Well, It's Public Knowledge Now

I guess I can let the cat out of the bag, for anyone who hasn't heard yet. We're moving to Wolfville! I got a job at Acadia University, being their one-man graphic design department. I start August 18, which means I have less than three weeks to figure out where I'm going to live and move my stuff there, and one of those weeks will be spent in Montreal, seeing Radiohead and visiting my grandparents, so there's a certain amount of hecticity involved in this big life change. But it's also super exciting.

I interviewed for the job early last week, on another week-long vacation. Little did I know going down there that I was the only person being considered. My friend and old coworker, Hannah, has until now been the designer, and she recommended me as a replacement. She's leaving to become an RCMP officer. I owe her big time for that one. We took the shuttle bus down the night before and stayed overnight at her apartment (and met her stinky blind cat). Then I met my boss-to-be first thing in the morning and found out that the job was a near certainty.

We spent the rest of the day wandering around Wolfville, imagining it as our home. Felt pretty good. Especially when we checked out Acadia's botanical gardens. They're quite spectacular. We saw a ring-necked pheasant, which we took to be a good omen.

Official word came via email Wednesday, while we were in PEI visiting our friends Jennifer and Tom at their cottage. You may remember that we stayed with them around this time last year. This year was every bit as pleasant and relaxing.




MacKenzie is growing into quite a clever and charming girl, and Lennox remains a clever and charming cat.




(This last photo was actually taken the day after we got back. No one photographed the photographer in PEI.)

Anyway, I accepted and then wasn't able to give notice to my boss until Monday of this week, meaning that my two weeks includes a week of vacation time. I guess it would have anyway, come to think of it. I sweated and fretted about it all throughout the night before, and then wasn't able to get him alone until 3:00 in the afternoon. I thought I might explode from nervous anticipation. But he was incredibly nice about the whole thing. Today it was announced to all my coworkers, most of whom will be sorry to see me go.

It'll be hard to leave all our great friends behind. But it is only an hour outside of Halifax, and Alison's working on getting her driver's license. We may even have to get a car. Alison's going to keep working at her government job here a couple of days a week, and I know I'll want to come in somewhat frequently for band rehearsals and shows and softball games and the like. I am, though, quite looking forward to having more time alone, without a lot of other people's projects hovering around and tempting me not to work on my own.

- Andrew

?=0?

We recently had an uninvited visitor in our house. We never saw him, but he left us a present in one of our cooking pots. It was the size of an olive pit. We didn't know what to do and decided to hope that it had just been our imagination. Then the next day he left us two presents in the same place. We called our landlady, and she immediately sent over her maintenance guy, Bernie, who put steel wool in all the holes between the basement and the main floor and set a bunch of traps in the basement, loaded with peanut butter.

I guess our guest liked peanut butter, because two days later we found another present in our kitchen — this time from Bernie. It was a message written on the back of his business card: "1 down ? to go." He came back to check the traps another two days later and no more had been set off. A third two days' wait brought the same happy story. We hope that's the end of the episode. Pretty easy to deal with, I must say. There are perks to renting.

- Andrew

Deerhoof

So good. SO so good.

- Andrew

Summer Shenanigans

Oh, dang, I'm already not keeping this up like I thought I would. Still busy, still having a good time. We just got in from a staff barbecue at my coworker's fabulous new house in Tantallon. It was fun and there was lots of good food, but then a three-out-of-tune-acoustic-guitar jam broke out and it got pretty painful at the end. Lots of earnest and loud Red Hot Chili Peppers and U2. I very seriously considered whether it would be worth the price of a new guitar to grab one of them and smash it on the floor in front of everyone. If not for the fact that everyone I work with would have hated me after that, I totally would have gone for it.

I've been going to the Public Gardens for lunch a lot, trying to get some quiet nature and sanity to break up my hectic day. Sometimes I bring Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, which I highly recommend if you're in the mood for some life advice/wisdom that manages to be profound, uncompromising, and uplifting. I was in there one day, sitting by the duck pond, reading and very much enjoying a Tony Millionaire's Sock Monkey comic that my mom kindly sent me in the mail a propos of nothing, when who should wander by but my sister's old friend and fellow Blogger, Jen, visiting from England! I probably wouldn't have recognized her and was caught completely off guard, so I was not the world's greatest conversationalist. Nice to see her and her family, though.

