2.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Tennis!
I just had this terrible nightmare I have to tell you about, because I can't sleep and I'm keeping Alison up thinking about it. The premise of the dream was, in retrospect, very similar to the main premise of Infinite Jest: there is a joke that, once you've heard it, causes you to become deathly afraid of yourself, to the extent that you can't do anything. I guess it's also like the killing joke in Monty Python, except that you don't die from laughing, but instead enter an irrepressible state of profound dread which has no other object than your own soul.
In the dream, I'd heard about this affliction, and had seen cases of it on the news. Then I found out that a girl with whom I work, Gill, had had the affliction herself for several years. She'd gotten over it through lengthy and gruelling therapy, but could never be sure that it wouldn't return. She spoke to me of a three-year period in her life that was a complete blank because the extreme fear had made it impossible for her to do anything. Now she just spent her life trying not to think about The Joke.
Of course, anyone who had heard The Joke, gone through the paralyzing fear, and gotten over it was now somewhat of a danger to society because they could tell it to someone else at any time. But the courts had ruled that they couldn't be put away for this threat, as any of us is able to behave threateningly at any time, and we as a society just have to trust individuals to make the right choice. So sometimes the joke would be propagated when people could no longer fight or accept the obsessive secret with which they were forced to live.
Later (and probably immediately next in the dream, but as if with a cartoon narrative rectangle in the upper left corner saying "Later..."), I was sitting outside at a café when I saw a man with a strange look walk up to the man at the table next to me and hold out a gloved hand. He said, "There was a man who put a quarter in his hand and put a glove on over it." The face of the man sitting down took on a look of recognition that's hard to describe. It was like he was somewhat afraid of what he knew was coming, but was trying to overcome the fear with a bemused detachment, but the bemusement was crossing the line into gladness because he was actually relieved to be facing the thing that was scaring him, which fact made him all the more afraid. I realized that both men already knew The Joke, and that I was about to witness it.
The first man continued, "He held out his hand and asked a passing stranger, 'Do you have a quarter?'" At this point the seated man slowly removed the first man's glove and said in a zombie-like monotone, "The stranger said, 'No, but you do.'" Of course there was a quarter in the first man's hand.
I woke up from this dream in a state of absolute terror. My face was frozen into a mask of fear, and I was breathing heavily through my mouth. I couldn't move. I was also covered in sweat, probably because today was the first really warm day of the year and Alison and I took advantage of it by playing some tennis after work and then riding our bikes around. But the fact of my own sweatiness just made me more afraid of my own ability to scare myself so badly. I realized that it had only been a dream, but that didn't make me any less afraid. I was lying on my back, a position which has historically given me nightmares, and I knew that shifting positions would probably make me less afraid, but I was scared to move a muscle. It's hard to describe such an objectless fear. It seemed that I was afraid of my own unpredictable nature, and so I couldn't allow myself to will anything at all, lest I end up scaring myself more.
I had to go to the bathroom and I eventually calmed myself down enough to get out of bed. But coming back I had to walk a few feet through the dark, and that made me scared enough again that I had to call out to Alison to wake her up. I told her a little about the dream I'd had, but it started creeping her out and she asked me to stop so she could get back to sleep. Now I'm feeling a little better, having written it down, but I still can't help being haunted by this thought: if you know you are capable of making yourself paralyzingly afraid of yourself because you have actually felt this paralyzing fear, how can that knowledge help but actually make you paralyzingly afraid of yourself?
In the dream, I'd heard about this affliction, and had seen cases of it on the news. Then I found out that a girl with whom I work, Gill, had had the affliction herself for several years. She'd gotten over it through lengthy and gruelling therapy, but could never be sure that it wouldn't return. She spoke to me of a three-year period in her life that was a complete blank because the extreme fear had made it impossible for her to do anything. Now she just spent her life trying not to think about The Joke.
Of course, anyone who had heard The Joke, gone through the paralyzing fear, and gotten over it was now somewhat of a danger to society because they could tell it to someone else at any time. But the courts had ruled that they couldn't be put away for this threat, as any of us is able to behave threateningly at any time, and we as a society just have to trust individuals to make the right choice. So sometimes the joke would be propagated when people could no longer fight or accept the obsessive secret with which they were forced to live.
