2.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Tennis!
I just had this terrible nightmare I have to tell you about, because I can't sleep and I'm keeping Alison up thinking about it. The premise of the dream was, in retrospect, very similar to the main premise of Infinite Jest: there is a joke that, once you've heard it, causes you to become deathly afraid of yourself, to the extent that you can't do anything. I guess it's also like the killing joke in Monty Python, except that you don't die from laughing, but instead enter an irrepressible state of profound dread which has no other object than your own soul.
In the dream, I'd heard about this affliction, and had seen cases of it on the news. Then I found out that a girl with whom I work, Gill, had had the affliction herself for several years. She'd gotten over it through lengthy and gruelling therapy, but could never be sure that it wouldn't return. She spoke to me of a three-year period in her life that was a complete blank because the extreme fear had made it impossible for her to do anything. Now she just spent her life trying not to think about The Joke.
Of course, anyone who had heard The Joke, gone through the paralyzing fear, and gotten over it was now somewhat of a danger to society because they could tell it to someone else at any time. But the courts had ruled that they couldn't be put away for this threat, as any of us is able to behave threateningly at any time, and we as a society just have to trust individuals to make the right choice. So sometimes the joke would be propagated when people could no longer fight or accept the obsessive secret with which they were forced to live.
Later (and probably immediately next in the dream, but as if with a cartoon narrative rectangle in the upper left corner saying "Later..."), I was sitting outside at a café when I saw a man with a strange look walk up to the man at the table next to me and hold out a gloved hand. He said, "There was a man who put a quarter in his hand and put a glove on over it." The face of the man sitting down took on a look of recognition that's hard to describe. It was like he was somewhat afraid of what he knew was coming, but was trying to overcome the fear with a bemused detachment, but the bemusement was crossing the line into gladness because he was actually relieved to be facing the thing that was scaring him, which fact made him all the more afraid. I realized that both men already knew The Joke, and that I was about to witness it.
The first man continued, "He held out his hand and asked a passing stranger, 'Do you have a quarter?'" At this point the seated man slowly removed the first man's glove and said in a zombie-like monotone, "The stranger said, 'No, but you do.'" Of course there was a quarter in the first man's hand.
I woke up from this dream in a state of absolute terror. My face was frozen into a mask of fear, and I was breathing heavily through my mouth. I couldn't move. I was also covered in sweat, probably because today was the first really warm day of the year and Alison and I took advantage of it by playing some tennis after work and then riding our bikes around. But the fact of my own sweatiness just made me more afraid of my own ability to scare myself so badly. I realized that it had only been a dream, but that didn't make me any less afraid. I was lying on my back, a position which has historically given me nightmares, and I knew that shifting positions would probably make me less afraid, but I was scared to move a muscle. It's hard to describe such an objectless fear. It seemed that I was afraid of my own unpredictable nature, and so I couldn't allow myself to will anything at all, lest I end up scaring myself more.
I had to go to the bathroom and I eventually calmed myself down enough to get out of bed. But coming back I had to walk a few feet through the dark, and that made me scared enough again that I had to call out to Alison to wake her up. I told her a little about the dream I'd had, but it started creeping her out and she asked me to stop so she could get back to sleep. Now I'm feeling a little better, having written it down, but I still can't help being haunted by this thought: if you know you are capable of making yourself paralyzingly afraid of yourself because you have actually felt this paralyzing fear, how can that knowledge help but actually make you paralyzingly afraid of yourself?
In the dream, I'd heard about this affliction, and had seen cases of it on the news. Then I found out that a girl with whom I work, Gill, had had the affliction herself for several years. She'd gotten over it through lengthy and gruelling therapy, but could never be sure that it wouldn't return. She spoke to me of a three-year period in her life that was a complete blank because the extreme fear had made it impossible for her to do anything. Now she just spent her life trying not to think about The Joke.
Of course, anyone who had heard The Joke, gone through the paralyzing fear, and gotten over it was now somewhat of a danger to society because they could tell it to someone else at any time. But the courts had ruled that they couldn't be put away for this threat, as any of us is able to behave threateningly at any time, and we as a society just have to trust individuals to make the right choice. So sometimes the joke would be propagated when people could no longer fight or accept the obsessive secret with which they were forced to live.
Later (and probably immediately next in the dream, but as if with a cartoon narrative rectangle in the upper left corner saying "Later..."), I was sitting outside at a café when I saw a man with a strange look walk up to the man at the table next to me and hold out a gloved hand. He said, "There was a man who put a quarter in his hand and put a glove on over it." The face of the man sitting down took on a look of recognition that's hard to describe. It was like he was somewhat afraid of what he knew was coming, but was trying to overcome the fear with a bemused detachment, but the bemusement was crossing the line into gladness because he was actually relieved to be facing the thing that was scaring him, which fact made him all the more afraid. I realized that both men already knew The Joke, and that I was about to witness it.The first man continued, "He held out his hand and asked a passing stranger, 'Do you have a quarter?'" At this point the seated man slowly removed the first man's glove and said in a zombie-like monotone, "The stranger said, 'No, but you do.'" Of course there was a quarter in the first man's hand.
I woke up from this dream in a state of absolute terror. My face was frozen into a mask of fear, and I was breathing heavily through my mouth. I couldn't move. I was also covered in sweat, probably because today was the first really warm day of the year and Alison and I took advantage of it by playing some tennis after work and then riding our bikes around. But the fact of my own sweatiness just made me more afraid of my own ability to scare myself so badly. I realized that it had only been a dream, but that didn't make me any less afraid. I was lying on my back, a position which has historically given me nightmares, and I knew that shifting positions would probably make me less afraid, but I was scared to move a muscle. It's hard to describe such an objectless fear. It seemed that I was afraid of my own unpredictable nature, and so I couldn't allow myself to will anything at all, lest I end up scaring myself more.
I had to go to the bathroom and I eventually calmed myself down enough to get out of bed. But coming back I had to walk a few feet through the dark, and that made me scared enough again that I had to call out to Alison to wake her up. I told her a little about the dream I'd had, but it started creeping her out and she asked me to stop so she could get back to sleep. Now I'm feeling a little better, having written it down, but I still can't help being haunted by this thought: if you know you are capable of making yourself paralyzingly afraid of yourself because you have actually felt this paralyzing fear, how can that knowledge help but actually make you paralyzingly afraid of yourself?
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Two Reasons Not to Move Here
1. People around here pronounce words the way Americans think all Canadians pronounce words. "Canadian rounding" is an actual phenomenon, but it just means that we make a distinction between the vowel sounds in the words 'lousy' and 'mousy', whereas Americans generally pronounce them the same. But in Nova Scotia (and especially in the Valley) the rounded 'ou' goes beyond a slight rounding and over the edge into long 'o' territory. For instance, they really say "oat and a boat". Some other actual examples:
"Are you looking for a punch in the moath?"
"Don't be such a doting Thomas."
"Get off the coach and get some excercise."
and my favourite, from when Alison worked for a call answering service,
"Send a doctor — I've got the goat!"
2. Halifax has a large park right in its middle, called the Halifax Commons. As the name suggests, it is a piece of common land, paid for by taxes and available for general recreational use. It is covered in grass and baseball diamonds, the latter of which are occupied, according to a schedule worked out with the city, every Sunday over the summer by my softball league. Many other leagues use them at other times, and any Haligonian schmoe who feels like starting up a game when they are not in prescheduled use is welcome to.
However, in the past couple of years, the municipal government of Halifax has figured out that this park is a great area for putting on large rock concerts. They book a huge name act (usually well past its prime), fence off the entire park, and charge an astronomical admission fee, thereby making not a modest profit. The Commons, having been thoroughly ruined, is then unusable for sporting events for the rest of the season.
Because this strategy has met with such success, this year Paul McCartney is coming in early July, followed by KISS on the 18th. That means for two months of our very short summer, eight very frustrated teams will be scrambling around the city, trying to find places to play out the softball season we've scheduled with the city. And I'm not even counting the Ultimate Frisbee people.
Worse still, it means that on July 18th all residents of Halifax and many of the surrounding area will be crammed together on one large field of mud and garbage, pumping their fists in the air and yelling, "Shoat it! Shoat it! Shoat it oat load!"
Seriously, stay home.
"Are you looking for a punch in the moath?"
"Don't be such a doting Thomas."
"Get off the coach and get some excercise."
and my favourite, from when Alison worked for a call answering service,
"Send a doctor — I've got the goat!"
2. Halifax has a large park right in its middle, called the Halifax Commons. As the name suggests, it is a piece of common land, paid for by taxes and available for general recreational use. It is covered in grass and baseball diamonds, the latter of which are occupied, according to a schedule worked out with the city, every Sunday over the summer by my softball league. Many other leagues use them at other times, and any Haligonian schmoe who feels like starting up a game when they are not in prescheduled use is welcome to.
However, in the past couple of years, the municipal government of Halifax has figured out that this park is a great area for putting on large rock concerts. They book a huge name act (usually well past its prime), fence off the entire park, and charge an astronomical admission fee, thereby making not a modest profit. The Commons, having been thoroughly ruined, is then unusable for sporting events for the rest of the season.
Because this strategy has met with such success, this year Paul McCartney is coming in early July, followed by KISS on the 18th. That means for two months of our very short summer, eight very frustrated teams will be scrambling around the city, trying to find places to play out the softball season we've scheduled with the city. And I'm not even counting the Ultimate Frisbee people.
Worse still, it means that on July 18th all residents of Halifax and many of the surrounding area will be crammed together on one large field of mud and garbage, pumping their fists in the air and yelling, "Shoat it! Shoat it! Shoat it oat load!"
Seriously, stay home.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Time Keeps on Slipping (Slipping, Slipping)...
