly guttural shrieks while crying incessantly. at one point, she yelled out "do you want this to happen to you?!?!?" it was a somewhat sobering question, if you'll pardon the not-quite-right pun.

listening to her completely lose her shit had me wondering how the staff could stay so professional through it all (although most were cursing under their breath as they walked away from the area, to be honest). it's like they took the blanket of weirdness this one particular patient was adding to an already trying evening in stride. maybe it's no big deal anymore for most of them. what would be, at this point?

still, for some reason, a sneaking suspicion came over me as the shift was ending, something that shouldn't be much of a surprise once you stop to think about it.

[also on the way home, gray and rainy yet again, i saw that neighborhood guy i pointed out to N during the summer. he's middle-aged, red haired, i think a little developmentally delayed. he talks to himself and sings very loudly until people are close to him on the sidewalk; then he quickly pipes down or sings softly until they pass. today he was reading an article while he walked, meticulously clipped from some newspaper, like the things CMP used to send me in letters addressed to seattle.]

[also: PF certification came through from the registrawr generale yesterday. that's code talking for a selec-ted audience, but i'm mentioning it because it should be duly noted somewheres.]

file under: hottness

2006-11-16T00:07:00.000-05:00

the best thing about sports these days has got to be the blatantly homoerotic release it provides for both "performer" and "spectator". if they were more honest with themselves, i wonder how many in the athlete/fan demimonde would fess up to certain tingly feelings during the post-game shower....

file under: dream of KRS-ONE

2006-11-14T23:44:00.000-05:00

my dad and i were supposed to pick up a patient from some local health clinic and transport them "home" (wherever that is). we got into his old blue chevy behemoth and lumbered out in search of our person.

we found the clinic - a set of very 70's one-story brown buildings. inside, we looked over the paperwork and saw that this person lived in "ontario, canada". hey! that works out well, right? how convenient.

my step-sister, kelly, was sitting sideways in a chair in the waiting room. i haven't seen her in about 15 years, so we caught each other up on stuff while the patient was being brought out to us. kelly tells me that she's married to KRS-ONE (??), but that "it's an open relationship." while she's talking, my vision is filled with a b&w image of KRS. i keep thinking, "look at those stringy-ass dreads!" it's not a good look for him, especially in this dream.

[in the real world, kelly called me once when i was living in nyc. she lives in st. louis and has her own business providing security to clubs and hip-hop shows. she had gotten my number from my dad and had called to see if i knew any record producers in new york. apparently, she had branched out in the biz and was looking to promote some local rappers she knew. i think she was disappointed that i wasn't better connected in that area - it could've been that she wasn't aware of my shift in musical tastes since we last lived together (1988? 1989?), and therefore assumed that i still listened to rap almost exclusively.]

file under: incumbents upon us

2006-11-13T23:48:00.000-05:00

okay, so it may not have been as suspenseful as super tuesday, but the city-wide elections saw the candidates we vaguely favored confirmed for another term.

locally, that means joe mihevc remains councillor for ward 21. i'm glad for that, actually, if for no other reason than it will mean there will be continued support for transformation of the wychwood barns into community artspace. i can't think of a better usage for such interesting buildings.

file under: first tastes

2006-11-12T23:10:00.000-05:00

GC's 4 year old son was apparently looking forward to meeting me because i have the same name as a robot on his favorite tv show. i don't know that he was disappointed, exactly, but i do know that the comic book SD brought for him overshadowed just about everything else in the world for the duration of our brunch.

it was a 100th issue of spider man. in the back, there was a 3 or 4 page x-men adventure included. while the adults chatted and ate, he pored over the pages, asking for explanations when he couldn't quite figure out what was going on in the cells. his father used a fork to illustrate the idea of telepathy (the fork floated in the air, plucked up an imaginary french fry, then swooped towards the boy for him to eat it).

i wondered later whether he'd ever owned a comic book before - we could have witnessed his introduction to the medium (or format, i suppose), which is an oddly sweet notion.

i actually remember the first comic i had. it was an x-men, of course. i hadn't learned to read yet, but i studied those pages anyway. although i built up quite a collection over the following ten or twelve years, i would eventually sell the more valuable ones and give the rest to my best friend, saying they were just turning to paper mush in the back of my closet.

by then, music had replaced their primacy in my life. i would wouldn't really look back to those heady print-smudged days until my early twenties, when zines and alt/indie comics showed up on my radar.

is that a rite of passage for every boy born after 1963?

file under: remember art?