Later (and probably immediately next in the dream, but as if with a cartoon narrative rectangle in the upper left corner saying "Later..."), I was sitting outside at a café when I saw a man with a strange look walk up to the man at the table next to me and hold out a gloved hand. He said, "There was a man who put a quarter in his hand and put a glove on over it." The face of the man sitting down took on a look of recognition that's hard to describe. It was like he was somewhat afraid of what he knew was coming, but was trying to overcome the fear with a bemused detachment, but the bemusement was crossing the line into gladness because he was actually relieved to be facing the thing that was scaring him, which fact made him all the more afraid. I realized that both men already knew The Joke, and that I was about to witness it.The first man continued, "He held out his hand and asked a passing stranger, 'Do you have a quarter?'" At this point the seated man slowly removed the first man's glove and said in a zombie-like monotone, "The stranger said, 'No, but you do.'" Of course there was a quarter in the first man's hand.
I woke up from this dream in a state of absolute terror. My face was frozen into a mask of fear, and I was breathing heavily through my mouth. I couldn't move. I was also covered in sweat, probably because today was the first really warm day of the year and Alison and I took advantage of it by playing some tennis after work and then riding our bikes around. But the fact of my own sweatiness just made me more afraid of my own ability to scare myself so badly. I realized that it had only been a dream, but that didn't make me any less afraid. I was lying on my back, a position which has historically given me nightmares, and I knew that shifting positions would probably make me less afraid, but I was scared to move a muscle. It's hard to describe such an objectless fear. It seemed that I was afraid of my own unpredictable nature, and so I couldn't allow myself to will anything at all, lest I end up scaring myself more.
I had to go to the bathroom and I eventually calmed myself down enough to get out of bed. But coming back I had to walk a few feet through the dark, and that made me scared enough again that I had to call out to Alison to wake her up. I told her a little about the dream I'd had, but it started creeping her out and she asked me to stop so she could get back to sleep. Now I'm feeling a little better, having written it down, but I still can't help being haunted by this thought: if you know you are capable of making yourself paralyzingly afraid of yourself because you have actually felt this paralyzing fear, how can that knowledge help but actually make you paralyzingly afraid of yourself?
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Two Reasons Not to Move Here
1. People around here pronounce words the way Americans think all Canadians pronounce words. "Canadian rounding" is an actual phenomenon, but it just means that we make a distinction between the vowel sounds in the words 'lousy' and 'mousy', whereas Americans generally pronounce them the same. But in Nova Scotia (and especially in the Valley) the rounded 'ou' goes beyond a slight rounding and over the edge into long 'o' territory. For instance, they really say "oat and a boat". Some other actual examples:
"Are you looking for a punch in the moath?"
"Don't be such a doting Thomas."
"Get off the coach and get some excercise."
and my favourite, from when Alison worked for a call answering service,
"Send a doctor — I've got the goat!"
2. Halifax has a large park right in its middle, called the Halifax Commons. As the name suggests, it is a piece of common land, paid for by taxes and available for general recreational use. It is covered in grass and baseball diamonds, the latter of which are occupied, according to a schedule worked out with the city, every Sunday over the summer by my softball league. Many other leagues use them at other times, and any Haligonian schmoe who feels like starting up a game when they are not in prescheduled use is welcome to.
However, in the past couple of years, the municipal government of Halifax has figured out that this park is a great area for putting on large rock concerts. They book a huge name act (usually well past its prime), fence off the entire park, and charge an astronomical admission fee, thereby making not a modest profit. The Commons, having been thoroughly ruined, is then unusable for sporting events for the rest of the season.
Because this strategy has met with such success, this year Paul McCartney is coming in early July, followed by KISS on the 18th. That means for two months of our very short summer, eight very frustrated teams will be scrambling around the city, trying to find places to play out the softball season we've scheduled with the city. And I'm not even counting the Ultimate Frisbee people.
Worse still, it means that on July 18th all residents of Halifax and many of the surrounding area will be crammed together on one large field of mud and garbage, pumping their fists in the air and yelling, "Shoat it! Shoat it! Shoat it oat load!"
Seriously, stay home.
"Are you looking for a punch in the moath?"
"Don't be such a doting Thomas."
"Get off the coach and get some excercise."
and my favourite, from when Alison worked for a call answering service,
"Send a doctor — I've got the goat!"
