Good Year for the First Half of the Alphabet

Time for the top ten albums of 2009. Here they are, in alphabetical order. It's a weird list this year, in that:

a) almost all the artists start with a letter between A and M,
b) there's very little rock, as such, on it, and
c) it's probably very unrepresentative of what people have actually been listening to this year.

There's just so much music out there, and I've spent most of 2009 quite broke and therefore not wanting to know what I was missing out on, that I feel like what I did end up discovering could seem very random and full of glaring omissions. I mean, I haven't checked these picks against those of the fascist trendy tastemakers yet or anything. Many of these albums were all picked up at one particular time in the summer when Alison and I were about to drive to Maine, so we'd have new stuff to listen to, so that portion of the year is probably over-represented. And I know there are albums on here that fans would say are not even the best albums by the artists who put them out. But this is just what I happened to stumble upon in my bumbling way and enjoy, so make your own list if you think it's not an accurate reflection of the year's best.

One other thing: I've included a sample streaming track from each album this year so you can hear what I'm talking about and see whether you agree with me. As the whole post is intended to convince people to buy the albums listed, I hope this blatant copyright infringement won't offend anyone. But if it does, I will gladly remove any and all of these tracks. Thanks.


Animal Collective
Merriweather Post Pavilion
I know this one's going to be on a lot of people's lists. And so it should be. It seems like after that Panda Bear album did so well AC decided they should try to make music for the masses. I guess that means it's a little less weird than their previous stuff, but they've gone through a pretty natural evolution to get to this place, and it's highly enjoyable, and it's still not exactly The Beatles or anything. I mean, are you really going to force yourself not to like something this catchy and celebratory just because everyone else does? Is that even possible? Come on, man.


Bat for Lashes
Two Suns
This is one of those might-not-be-as-good-as-some-earlier-work-but-it's-the-first-thing-I-heard-and-I-love-it-so-screw-ya entries mentioned above. It's very spooky/romantic in a Kate Bush kind of way, so I suppose you have to be in the right kind of mood for it. But it gives me the shivers and makes me feel like I'm in high school again. That might not sound like a good thing, and I don't have time to figure out why it is in this case, so just take my word for it and check it out.


Bibio
Ambivalence Avenue
Another discovery after the fact. In fact, it seems this guy put out another album earlier this very year which may be even better than this one. I guess one of these days I'll get around to listening to it. This one reminds me a little of Caribou, in that it sounds like a guy who's into electronic music trying to make folk songs. Except Bibio's a bit funkier and more dance-oriented. Very pleasant on a long car trip, for instance from Nova Scotia to Maine.


Cass McCombs
Catacombs
Cass McCombs, on the other hand, sounds like a guy who's into folk music trying to make electronica. I suppose that makes him somewhat like Smog/Bill Callahan, who also put out an album this year that almost made it onto this list. McCombs doesn't sing as low as that guy, but his lyrics are similarly dark and/or personal. The songs are pretty and generally a bit more tuneful. I think he has some association with M. Ward too. He probably has other albums, some of which may or may not be better than this one. I should really find these things out if I'm going to pretend to be some kind of expert, eh?


Dog Day
Concentration
The only local release on this list. That probably makes me a jerk, as I'm sure there were lots of wonderful albums released by other Haligonian artists this year. But, as you may be starting to gather, I'm not exactly with it these days. At least, that's the excuse I'm going to stick with. I like this album at least twice as much as Dog Day's first one, and that's saying a heck of a lot.


Fever Ray
Fever Ray
Do you already know about this? Do I need to explain that it's the woman from electronic duo The Knife? I'll assume I do. You know how that The Knife album had that one really cool song, but then everything else, even though it was very spooky and weird, had this kind of goofiness to it that you just couldn't quite embrace or ignore? Well, this record managed to ditch the goofiness, while maintaining the darkness, including the super creepy Laurie Anderson style pitch-shifted vocals. Does that mean I'm saying the guy in The Knife is a goof? Maybe it does.


The Flaming Lips
Embryonic
I've already gone on at length about this album elsewhere. Here's another song, in case you weren't convinced by the first one. My friend Charles criticizes them for ripping off other bands, specifically Can on Embryonic. But I just can't not like it, no matter how hard I try. And I'm a very big Can fan. So that makes it legit, in my book. Kanye West made a whole song directly out of a Can sample, for Pete's sake, and I'm sure he made a lot more money off it than Wayne Coyne will see for his trouble on this awesome but very uncommercial record.


