dromedary caravan

upon occasionally realizing i have Writer's Choke (block's not enough'f a word, as there's a soggy bottom to the identity of any 'doer' vs. their formal intent) i wonder what it's got to do with me. all personal challenges aside, according to one of the principles of dialectic process, the unity of opposites, it would follow that The Choke is some sort of antinomy of behaviour...

to practice writing, perhaps i should practice reading, and by that i mean repattern how i engage with i) the written word and ii) the story/narrative of other mediums...

in my life of the past few years, i've noticed that i increasingly veer away from people who seem to have opted out of dialogue (or perhaps opted for prescriptive rhetoric). this is not to say that i am happier or that my approach is better or that i do not engage in rhetoric myself, but eventually, in conversation with such a prescriptivist, we'll drive each other batty... i'll feel solicited and they'll feel mocked... true story. and i think i might be a little lonelier for it. its given rise to a Zeno's paradox of intimacy... distance being relative, but exhaustion not...

the obvious problem, of course, is the fact that writing is a mode of inscribing the ribbon of time, of elegant decay, of quotational parasitism. the written word is governed by rhetoric, even though it's main efforts are to corrode it, or perhaps morph and leave it ampliate. it's a camel's conversation with the sand.

i believe i'll tie up these ungainly ruminations with a few quotes, for unity's sake (harhar)...

“Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself." - Marcel Proust

"Laughter is the closest distance between two people." - Victor Borge

"Symbols are the seams of the redressed gestures of dreams." - Me

"Hypocrite reader - my fellow - my brother." - Charles Baudelaire

where were you when your friend told you that Professor Dumbledore bought the farm?

1. 'Right here, you inconsiderate dolt!'
2. 'Just before I ended the "friendship".'
3. 'I was that friend!'
4. 'At a dep, buying owl-treats.'
5. 'Practising magic incantations underneath my bed-covers.'
6. 'Googling Hermione's birth-date.'
7. 'Taking a wicked wizard shit.'
8. 'On a coach tour in Dallas.'
9. 'Playing Go Fish with Severus Snape.'
10. 'He's not dead - it's a ploy to throw off the Death-eaters, you Hufflepuff.'

exciting information about ants

as architects
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/467203.stm
army ants
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6692853.stm
'bullet' ants
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5272094.stm
ants on stilts
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5128604.stm
unpleas-ants
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4472521.stm
anti-establishment (why i love them too)http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4319739.stm
and finally - this is just crazy
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1932509.stm

The D/L

Like: The sound of someone walking a bike.
Dislike: People who hold their partner's neck as they stroll.
L: That my friend Joel has one of the most impressive standing vertical jumps.
D: Flipping the pillow to only find that its warm.
L: Waterworld - The Director's Cut.
D: Cars that slow down to a lurking crawl when you're on a bike.
L: People who clutch their bag too emphatically when you walk by.
D: People who treat their pets too preciously.
L: The squeak of your own sinuses clearing.
D: Unyielding umbrella wielders.
L: Conspiratorial whispers.
D: Shitty sci-fi movies (very different constitutional appraisal methods than those which determine 'shitty movies' in general)
L: The idea of dancing vegetables. Or fruit in rollerskates. Happy!
D: Setting off anti-theft alarms and having to sheepishly explain it away.
L: Dreaming something that happens the next day.
D: Boredom.
L: Aggregate smiles.
D: That its easier to come up with Dislikes than Likes.

The Sickness

The sickness is upon me... it plays across and tautens my cello-string nerves, and tricks my spine into forming unaligned maggots of ache. Makes me dream heavy-handedly of the infiniverse; a reversed spy-glass with a lens spidering over my vitreous humors. As I try to lend my fevers quixotry, I summed it up as a helix of bubbles, drawn causally backwards, from the surface of gangrenous water that sucks on me, foetal at the bottom of a brine barrel.

I have the flu. It is enormously uncomfortable, a reckless house-guest who uses all the toilet paper in lighting my mossy mattress on fire... and like all the painful things that've ever happened to me, I'm trying to keep it welcome... divine some sort of temporary truth out of its feverish twilight shroud. Thinks me of birds and how they fly even when they sing - fly how they sing; how the enflamed heart casts ever-greater shadows that pull a luminary low-pressure system behind them; how the human pace has gorged on the colourful rays of its limen, subtracting either vowel from 'feast' at its fickle convenience; how we are each a knot longing for a weave, each a salt-stained architect of dreams stuffing cotton balls into the punctures of our carapace of Will... our mis-takes lengthening the tension cords of our mistakes; with honour, our ablative sense of originality denies our sense of character: honesty is attained only through repetition - only through the rhetoric of peripherally glimpsed errors do we attain our character, that by using and reusing the same jokes, we find our self. We've achieved and killed and wall-mounted psychology and we call it 'post' to impress and enenvy the bounty-hunter friend ... that we mock urgency in pantomime with our democracy (a substanceless itch of insects humming above our temporal tar-pit), hiding our constant violence with everything beneath concepts of creation: I feel that it is our imperative to kill before we can create... in essence, we can only re-create when the dogs are dragging the carcass into the dust.

I dreamt about my illness before it happened, a small plaque of green rot creeping up my throat, seen Henry Sugar-style in a mirror. It relieved me to know that it made it up to my jelly-fish last night, shared with me the show of unshowable unsharables. Now I feel justified to feel so ear-blocked and throat-bloated. I am going to sit upon the shed roof under the sycamore in the back.

"Gozer the Traveler. He will come in one of the pre-chosen forms. During the rectification of the Vuldrini, the traveler came as a large and moving Torg! Then, during the third reconciliation of the last of the McKetrick supplicants, they chose a new form for him: that of a giant Slor! Many Shuvs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you!"

without license

Man of The Year Finalists, 2006

An email sent to me a few months ago listed the Top 3 contenders for the coveted spot of Man Of The Year...

The Vulgarian

I had a relatively untended broth of stewed thoughts I'd wanted to ladle out, but it's not chunky enough (Sloth Love Chunk)... In the pot bobbed such indigestibles as Metro (Montreal's own limping subterrain) mishaps (the "Why I got fired from the petstore" story; the diarrhetic nature of the air-quality which borders on spontaneous --- if you're ever 'stuck'...; how I run (no contiguous pun involved) for trains that aren't mine, and make them! etc.); blogbituaries (close second: how to gain power of attorney for deceased Facebookers) and other general ephemera...

Instead I wish to mention a new and ill-timed passion of mine: GRAPHIC NOVELS. I first came across the medium through Asterix and Obelix (brilliant if read with a saucier sense of humour than the typical 7 year-old possesses) and Tin-Tin (hangover cure par excellence). From there, I left it alone, and other than having the instinctive and near-carnal knowledge of all Marvel superhero characters --- like knowing all the Beatles' tunes without ever remembering actually listening to them --- did not come near them (apart from a brief forray into Ghostrider, which may've been a hidden urge for my desires to get a bit darker and hairier). And then I found Spawn. The grit, the angst, the neo-gothic gore and lush stylizations/production efforts of Image comics fascinated me. I went bananas and collected the first 20, thinking that I was a genius for doing so. It was hard-boiled with a trapped mythology of hell-powers of existential torture... or so I thought. Eventually, I put them aside as I realized that the story was SPARSE. Sure, there were layers of the fraternal camaraderie of outcasts, shame, unfulfillable yearnings (great word: fulfill!) and plenty of gore. But the stories were as robust as the pages they were on: there seemed to be that Lost-like we've-no-idea-where-this-is-going-so-nor-should-you feeling. And I needed closure. Beyond a sense of simmering revenge, the dialogue was not enough. The characters designed to be stuck. That pissed me off. Besides, superpowers were stupid without the dilemmas they brought. Like what Stan Lee once said about Spidey: "If you didn't have Spiderman clinging to a wall or inverted from a thread while he reflected upon things, you were wasting his dormant powers --- and the imagination of the reader." (paraphrase) So, because Al Simmons seemed to have only limited amount of hell-power he could expend, I laminated everything and plonked it in storage. It's a decent enough story, I guess, but I got bored.

But then I met Ben, who LOVES comics. And he showed me some beautiful ones:
Transmetropolitan,
Ex-Machina,
The Walking Dead,
The Invisibles,
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,
Sandman...
The ideas were just crazy, unconventional and provided enough moral-ambiguity for the reader to add that much more by putting the book on their lap and gazing off for a few moments before returning. So I got hooked again. And this time by the writing and paced delivery of the stories, as opposed to the art. Considering it's so very hard to get a decent and originally fleshy take of sci-fi in movies these days, this hit, and then stroked, the nerves that'd been begging me all along.

So I started with Ocean, a Warren Ellis solar-system buster. It was pretty good. Some of his ideas feeling a bit "this'll be cool.." and shoe-horned in. But entrancing nonetheless. It was about a research station discovering a cryogenically sustained race of protohumans floating beneath the ice of Jupiter's moon Europa (doesn't that just sound awesome?) Then I bought Stuart Moore's Para. Which I liked less than Ocean, but got consistently impressed reviews (partly, I think, because he dedicated it to his father). I just thought that LOVE was confused for OBSESSION and that the characters were either soggy or wooden. And that the artistry denied the story, as opposed to assisted (chirpy colours, too well-lit etc).

