Sudden Burst of Relatively Current News

Wow, this must be the longest interval I've spent outside of the blogosphere yet. My achin' lungs! Let's see if I can figure out what important or at least interesting or at the very least factual things have happened in the past three weeks or so:

• Alison had a birthday. That was just a couple of days ago, so a pretty easy one to remember. I seem to recall people came over and said things like, "Happy Birthday, Alison," and I believe there was a barbecue involved. Seriously, it was a really fun time — perfect evening for it and the mind-boggling amount of assembly required to operate the brand new mini-barbecue didn't even phase me.





• The night before the party, which was Ali's real birthday, I took her out for a walk in the park after work, followed by a nice dinner at our favourite Indian restaurant and a movie.



Knocked Up, if you really want to know. Yes, it was fantastically funny. And incredibly raunchy, probably even more so than The Forty Year Old Virgin. The usual Freaks & Geeks suspects are in it, and a lot of Office alumni, too.

• Speaking of incredibly rauncy, there was also a birthday party for our friend Jill the week before, where the theme was "Trailer Park" and everyone was supposed to dress as trashy as possible. I was not really into the idea of making fun of the poor and uneducated as a theme for someone's birthday, so we went in our normal, only somewhat trashy attire. I had to admit, though, that it was pretty fun seeing everyone all "trashed up". Brought me back to my good ol' junior high school days.



• In further party news, we had one after our last yoga class with Michi, who is moving back to Japan with her new husband. This frees up my Tuesday nights, but at the expense of a really great yoga teacher and wonderful human being. We're sure going to miss her a lot — she made a huge difference in our lives.

The party was fun. People from other classes came too, everyone brought food, and we gave Michi some going-away money we'd collected. I'll miss seeing this gang on Tuesday nights.




• The decision not to continue the Tuesday yoga class with the new teacher is part of my new, paring-down-the-activities-to-keep-them-fun-and-make-sure-I-have-a-modicum-of-free-time strategy. This no time thing has really gotten out of control, and it's time I did something about it. Another phase of this strategy has been to back out of The Got to Get Got. I think I told you that they were a nine-piece band I was in, and it just seemed that every time they wanted to practise, it conflicted with something else. There were some shows coming up, which would have been really fun, but I just didn't have the time to devote to not stinking, which would have made them not so fun, for me or the other people in the band. Or the audience.

• Hopefully, with a little extra free time, I'll be able to spend some more time reading. Once again I've got a huge pile of books that I'm in the middle of. The ones I'm enjoying the most these days are I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter and Programming the Universe by Seth Lloyd. The latter is a new book by a "quantum computer scientist" who tries to make the case that the universe can be seen as a a giant computer, computing its own evolution, with subatomic particles and their binary states as its "bits". Apparently a quantum computer is the next big thing computer scientists are working on, which will be much faster than our current, electronic computers, because its bits, being quantum phenomena, will have the ability to be both on and off at once. Huh? Don't ask me, man. Kooky! But the guy's quite entertaining and so far has been making sense.

The other use of my free time I'm looking forward to, besides more frequently addressing you, dear reader, on this very weblog, is hanging out in the back yard and doing some gardening with Alison. It's looking really nice now, and we're hoping to make it even nicer. It's great to have such an idyllic setting just outside our back door. Buster really likes looking at it too.





• Etceterally, I've done some more recording with Al Tuck; the softball season started last weekend and we won both games then, lost both today; I designed an identity and some pieces for Yoga for You, a new set of classes our other yoga teacher, Angie, is starting up with a friend of hers, and Alison took all the photographs they needed; Alison found out to her disappointment that her boss at the government has not been giving her shooting assignments because she believes Alison can't handle the pressure and is some kind of incompetent boob; I'm working on some songs to become the soundtrack of our friend, Silöen's, short film; and the as-yet-unnamed band is still looking for a name. Current contenders: The Lodge, Field (or possibly Zone) of Entanglement, and Chromakey Eye.

- Andrew

Happy Birthday, Bennett!

Sorry we missed the fun times! Can't wait to see you in all your two-ness! We love you lots!

-Andrew and Ali xoxo

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Hope you're having a great one! I'm sure I'll read all about it on the various blogs. Talk to you tonight.

Love,
Andrew

The Productivity of Headless Chickens

This may surprise no one who regularly reads our blogloo (as far as such a thing is possible), but things have been super busy around here. A little too busy, to be honest. But most of the stuff that's been keeping us occupied is fun stuff, so I really shouldn't complain. It's just that little things like blogs, dishes, and sleep seem to keep getting pushed to the wayside.

This last week, I spent three nights recording with the inimitable Al Tuck at Charles Austin's Studio, The Echo Chamber. We went in each night immediately after work and stayed until all hours, getting down about 10 or 11 songs live off the floor. Charles got a fantastic representation of Al's voice, and in general I think we made some pretty solid recordings. I guess Al and Charles will now have to sift through the hours and gigas of bytes to pan gold out of the bitstream.

What with that and this long weekend we are now into, work has been mostly if not entirely exhausting. This may be a pretty controversial opinion, and I might get kicked out of the Society of Complaining Office Workers and Layabouts (SCOWL) for expressing it, but I kind of don't like long weekends. They always mean getting so much more work done in less time that the extra day is usually spent either catching up on lost sleep or drinking oneself into oblivion in a misguided attempt to chase away the stress demons before they start persuasively suggesting you throttle your boss or replace your co-worker's screensaver with a compromising picture of her from last year's Christmas party while she is in the washroom. My own as yet unthrottled boss has decided that we should only work a half day on the Friday before each long weekend this summer, which is awfully decent of him, but when noon had come and gone and everyone was still hunched over their computers trying to finish off all the projects that absolutely had to be finished before they could even think about leaving, the resentment was palpable. In the end, I left most of the job that I usually take all Monday and Tuesday to complete — and which I'd thought I might get a decent start on to avoid the otherwise unavoidable freakout on Tuesday when four o'clock hits and it's inexplicably only half done — undone in order to come home and nap for most of the afternoon.

I did manage to produce something I was somewhat proud of this week: an ad for a used car sale based on the concept of the sales people's boss ordering them to sell off all the cars. That was the client's direction, and I captured it in what I thought was a pretty amusing way, but unfortunately the negative boss stereotype did not go over well. Instead, I was forced to make the majority of the ad a memo from the fictional boss, using bosslike but non-negative language. Not nearly as visually interesting, but I guess it gets the point across. Anyway, here's my original design.


Let's see... what else? There were a couple of practice sessions with Charles, Cliff, and Mike on Monday and last night. That's really coming along well and the addition of Mike on vocal duties has been a stroke of genius. Now we just need a name. I can't remember whether I told you this, but we'd settled after a lot of debate on Sea Takes Castle. However, it was never an entirely popular choice, and now we've decided it sounds too much like The Sea and Cake. So it's back to the drawing board. Suggestions are welcome, but will probably be shot down. Just so you're warned.

Oh yeah, some updates to the last post: it turns out the name of the dish is actually General Tso's chicken, not General Gao's. I don't know anything about either of those presumably venerable military figures, but apparently this is a common mistake. Also, the Beauty Queens did not win the Amazing Race, as you may have seen. We were quite disappointed, especially as the team that ended up winning were a couple of misanthropic jerks. The Beauty Queens always had such a refreshingly positive attitude, we were convinced they were a shoe-in, and then on the final episode they actually got in an argument and said some hurtful things to each other. That's the problem with those reality shows — you can't expect the plot to follow any kind of coherent structure or even resolve satisfyingly. Reality needs some new writers.