Tim Hecker
An Imaginary Country
Ambient electronics. If you like that kind of stuff, which I do, Tim Hecker produces some of the best that's out there. If it bores the hell out of you, well, you won't like this. If you're on the fence, give this track a try. You can listen carefully to the gorgeous attention to detail here, or let it envelope you in a blissed-out meditative fog, or you can just put it on in the background while you're working and not be distracted by it at all while you remain mysteriously calm. So many states of consciousness accessible through one artist's music... and he's Canadian too!


Mountains
Choral
Mountains are very ambient too, but not so electronic. Choral sounds to me like a hi-fi, long-play version of the Buddha Machine. The band name is appropriate because this music is beautiful and pastoral, rather than purely hypnotic. Dare I compare it to early Popol Vuh? The CD sleeve says this actually came out in 2008, but iTunes lists it as 2009 when I load it in, and it wasn't on last year's list, so it definitely deserves a spot here, even if it's not quite contemporary with the other entries.


Phoenix
Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
I'm sure you've already heard this album. It's everywhere. I'm pretty sure I heard this song in a Cadillac commercial. We used to call that "selling out." Now it's called "making a buck however you can, what with everyone and her grandmother putting out music and no one buying it." So what? Good for them, I say. If you somehow have avoided the hype, they're French and they sound like The Strokes. They're also undeniably catchy, to the extent that they made it onto this list despite ruining the near-perfect alphabetic pattern mentioned in the title of this post. And you KNOW I love a good alphabetic pattern.

Honourable mentions:
Sonic Youth The Eternal
Air Love 2 (See? This one would have made the list completely regular. AND they're also French! Damn you, Phoenix!)

Some Good News

Hey, guess what? Sherman Hines paid me the money he owed me! Or, rather, he paid the Nova Scotia Department of Labour and Workforce Development, Labour Standards Division, and they paid me. Big thanks to Sandra McDougall, Labour Standards Officer, who took on the complaint and extracted a settlement.

Otherwise, news around here has been all Christmas gatherings and shows. Al Tuck played last Friday with the band that recorded Brave Last Days with him, i.e. Tracy Stevens, Brock Caldwell, and Charles Austin. It was a very special show at Tribeca. Sounded great, everyone had a good time, and there were lots of familiar faces there, including some out-of-towners. That's one nice thing about Christmastime — catching up with the expats.

The Lodge also played a show on the weekend, at the Paragon. It was a benefit for kids at the IWK hospital, and I was happy to see a pretty good turnout for a cold Sunday night. Nice intimate atmosphere in that place. This show went a heck of a lot better than our last one there. In fact, we were pretty darn good, if I may say so.

Speaking of which, our album, Take That, Devil showed up yesterday in the number two spot on Herohill's top five local recordings of the year. We were beat out only by Joel Plaskett, whose recording was a very ambitious triple album. Not too shabby! Guess it's time to put together my own top ten list...

How to Prepare for Winter

1. Reread Franny and Zooey and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters for the first time in decades, both in one week. Maybe skip Seymour, an Introduction.

2. On a late afternoon in early December, go out for a long walk.

3. Forget about Christmas. Just don't even think about it. It's cancelled this year.

4. See the decorations on people's houses and lawns. Notice how pretty some of them are.

5. As with all seasonal changes, it's all about the trees and the sky. Check out the bare branches against the grey-blue-brown smoke texture. Look at the pale sun region trying to shine in the middle of the swirling haze.

6. When it starts getting dark, admire all the lights that come on. Think about the crazy amount of work that humans do to make what is basically an alternate reality for themselves to live in, just because they like things to look a certain way. Even if a lot of that work's results don't come anywhere near achieving the expressive and aesthetic standards you think preferable and know possible, it's still pretty goddamn impressive that so many members of our species are willing to spend that much time and energy working on it. I mean, look at it! It's everywhere!

7. Rent The Royal Tenenbaums.

8. Cry when Margot walks off the bus in slow motion to Nico's "These Days," a perfect expression of inescapable and hopeless love on her face. Laugh when Gene Hackman says, "Oh, no no... that's um... dog's blood."

9. Pay special attention to the cemetery and rooftop scenes — the saturated foreground browns against the cold grey-blue sky. There's those tree branches again!

10. The next day, after it has snowed for the first really substantial time, go out for another long afternoon walk. This time, look at how the snow on the trees brings out their three-dimensionality, like a sort of reverse shading. It's as if they're being illuminated from above by a very bright spotlight.

11. Write down everything you are feeling. Try hard not to emulate Salinger, but allow yourself one "goddamn," just as a tribute.

Now you're all set! Enjoy the show for the next five months or so.