And then I read another Morrison comic: The Filth. It confounded and amazed me. It is the one I most highly recommend. This is all I will say, but it's crude and sophisticated and one for those who know a lot more about the medium than I (I was relying moreso on my insatiable existential puzzlement to interpret the crazy story). I think it actually morphed me. I started chopping reality into strips for contemplation.

Later I read WE3. Another Morrison I'd recommend. About cybernetically augmented pets trying to escape the military. Gorgeous art and moving story. Violent though, gorgeously.

Then I bought Wastelands v.1. This is set in a dystopian desert world. Think Waterworld, but inside-out. B&W, but only in a manner that enhances. I can't wait for more.

Shit, I'm dribbling here. All this to say that I believe ANYBODY can find something that'll inspire them in the funny books. The people behind them are empowered and empowering. Get brave and try one. Ask the comic-guy, he'll tell you more than you need to know.

Some relatively sure bets: Alan Moore (the movie versions are weak, the graphic novels're the best in the biz I hear) "From Hell" and "V for Vendetta". Grant Morrison. Warren Ellis. Mark Oakley. And I'd like know more...

Eroding Upwards

I have the uneviable category of shorts-weather legs that evoke winces in those that witness them: they are knobbly, sporadically haired, highly-splayable and porcelain white. They more resemble the legs of an albino infant giraffe born near an undersea geothermal vent than those belonging to the suave champion iconoclast you've all come to know - AND LOVE. People gawk and gasp when they see them, they reach for sunglasses/garlic-rubbed wooden stakes, lean down to children and point while muttering under their breath, immediately feel the urge to call loved ones or inexplicably crave cheese curds. I'm fairly fond of how awkward these sticks can be, especially when paired with leisure summer clothes.

Other anaTOMical stragenesses involve:

• smaller than average ears; one is a bit lower than the other, meaning that when I wear aviators it looks like one leg is about 3 inches shorter than the other. i'm thinking about augmentation
• startlingly fast-growing fingernails, about 4mm of growth a week. if i don't clip them biweekly, i wake up looking like a racoon attacked me in my sleep. they're quite strong though
• very good vision. though, i'm thinking because they're blue, they're supersensitive to light
• false teeth. i have inch-long screws going into my skull to attach two ceramic incisors at the front. i used to have them mounted on a retainer when i was an adolescent obviously needing yet another thing to feel self-conscious about. strangely, people would step on my retainer a lot, so i'd go weeks at a time with two gaps where my smile should've been
• oddly bulbous biceps. they'll pop out at you like fermented yoghurt when you least expect it. FUN!
• prehensile toes. i can write with them, use chopsticks (but nowhere near my mouth), play tetris (for a few levels). they really impress goths
• facial hair that flows down to the ol' choda. how wicked is that!? not very
• a demeanor that most people readily recognize as at least bi-curious, but i'm actually really pretty straight. i often wish i weren't

how about you lot? got any bodily weirdnesses you'd like to share? go on... GO ON!!!

ps. sorry about the choda comment...

Which bulge are you looking at?

I'm starting to feel that blogspot is hurting. Likely it's my perceived and unshruggable sense of creative sterility throbbing forth, but still I find myself admiring the 'wordpress' crowd's crisper format and self-respect. The 'spot just seems so rudimentary and half-baked now...

I would've tried to assemble a post about recent personal comments made about my emotional candidness, or lack thereof, but I've been a secretkeeper for years and there doesn't seem to be any starkly visible eggshell to crack, just a quiet, near-unnoticable rhythm that holds fast - especially under inspection. Others can readily spot it, and it seems to bring out neuroses in their reaction to me. What's hard for them to 'get' is that it is my M.O., not a verdict on their character, and so potential times for open discussion and my own blooming sense of contemporal trust are usually occluded by frustration, pressure and then emotional kneejerk repellence. I am a deer, don't stalk me, I'll run. Stay still, and I'll nuzzle the moss you hold in your hand. Though I like cookies and Spiderman comics and charbroiled fish as well. Come to think about it, I don't like moss that much (except to put barefeet on).

Oh, this is reasonably funny. A pretty grim glance at gender relations and gross.. (but funny...)

He emerges from Facebook like Boba Fett didn't from the Sarlacc pit (except for in a short-story I read when 15, but it seemed unlikely)

I'd like to comment on the state of the world, but my mouth is still dangling open in shock. I'm just gonna ease back into this whole confluent-thoughts-forming-sentences-and-then-paragraphs exercise slowly here. Phew, tiring. I'll write again soon.

An E-mail from "Ge la mu"

Knowledge of the word "why" is necessary if you are to find this funny:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlG2f9TAbEk&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fholywardanceparty%2Ecom%2Findex%2Ehtml

I just love the dudes they picked as dancers.

Elsewhere in the world of political activism, a certain blog captained by the author S'mat has recently been banned in the notoriously repressive peoples republic of china. Not a word of a lie! I used to be able to read it, now I cannot.
Well actually I more recently realized that its the entire blogspot site thats been banned but for a while I thought that for sure my personal activity was being monitored and my frequent visitations to a site that makes many references to depaneurs and the singularity was deemed too subversive. So Tom can you please email me your entries. Thanks duder. And you to steve, if you're still keeping yours going.

(I guess y'all wound not be satisfied if I sent out a group-ish email with nothing more than a link to a retarded and only mildly humorous youtube clip?...so now Im trying scrambling to beef this up.)

While I was getting a 2 dollar foot massage yesterday, I saw a story on the news about a woman who refused to sell her house to developers that were planning a large project on hers and her neighbors land. (This story followed the story of a chef that was once so poor and depressed that he spent his last few yuan on shrimps which he braised in a decadent sauce and laid on top of fresh rice wine infused noodles and topped it off with enough sleeping pills to kill an elephant or even John Merrick...he narrowly survived and now is rolling in a BMW and has one of the top kitchens in Peking.) She refused all offers while everyone else accepted so the development company went ahead and dug out all around her house, about 3 stories deep and about 50 yards or so on all sides, leaving her potty old house surrounded by steep cliffs and a huge empty moat. I read today that all media coverage of this story has now been outlawed. Here are some pictures... but please: shhhh!

I recorded a radio interview on tuesday for the campus radio station. The campus airs an hour and a half of programming every weekday and the sound is boomed all over campus through sidewalk speakers disguised as landscaped boulders.The two hosts that interviewed me were so comically amateur about the whole thing. They came equipped with only 3 questions, one of which I incidentally answered in my 40 second intro. The goal that they had in mind was to do a compare and contrast of campus life in China vs. in the West. I am not the person to ask about this. They wanted me to speak about all the clubs that I had taken part in and all of the events that the student union organized (at this university they organize a speed text messaging competion!) and I could think of nary. Architecture, leisure time and summer jobs were also asked about. I was about as thrilling as the natural rocks that were used as models for the mock-rocks that will soon be broadcasting my rapid-fire pipsqueak english that will be heard by many but, thankfully, understood by few. The one plus is that I brought in some Can-Con music tracks--so for about a total of about 11 minutes next friday there will be relief from the god forsaken pop music that they love over here.

Ive been to shanghai and scaled some inner-city peaks here in Wuxi. Eaten meat on a stick and been called a chop-stick by a 70 pound Chinese girl who thought I was too skinny. Going on a trip organized by some of my students to the historic town of Suzhou next weekend to go to amusement park (what else?). Went to a club last night and watched creepy white men with pot bellies and balding patterns go fishing for epiglottises (epigloti?) in the mouths of girls so good-looking they could be Vin Diesel's girlfriends. Beat a Chinese guy at ping-pong. Beat my way through 100 Chinese guys to get on the bus. Beat my way through 1000 Chinese guys to exit a market. Will be beating my way through 10,000 Chinese guys when I attempt to purchase a train ticket to Beijing for the May 1st holiday (am going to meet up with my old pal Tom McCabe).

I dont know what else. I'm having a great time but the work has been very time consuming and so haven't had a lot of opportunity to really explore a whole lot.

Yours,

Ge la mu

By the by, my mandarin is probably worse now than it was when I left montreal but a change is gonna come. At the radio station I met this really cool person that bizarrely speaks this near-immaculate and nuanced french (learnt in Shanghai over 2 years) and wants a chance to use it, so we're going to do some language exchange thing and maybe play some ping-pong. Go habs!

2 Memories

1) When I lived in London, our school chartered a coach as a schoolbus (cheesewagons don't exist there). We always had the same driver, a hindu, and I liked him so much that I'd sit at the front and chat to him in the mornings (also, the view was better out the giant bubble windshield than the side windows). He cracked me up, so funny was he, making heavily accented fart jokes and other slapstick attempts to provoke furrows of ire from the chaperoning teacher. One of his fingers was half-way around, as if it had become loose at one of the digit knuckles and begun to unscrew. Being young, I'd no problem asking him about it and each time his answer was different. From: it got chopped off by a lawnmower and then resewn, to a waste disposal unit and then resewn, to bitten off by his wife and then it grew back. I loved the trips to and from school, it was either him, the Top Trumps that I OWNED or the kissing games at the back.