... into the future. Only it really slips into the past, doesn't it? We move forward through time, therefore time moves in a future-to-past direction relative to us. Right? That's something that's always bothered me about that song. But the slipping part, yes, I can get behind that. Or am I in front of it?
Anyway, it looks like maybe having a car means no longer having time to stop and tell folks what your up to. Or maybe it's the fault of Twitter. Or it could just be the beautiful spring weather we've been getting in the valley limiting our time indoors. As a matter of fact, I'm outside this very minute, sitting in the sun and watching Buster hesitantly explore our backyard as I type. I can't actually see the computer screen very well out here, so advance apologies for any typos.
There've been quite a few trips into Halifax and back in Bert, many of them around The Lodge happenings. Two weekends ago was our official CD release show, although it wasn't heavily advertised as such and we'd already sold the CD at two other shows, so it just felt like a regular old show. But it was a really good one. Lots of people showed up who'd never seen the band before and we gave them some of our best stuff. The record's been continuing to gather mostly good reviews, although a lot of people cite "obvious" influences I've never heard of, or else relate everything to the various bands we were in in the '90's, none of which we really sound like. Here's a couple of interviews from when Vish Khanna made the album his weekly pick on CBC 3.
That same weekend we heard a Pema Chödrön lecture, attended a stellar Dog Day/The Got to Get Got/The Memories Attack gig, and went to the now annual craft fair at Halifax's North Street church. Lots of arty artisans, mostly kids, sell their wares in a giant room. It's overwhelming but really fun. There was one guy selling mix tapes he had made — actual tapes; not CDs pretending retro-self-consciously to be tapes. I had to buy one, as Bert's stereo comprises just a radio and a tape deck. He (the tape guy) had so many great-looking mixes it was hard to select just one, but I eventually did and handed over my five dollars. We listened to it as we drove back to Wolfville, and it was so great that when we got home and it wasn't over yet we decided to keep on driving in order to hear the rest of it. The song selection was a perfect balance of the somewhat familiar and the totally obscure. Each song emerged naturally and organically from the previous, but took your head in a slightly different direction. And the kid had written a photocopied booklet of really great liner notes, informative but personal and emotional, and I began realizing that, as it takes just as much time to make even a copy of a tape as it does to listen to one, never mind the work of picking out the songs and sequencing them and getting all the levels just right and then buying cassettes (where can you even get them anymore?) and writing, designing, photocopying, cutting, collating, folding, and stapling a 12-page booklet with drawings, well there's just no way in hell he was making any money from selling these things for five bucks apiece. Why didn't I buy one of each of them? There's no contact information anywhere on the tape, so I don't know how I'm going to track this guy down. But I will.
There've also been trips to buy ice cream, trips to buy books, and trips to nice areas for walking around. Here's a picture Ali took of me last weekend on the dyke that runs along the Gaspereau river. We got back to Bert just as the giant raindrops began splatting down on his roof and our heads.
What else? Johanna came out to visit us last Friday night and we all went to see Star Trek. It was quite a fun romp, I have to say. Corny as hell, but I guess it's pretty hard to set up science fiction scenarios for the exploring without coming across heavy-handed in the explanation of their details. My only complaint was that we had to wait until the end credits to hear any of the original music. Couldn't they have updated some of that awesomely cheeseball fight music instead of writing a whole new score?
Tonight we're going to drive to Berwick for dinner with our friends Cliff and Angie and Angie's mom. There's a drive-in somewhere in that direction, where it'd be nice to take in a stupid movie or two, but that might have to wait for another weekend. Tomorrow night The Lodge play an all-ages show in Dartmouth, and Monday looks like a good day for some more Bert-assisted exploring. Hope everyone else's "May Two-Four" is as nice as ours is shaping up to be.
Anyway, it looks like maybe having a car means no longer having time to stop and tell folks what your up to. Or maybe it's the fault of Twitter. Or it could just be the beautiful spring weather we've been getting in the valley limiting our time indoors. As a matter of fact, I'm outside this very minute, sitting in the sun and watching Buster hesitantly explore our backyard as I type. I can't actually see the computer screen very well out here, so advance apologies for any typos.
There've been quite a few trips into Halifax and back in Bert, many of them around The Lodge happenings. Two weekends ago was our official CD release show, although it wasn't heavily advertised as such and we'd already sold the CD at two other shows, so it just felt like a regular old show. But it was a really good one. Lots of people showed up who'd never seen the band before and we gave them some of our best stuff. The record's been continuing to gather mostly good reviews, although a lot of people cite "obvious" influences I've never heard of, or else relate everything to the various bands we were in in the '90's, none of which we really sound like. Here's a couple of interviews from when Vish Khanna made the album his weekly pick on CBC 3.
That same weekend we heard a Pema Chödrön lecture, attended a stellar Dog Day/The Got to Get Got/The Memories Attack gig, and went to the now annual craft fair at Halifax's North Street church. Lots of arty artisans, mostly kids, sell their wares in a giant room. It's overwhelming but really fun. There was one guy selling mix tapes he had made — actual tapes; not CDs pretending retro-self-consciously to be tapes. I had to buy one, as Bert's stereo comprises just a radio and a tape deck. He (the tape guy) had so many great-looking mixes it was hard to select just one, but I eventually did and handed over my five dollars. We listened to it as we drove back to Wolfville, and it was so great that when we got home and it wasn't over yet we decided to keep on driving in order to hear the rest of it. The song selection was a perfect balance of the somewhat familiar and the totally obscure. Each song emerged naturally and organically from the previous, but took your head in a slightly different direction. And the kid had written a photocopied booklet of really great liner notes, informative but personal and emotional, and I began realizing that, as it takes just as much time to make even a copy of a tape as it does to listen to one, never mind the work of picking out the songs and sequencing them and getting all the levels just right and then buying cassettes (where can you even get them anymore?) and writing, designing, photocopying, cutting, collating, folding, and stapling a 12-page booklet with drawings, well there's just no way in hell he was making any money from selling these things for five bucks apiece. Why didn't I buy one of each of them? There's no contact information anywhere on the tape, so I don't know how I'm going to track this guy down. But I will.
There've also been trips to buy ice cream, trips to buy books, and trips to nice areas for walking around. Here's a picture Ali took of me last weekend on the dyke that runs along the Gaspereau river. We got back to Bert just as the giant raindrops began splatting down on his roof and our heads.What else? Johanna came out to visit us last Friday night and we all went to see Star Trek. It was quite a fun romp, I have to say. Corny as hell, but I guess it's pretty hard to set up science fiction scenarios for the exploring without coming across heavy-handed in the explanation of their details. My only complaint was that we had to wait until the end credits to hear any of the original music. Couldn't they have updated some of that awesomely cheeseball fight music instead of writing a whole new score?
Tonight we're going to drive to Berwick for dinner with our friends Cliff and Angie and Angie's mom. There's a drive-in somewhere in that direction, where it'd be nice to take in a stupid movie or two, but that might have to wait for another weekend. Tomorrow night The Lodge play an all-ages show in Dartmouth, and Monday looks like a good day for some more Bert-assisted exploring. Hope everyone else's "May Two-Four" is as nice as ours is shaping up to be.
Monday, April 27, 2009
It's True, We Have a Car Now!
Well, I got the car dropped off to me on Thursday in Halifax. Took it for a little test spin and it seemed great! Friday afternoon I had the registration switched over and got a new license plate. I had to wait about an hour and a half, since every person in the city decided to register their motorcycles and campers on the same day. It was the Friday before what everyone was hoping would be the nicest weekend of the year so far. (Which it was, by the way!)
Andrew was nice enough to take the bus to Halifax after work so I would have company for my first trip home in the car. And I'm so glad he did that, because the drive was actually more nerve-wracking than I had anticipated. It was DARK on that highway, and to be honest I was never much of a highway driver. I did drive for 5 solid years back in the eighties, but even then it was mostly city driving. But we made it home in one piece. And then I had a beer.
On the weekend, we got the summer tires put on, and did a little exploring of the area. We went to Evangeline Beach which is in Grand Pré. Here are some pictures from that part of the day. The camera batteries died after that. Too bad! So beautiful!
The more I drive, the more I feel comfortable with it. But every time I look outside and see the car in the driveway, I think we have visitors!
BIG THANKS to Granny Gwen, Papa, and Rick for helping us make this happen!
-Ali
P.S. Here's a little number that was a hit around the first time I had my license! Seems to apply. Whoa.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Wir Fahren, Fahren, Fahren
Well, not quite yet wir don't, but very, very soon! We've been looking seriously for a used car for awhile, and found one on Kijiji that sounded pretty good: a '96 Toyota Tercel 2-door sedan. It looks like the one in this picture. The mileage on it was low, it had been undercoated almost every year, it came with summer and winter tires, and it had only had one owner, who kept all the receipts from everything that had ever been done to it. We made an appointment to check it out in Bedford on Friday afternoon, but then Alison ended up having to work. Luckily my "Uncle" Rick, who knows lots about cars, came to the rescue by driving me out to see it and test drive it with me, since I don't have a license. The poor guy had just arrived back into town from Montreal; he came straight from the airport! Thanks a million, Uncle Rick.The car was in really good shape — no rust on the body and a lot of new parts. The only thing Rick and I could find wrong was that the brakes acted shaky. We talked to the guy selling it and he agreed to have them fixed and the car inspected at no extra cost. Seemed too good to be true, so I gave him and the woman who actually owns it a deposit. We should be able to pick it up and pay the rest in the next day or two!
It's going to make such a huge difference in our lives, having a car, that I'm getting quite excited. I've never had a driver's license, but this will be a great incentive to get it. Last night I dreamed we were on a long road trip and didn't even know where we were going, but we didn't care. It was a nice dream, and even though we were on motorcycles, I'm sure it's still a good omen. The car (haven't given it a name yet; that will have to happen soon — Marcel?) has no CD player; just a cassette deck. I'm really glad I was so skeptical about CDs when they came out, and stubbornly continued to buy tapes for the next 15 years, because I've still got a decent collection. Now it's finally revealed why I've never replaced my copy of Autobahn that Loran Davis taped for me from vinyl (b/w Tangerine Dream's Le Parc) in 1987: soundtrack for the maiden voyage!