There've been some other art projects going on that I can't really talk about yet, and the next bit of business is to learn the songs of The Got to Get Got, as it seems we have some shows booked over the next couple of months. Their four song EP, which was made before I joined the band, just came out and it sounds great. That'll help me figure out those ones at least. I was supposed to practice with those guys last night, but it conflicted with my other band practice so I had to bail. I also had to skip yoga class this week. Priorities, priorities. At least we have another one this afternoon.

And finally, in among all the crazy hecticity, Ali and I have been listening to an audio book called Practising the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. He's one of these metaphysical, spiritual guys who tells you the best way to live. It's a very popular subject these days. But this guy is pretty down to earth and not completely kooky and new-agey. OK, he's a little bit kooky. He has a very interesting German/English accent, for instance. And he's kind of ugly. His writing is mostly about recognizing the ego in all its guises and trying to watch it detachedly, rather than getting suckered into identifying with it and its foolish desires. Very buddhist, but this guy's more into cultivating awareness at all times, rather than using meditation as a temporary/temporal practice of awareness cultivation. Plus, he seems to advocate my long-held view that the best way to think of the world is as a giant insane asylum wherein we are all both patients and doctors. If you already think of everyone, yourself included, as completely insane, then it's not so upsetting when you witness insane behaviour in yourself or others. I recommend you check it out. But don't blame me if you don't like it — I'm loony as a cuckoo bird.

- Andrew

Been Gone Too Long

All right, let's just skip the obligatory apologies and get straight to what we've been up to that's been keeping us so occupied we can't even type a few sentences about it, for Pete's sake. Well, we've both had colds for one thing, not that that's any kind of excuse. Everyone I work with got it, then Alison got it, then I felt like I was getting it so I took tons of Cold FX and vitamin C and echinacea and successfully fought it off, then I got it. I missed a day of work and an Al Tuck practice, and contributed my fair share to Kimberley-Clark's Boreal deforestation agenda, but other than that it hasn't been too debilitating.

There've been a lot of musical projects going on, not the least time-consuming of which has been my cover of this song for the Inbreds tribute album being put together by Scott Grimbleby of Ingersoll, Ontario as the first release on his brand new Gooseberry Records label. I finally finished it a few days ago after a couple of weeks straight working on it, and I think it sounds pretty good even though I never want to hear it again. I'm sure everyone working on the project felt this, but it's quite daunting to record a new version of an already impeccable song. Especially the vocals.

Speaking of which, I don't want to jinx it or anything, but it looks like the songwriter/vocalist in question, Mike O'Neill, is going to be joining the band Charles and Cliff and I have been slowly but surely putting together, taking over the singin' duties. I'm really really REALLY excited about it. Really. It'll allow Charles and me to concentrate purely on playing our respective instruments, and it'll sound ten times better than if I had to do the singing and maybe one and a half times better than if Charles did it. We're getting together with him tomorrow night to see how it goes.

The other two bands I play in, Al Tuck & No Action and The Got to Get Got, are also progressing semi-regularly, so there's been plenty of music to keep me busy. I designed this handbill yesterday for the regular Saturday afternoon gig with Al.


Oh man, there's plenty more stuff going on to tell you about, but Alison just finished making a veggie version of General Gao's Chicken with tofu instead of chicken and it smells FANTASTIC! I'll have to catch you on the flipside. See Spiderman 3 while you're waiting for me to return, because it's awesome, and don't forget to watch the finale of The Amazing Race tonight. Go, beauty queens!

- Andrew

Good Times, and Plenty of 'em

Hi, everyone. I feel bad that I'm blogging so little these days, but as usual there's so much happening that I don't have time to tell you about it. Right now I'm at work, on the last five minutes of my lunch hour, having just gotten back from a walk around the waterfront with Alison. There's a giant French battleship in the harbour that I guess has been called the "Swiss Army Knife of battleships," as it can be used for almost any purpose (hospital, aircraft carrier, destroyer). We could only see one end of it, but it was appropriately impressive.

The weather here has gotten all sunny and springlike. I had to buy a pair of sunglasses today. Why are they all so huge right now? Is it part of the ongoing 80s revivalism? When will that finally be over? Anyway, there's been barbecues, biking, and frisbee lately, in between yoga classes, band practices, and shows. Tonight all three of the latter and tomorrow night two out of three. I.e., time is hard to come by. The bikability definitely helps somewhat.

And eating up every minute that might be left over has been my ongoing recording of a cover version of the Inbreds song Whitecaps. I'm doing it for this guy in Ontario who's really into the 90s Halifax music scene and is starting up a record label. His first CD will be an Inbreds tribute album. This is a great song and my version should be pretty interesting when it's done, though I may have bitten off a bit more than can be chewed in five-minute intervals. If I had the original here, I'd post it for you to listen to, but you probably know how to find it anyway...

Gotta git back to work now. I hope I'll talk to you again soon. Enjoy whatever sunshine there happens to be in your particular corner of the world.

- Andrew

Happy 4/20!

... to all my stoner friends.

Time is running rampant! Someone needs to set some boundaries.

I can't believe that was nine days! That kind of makes me mad. Anyway, here's a couple of things that happened during that time.

We went to see some standup comedy Friday night at a fundraiser for the Nova Scotia Community College. One guy was quite funny, some of it was amusingly bad, and the emcee was just awful. We were supposed to have seats reserved for us in the second row, but there was a mistake and we ended up at the very back. It was just as well, because I couldn't possibly have feigned amusement at the "jokes" that were coming out of this guy. The bit about an alleged serial killer who is still on trial was the low point, with not even a sympathy chuckle -- very uncomfortable. The weirdest part was that I had actually known the comedian in junior high school. Of the group of us who hung out in the computer lab at lunch every day, he was the one who was too nerdy.

Al Tuck arrived back in town, after touring in Ontario and Quebec for a few weeks, so I played the regular Saturday matinee with him at Gus' Pub. Alison, Johanna, Krista, and Matt all came out to see the show.



Matt left the next day. His internship at the Herald was over, and now he's off to visit Laura in France for a couple of weeks. Then I guess he'll be going back to Toronto to look for work. It's really too bad. I was sort of hoping the Herald would just ask him to stay on in a paid position. But unfortunately scenarios where cool people end up not leaving Halifax after all are the exception. There's a reason why "Farewell to Nova Scotia" is our theme song.

On Sunday morning we went out for brunch with Krista and Steve. After getting all hopped up on caffeine, we decided to check out the reptile exhibit at the Museum of Natural History. To be honest, it was not a great exhibit. I think there were more plastic models of reptiles than living ones. However, there were some pretty cool lizards, and it was worth sticking around for the "Roundup," wherein museum workers take a few of the animals out of their tanks and let the kids touch them and ask questions. Those kids were really entertaining with their mouth-breathing excitability and databases of half-truths. A show worth checking out.


Of course, the same old dioramas that have been there since I was a kid can still be seen, which is the only real reason I ever go there. The moose and deer one is always spectacular, but my favourite is the puffins and other sea birds on the rocks. This photo doesn't really do it justice, but there are a lot of different depths, scales, and types of rendering going on, with some pretty neat tricks of perspective. I always get a little thrill of vertigo looking at this one.


After that were the first ice cream cones of the year! The weather didn't REALLY warrant it, but it was close enough. I ate my single scoop of coffee in a waffle cone in about two minutes, including initial drooling.

- Andrew

4 More Things

After rambling on about shopping yeterday, I remembered some other news I forgot to tell you:

1. We've been watching the BBC/Discovery Channel series The Blue Planet, all about the ecosystems of the oceans, on DVD. Man, is it ever gorgeous and fascinating! Check it out if you ever have a bunch of time or feel like making a bunch of time to devote to it; it's eight 50-minute episodes. The last episode we watched was all about the deep sea, only about 1% of which has actually been explored. You wouldn't believe the fantastic and creepy creatures living down where no sunlight ever penetrates. Like this one. Blah!