Watch Out — Hot Iron Coming Through!

There's been an awful lot of design work going on around here, which explains why I never seem to have much in the way of personal anecdotes these days. The good news is that some of the work I've been doing is actually kind of fun, and I'm even — maybe "proud" is not quite the right word, pride being one of not only the seven deadly sins but also the ten fetters in Buddhism blocking the way to samsara; so let's say "unashamed"; yes, that seems right — I'm even, I say, unashamed of some of the results. For instance, here's a logo I just finished for a video store in Wolfville. It's the kind of store that doesn't have the largest selection of movies, but is very picky about the quality of movies it stocks, and even takes some unashamedness in some of its more obscure titles, if I may be so anthropomorphistic. We went through the whole branding procedure together, including defining all the core brand values and naming the place. It's really nice when you get to be part of the entire process from start to finish like that.


And, while I'm at it, I don't think I've shown you my own logo, have I? Obviously, I was in on this entire branding process too, a process which is not exactly finished, as I'm still working on my website. I don't know how many of you out there are web designers, but it sure is a different kettle of fish from designing for print. I've done some of it before, but never actually the production part where you lay everything out in a web designing program and eventually make a live, interactive site that has to look right on all browsers and monitors, etc. It's finnicky and unrewarding! I'm really starting to see why tech-savvy web people and designers are always butting heads and talking past each other. It's like two completely different languages that are in no way intertranslatable. I'm developing a lot more tolerance — well some more tolerance, anyway, which I guess is not really saying very much — for all the messy and just plain hideous websites out there. The internet does not make good design easy. Stoopid internet. Anyways, here's the logo:


I'm just about finished branding a third company, too. My friends Jen and Aidan's gluten-free retail business. It's called Schoolhouse Gluten-Free Gourmet, and the logo has a nice (if I may say so) drawing of the old schoolhouse wherein they make all their products. I'll show it to you once it's finalized. Their tagline, which is necessary because after about a million rounds we finally had to admit that we couldn't get all the core values and character traits into the name without making it either religious- or medical-sounding, is "Taste the Possibilities."

"Hey, man, what's with all the taglines, and why is every one of them in the imperative mood?" I hear you asking impatiently, and I don't really have a good answer except that maybe after getting bossed around by finicky clients all day it feels good to boss their customers around a bit, even if it's in an inviting sort of way. Make of that what you will.™

Birthday Shenanigans

Last week's birthday was super fun. I got up in the morning, had some coffee in bed courtesy of Alison, opened some presents, and slowly got up. Then we went down to the Good Food Emporium for brunch with Kristina & Ron, Angie & Cliff, Meg & KC & Evan, and Johanna. Mimi and Mike showed up a bit later too, but there was no room for them at our already very cramped table, and Mike wasn't feeling well anyway, so it was regrets only from them. Mimi did take some photos of us through the aquarium, though. They ended up not much weirder than the others we took that day — I think our camera's been going a bit bonkers since the day Alison flew over the handlebars while trying to take my picture from her bike.






Brunch was excellent as always, and our favourite waitress didn't even bat an eye at the ridiculous number of people around the table. Afterwards, completely wired on coffee, six of us went for some afternoon bowling at the Bayers Road Shopping Centre (More then [sic] just a game...). Scores varied widely. Everyone felt they didn't live up to their bowling potential. For some reason, Alison and I kept ending up tied. The jokey old guy behind the counter was the same one we'd had last time, and he pulled the same jokes. He also cut us a deal like last time.






After bowling, Johanna came back to our place for some birthday carrot cake, which Alison had thoughtfully decorated à la Cake Wrecks.



So far, this year's promising to be a pretty great one.

Happy Birthday, Andrew!

Something for All Tastes (that Are Identical to Mine)

Nothing very newsworthy has been happening around here. Our car had some trouble in Wolfville but we changed the oil and got the spark plugs replaced and now it's OK. Boring. The Lodge show at the Frigate was really fun but I don't have any audio or visual record of it, so why even tell you? Yawn.

Instead, I think I'll just share a bunch of cool stuff I've been appreciating lately. Because there's lots of it. Is it just me, or does our culture seem to be coming up with some pretty fascinating ways of distracting us these days? I almost expect to be amazed and disoriented by any new record or book or movie I check out, and feel kind of disappointed if I come out of the experience merely amused. Maybe my brain's just getting old and easily astounded. Anyway, here's a whole lot of things that have recently freaked my beak, starting with

Music:

I just got a bunch of CDs I'd ordered in the mail from Aquarius Records in San Francisco, and a couple of them are absolutely blowing my mind. One is this compilation of global psychedelic funk tunes from 1968 to 1975, called Psych Funk 101. Everything on it is weird and obscure and just plain great, but I especially like this piece from Italian group Il Gruppo (The Group) called "The Feed-back." Sounds almost like it could be from some weird sixties science fiction show like The Prisoner. Has anyone seen the new version of that show yet? I tried to watch the first episode, but it was incredibly boring and the guy was no Patrick McGoohan (R.I.P.) and I had to turn it off. Maybe it gets good, though. Anyone know?