Other items:
I went to see John Ralston Saul speak about A Fair Country at King's College on Thursday night (which was how I happened to be in Halifax on Friday to check out the car) with our friend Mimi. He was somewhat flippant and scattershot in his arguments, and it forced me to realize there are certain unscholarly similarities in his writing style that bother me. I'm rethinking the theses of the book now. I guess it didn't help that he was also quite self-aggrandizing, telling many stories that were ostensibly evidence that his book has tapped into a collective unconscious, but whose point was always that people like him and think he's quite clever. One was even about him receiving a standing ovation at a previous speaking engagement, which story may weirdly have preëmpted a standing 'o' (usually Halifax's equivalent of polite applause) at the end of this night.
The Lodge played an in-store show at CD Plus on Saturday afternoon — International Record Store Day. It was fun, but Mike and I had both come down with terrible colds, so it was also kind of hard work. Plenty of people turned out, though, and we even sold some CDs. No thanks to this guy. But maybe some thanks to these guys.
Bonus rhyming update: I've written a new song. First one in I don't even want to think how long. Might be for The Lodge, or might be for me. We'll see.
- Andrew
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Never Go Full Retard
We watched Milk last night. Another Academy Award winner. This one I wasn't so excited over. Too long, for one thing. I was glad to find out the whole interesting and outrageous story, and to be reminded how far we've come in so short a time, but there's just something weird about these Hollywood re-enactments of history. I got the same feeling from Frost/Nixon. It's a little too easy to play up the plot points and emotions that will lead to a clean, satisfying conclusion, and the whole thing ends up seeming kind of cheesy. I'd rather see a documentary, I guess.The other thing that's been bothering me all day about it is this heterosexual-actors-playing-homosexuals phenomenon. At first it seems like a really noble thing, and it makes you feel good to know that these actors are secure enough in themselves to portray a character from a maligned minority so that society might benefit by seeing itself a little better in that minority. But then, the more you think about it, the more condescending an attitude that seems — and condescending to the very minority supposedly being held up for empathy. Are we really as OK with these other people as we claim if we find the portrayal of one of them by one of us "brave"? Why exactly does it make it more poignant to have Sean Penn or Heath Ledger or Jake Gyllenhaal throw himself into the role of a struggling gay man, rather than to hire an actually gay actor?
Alison raises the point that the director and producers want to make a blockbuster movie that will reach lots of people, and that means they need a big-name actor, and there are (allegedly, Tom Cruise having still never officially come out) no gay big-name actors. But if that's a real Hollywood problem, aren't they just perpetuating it? Wouldn't it be better to hire someone who IS openly gay and make him into a big-name actor with their big film, thereby really doing some good for the cause they purport to be endorsing?Imagine if someone tried to make a film about the civil rights movement in the sixties, with all the black characters played by white actors. That would be pretty questionable, right? Especially if they defended their choice by saying, "We wanted people to relate to the blacks as if they were actual people, and to give these white actors a chance to show just how bravely they support the African Americans' struggle. Plus, the film needed to make a lot of money, and black actors just don't draw the crowds."
Or imagine a film by Spike Lee about the plight of Jews throughout history, starring all black actors, in order to show the well-roundedness of his equal rights concerns. Or a biopic of Gloria Steinem with Vince Vaughn in the lead. Actually, both of those would probably be pretty interesting.
I guess there's a similar phenomenon with mentally challenged characters. And here one must invoke Tom Cruise again. These roles usually, as in Rain Man, get filled by actors with fully functioning brains, at least by the standards of popular culture. Yes, I know Tom Cruise was not the autistic one. And neither has he played a gay character yet. Now that WILL be interesting — it'll probably coincide with his divorce from Katie Holmes and immediately subsequent marriage to a Mesopotamian fertility goddess statue.But back to retard roles. There's a very funny scene in Tropic Thunder where Robert Downey, Jr.'s character (who is, strangely enough, a celebrated white actor playing a black character in the film-within-a-film) tells Ben Stiller's character — a lesser actor who has been trying to break out of his action hero typecasting — why the latter's brave portrayal of a retarded boy in his last film did not win him the accolades he'd hoped for. It turns out there is an unwritten but universally known law in Hollywood that an actor must never play a mentally challenged part realistically enough that audience sympathy is lost. Something must always be held back, so that the character remains pathetic, but not alien. Stiller's character's big fault was that he "went full retard." And maybe casting a gay man as another gay man would be the same fatal mistake.
By the way, Tom Cruise is also in Tropic Thunder, and he's very funny, although neither retarded nor gay. His character, I mean.Anyway, I just wanted to rant a little about that seeming injustice. Been kind of bugging me all day. And I'm not even gay, so that makes my concern extra valid!
- Andrew
Monday, April 13, 2009
Looking for a really great documentary?
Man on Wire. I think it won an Academy Award. Deserves to have, if not. I remember this story being on the front page of the newspaper and it capturing my imagination at the time (1974), but then I don't think I've thought about it again since. Incredible footage and an expertly told story. It's beautiful and terrifying. Plus, the guy looks like Malcolm McDowell ca. O Lucky Man! Be careful, though: the added poignancy due to the fact that these buildings no longer exist may be just enough to make you a little weepy. Just a little.
- Andrew
Monday, April 06, 2009
Larkin x 2
Been rereading a bunch of Philip Larkin lately, in observance of National Poetry Month. Here's a poem of his that expresses the same idea mine was trying to, only much better.
Strangers
The eyes of strangers
Are cold as snowdrops,
Downcast, folded,
And seldom visited.
And strangers' acts
Cry but vaguely, drift
Across our attention's
Smoke-sieged afternoons.
And to live there, among strangers,
Calls for teashop behaviours:
Setting down the cup,
Leaving the right tip,
Keeping the soul unjostled,
The pocket unpicked,
The fancies lurid,
And the treasure buried.
And here's one about what my right-hand column playlist is about. This one kills me.
The Spirit Wooed
Once I believed in you,
And then you came,
Unquestionably new, as fame
Had said you were. But that was long ago.
You launched no argument,
Yet I obeyed,
Straightaway, the instrument you played
Distant down sidestreets, keeping different time,
And never questioned what
You fascinate
In me; if good or not, the state
You pressed towards. There was no need to know.
Grave pristine absolutes
Walked in my mind:
So that I was not mute, or blind,
As years before or since. My only crime
Was holding you too dear.
Was that the cause
You daily came less near — a pause
Longer than life, if you decide it so?
- Andrew
Strangers
The eyes of strangers
Are cold as snowdrops,
Downcast, folded,
And seldom visited.
And strangers' acts
Cry but vaguely, drift
Across our attention's
Smoke-sieged afternoons.
And to live there, among strangers,
Calls for teashop behaviours:
Setting down the cup,
Leaving the right tip,
Keeping the soul unjostled,
The pocket unpicked,
The fancies lurid,
And the treasure buried.
And here's one about what my right-hand column playlist is about. This one kills me.
The Spirit Wooed
Once I believed in you,
And then you came,
Unquestionably new, as fame
Had said you were. But that was long ago.
You launched no argument,
Yet I obeyed,
Straightaway, the instrument you played
Distant down sidestreets, keeping different time,
And never questioned what
You fascinate
In me; if good or not, the state
You pressed towards. There was no need to know.
Grave pristine absolutes
Walked in my mind:
So that I was not mute, or blind,
As years before or since. My only crime
Was holding you too dear.
Was that the cause
You daily came less near — a pause
Longer than life, if you decide it so?
- Andrew
Saturday, April 04, 2009
Underappreciated Beatles Songs
OK, there's some kind of weird Beatles thing going on today, where everywhere we go we keep hearing Beatles songs. Plus, yesterday I tried to make a playlist for the right-hand side of the blog comprising Beatles songs I like a lot but don't hear played very much, but iLike, where I usually make such playlists, doesn't have any Beatles songs on it (!!) so I had to make the bummer-of-a-theme one that's there now. But so the weird Beatles thing going on today made me determined to find a way of getting that playlist on here somehow. And I did. I'm sure it's totally illegal, and could be suddenly removed at any time. Enjoy.
- Andrew
- Andrew
Thursday, April 02, 2009
The Yoozh
No news here, really. The Lodge show went very well, and we sold some CDs. Still trying to figure out where, when, and with whom to have an official CD release show. The Super Friendz tribute album with my cover of "Fooled at First" is finished now. Sounds pretty good, from the one listen I've given it. On sale sometime this month.
Work continues steadily if not frantically with a shiny new chunk of Web site being delivered to internet fans on Monday (watch for it).
Frost/Nixon is a good but not great docudrama by Ron Howard. Frank Langella is of course highly watchable.
We have a line on a used car. Checking it out this weekend.
In honour of April being Poetry Month, here's a poem I wrote on my lunch hour today:
Roaming the streets of Wolfville,
I long for a familiar face.
This place is not my home and never will be.
Up and down the hill
That forms the village walks an alien race:
What doesn't make me stronger just may kill me.
Dramatic? OK, maybe a little.
- Andrew
Work continues steadily if not frantically with a shiny new chunk of Web site being delivered to internet fans on Monday (watch for it).
Frost/Nixon is a good but not great docudrama by Ron Howard. Frank Langella is of course highly watchable.
We have a line on a used car. Checking it out this weekend.
In honour of April being Poetry Month, here's a poem I wrote on my lunch hour today:
Roaming the streets of Wolfville,
I long for a familiar face.
This place is not my home and never will be.
Up and down the hill
That forms the village walks an alien race:
What doesn't make me stronger just may kill me.