2. Halifax has a large park right in its middle, called the Halifax Commons. As the name suggests, it is a piece of common land, paid for by taxes and available for general recreational use. It is covered in grass and baseball diamonds, the latter of which are occupied, according to a schedule worked out with the city, every Sunday over the summer by my softball league. Many other leagues use them at other times, and any Haligonian schmoe who feels like starting up a game when they are not in prescheduled use is welcome to.
However, in the past couple of years, the municipal government of Halifax has figured out that this park is a great area for putting on large rock concerts. They book a huge name act (usually well past its prime), fence off the entire park, and charge an astronomical admission fee, thereby making not a modest profit. The Commons, having been thoroughly ruined, is then unusable for sporting events for the rest of the season.
Because this strategy has met with such success, this year Paul McCartney is coming in early July, followed by KISS on the 18th. That means for two months of our very short summer, eight very frustrated teams will be scrambling around the city, trying to find places to play out the softball season we've scheduled with the city. And I'm not even counting the Ultimate Frisbee people.
Worse still, it means that on July 18th all residents of Halifax and many of the surrounding area will be crammed together on one large field of mud and garbage, pumping their fists in the air and yelling, "Shoat it! Shoat it! Shoat it oat load!"
Seriously, stay home.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Time Keeps on Slipping (Slipping, Slipping)...
... into the future. Only it really slips into the past, doesn't it? We move forward through time, therefore time moves in a future-to-past direction relative to us. Right? That's something that's always bothered me about that song. But the slipping part, yes, I can get behind that. Or am I in front of it?
Anyway, it looks like maybe having a car means no longer having time to stop and tell folks what your up to. Or maybe it's the fault of Twitter. Or it could just be the beautiful spring weather we've been getting in the valley limiting our time indoors. As a matter of fact, I'm outside this very minute, sitting in the sun and watching Buster hesitantly explore our backyard as I type. I can't actually see the computer screen very well out here, so advance apologies for any typos.
There've been quite a few trips into Halifax and back in Bert, many of them around The Lodge happenings. Two weekends ago was our official CD release show, although it wasn't heavily advertised as such and we'd already sold the CD at two other shows, so it just felt like a regular old show. But it was a really good one. Lots of people showed up who'd never seen the band before and we gave them some of our best stuff. The record's been continuing to gather mostly good reviews, although a lot of people cite "obvious" influences I've never heard of, or else relate everything to the various bands we were in in the '90's, none of which we really sound like. Here's a couple of interviews from when Vish Khanna made the album his weekly pick on CBC 3.
That same weekend we heard a Pema Chödrön lecture, attended a stellar Dog Day/The Got to Get Got/The Memories Attack gig, and went to the now annual craft fair at Halifax's North Street church. Lots of arty artisans, mostly kids, sell their wares in a giant room. It's overwhelming but really fun. There was one guy selling mix tapes he had made — actual tapes; not CDs pretending retro-self-consciously to be tapes. I had to buy one, as Bert's stereo comprises just a radio and a tape deck. He (the tape guy) had so many great-looking mixes it was hard to select just one, but I eventually did and handed over my five dollars. We listened to it as we drove back to Wolfville, and it was so great that when we got home and it wasn't over yet we decided to keep on driving in order to hear the rest of it. The song selection was a perfect balance of the somewhat familiar and the totally obscure. Each song emerged naturally and organically from the previous, but took your head in a slightly different direction. And the kid had written a photocopied booklet of really great liner notes, informative but personal and emotional, and I began realizing that, as it takes just as much time to make even a copy of a tape as it does to listen to one, never mind the work of picking out the songs and sequencing them and getting all the levels just right and then buying cassettes (where can you even get them anymore?) and writing, designing, photocopying, cutting, collating, folding, and stapling a 12-page booklet with drawings, well there's just no way in hell he was making any money from selling these things for five bucks apiece. Why didn't I buy one of each of them? There's no contact information anywhere on the tape, so I don't know how I'm going to track this guy down. But I will.
There've also been trips to buy ice cream, trips to buy books, and trips to nice areas for walking around. Here's a picture Ali took of me last weekend on the dyke that runs along the Gaspereau river. We got back to Bert just as the giant raindrops began splatting down on his roof and our heads.