2) Once, while installing hardwood floor in Victoria, I had to inform the 80 year-old lady we were working for that we were almost out of the product (only half-way done) and would have to order more. So she kicked me in the ass. I hadn't liked her until then.

what the blog do i know?

not a lot.
do i care?
yes and know.
was thinking about how action adverse I am these days. and why. perhaps because i feel that confronting something legitimizes it?

i'm not lazy, just a.a.
sometimes thinking is best done without thinking about it.

Up Syndrome

I have a blog nemesis. It's revivifying. Just as spring burps a few splutters and false starts, I get an enemy!! Yay!!! As I divined from the oracular MSN, I'm not alone in this feeling. The best part is, this enemy does not even know it. I believe that until Father Ted is fully downloaded, I will glibly write posts pertaining to this person's eminent idiocy. Idiocy just radiates from this overconfident redouche like tapeworms from a puppy. I'd love to get in a verbal exchange with this bloated ball-bag, but that would be instigative. I just have to stew. It shouldn't matter, and that's why it does.

a timed post...

busy day today (at least, by supposition), the time is now 12:55, and i give myself till 1 to blitz this post: woke up fuzzy and maladjusted (yes!) to an irritable cosmos. sought the sound of phantasmic honking and caught a V-wing of perhaps 200 geese like one more of winter's scars. been seeing scars on people since, especially headwounds and children. one such situation arose in the form of a brigade of mothers pushing child-carriages... the carriages actually had brand names of Jeep and Humvee on them. Thought the cast-iron dinosaurs that roam on St. L might claim a few of the little goslings, but apparantly they're only asphaltivores, and don't eat of these creamy skinned little pop-rocks. I have the complexion of homemade yoghurt, and think it would suit me if I weren't so expired. ok dandies, 12:59. gotta pull the chute. laters!

The sixth sense is a-non____...

St. Splatty's and the Self...

I got disasterated this weekend. It was fun to do, but when you vow never ever to drink ever again WHILE you are doing it, it hurts that much more. I met champions and chums, and due to a prolonged period of confidence-incontinence, kept pretty unrowdy and instead served more as a drunkard facilitator (back-patter, oopsy-daisy-picker-back-upper, wallet retriever, 'anyone-know-this-unconscious-guy?' yeller etc.). Er, yah, it was fun to do. The spectator became the spectacle.

Which leads me to the next question.. The concept of the Self is under attack!! Or maybe I've only just noticed it. Either way, I think that's a good thing, considering it is largely a fabrication of the market. I've read various works pertaining to the destruction/realization of the Self, but never from the vantage of an industry (more from an ontological angle) and am salivating at the thought of watching this recently downloaded doc. YAY SELF-SACRIFICE!!

Whomunculus asks: What do you think of the Self?

Just over a year ago...

...Justine and Amy, Julian and I, had posted our vacant, windowless room for rent. These rooms are illegal in Montreal, due to some its-just-a-matter-of-time-till-the-place-catches-fire-and-the-landlord-has-preemtively-sworn-that-they-didn't-do-it permit clause, in which case every room requires an alternate exit (or alternate form of doom). But considering fires need oxygen to burn nobody'd seemed too concerned about the status of this room, and so put up some dry wall to suggest privacy. Of course, as anyone who's familiar with drywall will know, that's like putting up a taut drumskin between two enclosed spaces and then trying to sleep with a pillow over your head while the deafening sound of someone blinking or inconsiderately vacillating their pores permeates your thoughts. So we tried to put a positive spin on it, perhaps called it cozy or womblike or not-claustrophobia-inducing or somesuch. Then we sat back to see who it would bring.

Well, it brought a hungarian girl who reminded me of one of Jabba's guards (sorry, but it's true) half eaten by the Rangor. It brought Armand (an initially shy Frenchman who we loved and eventually raised above our heads in collective triumph). And a few others. But most interestingly it brought Eugene.

Eugene did not come alone. He was a recent emigre/escapee? from Russia and he had a very sobering support system. He had one man on the phone, securing apartment viewing dates for him. He had a PA/translator/field-agent, who escorted him through each viewing. He was the spitting image of Vin Diesel (which, if you know not he, then i'll just say that this is not an image you'll readily spit at) which is like having a few bodyguards. He came in like a bad guy, just nodding and pointing. His translator was very pleasant, but spoke pointedly: "Eugene would like to see your basement" (how the hell did he know that? Eugene had not spoken a word) at which he spent longer looking than his potential bedroom. "The basement is unfinished and, er, not absolutely soundproof. Ha.." we may've stammered back. Again the PA spoke: "How is pressure of water?" Enough to rinse the blood off... Eventually Eugene DID say something, and the translator said: "Eugene will let you know if he will takes it" to which, we being kind of silent and cross-armed, we looked at each other questioning whether they meant the ENTIRE apartment or what and then one of us replied... "Ok, we'll have a little think about it too"... Then: "Eugene must go now, driver is waiting..." Then Eugene smiled. And I breathed.

Armand, I'm so glad you moved in mate!
Some potential other conversations we may've had:
"Screaming is fun, no?"
"You like Mercedes?"
"Price of cage high in Canada."
"The P in RPG means 'propelled'? Huh, Eugene thought it mean Plutonium."
"Eugene say he can tell you cry a a lot. You make good money for Eugene."
"You heard him. Kidney. Now."
"Leather lasts longer than love."

S'Mat! make S'Mat! Smash!

Tricky little devils
Complacency Swiftens
Trailing Lilliputians
Like a sticky-nosed 4 year old
Trails shoelaces
Mouth grasping like a fist
Hero we go again
Kinder to hate
Kindling to relate
And there go the chimes
Lancing the ears
With her dazzling tines
And all becomes reflection:
No armistice for loved ones
The boundaries fucking fart
Humour falls, a pall
I, Sade
Ribs from dangled pirates
And there's a fingernail in the sky
You picked me clean
And shat on my carcass
Your arrogance asked me to
Thank you
Stare a little harder at those waters, my dear
They become stiller yet

rambles through the brambles

flicking the crumbs off my chest-mounted anti-grav unit from another sci-fi gorging here. it was a filler thriller though. mcdevitt's written better. astoundingly, he flummoxed the opportunity to hit the aria in the space-opera, garrulously garbled any pointed xeno/anthro juxtaposition he'd meant to and flounced even his characters' relationships to the "cosmic calamity". oh, the pressures. i don't mean to jettison him completely, a few of his books have been thoroughly enjoyable... but this. stopping space pollution starts at home, people. and this one's an assteroid. so, do not read OMEGA. read A TALENT FOR WAR instead, now THAT is good.

speaking of garblage, i'm gargling it. so to eradicate a mean bout of consciousnesstipation, i'll keep this inculpably vague. i could talk about my dreams (as proselytized by a taxi-driver while being chased by some heavies, i 'cleaned' a candy-store, bought some leather articles and then joined a besieged sect of the mafia. eventually, i moved to sicily to husband animals... this is a strange dream for a celt/saxon with the skin tone of mashed potatoes prepared in a basement).

music has erupted through the pores again. pirated, it has smeared my lipstick, broken a pump, put me in a kappa jogging suit (tearaways) and left me without bus-money, but also given me the goose skin of another sort of dream. the day-dream. the day-dream. the day-dream. diurnal oneirism is a practice, one i've been foolish to ignore. it's more than just guided projection of selfscape, it's a habit-bomb and the decommissioning of rigidity. it flexes our ethical sense, fills routine with poetic levity, and makes a bricolage of your self-imagery. it is necessary (but obviously not sufficient) for our joining of the higher purpose. it is the space between our vertebrae. it is the notebook of ideal, the photonegative of our real-life, the vacant seats in the orchestra pit, the bloodbank for the roadkill, the pillows lashed to our heads all day long, our senses of humour and our humour of senses... i kept scraping around for the transitional vocabulary that conducts the abstract to action. i'd forgotten that day-dreaming is it.

musica! i listen to now: amon tobin (missed the exhilarating part of his friday collaborative, so i stole him), of montreal (been a fan for a while but missed their show yester), !!! (bouncybouncy, i'd been given an EP of theirs a few years ago, but the rave review in the mirror settled it. i'd no idea they were linked to Out Hud...), venetian snares (Rossz Csillag: drum n bass with violin, like a diamond commercial for safe-crackers), 4hero (very good) and menomena (not quite sold on these guys yet, kinda like a meaty Architecture in Helsinki in terms of group construction, except good. i'm thinking Gomez, Radiohead and Super Furry Animals. try Air Aid to get the hook). AND AS ALWAYS, PLAID.

*airlocks sealing - retrothrusters primed for disembark - AMPLIFIER THROBBING *

10 Things About Me That Might Qualify Me as ODD...

I picked up a themememe from Heather of itsallgreytome... so, i'm game, but like removing a burr from a kilt, i may have to bare a bit more than my tweed here...