I also received the new Flaming Lips album, Embryonic. It's weird! In a nothing-but-good way. But they've been getting so songy lately, I think a lot of people were afraid they'd forgotten their weirdo roots. This record should lay that rumour to rest. I suppose this track is actually one of the songier ones. I'm pretty sure it was inspired by The Boredoms' Super AE, but I can't fault them because I just want to listen to it over and over. It's called "Silver Trembling Hands." In case you weren't sure whether they're purposely trying to be psychedelic, the chorus goes, "When she's high."


Here's something that my friend Charles turned me onto. It's a post-punk British band from the eighties (is that redundant?), two of whose members were two of the non-Billy-Idol members of Generation X. The band's called Empire and the album is Expensive Sound. You can download the whole thing here if you like it. Alison and I are pretty into it. It reminds me of Comsat Angels or The Sound, but with maybe a little more Public Image thrown in there. This is the title track. Beautiful ugly guitar!


OK, this one also came in the Aquarius order. Good batch this time around! I guess that's what happens when you hold off on buying records for awhile. True Widow are a trio from Texas — Austin, I think — and I don't really know anything more about them. The artwork on their self-titled CD is horrible (ugly band logo that looks like a tattoo and all-caps script everywhere; it's impossible to read), but the music is completely up my alley. Heavy and chromatic and sludgy, but also melodic and catchy and pretty. Check out "Mesh Mask," which purely coincidentally sounds very similar to a song of mine that I have yet to record. Honest.


Movies/TV:

The newest Woody Allen movie, starring Larry David of Curb Your Enthusiasm, is pretty darn funny, I'm happy to report. Pret-tayyyy... pret-tayyyyyy... pret-ty funny. And it's not just because LD's such a hilarious misanthrope either; the writing is actually some vintage Woody Allen. I didn't have high hopes for it, given his recent and even not-so-recent track record. I guess Match Point was good, but before that I think the last thing of his I really enjoyed was Husbands and Wives, which is now oh my god seventeen years old. (OK, Celebrity wasn't bad either, even though the whole thing felt like a suicide note.) And don't get me wrong, this one's no Husband's and Wives. But it's definitely worthwhile.

In Treatment: I can't recommend this HBO series enough. We've only got three episodes left to watch of the second season, and I don't know what we're going to do when it's all gone. Each episode is a very flawed therapist's (Gabriel Byrne) session with one of his patients. Over five episodes you see four different patients, and then the fifth is a visit to his own therapist (Dianne Wiest). That represents one week in his life. Then it starts over again with the first patient in the sixth episode, and so you gradually get to know the characters and see them get to know themselves and grow psychologically, usually despite themselves. Everyone's a mess. The whole thing is nothing but talking heads and character study and it's absolutely riveting.

And speaking of riveting TV, how about that Mad Men finale episode? Did you see it? Everything sure got resolved nicely — a little TOO nicely. I'm worried now that there might not be another season. And the Beatles haven't even arrived in America yet. I know this because I'm compiling the music for a Christmas party that James, the photographer Alison occasionally assists, is having, and it's a Mad-Men-themed party, which means I've been having to do all sorts of research to figure out what exactly I'm going to put on for four hours or so. I have some pretty good ideas, though. Anyway, sure do love this show, was my point. Can't get enough.

Now, this one's not technically a recommendation, since I haven't actually seen this movie yet. It didn't make it to Halifax, so I guess I'll have to wait until it comes out on DVD. But I really, really WANT to see it. It's called Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, and is based on David Foster Wallace's collection of darker-than-dark short stories by the same name. The movie was directed by that guy from The Office. The American one. Do we still have to add that, or can it now be assumed? I've read some very mixed reviews, which makes complete sense knowing the source material. The stories are probably not everyone's cup of tea. They're very funny and very tragic, usually at the same time and for the same reasons. The best one concerns a woman getting raped by a serial killer. I guess I only bring this movie up because I'm assuming it's going to be at least very interesting, and I'm wondering whether anyone out there has seen it.