Dramatic? OK, maybe a little.
- Andrew
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Still Winter, I Guess
Just when it seemed like spring had arrived...
I refuse to shovel the driveway this time. There've been robins in our backyard for a month, for jeepers sake!
Last week Alison was in Halifax Tuesday through Thursday, and then we both went in for the weekend on Friday. That's a bit too much time away from home, methinks, but it was well spent. I had a band practice Friday night, and then we went with Johanna to see Garrett Mason (son of Dutch, the Prime Minister of the Blues) play at Bearly's, winner of the World's Worst Website award. I'm not usually much of a blues fan, but he and his band are such good musicians it was impossible not to have a good time. Then Saturday night was a birthday party for Charles. Lots of familiar faces were there, and plenty of booze, so again, good time guaranteed. We both slept well Sunday night, though.
Not too much else going on around here. The Lodge album went on sale on zunior today. I found out we only have half as many CDs as we'd thought for selling at shows, which means no free copies for anyone. Sorry. We're working on songs for a new EP, and so far they're shaping up pretty great, I have to say.
Other than that, the only things that have been keeping me occupied are working on a new design for The University's currently-giving-Bearly's-a-run-for-its-money website (very exciting) and reading my new book, Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov. I got it in the mail last week — thanks, Mom. I've been wanting to read it ever since Nick Hornby raved about it in his monthly Believer column, which has since been cancelled, tragically. The novel's about an obituarist in the Ukraine whose poetic eulogies may be leading to the deaths of their subjects. And he has a pet penguin. He and the penguin are both kind of bummed out all the time. It's quite funny and charming; reminds me a little of Gogol.
For some reason, I continue to think about the movie The Reader. Here's what I keep wondering: were we supposed to be surprised by the law student's realization, even though they'd been telegraphing it all the way through? And is Kate Winslet's "character" supposed to be somewhat heroic for taking the guilt of others upon herself, which she only does after seeing that there is no way they will accept it, or is she just more ashamed of her much less serious failing, which basically makes her into an incomprehensible monster? Either way, what is supposed to be the point of the story?
Seriously, I want to know.
- Andrew
I refuse to shovel the driveway this time. There've been robins in our backyard for a month, for jeepers sake!
Last week Alison was in Halifax Tuesday through Thursday, and then we both went in for the weekend on Friday. That's a bit too much time away from home, methinks, but it was well spent. I had a band practice Friday night, and then we went with Johanna to see Garrett Mason (son of Dutch, the Prime Minister of the Blues) play at Bearly's, winner of the World's Worst Website award. I'm not usually much of a blues fan, but he and his band are such good musicians it was impossible not to have a good time. Then Saturday night was a birthday party for Charles. Lots of familiar faces were there, and plenty of booze, so again, good time guaranteed. We both slept well Sunday night, though.
Not too much else going on around here. The Lodge album went on sale on zunior today. I found out we only have half as many CDs as we'd thought for selling at shows, which means no free copies for anyone. Sorry. We're working on songs for a new EP, and so far they're shaping up pretty great, I have to say.
Other than that, the only things that have been keeping me occupied are working on a new design for The University's currently-giving-Bearly's-a-run-for-its-money website (very exciting) and reading my new book, Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov. I got it in the mail last week — thanks, Mom. I've been wanting to read it ever since Nick Hornby raved about it in his monthly Believer column, which has since been cancelled, tragically. The novel's about an obituarist in the Ukraine whose poetic eulogies may be leading to the deaths of their subjects. And he has a pet penguin. He and the penguin are both kind of bummed out all the time. It's quite funny and charming; reminds me a little of Gogol.
For some reason, I continue to think about the movie The Reader. Here's what I keep wondering: were we supposed to be surprised by the law student's realization, even though they'd been telegraphing it all the way through? And is Kate Winslet's "character" supposed to be somewhat heroic for taking the guilt of others upon herself, which she only does after seeing that there is no way they will accept it, or is she just more ashamed of her much less serious failing, which basically makes her into an incomprehensible monster? Either way, what is supposed to be the point of the story?
Seriously, I want to know.
- Andrew
Monday, March 16, 2009
Greatthanksandyouokseeya!
Keeping this short because there's not much to tell and things are busy around here. My mom's in Halifax visiting her friend Linda, so we went into the city on Friday night and got some visiting time in with her over the weekend. On Sunday we all, Linda included, went to see The Reader. I say don't bother, but my mom and Linda both really liked it.
We also got to see a lot of friends we don't see too much. There were some very pleasant meals and a movie watched on DVD. Synecdoche, New York. It's pretty crazy. Even for Charlie Kaufman. It gets so insane and yet so monotonous in the second half that I'm not even sure you could call it enjoyable anymore. But I'm glad I saw it because I can't stop thinking about it. Just make sure you've had a couple of coffees before you rent it, and you'll be all right.
The Lodge have been working on some new songs. Six of them, in fact. About time, too. We'll be playing a show at good ol' Gus' on the 27th, and then sometime in April we'll have to have a CD release show. The album is all done and we've received CDs of it. They look and sound great, if I may say so myself. But I don't even have to, because this guy gave it such a fantastic review I'm almost embarrassed to show it to you. Almost. I'm not sure how or when we'll be selling the discs. Scott Grimbleby, owner of Gooseberry Records, gave us a deal where he makes the CDs and gives us half to sell however we want. But meanwhile, he's releasing the record online on March 24th, and physically in stores on April 21st, so I guess we have to figure out how we can sell our copies without competing unfairly. Maybe just at shows for awhile.
Gotta go now. Told ya.
- Andrew
We also got to see a lot of friends we don't see too much. There were some very pleasant meals and a movie watched on DVD. Synecdoche, New York. It's pretty crazy. Even for Charlie Kaufman. It gets so insane and yet so monotonous in the second half that I'm not even sure you could call it enjoyable anymore. But I'm glad I saw it because I can't stop thinking about it. Just make sure you've had a couple of coffees before you rent it, and you'll be all right.
The Lodge have been working on some new songs. Six of them, in fact. About time, too. We'll be playing a show at good ol' Gus' on the 27th, and then sometime in April we'll have to have a CD release show. The album is all done and we've received CDs of it. They look and sound great, if I may say so myself. But I don't even have to, because this guy gave it such a fantastic review I'm almost embarrassed to show it to you. Almost. I'm not sure how or when we'll be selling the discs. Scott Grimbleby, owner of Gooseberry Records, gave us a deal where he makes the CDs and gives us half to sell however we want. But meanwhile, he's releasing the record online on March 24th, and physically in stores on April 21st, so I guess we have to figure out how we can sell our copies without competing unfairly. Maybe just at shows for awhile.Gotta go now. Told ya.
- Andrew
Sunday, March 08, 2009
Exhausted, Excited, and Maybe a Little Crazy
I'm writing this in Montreal, where I'm singing a song in a show tonight before heading home again tomorrow morning. I'm about to take a nap, having gotten up at 3:30 in the morning to catch an early flight to TO and then fly to MTL from there. Before I do, though — nap, that it — I just have to tell you about this weird, possibly religious experience I had.
On the first plane I start finding Varieties of Religious Experience (already the coincidences begin) a little heavy for travel purposes. So I buy a New Yorker in the MTL airport because all the other magazines are terrible and/or French, and because it has an article about my ex-favourite-living-author's, David Foster Wallace's, life, work, depression, suicide, and soon-to-be-published unfinished novel. Reading it on the plane as we leave MTL, I begin noticing that the parallels between his life and mine are numerous and alarming.
In university, for instance, he majored in philosophy and mathematics (my double major until I figured out that I'm too dumb for the math part), and experienced a personal crisis when philosophy turned out not to answer all the questions he wanted it to. The haunting way he put it to a friend later was, "I had kind of a midlife crisis at twenty, which probably doesn't auger well for my longevity."
"Hmm... that happened to me at twenty-five," I'm thinking, "and he lasted till 47, so that gives me..."
He continued to battle depression with anti-depressants, but found that they stifled him emotionally and creatively. Not that I've ever had anything near his level of clinical depression, but I have definitely had a miniature version of that experience. Then he hit upon mindfulness, especially in states that would usually be called boredom, as a way past one's distractable and negative inner voice and out the other side to happiness. "I have reached a state where I enjoy boredom," I remember telling people a couple of winters ago. "I actually prefer it to excitement." This apparently worked well for him for awhile. I don't know whether he actually ever meditated, but all these details are eerily familiar to me as a narrative arc of adult life, and are beginning to freak me out.
At this point, the flight attendant interrupts my reading to say, "For your information, there are two washrooms on this aircraft," which immediately makes me think, "I've never heard the euphemism 'information' before," which I then just as immediately realize is a DFW joke if ever there was one. I look sadly out the window on the right side of the plane, where I see the most incredible display of reflected sunlight and mattressy clouds, white silt swirls and the constantly changing tinfoil crinkles of waves on Lake Ontario. All four elements are beautifully represented, each in its own dimension à la Escher's Three Worlds, and together they all look gorgeous.
I decide then that this article and possibly the ghost of DFW must in fact be trying to tell me something wonderful, and not that I am doomed to a death by my own hand before the age of 50. The article continues on with the idea of boredom as the possible solution to our cultural and personal addictions, a set of problems laid out quite well in Infinite Jest. Turns out that's what DFW's unfinished novel is about. It's set in an IRS office, and the main character is a tax accountant who spends the novel trying to figure out how to deal with the almost indescribable (except we know DFW will give it his best shot) boredom of possibly the most boring job in the world. Presumably, by the end he would achieve some kind of breakthrough which DFW himself had not yet achieved and now never will. I take this to mean that it's time for me to sit down and do my taxes.