Another face from the past I got to see recently was Ken Shorley>, playing a Jazz Festival show with Sanctuary, who are always great. Ken added some percussion to what is usually a very arhythmic and drone-y experience, making for a mind-blowing, semi-hallucinatory set of improvised psychedelic ambience. We got to chat with — gush over, really — him a little afterward and meet his wife Heidi. He was playing another show the next night with his band Talambra, but I ended up being too busy to go. However, there's a trip to Wolfville, where they live, planned soon, so maybe we'll get to see them again then.

As of tonight I'm officially on vacation for a week. On Wednesday we go to PEI to stay at Jenny and Tom's cottage for a few days, but before that there's an Al Tuck matinee show to play, a Deerhoof show to attend (I know! Deerhoof in Halifax! How the heck did THAT ever happen?), a website to design, a softball game to play, and a secret other out-of-town excursion for as yet undisclosable purposes.

And on that suspenseful note, I bid you... mmgoodnight!

- Andrew

Happy Birthday, Jeff!

- Andrew

Gimme That Keyboard...

It's gotten to the point that so many things have happened since the last time I posted on here that I've been dreading doing this. And every day it only gets worse. Feels like when I was back in school, working on a philosophy paper, and every new article I read would only complicate the issue further, while the deadline got closer. Well, I'm not going to let it cripple me like it sometimes would in those days. But don't expect an A+ report.

Alison had a birthday almost a month ago. We had a great time with a bunch of friends hanging out at Point Pleasant Park by the mouth of the Northwest Arm in the evening. Barbecued some grub, drank some beers, played some frisbee, listened to the radio, and talked until the sun went down. There was even a cake. All right, Alison did make it herself, but I helped with the frosting.


I gave Ali a bike for her birthday, and we've been riding around all over the place together. That day we rode over to our friends Joan and Jason's to help them move out of their apartment. They left for Charlottetown that afternoon. Hope that's working out well for them. I'll be playing a show there with The Lodge next month.

Last month we played the much discussed and little attended show on the wharf in Lower Prospect. There were probably fewer than forty people there, but everyone had a real good time. The locals had picked 120 pounds of mussels the day before, and there were barbecued hots and hams to go with them. Bloodsport played a really great set in the psychedelic fog and we played an all right one. Charles and his family took off into the fog on a boat during the opening set and there was some question whether we'd have a guitarist, but they got back just as Bloodsport were finishing. Didn't make much coin, but we each got a gift certificate for a 2-hour kayak outing.

There's been quite a lot of music recording going on too. The Lodge are finishing up our first set of songs, which will probably be released as some sort of EP. I think we'll put some vocals on tomorrow night. The last session for Al Tuck's next record happened a few weeks ago, to the delight of everyone involved. We'd recorded some of those songs probably twenty times, in as many different styles. On Canada Day we played a set at an outdoor afternoon show with him. The weather was perfect and we got to play under a big tree, so it hardly even mattered that my bass had broken and I had to borrow a fretless one, which I've never played before. Meanwhile, I've been collaborating at home on a couple of tracks with Buck 65, via email. He sent me some stuff he'd been working on that was so far just rhythm and a bit of melody, and I got to flesh it out harmonically with some chord changes and modal tricks. Pretty fun stuff. And finally, I'll be going into the CBC studios in a week to lay down some wacky keyboard sounds on Erin Costelo's next album, which so far sounds really great. Oh, and I'll also be playing a show with her as part of the Atlantic Jazz Festival the following Sunday.

Alison got into the Viewpoint Gallery, I think you knew that. She put a couple of pieces up for sale on the weekend and tonight we went there to see the opening of another member's month-long show. I looked around and am happy to report that Ali's pieces are better than most of the other stuff in there, with a few notable exceptions. Maybe I'm a little biased. But I do know my Photoshop, and I can tell you that some of the photographers in there don't entirely know what they're doing yet. Or else they just don't like things to look natural. I blame Scott Kelby.

Life hasn't been all work, either. In case you were getting worried that we're turning into Jack Nicholson in The Shining. There's been plenty of fun summer parties, softball, and concerts. The Sadies played at the Marquee and blew everyone's minds with their reliable high energy and rock prowess. After a very very long set, they left the stage, only to return about two minutes later and say, "Thanks very much. We'd like to play ten more songs for you." Which they did. Deerhoof will be playing the same venue in a few weeks, a show I've been looking forward to for months now. Should be a really fun night, especially as it'll mark the beginning of a week-long vacation for me. Then I return to work for a week before taking off for another week, this time to Montreal to see Radiohead. I love the summer.

