Yah, one of those.
Champagne, pies, hash, fireworks, hmm...
Thats the plan.
Anyone making any resolutions?
I'll think them up tonight and post them tomorrow for everyone, I'm also going to start posting more in general, i've been a bit on hiatus.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
So... smug? I'd say smug, but its something else.
I've been in a rut, but today I finally wrote something that I feel captures a tone that I want. Its stupid to say this, but there's always this exact tone and feel to a piece that I can never quite capture. Well, i got it for a page today.
Chocolate stains lined the corners of her lips. She licked her thumb and index finger before clearing the residue. "I never had any pets" she said while cleaning the desert from her lips. Her expression never changed and her eyes didn't meet mine as she broke the silence. "Never, not a cat, not a dog, so i don't know how it feels to lose one," she continued still with an air of calm, not like she felt anything in her words, merely stating the facts. "Other kids learn the lesson of in this way I guess. Flushing a goldfish down a toilet, having to bury their cat that they spent their adolescence with, understand what it means to age as their dogs got pains in their joints, that their pet walked with a limp or stopped waling all together. I don't think that others take these expressions for granted. I just don't know how it would feel to experience them" She stopped talking when the waiter came to take away her plate and empty the ash trays. "Two espressos please," she said looking at the waiter, then sliding her eyes from him to me she smiled a small and unreadable smile before continuing, "And how should I feel? I feel like I'm missing something, something everyone else has, a relationship to aging, death, evanescent companionship, compressed into adolescence, when we are most susceptible to those experiences. Sure, I've had friends who have died, friends who are old, but I feel like their deaths or their age are unaccessible to me, I feel an emptiness when I think of their passing. Not an emptiness left by their absence, but an emptiness where there should be mourning or empathy." She pauses when the coffees arrive, she lights a Dunhill and lets the smoke roll off her tongue as she exhales the first drag. When I realized she was finished, I light up my own cigarette, Lucky Strike, and feeling it was my turn to say something found myself saying "And?" with little to no conviction. "And. And thats it. You got the bill?"
Well its done.
I don't know where to take it from there, but i wish I could write a whole story in that tone, that feeling, even then its not finished. I had a couple friends read it, and they get it, they also get that the writer (me) is an asshole. Its not the intention to be an asshole, I tried to find the right adjective for so long to replace the work conviction. But thats it, its not about who is an asshole (call me that if you'd like), its about some things being irreconcilable, especially after desert over a coffee. So you ask when else might we say it? After a drink? and what drunks listen to another drunk with too many proverbs. In bed after sex? Talk about no second date. Call me a cynic, whatever, most lives aren't idyllic, and if they were, are you always truthful? Anyways, I'm not going to keep defending myself, I hear its one of my bigger faults, always explaining myself before I give a punch. No, back on target, really, why not say it after desert? We're alone, our little things we've pieced together for ourselves are solitary, break dead air with something sincere, even if they don't listen and believe in it, will you in a year? Whether you do or don't thats the world we live in, little pieces, we feel, we regret, we recognize, and for what? We share it with a crowd of sympathetics, is there anything more patronizing than a pat on the back? How do you want them to respond? If they get it, do you expect a "oh do, please tell me more," or "oh thats so sad," what? If I write more here its preachy so I quit it and hope that you get it after extensive subtext (this being the sub). I don't think I'm defending myself. It may sound like a defense, but really, its because I don't know how to say all of that in a story by only saying "And?"
I read this today when I was a bit more sober and that last paragraph makes no sense. I almost like how little sense it makes so I'm not editing it.
Chocolate stains lined the corners of her lips. She licked her thumb and index finger before clearing the residue. "I never had any pets" she said while cleaning the desert from her lips. Her expression never changed and her eyes didn't meet mine as she broke the silence. "Never, not a cat, not a dog, so i don't know how it feels to lose one," she continued still with an air of calm, not like she felt anything in her words, merely stating the facts. "Other kids learn the lesson of in this way I guess. Flushing a goldfish down a toilet, having to bury their cat that they spent their adolescence with, understand what it means to age as their dogs got pains in their joints, that their pet walked with a limp or stopped waling all together. I don't think that others take these expressions for granted. I just don't know how it would feel to experience them" She stopped talking when the waiter came to take away her plate and empty the ash trays. "Two espressos please," she said looking at the waiter, then sliding her eyes from him to me she smiled a small and unreadable smile before continuing, "And how should I feel? I feel like I'm missing something, something everyone else has, a relationship to aging, death, evanescent companionship, compressed into adolescence, when we are most susceptible to those experiences. Sure, I've had friends who have died, friends who are old, but I feel like their deaths or their age are unaccessible to me, I feel an emptiness when I think of their passing. Not an emptiness left by their absence, but an emptiness where there should be mourning or empathy." She pauses when the coffees arrive, she lights a Dunhill and lets the smoke roll off her tongue as she exhales the first drag. When I realized she was finished, I light up my own cigarette, Lucky Strike, and feeling it was my turn to say something found myself saying "And?" with little to no conviction. "And. And thats it. You got the bill?"
Well its done.
I don't know where to take it from there, but i wish I could write a whole story in that tone, that feeling, even then its not finished. I had a couple friends read it, and they get it, they also get that the writer (me) is an asshole. Its not the intention to be an asshole, I tried to find the right adjective for so long to replace the work conviction. But thats it, its not about who is an asshole (call me that if you'd like), its about some things being irreconcilable, especially after desert over a coffee. So you ask when else might we say it? After a drink? and what drunks listen to another drunk with too many proverbs. In bed after sex? Talk about no second date. Call me a cynic, whatever, most lives aren't idyllic, and if they were, are you always truthful? Anyways, I'm not going to keep defending myself, I hear its one of my bigger faults, always explaining myself before I give a punch. No, back on target, really, why not say it after desert? We're alone, our little things we've pieced together for ourselves are solitary, break dead air with something sincere, even if they don't listen and believe in it, will you in a year? Whether you do or don't thats the world we live in, little pieces, we feel, we regret, we recognize, and for what? We share it with a crowd of sympathetics, is there anything more patronizing than a pat on the back? How do you want them to respond? If they get it, do you expect a "oh do, please tell me more," or "oh thats so sad," what? If I write more here its preachy so I quit it and hope that you get it after extensive subtext (this being the sub). I don't think I'm defending myself. It may sound like a defense, but really, its because I don't know how to say all of that in a story by only saying "And?"
I read this today when I was a bit more sober and that last paragraph makes no sense. I almost like how little sense it makes so I'm not editing it.
Monday, December 24, 2007
Sunday, December 23, 2007
In Paris for the Holidays
Well, I'm not going to Latvia, I'm sure everyone already knows this, but I feel like I need to give an explanation to those that don't.
I'm an idiot.
No, really.
I booked my ticket for november 22nd to november 28th.
I'd kick myself if I bent that way.
I was really upset, but being in Paris is an ok consolation prize.
I'm consoled.
My Birthday is the 30th, and I'll be with some friends, so I'll be sure to go out and do whatever it is that gets done on birthdays. My birthday last year was saved by a close friend of mine, and ended up being a great cadence to an otherwise horrible way to celebrate my anniversary.
I'm an idiot.
No, really.
I booked my ticket for november 22nd to november 28th.
I'd kick myself if I bent that way.
I was really upset, but being in Paris is an ok consolation prize.
I'm consoled.
My Birthday is the 30th, and I'll be with some friends, so I'll be sure to go out and do whatever it is that gets done on birthdays. My birthday last year was saved by a close friend of mine, and ended up being a great cadence to an otherwise horrible way to celebrate my anniversary.
Friday, December 21, 2007
A Rough Start
Today is the worst. I'm not going to latvia and have no one to blame but myself and my idiocy.
Fucking so upset.
Fucking so upset.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
3 songs
---Sonnenblumen or Wilted Sunflowers (Autumn Sun II)
---Rediscovered masterpieced by Egon Shiele, presumed lost for over 60 years.
Here are three songs that are special dedications to three special readers.
More to come later.
------------------------
Arthur Russel - This Is How We Walk On The Moon
Tenniscoats - Rolling Train
Bloc Party - Where is Home (Burial Remix)
Friday, December 14, 2007
Tired, atomized
Well, I've spent the evening wandering from one café to another. Killing time over coffees and happy hour beers. Dug into either my book or my note pad.
A few things I paid special attention to:
One, a transformation. I don't know what it is yet, but I can feel it.
Two, there was a pinball machine in one bar called the Authre Bistro called Medieval Madness. This machine has a bit of sentimentality to it to me. I can't really explain it, its just a machine. But I Know this machine for some reason. Its a perfect pin table. I not the best at pins, but I know them. I can respect their craftsmanship and the cult that follows them. This specific machine plays like none other, it has all the traditional clichés and perks of a pin machine, great analog synths, a good point system, etc. etc. etc. something that most people don't really care about. Call it nerdy that I think so, but whatever, pins are out of fashion, doesn't mean that this specific machine isn't a well crafted relic from a golden age. I know this about the machine, each one is hand built, on top of that each electronic board is hand soldered, even on top of that, each table is hand painted. All of them with a their own kind of love and affection that people don't really pay attention to anymore. Its just a coin eater. Its just for killing time. No, this is something of a cabaret of mechanics, you can feel it when you play, even if you're the dregs on a pins table like me. If you're ever in a bar or an arcade and you see a Medieval Madness table, play it, its worth the 25 to 50 cents/centimes.
Three, I'm probably going to be back in Toronto in the fall, if not late summer. I'm going to come back and work hard and untie myself from whatever loans and bills I have lying around before I jump back out into the world. Even waiting can be like making moves. But if any of you see me stuck in a rut forgetting to play the game and hustle to accomplish my dreams, slap me.
Four, one week from now i'll be waiting in an airport terminal to go to the Baltics for a week. This will be the first time that I haven't been around my family for Christmas. All the subtle joys that I've always associated with Christmas shout out at me. Waking up early, making coffee for my Dad, tea for Mum. This is the only way to get them up and ready so that you can open presents. Then eating a fantastic breakfast and drinking Mimosas. Taking a day nap. I guess its been a while since I've done the present thing, but even so, the switch from getting presents to being able to be around family for the holidays seemed like a natural progression of feeling festive. Well this year I'm atomized for the first time. My mom and dad are married and have each other, and my brother is married and spending the holidays with her, and I'm going to the Baltics where I don't speak the language or know what I'm doing there.
Andrew out for now, I'm sleep deprived and this blog is probably the results of such catatonic maddened thought processes. picture me writing this on a friend's couch, flicking my pursed lips while I loll my head counter-clockwise.
yeah.
and people are on their way over for a dinner party and I have to be social.
1 hour later, 1 secret santa later. I've got a cooking cape (which people keep insisting is called an apron), a record, bugles, and some other neat stuff. But the cooking cape is totally the end all, its brand new, but embroidered, sharpied, and pre-covered in wine stains. So my style.
anybody like Glass Candy?
---------------------
Glass Candy Mp3s-
Glass Candy - Beatific
Glass Candy - Candy Castle
Glass Candy - Life After Sundown
Glass Candy - Digital Versicolor
A few things I paid special attention to:
One, a transformation. I don't know what it is yet, but I can feel it.
Two, there was a pinball machine in one bar called the Authre Bistro called Medieval Madness. This machine has a bit of sentimentality to it to me. I can't really explain it, its just a machine. But I Know this machine for some reason. Its a perfect pin table. I not the best at pins, but I know them. I can respect their craftsmanship and the cult that follows them. This specific machine plays like none other, it has all the traditional clichés and perks of a pin machine, great analog synths, a good point system, etc. etc. etc. something that most people don't really care about. Call it nerdy that I think so, but whatever, pins are out of fashion, doesn't mean that this specific machine isn't a well crafted relic from a golden age. I know this about the machine, each one is hand built, on top of that each electronic board is hand soldered, even on top of that, each table is hand painted. All of them with a their own kind of love and affection that people don't really pay attention to anymore. Its just a coin eater. Its just for killing time. No, this is something of a cabaret of mechanics, you can feel it when you play, even if you're the dregs on a pins table like me. If you're ever in a bar or an arcade and you see a Medieval Madness table, play it, its worth the 25 to 50 cents/centimes.
Three, I'm probably going to be back in Toronto in the fall, if not late summer. I'm going to come back and work hard and untie myself from whatever loans and bills I have lying around before I jump back out into the world. Even waiting can be like making moves. But if any of you see me stuck in a rut forgetting to play the game and hustle to accomplish my dreams, slap me.
Four, one week from now i'll be waiting in an airport terminal to go to the Baltics for a week. This will be the first time that I haven't been around my family for Christmas. All the subtle joys that I've always associated with Christmas shout out at me. Waking up early, making coffee for my Dad, tea for Mum. This is the only way to get them up and ready so that you can open presents. Then eating a fantastic breakfast and drinking Mimosas. Taking a day nap. I guess its been a while since I've done the present thing, but even so, the switch from getting presents to being able to be around family for the holidays seemed like a natural progression of feeling festive. Well this year I'm atomized for the first time. My mom and dad are married and have each other, and my brother is married and spending the holidays with her, and I'm going to the Baltics where I don't speak the language or know what I'm doing there.
Andrew out for now, I'm sleep deprived and this blog is probably the results of such catatonic maddened thought processes. picture me writing this on a friend's couch, flicking my pursed lips while I loll my head counter-clockwise.
yeah.
and people are on their way over for a dinner party and I have to be social.
1 hour later, 1 secret santa later. I've got a cooking cape (which people keep insisting is called an apron), a record, bugles, and some other neat stuff. But the cooking cape is totally the end all, its brand new, but embroidered, sharpied, and pre-covered in wine stains. So my style.
anybody like Glass Candy?
---------------------
Glass Candy Mp3s-
Glass Candy - Beatific
Glass Candy - Candy Castle
Glass Candy - Life After Sundown
Glass Candy - Digital Versicolor
This little lady who works at my school
In the teacher's lounge there's always this little lady puttering about.
