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

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

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

More Pop Culture Recommendations, Because I Don't Actually Have a Life

I just realized that it's been a long time since I put any photos on here. Too bad I don't have any to show you. Alison's got her good camera with her in Halifax tonight, and all that's on the point-and-shoot is a blizzard out the back window. It looks kind of cool because I used a flash to freeze some snowflakes, but I can't find the little USB cord to even be able to show you that one. And come to think of it, Alison probably doesn't have anything of us either, since she's generally not home when I'm here.

She was in Toronto last week for her dad's 75th birthday celebration. Then when she finally got home a bunch of work came in, so she's off for a few days again. She'll be back this weekend, but then I have to go into Halifax for a band practice. This crossing paths periodically is for the birds. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder," they say, but I find it's more likely to make the brain grow crazier.

I think I'm forgetting how to relate to people properly, for instance. I was introduced to a very likable member of the Acadia staff today whom I had already met once before. I pointed out that we'd already met, and he excused himself by saying that he meets a lot of people in his job, and for some reason I said, "Don't you remember I'm the guy who called you an asshole to your face?"! I thought it would be funny. I don't really know why. It wasn't.

Anyway, all this solitary time is good for getting stuff done, I guess. Last night I did the front cover artwork for the The Lodge CD that'll be coming out in April. And in sorting through old files, I found this gem that I'd forgotten I designed many months ago, which I planned on making into a T-shirt. Think I'll still do that; it'd be a great one.

I've also been listening to a lot of music, probably because my end-of-the-year list felt so ill-informed. I realized that there are a couple of albums that probably should have made it on there, or if not they were very close. One is the new David Byrne and Brian Eno collaboration, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today. It's a collection of pieces Eno had been working on that he then handed over to Byrne to write lyrics and sing over. The songs are harmonically simpler than what David Byrne usually writes himself, and the melodies are catchy and stirring. The words are typical DB fare, i.e. really great, and he sings them as well as he's ever sung, i.e. you'll love it if he doesn't bug the hell out of you.

The other CD that I somehow completely forgot about is Scarlett Johansson's album of Tom Waits covers, Anywhere I Lay My Head. Sounds like a joke, I know. What am I gonna recommend next, the new Hannah Montana klezmer experiment? I think I only checked it out in the first place to hear how much of a trainwreck it was. But it's surprisingly good. She sings in a deep voice with a limited range, somewhat like Nico. A guy named David Sitek produced the album and seems to have done most of the arranging, which is spare and quiet in a spooky, dreamy indie rock kind of way. Sort of like Beach House or something. Maybe I wouldn't have included this in the top ten even if I'd remembered it, and some songs are definitely better than others, but it actually is quite enjoyable, even if, like me, you're a big Tom Waits fan who doesn't relish the idea of someone else trying to interpret such style-dependent music.

Speaking of which, I played some more gamelan music at Ken and Heidi's last night. It's going to be a regular weekly get-together for a small group of devotees. I'm the newest member and still don't know the names of all the funny instruments or the weird rules for deriving parts from the spare score that is given out, but I sure am having fun learning. We would probably sound terrible to a Javanese person, or even anyone with some knowledge of the music, but it sounds fantastic to my exhilarated ears. All bing-bongy and cling-clangy, with lots of counterpoint and weird unresolved heptatonic phrases.

I'll be playing a show with Al Tuck at the Rebecca Cohn on January 28. Have I already mentioned that elsewhere? There'll be an extra large band backing him up and it's all being recorded for CBC radio. Plus, Little Orton Hoggett and the Ten Cent Wings will be opening. I can't wait!

Finally Mad Men: everyone needs to watch this show. You've probably heard about it. People working in advertising in the early sixties? Set aside a few days, because there are two seasons of it, and you won't be able to stop once you start. It's subtle and ambiguous, with lots of great characters and weird unresolved gin-and-tonic tension. I usually am not a fan of the "lovable jerk" archetype, because he is typically either not actually that lovable or not actually that much of a jerk. But these guys all manage to be both sympathetic and completely evil. Cool!