And now we've become quite addicted to Battlestar Galactica. The new one. Charles recommended it, as had other people, and so we finally broke down and rented the first season to see what all the fuss is about. Turns out it's pretty darn good. I probably don't have to tell you this because we're probably the last people on earth who haven't seen it. Or maybe we're not and I do. It's a "reimagining" of the original series. In this one, the Cylons were created by humans and then turned against them. A truce was reached and they went off on their own for forty years and evolved themselves and their culture. Now they look like humans and are ready to kick real humans' collective butt. Some of them don't know that they're not human. Their ships don't have pilots, but are themselves a different kind of Cylon — part mechanical and part biological. Oh, and they believe in God. The humans have a more ancient Greek, polytheistic religion. Starbuck and Boomer are women! The president of the colonies is a woman who was the Education Minister and therefore the highest ranking member of government when the Cylons wiped out most of humanity! The story is told in a documentary, militaristic style, and shot like The Office — especially the fights in space!! It's cool, I tells ya.

OK, that should be enough to get me back on the webhorse. See you back at the e-ranch.

- Andrew

Buster can type!

Hiya, folks!
Here's a link to where Ali's portfolio is temporarily residing while she attempts to make a website:
http://alisonbeckett.viewbook.com/portfolio
Check it out, why don'tcha?

Upcoming Show

Been busy lately working on this...



- Andrew

I'm in!

I found out on my birthday that I have been accepted to the Viewpoint! Yay! Thanks everybody for your support and kind words. I know I was pretty stressed out (read: beeotchy) for the last few weeks leading up to the deadline. Fun Ali is back!!

I did it!

Today I submitted my portfolio to the Viewpoint Gallery on Barrington Street. It is an artist run co-op for photographers with a beautiful gallery space right downtown! I'll let you know how it turns out as soon as I hear anything. Wish me luck!! Here are a couple of samples of what they will see:


These images are from my trip to Saskatchewan in 2006. The red building is an old grain elevator in Hepburn where my Mom grew up. The elevator is now called The Museum of Wheat.


These two photos are from Higgins Beach in Maine. Hannah didn't know I was taking this picture but she made an excellent model.

Ali xoxo

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Two days ago, that is.

- Andrew

Feeding the Interbeast

Hi, blog. Sorry I've been neglecting you. I have been legitimately busy, though, with real life stuff. Not that real life is more important than the documenting thereof. I would never suggest that. But you know what I mean, blog. Right? Geez, don't be so sensitive.

First of all, here's a photo from the previously mentioned The Lodge show, which proves that I was actually there as a participant. On the video all you can see of me is my right hand, but I'm the one going DUNNNNN-DUNN-DUNN DUGGA-DUNNNN DUGGA-DUGGA-DUNN.


The Lodge is currently recording. Drums are all done. It's going to sound pretty great.

Some other photo news is that Alison (with some help from me and our friend Chris) put together a portfolio of her photography this weekend, in order to apply for membership at a cooperative photo gallery in town. It looks really, REALLY good, and I can't see any reason why they wouldn't invite her right in and ask her to please put together a solo show. It's quite exciting to see so many great photos she's taken all together in one spot, and very nicely displayed.

Other, less high quality photo news is that I finally got those pinhole photos we took weeks ago scanned and fixed them up a little bit. Most of the stuff was unfortunately either completely overexposed or not exposed at all. I'm thinking some people's film was not turning properly on the spool when wound. But a few of my shots turned out OK, especially the ones I took at Johanna's choir's performance in a church. Here are the best:




We went to see Bob Dylan on Wednesday with Johanna, and also Krista. I have to say it kind of stunk. To be fair, his singing was better and less predictable than the one other time I saw him (i.e. he didn't sing every song using the exact same two-note interval relentlessly). But the band backing him up was incredibly bland: buncha session guys doing their best impression of the Blues Brothers, circa Jim Belushi. And Bob himself was playing this cheesy Casio organ thing that I believe he stole from a roller rink. It felt like we were on some kind of seniors' cruise most of the time. Apparently lots of people loved it, though, because we found ourselves forced into a standing ovation at the end.

Finally, I'm happy to report that I'm over the withdrawal from caffeine and feeling pretty fine, thank you very much. It took about a week. My energy level seems to be more consistent over the course of an average day now, less manic. And getting out of bed is easier when the alarm goes off. Today I pitched the first two games of the softball season, and I didn't fall asleep once. We still lost, though.