Her little locker is overflowing with disorganized scraps of paper.
She has the look of a troll doll, troll hair tied together with mismatched chopsticks.
She has ruffled and wrinkled paisley dresses that she wears under a woolen button up sweater.
Bottle cap glasses hang at the very edge of her long nose.
She's always on the go, but she must not have many classes; she's always on the go, but only in the teacher's lounge.
She talks to other teachers in urgent, but hushed, tones. As if she were debunking some grave conspiracy or working to solve some mysterious case of missing staplers.
He fanatical air reached a climax today and I was forced to come in here and write this to keep from laughing out loud.
The coffee machine had refused to return her 5 centime piece (its 45 centimes for a coffee, everybody pays with a 50 piece, and gets a 5 in return). So she stood there shaking and shouting at it. The machine stands like a giant above her, which is relatively simple since she stands at about 4'5 (5'3 when her troll hair is tied up) and the machine seems like its twice her size.
PS: if you didn't already know: Caleb's end all beef-short-rib-chili recipe. I'm thinking of pulling it out for a christmas party tonight.
Her little locker is overflowing with disorganized scraps of paper.
She has the look of a troll doll, troll hair tied together with mismatched chopsticks.
She has ruffled and wrinkled paisley dresses that she wears under a woolen button up sweater.
Bottle cap glasses hang at the very edge of her long nose.
She's always on the go, but she must not have many classes; she's always on the go, but only in the teacher's lounge.
She talks to other teachers in urgent, but hushed, tones. As if she were debunking some grave conspiracy or working to solve some mysterious case of missing staplers.
He fanatical air reached a climax today and I was forced to come in here and write this to keep from laughing out loud.
The coffee machine had refused to return her 5 centime piece (its 45 centimes for a coffee, everybody pays with a 50 piece, and gets a 5 in return). So she stood there shaking and shouting at it. The machine stands like a giant above her, which is relatively simple since she stands at about 4'5 (5'3 when her troll hair is tied up) and the machine seems like its twice her size.
PS: if you didn't already know: Caleb's end all beef-short-rib-chili recipe. I'm thinking of pulling it out for a christmas party tonight.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
A Year Ago - note: somethingsentimental
it's passed
we
have
passed 365 days
and
fuck me
for longing
I read this somewhere today and it got me thinking.
A year ago today, I was ripped from a rut I'd been in for too long.
A year ago today, I had a reason to stop being cynical.
A year ago today, I was getting ready for Costa-Rica.
A year ago today, I would stay up late working on an essay.
A year and two days ago, I ran into someone who fished in her grocery bag for a pen.
A year and three days ago, I guessed a girl's name who I'd never seen before and laughed when she scowled.
A year and three days ago, I worked door in a theatre where they taught circus performance, who would have guessed that I'd learn how to juggle, balance on perilous wires, jump through hoops, and swallow fire.
A year and four days ago, was like any other day, I woke up, I went to bed, I thought of nothing, and coldly laughed with Irony.
---------------------
Nouvelle Vague - In A Manner of Speaking
we
have
passed 365 days
and
fuck me
for longing
I read this somewhere today and it got me thinking.
A year ago today, I was ripped from a rut I'd been in for too long.
A year ago today, I had a reason to stop being cynical.
A year ago today, I was getting ready for Costa-Rica.
A year ago today, I would stay up late working on an essay.
A year and two days ago, I ran into someone who fished in her grocery bag for a pen.
A year and three days ago, I guessed a girl's name who I'd never seen before and laughed when she scowled.
A year and three days ago, I worked door in a theatre where they taught circus performance, who would have guessed that I'd learn how to juggle, balance on perilous wires, jump through hoops, and swallow fire.
A year and four days ago, was like any other day, I woke up, I went to bed, I thought of nothing, and coldly laughed with Irony.
---------------------
Nouvelle Vague - In A Manner of Speaking
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Top Albums of 2007 List
Ok, music blog standard, I have to make a list of all my favorite albums of 2007. Who would have thought it was so hard?
He spoke to me of Sei Shonagon, a lady-in-waiting to Princess Sadako in the 11th century, during the Heian period. "Do we ever know where history is really made? Rulers used complicated strategies to fight one another, while real power lay with a family of hereditary regents. The emperor's court was but a place of intrigues and intellectual games. But by learning to draw a sort of melancholy comfort from the contemplation of the tiniest things, this small group of idlers left a mark on Japanese sensibility much deeper than the mediocre thundering of the politicians. Shonagon had a passion for lists: a list of 'elegant things,' of 'distressing things,' or even of 'things not worth doing.' One day she drew up a list of 'things that quicken the heart.'"
from - Chris Marker's Sans Soleil
( 10 )---------------------
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Is Is EP
I don't know if this is cheating, its only an EP. I've always really liked the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (the song Maps will probably be part of me forever, DL: original/peel sessions)and the song Down Boy was one of my favorite songs of the year. Its a very strong release and deserves to be on this list of top albums even though its not really an album.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Down Boy
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Isis
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - 10 x 10
( 9 )----------------------------------
Boy Is Fiction - Boys Is Fiction
I'm always worried good ol' fashion IDM is on its way out (well it is), but this album goes to show that it won't go without a decent fight. This is a great album. It has the sweeping soundscapes and beautiful harmonies layered over these crisp and crunchy percussions. The reverb is also fantastic, sometimes heavy handed, but balanced by the piano's cool serenade. Thank you Boy is Fiction for reminding me of how beautiful old loves can be when they're dusted off and put back on the shelf.
Boy Is Fiction - Should Have Stopped
Boy Is Fiction - BiF vs 307
( 8 )----------------------------------
Grinderman - Grinderman
Speaking of great things that won't disappear without a fight. Nick Cave just keeps giving. Giving like the good ol' Nick too. Back on a guitar, back to his old spin around circus slashing a theatrical punk performance. It is totally excessive, but stripped back, his lyrics chaotic but refined, silly but delivered in low growls.
Grinderman - Go Tell The Women
Grinderman - No Pussy Blues
( 7 )----------------------------------
Marissa Nadler - Songs III: Bird on the Water
I'm a sucker for dreamy strange folk. This is an album that it'll bring me through the winter's long cold nights. Its perfect to listen to with sound proof headphones in crowded cafés in Paris and writing melancholy short stories. Marissa, you've created a beautifully crafted little gem that I think went under the radar this year. Its very Pentangle for our age. (and also one of the few singer/songwriter albums that really stood out this year)
Marissa Nadler - Dying Breed
Marissa Nadler - Mexican Summer
( 6 )----------------------------------
Battles - Mirrored
This album came out of no where for me. I don't know how to classify it, which is generally a good thing. Its a perfect mixup of all of my favorite kinds of music. A bit of the Boredoms' chaos and dissonance, a bit of broadcast's electronics, a bit of Marc Bolan's dead phantom. Where do you begin? Its a bit tech-metal, but not enough that its in your face, but enough to keep you guessing. The drums are a bit military but never boring. A bit Krautrock without ever sounding recycled. And somewhere in the cacophony of noise, its really catchy. It was an early 2007 release, but the year is almost over and its still just as good.
Battles - Atlas
Battles - Race-in
( 5 )----------------------------------
World's End Girlfriend - Hurtbreak Wonderland
This Japanese group came out with a fantastic album this year. Hurtbreak Wonderland is a perfect blend of post-rock, modern classical, glitch, and experimental electronica. Yeah, you heard me, glitch/breakcore/classical, and it does it without ever becoming pretentious or self-glorifying. The string section creates this euphoric soliloquy over complex squarepusher percussions stabs that are never "in your face" like so many other artists who experiment with the electronic/classical hybrid. It keeps itself restrained until it feels like exploding. Just when the dischord and frenetic drums have carried you too high for your poor heart to bear, it drops out the electric drums as if telling you to let yourself soar away carried on their string section's wings. If there was a masquerade ball waiting for all of us at the end of time, they would be at the top of the billing.
World's End Girlfriend - Ghost of a Horse Under the Chandelier
World's End Girlfriend - 100 Years of Choke
( 4 )--------------------------
Pinch - Underwater Dancehall
Pinch's new full length Underwater Dancehall does something similar to Burial. He's taken the foreground of the dubstep scene by making an album (not to mention numerous releases featured on compilations and singles released around the same time) that insists on forcing the sound to evolve before it goes stale. Intricate but minimal production, a wide range of emotion, and technique show exactly what a dubstep artist can do with the medium. In this album he's expanded the horizons of a format that is generally critiqued for being too one dimensional. The first listen I gave it didn't impress me too much. He'd released too many hot singles in the month before (singles on planet-mu, and the songs on the Soul Jazz's Box of Dub compilation). But as I listened to it more, I found it impossible to stop. I carry this album with me everywhere, because no matter how many times I've heard each song, they get better with each time.
Pinch - One Blood One Source ft. Rudy Lee
Pinch - Angels In The Rain ft. Indi Kaur
( 3 )---------------------------------
Deerhunter - Cryptograms
This album was an instant hit for me. It combines two of my favorite periods of music; The melancholy and morbid introspective moments that came out of Factory Records' production and the Psyche-rock of Amon Duul II. It has an ambient looseness at moments, only to come back sounding new and rocking. Did I mention that it rocks? Well it does.
Deerhunter - Providence
Deerhunter-Lake Somerset
( 2 )---------------------------------
Panda Bear - Person Pitch
Yeah, I have this instead of Animal Collective's Strawberry Jam. Noah Lennox did more with this solo album than Strawberry Jam could even close to. It has repetitive looped structures that give it the feel of dance music, but instead of making your body move, the loops keep your mind in looping structures of dischordant harmonies that could stretch into oblivion. There's a certain sublime that comes from this album that I won't quickly forget. The melodies are soft and evanescent like you could see them in the shadow play at the end of a hallway that goes on forever. The psychedelic feeling of this album is like taking the Beach Boys' at their finest in Smiley Smile and submerging it in a deep well then lighting it from underneath with florescent bulbs and watching it through a kaleidoscope as is skips off yours irises.
Panda Bear - Bros
Panda Bear - Carrots
( 1 )---------------------------
Burial - Untrue
When asking my friend for ideas for my list because its been racking my brain for a few days, he was like, "you have a certain responsibility to mention Burial." Well, here it is, I have a responsibility to mention it, but personal preference makes it my number 1.
This album is stellar. I can't get it across how great this album is. I must say I liked his first album (self titled) more but he's created something wonderful with this one. His drums are so perfect, his minimal sampling, the way it slips into your subconscious. I've found it really hard to try and explain this album to someone who doesn't listen to this type of music. Its backround music, not in the sense that you can just put it on and forget about it, like in elevators, but its music that works into your dreaming mind and warps the backround of wherever you are. Listen to it while taking public transit and all of a sudden the speed of commuters, the rushing cityscapes outside the windows, the tired faces of city people, begin to morph into a melancholy parade of whatever urban living is supposed to be. It also shows new producers what you can achieve from really stripping a song and focusing more on creating rolling textures. Bravo.
Burial - Untrue
Burial - Etched Head Plate
( 0th / Wildcard )----------------------------------
Tenniscoats - Tan-Tan Therapy and Totemo Aimasho
Oh they're neat! Love them! Love them! Umm. yeah, no review for them, I'm burnt out from this little list, but if Sei Shonagon were to make a list of cute little Japanese artists who made her heart race she'd definitely have Tenniscoats on the list. They're my eleventh choice. Not because they're eleventh best (like Yeah Yeah Yeahs is 10th on my list), but because you can put them anywhere.
Tenniscoats - Umbarepa!
Tenniscoats - Oetsu to Kanki no Nanoriuta (Given song by sob and joy)
----
Honorable Mentions:
Health - Health
Disrupt - Foundation Bit
White Williams - Smoke
Stereo Total - Paris - Berlin
Efterklang - Parades
umm.. the list keeps going so i'm not going to bother with this.
He spoke to me of Sei Shonagon, a lady-in-waiting to Princess Sadako in the 11th century, during the Heian period. "Do we ever know where history is really made? Rulers used complicated strategies to fight one another, while real power lay with a family of hereditary regents. The emperor's court was but a place of intrigues and intellectual games. But by learning to draw a sort of melancholy comfort from the contemplation of the tiniest things, this small group of idlers left a mark on Japanese sensibility much deeper than the mediocre thundering of the politicians. Shonagon had a passion for lists: a list of 'elegant things,' of 'distressing things,' or even of 'things not worth doing.' One day she drew up a list of 'things that quicken the heart.'"
from - Chris Marker's Sans Soleil
( 10 )---------------------
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Is Is EP
I don't know if this is cheating, its only an EP. I've always really liked the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (the song Maps will probably be part of me forever, DL: original/peel sessions)and the song Down Boy was one of my favorite songs of the year. Its a very strong release and deserves to be on this list of top albums even though its not really an album.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Down Boy
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Isis
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - 10 x 10
( 9 )----------------------------------
Boy Is Fiction - Boys Is Fiction
I'm always worried good ol' fashion IDM is on its way out (well it is), but this album goes to show that it won't go without a decent fight. This is a great album. It has the sweeping soundscapes and beautiful harmonies layered over these crisp and crunchy percussions. The reverb is also fantastic, sometimes heavy handed, but balanced by the piano's cool serenade. Thank you Boy is Fiction for reminding me of how beautiful old loves can be when they're dusted off and put back on the shelf.
Boy Is Fiction - Should Have Stopped
Boy Is Fiction - BiF vs 307
( 8 )----------------------------------
Grinderman - Grinderman
Speaking of great things that won't disappear without a fight. Nick Cave just keeps giving. Giving like the good ol' Nick too. Back on a guitar, back to his old spin around circus slashing a theatrical punk performance. It is totally excessive, but stripped back, his lyrics chaotic but refined, silly but delivered in low growls.