Websites:

Erika, you'll really appreciate this one. Actually, this blog devoted to cake-decorating-gone-wrong may have been made specifically for you, although almost anyone should enjoy it, I would think. Alison and I have been laughing our heads off over it, thanks to a tip off from our friend Mike. I suggest, as he did, looking at the "Classics" first (tab in the right-hand column). I really never imagined there were so many hilarious cakes out there.

Here's another site recommended by Mike. It's a collection of family photos submitted by their owners because they're hilarious in one way or another. One of these was actually made into the poster for The Lodge's most recent show, which is how I found out about the site. Some of the posts are definitely better than others, and there are too few on a page because of all the ads, but there's plenty of yuk-worthy material on there. Enough schadenfreude for the most voracious Candid Camera fan.

Has everyone already seen the "shreds" series of videos on YouTube? It's worth checking out if you haven't and you have a few spare minutes and you aren't drinking any liquids that you wouldn't want to spray out of your nose when you start laughing uncontrollably. This guy takes video footage of various rock guys rocking out and replaces the sound with his own, which somehow syncs up exactly with what they are doing, but makes them look like jackasses. The first one I ever saw, and still the funniest to me, was Eddie Van Halen Shreds. But there's also Eric Clapton, Santana, KISS, and, most recently, the Rolling Stones. Hey! Whazzup, make up?

And finally, for the less humourously inclined, here's a collection of old Dutch children's picture books (the books are old; NOT the children — come on!) that I was led to by Peacay at Bibliodyssey — still the richest and most fascinating blog on the internet, for my money. Click on any of the 655 tiny book covers and you'll get a much larger version of it. You can zoom in REALLY big on the cover, or look at ANY of the inside pages not quite as big. Lots of great rock show poster material! I was going to talk about books on here too — as in the kind you hold in your hand and read and sometimes there aren't even any pictures to look at — but this is already taking way too long, and you should have plenty there to get you started if you've been sitting around twiddling your thumbs, and who even read books anymore, anyway? Enjoy.

End o' the Week

Happy Friday, everyone. Got another Lodge show tonight — this one a super early one. Hopefully it'll go better than our last show, which was a bit of a nightmare of lacklustre energy combined with technical problems.

Then Alison and I are off to Wolfville in the morning for an overnight stay at the Blomidon Inn, celebrating our FIFTEENTH anniversary! Holy crap. Hallowe'en was actually the day, but we haven't been able to get away until now. We're both looking forward to some quality, computerless time together.

Which reminds me... gotta go download and watch last night's episode of Project Runway now. Have a nice weekend, all. Byeee!

Sherman Hines Update

Forgot to mention that a few days ago I got a copy of a letter sent to Sherman Hines from the Nova Scotia Labour Standards Division, requesting he contact them regarding my complaint, viz. that he owes me ca. three hundred bucks. The next day I heard from the woman who had sent the letter. She told me that Sherman called her and very angrily told her that he has no intention of paying me a cent. He didn't deny that I had worked the hours claimed, but said that the work I did was insubstantial. She told him that whether that is true or not he's still required by law to pay me, and explained the process that this would now go through. There's some kind of tribunal where he can appeal the Division's judgment, which he told her fine he will do and she told him that's his right although he doesn't have a leg to stand on, and then eventually, after like four to six months, they'll be able to take the money directly from his bank account if it comes to that. He said that he will refrain from paying me for as long as he legally can.

I don't really care how long I have to wait for the money, as it's just going to be a nice windfall whenever it does appear, at this point. I'm glad to learn, however, that I won't have to go to court or incur any costs to get it, something I was concerned about.

So I was quite uplifted by this phone call, and finding the whole affair rather amusing, when the best part of all came. The woman told me that Sherman had requested copies of the documentation I had sent with my complaint, a request which is within the employer's rights in these cases, though not usually exercised. So she mailed him a copy. I imagine he's probably received it by now. There are details in there about my reasons for leaving the job that I thought pertinent to my case, but that I didn't think necessary or appropriate to tell Sherman at the time that I quit — details such as the poor quality of his design aesthetics, the creepiness of his two rococo "trophy" (i.e. dead animal parts) rooms, and the frightening extent of his controlling and paranoid character. Oh well. I guess that latter is not exactly going to be remedied by this series of events, but as long as I'm getting paid, I'm a happy man.

666

I have a spot between my eyebrows that gets a crease in it, and I don't seem to be able to do anything about it. Actually, it's more of a dent than a crease. And red. And when I say it "gets a crease" it would now be more accurate to just say it has a crease, because over the past year or so it has become a permanent feature of my facial expression. I know that it means I'm subtly knitting my eyebrows together, but I can't seem to figure out how to properly relax my face so that it goes away.