2006-11-11T23:54:00.000-05:00

woke up feeling much in need of some artcrawling (despite the shit weather, which was your garden variety dark 'n' dismal), so i headed down to queen street west because after a few years here in toronto i'm still unsure where else to find decent art galleries.

i thought it would be a good weekend to go because it was safe from any first-of or end-of the month puttings up or down of shows, but i was completely ignorant of the fact that it was actually a good weekend to go because it was taafi time.

honestly, i went into the gladstone to check things out, walked up the lovely staircase, then promptly balked at the $7 admission. i know that sucks, but there was enough stuff in the usual suspects to be seen for free (i also poked my head into the solé gallery for the first time, and was impressed by the space, if not so much the art).

i'm sure the gladstone and drake were both serving up some interesting stuff, but i don't really feel too bad about not committing to it today.

while checking out taafi's site after the fact, i was interested to see will munro's name mentioned. he came up in a conversation recently with N because she found out that he is now co-owner of the fabled beaver, which was the proud host of LB and AG's reception last night.

VF has also mentioned him when we were talking about dj nights, and i recall an awesome art installation he had up for while as well. busy-bodies are inspiring!

anyway, being out and going to the regular galleries reminded me that my own artistic output has lapsed beyond the excusable, and that i need to be doing stuff again. so what else is new?

file under: going to the chapel

2006-11-10T22:15:00.000-05:00

cheers to the lovely bride and groom!

[photo courtesy miss imperial, who covered the ceremony and reception quite splendidly]

file under: 90

2006-11-09T23:46:00.000-05:00

CMP turned 90 years old today. lord, i do love that woman! it will be good to see her again, soon.

file under: demolition redux

2006-11-08T23:41:00.000-05:00

i had not heard an ER nurse actually use the phrase "clusterfuck" in terms of the patient load until tonight. and it has indeed been a clusterfuck, from the moment i walked in.

of course, i was already in a bad mood because there were problems with the subway - i had to get off two stops early and hoof it the rest of the way to work (another first - toronto's subway system has thus far proven to be quite dependable).

walking at night through the business/financial district was an unexpected treat, though. the glass and concrete landscape looked so icy and severe. the countless office lights that were left on vaguely resembled stars formed in geometric (corporate?) constellations.

[at this point, i make a subtle reference to the fact that leaving such lights on in office buildings leads to the demise of many birds. i manage to tie that into a reference to icarus, which highlights not only the comparison of the office lights to the sun, but also the notion of icarus utilizing a bird's specialized anatomy - namely, wings - to fly away from the labyrinth he lives in, towards his famously recounted tragedy]

walking from union station also allowed me the opportunity to check in on that demolition site near the hospital. there were worklights trained on the dissembled building tonight, casting the whole scene in this weird, "artificially staged" glow that actually caused me to stop and stare in wonder. it was so quiet, too! maybe that enhanced the posed feel of it all. things are also getting to the point where it really does resemble some kind of ruin nestled amongst a forest of gleaming monoliths - very caspar david friedrich somehow.

file under: the same song

2006-11-07T23:34:00.000-05:00

i don't think all the results are in, and i'm not really too optimistic about the outcomes anyway. for sure, some gains were made, but i can't help wondering (in the kind of willful misreading of a song's original subject matter that i am sometimes guilty of), "what difference does it make?"

i know that's a bit too cynical, but i'd rather not get my hopes up just yet.

file under: fingers crossed

2006-11-06T23:36:00.000-05:00

needless to say, i'll be holding my breath (and, in the case of some of the tighter races, my nose as well) for the next 24 hours or so.

file under: slippin'

2006-11-05T23:26:00.000-05:00

did not get anything done this weekend, really. so what else is new?

it's like that line in a song i like more than i probably should:

maybe, someday / i'll be more together

file under: dream of john coltrane day

2006-11-04T09:05:00.000-05:00

walking down a semi-busy street in a little havana-ish or similar neighborhood (possibly in brooklyn/bronx), sunny out, shoeless and wearing shorts for some reason. it’s late afternoon, 4pm or so, and i’m coming back from some obligation. there is a lot of music coming from various sources: radios on streetcorners, apartment windows, passing cars. i turn up a particular street and walk past 2 older men playing jazz on a record player right next to the sidewalk. it’s very 60’s, flighty, atonal, freeform-like jazz, maybe a version of “take five” (a song which i actually kind of hate – in real life, N and i were listening to a reggae version of it on that recent trojan compilation that dj spooky did, so that's probably how it creeped into my subconscious).