- Andrew

Weird One This Year

Hope everyone had a nice New Year's Eve. We came back to Halifax that day after getting to see some old friends in Toronto, which was really nice but left me a little melancholy. We went to Gus', as planned, to hear The Memories Attack, but unfortunately they weren't headlining as I'd thought, and were in the middle of their penultimate song as we walked in the door. And I don't know why I thought The Maynards were playing that show, but I was wrong about that too. There was a bit of a weird vibe in good ol' Gus', as one of the bartenders there, Peter, had just died a few days earlier, apparently from being hit in the head by a mic stand while breaking up a fight a few days before that. We left early and hung out at Krista's for awhile, wished New Year's Baby Keith a happy birthday before he went to bed, watched the Dick-Clarkless (and therefore lifeless) Times Square countdown, and then trudged through 100 mph whipping snowflakes across the Commons to Johanna's, where I stayed up until six in the morning talking with her about the complexities of human relations.

New Year's Day was spent in our pyjamas watching the entire season of So You Think You Can Dance Canada on MuchMusic. I woke up to Alison and Johanna watching it, complained about it for half an hour, made fun of it for another half an hour, and then got to know all the competitors so well that I had to keep watching to see the outcome. Unfortunately, they didn't show the final episode because the cast of Twilight were coming to "the Much environment" to be interviewed live. Nico won, right?

Here's my top ten album picks for 2008. It's been a terrible year for music. I could barely find ten CDs in my collection that I bought this year. Seven of these ten were purchased in the past month, and three of those in the past week, so this is nowhere near as stellar a list as last year. I know everyone's sick of year-end lists, so I'll keep this short and sweet.

Beck - Modern Guilt
Underrated. It's full of memorable songs that will get not unpleasantly stuck in your head.

Deerhoof - Offend Maggie
A few stinkers on this one, but it's still a good Deerhoof album, which makes it better than most of the other crap out there.

Deerhunter - Microcastles
I didn't want to pay any attention to this band because I already liked Deerhoof (see above) and thought it might just confuse me. But Charles made me buy this album, and I'm glad he did. There are no time signature changes or childlike female vocals, just some beautiful psychedelic shoegaze that sometimes sounds kind of like the Flaming Lips. It's not confusing at all.

Dungen - IV
Maybe a little less hard rock than his previous work. Goes down easy.

Gang Gang Dance - Saint Dymphna
Weird. In a really, really great way. Except for the song where the guy raps. Just skip that one.

M83 - Saturdays = Youth
This guy's always been pretty '80's influenced, but he really took it over the edge on this album. Clean, brittle synths and tragi-romantic themes for your inner miserable teen.

The Memories Attack - S/T 2
Heavy and catchy. A perfect combination. I hear they're great live, too. Sigh.

She & Him - Volume One
I have a crush on Zooey Deschanel's voice, although none of these songs sound as good as her singing in Elf. Maybe because she's not naked in the shower. I hear she just got engaged to the guy from Deathcab for Cutie. I wouldn't get into any black cars if I were her.

Tape - Luminarium
The second Swedish act on this list, but it sounds nothing like Dungen. Mellllloooooowwwww post-rock instrumentals in the vein of Talk Talk or maybe Another Green World-era Eno.

Neil Young - Sugar Mountain: Live at Canterbury House 1968
The latest live album from Neil's vault of archives. Every one in this series is great. Keep 'em coming!

Special mention — most disappointing album of 2008:
My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges
Blecch.

- Andrew

What Day Is It?

Christmas in Ontario. Despite the terrible weather, Ali and I each got here (on separate days) because we were both on sketchy little turbo-prop Porter airplanes and therefore not subject to the sociopathic whims of the bloated corporate bully that is Air Canada. We've had three separate Christmas dinners and are now looking somewhat bloated ourselves. There's been plenty of time with parents and siblings and kids, and plenty of late nights doing goofy family hangout stuff. Last night we watched School of Rock. Fourth time for me and I still cried. The night before that was a marathon Wii Rock Band session. I "sang" the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage". Frustrating and fun. Now the days are starting to melt together into one big candy-coated, egg-nog-drenched blur.