2. I've been recording some with local pianist/singer/songwriter, Erin Costelo. We did a couple of tracks at her place and some stuff at the Echo Chamber. Her songs are fantastic and it's been a lot of fun. I can't wait to hear the finished product.

3. I was asked the other day to join a really great local band called The Got to Get Got, so I guess I'll be playing electric piano with them now. It's Mark Mullane's latest ensemble, and I know a bunch of the other people in the band. Catchy songs played with gusto by a wild and energetic eight-piece, or now nine-piece, I guess. Two drummers. Two or three guitars. Cello and violin. They have a lot of fun on stage and don't practise very much. Sounds pretty perfect.

4. Finally, the slow-blooming but enticingly colourful musical collaboration with Charles has a name: Sea Takes Castle. We decided Poifectly Poiple was just too high-brow. We're getting together tomorrow night to rehearse and trade new ideas. I have some lyrics, melodies, and bass lines to bring to the table. This bird, to mix metaphors, will eventually fly.

Oh yeah, and happy Easter, I suppose.

- Andrew

Productive Consumption

We just got back from a very successful shopping trip in Dartmouth with Krista, wherein I got a bunch of new (to me) clothes and a couple of books I've been itching to read for months. Value Village was playing all new wave hits, which made the whole experience about 40 times better than it usually is. I'm not much of a shopper, I'll admit. I'd kind of rather stick my hand into a blender set to "puree" than try on clothes most days. But today was painless and actually kind of fun, and at least a quarter of the things I'd picked out actually fit and didn't have holes or permanent stains. And there was an old guy outside my changing booth having fun telling his wife whether the clothes she was trying on were any good.

"... why don't they/ do what they say/ say what they mean..."

"Yup, fits great. Next."

"...me on/ I'll be gone/ in a day or..."

"How much? Four bucks? Put it back."

"...just like a poem/out of synch..."

"Wow. Get two of those."

He went a little overboard when he told Alison that the jeans she'd worn into the store fit her perfectly, but I couldn't really blame him. It was pretty exciting to be having a good time in a clothing store.

After Old VaVi we headed over to Chapters for Starbuck's (boo!) coffee (yay!) and literary browsing. There was a table set up in the middle of the store with a DJ spinning loud rock music. Seemed like kind of a strange choice for a bookstore that encourages people to sit and read, but I found out the Trailer Park Boys were going to be arriving any minute to sign copies of "their" new book about the TV show. Whatever keeps people reading, I guess.

I looked for Douglas Hofstadter's new book, I Am a Strange Loop, which I'd heard was coming out around now, and lo and behold, there it was in the Science section (which is a subsection of the larger Arts section, puzzlingly). Hofstadter's been my intellectual hero since I was about fourteen years old, and his 1979 magnum opus, Gödel, Escher, Bach, has probably been the most character-influencing book of my life thus far (unless you count the Bible's inverse influence), and I just have one appendix left to read in his buddy Daniel Dennet's rear-end-kicker, Breaking the Spell, so I'm pretty psyched to sit down and devour this new one. It's about the seeming incompatibility of consciousness and materialism. Yum.

Of course, I would have been happy to leave with just that, but on a whim I decided to check whether Joshua Ferris's first novel, Then We Came to the End, ever came out. I'd read a more than glowing review of it by Nick Hornby in The Believer about a year ago now, and have been wanting to read it ever since. It's about people working in an ad agency and is told entirely in the first person plural, so that the agency itself is more the main character than any of its particular employees. Sounds pretty interesting, right? Plus, it's apparently gut-bustingly hilarious. Unfortunately, the review, which I read on the plane to Cuba (and I'm still embarassingly less than a quarter of the way through Infinite Jest), turned out to be an advance one and the book has taken its time actually seeing the fluorescent light of Chapters' ceiling. But slap my cranium and toss me in a tar pit if it wasn't in too. I swear the shopping gods were watching out for me today. So now I've got two brand new, expensive, hard cover books to drool over, fondle, and maybe even read if I get some time.

Sweeeeet!

- Andrew

The Weird and the Wonderful

I have a new favourite TV show. It's called Shut Up, with Stacy London. It's the new talk show starring the female host of What Not to Wear. She's pretty good on that show (witty, insightful), but this new one will be a lot less limiting. Instead of just making fun of one person who previously didn't care about fashion, she'll invite lots of different kinds of people on and tell them all to shut up. It's gonna be fantastic.

Speaking of fashion, Charles and I finally decided what to name the band. It will be called Poifectly Poiple, and we're debating whether to wear all purple whenever we play. Sounds like a great idea at first, I know, but on further reflection it could be a little misleading. It would look pretty cool, but it might make people think we're going to sound like Prince. I wish.

Hey, did anybody else hear about this big breakthrough in olfactory research? I guess they've finally discovered a funny smell. I always wondered if smells could be inherently funny, the way pictures or sounds can be (fat lady sitting on tack, boyoyoing). Sure, there are certain bodily odours associated with funny situations, but the smells taken by themselves are not really funny, as such. In fact, they're usually kind of gross. But I guess this smell will actually cause people to start laughing uncontrollably, without reference to any other sensations (and, no, it's not laughing gas — that doesn't have an odour). Apparently it's something like a combination of bananas, Silly Putty, and, oddly enough, Daniel Day Lewis's beard.

Maybe that's what Buster smelled today, because he's been acting very weird. This morning we found him hanging out on top of the television, for no apparent reason. We shooed him off, turned our backs on him, and five minutes later he was on top of the bookshelves. Getting him off there required a chair; I'm not sure how he even got up there. But then the really weird thing was about an hour and a half after that we couldn't find him anywhere, until we heard some plaintive meowing coming from the ceiling. On a hunch, I went out into the back yard and looked up on the roof, and there he was, about to climb down into the chimney! We don't even let him outside, so don't ask me how the hell that happened. And I REALLY don't know where he got the miniature diving helmet he was wearing.

But this is definitely the weirdest thing I've seen all week. Paris Hilton coming out of a record store with a copy of Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica. What is going on? I know that the entire universe is made up of particles which act like waves and can't be located or measured except in a statistically probablistic way, interacting in an unimaginable variety of systems that are unpredictable because they are totally chaotic, but come on; this just doesn't even make any sense.

No joke.

- Andrew

Empty Potpourri

I just got home from recording some keyboard tracks on a Buck 65 collaboration record that's in the works. Do people still say "record" anymore? A young guy at work always makes fun of me for it. Pretty soon I'll be mis-stressing new technology, I guess. "Now, what's this blue TOOTH I heard someone talking about?" Actually, I really don't know what bluetooth is. Very embarassing.

Anyway, I'm sorry the delay between posts has been getting pretty long. There really is nothing going on worth telling you about. I noticed that my calendar at work had nothing written on it from last week. I tried to remember what I actually did and seriously, NOTHING came to mind. It was kind of scary. I guess there was a pretty good rock show in there, and of course a lot of work. I've been feeling quite tired at work lately and sleeping more than I should. Probably need some exercise. We had the first yoga class of our last 10-class session with Michi last night, and it really kicked our butts. In a good way, though. I felt much better today than I have in awhile, and actually enjoyed some of my work. I don't know what we're going to do when Michi leaves for Japan in June. I predict a lot of tears.

Alison's been getting to do some photo shoots at the glub glub club. That's what we call the government. Government = gub'mint = gub = glub glub club, if you must know the derivation. Last week she was responsible for taking all the pictures of a bunch of rare 18th century coins they recently pulled out of a shipwreck off Nova Scotia, and tomorrow she'll be covering an all-day conference. It's pretty great practice for her, especially shooting people in a room full of strangers all day.