1. One of the few NY resolutions that I've managed to triumph was refraining from showing others my earhair when drunk. For whatever reason, I was compelled to bring them in close for a thorough inspection. It's the cute kind of earhair, like kitten fluff or a yoda-ish mark of wisdom or that remarkable downy cilia that anorexics paste down with makeup for their prom. Since I've stopped trying to get others to marvel at it, it has actually disappeared. My conclusion: the cranium is no longer anorexic.
2. I view Marmite as one of the greatest culinary pleasures to've ever graced ever. Plop it in a broth, and it'll give it edge. Slather it on toast, and nothing else'll do. It is my tub of ChocoChunkCookieDoughFudgePralineScalped-By-Sheer-Yumminess Ice Cream. Because of its NA stigma, I'm basically at the behind-the-dumpster level of indulgence. Marmite for the mighty! (Vegemite, however, is bootpolish. Kraft bought 'em out.)
3. I find insects and arachnids completely enthralling. Roaches... fine. Silverfish... cool. Hornets, earwigs, tarantulas... all tolerable. However, I LOATH centipedes. They're vicious little aliens, and deserve to perish.
4. BASE WARNING: One of the most satisfying pleasures I incurred last year emerged from one of the most embarrasing: One time, I was caught outside at 5am in the morning with the irrepressible urge to shit. Everyone's felt that compunction to function, so I allow myself only a modicum of shame relating this. I dropped my bags, and sprinted down a snow-encrusted alley, found a convenient stabilizer and dropped trou. FAST FORWARD. When the urgency abated, I was presented with the next obvious dilemma: fishing through my jacket, I came up with inadequate means until, like a golden chalice of poetic justice, out came a crumpled Telus Bill. The rest, as they say, is shitstory. HAHAHAHAHA. Telus: 47 - S'Mat!: roughly 3 (but heroically in one sitting).
5. I raised myself on Techno, one of the most hotly debated forms of music there is. I would contend that it has been the gateway to all other forms of music that ever existed (for me). I taught myself to dance alone in my room with industrial, British New Wave and proto-Grrl bands, taking breaks only to smoke on my roof. But the Techno dominates all, and I actually sometimes experience symphonic and sublimely complex Techno melodies as I sleep.
6. Recently, I experienced a strange and disturbing and uncontrollable psychic phenomenon of doing arts and crafts IN MY HEAD. The most prevalent one was this one I learnt in kindergarten: take two 6-inch diameter cardboard doughnut cutouts (the inner hole as wide as the band, so 2"), place them on top of each other and then wrap them with a thick gauge wool (multicoloured is best) through the hole and round the band. Continue until you cannot possibly get the wool through the hole anymore. Now, carefully, cut the wool around the circumference and separate the two cardboard doughnuts a smidgeon. And then tie a piece of wool orbitally, so the wool cinches in the middle of the doughnuts tightly. Now, remove the cardboard, you should have a wool ball, somewhat resembling a Fry-Guy or a cozy-looking sea-urchin. Now it is an important step to remonstrate yourself for producing the most useless A&C article ever. So, yes, in my head, I pumped these wool-balls out like I was somehow assisting the Japanese war effort. It got so bad, that I had to create a ricketty old cowboy (for some reason named Classy) to pull his six-shooters threateningly everytime my mind started wasting wool. One time he even hollered: "You'd better be dropping them there doughnuts or else I'll be filling you fuller've holes'n a 4-star hotel's jacuzzi". Somehow, it worked and I've since relinquished the wool.
7. I miss being part of a choir more than any other gregarious activity. Though I miss acting almost as much.
8. When I was young, I think I actually spoke dog before I spoke english. My best friend was our dog, Jackson, and we were inseparable. However, this meant that many people, adults, teachers, parents etc. considered me near-feral and maladjusted. This persists now as somewhat of a point of pride.
9. I once held my breath for over 2 minutes. I've been electrocuted 3 times. I've bled from the head more than I know (I'd better check, even now). I've suffered a few concussions (but never told anybody). I used to pass out in the shower. I have excruciating hamstring cramps after I swim or dance. I was a breech baby, with my umbilical cord wrapped around my neck, and extricated by way of the section C. I LIKE hanging out at the chess cafe, Pi. All this points to some sort of persisting oxygen-deficient lifestyle and has made me terrified that I am brain damaged. Or just lazy (on a cellular level).
10. I am currently deeply in love.

Ok. HARHARHAR, it's my turn to tag some fellow blogular globulars: Indiana, Sadia, Eve, Lindz and Sparky... who's down with ODD?

Allegory of the Cavelove - I, Glaucon

verbigeration

i like words. alot. so much so, i have this seemingly hardwired editing device that slows down my spoken communication to the degree that on most first meetings, people treat me like a hatchet head-wound surviver. not that they ever cease to, come to think of it, but i retreat from my point...

you know how some utterance or interjection'll pop up, and you say to yourself "self, that's a powerful/swaggery/fluffy/ballsy/dynamite word. start using it!" i know i have: words or phrases like, "dynamite" or "back asswards".. and then you forget about them, and you never actually get to incorporate them, but catch yourself saying "awesome" or "lovely" a lot instead. well i adopted a word that was a surprise until i used it incessantly this past weekend whilst rapidly atrophying in front of a computer game (with my lady-love!) it is the word "plum". as in, "that would be a plum spot to found a city, as it commands a strategic block to the growth of those fucking Greeks". actually, i don't think i had a point to even retreat from. just pointing out one of those phenomena, like waking up with David Bowie's Labyrinth song inexplicably sticking out of your head like the aforementioned hatchet:

You remind me of the babyWhat baby? baby with the powerWhat power? power of voodooWho do? you doDo what? remind me of the babyI saw my baby, crying hard as babe could cryWhat could I doMy babys love had goneAnd left my baby blueNobody knewWhat kind of magic spell to useSlime and snailsOr puppy dogs tailsThunder or lightningThen baby saidDance magic, dance (dance magic, dance)Dance magic, dance (dance magic, dance)Put that baby spell on meJump magic, jump (jump magic, jump)Jump magic, jump (jump magic, jump)Put that magic jump on meSlap that baby, make him freeI saw my baby, trying hard as babe could tryWhat could I doMy babys fun had goneAnd left my baby blueNobody knewWhat kind of magic spell to useSlime and snailsOr puppy dogs tailsThunder or lightningThen baby saidDance magic, dance (dance magic, dance)Dance magic, dance (dance magic, dance)Put that baby spell on meJump magic, jump (jump magic, jump)Jump magic, jump (jump magic, jump)Put that magic jump on meSlap that baby, make him freeDance magic, dance (dance magic, dance)Dance magic, dance (dance magic, dance)Dance magic, dance (dance magic, dance)Dance magic, dance (dance magic, dance)Jump magic, jump (jump magic, jump)Jump magic, jump (jump magic, jump)Put that baby spell on me (ooh)You remind me of the babyWhat baby? the baby with the powerWhat power? power of voodooWho do? you doDo what? remind me of the babyDance magic, dance, ooh ooh oohDance magic, dance magic, ooh ooh oohDance magicWhat kind of magic spell to useSlime and snailsOr puppy dog tailsThunder or lightningSomething frighteningDance magic, danceDance magic, dancePut that baby spell on meJump magic, jumpJump magic, jumpPut that magic jump on meSlap that baby make him freeDance magic, dance (dance magic, dance)Dance magic, dance (dance magic, dance)Dance magic, dance (dance magic, dance)Dance magic, dance (dance magic, dance)Jump magic, jump (jump magic, jump)Jump magic, jumpPut that magic jump on meSlap that babyDance magic, dance (dance magic, dance)Dance magic, dance (dance magic, dance)Dance magicSlap that slap that baby make him freeDance magic, dance (dance magic, dance)Dance magic, dance (dance magic, dance)Dance magic, dance (dance magic, dance)Dance magic, dance (dance magic, dance)Dance magic, dance (dance magic, dance)Dance magic, dance (dance magic, dance)Dance magic, dance (dance magic, dance)

I know...

...a young lady who has too much heart. occasionally it tries to compensate for its volume by revving to 200 bpm. she has had three surgeries so far. this has given her a very fatalistic outlook and a wise and surefooted countenance for her age. she has told me some stories that have left me incredulous, but believing.

...a young man who has just found his love. he is quiet and compassionate and a meticulous eye for detail. he is one of the funniest, self-deprecating people i know. he's always there to help and my family is very fond of him. he is a volunteer fire-fighter and full-time cabinet maker. he can be counted on.

...a lady who just hired a private eye to find her husband. she's a fiery person who seems to be tackling with all angles of her life at once. she is sweet and brave and could out-talk a beehive. she's just moving into a new phase of her life, and i will be there to help secure it. she has helped me to want more of and for myself.