anyway, everything sounds so good that i decide to walk into the middle of the street, where the music is louder/loudest. i start jumping up and twisting around in the air like a total spazz, getting totally caught up in the music and actually getting choked up with joy at SUCH SOUND within the dream, because it just sounded incredible. it’s hard to describe how great it felt, this really nice, ecstatic moment within the dream, tears running down my face and all.

i woke up at about 12:30pm, which is waaaaaaaaaaaay too early for me to be up during the week. it’s the weekend, though, so I need to start switching my sleep schedule around a bit anyway so that I’m not awake all night and asleep all day.

once up, i immediately put john coltrane’s expression on, because I knew it was close to what I heard in my dream (which i had, in the meantime, decided was a sign to think of this day as “unofficial john coltrane day”). hearing it was just what i was looking for.

i’m not even terribly knowledgeable of coltrane’s oeuvre – we have 3 or 4 of his more famous albums (giant steps, blue train, a love supreme, coltrane, basically the usual suspects) and only own expression because i read that it was the last thing he recorded before passing away. i wanted to know if you could hear any of that in his playing, if there was some kind of awareness of the end coming. it can be meditative at times for sure, like a lot of coltrane can be, but it’s also still full of such life and inquisitiveness, “even in the face of death”, i guess. it’s inspiring.

file under: punditry on pause

2006-11-03T03:16:00.000-05:00

just finished rise of the vulcans by james mann earlier this evening, and am impressed by both the extensive research and the refreshingly level-headed articulation that went into it. thank god not everything written these days is prone to off-putting hyperventilation (even if said hyperventilation is totally warranted).

i first read about the book in a christopher hitchens article, which might not be the greatest association for some people out there. mister hitchens is one of the few pro-war commentators whose opinion i find thought-provoking and engaging (even though i still manage to strongly disagree with the majority of conclusions he draws), but that's just me. i know opinions on him vary, and his inability to restrain his inner contrarian can be extremely irritating for sure.

anyway, i found the book to be very informative and surprisingly fair (if a bit too forgiving at times). still, definitely recommended for people wanting some real context to go with their current events dissection.

file under: happy dia de los muertos!

2006-11-02T04:57:00.000-05:00

enjoy a sugar skull in the graveyard, won't you?

file under: vespers

2006-11-01T03:16:00.000-05:00

next to the hospital there's a church, pushed back from the street by a decently-sized expanse of grass criss-crossed with pathways, benches, and a few squat cement tables for chess.

at night, this park-like area is taken over by the derelicts of the area - drunks curled up or sprawled out, dealers and prostitutes in conductio, loiterers and vagrants talking or shuffling around.

there's something about this staging of urban blight that reminds me very much of central avenue in ABQ, which means that i am terribly nostalgic for and extremely fond of it. as dumb as it may sound, it's a texture i need in my life and it's one of the bigger perks of working where i do. standing outside of the hospital at 3 or 4 in the morning (tired nurses on their smoke breaks, sitting on the cement steps) takes me back to my early 20's, when i was getting to really know the shabbier parts of my hometown with shane (ah, shane! i've been missing him so much lately).

i'm not as self-destructive these days, but there are some old feelings inside that still respond to that kind of environment. i don't really know how to talk about it without it being lame or sounding romantic in the worst kind of way - there's just a feeling i get when it's that time of night and i'm outside, like i'm standing on the lip of something vaguely familiar that i've been missing.

file under: mindfreak

2006-10-31T02:58:00.000-05:00

saw the prestige monday afternoon with N (who may or may not approve of today's somewhat sarcastic title). i was having trouble sleeping, so i got up a little earlier than expected and we did our best to take advantage of the sunny and crisp fall day.

i can't remember the last movie we saw in a theater (oh, wait - it was that documentary on ed "big daddy" roth). nothing seemed to be worth the effort (and cost) of the theater experience after that, and even that one was more of a snap decision after brunch than a real desire to seek it out. plus, we're doing the zip.ca thing, so we've had a steady stream of dvd's to keep up with at home.

anyway, i liked the prestige well enough. i had accidentally stumbled upon a description of the plot twist online, so my experience was a little compromised. it did mean, however, that i could fully appreciate the little hints carefully laid out along the way.

as we walked home and chit-chatted about various aspects of the movie and our impressions of them, about what worked and what didn't, i found that what i may have enjoyed most was the subtle connection drawn between the story unfolding on the screen and its similarities to the film industry and the modern movie-going experience (ie, that audiences know about the real world, but want to be amazed for a while, even if they know it's just an ultimately disappointing trick). that was a smart angle to layer in there, mr. nolan.