Right now she's teaching her class, and I'll be leaving to walk her home soon. Before then, I have to devote some time to figuring out a band name for this project Charles and I have started up. That's really what I've been spending every spare moment on. It drives Ali crazy, when she's not caught up in the act herself. Both of us seem to be all right at coming up with joke names, but terrible at real ones. Some of the funnier ones have been Ironic Butterfly, The Whom, How They Get Rope, Weird Beard, and Post Modern Band Name. Really, those are the funnier ones. It's been hellish for awhile.

Is it true that the Thompson Twins — the band from the eighties, that is; not the characters in Tintin comics — shaved their eyebrows? Alison swears that the white man and woman had no eyebrows, which explains their weird, unemotional appearance. If it is true, then it really seems like maybe they didn't actually want the black guy in the band, but couldn't think of a way to tell him without seeming racist. So they called the band The Thompson Twins, hoping he'd take the hint, and when he continued to stick around, oblivious, they took the radical step of epilating their foreheads, thus drawing a veritable Venn diagram circle around themselves. I'm sure I'm just making this up, but it's kind of an intriguing theory.

- Andrew

People — Ya Gotta Love 'Em

Welp, South-by-Southwest's come and gone. They call it "South-by" down there. It was pretty fun, but there wasn't much time for wandering around or seeing shows. Actually, none. But our show went really well and the hired pedal steel player from San Antonio, Tommy Detamore, turned out to be a fantastic musician and swell guy. We had a lot of fun practising and hanging out with him.



On the way home, as on the way there, all of our flights were late, causing us to miss all of our connecting flights. I don't want to sound like a whiner, but it really was a very tiring ordeal. For awhile it looked like we were going to be stranded overnight in Houston, because the snotty little nineteen-year-old behind the Continental Airlines desk told us it wasn't his airline's fault what the weather was like and there was nothing he could do. The shoulder shrug that accompanied the following "sorry" sucked any sincerity it might have pretended to contain right out of it. He wouldn't put us on another flight or give us any hotel vouchers, so we asked him if we could talk to someone else. Maybe someone older and less solipsistic? He told us we were welcome to try the desk two airport terminals away, where we would be told the same thing. We thanked him sarcastically and were wished, equally sarcastically, "May Jesus go with you." At that point we took off as fast as we could, so as not to unintentionally punch the dear little disciple's face in, so, to be fair, it's not clear whether Jesus' ticket would have been offered gratis.

Luckily, the (older) woman at the other terminal did turn out to be much more sensible, and got us standby onto a flight leaving half an hour later. Mind you, our general demeanour was probably more menacing at that point, but still, she was very kind and efficient. She may even have pulled a bit of bureaucratic weirdness to get us on a tiny flight that was allegedly full. There was a passport check at the gate before they started boarding, and when they did board us, they called the people who had shown their passports first. People who had happened to be in the washroom or wandering around when we'd lined up to show our ID were pushed to the side, and I never did see them get on. The really weird thing is that one of them was wearing sandals and kept asking the flight attendants why they had forsaken him.

Also luckily, I had purchased in Austin a copy of Daniel Dennett's latest masterpiece of rational Darwinian thought, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, so I was plenty entertained and enlightened all day, despite my frustration and exhaustion. It's really a great read (at least so far, and I see no reason to think it shouldn't continue to be), and, as with most of his work, I wish I could somehow force everyone in the world to read it. Of course I know I can't, and that trying to would make me into the worst kind of preacher — the unprovoked pedagogue — but thinking about what would compel others to read it has caused me to stumble onto what I think is a pretty great idea in the field of cultural phenomena: the Motivated Book Exchange (MBE). The basic idea is that one person thinks another person really needs to read a particular book, so in exchange for that actually happening, the first person agrees to read any book that the second person would like her to read. That's it. They just have to read. No arguing or intellectual bullying need occur, though they could agree to sit down and discuss what they've read afterward, in order for two people to get a substantially better understanding of another point of view than the one they currently harbour. It could potentially be more eye-opening and profoundly affecting than the traditional debate, which can get derailed by slow thinking and blinding emotion.

And the MBE wouldn't have to be limited to individuals, either. Traditionally disparate social groups could have the majority of each others' members read a work that they believe key in breaking through long-held misunderstandings. Or a country could agree to teach a certain book in its schools in exchange for another country's leader's reading a book they've selected democratically. The possiblities for local and international consciousness-raising are excitingly abundant. I personally think it would be fun to read something outside my usual tastes, knowing that in exchange someone else was going to get an education I thought they needed but never dreamt they'd get. Now I just have to figure out how to get Oprah to tell everyone about it.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, nothing too exciting has happened around here since I got back. We've gotten a few more snowfalls and other March bum-outs. Saturday morning we woke up to a city laminated in ice and blanketed in fog. It was quite eerie and beautiful.


That afternoon we went to see Music and Lyrics (wait for the DVD) with Matt, Meg, and Johanna, and later that evening Matt and Johanna and I visited Gus' Pub to see The Got to Get Got and a band from Montreal called Thundra. I didn't know anything about the latter, but they turned out to be a really interesting and exciting experimental-type rock band of young upstarts. A fun show that made up for the Blonde Redhead one I didn't get to go to at South-by.

- Andrew

The ULTIMATE Mix Tape

As promised:

1. Silent Shout - The Knife
2. Electric - Boris
3. Un-deux - Serena Maneesh
4. Spanish Bombs - The Clash
5. Now to War - Guided By Voices
6. Jonathan David - Belle & Sebastian
7. Don't Let Me Lose This Dream - Aretha Franklin
8. French Disko - Stereolab
9. Revolution Blues - Neil Young
10. Pulled Up - Talking Heads
11. I Got Your Ice Cold NuGrape - The NuGrape Twins (from the last Oxford American music issue's compilation CD)
12. Allison - Pixies
13. Little Miss Strange - The Jimi Hendrix Experience
14. Just Drums - Tapes 'n Tapes
15. Brother - The Organ
16. Rubber Ring - The Smiths
17. Put Your Records On - Corinne Bailey Rae
18. Mike Mills - Air
19. No Complaints - Beck
20. Instant Karma! (We All Shine On) - John Lennon
21. On Again, Off Again - Sean Lennon
22. Keeper of The Flame - Nina Simone
23. Things We Said Today - The Beatles
24. Thirteen - Big Star

Seriously, try it out. You'll never want to listen to anything else again.

Work is completely insane and I never have a spare moment right now. Why am I doing this? An unholy but potent blend of sheer stupid pride and the goodness of my heart.

By the way, we finally sat down and watched An Inconvenient Truth, and soon realized that everyone in the world should be forced to watch it. Especially Americans. Grrr! Check it out and get mad enough to do something.

- Andrew

Dumb Dream

I had a dream last night that I was in the cast of "Are You Being Served?" I've never actually watched that show because it looks absolutely terrible, and I'm sure it's not really like this, but in the dream every episode had to end with all the characters throwing up their hands and shouting in unison, "Are you being served?" Then they would freeze the shot and roll the credits. I woke up laughing.

- Andrew

Soundtrack for a Perfect Day

Yeah, so for some reason the Blogger software robots determined that this might be a spam blog, and prevented me from posting to it for about five days in total. I had to put in a request for a human to look at the blog and verify that it was not spam to get publishing capability back again. When I clicked on the link to find out what a "spam blog" might be, I read:

"The ease of creating and updating webpages with Blogger has made it particularly prone to a form of behavior known as link spamming. Blogs engaged in this behavior are called spam blogs, and can be recognized by their irrelevant, repetitive, or nonsensical text..."

I'm trying not to feel slighted.

Things have been busy as usual in the past week, but not too much interesting to write about. The Buck 65 song-learning and rehearsing process has begun. Some of the material is quite simple, but there's a lot of it and we're leaving for Texas a week from Monday, so I'm getting a little anxious about it. Once there we have a day to rehearse with Rich for the first and only time, and also with the Texan pedal steel player who's been hired to accompany us. Should be verrrrry interesting.