Tomorrow we're hoping to leave the suburbs and head back into Toronto to visit with some old friends. Then it's back to Halifax for New Year's Eve (whenever that is) at Gus' with The Memories Attack and The Maynards, both of whom have new albums out. Which reminds me, I'd better get to work on the ol' 2008 Top Ten Albums list. Hmm... could be tricky this year. There doesn't seem to be anything from 2008 on my iPod. Not a good sign.

- Andrew

Cookies courtesy of Alison.

Happy Birthday, Jenny!

Holy crap, I forgot to post this two days ago! I totally meant to. I hope it was a nice one. Wish we could see you over Christmas.

- Andrew

Hitting the Road

I finally finished my track for the upcoming Super Friendz tribute compilation! Check it out, for a limited time. First bit of recording I've done in a long while, and almost the last of the loose ends needing to be tied up around here.

Alison's off to Toronto for Christmas tomorrow, and I'll be following the next day. Hope to see some regular Our Blogloo readers while we're there. To everyone else, Merry God-incarnate-mas, and Joyful Solstice!

- Andrew

(Thanks to Peacay at Bibliodyssey.)

Yaw Unbelievabow!

I went to another doctor last night to get a second opinion about my throat, which still hadn't stopped hurting and was now on day eleven. He took one look at it and cheerfully declared it to be strep. I.e. I have to take penicillin or it won't go away. I.EEEEEE..... "Ignore it," is about the worst medical advice anyone could give, and therefore wins its speaker the EMF prize for this month. But now I know what it is and what to do about it, so I'm realtively happy.

I got some great mail this week: yesterday a letter from my friend Jenny (we're deliberately reviving the ancient communication format; turns out Canada Post will still deliver these things) and today a pile of CDs that I ordered from an awesome record store in San Francisco. I'm listening to one now by a Swedish band called Tape, and it's just as good as I'd hoped it would be. There's no record store in Wolfville, but it's pretty satisfying to walk home from the post office with a package of brand new weird music.

This evening I went to see a movie called Young At Heart. I had bought six movie tickets in advance at the local rep theatre, not realizing that they were only valid for a season, and tonight's selection was my last chance to use my remaining ticket. I knew the film was a documentary about a choir of old people singing rock tunes, and wasn't expecting too much. Well, of course it turned out to be just great. An honest and heartwarming look at some real interesting, very old people, being taught rock music by a nice, much younger guy, in a sort of reverse-School-of-Rock scenario. You should see it. But be warned that you will cry multiple time. Seriously.

- Andrew

Disease, the Devil, and Rock 'n Roll: An Unholy Trinity

I've fallen ill again! There's definitely something weird in the Wolfville air. Besides the "Christmas spirit". This week I missed two days of work because my throat was all swollen up and covered in icky looking bumpy things and I felt unable to raise the energy necessary to put on a pair of pants. I went to see a doctor after the fourth day of these symptoms, and she told me that there was nothing she could give me, so I "might as well ignore it." I said I was concerned that I keep getting sick since moving here, as it rarely happened when we lived in Halifax. But she assured me, "That's not something to worry about." After such expert medical advice, I felt better already.

Anyway, it gave me time to read large chunks of Christopher Hitchens's God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Just in time for Christmas. And Chanukkah, and Eid al Adha, Bodhi Day, Zarathosht Diso, Scientology Freedom Day... Krista gave it to me for my birthday. In some ways it's kind of more relevant than Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion, in that Dawkins can easily be written off as a poor old reductionist scientist, incapable of understanding the higher human virtues that lie outside of his Spocklike domain. Hitchins, by contrast, is a literary scholar with a keen taste for such unscientific values as beauty, dignity, love, and justice. He's also actively participated in many different religions over his life, so when he comes down hard against all organized belief in a supernatural power it holds maybe a little more weight.