not to mention the heady joke of making a movie obsessed with doubles (where two people - or two birds, for that matter, or two cats - are assumed to be the same individual) by using the same person to play more than one role (like hugh jackman, for example). ha! nice meta, guy!

file under: two scenes

2006-10-30T03:03:00.000-05:00

1) from la jetee, in which the protagonist watches his love interest sleeping (this is a past event, a memory to which he is anchored). although the movie is composed entirely of black and white stills with accompanying narration, the stills in this particular segment follow each other at a quickened pace so that the images start to form a "film-like" fluidity of her opening her eyes and looking back at him. the sound of birds increases from the background to the foreground as this simple moment of two people looking out/into each other stretches on for a long minute or two, then is suddenly cut short by a jump to the face of the protagonist's doctor (now in the present), studying the protagonist coldly. there is nothing but darkness in the background, and no sound. the transition is bracing.

2) from fellini satyricon, in which the hero stumbles home from a debauched party with an old poet (a mentor of sorts), someone who has very recently been scorned, dishonored, and abused by the host of the party. they stop to rest in a field tilled for sowing, stretching out over furrows of raw earth. as dawn approaches, the old poet talks about leaving the young hero the varied and beautiful things of the world (the trees, the sky, the many clouds, etc). there is a shot of the young man's arm stretching up to the sky as he listens, grasping at clouds that are far away. the poet dies, but the youth is unaware of the passing. he is thinking of a young lover that left him for another. to himself, he says, "even though you left me, i still love you" (can't remember the exact subtitled line just now, but that's the sentiment). there is a quick image of his object of affection, just a momentary flash, then the young hero is jerked to his feet as he realizes he is no longer in the field but laying on a beach, in chains, about to be corralled into a slave ship with many others. again, the transition is jarring.

both scenes catch us in the midst of a private reverie, a moment of nostalgia and yearning that takes us away from the world (only to shock us back into the present like an unexpected dousing of cold water). seeing the first one yesterday reminded me of the other instantly. i like when that happens.

file under: in bloom

2006-10-29T23:10:00.000-05:00

N usually sleeps with the tv on while i'm at work, so i'm often greeted by the fresh prince of bel-air when i come home in the morning. we've talked about it before - i find the constant flicker of the cathode ray and the laff tracks too, i dunno, distracting while i'm trying to sleep. she feels the same way about music, which is my preferred form of background noise. she gets too involved with the songs to really sleep. i guess we've got our sleepy-time media divvied up and staked out.

anyway, she was away at casa de RP/BB this weekend, so i left the tv on as a way of keeping her in my thoughts (yes, i realize that doesn't make any sense). our music collection was in the other room, and i was too sleepy to get up and find something to listen to (why i didn't think of the radio, i really can't say. i've been meaning to listen to brave new waves more often, but finding the time has been tougher than expected).

i couldn't determine which channel would be the most sleep-inducing, because i hate most sitcoms and didn't want anything too "flickery" (thus no music videos). i decided on cnn, figuring the drone of tele-journalists would be narcotizing enough.

the problem, apparently, is that the wee hours were full of pundits speculating on the proliferation of wmd's, so i had fitful half-dreams of mushroom clouds and toxic spores. would the food channel have been any better? maybe the weather channel next time?

file under: gravity's rainbow, p. 148

2006-10-28T22:35:00.000-04:00

- (Quietly) It's been a prevalent notion. Fallen sparks. Fragments of vessels broken at the Creation. And someday, somehow, before the end, a gathering back to home. A messenger from the Kingdom, arriving at the last moment. But I tell you there is no such message, no such home - only the millions of last moments... no more. Our history is an aggregate of last moments.

----------------------------------------

i have a habit, much to the chagrin of used booksellers everywhere, of underlining passages in books that i like. i'll probably share them from time to time, when i've revisited some be-smirched book for one reason or another (in this case, from picking up gravity's rainbow and skimming the underlined parts as a sub-routine of my ongoing attempt at reading william vollmann's rather daunting europe central. the two novels are actually quite nice companion pieces to each other - factualized fictionalizations of wwii that bring a surreal warp to an otherwise unbearably grim time in history).

file under: old stories

2006-10-27T05:16:00.000-04:00

i wrote a short story a long time ago about an artist losing his eyesight due to a physiological adjustment to his abstract/expressionist style of painting. he starts seeing the world the same way he chooses to represent it, and then spends a lot of time on a park bench trying to figure out what other personal malfunctions are his own fault.