OK, blog? Are we pals again? You know I have other friends I have to see from time to time, but you'll always be my favouritest.

- Andrew

Shave and a Haircut...

Two bits of news. The first is that we got a new computer. It's pretty great. Runs like a dream and looks beautiful. I've never actually bought a brand new computer before. Feels weird to be on the cutting edge. It has a built in camera with which I can take hilarious pictures like this of myself. And the new Apple keyboard is a gorgeous feat of engineering and design. It's about 1/4" thick and the keys are all separated from each other and stand up about 1/8 of an inch from the metal base, so there's nowhere for corn flake crumbs and mysteriously long hairs to get lost. Keys have a satisfying and gentle "plip" to them. I am gonna miss those Helvetica Compressed Oblique characters they've had for so long, though.

The other piece of news is that I've given up coffee. It was my last addictive vice, and I finally decided it had to go. I'd rather feel the way I'm supposed to feel, instead of tricking my body into feeling the way I'd prefer it to feel at the expense of it forgetting how to feel that way by itself. However, that said, I am so far generally quite sluggish and full of aches and pains I didn't know about. It's quite amazing and frightening how different two cups a day has made me. I'm not sure how long it'll take to get through the withdrawal period, but it is slowly getting better. I find the differences between nicotine and caffeine addictions very interesting. One of the big tricks to overcoming a nicotine "habit" is to notice that the feeling of "needing" a cigarette is not actually any kind of physical pain or even really discomfort that you can locate anywhere in the body, but just an intense DESIRE. Whereas caffeine withdrawal seems to be the opposite: I have no primary desire to drink a cup of coffee, except insofar as I know it would relieve all this physical pain and exhaustion I feel.

OK, there is actually one more piece of news, which is that The Lodge played their second show on Saturday, and it was superior in every way to the first. Having made our debut, there was less pressure and fear that we might blow it, so we could spend more energy just rocking out. We all had a really great time, and so did the audience. I'm kind of itching to play again as soon as possible now. Here's a frustratingly short clip, courtesy of Cliff's mom's cell phone.



- Andrew

Old Guy Type Stuff

Hmm. I seem to be down to three posts a month. Does this mean my life is slowly winding down and I'll soon be ready for the scrap heap? I hope not.

I am definitely feeling like an old man at work lately. Pretty much everyone is a lot younger than me, and they're all constantly yammering about some stupid new TV show or how drunk they got at the Liquordome or how many facebooks they have on their cell phone or something. I try to just ignore them and do my work instead of pointing out the errors of their naïve and shallow motives, but sometimes it's hard. Especially if I haven't had a nap recently.

Luckily, I've got the old Rock 'n Roll to keep me somewhat youthful. (Does 'n,' meaning 'and,' take one apostrophe or two? Alison and I were arguing about this the other day. There are letters dropped on both sides of the 'n,' but if you use two apostrophes it ends up looking like quotation marks. Except that the first one would be upside down. But nobody knows that these days. They'd probably just think you're trying to be ironic. And anyway, look at "won't". Not only are there extra letters dropped that are not indicated by apostrophes, but there's an 'o' that's appeared out of nowhere! What's up with that? I'm sticking with my one apostrophe before. I have seen it, rarely, with just one AFTER the 'n', but, to me, that would be pronounced "nuh," rather than "uhn". Yeah, that one's just totally wrong.) The Lodge has a second show coming up this Saturday, and we haven't had a rehearsal since the last one, so there'll definitely be some practising going on this week. We don't really have anything recorded, except rehearsals using one microphone, but as there has been so much demand from the virtual fanbase to hear something, anything — well, here's a song. It's from our last rehearsal before the first show. The ending is messed up, but you get the gist of it. Hope I don't get in trouble for this.

Last Sunday was International Pinhole Camera Day. Don't know if anyone was aware of that. Alison and Meg and our friend Chris and I all made scrappy little cameras out of Altoid mint tins. There was a bit of a long process to it, but it was fun. Then I went to see Johanna's choir perform in a church while the rest of them wandered around taking pictures. I got some shots of the choir and audience by setting the tin on a ledge and leaving it for three to four minutes. Indoor lighting = super long exposures. I wish I had some of the results to show you, but unfortunately we haven't been able to scan the negatives yet. The photo place was unable to make prints because the images take up too much length on the film, and the scanning has been problematic for the same reason. But I can see that there's definitely some good stuff on there. Verrrry panoramic and spooky looking. Here's some photos taken by other Canadian pinhole enthusiasts, to tide you over till I can get this sorted out. I kind of think the B&W stuff looks best.