Meditating used to do it, and it was the only thing that would do it. In fact, the dent used to be a sure sign that it was time for me to meditate, because I had unconsciously become unconscious, letting my mind push me around while believing that the reverse relationship held. I came to think of the dent as the mark of the beast — my false self taking me over and fooling me into thinking it was my true self. I also thought of it sometimes as my third eye closing because I was no longer in tune with the present moment and my infinite connections to the rest of the universe. Not that I really believe in the third eye, which is supposed to be the centre of clairvoyant perception, but the symbolism always seemed kind of interesting.

So it's a little upsetting to see it there all the time. I try to accept it, since I know you can't fight resistance by resisting it. And meditating does still help somewhat. But the thing is, it's actually kind of painful. I'm going around pretty much all the time now with a mild stress headache. I've been looking on the internet, trying to figure out what can be done about this condition, but all I find is vanity-based stuff about preventing wrinkles and looking younger. I honestly don't care about that, although it does worry me that I might appear perpetually angry to others. What's that quote about every man eventually getting the face he deserves? I think that's supposed to be by the age of fifty. I don't know if I believe that anyway — seems a little mean. What about disfigured people? Or Gary Coleman?

Anyway, does anyone have any suggestions or personal knowledge about what can be done? Right now it's burning and pounding. I feel like a sense of humour is probably an important ingredient in the remedy, so I keep repeating my favourite Groucho Marx joke in my head, like a mantra: Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. No luck, but at least I'm having fun imagining what the life cycle of a time fly might look like, and how museum guards might keep them away from the arrowhead collections.

Seamus Self-Promotion

Another Lodge show tonight. Come one, come all! This one featuring full sensory apparatus.

Here's a video I made for the song we were playing in the video in the last post, using footage from that very video plus some creepy educational films by Jean Painlevé about octopi. If you like it, I recommend his Science Is Fiction Criterion Collection DVDs.

Hali Happowe'en

The Lodge played an early show last night (Hallowe'en) at Tribeca. It was a really tough one because we couldn't see or hear each other or our own instruments, but I think we pulled it off OK. Plenty of people came out in full costume, there were three other great bands including Dub Sabbath who blew everyone's minds with their reggae druid metal and smoke machine, and the whole thing was just a lot of fun. Alison put together a great "Scary Tyler Moore" outfit — no one knew who she was.







Afterward, we wandered around downtown some, and I was happy to see that there were loads of adults in really imaginative costumes, all having a good time and being very friendly. None of this doctor and semi-pornographic nurse stuff you usually see. Wish we had some photos of the Smurf, Rainbow Brite, head in a box, and Animal from the Muppets to show you, and especially of the hilarious "hot cops" from the burrito place at the end of the night. Great timez. Now I can't wait to see the photos from my sister's infamous annual party.

Egg Nog II

We were over in Dartmouth today rounding up stuff for Hallowe'en costumes and the streets are lined with "Season's Greetings" and "Happy Holidays" banners. Then we went to the Superstore to get a pumpkin and they'd already gotten rid of them all. I knew we were in trouble when a guy passed me on my way in with a couple of containers of egg nog in his arms.

Egg Nog!

And Christmas lights! At the Superstore. No joke. I don't know how long they've been there, but as far as I can remember this is the earliest I've ever seen them out. I think their goal is to just have a permanent Christmas aisle — makes life so much simpler.

Happy holidays, everyone.

Welcome to Neverland

We went to see Where the Wild Things Are last weekend, and something's been bothering me about it ever since. Don't get me wrong — I liked it, I think. At least, I mostly enjoyed it. It's very beautiful and fantastic like the illustrations in Maurice Sendak's book for children, and the dialogue and story movement are quiet and spare like the book's text. The complex themes of childhood rebellion and escapist fantasy are covered complexly. You really feel/remember what it's like to be a young, angry child who just wants everyone to be how he wants them to be and to let him be who he wants to be.

I guess what's bothering me is that the book was written for children to relate to, and the movie is obviously aimed more at adults — specifically fashionable young adults who don't want to grow up. The tone throughout is wistful and bittersweet. It's directed by hip rock video and indie arthouse director Spike Jonze, includes many recognizable "intelligent television" stars as the titular wild things, was cowritten by McSweeney's editor and hipster-fiction darling Dave Eggers, and is near relentlessly drenched in an indie rock soundtrack by people from the Arcade Fire and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The monsters are all made by Jim Henson's people and the title is written in the Freaks and Geeks font. It's a nostalgia trip for people like me, in other words, and I'll admit I took the bait willingly.