- Andrew
On the first plane I start finding Varieties of Religious Experience (already the coincidences begin) a little heavy for travel purposes. So I buy a New Yorker in the MTL airport because all the other magazines are terrible and/or French, and because it has an article about my ex-favourite-living-author's, David Foster Wallace's, life, work, depression, suicide, and soon-to-be-published unfinished novel. Reading it on the plane as we leave MTL, I begin noticing that the parallels between his life and mine are numerous and alarming.
In university, for instance, he majored in philosophy and mathematics (my double major until I figured out that I'm too dumb for the math part), and experienced a personal crisis when philosophy turned out not to answer all the questions he wanted it to. The haunting way he put it to a friend later was, "I had kind of a midlife crisis at twenty, which probably doesn't auger well for my longevity."
"Hmm... that happened to me at twenty-five," I'm thinking, "and he lasted till 47, so that gives me..."
He continued to battle depression with anti-depressants, but found that they stifled him emotionally and creatively. Not that I've ever had anything near his level of clinical depression, but I have definitely had a miniature version of that experience. Then he hit upon mindfulness, especially in states that would usually be called boredom, as a way past one's distractable and negative inner voice and out the other side to happiness. "I have reached a state where I enjoy boredom," I remember telling people a couple of winters ago. "I actually prefer it to excitement." This apparently worked well for him for awhile. I don't know whether he actually ever meditated, but all these details are eerily familiar to me as a narrative arc of adult life, and are beginning to freak me out.
At this point, the flight attendant interrupts my reading to say, "For your information, there are two washrooms on this aircraft," which immediately makes me think, "I've never heard the euphemism 'information' before," which I then just as immediately realize is a DFW joke if ever there was one. I look sadly out the window on the right side of the plane, where I see the most incredible display of reflected sunlight and mattressy clouds, white silt swirls and the constantly changing tinfoil crinkles of waves on Lake Ontario. All four elements are beautifully represented, each in its own dimension à la Escher's Three Worlds, and together they all look gorgeous.I decide then that this article and possibly the ghost of DFW must in fact be trying to tell me something wonderful, and not that I am doomed to a death by my own hand before the age of 50. The article continues on with the idea of boredom as the possible solution to our cultural and personal addictions, a set of problems laid out quite well in Infinite Jest. Turns out that's what DFW's unfinished novel is about. It's set in an IRS office, and the main character is a tax accountant who spends the novel trying to figure out how to deal with the almost indescribable (except we know DFW will give it his best shot) boredom of possibly the most boring job in the world. Presumably, by the end he would achieve some kind of breakthrough which DFW himself had not yet achieved and now never will. I take this to mean that it's time for me to sit down and do my taxes.
- Andrew
Sunday, March 01, 2009
What Are You Eating Under There?
There hasn't been much going on this week. Alison was in Halifax many days in a row, which bummed me out somewhat. But she came back Thursday night and we went out for dinner with some of my coworkers Friday night. That was nice. Then yesterday morning we went to the farmers' market for the first time in awhile. Bought some mealy apples and soggy potatoes and hung out with the wealthy hippies. We also stopped in at the Harvest Gallery, where they're having a small but inspiring printmaking show.
I'm still on popular internet not-quite-as-much-time-as-Facebook-but-still-a-lot-of-time-waster Twitter. The idea of it is to entertain and inform people who are interested enough to subscribe to your updates, by answering the question, "What are you doing?" in 140 characters or fewer. As a joke, I thought it would be funny to start an account for Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now. He is all for detaching from the unimportant distractions of one's constantly changing "life story," in order to tune into and reidentify with the stillness which underlies all change, thereby trivializing its details. This is somewhat paradoxically achieved by focusing in on one's experiences in the present moment, to the exclusion of judgments about those experiences, which would be based on comparisons with an imagined future or a remembered past, neither of which actually exists at this moment.
I admire his ideas very much, but thought I'd poke a little fun at him and simultaneously at Twitter and its distracting ilk by having him do updates from time to time that said things like, "Typing." Or, "Looking at a computer." I figured if anyone started "following" him, they'd soon see that it was a joke, have a chuckle, and move on. Well, he now has over 100 followers (as opposed to the 16 who follow real, non-joke me), some of whom have been expressing joy to have found him on there and to be reminded daily of his teachings. It's making me feel a little guilty. How can I tell them it's supposed to be a joke? Some of them don't even appear to speak English!
The only other possibly significant thing I can think of to tell you about is that I've been reading and loving William James's Varieties of Religious Experience. It's the kind of book that I feel may very well change my life. I wonder how it's taken me till now to read it, but at the same time now seems to be the perfect moment for it. Forgive the presumption that you might be unfamiliar with such a modern classic (it was written in 1902), and let me just say that it's the first book to treat religion as a subject that might be studied scientifically, without thereby discrediting the validity of the phenomenon. And he is reconciling so many concepts I feel like I've spent my whole life trying to reconcile — science vs. religion; objective truth vs. subjective revelation; happiness vs. the necessity of hardship; transcendence of rational thought vs. the obligation to reason in morality — that I get all worked up and have to start reading out loud every time I pick it up, much to Alison's annoyance.
What about fiction, you ask? Good point. I still haven't had any contemporary novels recommended to me that might fill the need opened up by David Foster Wallace's suicide. I saw a collection of short stories in a bookstore yesterday that looked like it might be good: A Circle Is a Balloon and a Compass Both by Ben Greenman. Anyone read it or heard anything about it? Jeff, I guess I'm looking at you here. How about novels? Anyone?
- Andrew
P.S. Oh yeah, of course I'm still working away at promoting you-know-what university for prospective students. We've got a big new campaign rolling out soon. It won't be as exciting as this, but I think it's still pretty compelling.
P.P.S. Retraction: I also wanted to mention, apropos of nothing, that I really regret putting that She & Him record on my top ten list for 2008. I don't know what I was thinking. I had to take it off my iPod because it's frankly kind of irritating. Hope no one bought it on my account. The David Byrne and Brian Eno, on the other hand, is still getting plenty of play around here.
I'm still on popular internet not-quite-as-much-time-as-Facebook-but-still-a-lot-of-time-waster Twitter. The idea of it is to entertain and inform people who are interested enough to subscribe to your updates, by answering the question, "What are you doing?" in 140 characters or fewer. As a joke, I thought it would be funny to start an account for Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now. He is all for detaching from the unimportant distractions of one's constantly changing "life story," in order to tune into and reidentify with the stillness which underlies all change, thereby trivializing its details. This is somewhat paradoxically achieved by focusing in on one's experiences in the present moment, to the exclusion of judgments about those experiences, which would be based on comparisons with an imagined future or a remembered past, neither of which actually exists at this moment.
I admire his ideas very much, but thought I'd poke a little fun at him and simultaneously at Twitter and its distracting ilk by having him do updates from time to time that said things like, "Typing." Or, "Looking at a computer." I figured if anyone started "following" him, they'd soon see that it was a joke, have a chuckle, and move on. Well, he now has over 100 followers (as opposed to the 16 who follow real, non-joke me), some of whom have been expressing joy to have found him on there and to be reminded daily of his teachings. It's making me feel a little guilty. How can I tell them it's supposed to be a joke? Some of them don't even appear to speak English!
The only other possibly significant thing I can think of to tell you about is that I've been reading and loving William James's Varieties of Religious Experience. It's the kind of book that I feel may very well change my life. I wonder how it's taken me till now to read it, but at the same time now seems to be the perfect moment for it. Forgive the presumption that you might be unfamiliar with such a modern classic (it was written in 1902), and let me just say that it's the first book to treat religion as a subject that might be studied scientifically, without thereby discrediting the validity of the phenomenon. And he is reconciling so many concepts I feel like I've spent my whole life trying to reconcile — science vs. religion; objective truth vs. subjective revelation; happiness vs. the necessity of hardship; transcendence of rational thought vs. the obligation to reason in morality — that I get all worked up and have to start reading out loud every time I pick it up, much to Alison's annoyance.
What about fiction, you ask? Good point. I still haven't had any contemporary novels recommended to me that might fill the need opened up by David Foster Wallace's suicide. I saw a collection of short stories in a bookstore yesterday that looked like it might be good: A Circle Is a Balloon and a Compass Both by Ben Greenman. Anyone read it or heard anything about it? Jeff, I guess I'm looking at you here. How about novels? Anyone?
- Andrew
P.S. Oh yeah, of course I'm still working away at promoting you-know-what university for prospective students. We've got a big new campaign rolling out soon. It won't be as exciting as this, but I think it's still pretty compelling.
P.P.S. Retraction: I also wanted to mention, apropos of nothing, that I really regret putting that She & Him record on my top ten list for 2008. I don't know what I was thinking. I had to take it off my iPod because it's frankly kind of irritating. Hope no one bought it on my account. The David Byrne and Brian Eno, on the other hand, is still getting plenty of play around here.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Culchah Consumah
I've been sick in bed for a few days now. Kind of all week, actually, off and on. Sore throat with an aching, hot/cold fever. Could be strep again; I find out tomorrow. I guess that means I have plenty of time to update this blog. But frankly, it feels like I don't have much to tell you and I've just been enjoying the first season of Project Runway on YouTube so much that I haven't felt like doing anything else. But I finally saw the end of it last night.
Is it just because I'm a designer that I get so sucked into that show? Probably not: it's very popular. I guess I could go on at length about what a great show it is... but that would probably be pretty boring.
I will just say that it's so entertaining to watch a contest that's judged on actual creative imagination and ability, where good character can help a competitor deal with a stressful (albeit quite artificial) work environment, instead of hindering his chances of "putting one over" on his competition. And that Tim, the mentor, is one of the most likable people on television. And that I'm in love with Heidi Klum, even though (/because?) she terrifies me.