Grinderman - Go Tell The Women
Grinderman - No Pussy Blues
( 7 )----------------------------------
Marissa Nadler - Songs III: Bird on the Water
I'm a sucker for dreamy strange folk. This is an album that it'll bring me through the winter's long cold nights. Its perfect to listen to with sound proof headphones in crowded cafés in Paris and writing melancholy short stories. Marissa, you've created a beautifully crafted little gem that I think went under the radar this year. Its very Pentangle for our age. (and also one of the few singer/songwriter albums that really stood out this year)
Marissa Nadler - Dying Breed
Marissa Nadler - Mexican Summer
( 6 )----------------------------------
Battles - Mirrored
This album came out of no where for me. I don't know how to classify it, which is generally a good thing. Its a perfect mixup of all of my favorite kinds of music. A bit of the Boredoms' chaos and dissonance, a bit of broadcast's electronics, a bit of Marc Bolan's dead phantom. Where do you begin? Its a bit tech-metal, but not enough that its in your face, but enough to keep you guessing. The drums are a bit military but never boring. A bit Krautrock without ever sounding recycled. And somewhere in the cacophony of noise, its really catchy. It was an early 2007 release, but the year is almost over and its still just as good.
Battles - Atlas
Battles - Race-in
( 5 )----------------------------------
World's End Girlfriend - Hurtbreak Wonderland
This Japanese group came out with a fantastic album this year. Hurtbreak Wonderland is a perfect blend of post-rock, modern classical, glitch, and experimental electronica. Yeah, you heard me, glitch/breakcore/classical, and it does it without ever becoming pretentious or self-glorifying. The string section creates this euphoric soliloquy over complex squarepusher percussions stabs that are never "in your face" like so many other artists who experiment with the electronic/classical hybrid. It keeps itself restrained until it feels like exploding. Just when the dischord and frenetic drums have carried you too high for your poor heart to bear, it drops out the electric drums as if telling you to let yourself soar away carried on their string section's wings. If there was a masquerade ball waiting for all of us at the end of time, they would be at the top of the billing.
World's End Girlfriend - Ghost of a Horse Under the Chandelier
World's End Girlfriend - 100 Years of Choke
( 4 )--------------------------
Pinch - Underwater Dancehall
Pinch's new full length Underwater Dancehall does something similar to Burial. He's taken the foreground of the dubstep scene by making an album (not to mention numerous releases featured on compilations and singles released around the same time) that insists on forcing the sound to evolve before it goes stale. Intricate but minimal production, a wide range of emotion, and technique show exactly what a dubstep artist can do with the medium. In this album he's expanded the horizons of a format that is generally critiqued for being too one dimensional. The first listen I gave it didn't impress me too much. He'd released too many hot singles in the month before (singles on planet-mu, and the songs on the Soul Jazz's Box of Dub compilation). But as I listened to it more, I found it impossible to stop. I carry this album with me everywhere, because no matter how many times I've heard each song, they get better with each time.
Pinch - One Blood One Source ft. Rudy Lee
Pinch - Angels In The Rain ft. Indi Kaur
( 3 )---------------------------------
Deerhunter - Cryptograms
This album was an instant hit for me. It combines two of my favorite periods of music; The melancholy and morbid introspective moments that came out of Factory Records' production and the Psyche-rock of Amon Duul II. It has an ambient looseness at moments, only to come back sounding new and rocking. Did I mention that it rocks? Well it does.
Deerhunter - Providence
Deerhunter-Lake Somerset
( 2 )---------------------------------
Panda Bear - Person Pitch
Yeah, I have this instead of Animal Collective's Strawberry Jam. Noah Lennox did more with this solo album than Strawberry Jam could even close to. It has repetitive looped structures that give it the feel of dance music, but instead of making your body move, the loops keep your mind in looping structures of dischordant harmonies that could stretch into oblivion. There's a certain sublime that comes from this album that I won't quickly forget. The melodies are soft and evanescent like you could see them in the shadow play at the end of a hallway that goes on forever. The psychedelic feeling of this album is like taking the Beach Boys' at their finest in Smiley Smile and submerging it in a deep well then lighting it from underneath with florescent bulbs and watching it through a kaleidoscope as is skips off yours irises.
Panda Bear - Bros
Panda Bear - Carrots
( 1 )---------------------------
Burial - Untrue
When asking my friend for ideas for my list because its been racking my brain for a few days, he was like, "you have a certain responsibility to mention Burial." Well, here it is, I have a responsibility to mention it, but personal preference makes it my number 1.
This album is stellar. I can't get it across how great this album is. I must say I liked his first album (self titled) more but he's created something wonderful with this one. His drums are so perfect, his minimal sampling, the way it slips into your subconscious. I've found it really hard to try and explain this album to someone who doesn't listen to this type of music. Its backround music, not in the sense that you can just put it on and forget about it, like in elevators, but its music that works into your dreaming mind and warps the backround of wherever you are. Listen to it while taking public transit and all of a sudden the speed of commuters, the rushing cityscapes outside the windows, the tired faces of city people, begin to morph into a melancholy parade of whatever urban living is supposed to be. It also shows new producers what you can achieve from really stripping a song and focusing more on creating rolling textures. Bravo.
Burial - Untrue
Burial - Etched Head Plate
( 0th / Wildcard )----------------------------------
Tenniscoats - Tan-Tan Therapy and Totemo Aimasho
Oh they're neat! Love them! Love them! Umm. yeah, no review for them, I'm burnt out from this little list, but if Sei Shonagon were to make a list of cute little Japanese artists who made her heart race she'd definitely have Tenniscoats on the list. They're my eleventh choice. Not because they're eleventh best (like Yeah Yeah Yeahs is 10th on my list), but because you can put them anywhere.
Tenniscoats - Umbarepa!
Tenniscoats - Oetsu to Kanki no Nanoriuta (Given song by sob and joy)
----
Honorable Mentions:
Health - Health
Disrupt - Foundation Bit
White Williams - Smoke
Stereo Total - Paris - Berlin
Efterklang - Parades
umm.. the list keeps going so i'm not going to bother with this.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Goodmorning
Some songs to start the day.
I'm off to the mosque for tea and a good book.
Today is a good day.
--------------------
Santogold - Shove It feat. Spank Rock (Switch remix)
Arovane - A Secret
Arvo Part - Astoria
Arovane - Ten Hours
Four Tet - Smile Around the Face
Arovane - Tokyo Ghost Stories
Arovane - A Storm
Panda Bear - Comfy in Nautica
Marissa Nadler - Diamond Heart
I'm off to the mosque for tea and a good book.
Today is a good day.
--------------------
Santogold - Shove It feat. Spank Rock (Switch remix)
Arovane - A Secret
Arvo Part - Astoria
Arovane - Ten Hours
Four Tet - Smile Around the Face
Arovane - Tokyo Ghost Stories
Arovane - A Storm
Panda Bear - Comfy in Nautica
Marissa Nadler - Diamond Heart
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Art I like
Well, I've written a lot about how I love the author Haruki Murakami, but I'm also really into the artist Takashi Murakami.
If you live in NYC, go to the MOCA, they're doing a retrospective on him right now.
Images:
-----------------------
Waaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Polysics - Plus Chicker (New Recording)
Polysics - Modern (New Recording)
If you live in NYC, go to the MOCA, they're doing a retrospective on him right now.
Images:
-----------------------
Waaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Polysics - Plus Chicker (New Recording)
Polysics - Modern (New Recording)
Monday, December 3, 2007
Nonexistant
Ok, well, i'm taking a break for this week, sorry readers. My internet at home is defunct and I'm dealing with a lot of bureaucratic/financial issues right now. If I was to write, it would be bitchy. We all get our bad moods, and I'd prefer not to use this blog to display them publicly.
I'll be back soon. (Probably by wednesday)
Love
feel free to write me at sidenote@dubstep.ca
----------------
Billy Holiday - Gloomy Sunday
Bjork - Gloomy Sunday
I'll be back soon. (Probably by wednesday)
Love
feel free to write me at sidenote@dubstep.ca
----------------
Billy Holiday - Gloomy Sunday
Bjork - Gloomy Sunday
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Back at it
So, I haven't blogged in a bit, I'm sorry. I've had a bit of a writer's block, not really knowing where to go next. I could have just written something, the day to day whatever. But, I don't want my blog to be a conduit to relay my grocery lists, how many cigarettes I smoke in a day, or what I had for dinner.
I thought I was at a stand still. I'd sit in front of my computer hoping that the words would come if I wrote anything. But it's empty. Anyways. I'd sit there hoping that it'd give, hoping that I could push it through whatever cusp to take it to somewhere it wasn't before. Take it to some other level or something. But I also knew that what has to happen is that it needs to come without being forced. I hate my writing when it reads like it was forced. So that was my stand still.
Its a weird collision, and it made me horribly alienated from any attempt to write.
Trying to write, I came up with these rough drafts of a blog post then stopped knowing that I was going nowhere with it, or if it was, it was being forced.
...I feel like I'm at a cusp and something needs to happen to my writing. I don't know what it is. I want to say that this cusp is me needing to get over some fear, though I can't quite pinpoint what it is that I'm afraid of.
Is it a problem with recognition? Sometimes I feel like when I write here in public that I'm confronting a demon. An invisible beast that keeps me from opening to the public. But even then, I'm getting more comfortable with that.
I've always had problems opening up, talking about my problems. My friends assume that I don't talk about my feelings. Its not that. Most of the time I've thought that talking about my feelings was somehow criminal. Like to put it into a language for sympathy or understanding was somehow reducing or negating its significance. I'm not talking out my problems to hear myself translate it into words so that I can rationalize them in some way.... "
Well, yesterday when I was walking home it came back to me. I stayed up late last night writing, and today I spent all my spare time writing. Its not going in here, but I'm working on a short story. I have the framework for it, and it should be done hopefully by next week.
Anyways, how are you doing reader? Good I hope? I'm also working a lot, the strike has let up and I can take the train to work now. Its been replaced with rioting. Which means public services are still up if nobody has thrown a molotov cocktail at a bus recently. A "social movement" has been replaced with "civil unrest" or "uncivil rebellion." On Tuesday I went by work to deal with some bureaucracy that I have to fill out in order to make up for the lost hours during the strike. I don't really mind, working a bit extra each week isn't really that bad. Tuesday, I took the train to the suburb beside the suburb where I work, then I caught the bus I regularly catch to get me the rest of the way. The bus driver informed me as I got on the bus that it would be stopping before it got all the way into my suburb and I would have to walk the rest of the way. I get off, and I walk along the bus path. At one point I stopped at a bus shelter and read the sign attached the glass. It was an apologetic note explaining that there will be no running busses till Thursday along this line since a bus driver was assaulted and his bus molotov cocktailed.
Some images of the riots.
Sidenote:
Oh, I love this russian character called Cheburashka and Krokodil Gena. They make me happy and basically just all around kick ass.
Note! Don't bother watching more Youtube clips of Cheburashka. Most of them are parodies that ruin the whole charm of Cheburashka. They make me angry and upset. I mean Krokodil Gena's voice is the greatest, why bastardize it?
------------------------
mp3 - Random:
Me:
Lou Reed - Vicious
Dan Deacon - The Crystal Cat
Cocteau Twins - Wax and Wane
Tony Curtis - Rolling
Kate:
Joanna Newsom - Sprout and Bean
Joanna Newsom - Sawdust and Diamonds
Tina:
Air Supply - Lost in Love
Debbie Gibson - Lost In Your Eyes
Bronwyn
Devo - Gut Feeling
I thought I was at a stand still. I'd sit in front of my computer hoping that the words would come if I wrote anything. But it's empty. Anyways. I'd sit there hoping that it'd give, hoping that I could push it through whatever cusp to take it to somewhere it wasn't before. Take it to some other level or something. But I also knew that what has to happen is that it needs to come without being forced. I hate my writing when it reads like it was forced. So that was my stand still.
Its a weird collision, and it made me horribly alienated from any attempt to write.
Trying to write, I came up with these rough drafts of a blog post then stopped knowing that I was going nowhere with it, or if it was, it was being forced.
...I feel like I'm at a cusp and something needs to happen to my writing. I don't know what it is. I want to say that this cusp is me needing to get over some fear, though I can't quite pinpoint what it is that I'm afraid of.
Is it a problem with recognition? Sometimes I feel like when I write here in public that I'm confronting a demon. An invisible beast that keeps me from opening to the public. But even then, I'm getting more comfortable with that.
I've always had problems opening up, talking about my problems. My friends assume that I don't talk about my feelings. Its not that. Most of the time I've thought that talking about my feelings was somehow criminal. Like to put it into a language for sympathy or understanding was somehow reducing or negating its significance. I'm not talking out my problems to hear myself translate it into words so that I can rationalize them in some way.... "
Well, yesterday when I was walking home it came back to me. I stayed up late last night writing, and today I spent all my spare time writing. Its not going in here, but I'm working on a short story. I have the framework for it, and it should be done hopefully by next week.
Anyways, how are you doing reader? Good I hope? I'm also working a lot, the strike has let up and I can take the train to work now. Its been replaced with rioting. Which means public services are still up if nobody has thrown a molotov cocktail at a bus recently. A "social movement" has been replaced with "civil unrest" or "uncivil rebellion." On Tuesday I went by work to deal with some bureaucracy that I have to fill out in order to make up for the lost hours during the strike. I don't really mind, working a bit extra each week isn't really that bad. Tuesday, I took the train to the suburb beside the suburb where I work, then I caught the bus I regularly catch to get me the rest of the way. The bus driver informed me as I got on the bus that it would be stopping before it got all the way into my suburb and I would have to walk the rest of the way. I get off, and I walk along the bus path. At one point I stopped at a bus shelter and read the sign attached the glass. It was an apologetic note explaining that there will be no running busses till Thursday along this line since a bus driver was assaulted and his bus molotov cocktailed.
Some images of the riots.
Sidenote:
Oh, I love this russian character called Cheburashka and Krokodil Gena. They make me happy and basically just all around kick ass.