...a young man who's leaving to china in a week. he is teaching english there. he is among my closest of friends, and is so humble that i choke on the words when i try to tell him. he is someone who will allow you to do something and be someone marvelous in front of. however, i believe that it is he who most deserves to experience this feeling he evokes in others. he is a stunning conversationalist, and has a knack of helping people feel comfortable that borders on the uncanny. he's always helped me out of my pinches which is something he's never really asked for in return. i fear i will miss him immensely, but am happy he's commited to the adventure.

...a young lady who i can relate to on every level. she is bright and witty and is the only person i know who can find the exact strings to pull, or play, in order to help pick me up. she suffers from severe, and i think, undue bouts of self-doubt, if only because she previews each of her actions before pursuing them. i believe she mistakes this extreme form of honour as a lack of competence. she is deeply considerate and the best gift-giver that i've ever crossed paths with. she might be the first person i'd met who searches for a way for everyone to be 'equal'. i don't really know how to qualify this. by some grace of time, in between the last two times i'd seen her, she became a woman. she is my sister.

...more people than this...

Casting Buoys - Not Pattern Recognition

Hello. I've come here today to acknowledge my self over a period of time - and how obscured it's been by itself. This might be my first truly honest post. Could you spend a moment to bear witness to this please? I'm going to go back to when I left Montreal in an attempt to gain perspective, 3 years ago next month. I was floundering around for a job that I could sustain myself with in the big M. Part time work at The World Beat Cafe here, busboy on Crescent there (fired for being insubordinate), worked at VICE Magazine (left because I was depressed - same reason I left McGill), volunteered as an editor at the Jane Goodall Society... everything seemed so slippery, and I could not fully immerse myself. There was no mentorship to be found anywhere, and I discovered just how shy I was to ask for guidance or assistance. I felt very transparent, and so any advice anyone gave HURT as opposed to HEALED. I wanted to write, and so did so for the odd publication (dos and don'ts and CD reviews for VICE (once), briefs for the Hour (once) and the Mirror (once), Heads Magazine (once) - who asked me to become their music editor, the stoners). But again, nothing doing. No full-time work to be had. My longterm tempestuous relationship with someone I still think is wonderful, shook itself to a ruin in its own foundations. I had to go... My mum offered me sanctuary on Vancouver Island, so I took it. I was 24 when I left.

I lived on my sister's floor in Victoria while I looked for a job and apartment. I found the apartment before the job (though I had bumped into my future employer and friend the 2nd night in Vic down at a local pub). It was in the form of a small boat down at Fisherman's Wharf. It was in mangy condition, so I cleaned it out and then took the prow cabin for a bed. At night, I read by hurricane lantern, listened to a few CDs I'd found at the Salvation Army, and made necklaces out of beads. The seals would come and thump the side of the boat if I was too loud. Because the Victorian summer is near meditteranean in fullness, I'd often just sit outside on the deck, smoke a joint and watch the city lights across the harbour. Beside the wharf was a giant, award-winning set of condominiums called Shoal Point. It looked like a cruise ship run aground. And this made me think of vessels and houses and of how much hidden information was stored into a structure. I basically lived in a watery trailer park for the summer. During the day, I'd get up and cycle to meet Dave and Shaun and lay hardwood floor. I did this until the late fall. I joined a comedy troupe, and we put on a small 5 person skit-based play at Lucky Bar. I moved into an apartment for 2 months, where I got scammed out of my damage deposit (it had been a rolling lease for nearly 15 years) upon leaving. I moved again, this time up to my mother's.

I needed something substantial, so enrolled in a boat-building course up at Schwartz Bay. I was naive about it, and realized tha it was more of an industry prepper for large-scale operations. There was no real opportunity to join any type of firm other than mass-production or maintenance, and I'd been looking for some type of artisanry. Discouraged, I applied at a few mum & pop builders, and then took up with my mum's friend Devon, a kiwi man's-man who went on horseback treks on the weekend. His line of work was also hardwood installation. I lived in a large suite above my mum's small country house, with a sweeping lookout on Cowichan Bay. I was lost for friends, but took up with whoever I could. One old sod was a man called James Brown. He'd been a millionaire 3 times in his life, the last liquidation he'd put into a 1906 fish packing boat called the Shimoget (sp?). It was to be the death of him, as he keeled over his dory one night coming back from the pub. I don't know if anyone ever found the poor soul's body, but by the tide's reckoning, we would've likely been the first beach he'd've washed up on.

After a few barn raves here and music fests there, I tired of life and I staled on the idea of manual labour where I was not given a chance to manage or learn as quickly as I generally need to. After flirting with the idea of starting a treehouse building company, I made up my mind to return to Montreal. I'd found myself lonely and choked by Island life. But the stars.. oh, the stars. On the odd time, they were so vivid, you could see the planet and the solar system as if it were on the rim of the galaxy (funny this, but 'galaxy' literally translates to Milky Way). The spirals would retreat from sight, giving the impression of the Earth being on the edge of a banded torus.

I arrived back in Montreal, enrolled back in McGill, and met up with my old friends. Steve and Amy graciously received me at their house for a few weeks, and I encountered such nervous situations with my ex. She and I still haven't truly met each other since, but I generally feel a level of warmth and companionship laden familiarity whenever we are together that seems to've persisted through the years we hadn't spoken. I met a girl called Isabel, and we courted. Next thing I knew, we were together and spent much time together. Around then, I had a wicked idea for a book (still do...) and started ostensibly to write it. I started, and then stalled it and then wrote a few short stories, and kept updating my blog (which changed from attempts at humourous overlapping narratives I consider to be 'factasy', to this type of entry...) Eventually, I somehow stretched away from my original intentions to move back here. I paled and bailed, and eventually gave up my school. I couldn't maintain a focus in Philosophy, there was no application. No context. I needed innovation. I yearned for something creative.

One day, last spring, I told Isabel I wasn't in love with her. She wanted more from me, and I couldn't find a way to give it without compromising too much. She was convinced that she was going crazy, getting possessive, so I had to tell her it wasn't just her. I mourned us. And tried to stay her friend. This eventually became impossible. She'd said that she wished I was the man she could've been with for her life. This later mutated to her stating that I'd not been the man she thought I was. Maybe both were true, maybe neither, either way, I wasn't quite sure what man she was talking about. I didn't feel I'd yet become one. By trying not to have us forsake the 9 months we'd been together, I hadn't let her vent her dismay. I dearly wish I'd handled that better. I later found out, she'd considered marriage and children all along. I was ashamed that we hadn't spoken about it while together.

On the other footing, I found liberty in my step. I opened up to new people and felt more confident by myself. Everything had freshened, and I got a job renovating a friend's apartments. I later met a girl who worked at Biftek, and we clicked like magnets. She went away to Portugal for August and broke up with me. Like the reactionary I was, I drooped and worried. I forgot about my own adventure. She returned, for me to discover that something horrendous had happened. We got back together, but my social life got gutted. My aspirations fluxed to having no view of the future (I can imagine biomechanically interfaced exoskeletons, but not the foresight to purchase toothpaste). Continue this avenue for the last 5 months, where I've lost the confidence to meet new people, present myself, write with flourish, engage systems without being neurotically shy etc. and you have me now.

The last few weeks I have: Watched the entire 1st season of Rome. This is easily the best mini-series I've ever encountered (the production details actually put you right in the thick of the 1st century, nothing has been overlooked). The politics, the social view of sex and ritual, the fighting, the infrastructure, the corruption, the slavery... it's absolutely incredible. Both brutish and refined.

Read much about landscape architecture. From what I can detail, this is a predominantly WHITE occupation. And by that I mean rich and self-congratulatory. The views seem stuck in ideas of The Picturesque and modernist function, and only a few firms break the dogmatism and present viable and beautiful risks. The discipline overlaps many categories, and feeds from architecture, urban planning, horticulture, sustainable/green innovation, even sculpture and hydrostatics. I like it alot, if only because I have the skills of a dreamer (and a jack-of-all-trades approach). I believe that we as humans influence the way our environment influences us. And by this, we each have a responsibilty to nurture nature. It should not be a pastime of the wealthy, nor that of the wealthy's counterpart, politics. We need to put the mentalism back into our environs. And by 'our', I mean as inclusively as possible.

Er, that's it for now. The statement that I want to resound is that I am up on my feet and ready to make failure and success in equal measure, and thus learn and strive. I need a community, rolemodels and I need to be challenged. I also badly need a job.

wish I'd had a camera on me...

I was put up to this... good thing too, as I needed a blog-phoenix...