But actually, there is some other stuff to talk about around here. For instance, I'll be flying to Montreal in a couple of weeks to do this show with spooky indie folk songwriter Laura Borealis. She's recorded an album's worth of duets with various guys, and I did one of them with her. The show will be an exact recreation of the recording, and will also be recorded, as well as filmed. The album will then come out as a double vinyl one, with the studio recordings on the first record and the live show on the second. In other words, I'm flying up on Saturday to sing one song that night, and then flying back Sunday morning. Luckily, it's not on my own dime. I may also do some songs with Al Tuck — who will, hopefully, be there too — as an opener.
Last night I'd planned to go into Halifax after work for a jam session with The Lodge, but I was sick and there was a giant snowstorm going on, and we were only going to be able to play for an hour, so it seemed like a bad idea. But Charles and I have both been working on new material, so I'm really itching to get together and jam it out into something songlike. Meanwhile, our album will be coming out digitally next month, and physically the month after that.
Another pretty interesting thing that's happening is that I've joined a reading group to read and discuss John Ralston Saul's latest book, A Fair Country. Its thesis is that Canada would be less neurotic if it admitted to itself that its main attributes have derived from Métis, and not European, culture. My friend and old etc. Press officemate Alain has started the group because the book was exciting him so much that he needed to talk to people about it. I'd been wanting to read the book anyway, being a Saul fan of quite a few years, so I jumped at the chance. Actually, come to think of it, it was another etc. Press coworker who turned me onto JRS: Matt was reading On Equilibrium and told me a little about it and I was so intrigued that I bought it and quickly devoured it. It's still my favourite. Around that time, CBC was doing its top ten Greatest Canadians thing, and I voted for Saul as the greatest. It was a tough choice between him and Wayne Gretzky. Of course Gretzky made the list and Saul was nowhere to be seen once the tallying had been done. But so anyway, it turns out that JRS will be in Halifax in April to talk at King's College [Maybe he'll come to our little university too? You know the one...], and he's heard about our reading group and wants to somehow meet up with us! And, as Alain is working that night, I'll be one of the people to chat with the author. I hope I don't get starstruck and start talking like a teenage girl on speed, or just stare into space and drool.
I've also lately read This Is Your Brain on Music and Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl. Both are books which I had pretty much decided in advance what they would be like and by which I ended up being pleasantly surprised. I don't know how I managed to avoid reading the Anne Frank in my youth, but it's really very good. She's so level-headed, and such a good writer for a fourteen-year-old. I can't imagine a girl of that age today writing something that thoughtful and compelling. At first it felt a bit like watching a snuff film, knowing how it would end, but then I realized that all biography shares that feature. The story then becomes not about the ending but about sharing in the experience of the middle part that leads there.
A third recently finished book is David Foster Wallace's Consider the Lobster. It's a collection of essays, à l'A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, and is of course fantastic. In particular, the review of an English usage dictionary, which becomes a long meditation on political correctness and prescriptive vs. descriptive grammar, had me nailed to my chair for hours and will be photocopied for my dad as soon as I can get it back from Johanna. But I think I've been doing too much non-fiction lately, and need to get back on the fiction horse for awhile. I'll probably start Moby Dick again because it keeps coming up and I was loving it years ago but never finished it. I should also try some more recent novels, to get me out of the "what's-the-point-in-continuing-now" slump I've been in ever since finishing Infinite Jest. I thought Martin Amis's Yellow Dog might pull me out, and it was promising at first, but its unrelenting ugliness eventually bored me into dropping it. Anyone got any suggestions?
This bed is really comfortable. I'm so glad Alison has a laptop. Being sick used to be so boring, when it meant watching soap operas or talk shows about makeovers and B-list celebrities. Instead, I can now watch stressed out designers shine in all their human glory or burn out trying, for hours on end. Or really any other manner of crazy stuff I care to look for. Here are some of the more entertaining random bits that have recently been brought to what I ironically call my attention. Enjoy, while I start in on Season 2.
- Andrew
Is it just because I'm a designer that I get so sucked into that show? Probably not: it's very popular. I guess I could go on at length about what a great show it is... but that would probably be pretty boring.
I will just say that it's so entertaining to watch a contest that's judged on actual creative imagination and ability, where good character can help a competitor deal with a stressful (albeit quite artificial) work environment, instead of hindering his chances of "putting one over" on his competition. And that Tim, the mentor, is one of the most likable people on television. And that I'm in love with Heidi Klum, even though (/because?) she terrifies me.
But actually, there is some other stuff to talk about around here. For instance, I'll be flying to Montreal in a couple of weeks to do this show with spooky indie folk songwriter Laura Borealis. She's recorded an album's worth of duets with various guys, and I did one of them with her. The show will be an exact recreation of the recording, and will also be recorded, as well as filmed. The album will then come out as a double vinyl one, with the studio recordings on the first record and the live show on the second. In other words, I'm flying up on Saturday to sing one song that night, and then flying back Sunday morning. Luckily, it's not on my own dime. I may also do some songs with Al Tuck — who will, hopefully, be there too — as an opener.Last night I'd planned to go into Halifax after work for a jam session with The Lodge, but I was sick and there was a giant snowstorm going on, and we were only going to be able to play for an hour, so it seemed like a bad idea. But Charles and I have both been working on new material, so I'm really itching to get together and jam it out into something songlike. Meanwhile, our album will be coming out digitally next month, and physically the month after that.
Another pretty interesting thing that's happening is that I've joined a reading group to read and discuss John Ralston Saul's latest book, A Fair Country. Its thesis is that Canada would be less neurotic if it admitted to itself that its main attributes have derived from Métis, and not European, culture. My friend and old etc. Press officemate Alain has started the group because the book was exciting him so much that he needed to talk to people about it. I'd been wanting to read the book anyway, being a Saul fan of quite a few years, so I jumped at the chance. Actually, come to think of it, it was another etc. Press coworker who turned me onto JRS: Matt was reading On Equilibrium and told me a little about it and I was so intrigued that I bought it and quickly devoured it. It's still my favourite. Around that time, CBC was doing its top ten Greatest Canadians thing, and I voted for Saul as the greatest. It was a tough choice between him and Wayne Gretzky. Of course Gretzky made the list and Saul was nowhere to be seen once the tallying had been done. But so anyway, it turns out that JRS will be in Halifax in April to talk at King's College [Maybe he'll come to our little university too? You know the one...], and he's heard about our reading group and wants to somehow meet up with us! And, as Alain is working that night, I'll be one of the people to chat with the author. I hope I don't get starstruck and start talking like a teenage girl on speed, or just stare into space and drool.I've also lately read This Is Your Brain on Music and Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl. Both are books which I had pretty much decided in advance what they would be like and by which I ended up being pleasantly surprised. I don't know how I managed to avoid reading the Anne Frank in my youth, but it's really very good. She's so level-headed, and such a good writer for a fourteen-year-old. I can't imagine a girl of that age today writing something that thoughtful and compelling. At first it felt a bit like watching a snuff film, knowing how it would end, but then I realized that all biography shares that feature. The story then becomes not about the ending but about sharing in the experience of the middle part that leads there.
A third recently finished book is David Foster Wallace's Consider the Lobster. It's a collection of essays, à l'A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, and is of course fantastic. In particular, the review of an English usage dictionary, which becomes a long meditation on political correctness and prescriptive vs. descriptive grammar, had me nailed to my chair for hours and will be photocopied for my dad as soon as I can get it back from Johanna. But I think I've been doing too much non-fiction lately, and need to get back on the fiction horse for awhile. I'll probably start Moby Dick again because it keeps coming up and I was loving it years ago but never finished it. I should also try some more recent novels, to get me out of the "what's-the-point-in-continuing-now" slump I've been in ever since finishing Infinite Jest. I thought Martin Amis's Yellow Dog might pull me out, and it was promising at first, but its unrelenting ugliness eventually bored me into dropping it. Anyone got any suggestions?
This bed is really comfortable. I'm so glad Alison has a laptop. Being sick used to be so boring, when it meant watching soap operas or talk shows about makeovers and B-list celebrities. Instead, I can now watch stressed out designers shine in all their human glory or burn out trying, for hours on end. Or really any other manner of crazy stuff I care to look for. Here are some of the more entertaining random bits that have recently been brought to what I ironically call my attention. Enjoy, while I start in on Season 2.
- Andrew
Friday, February 13, 2009
Monday, February 09, 2009
Some Illicit Reading
I guess this is probably an abuse of a blog, and it's definitely a violation of copyright, but I just loved this article in the last issue of Believer magazine so much that I wanted to make it available to anyone who cares to read it. It's about the current economic crisis and how it's symptomatic of a systemic problem with capitalism as we currently practise it and is therefore not going to go away anytime soon. I'd never read anyone whose views on the subject were so close to my own, so I got kind of excited. Here you go, if you feel like reading it.
(By the way, the square in the middle of the second page wherein a guy talks about biblical texts is part of an unrelated piece running sporadically through the magazine. Same with the Hamburglar.)
And if you got through that adult portion, here's some dessert: a two-page spread from a book Alison's been reading, called Me Write Book: It Bigfoot Memoir. Much less of a downer.
- Andrew
(By the way, the square in the middle of the second page wherein a guy talks about biblical texts is part of an unrelated piece running sporadically through the magazine. Same with the Hamburglar.)
And if you got through that adult portion, here's some dessert: a two-page spread from a book Alison's been reading, called Me Write Book: It Bigfoot Memoir. Much less of a downer.
- Andrew
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Five Not Exactly Significant Facts from the Past Week
1. WE'RE ON TWITTER NOW.
Crazy, I know, especially since I still refuse to have anything to do with popular internet selfhood-trivializer, Facebook. Our friend Ron talked us into it. I want to feel more connected to the people I know but don't see very much, without having to get into the whole ego trap of making a profile for myself that tells everyone in the world who I am as defined by my photo-, opinion-, and "friend"-collections. That's what this blog is for (see Fact 3). If you don't know what Twitter is, and actually even if you do, it's pretty much popular internet tool of the devil, Facebook, whittled down to just the status line. You get 140 characters to say what's going on right now, and everyone who is subscribed to you gets an update. And of course you get updates from people to whom you're subscribed. I'm thinking of it as an experiment. We'll see whether it turns out to be useful for valid social connection or just another excuse to be on a lousy computer at all times.