Note! Don't bother watching more Youtube clips of Cheburashka. Most of them are parodies that ruin the whole charm of Cheburashka. They make me angry and upset. I mean Krokodil Gena's voice is the greatest, why bastardize it?
------------------------
mp3 - Random:
Me:
Lou Reed - Vicious
Dan Deacon - The Crystal Cat
Cocteau Twins - Wax and Wane
Tony Curtis - Rolling
Kate:
Joanna Newsom - Sprout and Bean
Joanna Newsom - Sawdust and Diamonds
Tina:
Air Supply - Lost in Love
Debbie Gibson - Lost In Your Eyes
Bronwyn
Devo - Gut Feeling
Sunday, November 25, 2007
The scarf I found.
Walking home one night in the rain, I found a scarf on the street. It was on the winding roads of the Latin quarter. The scarf was soft and simple. Made from angora goat wool. When I'd gotten home, it quickly dried out, it wasn't too wet, and though wet, wasn't dirty. It had a woman's smell to it, and it was a very specific scent.
I want to write about the woman whose scent I wear around my neck. I want to write about this invisible woman who I smell when I wear this scarf, keeping me warm, keeping the wind off my neck. Some people reading this might find this notion creepy. Why should they though? Sometimes you fall enamored with someone the first time you see them. People call it love at first sight, and though it sounds cheesy, its never really considered creepy. Its one of the five senses, and however brief it was, the image embeds itself on to your retina, and you see this person each time you close your eyes.
But, how do you imagine someone embedded in your sense of smell? I find the idea is more romantic than a capturing gaze. When we see someone, we have so many layers guiding our attraction, love at first sight can be so superficial, to love a facade, to love their to-be-looked-at-ness (sorry to borrow a term from Laura Mulvey). What does someone who we create in our mind, guided only by our sense of smell, look like. An unseen woman. I like this concept a lot. We would dream them and they would be a love wholly built in our own imagination. We might find it on other people, from the previous occupant in a taxi cab, in the wind, in strange body odours, or even the toxic fumes of a construction site, but it would never be that scent exactly. If we ever did find that person too, this person of our imagination who embodies this scent, would that person ever be wholly world you built for them through their smell.
I don't know. But, I like this idea of longing a fiction. Or at least writing a fictional character who is in love with a disembodied fiction. You could have them thinking of them in public places. The protagonist wouldn't be entirely there, but day-dreaming of his lover. He'd watch as shapeless figures appeared on the inside of his eyelids. Then, all of a sudden he'd smell her smell, open his eyes, look around him, and the smell would have disappeared. Maybe in a subway, tired and coming home from work, or sitting at a public bench near a crowded intersection. I wonder what kind of profession the person would have, it couldn't be something so cliché as a perfumer. I'm not trying to re-write Frankenstein.
While writing this I realized, and I feel awkward writing this in a public space, that all my most memorable loves have had the most memorable smells. Maybe its how memory works. Each day we piece together so many people when we process the faces and features of strangers we pass when we live in a city. How many smells have you truly taken the time to separate and meditate on. From that smell, I can piece together physical characteristics much easier than the other way around. I imagine the smell of an old lover's hair, and I see and feel the memory much closer than merely imagining what it might have looked like.
From the smell you can piece together the whole scene:
I woke up to the smell of her hair. My eyes only half opened, never came into focus. I pulled myself closer and buried my face in her hair, my chest against her back. She lay there breathing softly, I matched my own breathing to hers, quietly, through my nose, and like that, I was back asleep.
I remember the unclean body odours of a lover fondly as well. They vividly brings to mind something like a teasing smile thats in the middle of sarcastically apologizing.
I want to write about the woman whose scent I wear around my neck. I want to write about this invisible woman who I smell when I wear this scarf, keeping me warm, keeping the wind off my neck. Some people reading this might find this notion creepy. Why should they though? Sometimes you fall enamored with someone the first time you see them. People call it love at first sight, and though it sounds cheesy, its never really considered creepy. Its one of the five senses, and however brief it was, the image embeds itself on to your retina, and you see this person each time you close your eyes.
But, how do you imagine someone embedded in your sense of smell? I find the idea is more romantic than a capturing gaze. When we see someone, we have so many layers guiding our attraction, love at first sight can be so superficial, to love a facade, to love their to-be-looked-at-ness (sorry to borrow a term from Laura Mulvey). What does someone who we create in our mind, guided only by our sense of smell, look like. An unseen woman. I like this concept a lot. We would dream them and they would be a love wholly built in our own imagination. We might find it on other people, from the previous occupant in a taxi cab, in the wind, in strange body odours, or even the toxic fumes of a construction site, but it would never be that scent exactly. If we ever did find that person too, this person of our imagination who embodies this scent, would that person ever be wholly world you built for them through their smell.
I don't know. But, I like this idea of longing a fiction. Or at least writing a fictional character who is in love with a disembodied fiction. You could have them thinking of them in public places. The protagonist wouldn't be entirely there, but day-dreaming of his lover. He'd watch as shapeless figures appeared on the inside of his eyelids. Then, all of a sudden he'd smell her smell, open his eyes, look around him, and the smell would have disappeared. Maybe in a subway, tired and coming home from work, or sitting at a public bench near a crowded intersection. I wonder what kind of profession the person would have, it couldn't be something so cliché as a perfumer. I'm not trying to re-write Frankenstein.
While writing this I realized, and I feel awkward writing this in a public space, that all my most memorable loves have had the most memorable smells. Maybe its how memory works. Each day we piece together so many people when we process the faces and features of strangers we pass when we live in a city. How many smells have you truly taken the time to separate and meditate on. From that smell, I can piece together physical characteristics much easier than the other way around. I imagine the smell of an old lover's hair, and I see and feel the memory much closer than merely imagining what it might have looked like.
From the smell you can piece together the whole scene:
I woke up to the smell of her hair. My eyes only half opened, never came into focus. I pulled myself closer and buried my face in her hair, my chest against her back. She lay there breathing softly, I matched my own breathing to hers, quietly, through my nose, and like that, I was back asleep.
I remember the unclean body odours of a lover fondly as well. They vividly brings to mind something like a teasing smile thats in the middle of sarcastically apologizing.
A life in the evening.
So, after a break of a day or two, I'm writing my first blog post. I don't know why, but even after a day or two not writing, it feels a bit strange coming back to it. It had just become something so part of my routine to write something, by the last few posts it was even pretty easy.
These last two days are interesting. I finally got some art supplies with whatever meager money I earned from tutoring. Wednesday night was my first private tutoring lesson with this old man I met in a park. I guess I should tell that story, its a good place to start.
So, walking home from the Bastille, there's a elevated park that runs along what used to be an old train line. Its called "La Viaduct Des Arts," its beautifully maintained and has a gives a higher vantage point to see paris as I walk home. Well, being poor, I'll do anything to cut corners on costs. Along the walk there are plants that are edible. Trying to figure out what plants are what, I nibble on ones that look familiar. I was eating what I assumed to be lavender when an old man came up and asked Nay, Mika, and I if we were english. Taken aback, and a bit offended at first, assuming that he was being hostile because we were not french speakers and eating random leaves in a public park. Well, it turns out he needed an english teacher for weekly classes. Thats how I got my first private student. I met him for my first class on tuesdays and it turns out he's a french poet who works for the government at some general desk job during the day. Very cool, we just spent an hour talking about whatever, in english. He doesn't so much want a teacher as someone with who to practice conversational english. We sit in cafés, drink coffee (him a strawberry milkshake) and talk. This week, I think I might bring him to the photography museum because its free.
With the money from my first lesson, I bought some art supplies. Mainly paper, a piece of charcoal, and a pencil (well not "mainly," thats it). I've been drawing on free newspapers with the back end of a broken fountain pen dipped in milk caps filled with acrylic inks I brought with me. Well, now that I have paper, I feel like a baller. Funny how shit can switch around so quickly, living in Paris is so expensive, but there are ways to make it work. I spend about 50 dollars a week, thats two overpriced beers from my watering hold (Le Piano Vache), two bottles of the second cheapest wine my corner store will sell me, a pouch of tobacco, and a fridge stocked full of bulk vegetables from the street market. You know, all the necessities. At first, having to budget like I do was totally foreign to me, and made me wish I had saved more money and learned to curb my consumption back in Toronto. Eating sushi here is probably about the same price as buying a week's worth of groceries from the market, to think that I ate sushi almost every other day in Toronto.
Friday night I was invited to the ambassador's home for some swank cocktail party. You know, go and schmooze with people who have too much power, eat their food, and drink their liquor. I didn't do much of the first, but plenty of eating and drinking. I got there a bit late, so I had some catching up to do, I drank tall glasses of dry gin and tonics (2/3 gin to tonic ratio) and was quickly at the level. The food was fantastic, and I got to eat the first sushi since I'd arrived in Paris. Also, the first salmon, the first proschuto, the first gin, the first tonic, the first -- oh whatever, you know, shit thats generally too bloody rich for me these days. The house was ridiculously ornate. Tall ceilings, painted panels, gold gilding, a fully staffed bar, well dressed butlers wandering and attending to you, a coat check guy waiting to take my coat with its holed pockets. My hair, dirty and unkept, was sticking straight up (my friend Mika said it makes me look like Tin Tin, my friend Annie says I look like a mad professor). I feel like I stick out like a sore thumb in my high tops. Well anyways, these old dignitaries retire too early in the evenings, so once we'd left, we ware back to our general budget of two dollars bottles (not that I paid for them, someone else who had left with us didn't seem to mind keeping the party going). We sat in the street and drank them before going to a bar. I didn't really feel like going in anywhere, so i sat in front and chain smoked.
I'm kind of in a drunken stupor at this point, but, the group decides to split up, take two cabs to Pigalle, which is near Montmartre and I know is kind of a rough neighborhood. I guess we're going to someone's house so I don't really think too much of it. Well, I'm in the second cab, which takes me a while to flag down because in france, you can only grab a taxi from a taxi cab stand (you can't just flag one). I eventually catch one that's stopped at a red light and just get in before waving to the others to follow. When we get to Pigalle, we don't really know where we're meeting up with the others, or what's even happening. So we wander down the strip towards the Moulin Rouge. And I see nay, he's horribly drunk and stumbling, which is generally normal, but he looks off.
As we walk, he tells me how stupid he is, etc, and after a bit of piecing him together I gather that he got robbed again. Two guys had cornered him in a bathroom and kind of slapped him a couple times, he was fine, his cheeks weren't even red. He said that he fought back and then they just took off. Well, as I'm trying to put it all together in my head, we were standing in some fast food restaurant waiting for someone we just met to finish using the bathroom, and our friend Corey to show up. Kind of steaming from the ears in rage, Nay gives himself a quick pocket check and realizes that my cellphone is gone (Nay and I share a phone, its my phone, but I've kind of boycotted them since I've arrived here, which is why he always carries it. I'm so tired of the things after living in Toronto. In fact, I haven't called anyone back in Toronto, and generally prefer to use pay phones while I'm here).
Angry, not necessarily that the phone is gone, but that this kind of shit has to happen to Nay. The people that we're with don't realize any of what's going on. So, I grab Nay's arm and decide to forgo the formalities of proper goodbyes with our new friends when neither of us are really in a state of mind for it. I tell nay that we have to backtrack, maybe you left it somewhere, maybe we'll bump into the guys that lifted it from you. I don't know what we were really trying to accomplish. I was pretty sober at this point, but had enough alcohol in me to be narrow sighted. Even though its a relatively rough area, there are still a lot of people, nothing serious could really happen without getting broken up quickly, I think to myself. Nay doesn't remember which fast food joint he was robbed in, so we trace our way back along his path, him checking each one. I walk a bit behind him, and watch everyone watching him. Some tease, some insult, he walks up to a group of them and asks "c'est ou mon mobile?" this guy kind of looks confused, maybe Nay thinks its the same guy, the guy tells him off and nay stumbles into the restaurant to check the bathrooms. I listen in on their conversation from outside, maybe hoping to hear them joke about how they stole a phone from him earlier, something, anything - but no, its nothing.
Maybe if I can see someone mention it, then I can do something; whatever, call the cops, get someone's attention, but otherwise, this is a lost cause. I wrap my hand in the sleeve of my sweater and punch a window in frustration, stupidly, and am thankful that it didn't break. Well after this, this guy just jumped out of a car and started trash talking Nay, I gave him a kind of pissed off look and was asked what his problem was. He ran over and swiped at me and just took off my glasses. I told him to go fuck himself and got ready to get punched or to punch, whatever happens in those stupid moments before a fight. But a friend of his grabbed him and they got back in the car and drove off... It was all so random. No incentive, no nothing, just like that, its over.
Frustrated, furious, and finding things wholly absurd by this point, I can't help but laugh hysterically and figure its about time to call a cab and get home. I bitch to the cab driver on the way. I ramble on in broken french, but when I'm drunk, even if its horrible, I feel like I'm speaking fine. He gets the point and seems as pissed off as I am.
Anyways, thats it, I'd keep catching you up, tell you about saturday. Not much though, hung over a bit, went out with some friends and wandered around the Bastille area trying to find a good bar to dance or even to sit. Today I learned how to prepare sweet potatoes in neat ways, making vegetarian soups and a vegen lentil dahl.
--------------------------
Broadcast - Pendulum
Lali Puna - Nin-Com-Pop
Lali Puna - Left Handed
B. Fleischmann & Ms. John Soda - Here She Comes
Stereolab - Miss Modular
Deerhoof - Scream Team
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Can has
Ok So, I've been writing a lot lately, and I'm sure some of you are bored of me rambling on and on or whatever about whatever. So today is just a gift, a series of playlists for you to listen to, a short animated film, and an audio book of a favorite Borges fable.