In between being sick, rallying for Satan, and making plans for Christmas, I've been doing some recording for an upcoming Super Friendz tribute album. I think it's going OK, but I've picked a weird song and it could easily turn sour at the drop of a hi-hat. I feel like I'm playing with fire, and have to be very careful. Or else I need to just throw caution to the wind and let the notes fall where they may. I can't decide. I guess I know what Neil would do.

This weekend I'm going into Halifax again (Alison's already there. Did she ever come back? I seem to remember a day or two in there somewhere...) to see Dog Day at the Marquee and Matt Reid at Ginger's. The Lodge were supposed to be playing at both those shows, but we had to bail when Mike got called away on business. I'll also be visiting with my old friend Alain and doing some shopping for you-know-what. Everyone likes Acadia t-shirts, right? Then on Monday we're going over to Ken and Heidi's for dinner. I tell ya, the calendar's filling up awfully fast. If you want to see either of us before January, you might have to miss out on some of that blinking you had planned.

- Andrew

What a Weekend!

I know it's pretty much the weekend again already, but I haven't had time to get on here since the last one, which is the one I'm referring to. In the title.

Ali and I took the bus from Acadia into Halifax last Friday evening after work. It ran late because too many people wanted to get on in Falmouth (aka Foulmouth) and we had to wait for cabs called by the bus driver to come and pick them up and drive them into Halifax. Lucky cab drivers! But that wasn't what made it what a weekend.

In Halifax, we went out for a dinner of Chinese food at the King Wah, my favourite Chinese restaurant in Halifax. Meg, KC, Krista, and Johanna all joined us and brought belated birthday presents for me! As if that wasn't sweet enough, we ordered a huge table full of food, all of which was fantastic. Then we went back to Johanna's (minus Krista, who had to work in the morning) and listened to OOOOLD mixtapes of her brother's, made from the radio on a really crappy tape recorder through a condenser mic. Pretty funny stuff: Air Supply, Rush, Chris DeBurgh, Blondie... a real grab bag of goodness. But there's more.

The next day, Alison and I went to Angie's yoga class for old time's sake, and because we've been missing a lot of the classes in Wolfville, and also just to see Angie and Cliff. It was of course a great class, and turned out to be good timing because Angie announced that she'd be giving up her Saturday afternoon class after Christmas. We had exactly two punches left on our punch card, with which we paid, and that was that. THEN, Cliff and Angie took us out for a late lunch (another birthday treat) at The Carleton. It's a pretty fancy place, but Cliff's been doing a bunch of web work for them in exchange for credit there, so we had another huge feast of hors d'oeuvres and entrées. But there's even more.

That night was the elsewhere mentioned Neil Young show. We went with Johanna and also Krista and her dad, the latter two of whom sat in a different section from us. I wish we'd gotten to sit with them, in part because Krista's dad was really hoping they'd play "Welfare Mothers," which I just found so funny that I found myself hoping it too. They didn't. But it was a sold out show and Neil did not disappoint.

But before he even came on, Wilco opened with a medium-length set and blew everyone's minds. They just sounded so great from the get-go — we were way up in the nosebleed seats, and you could hear every instrument perfectly. Plus, our sidestage vantage turned out to be a good one as you could see what everyone was doing. So they were rocking along and everyone was into it, and then I think it was during "Handshake Drugs" the lead guitarist (Nels Cline, I guess) pulled out this unbelievably long and continuously riveting solo that started out like Mark Knopfler at his most tasteful but then got more jagged and somehow evolved into Richard Lloyd of Television and by the end was just a complete freakout meltdown. People could barely contain themselves, but they did because they kept wanting to hear what he would do the next moment.

Then Neil Young took the stage with a full band that included his wife, Peggy, on backup vocals and various tonal percussion, and multi-instrumental genius Ben Keith, who's been collaborating with Young since Harvest and who features prominently on On the Beach, possibly my favourite Neil album. I'd been worried that we might get nothing but the folky side of Neil, but that was far from the case. Probably over 50 percent of the set was Crazy Horse material, played as hard and gritty and driving as those guys could ever have played it. Well, OK, maybe the drummer wasn't as "good" as Ralph Molina... (Why the scarequotes? Screw that: he just wasn't as good, that's all.) But It didn't matter because Neil really brought it and sat with it and let it wind around him like that hypnotizing snake in The Jungle Book, just as zoned in as if Crazy Horse at their best were backing him up. He was generous both in musicianship and stamina.