2. I TAUGHT A CLASS OF CA. 30 ENGINEERING STUDENTS HOW TO DESIGN A POSTER.
If you're on Twitter too, you already know this. Their professor had asked me to come in and give them some fundamentals of graphic design, as they were all being asked to produce a poster, aimed at high school students, advertising the benefits of studying engineering. It's for a contest run by Engineers Nova Scotia to promote their cause during National Engineering Month ("January 28, 2009 – March 31, 2009" [sic]). The prize is $100. So, for a hundred bucks, ENS is getting to contract who knows how many designers from across the province and then choose the one poster design they like the best, based on the brief they've given to all of them. Not a bad deal! Plus now some of those would-be designers have been given an hour-long training session in poster design for free from an ACTUAL designer. But anyway, valid complaints aside, it was kind of fun, or at least preparing for it was. The teaching part, I don't know; not really my thing, I don't think. However, even though I didn't really think I'd have much to say, I ended up using the entire time allotted for the class. I'll be interested to see what the kids come up with.
3. I FIGURED OUT HOW TO PUT A PLAYLIST THINGY ON THE BLOG.
Don't know whether anyone noticed it on the right-hand side over there. It comes from iLike. It's kind of cool, I think, although it only plays snippets from each song. But I can very quickly and easily make a mix of stuff I've been enjoying lately (see Fact 5).
4. ALISON CAME DOWN WITH A COLD.
She was out whooping it up till all hours on Wednesday night, then had to work on Thursday, and on Thursday night, while I was preparing for my lecture (see Fact 2), her punishment came a-calling. I'd had some fun plans for us this weekend, so that was kind of a bummer — she's spent most of the weekend in bed drinking grapefruit juice and echinacea tea. We did go for a nice walk in the woods yesterday, then we went immediately to the video store to stock up on laptop-in-bed-watchable movies before coming home. Which leads me to Fact 5:
5. WE WATCHED A MOVIE CALLED WENDY AND LUCY.
It was really good, albeit kind of a bummer. It's directed by the same woman who did Old Joy, which we liked a lot, and again has Will Oldham in it, but just in a minor role. Michelle Williams, of Dawson's Creek fame, plays the former title character, a young vagabond on her way to Alaska. Lucy is her dog. Wendy makes some bad decisions, loses Lucy, and spends the rest of the film trying to find her. It's very slow, quiet, and touching, just like Old Joy. My current playlist is I guess kind of inspired by the mood of the movie, or at least my mood after watching it.
- Andrew
Crazy, I know, especially since I still refuse to have anything to do with popular internet selfhood-trivializer, Facebook. Our friend Ron talked us into it. I want to feel more connected to the people I know but don't see very much, without having to get into the whole ego trap of making a profile for myself that tells everyone in the world who I am as defined by my photo-, opinion-, and "friend"-collections. That's what this blog is for (see Fact 3). If you don't know what Twitter is, and actually even if you do, it's pretty much popular internet tool of the devil, Facebook, whittled down to just the status line. You get 140 characters to say what's going on right now, and everyone who is subscribed to you gets an update. And of course you get updates from people to whom you're subscribed. I'm thinking of it as an experiment. We'll see whether it turns out to be useful for valid social connection or just another excuse to be on a lousy computer at all times.
2. I TAUGHT A CLASS OF CA. 30 ENGINEERING STUDENTS HOW TO DESIGN A POSTER.
If you're on Twitter too, you already know this. Their professor had asked me to come in and give them some fundamentals of graphic design, as they were all being asked to produce a poster, aimed at high school students, advertising the benefits of studying engineering. It's for a contest run by Engineers Nova Scotia to promote their cause during National Engineering Month ("January 28, 2009 – March 31, 2009" [sic]). The prize is $100. So, for a hundred bucks, ENS is getting to contract who knows how many designers from across the province and then choose the one poster design they like the best, based on the brief they've given to all of them. Not a bad deal! Plus now some of those would-be designers have been given an hour-long training session in poster design for free from an ACTUAL designer. But anyway, valid complaints aside, it was kind of fun, or at least preparing for it was. The teaching part, I don't know; not really my thing, I don't think. However, even though I didn't really think I'd have much to say, I ended up using the entire time allotted for the class. I'll be interested to see what the kids come up with.
3. I FIGURED OUT HOW TO PUT A PLAYLIST THINGY ON THE BLOG.
Don't know whether anyone noticed it on the right-hand side over there. It comes from iLike. It's kind of cool, I think, although it only plays snippets from each song. But I can very quickly and easily make a mix of stuff I've been enjoying lately (see Fact 5).
4. ALISON CAME DOWN WITH A COLD.
She was out whooping it up till all hours on Wednesday night, then had to work on Thursday, and on Thursday night, while I was preparing for my lecture (see Fact 2), her punishment came a-calling. I'd had some fun plans for us this weekend, so that was kind of a bummer — she's spent most of the weekend in bed drinking grapefruit juice and echinacea tea. We did go for a nice walk in the woods yesterday, then we went immediately to the video store to stock up on laptop-in-bed-watchable movies before coming home. Which leads me to Fact 5:
5. WE WATCHED A MOVIE CALLED WENDY AND LUCY.
It was really good, albeit kind of a bummer. It's directed by the same woman who did Old Joy, which we liked a lot, and again has Will Oldham in it, but just in a minor role. Michelle Williams, of Dawson's Creek fame, plays the former title character, a young vagabond on her way to Alaska. Lucy is her dog. Wendy makes some bad decisions, loses Lucy, and spends the rest of the film trying to find her. It's very slow, quiet, and touching, just like Old Joy. My current playlist is I guess kind of inspired by the mood of the movie, or at least my mood after watching it.
- Andrew
Sunday, February 01, 2009
Five Significant Moments from the Past Two Weeks
1. IN A BOLD CHANGE OF RECENT CHARACTER,
the people known as Americans have elected a new leader whom both they and others seem to actually like. Evangelist and vocal homophobe Rick Warren tries to ruin an otherwise stirring and yes I'll admit even sometimes a little tear-inducing inaugural ceremony by delivering a long and vacuous Christian prayer. I'm watching at home during my lunch hour on CNN.com live and they're running a constantly updating feed of comments from people who subscribe to popular internet time-waster Facebook. I wait for the barrage of comments regarding the mixing of personal religion with public government, a definite no-no if we are to believe the words of this country's founders. But it doesn't come. Oh, one guy types, "what evr hapend 2 teh separ8ion of church & st8?" but everyone else pretty much ignores him. Just as my bonhomie begins to fade, the entire country redeems itself when another of its Facebooker asks, "Why does he keep mentioning that Obama's black? Does he think God hasn't noticed?"
2. ONSTAGE AT THE REBECCA COHN AUDITORIUM,
Al Tuck is celebrating the release of his latest CD by playing to an intent and decent-sized audience. The show is being taped for later broadcast on CBC radio. Al is backed by a band of eight musicians, twice as many as usual, and I am the bassist. We are a few songs into the set.
The day has been stressful. I haven't confirmed a ride from Halifax back to Acadia for the next morning, at which latter place I'll be expected at 8:30 am to resume tackling the inhuman amount of work that is waiting on my desk. The sound check earlier this day seemed to go well, but Al was in a sour mood afterward, and none of the band members can say what his thoughts are about the set we have practised, nor predict how faithfully he will stick to it. In fact, it was left undetermined what the first song would be as we all took the stage (ca. 15 minutes ago?), and Al then set the paranoid mood by first fumbling around excruciatingly with his guitar and amp, mostly with his back to the silent audience, and then asking the band to start without him. Playing with Al is always a little chaotic and keeps one on one's musical toes, but that's part of the appeal, at least in theory. However, many of these musicians now under the scrutiny of
a) some very professional, i.e. bright, lighting and
b) a soft-seated crowd comprising an approximately even mix of peers and pre-format-change-CBC-listeners, plus
c) an as yet only imagined and therefore necessarily hostile future audience of post-format-change-CBC-listeners spanning the world's largest country
are not used to this element of chaos and are understandably uneasy.
We have started the next song, and it seems to be settling itself into something resembling a groove, but things could easily go horribly wrong at any moment and everyone in the auditorium is aware of it. Then a strange sound none of us has ever heard before begins to make its presence felt. It's not clear at first what it is, but it is definitely musical. There is a violin involved, and some harmonizing female vocals. It is sad and lonesome, but also urgent and beautiful. It has now gotten a foothold in this psychic and acoustical space, and compels all who hear it to give themselves over entirely and willingly to it. One can feel the swell of hearts, smell the smoke of synapses firing. It is the sound of a swoon. It is a sound transmitted directly from heaven, and I am only dimly aware that part of it is coming through an instrument I hold in my hands. This is what making music is about.
3. WALKING BACK TO KRISTA'S APARTMENT,
where we're spending the night after the above-mentioned Al Tuck show, six of us are being pelted by wind-blown freezing rain that has at some point turned into just plain rain. Our feet are wet and our pants are frozen to our legs as we negotiate the slush-covered skating rink of the Halifax Commons.
As a distraction from this potential misery, I ask Kasia whether she was a fan of the sci-fi television series Space: 1999. Alison and I have recently been watching episodes of it because I remember it from my childhood as much more sophisticated and thought-provoking and somehow religio-philosophically oriented than its cornier sibling, Star Trek (the Shatner one) — which aired in reruns contemporaneously and possibly even on the same day of the week, i.e. Sunday afternoon — even though it, S:1999, turns out in retrospect to be very silly and corny in its own right, plus weirdly static and monochromatic (white) and also kind of unintelligible in its plotlines, which may help to explain, Emperor's-New-Clothes-style, its apparent sophistication, and yet we have still found it to possess an oddly compelling quality that is hard to explain.