Kanojo to kanojo no neko - by - Makoto Shinkai - 1999
I really love this movie. Its short, simple, sweet, but very strong at the same time. Oh, and reminds me of many people back in Toronto
------------------
Who's a punk? Lets Dance! Mp3 playlist:
The Slits - In the Beginning There was Rhythm
Gang of Four - At Home He's a Tourist
The Au Pairs - Love Song
The Slits - Typical Girls
The Au Pairs - We're So Cool
A Certain Ratio - Shack Up
Public Image Limited - Careening
Cabaret Voltaire - Sensoria
Delta 5 - Mind Your Own Business
---
Post-Dance Dream:
Antena - Camino Del Sol
Four Tet - She Moves She
Swod - Tucholskystr34
Polmo Popo - Rottura
Aphex Twin - Avril 14th
Max Richter - Written On Sky
Boards of Canada - Macquarie Ridge
Harold Budd - As Long as I can Hold My Breath
---
Live Green Grass of Tunnels:
Mùm Green Grass of Tunnel (live - Barcelona Acció Musical - 21 September 2002)
Mum - Green Grass of Tunnel(Live at Great American Music Hall)
Mum - Green Grass of Tunnel (Live - don't know from where, but courtesy of Ash)
---
Akira Rabelais is a writer and composer from Los Angeles. He works with noise and ambient soundscapes (well from what I've heard). He collaborated with Harold Budd on the song that I linked above.
Well, maybe 5 years ago I was on his website. I loved hypertext mazes, I'm a gleaner, and its a gleaner's wet dream of a website. Sometimes a bit text heavy, it can strain the eyes if you stay on it too long. Akirarabelais.com is the website.
Well, somewhere when wandering through his hypertext experiment, I found an mp3 link to a man reading a short story. I listened to it totally engrossed at 4 in the morning. Its still stuck in my head, thinking of hypertext mazes, the future of the reader, reader as gleaner, etc, etc, etc, etc, and finding this audio file and listening to it through. The name of the story was "The Library of Babel."
Only years later when I was reading through the collection of Borges' short stories did I realize it was a Borges fable.
I feel like I should let you all wander through Akira Rabelais' website till you find the mp3 file. Don't go with the intention of finding it, it is relatively easy -- go with the intent of getting lost and letting it find you at some stray click on some strange link.
If you're too lazy to go and search it out -- [here-mp3]
-------------------
p.s.
Umm, I wish I was blind and sporty
Kanojo to kanojo no neko - by - Makoto Shinkai - 1999
I really love this movie. Its short, simple, sweet, but very strong at the same time. Oh, and reminds me of many people back in Toronto
------------------
Who's a punk? Lets Dance! Mp3 playlist:
The Slits - In the Beginning There was Rhythm
Gang of Four - At Home He's a Tourist
The Au Pairs - Love Song
The Slits - Typical Girls
The Au Pairs - We're So Cool
A Certain Ratio - Shack Up
Public Image Limited - Careening
Cabaret Voltaire - Sensoria
Delta 5 - Mind Your Own Business
---
Post-Dance Dream:
Antena - Camino Del Sol
Four Tet - She Moves She
Swod - Tucholskystr34
Polmo Popo - Rottura
Aphex Twin - Avril 14th
Max Richter - Written On Sky
Boards of Canada - Macquarie Ridge
Harold Budd - As Long as I can Hold My Breath
---
Live Green Grass of Tunnels:
Mùm Green Grass of Tunnel (live - Barcelona Acció Musical - 21 September 2002)
Mum - Green Grass of Tunnel(Live at Great American Music Hall)
Mum - Green Grass of Tunnel (Live - don't know from where, but courtesy of Ash)
---
Akira Rabelais is a writer and composer from Los Angeles. He works with noise and ambient soundscapes (well from what I've heard). He collaborated with Harold Budd on the song that I linked above.
Well, maybe 5 years ago I was on his website. I loved hypertext mazes, I'm a gleaner, and its a gleaner's wet dream of a website. Sometimes a bit text heavy, it can strain the eyes if you stay on it too long. Akirarabelais.com is the website.
Well, somewhere when wandering through his hypertext experiment, I found an mp3 link to a man reading a short story. I listened to it totally engrossed at 4 in the morning. Its still stuck in my head, thinking of hypertext mazes, the future of the reader, reader as gleaner, etc, etc, etc, etc, and finding this audio file and listening to it through. The name of the story was "The Library of Babel."
Only years later when I was reading through the collection of Borges' short stories did I realize it was a Borges fable.
I feel like I should let you all wander through Akira Rabelais' website till you find the mp3 file. Don't go with the intention of finding it, it is relatively easy -- go with the intent of getting lost and letting it find you at some stray click on some strange link.
If you're too lazy to go and search it out -- [here-mp3]
-------------------
p.s.
Umm, I wish I was blind and sporty
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Childhood anecdotes
A friend of mine asked if I could write to her in as much sensory detail some of the happier stories of my childhood. This has proven to be a really difficult task. Its not that I had an unhappy childhood, far from it, of course it had its lows, but I was a happy kid.
As far as writing exercises go, its much harder to capture the exact senses of being a child. I don't know how much I'd be projecting backwards onto my youth. I don't want to make this another rant, three days in a row. But I am really fascinated by Memory, maybe thats another theme. My favorite films all have to do with memory, Vertigo, La Jétée, The White Diamond. Same with books, South of the Border West of the Sun by Murakami (which I talked about a few posts back) is probably the best fiction I've ever that captures the ephemeral silver dust of memory that you can't quite express with pleasant anecdotes.
Anyways.
1) I was in Nova Scotia each summer. I remember having an albino rabbit, red eyes, big, that I loved. I called him Satan, kind of as a joke because of his red eyes, kind of a way of describing his uncontrollable way of being that made him different from the other rabbits. He was a wild Rabbit that I had trapped when I was learning how to make traps from nothing in order to catch food. I let him go, and he stayed with us, living underneath the house that I was staying at. I would see him running along the paths and hiding in the bushes. And sometimes he would sit around us while we worked outside. Even though he was wild, I always considered him my rabbit. The people that owned the house knew that I had some connection with this rabbit and told me that before I left back for Toronto at the end of the summer that I should catch him and keep him with the other rabbits that were relatively domesticated. They didn't do this because of some cruel need to domesticate animals, far from it, they knew that a big white rabbit sticks out like a sore thumb running through the fields in northern Cape Breton Island. Well, I told them that I'd rather not. The next year, when I was riding the train back to Nova Scotia, I lay up late at night thinking of the rabbit and wondering if he had survived the winter. Sure enough, 4 days later when I arrived, he was still there, the owners of the house had left out food for him, and he had lived under the house and in the area. He also had a number of children.
2) Each summer, my parents would take us out to see the Symphony of Fire from our boat. We would sail there, black clad ditto, out of Outer Harbour Marina near the Leslie Spit. I remember the cold winds, and I remember wearing my father's enormous jacket to keep the moist wind out. Once we'd get there, we'd anchor up among all the other boats. My brother and I played cards, 3-2-1, or the Chinese name, cho-die-di, chinese two man poker. As it got darker, they would shoot off a firework or two to signal how long until it began. During the performance, you could hear the classical music, to which they choreographed the fireworks performance, blasting from Ontario place. We would simultaneously be listening to it on the radio, well it would be better to say that it was never simultaneous. I remember being so fascinated by how sound traveled. Maybe for the first time it was so apparent to me. You could tell the distance between us and the shore by how long it took for the sound to catch up with the sound of the radio. Or each time a firework went off, the gap between when the firework exploded, dazzlingly bright, and the time its loud bang made it to you me almost able to feel the speed of sound. The largest fireworks near the end of the performance always highlighted this phenomena, a single huge firework sent as high as possible into the sky, always made the loudest bang and took the longest to reach my ears. After the the show, we'd sit and wait a while for the waters to clear up and make it easier to work our way home. The clouds of sulfur would waft towards us, blue and strong, it would pique my nose and make my eyes water. In the floodlights of the boats around us, blue triangles of smoke would extend off of each beam. In the illuminated smoke, you could see bits of fireworks and ash falling like black snow into the blacker water. After it cleared out a bit, my parents would start up the engine and motor home instead of sailing. My brother and I would sit on the front of the boat, wrapped in old sleeping bags as we cruised home around the island. We'd play cat's cradle since the wind from a moving boat made it impossible to play cards.
After writing it, I really liked this exercise, I guess, if you enjoyed reading this I could try another.
After reading my blog, I feel like all my writing is too self-centered. Even my fiction, if anyone knows me, is egocentric. I rarely write about other people, just myself. Sometimes I feel like you, reader, are my Herr Doctor, and i'm lying on my back rambling on about myself.
-
P.s. There are a couple albums I've really been missing from my record collection that I had backed up onto my external hard drive that burnt out. If anyone has these albums can you megaupload/rapidshare/ftp them to me?
Au Pairs - Sense and Sensuality
Maximum Joy - Anthology (released by crippled dick hot wax)
Antena - anthology released by Numero
Bossa Nova, any/all of it.
--------------------
Oh, sister, when I come to knock on your door,
Don't turn away, you'll create sorrow.
Time is an ocean but it ends at the shore
You may not see me tomorrow.
--
Cat Power - Oh, Sister / Knockin' On Heavens Door (Bob Dylan covers)
--------------------
The Album Leaf - Brennivin
Air - Cherry Blossom Girl
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Hyperballand (Bjork Cover) Lyrics (if you want to sing along and don't already know them by heart)
As far as writing exercises go, its much harder to capture the exact senses of being a child. I don't know how much I'd be projecting backwards onto my youth. I don't want to make this another rant, three days in a row. But I am really fascinated by Memory, maybe thats another theme. My favorite films all have to do with memory, Vertigo, La Jétée, The White Diamond. Same with books, South of the Border West of the Sun by Murakami (which I talked about a few posts back) is probably the best fiction I've ever that captures the ephemeral silver dust of memory that you can't quite express with pleasant anecdotes.
Anyways.
1) I was in Nova Scotia each summer. I remember having an albino rabbit, red eyes, big, that I loved. I called him Satan, kind of as a joke because of his red eyes, kind of a way of describing his uncontrollable way of being that made him different from the other rabbits. He was a wild Rabbit that I had trapped when I was learning how to make traps from nothing in order to catch food. I let him go, and he stayed with us, living underneath the house that I was staying at. I would see him running along the paths and hiding in the bushes. And sometimes he would sit around us while we worked outside. Even though he was wild, I always considered him my rabbit. The people that owned the house knew that I had some connection with this rabbit and told me that before I left back for Toronto at the end of the summer that I should catch him and keep him with the other rabbits that were relatively domesticated. They didn't do this because of some cruel need to domesticate animals, far from it, they knew that a big white rabbit sticks out like a sore thumb running through the fields in northern Cape Breton Island. Well, I told them that I'd rather not. The next year, when I was riding the train back to Nova Scotia, I lay up late at night thinking of the rabbit and wondering if he had survived the winter. Sure enough, 4 days later when I arrived, he was still there, the owners of the house had left out food for him, and he had lived under the house and in the area. He also had a number of children.
2) Each summer, my parents would take us out to see the Symphony of Fire from our boat. We would sail there, black clad ditto, out of Outer Harbour Marina near the Leslie Spit. I remember the cold winds, and I remember wearing my father's enormous jacket to keep the moist wind out. Once we'd get there, we'd anchor up among all the other boats. My brother and I played cards, 3-2-1, or the Chinese name, cho-die-di, chinese two man poker. As it got darker, they would shoot off a firework or two to signal how long until it began. During the performance, you could hear the classical music, to which they choreographed the fireworks performance, blasting from Ontario place. We would simultaneously be listening to it on the radio, well it would be better to say that it was never simultaneous. I remember being so fascinated by how sound traveled. Maybe for the first time it was so apparent to me. You could tell the distance between us and the shore by how long it took for the sound to catch up with the sound of the radio. Or each time a firework went off, the gap between when the firework exploded, dazzlingly bright, and the time its loud bang made it to you me almost able to feel the speed of sound. The largest fireworks near the end of the performance always highlighted this phenomena, a single huge firework sent as high as possible into the sky, always made the loudest bang and took the longest to reach my ears. After the the show, we'd sit and wait a while for the waters to clear up and make it easier to work our way home. The clouds of sulfur would waft towards us, blue and strong, it would pique my nose and make my eyes water. In the floodlights of the boats around us, blue triangles of smoke would extend off of each beam. In the illuminated smoke, you could see bits of fireworks and ash falling like black snow into the blacker water. After it cleared out a bit, my parents would start up the engine and motor home instead of sailing. My brother and I would sit on the front of the boat, wrapped in old sleeping bags as we cruised home around the island. We'd play cat's cradle since the wind from a moving boat made it impossible to play cards.
After writing it, I really liked this exercise, I guess, if you enjoyed reading this I could try another.
After reading my blog, I feel like all my writing is too self-centered. Even my fiction, if anyone knows me, is egocentric. I rarely write about other people, just myself. Sometimes I feel like you, reader, are my Herr Doctor, and i'm lying on my back rambling on about myself.
-
P.s. There are a couple albums I've really been missing from my record collection that I had backed up onto my external hard drive that burnt out. If anyone has these albums can you megaupload/rapidshare/ftp them to me?
Au Pairs - Sense and Sensuality
Maximum Joy - Anthology (released by crippled dick hot wax)
Antena - anthology released by Numero
Bossa Nova, any/all of it.
--------------------
Oh, sister, when I come to knock on your door,
Don't turn away, you'll create sorrow.
Time is an ocean but it ends at the shore
You may not see me tomorrow.
--
Cat Power - Oh, Sister / Knockin' On Heavens Door (Bob Dylan covers)
--------------------
The Album Leaf - Brennivin
Air - Cherry Blossom Girl
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Hyperballand (Bjork Cover) Lyrics (if you want to sing along and don't already know them by heart)
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Rant/Monologue - Me and my Themes
There are a few themes that turn up in my writings year in year out. I'm sure there are plenty that I'm not aware of, but a few are mythologies that are so built into whatever expression that I have that I can't expect to make something that isn't somehow influenced by these themes. Maybe its that I project it onto whatever it is that I do, either way - who cares, chicken or the egg. Forgive me if you find that I'm making totally over assuming statements about myself, I don't presume to know who I am fully, but I've got a decent perspective and I did enough hallucinogenics when I was younger to feel like I managed to get a decent third person perspective on myself.