Song-building has also been continuing with Charles and Cliff. We already have jammed out a fair amount of tunage, and now have to start imposing some structure and, the most dreaded part, writing some lyrics. Hopefully it will be a process of each implying things about the other in a bootstrapping fashion.

The weather's been really mild here all week, then yesterday we got a huge blizzard up from Ontario. Everyone locked themselves away with movies, and then today the sun immediately came out and melted everything. It's been an absolutely gorgeous day. People are out everywhere with big grins on. And I guess there's a lunar eclipse tonight. Very excitin'.

Somewhere in there Ali and I watched The U.S. vs. John Lennon. It was great — informative and inspirational. There was tons of footage of John and Yoko I'd never seen before.

We got a phone call from our friend Tim in Toronto on I think it was Monday night. We haven't talked to him in a long time and it was really nice to hear from him. Now he and I have started up a game of email chess, which should be good for a cerebral laugh.

Our other friend from Toronto, Matt, is back in Halifax for an extended stay while he does some sort of journalism internship at the Chronicle Herald. Haven't heard from him yet, but we're super excited to hang out with him.

This may seem sillly, but the most exciting thing for me recently has been putting together a couple of mix tapes (actually CDs, but "mix tape" just sounds way cooler; I sort of wish they really were tapes, as I could have gotten the volume levels of different songs more consistent that way, though it would have been significantly more work and the sound quality would have suffered) that are really killer. There've been a bunch of songs lately that I keep thinking would be perfect to hear in the middle of a compilation, and when I got introduced to Amy Winehouse the other day, the mental percolating was tipped over the edge into necessary actuality.

There ended up being way too much for only one CD, so I've split it into two: The Ultimate Mix Tape and the still really really good, just not quite ultimate Penultimate Mix Tape. They're both stellar, and I can't stop listening to them. I tried to make the flow as natural and exciting as possible, and stick to my self-imposed rules that any song on a mix tape should make you think either:

a) Oh yeah, I love this song! And it's exactly what I'm in the mood to hear after that last one, or
b) What is this song? I love it! or
c) I love this artist, but I'm not too familiar with this song. Wow, it's really just as good as the ones I know better. Who knew?

Plus I got to have some fun setting up short themes or other tricky connections between consecutive tracks. I really wish I could just put the entire mixes on here for you to listen to, but they're 24 songs and over an hour each, so that's not gonna happen. However, since I'm convinced these really are the ultimate (and penultimate) mix tapes and therefore everyone should have a chance to hear them, I'll give you the track listings so you can make them yourself. Check it out:

The Penultimate Mix Tape

1. Anytime - My Morning Jacket
2. Come Into Force - Imitation Electric Piano
3. Out - Wire
4. I Can't Get Next To You - Al Green
5. Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken - Camera Obscura
6. Close to Me - The Cure
7. Kissing the Lipless - The Shins
8. Netsanet - Mulatu Astaque
9. Walk and Talk - The Velvet Underground (from the Peel Slowly and See box set)
10. Stop Breathin' - Pavement
11. Not a Friend - Sebadoh
12. I Can't Make Up My Mind - The Zombies
13. Pigeon Quest - City Field (local band; this one might be kind of hard to track down)
14. 52 Girls - The B52's
15. Me & Mr. Jones - Amy Winehouse
16. Swisha - Ratatat
17. See No Evil - Television
18. A Lazy Farmer Boy - Buster Carter & Preston Young (from Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music box set)
19. Place To Be - Nick Drake
20. Tougher Than Tough - Derrick Morgan
21. Gotta Get the First Plane Home - The Kinks
22. Secret Agent Man - Devo
23. Chain Saw - The Ramones
24. Goin' On - The Flaming Lips

Next post: The Ultimate Mix Tape!

- Andrew

Time Is Money

People are always saying this. You can see how they get the two mixed up. Both time and money are abstract figments of the human imagination which can seem terribly real due to the importance we place on them. They each have a track devoted to them on Pink Floyd's hugely popular album Dark Side of the Moon, for instance. They both travel in one inexorable direction, from possibility into memory.

We are compelled to perpetually spend great quantities of each, and having spent them we never get them back. Therefore, we are always looking for ways to save or create more time and more money. In our search, we have cleverly devised ways to trade one for the other through institutions called banks. These places will sell you time for money (loans, mortgages, etc.) or pay you money for your time (bank accounts, RSPs, ...), although it's really only the money side of things they're actually interested in, trading your T&M upwards for larger quantities of M, in a nefarious worldwide pyramid scheme which is not only endorsed but heavily participated in by the world's governments. This scheme is called "interest" because it is the only way anyone has thought of to get people personally involved in such a boring system of numbers and slips of paper.

But the two concepts were invented to solve completely different problems, and I think we should try not to confuse them. Time keeps events separate which contradict each other physically. I can't be both here and not here at the same time, but give me two different times and it's the easiest trick in the world. Similarly, the only way two people can occupy the exact same place (in this dimension) is if we are checking at different moments in time. And how can that old man slumped on the park bench be the same person as that little boy playing stickball in the street with his friends? Because we have agreed to identify objects with each other which share a contiguous history through time. It is a system for distinguishing objects and events one from the other.

Money, conversely, is a system designed to equate different objects and events with each other. It allows us to evaluate everything in the world relative to everything else, based on human desire. One apple is equal to two-thirds of an orange, or three minutes of work emptying wastebaskets in an office building, or one forty-fifth of a Fifty Cent compact disc, or one four-hundred-and-fifty-millionth of Fifty Cent, or one three-billionth of Oprah.

Therefore, our desire for more money is pure desire, since money is a measure of desire itself. Although money will never fully appease this desire, it at least represents a real wish for something positive. Our apparent desire for more time, on the other hand, is really just a fear that we may lose our status as a distinct object — i.e. a fear of death — masquerading as desire. Not wanting an unknown quantity is not the same as wanting a known quantity.

The next time you find yourself irrationally anxious about one or another of life's great impossibilities, ask yourself a couple of questions: Do I want something I can't have? Then it's money you're after. Or am I afraid of something I can't avoid? Time is your guy. Let's try to keep the two abstractions straight, despite what the bankers would like us to think.

- Andrew

Sunny Sunday

Another busy week full of music playing and recording (with Al), teaching, yoga, and the usual shenanigans with Buster. I did manage to catch the flu that Andrew had (rats) but that gave me lots of time to rest, think... and knit a new awesome yellow hat for Andrew to wear! Here he is wearing it while going over some tunage. I think he looks dang sweet.
That reminds me: he has a new place for you all to check out that features some of his newer, super-great songs!

-Ali

Catching Up While Lying Down

I guess I never did tell you about non-music-related stuff that had been happening in the past week, and now it's been a week since I promised you it would be less than a week. Consider that further evidence of how hectic things are around here.

Here are the main(e) pieces of news I wanted to relate. Alison flew to Maine for a couple of days to assist on a photo shoot. While there, she ate very poorly because all the food they came across was apparently deep fried and topped with butter and/or meat. On the way back, the flight from Boston to Halifax was delayed, so she had to have dinner in the Boston airport (worst laid-out airport I've ever been in, by the way, and it seems to always be undergoing some kind of major reconstruction — what's up with that?). One of the only items that wasn't meat of some kind was a bowl of clam chowder, so she opted for that. When it arrived, it had bacon on top of it!

Meanwhile, I was back here attending our yoga class alone, wherein our teacher announced that she will be moving back to Japan in the summer. As she's pretty much the best yoga teacher in the world and her classes are super cheap, I'm not sure what we're going to do. I was very bummed out and couldn't concentrate through the rest of the class. My "Warrior III" turned into something more like "Warrior on Pogo Stick".