What else? Johanna came out to visit us last Friday night and we all went to see Star Trek. It was quite a fun romp, I have to say. Corny as hell, but I guess it's pretty hard to set up science fiction scenarios for the exploring without coming across heavy-handed in the explanation of their details. My only complaint was that we had to wait until the end credits to hear any of the original music. Couldn't they have updated some of that awesomely cheeseball fight music instead of writing a whole new score?
Tonight we're going to drive to Berwick for dinner with our friends Cliff and Angie and Angie's mom. There's a drive-in somewhere in that direction, where it'd be nice to take in a stupid movie or two, but that might have to wait for another weekend. Tomorrow night The Lodge play an all-ages show in Dartmouth, and Monday looks like a good day for some more Bert-assisted exploring. Hope everyone else's "May Two-Four" is as nice as ours is shaping up to be.
Anyway, it looks like maybe having a car means no longer having time to stop and tell folks what your up to. Or maybe it's the fault of Twitter. Or it could just be the beautiful spring weather we've been getting in the valley limiting our time indoors. As a matter of fact, I'm outside this very minute, sitting in the sun and watching Buster hesitantly explore our backyard as I type. I can't actually see the computer screen very well out here, so advance apologies for any typos.
There've been quite a few trips into Halifax and back in Bert, many of them around The Lodge happenings. Two weekends ago was our official CD release show, although it wasn't heavily advertised as such and we'd already sold the CD at two other shows, so it just felt like a regular old show. But it was a really good one. Lots of people showed up who'd never seen the band before and we gave them some of our best stuff. The record's been continuing to gather mostly good reviews, although a lot of people cite "obvious" influences I've never heard of, or else relate everything to the various bands we were in in the '90's, none of which we really sound like. Here's a couple of interviews from when Vish Khanna made the album his weekly pick on CBC 3.
That same weekend we heard a Pema Chödrön lecture, attended a stellar Dog Day/The Got to Get Got/The Memories Attack gig, and went to the now annual craft fair at Halifax's North Street church. Lots of arty artisans, mostly kids, sell their wares in a giant room. It's overwhelming but really fun. There was one guy selling mix tapes he had made — actual tapes; not CDs pretending retro-self-consciously to be tapes. I had to buy one, as Bert's stereo comprises just a radio and a tape deck. He (the tape guy) had so many great-looking mixes it was hard to select just one, but I eventually did and handed over my five dollars. We listened to it as we drove back to Wolfville, and it was so great that when we got home and it wasn't over yet we decided to keep on driving in order to hear the rest of it. The song selection was a perfect balance of the somewhat familiar and the totally obscure. Each song emerged naturally and organically from the previous, but took your head in a slightly different direction. And the kid had written a photocopied booklet of really great liner notes, informative but personal and emotional, and I began realizing that, as it takes just as much time to make even a copy of a tape as it does to listen to one, never mind the work of picking out the songs and sequencing them and getting all the levels just right and then buying cassettes (where can you even get them anymore?) and writing, designing, photocopying, cutting, collating, folding, and stapling a 12-page booklet with drawings, well there's just no way in hell he was making any money from selling these things for five bucks apiece. Why didn't I buy one of each of them? There's no contact information anywhere on the tape, so I don't know how I'm going to track this guy down. But I will.
There've also been trips to buy ice cream, trips to buy books, and trips to nice areas for walking around. Here's a picture Ali took of me last weekend on the dyke that runs along the Gaspereau river. We got back to Bert just as the giant raindrops began splatting down on his roof and our heads.What else? Johanna came out to visit us last Friday night and we all went to see Star Trek. It was quite a fun romp, I have to say. Corny as hell, but I guess it's pretty hard to set up science fiction scenarios for the exploring without coming across heavy-handed in the explanation of their details. My only complaint was that we had to wait until the end credits to hear any of the original music. Couldn't they have updated some of that awesomely cheeseball fight music instead of writing a whole new score?
Tonight we're going to drive to Berwick for dinner with our friends Cliff and Angie and Angie's mom. There's a drive-in somewhere in that direction, where it'd be nice to take in a stupid movie or two, but that might have to wait for another weekend. Tomorrow night The Lodge play an all-ages show in Dartmouth, and Monday looks like a good day for some more Bert-assisted exploring. Hope everyone else's "May Two-Four" is as nice as ours is shaping up to be.
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