The first is split and divided parts. Whenever I'm caught recycling this theme in my diatribes, I used the clichéd excuse that I'm a half-breed. An easy joke to a Canadian and an easy way to change a conversation from getting serious into a simple laugh. More appropriately though, I'd say a sum of halves. Half Canadian, half American, half critic, half creator, half cynic, half optimist, half lover, half loner, half good, half bad, you get the idea. All my philosopher friends who read this will probably cringe at the dyads, binary pairs, but, to them, I'd like to say that thats probably the reason we ended up becoming friends along the line of philosophy. At one point I got into de Saussure, Foucault, Levi-Strauss, whatever, because I had these ideas and eventually found people discussing them in a specific school of structural philosophy (and to all my friends that cringe, post-structural). But even before I got into philosophy it was a theme. Before philosophy I dabbled with religion, I wonder how many of my friends realized that my second choice after Ryerson was Theology at UofT. I would read Taoist writings obsessed with the Yin and the Yang, I don't remember how old I was, maybe 16. On some sublime moment in the mountains of Colorado well before I had persued any of these notions of duality with an academic perspective, I believed that my personal philosophy was "walking the fine line between yin and yang." Its what I would call it. In moments of self depreciation, I call it hypocrisy, I call it a lack of conviction, I call it two faced, or something, anything, because I feel guilty for making euphemisms for my shortcomings. Its always been an issue, I'm always one foot in, one foot out, never a specialist.
For a while I was obsessed with the modern mythology of the "Jack of All Trades," maybe I was that, never a specialist, but always handy. But then plighted by the second half of that mythology "... master of none." So, to keep from feeling guilty about being so fickle about the trades that I would pick up, I would be determined the master each of them. Really and truly a neurotic's obsession. Even more neurotically, I feel half guilty half proud about being good at things.
There was a medical case that has stuck with me since I first read it. One case of multiple personality disorder, where the patient refused to be electro-shocked into being a contributing member of society, free of their disfunction. She would refuse any treatment and repeat to herself, "Je switche, je suis, je switche, je suis, je switche, je suis." I switch therefore I am.
I don't know if I'm "right" or "wrong" for who I am, maybe thats another pairing of dualities thats working its way into my train of thought. Maybe I'm both. Maybe this is a faceless confessional with no minister giving me any number of Hail Mary's in order to be cured.
The other is the idea of the somnambulist - walking dreamer or sleep walker. In the states, I righteously thought that the people were all walking sleepers. Unconsciously digging their own graves, living each day like a zombie. Some Romero fantasy of America. In a Hitchcock film,Shadow of a Doubt, Joseph Cotton plays uncle Charlie, a psychopath with a similar criticism. In one scene we are brought into the darker underside of Hitchcock's only film dealing with Idyllic suburban life. In this smoke heavy bar scene, surrounded with the till now unseen derelicts of this town, Uncle Charlie delivers this horribly morbid and dark monologue of America, "...You live in a dream, you're a sleepwalker. Blind. How do you know what the world is like?”
Jaded is one way to put it. In all honesty, I probably would have suicided if I'd stayed in Colorado. To fit in, I'd kill myself with drugs, let them see the one sided coin of a junkie. One face, one performance. I don't regret these years fucked up, and I will love all my friends from Colorado till the end of time, but I couldn't be there. Recently, I'm coming to terms with sleepwalkers/walking dreamers. Somnambulism. One word fits it all perfectly. Its ambiguity fits into my first theme. One criticism of America that I would have is of how people dreamed. They would dream but would never pursue it. Its a world of sleepwalkers filled with dreams, but too defeated or stifled to believe in them as more than dreams or dreams that were little more than sleeping. Sleepwalkers means the opposite to a walking dreamer, but they are so similar that makes them hard to distinguish. So hard that even that I don't think its fair to break them into an oppositional pairing, who can judge -- I did, and righteously too. When I was young (not to say that I'm not young still) I chose to leave the United States to save myself, but it was a decision that was so self centered, selfish, solipsistic, etc, and I still feel guilty for being so bold to judge others, others that i'd come to love and respect. I hope that this time, I've left more maturely, not to get away from sleepers, but to chase my own dreams.
A series of analogies that have stuck with me, pieces of analogies that stick to my consciousness trapped into this obsessive theme.
Rousseau was once asked why he painted a couch in the middle of a jungle, he replied by saying, "We have a right to paint our dream."
A French postman spent over thirty years building a miniature castle with stones that he carried in his pocket during his mail delivery. When he was questioned about this project he answered: "When a man has to travel for thirty years along the same road, there is no way for him to be saved from the monotony except by the creation of something he dreamed."
"The dream was always running ahead of one; To catch up, to live for a moment in unison with it, that was the miracle." - Anais Nïn
I think i'll end it there for today, I'm out of steam.
--------------------
Mp3:
Avrocar - themes these three (tele:funken remix)
The first is split and divided parts. Whenever I'm caught recycling this theme in my diatribes, I used the clichéd excuse that I'm a half-breed. An easy joke to a Canadian and an easy way to change a conversation from getting serious into a simple laugh. More appropriately though, I'd say a sum of halves. Half Canadian, half American, half critic, half creator, half cynic, half optimist, half lover, half loner, half good, half bad, you get the idea. All my philosopher friends who read this will probably cringe at the dyads, binary pairs, but, to them, I'd like to say that thats probably the reason we ended up becoming friends along the line of philosophy. At one point I got into de Saussure, Foucault, Levi-Strauss, whatever, because I had these ideas and eventually found people discussing them in a specific school of structural philosophy (and to all my friends that cringe, post-structural). But even before I got into philosophy it was a theme. Before philosophy I dabbled with religion, I wonder how many of my friends realized that my second choice after Ryerson was Theology at UofT. I would read Taoist writings obsessed with the Yin and the Yang, I don't remember how old I was, maybe 16. On some sublime moment in the mountains of Colorado well before I had persued any of these notions of duality with an academic perspective, I believed that my personal philosophy was "walking the fine line between yin and yang." Its what I would call it. In moments of self depreciation, I call it hypocrisy, I call it a lack of conviction, I call it two faced, or something, anything, because I feel guilty for making euphemisms for my shortcomings. Its always been an issue, I'm always one foot in, one foot out, never a specialist.
For a while I was obsessed with the modern mythology of the "Jack of All Trades," maybe I was that, never a specialist, but always handy. But then plighted by the second half of that mythology "... master of none." So, to keep from feeling guilty about being so fickle about the trades that I would pick up, I would be determined the master each of them. Really and truly a neurotic's obsession. Even more neurotically, I feel half guilty half proud about being good at things.
There was a medical case that has stuck with me since I first read it. One case of multiple personality disorder, where the patient refused to be electro-shocked into being a contributing member of society, free of their disfunction. She would refuse any treatment and repeat to herself, "Je switche, je suis, je switche, je suis, je switche, je suis." I switch therefore I am.
I don't know if I'm "right" or "wrong" for who I am, maybe thats another pairing of dualities thats working its way into my train of thought. Maybe I'm both. Maybe this is a faceless confessional with no minister giving me any number of Hail Mary's in order to be cured.
The other is the idea of the somnambulist - walking dreamer or sleep walker. In the states, I righteously thought that the people were all walking sleepers. Unconsciously digging their own graves, living each day like a zombie. Some Romero fantasy of America. In a Hitchcock film,Shadow of a Doubt, Joseph Cotton plays uncle Charlie, a psychopath with a similar criticism. In one scene we are brought into the darker underside of Hitchcock's only film dealing with Idyllic suburban life. In this smoke heavy bar scene, surrounded with the till now unseen derelicts of this town, Uncle Charlie delivers this horribly morbid and dark monologue of America, "...You live in a dream, you're a sleepwalker. Blind. How do you know what the world is like?”
Jaded is one way to put it. In all honesty, I probably would have suicided if I'd stayed in Colorado. To fit in, I'd kill myself with drugs, let them see the one sided coin of a junkie. One face, one performance. I don't regret these years fucked up, and I will love all my friends from Colorado till the end of time, but I couldn't be there. Recently, I'm coming to terms with sleepwalkers/walking dreamers. Somnambulism. One word fits it all perfectly. Its ambiguity fits into my first theme. One criticism of America that I would have is of how people dreamed. They would dream but would never pursue it. Its a world of sleepwalkers filled with dreams, but too defeated or stifled to believe in them as more than dreams or dreams that were little more than sleeping. Sleepwalkers means the opposite to a walking dreamer, but they are so similar that makes them hard to distinguish. So hard that even that I don't think its fair to break them into an oppositional pairing, who can judge -- I did, and righteously too. When I was young (not to say that I'm not young still) I chose to leave the United States to save myself, but it was a decision that was so self centered, selfish, solipsistic, etc, and I still feel guilty for being so bold to judge others, others that i'd come to love and respect. I hope that this time, I've left more maturely, not to get away from sleepers, but to chase my own dreams.
A series of analogies that have stuck with me, pieces of analogies that stick to my consciousness trapped into this obsessive theme.
Rousseau was once asked why he painted a couch in the middle of a jungle, he replied by saying, "We have a right to paint our dream."
A French postman spent over thirty years building a miniature castle with stones that he carried in his pocket during his mail delivery. When he was questioned about this project he answered: "When a man has to travel for thirty years along the same road, there is no way for him to be saved from the monotony except by the creation of something he dreamed."
"The dream was always running ahead of one; To catch up, to live for a moment in unison with it, that was the miracle." - Anais Nïn
I think i'll end it there for today, I'm out of steam.
--------------------
Mp3:
Avrocar - themes these three (tele:funken remix)
Monday, November 19, 2007
Dreams Part 2
Unknown - Will update when I have the proper information
So this dream with still images is still fresh in my mind. I can only really remember two pieces vividly, the rest I only remember the aesthetic. Of these pieces, I've just spent the last bit trying to replicate one of them, without the proper tools and without the proper medium. Nonetheless, in replicating the aesthetic of my dreams, I got somewhat close to what I wanted to accomplish. I used acrylic ink instead of brown charcoal and a small piece of thicker black paper instead of a huge piece of beige primed cardboard. When it was finished, its not quite the same, but because I know what it was, looking at it in this smaller format makes me remember what it is that I need to one day make.
I've gotten inspiration from my dreams before, generally to write, to try and translate the surreality of whatever. Its a time old writing exercise to get you to write something from experience that isn't a banal description or fictitious. But I've never actually had a dream anything like my dream of still images. I've always had wild dreams, things that I can't quite put into words, but this dream was so simple, so matter of fact, that I don't even know if I should be interpreting it as I normally would when I get a dream thats out of the norm.
Once I drew what it was that I saw, I realized instantly that it was the style of my dreams. I know, that sounds stupid, but you realize that I've always had an issue with my drawing style. I always think its too controlled, too sharp... too something, something I couldn't quite explain, but didn't really like. When I started making it, and realized that my regular way of making lines would never ever come close to replicating what it was that I wanted to do. The look wouldn't work, so i flipped my fountain pen around and drew with the back of it. The bleeding ink, losing total control of my line, was what I needed to break the habit of how i draw, and let me draw what it was that I saw last night.
Today is a weird juncture friends. I feel winter coming, and don't know whether I should dive into introspection as I always do in the winter. Cabin fever. I always come out shining in the spring, new lessons etc, but I have no distractions from cabin fever this year if I do choose to pursue it. I don't have deadlines, too much work, etc... to keep me from losing myself in it. Maybe its a good thing that I don't have something to catch me if I decide to take the dive. Maybe thats the reason I've always been part of the "jack of all trades, master of none" mythology that I hate so much, I do it all without fully diving.
---------------
Mp3s:
Rotary Connection - Memory-Mand
Fridge - cut up piano and xylophone
Do Make Say Think - chinatown
Buffy Sainte-Marie- Codeine
Gram Parsons - Codeine
Blonde Redhead - Elephant Woman
Chet Baker - My Funny Valentine
Dreams nov19
I just had a series of weird dreams.
I'm just going to quickly write out three that I thought were really interesting, then come back and try and fill in the rest later when I get home.
One dream was entirely still images, and I had a dialogue with myself as I looked at them. Occasionally I would see one, then make it, my hands disembodied. The art was generally in my style, that is if I had ever perfected my own style instead of only dabbling. A mixture of collage and oil paints on a few, but mostly color sticks and charcoal.
Another dream was this. I was sailing still, but didn't have the means to sail, no boat, or maybe it was no water. So instead, I woke up early and went to racing theory class...
That one is a bit self evident.
A third one is a bit sketchy and I don't remember all the details. I do know that it is a dream that I've been in before.
Well, not necessarily a dream, but a place in my dreams where I've been before. I don't know how I got there last time, but this time I had managed to get on the internet through being crafty, so then in azureus, i went to go check my peers, and the lines were everywhere. Spiraling between peers, nodes, trackers, multicoloured, but with patterns. It kind of then became three dimensional, and as I rotated it on my screen I discovered that it was a tempest, then I kind of fell into it. Maybe not so much fell into it, but discovered myself standing on a giant platform. The same one I had been on the last time i had dreamed of this place. I was standing on an infinitely high A frame structure, with purple clouds and a tempest all around me, below was much darker. I would jump off, and either spread my wings or pull a shute at some point as I was falling, trying to avoid the bars of the A frame, and I would rise up like a bird in sheer joy. Before landing on the platform again. I landed back on the platform and my roommate nay was there. I told him how great it was to jump off, so we did, but he couldn't get back up, so i dived down to him and opened an umbrella, but it wasn't enough, and we were slowly sinking. At this moment, Nay said, "oh whatever, its almost 9AM when you're supposed to wake up anyways." So I closed my eyes, opened them, and I was awake, except it wasn't 9 am yet, it was closer 8:20.
anyways, i'm in a rush, i'm sure you can tell by how i write.