it was for a short fiction contest sponsored by the local free weekly (very short - 500 words or less, maybe?). i called it sense and sensibility (i know, i know), which made me instantly worried no one would read it, ever, based on the title alone. i couldn't resist, despite the risk. i was of the younger age, then - that's my excuse.

the short story that won the contest was a mildly graphic account of andrew jackson having sex with a slave (from the slave's point of view), with vaguely political allusions swirling in the background. i think the prize was a $100 gift certificate to one of the city's better bookstores.

i'm telling you this so that i can forget it for another decade and then revisit it only upon sifting through october 2006's archive some rainy day.

file under: wonderland

2006-10-26T04:38:00.000-04:00

someone locked up in one of the pysch rooms keeps yelling "hey! hey! heeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyy!!!! hey!" all night.

in some ways, it's a common, everyday detail of this particular working enviroment.

after hearing it for a few hours straight, though, you sometimes wonder: "what kind of place is this?"

file under: hypertaxonomania (.com)

2006-10-25T04:57:00.000-04:00

i'm sure that, in the future, doctoral dissertations will expound upon the increasingly complex decision making process of naming a new website without drowning in a sea of "that name is not available" messages from those ever-proliferating domain registries.

i'm also sure that future web addresses will develop their own internal language rules, and am secretly hoping they look something like the early spam headlines N and i used to e-mail each other a few years ago.

(ie, not much like recognizeable english at all. basically a corrupted version of english, more or less - englitch, maybe? i think that's already taken and isn't web-talk specific enough. ng1tch would be closer to what i'm looking for but is already irritating to look at. i think you get the point).

i've been known to quietly bemoan the lack of something like a URL "white pages" for this very reason; why is it so hard to randomly browse URL's? how are you supposed to find addresses you don't know the name of (other than searching by content, of course)?. you would think that such an index would be one of the most basic services imaginable. why one hasn't been compiled and maintained confuses me; is it just that i haven't been looking in the right places?

anyway, it's therefore vaguely satisfying to stumble across a website with a URL that is both concise and fetching. and it's in that spirit of joyful discovery that i present my favorite URL of the day, the charmingly named

easy mentalism

[postscript, nov. 1: oh no! now it's broken! somehow, i killed easy mentalism! shit.]

file under: more sounds per hour

2006-10-24T03:56:00.000-04:00

i have come to believe that there is now entirely too much recorded music in the world. despite being a somewhat dedicated fan of sound, i'm finding it impossible to keep up with the neverending influx of new, old, reissued, and re-formatted material that comes my way on the daily. THERE'S TOO MUCH OF IT and i don't know how to deal with that.

i mean, how do you scale back when scaling back is necessary? stay away from downloading, as tempting as that might be? ignore the emerging stuff until it gains a certain amount of critical momentum? reduce the amount of historical investigations? eliminate entire genres that are either over-represented in the collection or are only represented "to broaden the horizon"?

seriously, i'm not sure what to do. i hardly even have time to listen to the CD's we've bought over the last few months. at best, some of the older ones have been itunes-d and shuffled into my ipod's randomizer. that's okay for the most part, but i recall a time when it was possible to sit down and listen to something from the first track to the last. now everything's been exploded and atomized, hurtling out at speeds only a broadband line can capture.

not that i don't enjoy the rush of things coming at me faster faster faster; i definitely do. it's just distressing to find that i'm not even close to keeping up.

file under: improper curries

2006-10-23T03:17:00.000-04:00

it's been rainy on and off all day (still) and i wasn't in the mood to go to the supermarket, so i ended up making an ad hoc curry with onion, chickpeas, horribly freezer burnt green beans, a can of crushed tomatoes, some katta sambol (used in a blatantly non-traditional manner, i'm sure) and a jar of store-bought madras curry "sauce". nothing sublime, but it felt better to make something up in the kitchen rather than order delivery again.

i think that was my major achievement for the day, aside from some basic kicking of it in the APT with N. sundays can be low-impact like that when it's crappy out.

file under: requiem pour un camera

2006-10-22T05:59:00.000-04:00

about ten years ago, i bought this cheapie minolta camera so that i could "take notes" while walking around the neighborhood. its lens didn't have much range, but it served me well nonetheless.

since that time, it's made the journey to the east coast with me, was the sole provider of images from the nyc days, and even helped me familiarize myself with toronto for 2 1/2 years. but i think the time has come to admit that our digital camera has relegated it to the dustbin of the 20th century.