Ali and I had a brainstorming session with our friend Matt last night, regarding this really great comic book idea we have. The three of us will all be working on it together. I don't really want to give away any details yet, but we managed to get quite a lot of the story hashed out. It was a lot of fun and I think the finished product will be quite impressive. Assuming I live that long.

We watched a movie the other night about a once famous novelist approaching death; maybe that's part of why I'm into this old man persona right now. It was called Starting Out in the Evening and was very very good. The old guy, Frank Langella, was especially watchable.

Now we're into the Cosmos box set. I can't believe it's been thirty years since that show aired. Man, was it ever great. I haven't seen it since then, and I'd forgotten how inspirational it was to me at the time. I remember now that my friends Blaine and Darren and I in grade six would come to school the day after an episode had been on and pretty much talk about it all day. I also remember giving an in-class presentation whose theme was "You're Crazy If You Think There's Not Other Life Somewhere Out There in the Universe," which seems to be one of the two major themes of the show. The other one is "You're Crazy If You Think You Need Religion or Superstition or Really Anything Beyond Science to Be Totally Awestruck by How Incredibly, Mind-Blowingly Vast and Complex and Beautiful Life and the Universe Are — I Mean, Just Look at Carl Sagan's Eyes Popping Out of His Turtlenecked Head As He Gets All Excited and Quasimystical Telling Us About This Wonderful Stuff. He Is INTO It, Man." I hope he's still admiring it all in some dimension out there.

- Andrew

Peaks and Troughs

The show last week went really well. Really well. We were all kind of nervous and somewhat stiff, but hardly any actual mistakes were made and lots of people seemed to really enjoy it. The photos are less than spectacular, but at least they're proof that it actually happened.



Here's a poster I've made for our next show. See if you can figure out the meaning behind the somewhat abstract design.


I think I kind of crashed after the weekend of rock last week. I've been getting up late a lot this week, and generally being sort of lazy and eating food that's not very good for me. As a result I've been somewhat cranky and non-accepting of my work situation, which of course only makes me crankier. Good thing Alison is very understanding and patient. But now a few good nights' sleep, a rash of beautiful spring weather, and an intense yoga class seem to have gotten me back on course.

Yesterday was especially gorgeous. Literally everyone and his dog was walking up and down the streets with a smile on his face and a song in his heart. Many were in premature but forgivable shorts (which I thought looked kind of ridiculous on the dogs but wasn't about to tell people how to dress their pets). We got all inspired and cleaned the garbage out of the sun room. Then I washed and tuned up my bike in the back yard while Alison raked and weeded around me. Runs like a dream now!

Today there was a softball practice, as predicted. Tim couldn't make it, and in fact hardly anyone from BPY showed up, but there were plenty of guys from the Propeller team there and we got some good batting and fielding in. It was not exactly warm, so I can't blame people for not wanting to come out. But judging from the four of us who made it, I'd say we're looking pretty good.

- Andrew

Buzz 2

Well, it looks like we'll be going to the Montreal show, since the Toronto one was sold out two seconds after the tickets went on sale. Of course, there were many people online who had "accidentally" bought too many tickets and were willing to offload them for the low price of four hundred dollars. Friggin' Toronto!

- Andrew

Buzz

Big show tonight. The Lodge will debut at Gus' Pub. I played there last night with Al Tuck. It was fun. They have a new stage that's higher up, so you can see it from more of the bar, and it has a background of seventies wallpaper that looks like an autumnal forest scene. I can't wait to get up there again and blow some minds with this heavy riffage.

I've been getting an average of five hours' sleep a night for about a week and it is taking a serious toll on me. Yesterday my head felt crazy all day and I was acting like a bit of a weirdo at work. It was such a relief to get to bed last night at around 3:30. I'll probably go back to sleep this morning pretty soon, but right now I'm waiting for Radiohead tickets to go on sale, in twenty-two minutes. They're playing in August in Montreal and Toronto, and we need to buy tickets to both shows as it's undetermined so far which one we'll be going to. But we're definitely going to see them, one way or another, and make a week-long vacation out of it with some friends. Pretty exciting.