01. Bought a round of drinks in a bar (Y)
02. Swam with dolphins in the ocean (N)
03. Climbed a mountain (Y)
04. Drove a Ferrari (N)
05. Visited the Great Pyramids (N)
06. Held a tarantula (Y - they can taste through their feet!)
07. Taken a bath with someone in candlelight ('aw - nice marmot')
08. Said “I love you” and meant it (Y)
09. Hugged a tree (see above)
10. Played elastic (Y)
11. Been to Paris (Y)
12. Watched a storm on the sea (Y)
13. Stayed up all night to watch the sun rise (Y)
14. Seen the aurora borealis (Y - strangely right as I'd said: 'I've never seen the Northern Lights before, I imagine they look something just like that...')
15. Been to a large sporting event (Y)
16. Climbed the steps of the St. Joseph’s Oratory (Y - though as a drunken shortcut)
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables (Y)
18. Touched an iceberg (N)
19. Slept under the stars (Y)
20. Changed a baby’s diaper (Y)
21. Traveled in a hot air balloon (N)
22. Seen shooting stars (Y)
23. Gotten drunk on champagne (Y)
24. Given more than you could to charity (N)
25. Observed the night through a telescope (Y)
26. Participated in a world record event (N)
27. Had a food fight (Y - at camp, we were told that we could eat a chocolate cake on the count of 3, but the instructor decided to count backwards - from 3, instead of to. My initial lunge for the cake ignited the entire dining room, it was one of the greatest things I've ever witnessed)
28. Bet on a winning horse (Y)
29. Asked directions from a stranger (Y)
30. Had a snowball fight (Y)
31. Yelled as loud as you could (Y- though it took several ginger yells)
32. Carried a lamb (N!)
33. Seen a total eclipse (Y - though you still risk your sight looking directly)
34. Climbed a sand dune (Y)
35. Run over an animal with your car (N)
36. Danced like a crazy person with no regard to who might be watching (Y)
37. Adopted an accent for a whole day (HAHAHA)
38. Felt truly happy, even in a short moment (Y)
39. Had two hard disks on your computer (N)
40. Taken care of someone drunk (Y)
41. Danced with a stranger (Y)
42. Whale-watched in the ocean (Y)
43. Stolen a street sign (Y)
44. Back-packed across Canada (N)
45. Taken a road trip (Y)
46. Rock-climbed outdoors (Y)
47. Sung a ballad on the beach at midnight (N)
48. Gone paragliding (N)
49. Been to Ireland (Y- I was 5. Fed a donkey carrots. Pissed on an electric fence. Fun.)
50. Had a broken heart for much longer than you were with someone. (Y)
51. Sat at a table at a restaurant with strangers and eaten with them. (Y)
52. Been to Japan (Y)
53. Milked a cow (Y)
54. Organized your CD’s alphabetically (Y, and also by genre)
55. Pretended to be a superhero/ine (pretended not to be)
56. Sang karaoke (Y)
57. Spent all day in bed (Y)
58. Played football (Y)
59. Scuba-dived (Y- but only ever in a pool)
60. Kissed in the rain (Y)
61. Played in the mud (Y)
62. Played in the rain (Y)
63. Been in an open-air theatre (Y)
64. Been to the Great Wall of China (N)
65. Started your own business (does being part of a shoplifting gang when I was 11 count?)
66. Fallen in love without suffering from a broken heart (Y)
67. Visited ancient monuments (Y)
68. Taken a martial arts class (Y)
69. Played XBox for 6 hours straight (other consoles, Y. XBox, N)
70. Been married (N)
71. Been in a movie (Y)
72. Organized a surprise party (Y)
73. Been divorced (only from reality)
74. Fasted for 5 days (not on purpose, but Y)
75. Made cookies from a package mix (N)
76. Won first prize in a costume contest (N)
77. Driven a gondola in Venice (N)
78. Have been tattooed (N)
79. Canoed or kayaked (Y)
80. Been interviewed on TV (N)
81. Gotten flowers for no particular reason (Y)
82. Been in a play (Y)
83. Been to Las Vegas (N)
84. Recorded music (Y)
85. Eaten shark (N)
86. Kissed on a first date (Y)
87. Been to Thailand (N)
88. Bought a house (N)
89. Buried one of your parents (N)
90. Been on a cruise (N)
91. Spoken more than one language fluently (N)
92. Raised children (N)
93. Followed your favourite singer on tour (N)
94. Cycled in a foreign country (N)
95. Moved to a new city for a new life (Y)
96. Eaten ants (Y)
97. Walked on the Golden Gate Bridge (N)
98. Sang at the top of your lungs in the car without a care as to who might be watching (Y)
99. Had plastic surgery (N)
100. Survived an accident you statistically shouldn’t have (N)
101. Written articles for a large publication (Y)
102. Lost 40 pounds (only in the UK)
103. Helped an unconscious person (Y)
104. Piloted a plane (N)
105. Touched a live (manta) ray (Y)
106. Broken someone’s heart (Y)
107. Helped birth an animal (N)
108. Won money in a TV game show (N)
109. Broken a bone (Y)
110. Pierced another part of your body other than your ears (N)
111. Handled a revolver or firearm (N)
112. Eaten mushrooms you collected yourself (Y)
113. Ridden a horse (N)
114. Undergone a major operation (N)
115. Had a pet snake (iguana and tortoise but never a snake)
116. Slept for more than 30 hours straight (Y - the last 2 days actually)
117. Been to all the continents of the world (N)
118. Been on a canoe trip for more than 2 days (Y)
119. Eaten kangaroo (N)
120. Eaten sushi (almost once a week)
121. Had your picture in the newspaper (Y)
122. Changed the opinion of someone with regards to something you’ve felt strongly about (Y)
123. Gone back to school (too many times)
124. Parachuted (N)
125. Worn a snake (er...)
126. Built your PC from different parts (N)
127. Sold something you created to someone you don’t know (Y)
128. Dyed your hair (Y)
129. Shaved your head (Y)
130. Saved someone’s life (not that I've known about)

Rest In Peace Roxy

We'll miss you...

The Dependables

The Valentine's heart is nowt but an upsidedown ASS. Which only means that you cannot shit out of it without getting it all over yourself. This is why I will not be talking about that emotional staplegun here...

Instead, I will return to the ever-topical, er, topic, of deppaneurs. For the uninitiated, the dep is the Queeb version of the corner store. This serves so many more functions that one could ever suppose, so I'll draw up a quick generalization, and then retreat to anecdotal, er, anecdotes. There is nothing more true-Blue than the dep: there's softcore and then there's hardcore and then Quebecor, and this is it! They serve as community centre, immunity centre, bitch-about-your-spouse centre... ok, I just don't have the acumen to properly characterize the dep (especially in the function of Essence, there has yet to be created the quintessential dep)... so here's the sundry forms the dep has taken in my experience of it:

• The Family Dep: This doesn't necessarily mean that there is a family running it, or even ever frequenting it as patrons. It seems to function most as a "Third Place", a place halfway between the home and the work (only applied loosely here), that maintains a really casual atmosphere (we're talking wifebeaters, boxers and socks [this last depending on the climate] here). Generally, they are run by old men and hung out in by old men (who never seem to pay for anything) and sell candy bars that are melted or reconstituted after spending most of the shelflife as a goo. A few examples follow:

- A dep on Duluth JUST before Parc Lafontaine had a few people milling around outside, one elderly gentleman clutching his eyes. This not being too abnormal, I passed them by and went in. Made it to the juicefridge before having to clutch at my eyes and beat a hasty exit. The old men laughed at me as I fell out of the store, wherein, between dryheaves, I asked: 'Pepper spray?'. 'Yes.' Came the nonchalant reply. 'I was showing P____ how it worked and it sprayed him in the eyes.' 2 years later, the same dep owner(s) kicked me out for having a plastic sword in my hand: 'NO MORE SWORDS ALLOWED'. Only to follow me out and ask if it were real. And then take it back inside and smack each other with it giggling. All other times I've bought things here have been uneventful.

- A dep on Duluth on the corner of St. Andre. A 30 something year old was sitting there once rearranging his massive stack of Magic cards. I don't really know why I thought this was so funny.

- A dep, on Duluth, corner of Clark (?). Sells singles (or 'loosies'). Once got in a frenzied exchange about poonanny juice. They also tried to sell me Goji berry juice for $60. They have a tuna deheading blade built into their cash counter. Everyone tends to hang out outside here. This place gets a big thumbs up from me.

- A dep on the corner of Hotel-de-Ville and Duluth. They'll file your income tax for you.

- A dep on Sherbrooke that proffers microloans. Same owners would call a good friend of a good friend 'The King' whenever he'd enter.

• The Concept Dep: Sushi/Dep, Pornstore/Dep, Shishtaouk/Dep, Headshop/Dep, Computer parts store/Dep, Barber/Dep, Butcher/Dep. And so on...

Miscellaneous:

• Once, back when I used to walk Eve's dog, Coco, I misguidedly brought her into a dep with me. Next thing I knew, there she was, up on the counter and I was stuck headfirst in a popsicle freezer. No way else I can really tell this, as I've absolutely no idea how this happened. The owners barely batted an eye though. In fact, they thought it was hilarious.
• Got kicked out of CoucheTard (a chain, much like a 7/11) once with Steve for being 'altered' and laughing too hard in the mineral water section. That was a rough night. Because it is also accessible from a residential building, it is not uncommon to see people come down mid-shower to buy some Irish Spring.
• Purportedly, there are deps one can frequent with a 'codeword' to receive goods of a more 'illicit' nature. These items range from afterhours booze, to marijuana, to poached meat, to ??? There's a dep on Napoleon that gives me the feeling that you're not supposed to go in there for any other reason (grim looking butcher section at the back).