Kasia WAS a fan, it turns out, and immediately remembers the episode where there were evil, slimy creatures on Moonbase Alpha that looked kind of like giant versions of the McDonald's "Fry Guys," or at least WOULD have looked like them if anyone could actually have seen them, which they couldn't. The aliens may have squelched their way over people and turned them into puddles of organic goo. Shapeshifter Maya becomes one of the creatures in order to communicate with them, but then finds that she can't change back into her own form. This is pretty much the only episode I remember too. It must have been a particularly scary one.
By the way, has anyone else noticed the dramatic if not measurably exponential increase in complexity and specificity of science fiction television show premises over the years? Viz.
Battlestar Galactica: Robots have turned against their human creators and tried to destroy the entire species, causing the surviving humans to search the universe for the legendary planet Earth, where they will (they hope) finally be left alone to multiply and evolve. In the "re-imagined" later series, further complications are introduced, such as the robots looking exactly like humans and having developed their own culture, including a monotheistic religion.
Space: 1999: An accidental explosion on the moon, Earth's de facto nuclear waste dump in the futuristic year of 1999, sends it and the few humans who had been working on it hurtling aimlessly through space, where they meet with random adventure.
Star Trek: Some humans have decided to explore space, where they meet with random adventure.
Just kind of interesting, is all I'm saying.
4. CANADIAN ROCK HEROES THE SUPER FRIENDZ
are onstage at the bar Tribeca, again in Halifax, playing a reunion show. They are blowing Haligonian minds both young and old, exactly the way they used to in their mid-nineties heyday, mine included. As excited as I have been and am at this moment about the show's rock element, the reunion aspect of it suprises me with its uplifting force. I am REALLY enjoying being surrounded by people I know and love, and this, I realize, is a rarity in Wolfville. Without warning, I find myself briefly but seriously considering the positive benefits of being on Facebook. This thought scares me more than a little, but also forces me to admit that immersion in a tribe of one's choosing is maybe more important than I'd previously noticed.
5. BACK IN WOLFVILLE,
I take a walk in the snowy woods. Two pheasants are scared out of a pine as I approach, and I am subsequently scared by them. Anyone who says the world keeps getting more complicated hasn't looked carefully at the branches of a pine tree. Maybe the real problem (and most seem to agree that there is at least some kind of problem here) is that human culture — which is not subject to the low speed limit on biological evolution, as it can be both transmitted and transmuted within one organism's lifetime — is now approaching the complexity of the natural world from which it has emerged. I'm not sure yet why this would in itself be a problem, as emergent properties generally ARE more complex than their constituent components, but I feel like there is something there. Something to do with nature not being able to keep up with a culture that affects it faster and more systematically than what it has developed responses for, even as that culture is ultimately dependent on the natural system upon which it is wreaking havoc. Anyone got any clever intuitions?
- Andrew
the people known as Americans have elected a new leader whom both they and others seem to actually like. Evangelist and vocal homophobe Rick Warren tries to ruin an otherwise stirring and yes I'll admit even sometimes a little tear-inducing inaugural ceremony by delivering a long and vacuous Christian prayer. I'm watching at home during my lunch hour on CNN.com live and they're running a constantly updating feed of comments from people who subscribe to popular internet time-waster Facebook. I wait for the barrage of comments regarding the mixing of personal religion with public government, a definite no-no if we are to believe the words of this country's founders. But it doesn't come. Oh, one guy types, "what evr hapend 2 teh separ8ion of church & st8?" but everyone else pretty much ignores him. Just as my bonhomie begins to fade, the entire country redeems itself when another of its Facebooker asks, "Why does he keep mentioning that Obama's black? Does he think God hasn't noticed?"
2. ONSTAGE AT THE REBECCA COHN AUDITORIUM,
Al Tuck is celebrating the release of his latest CD by playing to an intent and decent-sized audience. The show is being taped for later broadcast on CBC radio. Al is backed by a band of eight musicians, twice as many as usual, and I am the bassist. We are a few songs into the set.
The day has been stressful. I haven't confirmed a ride from Halifax back to Acadia for the next morning, at which latter place I'll be expected at 8:30 am to resume tackling the inhuman amount of work that is waiting on my desk. The sound check earlier this day seemed to go well, but Al was in a sour mood afterward, and none of the band members can say what his thoughts are about the set we have practised, nor predict how faithfully he will stick to it. In fact, it was left undetermined what the first song would be as we all took the stage (ca. 15 minutes ago?), and Al then set the paranoid mood by first fumbling around excruciatingly with his guitar and amp, mostly with his back to the silent audience, and then asking the band to start without him. Playing with Al is always a little chaotic and keeps one on one's musical toes, but that's part of the appeal, at least in theory. However, many of these musicians now under the scrutiny of
a) some very professional, i.e. bright, lighting and
b) a soft-seated crowd comprising an approximately even mix of peers and pre-format-change-CBC-listeners, plus
c) an as yet only imagined and therefore necessarily hostile future audience of post-format-change-CBC-listeners spanning the world's largest country
are not used to this element of chaos and are understandably uneasy.
We have started the next song, and it seems to be settling itself into something resembling a groove, but things could easily go horribly wrong at any moment and everyone in the auditorium is aware of it. Then a strange sound none of us has ever heard before begins to make its presence felt. It's not clear at first what it is, but it is definitely musical. There is a violin involved, and some harmonizing female vocals. It is sad and lonesome, but also urgent and beautiful. It has now gotten a foothold in this psychic and acoustical space, and compels all who hear it to give themselves over entirely and willingly to it. One can feel the swell of hearts, smell the smoke of synapses firing. It is the sound of a swoon. It is a sound transmitted directly from heaven, and I am only dimly aware that part of it is coming through an instrument I hold in my hands. This is what making music is about.
3. WALKING BACK TO KRISTA'S APARTMENT,
where we're spending the night after the above-mentioned Al Tuck show, six of us are being pelted by wind-blown freezing rain that has at some point turned into just plain rain. Our feet are wet and our pants are frozen to our legs as we negotiate the slush-covered skating rink of the Halifax Commons.
As a distraction from this potential misery, I ask Kasia whether she was a fan of the sci-fi television series Space: 1999. Alison and I have recently been watching episodes of it because I remember it from my childhood as much more sophisticated and thought-provoking and somehow religio-philosophically oriented than its cornier sibling, Star Trek (the Shatner one) — which aired in reruns contemporaneously and possibly even on the same day of the week, i.e. Sunday afternoon — even though it, S:1999, turns out in retrospect to be very silly and corny in its own right, plus weirdly static and monochromatic (white) and also kind of unintelligible in its plotlines, which may help to explain, Emperor's-New-Clothes-style, its apparent sophistication, and yet we have still found it to possess an oddly compelling quality that is hard to explain.
Kasia WAS a fan, it turns out, and immediately remembers the episode where there were evil, slimy creatures on Moonbase Alpha that looked kind of like giant versions of the McDonald's "Fry Guys," or at least WOULD have looked like them if anyone could actually have seen them, which they couldn't. The aliens may have squelched their way over people and turned them into puddles of organic goo. Shapeshifter Maya becomes one of the creatures in order to communicate with them, but then finds that she can't change back into her own form. This is pretty much the only episode I remember too. It must have been a particularly scary one.
By the way, has anyone else noticed the dramatic if not measurably exponential increase in complexity and specificity of science fiction television show premises over the years? Viz.
Battlestar Galactica: Robots have turned against their human creators and tried to destroy the entire species, causing the surviving humans to search the universe for the legendary planet Earth, where they will (they hope) finally be left alone to multiply and evolve. In the "re-imagined" later series, further complications are introduced, such as the robots looking exactly like humans and having developed their own culture, including a monotheistic religion.
Space: 1999: An accidental explosion on the moon, Earth's de facto nuclear waste dump in the futuristic year of 1999, sends it and the few humans who had been working on it hurtling aimlessly through space, where they meet with random adventure.
Star Trek: Some humans have decided to explore space, where they meet with random adventure.
Just kind of interesting, is all I'm saying.
4. CANADIAN ROCK HEROES THE SUPER FRIENDZ
are onstage at the bar Tribeca, again in Halifax, playing a reunion show. They are blowing Haligonian minds both young and old, exactly the way they used to in their mid-nineties heyday, mine included. As excited as I have been and am at this moment about the show's rock element, the reunion aspect of it suprises me with its uplifting force. I am REALLY enjoying being surrounded by people I know and love, and this, I realize, is a rarity in Wolfville. Without warning, I find myself briefly but seriously considering the positive benefits of being on Facebook. This thought scares me more than a little, but also forces me to admit that immersion in a tribe of one's choosing is maybe more important than I'd previously noticed.
5. BACK IN WOLFVILLE,
I take a walk in the snowy woods. Two pheasants are scared out of a pine as I approach, and I am subsequently scared by them. Anyone who says the world keeps getting more complicated hasn't looked carefully at the branches of a pine tree. Maybe the real problem (and most seem to agree that there is at least some kind of problem here) is that human culture — which is not subject to the low speed limit on biological evolution, as it can be both transmitted and transmuted within one organism's lifetime — is now approaching the complexity of the natural world from which it has emerged. I'm not sure yet why this would in itself be a problem, as emergent properties generally ARE more complex than their constituent components, but I feel like there is something there. Something to do with nature not being able to keep up with a culture that affects it faster and more systematically than what it has developed responses for, even as that culture is ultimately dependent on the natural system upon which it is wreaking havoc. Anyone got any clever intuitions?
- Andrew
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