Work is somewhat hellish, but art and life at the homestead more than make up for it. Plus, spring has poked its head out of the clouds and seems to like what it sees. I've been riding my bike to work and taking long walks at lunch. Next weekend will be the first time out throwing a baseball around. Tim, the founder of our softball team, has moved back to town, so I'm quite looking forward to the season. Alison's full of cool ideas for new photo serieses, and I've got some songs trying to burst out of me. All in all, life is good.

Twelve minutes left now. Gotta go warm up my mouse-clicking finger. Talk again soon.

- Andrew

The Boring and the Weird

Andrew: I haven't posted on the old blog for some time now, and I feel like I need to update folks about what we've been up to lately, but I can't really think of anything interesting. Seems like we haven't been doing much of ANYTHING.

Alison: You could tell them we've been watching the entire series of Twin Peaks.

Andrew: Yeah, that's true. It was pretty exciting to find all thirty hour-long episodes on DVD, and then find out you get it for a whole month when you rent it...

Alison: Would you tell them how we felt compelled to go out and buy a dozen doughnuts after watching Agent Cooper scarf them down for a few episodes, and then spent all of Good Friday in front of the TV, eating doughnuts and drinking coffee?

Andrew: Hmm. I don't think I'd want to admit to that.

Alison: Yeah, I guess it's not really a good example of something interesting you could write about.

Andrew: Plus the episodes are getting so boring now! I can't believe they reveal who Laura's killer is only halfway through the series. The remaining subplots are pretty lame, although David Duchovny as a transvestite is quite funny. Still, I don't know if I can make it through another ten hours.

Ali: Yeah... I know! You could talk about your upcoming show.

And: That is kind of exciting, but there's not much to say about it. "The band finally has a name. The Lodge. Our first show's April 10th."

Ali: True. And it's not exactly happening now, either.

And: What about the Garageband experiments I've been doing?

Ali: What about them?

And: Well, I never bothered checking out that piece of recording software before, because I always considered it kind of a toy, but then I finally thought, "What's wrong with checking out a toy? I like having fun with music," and now I'm putting together some things I might not have come up with otherwise.

Ali: Yeah that's pretty good, I guess...

And: It'd be better, though, if I actually had a finished recording I could post as evidence.

Ali: Yeah.

And: Yeah.

Ali: Maybe it's not so exciting hearing how someone else is excited about a creative endeavour. What if you talked about all the changes that are going on at your job?

And: Now even I'm getting bored!

Ali: Come on! It's pretty interesting that the whole workplace was renovated, and now you have five people and a puppy in your office, which is twice the size it used to be. Plus there's a new creative director and they're supposed to be hiring another graphic designer.

And: Yeah, I hope it ends up being our friend Chris.

Ali: Me too. That would be so great.

And: But I think I might have already talked about some of that stuff. And I can't go into too much detail about work 'cause it's the internet and you never know who's going to be reading it.

Ali: Oh what, you think one of your millions of fans might get some confidential dirt on the fascinating goings-on at your workplace?

And: Ouch!

Ali: I'm just kidding.

And: I know.

Ali: Ummm... the radio shows we've been listening to?

And: Jonathan Goldstein's Wiretap?

Ali: Right. You could talk about how funny they are and how you keep laughing uncontrollably while walking to work, listening to them on your iPod.

And: Ha ha. I sure am glad Stu told me about that show and gave me all those downloaded episodes. It's really great. But again, that's not really a very interesting story.

Ali: Yeah. Maybe if you had video footage of yourself cracking up in public and getting embarassed.

And: Yeah.

Ali: Oh! I've got it!

And: What?

Ali: I read this story in the news today, did you see it? About a guy who uses his hahahahaaaaa!

And: Ha ha. Uses his what?

Ali: He uses his penis as a paintbrush!

And: What?

Ali: [nods silently while trying to stifle hysterical laughter]

And: Wasn't that the exact name of a feminist school of art criticism that you read about in your Women's Studies class?

Ali: I know! Penis-as-paintbrush!

And: And we wanted to start a band with that name!

Ali: I forgot about that part.

And: So why does this guy paint with his penis? Does he not have any arms? Or legs?

Ali: He does. Both. But he's a performance artist.

And: Oh, well that explains it.

Ali: Yeah.

And: In that case, isn't that kind of a non-newsworthy story? Isn't that just exactly the kind of thing performance artists are always doing? I bet there's a lot more than one guy who does that.

Ali: Wait, I'm reading it here now... Oh!