I KNOW there are more stories than these, but these are the ones that spring to mind... and keep me customering...

Beer Goggle Formula

As found on the trusty BBC...
An = number of units of alcohol consumed
S = smokiness of the room (graded from 0-10, where 0 clear air; 10 extremely smoky)
L = luminance of 'person of interest' (candelas per square metre; typically 1 pitch black; 150 as seen in normal room lighting)
Vo = Snellen visual acuity (6/6 normal; 6/12 just meets driving standard)
d = distance from 'person of interest' (metres; 0.5 to 3 metres)

Wereman

Just to see what condition my condition was in (circa 8pm Jan 31st)

TRISH

ok, i have something to admit. a few months ago, bored as i was with my own html-lameness and bored as i was with i, i tried to create an alter ego to heckle and generally be an ignorant nuisance. introducing TRISH. man, i'm glad i finally fessed up about that one... perhaps i'll resurrect her one day. if so, watch out, she's bonkers.

A Phone Message

‘Hey babe, how are you? Its Lucy. Um, I hope you’re having a wonderful day and that uh, you’re out and about and happy and feeling revived and alive etc, etc. I’m waiting for my political theory class to start at 4 but I was reading the Age of the Economist for my economics course, I just read something in it I had to tell you about, about the University of London, so funny… “Bentham's major work had been completed before he reached his 40th birthday but he lived till 84 and he had his great influence over a small bland, er band, of devoted followers. He was never against writing influencing books but spent much of his later life concocting complicated plans for prison reform, for relief education and legislative reform. He found the University of London with an endowment and his will provided that his body be embalmed and once a year seated at the meeting of the universities trustees as a reminder of the principles on which the university was established, this grisly ritual continued to be performed until recently using a wax head instead of the shrunken real one which was kept in storage.” Dude. You Brits man. Fucking crazy. Ok, I just thought you’d like to know that, as, who wouldn’t really? I hope you’re having a great time and I’ll see you later. Ok, bye.’

A Child Remote

This is a story I sent in for a provincial competition this summer. It took a few days of sketching to get a reasonable balance, which was perhaps made leaden by the ending (my mum, when I asked her to quickly review it, said that she thought it was a bit trite and a brittle way to conclude. I almost agree, but only because there was a purposeful style shift). As per the rules of the comp, it's supposed to be an original piece, and publishing isn't allowable, but I don't consider this publishing (besides, it's mine and they haven't contacted me for the 5 months since writing it, so I can't imagine I placed and so now reclaim it). Hope it confuses you...

A Child Remote

The child could feel the storm coming. He felt the heaviness of it; knew it as if it were mercury in his marrow. Though warmly dressed, the 8 year-old’s body trembled for the treetops molested overhead, their leaves silvering in a darting shoal. The kinesis reminded him of the delight that winter flurries lit in him. That moment where the leading edge of the wind was revealed, snow snarling over itself, like the teeth of some marauding ghostshark. A loose lock of hair licked the child’s forehead as a thought struggled to emerge: ‘Find shelter’.

Andi tried to raise his head to inspect the storm’s purple embankment, but fear slowed the effort. The roiling clouds loomed over the false horizon of the street like battlements of masticated mother of pearl. They forced the atmosphere before them as they toppled forward into Montreal. Again, urgency pushed the child’s intentions toward safety. Laboriously at first, the boy started for the park across the road. The swings whinnied against the wind, eeky and pendulous. A cyclist coasted past, heralding imminence. Under the climbing frame looked safe.

Andi could vaguely remember the bulge that was his unborn brother. He would reach up to the pale crescent moon that split his mother’s blouse from her skirt and press the other fingers to his chest to find the kick of his own heart. His memories had been so heavily gilded by her stories it took some effort to have them run clear. Her curious pain for the elephant he had one day stuffed up his undershirt. Her insistence on turning the shoes in the vestibule so that they all faced into the house. His abject confusion upon hearing of the death. Of the depths of their loneliness; his an empty brother’s, hers an emptied mother’s. It was the old way. Perhaps causality really ran backwards and remembering served only to change the past. Or perhaps there was something he’d missed.

From somewhere wafted the ruddy smell of burnt coffee but the child was under the play-set’s bridge. The rain had begun, tramping up the fiberglass slide, flushing down a finger plaster now wrapped around a rivulet. The sand pocked beneath all the force of a summer storm, the rain soddening the kneescabs of paintflecks, the wind here a stutter, there a lisp. Sycamore seeds joined the fray, tailspins bombarded from the sky. It had become murderously dark. Andi didn’t feel his right hand move toward a stream of water until it struck his palm. It was a complicated sensation, routed as it was through so many membranes. He forced the hand up to the face, and splashed, feeling his skin contract with the chill of it. Abroad, the child smiled and spat into the rain.

Benches glared like glistening, empty eye-sockets, fringing the basin of sand. They glared at Andi. He shivered and turned away. Pine resin caught his olfactory, but Andi knew that this emanated from the scent-vents hidden around the play-set. They hadn’t used pine in a kid-park probably for a good decade. It was for the parents, to recreate the smells of their youth. To push their sensations through their children. Oh, thought Andi, how irony oxidizes. Suddenly, before he could check it, a surge of pity compelled him to a crouch. A pigeon, broken feathers curdling, hunkering into itself beneath a step, puffed up against the intruder. It cocked its head, transfixing the boy with a yellow button. Andi successfully bridled the urge to pick it up mid-motion, the effort seeming to continue through the pigeon as it flinched exhaustedly. Using low, soothing tones, the child took a step back. The bird seemed placated, and closed its eyes. Andi could not suppress the question as to how long it would live. How long before the cats tiptoe out against the heavens to kill it? How long before it were stolen away from itself?

Revulsion welled up, seemingly pressing outward from within his skull. Striking images of rejection, of unwantedness, of an unfamiliar family framing smiles, a stray dog… all jostled for attention. Amidst them, segmented questions peppered Andi like the rain’s tattoo around him: It? Stolen? Who… not companion? Defy you! And with such quick determination it left Andi no power to resist, the child reached up beneath his cap and reset the cerebral implant.

Andi disengaged the Parasight. Once the spasms ceased, sensations of his body began to claw their way back through his nerves. Clumsy, he scrabbled for the pain reliever that he’d propped beside the monitor, thumbed open the IV jutting from his thigh and plunged the fluid through. His body sagged instantly, relaxed enough now to cope with the paring anguish, against which he was only moderately braced. He was reluctant to take the benzodiazepine as then he’d have to withdraw from the Aggregate, and many of his clients enjoyed the come-down as much as the experience itself. He toggled on the thought-dampener.

What the hell had happened during that occasion? He’d never seen anything like it before: The child had somehow rebelled. Booted him right out. Andi’d run across willful hosts before, but the ability to terminate a connection was just plain dangerous. It meant the child had been completely autonomous throughout the entire piloting. He wondered how much of his own distress had been relayed to the Aggregate. Had they seen him? If so, he hoped he hadn’t obscured the child. He was going to have to run a spec test on his gear again. And then find a host with a deeper implant. Tomorrow.

His room seemed a bit too warm. With shaky legs, he got up to turn the coffee percolator off.

- T.C.

The S nk

too crazy. my story is that i blame the moon. turned away like a skull ignorant. outside, for the sssigarette, i watched a group of eerily similar people approach. it was if they were enconed in a different plane. their gestures, there, could only communicate one thing to me, but everything to each other. they were deaf, touring the city together, animate. but the noise they didn't make was remarkable. no footsteps that the hearing make. no snuffles. as if we made these sounds simply to keep ourselves company. to reply. for me, it felt as if they were a sinkhole for sound. even traffic was muffled. other passersby were visibly staggered. it was blinding to have them pass by. apropo. i have to go. i'll try to write the version i've kept for so long another time. blog entries on shrooms. how dumb.