it took me 8 months to get through my most recent roll of 24 pictures, starting in the beginning of the year with a snapshot of my favorite local store signage

on to failed attempts at capturing the dirty snow (with cigarette butts!) of late february, followed by shots of the local mural near the no frills

then on to my first trip to a cottage in the summer, followed by an august wedding in ottawa (at which point i must've taken this utterly baffling masterpiece)

through such fleeting moments as this from-the-hip ambush shot of N in our building's hallway

and finally ending with one shot of the building under demolition i mentioned yesterday. it was almost fitting that the roll would wind down so resolutely on that day.

but for reals: if it takes me that long to take 24 shots, despite having so many picture-worthy opportunities over 3 seasonal interludes, it can only mean we were using the digital camera most of the time. sadly, our little trooper of a minolta has outlived its utility and needs to be put down. rest in peace, my trusty travelling companion - we'll always have the box of photos to remember thee by.

file under: demolition

2006-10-21T04:35:00.000-04:00

during a random walk on the streets around the workplace, i came across a building being demolished.

i'm always drawn to construction sites - the swarm of detail hidden away under a building's facade always pulls me in.

because they're exclusively a working environment, and because something is just being built or torn down, there's an austerity to what's happening, a formality to the process at hand.

despite this fact, that they're ostensibly zones of pure function, of just getting something done, there's nevertheless a strong aesthetic component to what's going on that i can't get enough of. i have to get close. i have to take pictures.

file under: confession

2006-10-20T03:38:00.000-04:00

i have a thing for artfully deliberate lip-syncing in movies (or tv, i guess). there's something oddly macabre about it, like it's a minor form of possession or something. hypnosis, maybe.

scenes that made me this way:

- many parts of the bbc version of the singing detective.
- many parts of the hollywood version of pennies from heaven.
- dean stockwell miming "in dreams" from blue velvet. i think that was my first. it's gorgeous.
- udo kier's hotel room pageantry in my own private idaho (a slight cheat, as he sings along to a recording of a past performance, but still qualifies for me)
- ben gazzara doing that frank sinatra song in buffalo 66 (apparently, the recording is of gallo's father singing) .
- rebekah del rio's "llorando" in mulholland drive.
- when i was younger (but not so much now), the "day-o" scene in beetlejuice was fun (a minor form of possession, indeed)

so maybe it's really a love for david lynch's infatuation with dreams (with what some call a total lynch rip-off by vincent gallo thrown in for good measure), plus the dennis potter thing.

hmmmmm....

that could easily be the deeper attraction, because the scene in twin peaks where audrey horne is in the diner and starts slowly dancing to an angelo badalamenti instrumental while saying "isn't it dreamy?" and also that scene in mulholland drive where betty elms says "and now i'm in this... DREAM PLACE" are both great great great moments for me.

are there more things like that in the world? how do you even look for stuff like that?

regular studio versions of songs dubbed in later do nothing for me, however. in fact, i get really annoyed when tv commercials feature actors whose voices have obviously been re-recorded or dubbed later. i often yell "voiceover!!!" at the tv in accusatory tones. j'accuse!! etc etc.

file under: dream from earlier this week (plus a vision from work)

2006-10-19T02:43:00.000-04:00

when was this? maybe monday. i'm in the living room of a one story house with a (male) friend, who it is i'm not really sure. it's murky in the room, not exactly dark but very muddy. it's bright outside, but there are yellowish drapes drawn over the window and everthing is cast in this ochre or amber light. we're there talking with a (female) friend, who is telling us that her husband abuses her. my male friend and i are there to "set him straight", as it were, once the husband gets home.

a guy walks out of another room and i grab his arm. "is this him?" no, she says. he's my... neighbor. clearly, they are having an affair. he looks like tobey maguire a little bit. i let go of his arm and sink into a low brown chair almost directly across from the front door. my friend says, "it's dark in here and bright outside - his eyes won't adjust right away." as marcus used to say, it's about to go down.

i wake up with that anticipatory feeling in my body of approaching someone who doesn't see you.

[completely unrelated: last night, 4:30am or so, walking toward the elevator bay to go up to the 6th floor vending machines, no one around and no one really moving anywhere in the hospital, an elevator door unexpectedly opens and a middle-aged man hastily finishes wiping tears out of his eyes. he walks out quickly as i'm walking into the elevator, clearly having used the elevator ride down to break down a little and then compose himself again before going home. someone he loves must be dying or hurt badly - visiting hours ended long ago. it was such a brief moment. almost a cliché, really, but still moving.]