And: What?

Ali: I guess he paints portraits!

And: Portraits!

Ali: Yeah.

And: Like of people in the audience?

Ali: Yeah, or you can send him your photo and for a fee he'll mail you a portrait and a video of himself painting it.

And: OK, I guess I have to admit that IS kind of interesting.

Ali: He wears a blonde wig, a silver tophat, and boots, and nothing else.

And: Huh.

Ali: And a bowtie!

And: Well, all right so that is pretty fascinating. But you think I should talk about that on the blog?

Ali: Well... I don't know...

And: Let's just see whether Deputy Andy finds out who's the father of Lucy's unborn child.

Ali: OK. Popcorn?

- Andrew

Proof

I did it! It was really fun and also really terrifying. The day was perfect for it and the slopes were not too crowded. And today I can barely walk and I have a ridiculous sunburn on my face with a toque line, but it was worth it.

Here's what it looked like:

Am I a Yuppie Yet?

I guess it's been a couple of weeks, hasn't it? Let's see... there must be SOMETHING of interest going on around here.

Well, one major theme is that Ali and I have been watching these "webinars" (yuck) on the Oprah Winfrey (!?!) website every Monday night where she has our favourite spiritual self-help non-denominational enlightened dude, Eckhart Tolle, talking about his most recent book, A New Earth — Awakening to Your Life's Purpose chapter by chapter. I know, I know, it's Oprah. Yes, she is way too powerful. Yes, she does interrupt him a lot. And, yes, she does take almost every opportunity to talk about herself. However, it's pretty cool that such an insightful and potentially very helpful guy is being given a platform to reach so many people. One of the main theses of his book is that no one's going to change the world in any meaningful way unless he radically changes his attitudes toward life and himself first, and this is a way that such a change could actually happen on a large scale. The first chapter's broadcast had technical problems and crapped out on almost everyone, it seems. But it was viewable later, and the second one went off last week without a hitch. It makes a big difference seeing and hearing him talk about his ideas instead of just reading them. Highly recommended.

We're in the middle of a big snowstorm here. That's fine with me, because a) it looks really nice in a peaceful but mysterious way, and b) I'm going skiing tomorrow! Downhill skiing! I'll be picked up at 8:30 in the morning and taken to Martock with a couple of my coworkers. It's not a big hill or anything, but I'm still a little anxious about it. I've only skied probably three times in my life, the last time being over twenty years ago. When I first mentioned the idea to Alison, I was surprised at her concern about it. "You're not a young man anymore, you know," she said. "Your bones are more brittle and would take longer to heal than they used to." I got somewhat indignant, accusing her of being both a baby and a mother hen. (That's a mixed metaphor I hope never to see in a petting zoo.) Then the next day we ran into a woman I know who's maybe ten years older than me, and she was on crutches with a giant cast on her leg. "Skiing," was the one-word cause given. Then she said, "It's taking a lot longer than I would have thought to heal. I guess that's what happens when we get older." So now I'm biting my nails as I watch the snowflakes out the window. But I'm excited too.

I promised to keep this short so I'd have time to hammer together a couple of disassembled tables before getting a haircut and watching a movie, and it's already getting out of hand. So, in brief:

Johanna taught us a version of Scrabble called "Speed Scrabble," where you don't use a board and just work on your own crossword with your own letters, trying to get as many of them in both an across and a down word as possible. It's quite addictive.

Lowlands has its first two shows coming up in April. So far no other name has achieved a better consensus.

We lost two designers at work recently and are hiring two more to replace them. Plus, we're taking over another suite on our floor and doing major renovations, so things are in an interesting state of flux.

The Whales of August, even though it stars Bette Davis and Lillian Gish as a pair of ideologically opposed sisters, was directed by the formidable Lindsay Anderson, and is set on the spectacular coast of Maine at the end of summer, is one of the most boring movies you can possibly rent. You're better off with What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?.

I have a very good idea for the content of a comic. I just have to figure out how to draw the characters. That, and how to draw in general. And then draw it.

Bowling on a Sunday afternoon with four friends is a lot of fun and not nearly as depressing as you might imagine.

This morning while listening to Joy Division, I figured out the long-sought-after secret of their incredible songwriting: have the guitarist and bassist each write a section to a song, and then have them play their compositions simultaneously, even if they are not in the same key. Add some atonal singing that refuses to validate either part, and you've got an instant classic.

Stop. Hammer time.

- Andrew