I was also going to tell you about The Street, a really good BBC series we rented. Every episode is about a particular household on a working class street in northern England, and the different stories intersect in different ways. They're all quite sad, but they also all reach some kind of redemptive conclusion. The writing is quite good, and there are some fine British actors from the Mike Leigh stable and elsewhere.

And finally, Pingu! Meg loaned us an eight-episode tape of this super-cute Swiss claymation program for kids, and we both got hooked on it. There's no dialogue besides some vaguely morphemic sounds, and nothing much happens in the course of each five-minute episode, but they all manage to convey life as seen through the eyes of a child, and teach some sort of lesson thereof. Meg apparently has another tape of this stuff, so I'm hoping to borrow that soon.

As for this week, I'm not really sure what happened. I know I played another show with Al on Wednesday night and stayed up too late, then ate too much Thai food which we ordered in on Thursday night and was kept awake all night with heartburn. Since then I've felt terrible and haven't been able to eat anything beyond cream of mushroom soup or do anything beyond sit up and read. I guess I must have gotten some kind of stomach flu. There's been something like that going around at work. This means not only that I had to bow out of a couple of shows with Al this weekend (ECMA weekend with all its attendant hype), but that I've now been sick twice so far this year, and it's only February. Cf. last year, when I don't think I was sick once.

Oh yes, and the most important thing, which I almost forgot: Alison finished the hat she's been knitting! It's pretty cool, I have to say. Now she's starting on one for me in yellow, my favourite colour. I'm gonna be the man in the yellow hat. I can't wait.

- Andrew

Grammys Redux

The red carpet: boring.

John Mayer: ick.

The Police: boring.

Justin Timberlake filming himself dancing: unintentionally funny.

Bob Wills/Don Henley tribute: weird and boring.

Dixie Chicks winning all the awards: super boring.

Red Hot Chilli Peppers: unbelievably, mega-stupendously boring.

BUT:

Gnarls Barkley: stirring.

Corinne Bailey Rae: cute and pleasantly understated.

And then this woman keeping the memory of James Brown alive by pulling him out of his still fresh grave by the throat and slapping him hard and repeatedly with his own best song, not out of disrespect, mind you, because simultaneously exposing the militant feminism inherent in said song, in case anyone suspected it of being misogynistic, which would be fair, given its source, but no, instead heaping admiration and respect on the honouree by showing that she GETS him and by singing, nay CHANNELING the song with even more passion, anger, and yes BALLS than even he did: unforgettable.

Am I the only one who was totally blown away by this performance? I am a man, after all, "lost in the wilderness"... Please tell me my judgment has not been compromised by some false eyelashes and a pair of tight white pants.

- Andrew

Pop Culcha

Those with the greatest awareness have the greatest nightmares.
- Mahatma Gandhi


The worst dream Alison ever had was of someone forcing her to eat the dirtiest, blackest snow you can imagine by the side of the road. I've heard about it on many occasions. She can still remember exactly how it tasted. We happened upon this batch the other night and had to take a picture of it, as it matched her remembered nightmare so exactly. Believe it or not, it's a colour photo!

I don't even know where to begin in telling you what we've been up to, so much has happened in the last week. It's good to be busy with projects you care about, but sometimes things can maybe get a little too busy. I'll try to confine myself to the actually interesting.

Most recently (yesterday, as a matter of fact), I played a couple of shows in one night again. This time only one was with Al. It was an early show at a space called the Bus Stop Theatre on Gottingen, as part of the In the Dead of Winter festival. The space is really nice and intimate, and right around the corner from our house. I hope to play there again sometime soon.


What's that key you've chosen there, Al?

The woman playing harmonica is Catriona Sturton. She used to play bass (and harmonica) with Al way back in the day when I used to play guitar with him. She was also the bassist for Plumtree, a long-time favourite of the Halifax indie rock scene, with whom I shared many a bill when I was in The Euphonic. Catriona was in town to give a harmonica workshop and play a show of her own at Gus' Pub, which was the second show I played that night, as I accompanied her on guitar.


Catriona came by our place at nine in the morning that day to teach me the songs we'd be playing together.


I had to learn a bunch of songs in pretty short order, and then there were some fairly awful sound problems at Gus', but in the end it was a really fun time. The crowd was eating up Catriona's unabashed showwomanship. I got to play a super-rock-out guitar solo, too, which I completely mangled.

In other music-related news, I finally got together with my friends Charles and Cliff last week for a solid jam session in which we worked on a couple of brand new tunes. It was a great time and I think we're going to try and take it quite seriously, getting together once a week. Tomorrow night's the next rehearsal, which means I have to pick out a new piece of music to work on from my steadily growing mountain of unused riffage, and write some melodies/lyrics for what we've already started. I'm looking forward to getting down to it, but I hope it's not going to interfere with my Grammy-watching tonight.

I know, I know, the Grammys are a mostly unwatchable celebration of terrible music and self-congratulation. I know it's an outrageous waste of time and money, the sole purpose of which is to further inflate the egos of a bunch of cheesy-smiled, cacophony-loving, talentless narcissists whose heads are already swelled to near-exploding capacity. But, as I've recently become re-involved in the music business, I feel it my duty to witness the public judgment of my peers. Will Justin Timberlake continue to be the luckiest boy alive, or is some even less likely "musical" prodigy preparing to usurp his sexy, impeccably produced throne? Actually, I really just want to see The Police's reunion. A new Police album right now might be slightly less relevant than a "Where's the Beef?" t-shirt, but given the choice between Sting and his mates or Sting left to his own devices, I'll take the former. Then I'll probably continue watching until the Gravol is just about to lose its efficacy.

Did that sound a little hateful? Hmm. I don't want you to think I go around hating everything because it's just not true. I've been buying tons of new music lately, and some of it is just fantastic. Here are two songs that are my current favourites.

And speaking of stellar music, my coworker, Sean, loaned me a 2-disc anthology of John Lennon tunage the other day, and I listened to it all day long. I always knew that I was a Lennon fan, but maybe not the extent of it. I think he's somebody I should be consciously ripping off a little more. I also realized that this song much better expresses what I'd been trying to say in that other post a couple of weeks back. And now Lennon keeps coincidentally cropping up in my life. That documentary, The U.S. vs. John Lennon is coming out any day now, so I'll have to rent it.

Blah blah music music... I've got plenty more to tell you that has nothing to do with music, but it's going to have to wait, as the Grammys are going to be starting soon and I haven't even eaten my dinner. Sorry. It'll be less than a week, though, I promise.

- Andrew

Links, Weekend

OK, I figured out how to get audio files to youse guys, although they don't stream nicely on the blog like before. Instead, these links will download the files onto your hard drive, and then you can play them. Not the same, I know, but it'll do for now.

Here's the John Lennon song, and here's the Tomita piece. Oh yeah, and here's an interesting test to see whether you have a brain disorder that prevents you from recognizing people's faces.

Yesterday I played two shows with Al: one in the afternoon and one in the evening. Today I'm getting together with Charles and maybe Cliff to work on new material/new band. I also have to listen to about ten songs that my friend Catriona from Ottawa sent me, as she's coming here next weekend to play a show, and I'm going to accompany her on guitar. And pretty soon the rehearsals for Buck 65 at SXSW will start happening. Busy time!

Alison's got a knitting class this afternoon. She's been working on a hat and it's almost finished. Today they learn how to do the top part where it all comes together. It looks really cool, and I totally want one now.

Now we're going to put up a couple of shelves in the "Studio". Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

- Andrew

Me, me, me, other people, me.