Is there something wrong with revisiting classic children's literature for purely nostalgic purposes? Not necessarily. I often go back to Through the Looking Glass and the Winnie the Pooh books to marvel at some of the more astounding passages, and I could still watch The Wizard of Oz at least another two hundred times. I actually was reading a few chapters of Anne of Green Gables just the other day, reminding myself how well-constructed and touching it is, despite the awful brand it has become since its publication.

But those works were all created for the enjoyment and illumination of children, and when I enjoy or re-enjoy them as an adult, it is on those terms. The children's-story-for-adults, on the other hand, aims to bring out the child within the adult that she has forgotten about, and this can be problematic. It's very easy, if the author of such a work is not careful, to slip into escapist nostalgia whose only point can be to temporarily distract its audience from the reality of the adult world, in favour of a glorified childhood world that never actually existed.

Sure, there are coming of age tales where we are reminded of lessons learned long ago, and how painful those lessons may have been. That format is perfectly valid for reorienting ourselves as adults by reexamining important pieces of the histories that have brought us here, and I guess that's probably the most charitable way to interpret a film like WWTA.

The problem is, though, that the main character in the book and the film doesn't really learn any lessons. He spends the majority of the story in a world of his own imagination, inhabited by characters who obey his own kid logic about how the world should be. Any conflicts that arise are resolved in a purely fantastical way where the childish ego is restored and nothing is learned about relating to real, independent others. It's kind of like a reverse Curb Your Enthusiasm in that way. And while it's a common complaint that Hollywood movies serve only as fantasy for lazy-minded adults, this one goes one step further in being childhood fantasy that is not even realistically appealing to adults except indirectly through the remembering of what their desires used to be, before they found out how the world really works.

As pure fantasy for children, without much in the way of lessons or moral issues raised, the book still works, because it is a beautiful and relatable creativity pump. It serves as a springboard for kids' imaginations, and shows them that it is understood and accepted in this world that they will use those imaginations for all sorts of incredible purposes, selfish and otherwise. They can feel safe, in other words, dreaming their kid dreams and escaping into their kid worlds, and can see that such escapism could eventually lead to a wonderful gift to others, called art, such as the book they are currently looking at.

It's hard to see how creating a film version of the same story for people who have presumably already read this story and learned its lessons, and who are furthermore too experienced in the ways of the world to be given the same kind of license with respect to escapism, could serve the same purpose.

It could be claimed that this movie is not really for adults, but merely includes elements (such as the indie rock soundtrack) that adults would like so that they're more apt to enjoy it with their children. This was the argument our friend Kasia gave in defense of the film immediately after we saw it (which, in retrospect, was not a great time for me to bring up these concerns because it made me sound like I was criticizing my friends for having actually enjoyed themselves, which I definitely was not). She compared the strategy to that of Sesame Street, which we all agree is or at least used to be great. They would often throw jokes and pop culture references in that only adults would understand, as a little treat for the parents who responsibly watched the show with their kids, rather than just plopping them down in front of it.

But I don't quite buy the argument. For one thing, we all went to see this movie — in fact had waited for it to come out with some anticipation — and none of us has any kids. I can't really imagine having the same reaction to a Sesame Street movie, unless it was one of those post-modern, ironic film versions of TV shows that are popular now — the kind that are more a winking reference to the original than a loving re-creation of it. And if I heard of anyone my own age who had no children but made sure to catch Sesame Street every day, I'd probably think he was a little bit creepy.

For another thing, children are apparently not huge fans of this movie. Parents who have taken their young kids to see it report that the latter are mostly bored. Maybe that's more of a criticism of the general state of children's cinema now, with its fast-cut, action-packed sensory overload that leaves nothing to the imagination and spoils young attention spans for quality storytelling. Maybe. Or maybe the two complaints (i.e. 1. adult cinema is taking the concept of fantasy too far, to the point of infantilizing its audience, and 2. children's cinema is making children prematurely unimaginative) are really two sides of the same problem, which is that the line between adult and children's fiction is being erased.

Think about it. We all watch pretty much the same stuff now. How many of the last Pixar animated children's stories were actually made for children? And if they were, why do my friends keep telling me I have to see them? On the other hand, how many of the recent big budget action films allegedly for adults had a story that wasn't so simplistic any five-year-old could easily explain it to you? How many of those were not based on a comic book? Edward Scissorhands was the first movie I saw that gave me this vague, creepy feeling that could be summed up by the question, "Why is the fairy tale format being used unironically in movies for adults?" But it's probably been going on longer than that.