I'm just going to quickly write out three that I thought were really interesting, then come back and try and fill in the rest later when I get home.
One dream was entirely still images, and I had a dialogue with myself as I looked at them. Occasionally I would see one, then make it, my hands disembodied. The art was generally in my style, that is if I had ever perfected my own style instead of only dabbling. A mixture of collage and oil paints on a few, but mostly color sticks and charcoal.
Another dream was this. I was sailing still, but didn't have the means to sail, no boat, or maybe it was no water. So instead, I woke up early and went to racing theory class...
That one is a bit self evident.
A third one is a bit sketchy and I don't remember all the details. I do know that it is a dream that I've been in before.
Well, not necessarily a dream, but a place in my dreams where I've been before. I don't know how I got there last time, but this time I had managed to get on the internet through being crafty, so then in azureus, i went to go check my peers, and the lines were everywhere. Spiraling between peers, nodes, trackers, multicoloured, but with patterns. It kind of then became three dimensional, and as I rotated it on my screen I discovered that it was a tempest, then I kind of fell into it. Maybe not so much fell into it, but discovered myself standing on a giant platform. The same one I had been on the last time i had dreamed of this place. I was standing on an infinitely high A frame structure, with purple clouds and a tempest all around me, below was much darker. I would jump off, and either spread my wings or pull a shute at some point as I was falling, trying to avoid the bars of the A frame, and I would rise up like a bird in sheer joy. Before landing on the platform again. I landed back on the platform and my roommate nay was there. I told him how great it was to jump off, so we did, but he couldn't get back up, so i dived down to him and opened an umbrella, but it wasn't enough, and we were slowly sinking. At this moment, Nay said, "oh whatever, its almost 9AM when you're supposed to wake up anyways." So I closed my eyes, opened them, and I was awake, except it wasn't 9 am yet, it was closer 8:20.
anyways, i'm in a rush, i'm sure you can tell by how i write.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Translation
Last night, I watched a movie by Zizek called a The Pervert's Guide to Cinema, and of course I don't agree with him all the time, but the way that he reads things fascinates me to no end. He draws the wildest conclusions, makes such far fetched claims, and stretches things beyond their limits to prove his points. Maybe what I like most about him is exactly this. Critics see it as his weakness, that he wastes too much space by stretching things too far to draw what become fragile conclusions. This, to me, is when his theories are most attractive, the way that he can reinterpret films so wildly and unconventionally.
He sees something something as more than it is. Why should this be his weak point?
It got me to thinking about reading. How people read things.
Or maybe more specifically, translation, how people translate objects into their own language. Zizek translates films into his language, thats his art. I've always been very fond of covers, my favorite covers are ones like Siouxie and the Banshee's Dear Prudence, originally by the Beatles. My all time favorite cover by the Beatles is Norwegian Wood by Murakami. Murakami is possibly my favorite cover artist, for this book and South of the Border, West of the Sun. There is something special that he does in these two novels that will have me rereading them for the rest of my life most likely. In these two novels, like Siouxie Sue, he brings a melancholia, a noir, to the world of the 60s and 70s that is a perfect balance between intensity and serenity.
In some essay I read somewhere by Lyotard, I remember him writing about translations and readings. Writing is reading. We read as we write, and translate into words our thoughts each time we write. It goes on more, but its been so long since I've read it, and don't quite remember all of it. But this thought stuck with me. Of course I read it in english, translated.
People who have an interesting way of reading things fascinate me too. My friend Enrique has a view of pop culture that is totally not ironic. I think his sincerity for popular music and culture, while at the same time being very well educated, is something so refreshing. My friend Steve in Toronto has an interesting taste, but the lens that he reads everything makes them that much richer, possibly the exact opposite from Enrique, things aren't quite as much ironic as much as they are absurd. Even if I'd already read a book, after talking to Steve about it, I'd reread or remember certain parts and see authors through his lens and appreciate them for wholly different reasons. Steve is also a fucking great writer, his writing is his lens, the way he sees things, the way he reads things. He writes how he translates the world. It works.
I don't know where this is going...
Anyways.
-----------------
Mp3s:
Nouvelle Vague - Making Plans for Nigel
Joy Division's Love Will Tear us Apart has its own mythology, and everyone see's it differently, I couldn't think of a song with more covers.
Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart
Calexico - Love Will Tear Us Apart
New Order - Love Will Tear Us Apart (Live at Tower Ballroom in Birmingham, May 9th, 1983)
Nouvelle Vague - Love Will Tear Us Apart
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Textures - Paintings by Gerhard Richter
Gerhard Richter
S. Mit Kind, 1995, 52x62 cm
Textiles, patterns, old print, the way the ink bleeds on old paper, fonts, paper textures, weaves, wallpapers... I could spend an eternity looking at them, touching them, thinking about them. Maybe I'm perpetually like Huxley on mescaline in The Doors of Perception, helplessly attracted to the weaving of clothes and the shadow play in the fabrics. Egon Schiele's watercolours and chalk on cardboard, his characters, and his use of paint are all almost like textures to me. His whole work shouts out and its no wonder his works are among my favorite and most personal. I find Gerhard Richter's paintings are the epitome of this sensation.
Gerhard Richter - 1 part of a triptych
Gegenuberstellung, 1988, 112X102 cm
Gerhard Richter
(couldn't find name, if you know the name, write it in the comments and I'll update it it)
Gerdhard Richter, Frau mit Kind
Paris is fantastic for textures. I find myself running my fingers along walls, taking a moment to feel the cold touch of a railing as I walk down stairs, the steel underneath a poor coat of chipping paint. The smooth marble of old architecture, always eleven degrees cooler than the air. Listening to the white noise of too many french speakers speaking at once on a metro, too many to isolate just one conversation.
Music is the same way sometimes. As much as I love rock, or I like punk, or I like lyrics. I've always liked the fabric of the music, the texture, most. Ian Curtis' slow syncopated vocals over droning guitars with too much reverb. Dubstep's rolling and chunky bass-lines separated by the occasional snare. Dub and its counter culture of Jamaica seen through the lens of echo chambers full of delay and reverb. Satie's impressionistic pianos. Debussy's interpretations of how churches vibrated sound. Burial's post-deluvian two step. All of this music is something where the aesthetic, its texture, is the foreground of the piece for me.
-------------------------
Squarepusher - Iambic 5 Poetry
Squarepusher - Iambic 9 Poetry
World's End Girlfriend - 100 Years Of Choke
Arve Henriksen - Glacier Descent
Debussy - Claire De Lune
Debussy - Nuages
Max Richter - On the Nature of Daylight
There was a specific swod song that I was looking for, it sounds as if you were watching an old dirty black and white 8mm of a music box turning, its from the album Gehen, if someone has this song, can you send it to me?
Swod - Deer
Swod - Paintage
Swod - Montauk
Deadbeat - Melbourne Round Midnight
Burial - Archangel
Friday, November 16, 2007
Jackie II
Andy Warhol
from 11 Pop Artists, volume II. (1966). Screenprint, composition and sheet: 24 x 29 15/16″ (60.9 x 76.1 cm)
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Strike!
So, I don't work today and feel a bit guilty. A student approached me in the hall on monday and asked me if I was going to be teaching her class this week since it was her last week in my class. I told her I would try, but because of the strike its very difficult (if not impossible) for me to commute to the suburbs.
The students are protesting the privatization of the universities. So when you walk past, all the lights are off.
All the newspapers are discussing the possibilities of giving this much "power to the people." Strikes are nothing new to Paris. Every time there's a new legislature, its admittance is generally decided in the streets.
My reason for going back to school was through wanting to pursue anarchy intellectually rather than with tattoos and acid washed jean jackets. It started with reading Guy Debord and realizing that anarchy in the UK didn't start with punk rock.
It didn't start with The Situationists either. But they were always the ones I empathized with. Détournement, the Dérivé, politicization of art, graffiti, a society of producer producer poetics.
Eventually, I get into Marx, and not in the typical way, enamoured with Lukacs, Hegelian dialectics. I go from misdirected youth into history and philosophy.
Despite all this, I was horribly disillusioned being in school. I was never good at school, ever. They just kept pushing me through the grades, hoping that it wasn't because I wasn't smart, but because I wasn't challenged.
Nonetheless, University was challenging, but when I didn't care, I didn't care. My grades hurt in my first year. It was around this time that I would sympathize more and more with the Situationist's stance against the academic institution. Then I approached an assistant prof who was very cool, teaching for a teacher who is now a friend of mine, and told her my dilemma. I wanted to learn, I had passion to do this, but when I was doing something I wasn't passionate about I would get horrible grades because I put next to no effort into it. As with high-school.
She told me to write what I'm passionate about. Fuck the curriculum, read on your own. Write on your own, work it into everything you do. If you have a passion, use it as a lens to approach even the most banal. If you don't agree, then don't do it, but criticize it, but do it well.
After this I got almost straight A's through university.
But what now?
Roughly "he's the shithole". The word "chienlit," in French, is used by those in power to describe disorder in the same way that "anarchy" is bandied about in the states. ("If we don't do something, there'll be anarchy in the streets"). The word derives from "chier en lit" -- To shit in bed. A fine mess indeed.
---------------------------
Mp3s à la No Wave:
Glenn Branca
Statics and Theoretical Girls
Glenn Branca - Glazened Idols
Glenn Branca - You
Solo
Glenn Branca - Lesson No.1 (edit)
Glenn Branca - Lesson No.2
James Chance
James Chance - Contort Yourself
James Chance - The Twitch
Rhys Chatham
Rhys Chatham - Drastic Classicism
Liquid Liquid
Liquid Liquid - Cavern
Lecture Series on Liquid Liquid by Sal Principato
---
many mp3 link compliments of: www17seconds
images are all from posters during the may 68 riots - nothingness.org
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Wednesday Morning
Some photos of Monday night at The Piano Vache:
Well, I've just woken up, I'm in a cafe getting my morning dosage of caffeine. Today's my day off, tomorrow will most likely be an forced day off. So will Friday... That means my work this week has consisted of monday, and another week of vacation. Strikes. La Grève. The University is shut down. All metro rails are down. The city stops, museums close, school is closed, office buildings shut down. If your job does actually continue, you have two excuses to not show up: 1, there's no possible way for me to commute there with no public services available. 2, "I'm standing in solidarity," the cause doesn't really matter. Sounds serious huh? well, no, this is the second time this has happened to me in my one month of teaching. One friend of mine is worried she wont get university credits for studying at the sorbonne because she's had a total of two weeks of class since she's been here.
I'd say the spirit of May 68 lives on, but no, thats not quite it. Maybe we'll see in May when we can celebrate 40 years of rebellion and strikes what happens.
I feel like France is a country where politics takes place in the streets. Still, revolt is almost institutionalized, everyone kind of expects them, and everyone protests in a well structed fashion. People don't seem that enraged, but they respect that is just the way that things work in paris, and you might as well enjoy the free time.
Today is mostly a musical documentary of my day, I figure its better than sharing my grocery list.
-------------------------
Feature: Shocking Blue
I don't know why, but sometimes I wake up with Shocking Blue in my head. Normally its their hit song "Venus" that rose to the chop of the U.S. charts in 1969. They are a dutch psychedelic band that has heavy riffs, catchy organs, and a strong drums backup. Not to mention the energetic voice of Mariska Veres (who is just too foxy).
Shocking Blue - Love Buzz
Shocking Blue - Send me a postcard
--------------------------
Early morning mp3s:
Pauline Croze - T'es Beau
Joanna Newsom - Bridges and Balloons
Julie Holland - Stubborn Beast
Blonde Redhead - 23
--------------------------
Really early morning mp3 (for when you're eyes are still stuck together and you're a bit delusional):
Gilberto Gil - Objecto Semi-Identificado
Boards of Canada - roygbiv
--------------------------
For once you're awake and want to run into the city and see galleries and museums:
Ella Fitzgerald - I Love Paris (Cole Porter)
T Rex - Cosmic Dancer
Jonathan Richman - Ice Cream Man
Al Green - Love and Happiness
Well, I've just woken up, I'm in a cafe getting my morning dosage of caffeine. Today's my day off, tomorrow will most likely be an forced day off. So will Friday... That means my work this week has consisted of monday, and another week of vacation. Strikes. La Grève. The University is shut down. All metro rails are down. The city stops, museums close, school is closed, office buildings shut down. If your job does actually continue, you have two excuses to not show up: 1, there's no possible way for me to commute there with no public services available. 2, "I'm standing in solidarity," the cause doesn't really matter. Sounds serious huh? well, no, this is the second time this has happened to me in my one month of teaching. One friend of mine is worried she wont get university credits for studying at the sorbonne because she's had a total of two weeks of class since she's been here.
I'd say the spirit of May 68 lives on, but no, thats not quite it. Maybe we'll see in May when we can celebrate 40 years of rebellion and strikes what happens.
I feel like France is a country where politics takes place in the streets. Still, revolt is almost institutionalized, everyone kind of expects them, and everyone protests in a well structed fashion. People don't seem that enraged, but they respect that is just the way that things work in paris, and you might as well enjoy the free time.
Today is mostly a musical documentary of my day, I figure its better than sharing my grocery list.
-------------------------
Feature: Shocking Blue
I don't know why, but sometimes I wake up with Shocking Blue in my head. Normally its their hit song "Venus" that rose to the chop of the U.S. charts in 1969. They are a dutch psychedelic band that has heavy riffs, catchy organs, and a strong drums backup. Not to mention the energetic voice of Mariska Veres (who is just too foxy).