There seems to have been a fair amount of confusion about my last post. I was trying to describe a particular way that I've been feeling lately, and maybe I assumed on behalf of the reader a little too much familiarity with my own thought processes, or even deliberately got a little obscure to amuse myself. I think I do that sometimes. I am convinced that if I could have just posted that John Lennon song like I wanted to, all miscommunication would have been avoided, music being the universal language and all. Anyway, I don't think I did a very good job of conveying what I was trying to convey, and then I kind of got drawn into an argument about it, which is pretty crazy when you think about it, since arguing about the way you feel is like trying to disprove a headcold. And now I feel like maybe I should just let it be and move on. But instead, I'm going to try to simplify and clarify the description of my personal and moral mood, at the risk of boring/annoying/confusing everyone further. Maybe that makes me an indulgent, egomaniacal jerk. But then again, this is my public diary, and what the hell else am I going to write about? If you don't like it you can go and read someone else's blog, or better yet a good book. I recommend The Life of Pi, which Johanna gave me for my birthday and into which I'm just starting to delve at bedtime with Alison.

So, here's all I was trying to say: I try each day to make my life one of joy, wisdom, compassion, and, above all, awareness. And by "awareness" I mean a pre-linguistic, pre-cognitive, consciousness of what's actually going on at any given moment, before it gets bent into some already recognized shape by thought and language. I believe that this trying is the best kind of life I can make, not only for myself, but for the world around me, especially as such awareness actually breaks down the mental distinctions between myself and the world around me. That's what's with all the yoga and meditation. Sometimes I am better at it than other times. Lately I've been feeling like it's been going kind of all right.

But then when I look at the state of the world, I become disappointed and frustrated that there doesn't seem to be enough like-minded effort going on elsewhere. Most of the stuff that happens on a large scale seems to be caused by people either a) being overly concerned with maintaining the status quo or b) desperately avoiding facing the reality of their own and other people's lives. And b) is probably just a consequence of a), since confronting an unpleasant status quo would mean doing something to change it. But that's fine. I can deal with that. It's a pitiable state of affairs, but it's probably always been like that, and I certainly don't blame anyone personally. After all, it's very easy, and often even advantageous, from an evolutionary standpoint, to filter out what we don't want to see. And it only becomes easier the more technology and entertainment we happily heap onto ourselves. I'm as guilty of it as anyone.

However, we're now reaching this state where the physical world itself is showing the effects of all our avoidance and self-distraction, and these effects may not be reversible. The two most obvious examples: i) Average global temperatures have as a direct result of human culture risen faster than anyone thought they would, and are causing much faster, much more permanent damage than anyone thought they would. ii) The very finite and irreplaceable amount of fossil fuels left in the earth is rapidly approaching zero and almost no headway has been made on what we will do when they're gone. Surprisingly, we're not even building enough nuclear power plants to take on the extra load, let alone getting cost-efficient "clean" energy sources up and running.

It seems that things are probably going to get very, very bad for the human race in just a couple of generations, and we may all in fact be completely obliterated in a few generations after that. If we're going to do anything about it, it has to be done fast, assuming it's not already too late. I.e., the status quo is glaringly NOT WORKING, and will in fact change itself for the worse, no matter how much we try to maintain it. But we're not, as a culture, very good at facing up to problems that are not affecting us directly at the moment, or at changing our collective mind about things quickly. In fact, we've set up systems with the express purpose of PREVENTING ourselves from changing our collective mind quickly. This is the feeling of frustration and disappointment I've lately been trying to overcome.

I wondered "aloud" (atype?) in my last post, half in jest, whether the best way to overcome these feelings wasn't to just think of the matter objectively, and see our species as merely one unimportant, dead-end phase in the long history of the universe. So there'll be no more humans. Big deal. Might as well have a good time while we're still around. Maybe our downfall will even prove (to whom?) a complicated mathematical theorem that I barely understand myself and almost surely should not have brought up in a bit of light writing for the general public. That was the kind of stance I was starting to feel like I should take toward the whole predicament. But I think that this kind of nihilistic attitude is exactly the same as the cultural problem that's giving me a hard time. Turning away from possible solutions and thinking only of myself is not going to help anything, and is in fact going to add to the ugly mess. Besides, I really like us humans, warts and all, and I can't pretend I wouldn't be sad to see us eliminated. We have such great potential. Sure, we blow it a lot of the time, but that's part of what makes us so gosh-darn lovable.

Maybe we won't be able to get out of this one. I really don't know. But if there's any hope for us, it's going to consist in compassionate, non-judgmental awareness of ourselves and each other, so that's what I'm going to keep trying to develop in myself and put out there. Even if it's a completely futile endeavour, at least it makes me generally happy. And if the fact that most people are not trying to develop such awareness in themselves sometimes makes me less happy, I can feel sadness and sympathy that there are unfulfilling lives being lived, rather than anger that I can't do more about it.

And now, since Castpost seems to be gone for good and I still haven't found any other way to post sound files (without paying for a subscription), I recommend you track down and listen to Tomita's 1974 electronic version of Claude Debussy's "The Girl with the Flaxen Hair". Such beauty, ingenuity, rapture, and existential longing... It makes me feel completely alone and completely connected at the same time, like when you lie on a beach at night and look up at the stars. And it'll do the same for YOU.

- Andrew

Music, Mystery, and Magyck

Seems like there's been so much going on around here there hasn't even been time to blog about it. I've played a couple of shows as a bassist with Al Tuck now. The first one was pretty awful and humiliating, as I really hadn't rehearsed enough. There was one song that was in a different key from what I had written in my cheat notes and I finally had to give up playing random notes in the hopes that some would be right, and just stand on stage watching Al play the song instead. Luckily, there were no more than forty people in the audience anyway.

The second one was on Thursday and it went a lot better. We had a keyboard player with us, which really filled out the sound nicely. Too bad there were even less people at that show. But once the word gets out about this fantastic band he's got backing him...

Alison has started teaching her class again. Seems like a similar bunch of people to last time. But she's a little better organized this time around, and a little less nervous. Now if she can just figure out a way to make them do their homework.

["God" by John Lennon belongs here. I can't put it on yet because Castpost is down for maintenance. Grrr. Please hum it quietly to yourself while reading the following paragraph.]

This song has been in my head a lot lately, so I thought I'd put it on the old bloggio. It's kind of how I feel these days: a combination of Richard Dawkins' unyielding atheism and Krishnamurti's distrust of all spiritual precepts. I'm quite content right now to go around trying to find my own answers to the great and not so great mysteries, and undiscouraged if they're not forthcoming. The meaning's all in the search. (I like, by the way, how "Beatles" is the most shocking thing Lennon can think of not to believe in. I guess it probably was at the time.)

It is kind of bothering me, though, that most people seem unwilling to take their own searches very seriously. Not in an individual way, mind you: I completely sympathize with how much effort is required of a person to constantly question the nature of things in this powerful self-propagating culture we've created, even given the belief that the unquestioned life is ultimately meaningless. More in an oh-no-the-entire-world-is-screwed-unless-everybody-starts-thinking-very-differently-and-I-don't-think-it's-going-to-happen-soon-enough kind of way.

Maybe the answer is to think of the human species as a failed evolutionary experiment. Or a biological example of Gödel's incompleteness theorem, which states that any mathematical system powerful enough to express anything interesting will be able to express propositions about itself that prove it either internally inconsistent or incomplete (i.e. unable to express other propositions that it should be able to express, because they would render it inconsistent). The biological analogue would be that any species smart enough to communicate intelligence intergenerationally will evolve ideas that either conflict with the species' own evolution or prove that it is not really all that smart after all. It's all language's fault, I'm convinced. Maybe homo mutiens will have a better go of it.

So, what else is going on? I'm working on some tunage with a couple of guys I've played with before, and that's hopefully going to develop into a serious musical project. More bass. I'm really having a fun time playing bass, so far. Could be I've finally found my instrument. Or more likely I've finally found my instrument of this week. I've also been contributing to some collaborative recording that Rich is working on. Speaking of which, it looks like the band is going to get to play at South-by-Southwest in Austin in March! We'll be down there for three days. If the other two times we've gone down are anything to go by, that'll be a complete blast. I'm already having olfactory hallucinations of cheap and delicious Tex-Mex.