And it's not just happening in movies, either. The Harry Potter books are considered acceptable literature for a receptionist to read on her lunch break. Political satire on television has to be served up in the form of cartoons like The Simpsons and South Park to get anyone to pay attention to it. And on the Disney channel, shows for children are all about preteens trying desperately to attract members of the opposite sex before the actresses who play them have a chance to make a pop record that is as ubiquitous as it is infantile, marketed by posing half naked on magazine covers for the adoration of their prepubescent fans and titillation of those fans' fathers.

Anyway, maybe I just got upset in this case because this was a work I actually cared about, and because, as I said, I mostly enjoyed the film and even found it quite moving in places. I mean, if they can get guys like Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers and even Maurice Sendak himself to play into this line-blurring, and make it into a reasonable stance for thoughtful young adults to take way before they should be duped by nostalgia for their childhood, then how long can childhood as a real, distinct cultural phenomenon have left?

Boy, Was That the Right Decision

It seems someone else is having trouble getting back payment out of Sherman Hines. Sounds like it's a lot more money than what he owes me, but it also sounds like he hasn't said outright in their case that he's not going to pay them. I hope that means they'll eventually get what they're owed. [Oops. I stand corrected. See her Oct. 16 post.] I've got the government working on my case, so I figure sometime within the decade I'll see my three hundred bucks.

All the Clouds Turn to Words

I feel like I have to post something in order to keep everyone up to date, but really, I can't think of anything worth telling you about. Life has been all working days and semi-lame movie nights for awhile now. I think the colder weather is making us not want to do much — it's that time of year where every day is cold and rainy with wet leaves everywhere and you just want to stay inside all the time. Plus our apartment's been kind of cold, so there's definitely some hibernation vibes going on.

We did drive into Wolfville last weekend for a walk on the dykes and to pick out a pumpkin. Alison's got some pictures of that around somewhere... I'll see if I can find them. Oh, here we are.




Acadia's been a real good client for me since I left. Well, they're giving me a lot of work, anyway. The paying part they're not so great at. I had to get a little tough with their accounts payable department. Worked, though. But I've been doing lots of jobs for them, including one big recruitment booklet that had been left unfinished the entire time I worked there. We've finally got it just about wrapped up, and I think it's going to be quite a portfolio piece, if I do say so myself. Everyone's really happy with it.

I think they interviewed some designers the other day to fill my vacant spot, so the work from them will probably soon be slowing down. I'll have to diversify the old client base if I'm going to keep some sort of steady income. This week things are less insane than they have been, so I've been able to work on registering my business and developing a logo. It's going to be called "Focus Design," with the tagline "Be understood." Business cards first, and then I'll have to get some kind of website up, which I've never done before. Should be an interesting learning experience.

Wow, this stuff is super boring. I'm sorry, but it's kind of all I've been thinking about lately. The Lodge have a few shows coming up, including possibly one on Hallowe'en, which could be very fun. And we've also been recording a split 7" record with another band called Bloodsport. Two new Lodge songs. There're a few other new ones in the works too. I wish we could work on rehearsing and writing songs all the time, but we're all so busy it seems we barely even have time to email each other about upcoming plans.

I'm supposed to be working on an album's worth of my own stuff, which I would put out through the same guy who put out the Lodge album, but I seem to have zero time and even less inclination to sit down and throw that together. I'm using drums as the convenient stumbling block (Who would play them? How would I record them? Would we have to figure out the drum parts before recording the rest of the song, rather than recording as I write, which I would prefer to do?) but really I probably wouldn't even need real drums on most of the stuff I'd be putting together, and it's really just a matter of setting aside like an hour a day for awhile to work on it slowly until it's done. Most of what I've been listening to lately is pretty ambient, because it's easiest to work to. I saw a great documentary on Kraftwerk and electronic music, and downloaded (no money for music purchases just yet — the wishlist grows daily) the first Popol Vuh album, which I highly recommend. It's pretty and vastly spacious like their other records, but this one is mostly just Moog synthesizer, rather than the elaborate instrumentation they would later get into. I've been entertaining the idea of putting out a record called Green World that would be a prequel to Eno's Another Green World. That would be a nice restricting creative scenario that would allow me to make the kind of ambient-but-songy music I'd like to work on. I guess there's a fair amount of drums on that record, though... Phil Collins, actually!

Hope everyone's ready for a nice Thanksgiving weekend. We got our Tofurkey and sweet potatoes last night. There were no mushrooms left at the grocery store, though, so I'll have to try and find some today. Now that's what I call a concrete, realistic goal.