The Sink

A thought struck me today. Not a spectacularly clever one really, so perhaps it didn't strike, but rather bonked or doffed. But, what if I were to run a cleansing exercise (for personal reasons... I am finding a possessive crest rising along my spine. I am becoming a reptile. I need to inspect this closely...) at the same time as writing a story LIVE as it were (unedited, unfermented, unmediated by time. Though it is an story that occured to me 3 or so years ago because of a vision abnormality I had. It's since disappeared). So I tied up the odd email, bought a coffee, went outside for a smoke, pinched and ate a half gram of mushrooms (dear roommate: the little beggars were asking for it. i swear its not for [purely] recreational reasons), sat back down feeling as if EVERYBODY knew what I'd been outside for, fired up Amon Tobin... and here we go (see if you can catch their onset):

The Sink

If she hadn't taken the mallet to the sink, she could've bought that dishwasher they'd always talked about. Instead, that money went straight down the drain: plumbing fees (emergency, if only for the dire need to have someone see her wringing her hands), the two-basin steel replacement, the superficial damages from the ensuing flood and inexact method of the actual extraction. Now, there she was, always there but never there, suds deep, cutlery clunking dully like someone climbing up a pool ladder, staring at this tinkered remembrance. A brand new waste receptical. This sink would never be clean. How portentous, an old thought for Judith, but not yet old enough. And how boring! The day the ring had swirled down the drain was the day he'd not returned. That evening, eyes slanted, she'd watched Paul Jr., only 4 then, eating his lasagne, straining at the words with which she'd tell Paul about the sunk ring. Casually, of course, as if pointing out PJ's new haircut or fingerworming a hole in somebody's sock. How too to entwine the statement with the obvious question. Put PJ to bed with a book and a few coos to his questions. And sat longer, head in her forearm crook, staring at the plate. Damned if she was going to clear up after Paul this time. Ran to the phone. Called the cops. No ma'am. One sleepless night later, now knowing, she'd strode, nightgown flowing, past the plate of hideous lasagne into the kitchen with a fucking sledgehammer. First strike glanced off the counter to smash a floortile. But the next folded forward the lip of steel, took the door off the cabinet and felt orderly. Felt right. Boom. Boom. Anvil to her anger. Splinters of a size she'd not imagined fell off the head of the mallet on her upswing. And the downswing! A carribean steel-drum band of singular intent; all the marriage bands in the world in a cosmic bag hitting the face of the sun; the last curseword of a doomed jumbojet; it was a sound that only the clutch she had on that handle could produce. Eventually, her breathing actually becalmed through all that effort, she rolled up her sleeves and bent into that hissing, spluttering wound and plucked up the ring. Turning on one foot and popping open the wastebin with the other, she dangled the delicate morsel over the maw, inspecting the sapphire for only the briefest of moments, and let go.

And here was Judith. At the sink.

MERCY! here's perhaps the moment I need to reflect. the story i had in my head IS SO VERY DIFFERENT. i'll print this and start again. poor Judith and PJ are actually supposed to be in a much worse predicament than this.

helplessnesslessness - belonginglonging

I saw the Aronofsky movie 'Pi' again on Wednesday night. It is spastic and delirious, creepy and hypertrophic and most of all subjects the material to little underdressing of intent: the audience has to keep up if they want to undo or resist the disturbance it instills. Problem is, the mainman, Max, is on performance enhancers and already has a preternatural gift for numbers. Try catching that greased-up nerd. The next day, I sat at work, looking down at the drill in my hand, wondering if the opposite effect could be induced. As if reality could be widened with power tools. As if some of the books I've never read, but want to have read, would fit on a shelf I install at the back of my head. Morelike it'd become one of those everything drawers that contain greening pennies, ocular devices, stale loveletters, gunky teenage-sized retainers, broken bracelets and trinkets, tacks, gammy-looking condoms, pebbles, stray cheetos, baggies, defunct lighters, CD covers, capgun ammunition...

Then on Thursday I read the comments on a friend's blog, thought some, added a comment and then thought some more (which may've been less), and decided to try and borrow part of the discussion: What determines personal reality and does it relegate public reality or inform it? Isabel referred to a NYTimes article about predetermination; Steve to determinate causality (in regards to Amy's 1984 quote); Eve to the choices made within that causality; and me to-------

I SAVED THE DRAFT HERE AND DECIDED INSTEAD TO TACK INTO THE HEADWIND...

There's a secret smile we can all wear, and all wear where we can. We all want to belong, to ourselves and to more than that, to something greater than ourselves (and yet something that befits our attitudes and beliefs). If I understand this correctly, both are forms of transcendence. Both rely on manners of transposition. Upon joining a group, we are impregnated with the greater personality, the ideology, the identity, the mission, the communal project and we are outside ourselves. Our own personality, while intact, is temporarily transmutated.. we can exceed our own limits (as we see them). This can be (and always is) done on an everyday, individual basis. We know it as a state of flow, or immersal, or involvement, a state of grace... in mammalian terms, as learning. You become bigger than yourself. It's been my personal belief that laughter is the most obvious form of this (I've suspected laughter as a type of momentary metamorph for some time, but there's a dearth of existential investigations about this.. if anyone knows of any...). And, in my humble opinion, the most important aspect -as the only form of immortality (so closely linked, we can't even separate it from our consciousness) yet created; an instrument so powerful we can't really even realize it- language shows itself as transcendental. Paradoxically, we want to resist our horizonal leaps (in the form of seeking security; hidden behind a palisade of Ps: permanence, persistence, protection, principle, prestige etc) and stay the 'ego' as static. As soon as this happens, a whole slew of abstract problems begin to erupt: intellectual, emotional and spiritual. And this becomes a tiny death that we pass off as bad luck, poor self-esteem, lack of confidence/competence. Lived daily. We are meant to outdo the ego. Be in a constant state of becoming. Project. To conceive of ourselves. For further reading, try Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger and friends.

This recollection helped me today while I breathed toxic floor laminate dust. What sayeth you?

abracadabra

in a post far, far away i'd spoke of a headbutt towel that i'd once 'conceived' to help distinguish between the genital-drying spots and the cephalic-drying spots. to help illustrate i did a perfunctory google only to find that someone had made the idea commercially viable. those fuckwits! i thought about it some more, and the idea of idea-stealing became unbearable. sure we hash and rehash, borrow, reclaim, and repeat stories, notions, opinions, facts and fictions (did you know that lying requires more brain activity than telling the truth? proof again that the US president actually believes what he says...) and why shouldn't we? what is language but an acculturated appropriation of other peoples' ideas? so, because i can't get mad about some sort of ethereal property rights (for a while i'd honestly thought i'd made up the conceptual problem of 'the singularity' - calling it things like 'the aggregation', 'homogefier' or 'collapse' [not nearly as snappy or appropriate as 'singularity'..] and horded it like a madman until it was pointed out to me that no, i was just waaay late joining the dialogue. so after i realized that i'd likely soaked up this information from somewhere else, adopted it for my own and then proclaimed my own genius, only to see myself as a buffoon a short while later, i'll relax my grasp of a few other ideas have (because i don't have the resources to make ANY of them happen, they might as well be free, so can save my hubris from later rashes).

• a portable music player that plays mp3s! (ok, i'm kidding, though i did once meet a man at Biftek who'd claimed to've invented snowmobiles, cellphones and $20 bills. he was pissed about not getting any of the royalties. i think he was trying to impress a drink out of me. ultimately, i was intrigued by his stalwart belief that it was true. it's quite mesmorizing to witness someone else holding witness to themself that way.)
• a fanny pack that has two belts you can attach to your ankles and drives the energy spent walking to a battery and inverter so you can recharge your phone and shit while you walk around. then you could have all sort of wicked attachments like personal fans and cooling devices for beer during the summer and heat coils for the winter. etc. etc.
• pants that you can sit down in WHILE STANDING UP! i think that's a great idea. basically, they inflate or lock girders in the seams so that you can sit as if you were in a chair, but weren't! how funny would that be if physics and society permitted it to happen!
• personal hooks to hang off a body-brace for when you go shopping. hands free consumer enjoyment. insert ready-made joke about mallrats looking like hookers here. or elsewhere. whatever...
• an umbrella that DOESN'T break. why haven't those been invented yet?
• the Levity System.. can't tell you about that one, as its got sentimental associations. and I will be instituting it one day.
• street canals, for when it rains. we could use them for transportation AND energy production (put some sluiced turbines at the end, voila, lots of power). they'd be pretty too.
• public urban orchards.
• 24 hour business days (then 2 people could live in the same room at the same time! it'd deal some with overcrowding!! this is an idea one might call STUPID. we'd have too much about human nature to reinvent.)
• a hairmelter for men, shaving is NOT fun and nor is this monstrous beard i'm sporting.

a lot of other inventions don't come ot mind right now. what are yours?

Maskadon

Friday, Lucy and I saw Pan's Labyrinth... a splendidly bleak faerie tale with its share of gore and wonder and fascism. Then we trundled through the powdered streets of the Old Port, craning our heads up to the heights of those magnificant buildings, and waxed over the edificial bulwarks of the past. And then went to Igloofest at one of the piers. We passed quinceys and firedrums and entered a strange openaired dancehall. Overwhelmed, we found some stairs to a catwalk and bopped until the beats eddied us away and we ignited with dance. We later found our mates (Steve and Chris and Jo, and their companions) and danced some more.

Nextday, Lucy worked her shift at Miami, and we set up a maskmaking table. Make masks we did, regretably for me at the expense of Grae's party (which would've been near impossible to've attended for ex-tenuating reasons), among the masks made were a brontosaurus, a potted plant, a polypsychadelicacy, a Greek tragedy Star Wars creature, a sequined volcano, a lick-a-stick bunny o' death, mad glasses rims and a pair of oversized lips... then we took off to go dancing at the Saphir (metal night...) and flogged our neckmuscles senseless. Getting scoffs from all the black leather-heavies... at first... we showed them what gravity was(n't) later, when we stomped like wild things through the strobe-stricken dryice smoke as mean and tough as any evil stepmother's backhand. Like it says in the post below, it was a weekend of abundance. Any in the area next Saturday, maskmaking from 6-10 at Miami Bar!!