I had a performance review at my job on Friday, which went very well. Nothing really to tell there. The work continues to be suspiciously fun and Satan has had no complaints yet about the soul he's been purchasing on layaway from me. Sorry, that sounds like I'm being insultingly metaphorical. Please understand that I'm talking about the ACTUAL Satan, and not any mere mortals.


Speaking of underworld-dwellers, we went to see Pan's Labyrinth with Meg and our friends Ron and Kristina on Friday. It was pretty good, I guess. Quite violent in the "realistic" parts. I don't know, maybe I'm missing some fantasy-enjoying neuron or something, because I just can't seem to get into the genre. I have no particular bone to pick with it or anything, but the fairy tales for adults just never really do anything for me. Is it the linearity of the plots? Their heavy-handed allegorical nature? Or the fact that once magic has been introduced to a story all restrictions are effectively removed, making surprise impossible because ironically anything is possible? I can't say. But, as I said, I have no bone to pick with the infantile, unicorn-and-fairy-loving genre.

That's enough for now. Gonna go play some MYOOOOOOO-zik! Cheers.

- Andrew

I am a woman of few words.

Since Wednesday, the coldest friggin' day ever, we've been up to a lot¹, and have seen many weather changes. Today, however, the deep freeze was turned back on. Brrr!


Dana, it was great having you here - we miss you!


Jason, where are you? Not that you can read this now, but it would be nice to see you again before you leave.

I start teaching again this week at the community college. The sole fact that I'm actually blogging right now should give away how successfully I'm putting off getting ready for it! haha.

¹ Mostly the yoozh with some extra talking and beer drinking thrown in there. Not really enough to warrant a footnote, but whatev.

-Ali

Minus Thirty-Four with Windchill!

What the hell, man? We haven't had any cold weather all winter, and now suddenly this? I think my sister and her husband brought it up from Ontario. All the way to work this morning I was thinking of these lines from a song of mine:

This winter morning is a dream.
Look at the harbour: it's a bowl of steam.

I guess it didn't seem as enchanting on the way home tonight, because all I could think about then was this poem by Alden Nowlan:

Canadian January Night

Ice storm: the hill
a pyramid of black crystal
down which the cars
slide like phosphorescent beetles
while I, walking backwards in obedience
to the wind, am possessed
of the fearful knowledge
my compatriots share
but almost never utter:
this is a country
where a man can die
simply from being
caught outside.

- Andrew

What's New:

I'm playing music with real people again, twice a week.

My sister's coming to town for a visit in three days.

There is snow here.

The jeans I'm wearing.

I read a passage in a Jon Kabat-Zinn book that got me re-motivated about keeping up my daily yoga and meditation practice, which from infrequency had started seeming like just work:
"If, from the meditative perspective, everything you are seeking is already here, even if it is difficult to wrap your thinking mind around that concept, if there really is no need to acquire anything or attain anything or improve yourself, if you are already whole and complete and by that same virtue so is the world, then why on earth bother meditating? Why would we want to cultivate mindfulness in the first place? ... [O]ne reason we might want to practice mindfulness is that most of the time we are unwittingly praciticing its opposite. Every time we get angry we get better at being angry and reinforce the anger habit. ... Every time we become self-absorbed, we get better at becoming self-absorbed and going unconscious. ... Practice does make perfect. Without awareness of anger or of self-absorption, or ennui, or any other mind state that can take us over when it arises, we reinforce those synaptic networks within the nervous system that underlie our conditioned behaviors and mindless habits, and from which it becomes increasingly difficult to disentangle ourselves, if we are even aware of what is happening at all."

The video to the Shins single Phantom Limb, from their third album, which comes out January 23. I can't wait! Well, I can and I am in the sense that I refuse to download the record and listen to it before it arrives in stores, but it's a serious struggle.

The sweater I'm wearing.

We saw this display in a basement window of the house beside the vacant lot that used to hold the house that Paul Gailiunas and Helen Hill used to live in, before they moved away and it subsequently burned down. I'm assuming it's in tribute to her. The black figure is a stuffed crow.


My favourite internet radio station: KUSF from San Francisco.

- Andrew

Bad Start to Oh Seven

Before I start ranting at you, here's a couple of pictures of us with Jeff in Toronto, like I promised ya.


This arms-length self-portrait was taken as the streetcar was opening it's door and the driver (conductor?) was waiting for me and Ali to get on. Hence the quickly formed, ill-conceived facial expressions and composition. I think I look kind of like Harpo Marx.

And by the way, we're both feeling a lot better now. Turned out to be just a cold, but what a roller coaster of a one! Every time I thought it was over, there was some new symptom ready to show itself. Now that we're healthy again, it's time to get back into shape. We had our first yoga class of the season tonight, and it felt pretty great. Made me realize how quickly I can lose flexibility, though.

So, right now this whole city is very bummed out, as its favourite ex-patriates, Paul Gailiunas and Helen Hill were victims of a random shooting at the front door of their home in New Orleans. Paul is OK and Helen is dead. It's really one of the most tragic things you can think of, as they were known by everyone as the friendliest, nicest, most socially-conscious and giving people imaginable. Many have remarked that if the gunman was looking for money, all he had to do was ask and they would have gladly handed over everything they own. They were a huge inspiration that was immediately missed when they left Halifax for New Orleans a few years ago. I hardly knew them at all, but I feel like they still managed to inspire even me immensely, just by their positive presence in the city. I think most people who had any contact with them at all when they lived here feel the same way. I guess there's going to be some sort of memorial type activity for Helen this weekend.

In other random violence news, more and more people keep getting attacked on The Commons at night. It's happened to a couple of people I know now. A group of junior high school-aged boys waits for someone to come along when no one else is around, and then beats them up. The boys usually don't take anything, either, satisfied with just getting some aggression out. It's quite sickening.

And finally, drivers' contemptuous, if cognizant at all, attitude toward cyclists and pedestrians continues to escalate. No one stops at crosswalks anymore, for instance, unless you actually step out in front of them, and then they act like you are a maniac for stepping out in front of a moving car. Usually they will actually speed up if they see you waiting. Corners are supposed to be the same as a crosswalk, pedestrian-wise, but you can forget about that unless you actually do have a deathwish. And I just heard about a friend of a friend whose leg was broken by a woman starting into an intersection, without looking, after stopping at a stop sign. The woman asked the manglee whether she was all right, and then drove off when an answer was not immediately forthcoming.

It's a difficult time for theists, that's all I can say.

- Andrew

Sickos!

Ali and I both seem to have come down with some kind of cold or flu. It's pretty bad, and has been keeping us home from work. Blah. Some people who've had it say it lasts 3 weeks! Others are saying it could be strep throat or mono. Jeez, man, I hope not.

Not much has happened since the last post. We got to see Jeff for a few hours. That was a good time. I'll put some pictures up next post. He told me about this MySpace-for-books site, to which I'm now completely addicted. I bought The God Delusion and ate it up in a couple of days. It's a highly entertaining and persuasive read, but don't pick it up unless you're prepared to start proudly wearing an "Atheist" badge around town.

New Year's Eve was a bit non-existent as we were in the initial stages of this illness. We did visit Krista and some of her friends upstairs for awhile, though. Then on New Year's Day we went to see Almodovar's latest, Volver with Johanna and Meg. Not so great, really. The story was pretty boring, and relied heavily on Penelope Cruz's bosom to maintain interest.

Now it's back to work and the usual routine, which is actually kind of nice. Or will be, once we actually go into work. And now, back to bed for the twentieth time today.

- Andrew [cough, cough]