Shocking Blue - Love Buzz
Shocking Blue - Send me a postcard
--------------------------
Early morning mp3s:
Pauline Croze - T'es Beau
Joanna Newsom - Bridges and Balloons
Julie Holland - Stubborn Beast
Blonde Redhead - 23
--------------------------
Really early morning mp3 (for when you're eyes are still stuck together and you're a bit delusional):
Gilberto Gil - Objecto Semi-Identificado
Boards of Canada - roygbiv
--------------------------
For once you're awake and want to run into the city and see galleries and museums:
Ella Fitzgerald - I Love Paris (Cole Porter)
T Rex - Cosmic Dancer
Jonathan Richman - Ice Cream Man
Al Green - Love and Happiness
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Tuesday Tidbits
I watched a film the other night, Basquiat (1996) by Julian Schnabel. Its not a great film, but I really loved watching it. The cast is basically a line up of all my favorite celebrity personalities doing a series of cameos in a film embodying my favorite scene of the late 70s and 80s.
Ok, ok... here's a tidbit of the lineup.
Michael Wincott - Rene Richard
Benecio Del Toro - Benny Dalmau
David Bowie - Andy Warhol
Denis Hopper - Bruno Bischofberger
Gary Oldman - Albert Milo
Christerpher Walken - The Interviewer...
yeah... well despite all that, the film isn't that great, I don't know why its not, maybe its just how i feel about dramatizations of biographies. If you want the whole experience, it goes really well beside Downtown 81, aka New York Beat Movie, a documentary on the same topic.
After watching this film, I put on Charlie Chaplin's City Lights (1931)and fell asleep. This is perfect cinema. It is so nice to drift off into slumber while watching or listening to it.
-----------------------------
I'm not at home, so i don't have my own computer to write this blog entry on, or the means to upload songs for today's entry.
Instead I'm going to put up a bit of interesting tidbits that can be found across the web:
WARHOL's CINEMA - A Mirror for the Sixties (1989)
64 min documentary on Andy Warhol's cinema of the sixties, made for Channel 4 in association with THE FACTORY, MOMA and the Whitney Museum of Art and in collaboration with Simon Field. Directed & Produced Keith Griffiths.
Recorded from a VHS video tape recording from the Channel 4 documentary.
-Compliments of Ubu
Diane Cluck
My friend Tina introduced me to this video, she was over and we were just talking about anti-folk. This song still pops up in my mind sometimes. I think my favorite part of this song is the way her eyes tremble with emotion or fixate with a ferocity when she sings.
White Diamond - Werner Herzog (2004)
This is probably my favorite documentary right now. There are so many scenes or moments that Herzog puts into this film that at first either makes you laugh or wonder why he would leave this in the film. The more you rewatch it, the more it makes every little bit count, and even by the end of the film it all come back full circle to make perfect sense. I think this is his masterpiece.
-------------------
Some mp3s, not from my server though.
Kiln - Bluerain
Dino Saluzzi - Imagines...
Ok, ok... here's a tidbit of the lineup.
Michael Wincott - Rene Richard
Benecio Del Toro - Benny Dalmau
David Bowie - Andy Warhol
Denis Hopper - Bruno Bischofberger
Gary Oldman - Albert Milo
Christerpher Walken - The Interviewer...
yeah... well despite all that, the film isn't that great, I don't know why its not, maybe its just how i feel about dramatizations of biographies. If you want the whole experience, it goes really well beside Downtown 81, aka New York Beat Movie, a documentary on the same topic.
After watching this film, I put on Charlie Chaplin's City Lights (1931)and fell asleep. This is perfect cinema. It is so nice to drift off into slumber while watching or listening to it.
-----------------------------
I'm not at home, so i don't have my own computer to write this blog entry on, or the means to upload songs for today's entry.
Instead I'm going to put up a bit of interesting tidbits that can be found across the web:
WARHOL's CINEMA - A Mirror for the Sixties (1989)
64 min documentary on Andy Warhol's cinema of the sixties, made for Channel 4 in association with THE FACTORY, MOMA and the Whitney Museum of Art and in collaboration with Simon Field. Directed & Produced Keith Griffiths.
Recorded from a VHS video tape recording from the Channel 4 documentary.
-Compliments of Ubu
Diane Cluck
My friend Tina introduced me to this video, she was over and we were just talking about anti-folk. This song still pops up in my mind sometimes. I think my favorite part of this song is the way her eyes tremble with emotion or fixate with a ferocity when she sings.
White Diamond - Werner Herzog (2004)
This is probably my favorite documentary right now. There are so many scenes or moments that Herzog puts into this film that at first either makes you laugh or wonder why he would leave this in the film. The more you rewatch it, the more it makes every little bit count, and even by the end of the film it all come back full circle to make perfect sense. I think this is his masterpiece.
-------------------
Some mp3s, not from my server though.
Kiln - Bluerain
Dino Saluzzi - Imagines...
Monday, November 12, 2007
Fathers
A friend of mine is having problems at home. Generally, I'm pretty good about putting things into perspective for people. But in her case I didn't really know what to say. Her father is giving her troubles, they're in the same vocation, and his legacy in his trade is being caught up to by his daughter. Maybe he feels emasculated. Maybe he's realizing that he won't be her father in the traditional sens.
These issues are typical for boys. All men live in their father's shadows. Sometimes they feel like they are entitled to have their children live in their shadows with such grandiose maxims as "well son, I gave you my name, what else do you expect from me?"
How more patronizing, infantalizing, and divorced from your offspring can you get. Doesn't mean there isn't truth to it.
Our family names generally precede us.
Am I digressing? I thought I had a point...
oh yeah,
The name they give you, is something that they have spent literally a lifetime building. And, with children, they pass it on to them. They then live their name through their progeny. Vicariously projecting their success into their youth. Though at the same time coming to the realization that their family name was in the family before them. They are just another first name in a long chain of existence.
You push your children to succeed, but impotently try to keep them from ever replacing you as the ambassdor of family tradition.
I've been lucky, I'm the younger of two brothers, I'm free to watch from a distance. Even so, my brother is lucky enough to be the son of my father -- Just writing that, I wanted to erase it once i'd finished writing it because I realized that him and I are a part of the same cycle as well. Oh well...
Anyways, too many tangents, too many random side tracked thought processes. Totally dislocated from the original dilemma.
To tie it back in:
Fathers, let your children grow in their own way. Its hard enough that they grow in your shadow, but when they grow in to themselves and begin to carry your name as their own, consider the torch passed on. Step down silently without a fight, if its not today, its tomorrow, youth will always surpass age, maybe not in experience, but as those that define a generation. Let them shine, it doesn't mean that you won't keep shining into old age.
----------------------
Mp3 Post- Expect more Mp3s Tonight or Tomorrow, my internet at home broke. Again.
Willoughby - intentions
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Babies
So kill me, I missed a day blogging.
Anyways, I was on a good streak there for a bit blogging everyday. I'm going to try to keep it up, its rewarding to know that I'm writing each day.
Anyways, here's a brief lineup of all the usual suspects. We call ourselves the Baby Gang, it sounds tough. Part of the initiation for new members requires that you drink a 40oz (pronounced fo' tea) of breast milk, or that you hold up a group of tourists with a rattle.
Enrique
Enrique is the man (his gang name is Man Baby). He dances like a villain, which is means well. Has impeccable style, and speaks 5 languages including Tagalog. He has a way of wearing a fedora that can't be questioned, and has a thing for expensive scarves.
Mika
Mika is our darling swedish friend. She is also always impeccably well dressed, which is always so beautifully complimented by her most endearing smile. She makes you want to watch films like En Karlekshistoria (aka A Swedish Love Story) and move to Gutenberg.
Annie
Is what we call the Babe of Babies. She's very petite, and likes toques, and she buys them in bulk. In the early evenings, she feeds me like a bird, balancing stuffed olives on teaspoons. Later in the evenings, we skip places and drink copious amounts of wine (well at least I do).
Né
My roomate. If you read my blog, you probably know him too. He does my dishes in exchange for dinner. Works for me. His gang name is "The Big Baby," because he can be.
Natalie
This chick is Hiphy. She hails from the Bay Area, and if she had a velib, she'd be ghost riding it.
Corey
This is Corey, he lives with Enrique. He's good with philosophy, like clone high, and brought three boxes of his mother favorite brand of pre-packaged matzah balls to Paris for cold winter nights. They're delicious, but if anyone asks, its "his mother's recipe," and not from a box.
Me
Yeah, thats me.
-------------------------------
Mp3s - No Genre:
Destroyer - From Oakland to Warsaw
Gultskra Artikler - Votpsuk
Beirut - Buyamas Sonora
Aretha Franklin - The Happy Blues (Let Me In Your Life Outtake)
Cerrone - Supernature
Animal Collective - Grass
Anyways, I was on a good streak there for a bit blogging everyday. I'm going to try to keep it up, its rewarding to know that I'm writing each day.
Anyways, here's a brief lineup of all the usual suspects. We call ourselves the Baby Gang, it sounds tough. Part of the initiation for new members requires that you drink a 40oz (pronounced fo' tea) of breast milk, or that you hold up a group of tourists with a rattle.
Enrique
Enrique is the man (his gang name is Man Baby). He dances like a villain, which is means well. Has impeccable style, and speaks 5 languages including Tagalog. He has a way of wearing a fedora that can't be questioned, and has a thing for expensive scarves.
Mika
Mika is our darling swedish friend. She is also always impeccably well dressed, which is always so beautifully complimented by her most endearing smile. She makes you want to watch films like En Karlekshistoria (aka A Swedish Love Story) and move to Gutenberg.
Annie
Is what we call the Babe of Babies. She's very petite, and likes toques, and she buys them in bulk. In the early evenings, she feeds me like a bird, balancing stuffed olives on teaspoons. Later in the evenings, we skip places and drink copious amounts of wine (well at least I do).
Né
My roomate. If you read my blog, you probably know him too. He does my dishes in exchange for dinner. Works for me. His gang name is "The Big Baby," because he can be.
Natalie
This chick is Hiphy. She hails from the Bay Area, and if she had a velib, she'd be ghost riding it.
Corey
This is Corey, he lives with Enrique. He's good with philosophy, like clone high, and brought three boxes of his mother favorite brand of pre-packaged matzah balls to Paris for cold winter nights. They're delicious, but if anyone asks, its "his mother's recipe," and not from a box.
Me
Yeah, thats me.
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Mp3s - No Genre:
Destroyer - From Oakland to Warsaw
Gultskra Artikler - Votpsuk
Beirut - Buyamas Sonora
Aretha Franklin - The Happy Blues (Let Me In Your Life Outtake)
Cerrone - Supernature
Animal Collective - Grass
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Authentically Parisien
Each evening I sit here making this blog, only these last couple of days I've had to do it from a café. It costs me 2euros to sit here and mooch their internet (the cost of a coffee), but its also a bit nicer atmosphere than slouched in my room at my desk. Its more genuine, or something... There are a lot of moments where I feel "authentically french," or I see something and I think to myself, "wow, thats authentically french." I'm not quite sure I know what that means. In Canada, authentically Canadian can sometimes be a slander, even more so referring to americans. Is it a tourist's sense of freedom in a stranger's land that to be "authentically" regional is somehow romantic? Maybe france is just different too, it has a bit of charm that even the french can't ignore. Playing a game with my students today, two truths one lie (where you write two truths on the board and one lie, duh, then they guess which one is the lie, the winner gets to go up... simple, but it gets them using english, and it also uses up time), one student's truth was "France is magical," and the other students teased him about how obvious that was. Maybe I'm just disaffected by Canada. That said, I love it there, and I have only good things to say about Canada. So maybe its something else, maybe its that I've never really been connected with where I was, a first generation diasporic hybrid, I was an exile at birth. Also, that being said, I've also felt at home almost everywhere I've been(half the time).
What does authentically french mean though? Does it mean everything that has become a caricature in north american mythology. I'd hope to think it wasn't, there really is something special about France. Maybe its all the clichés of love, sometimes there are loves that clichés are made of, maybe Paris isn't cliché, but so grand that it is the stuff clichés are made of.
Two themes I can't get over - cliché and authenticity.
The two seem to come up in everything I write. Some day, i'd like to discover the essence of these two words, but I imagine it'll take a lifetime before I can distinguish the two.
Anyways, enough rambling, enough sentences ending with a rhetorical question mark. Here, have some authentically American music.
--------------------------------
Wait, one more thing. If you'd gathered from reading my blog that I'm relearning how to cook. I would love any readers who read this subtext to leave a comment with any good suggestions, secret techniques, favorite recipes... etc.
edit:
My ex-roomate/neighbor-combo Caleb (who coincidentally rules the kitchen), has started up a blog to share his secret techniques and recipes. Check it here!
--------------------------------
Cliff Gober - A Poor Wayfaring Stranger
Burial - Wayfaring Stranger
Etta James - You Got It
Four Mints - Too Far Gone
John Coltrane - After the Rain
The Hollies - Elevated Observations?
Bo Diddley - You Can't Judge A Book By The Cover
Chuck Berry - Havana Moon
What does authentically french mean though? Does it mean everything that has become a caricature in north american mythology. I'd hope to think it wasn't, there really is something special about France. Maybe its all the clichés of love, sometimes there are loves that clichés are made of, maybe Paris isn't cliché, but so grand that it is the stuff clichés are made of.
Two themes I can't get over - cliché and authenticity.
The two seem to come up in everything I write. Some day, i'd like to discover the essence of these two words, but I imagine it'll take a lifetime before I can distinguish the two.
Anyways, enough rambling, enough sentences ending with a rhetorical question mark. Here, have some authentically American music.
--------------------------------
Wait, one more thing. If you'd gathered from reading my blog that I'm relearning how to cook. I would love any readers who read this subtext to leave a comment with any good suggestions, secret techniques, favorite recipes... etc.
edit:
My ex-roomate/neighbor-combo Caleb (who coincidentally rules the kitchen), has started up a blog to share his secret techniques and recipes. Check it here!
--------------------------------
Cliff Gober - A Poor Wayfaring Stranger
Burial - Wayfaring Stranger
Etta James - You Got It
Four Mints - Too Far Gone
John Coltrane - After the Rain
The Hollies - Elevated Observations?
Bo Diddley - You Can't Judge A Book By The Cover
Chuck Berry - Havana Moon
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