The only song from my unrealistic wishlist that they played was "Cortez the Killer." But it was enough because it was the highlight of the whole night. Neil got the band immediately into a very spooky groove, which they maintained throughout the song, and then bent over Old Black to solo over that groove as excitingly and spontaneously as he ever has over anything. His tone was from another planet and his fingers were receiving interstellar signals about what to do with it. You could seriously hear 10,000 people breathing through their mouths because their jaws had dropped to their chests.

Of course he did all the hits that everyone wanted to hear, including three songs off Harvest, and they were all great because they're all undeniably great songs. I thought the guy a few seats down from us trying to force everyone to stand up and clap during "Heart of Gold" was a little incongruous — it's just not that kind of a song — but he quickly got over our contrariness, and I quickly got over him. I mean, it's Neil! The set was very long and so the encore was just one song: a cover of "A Day in the Life". Maybe they'd meant to do more than one song, but during the climbing freakout coda Neil broke every string on his guitar. He left it shrieking beside his amp as the band walked off, and that was the end of the show. Halifax sighed with satisfaction.

But that's still not all.

Mind you, that is most of it. But we stayed over at Krista's and went out for a lovely brunch with her Sunday morning, after which she drove me to the bus station and went shopping with Alison, who was staying over again that night. I said goodbye to them and went to The Trident bookshop for a relaxing read and a contemplative coffee (decaf). Then I got on the bus.

I rode home through the city streets. There wasn't a street, there wasn't a building, that wasn't connected to some memory in my mind. There, I was buying a suit with my father. There, I was having an ice cream soda after school. And when I finally came in, Debbie was home from work, and I told her everything about my dinner with Andre.

- Andrew

Goin' to See Neil

Tomorrow night! Wilco's opening. Gonna be quite a show. Neil's one of my big heroes. Lately this is one of my favourites. Apparently it's about his car. What a lovable kook.

This version's from the Unplugged album. I prefer the white noise of Crazy Horse, but it's still a great song. The original's from American Stars 'n Bars, a highly underrated album. Worth the price just for a lesson in song sequencing. And "Will to Love" is guaranteed to floor you. Couldn't find it for free internet play, though. Bah. Just take my word for it and spend the 99 cents or whatever.

- Andrew

Happy Birthday, Andrew!

This one goes out to the ladies at work.

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

First Snowfall!

- Andrew

Good Times, Great Friends, No Oland Export

OK, it's really not Hallowe'en anymore. Somehow I keep forgetting to update this thing. Must be having too much fun. There's been a lot of music and socializing around here.

Johanna did come to visit us and we had a great time with her. The seventies version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers was still not in at the video store, so we didn't get to watch it with her. We did get it later and it was very very creepy and made us rethink just how good the Nicole Kidman one was. But the weekend Johanna was here, we went for a hike around Blomidon with her, which was really cool and in some ways a more scenic trail than Cape Split. More variety, I guess. There were some really steep hills and some meadows and a waterfall. And we were only there for an hour! We also got to go down to the beach and see the spectacular red cliffs.











And speaking of spectacular Cliffs, there've been two The Lodge shows since my last post, both well-attended, -received, and -played, if I may say so. One was in Charlottetown at a funny student pickup bar with trivia games and an unraised stage, called Hunter's Alehouse. Alison and I were driven down by the dynamic duo of Johanna and Cliff, and then Johanna did all the driving on the way back. She's been getting lots of good practice in. And while we were there, we got to stay with Joan and Jason in their sweet island pad. As a surprise early birthday present, Joan knitted me a hat with Space Invaders guys all around the edge. Now I'm the coolest nerd ever.

The other show was last week at the infamous Gus' Pub in Halifax, where we got to see lots of our friends and have a really nice time. The Lodge opened for Smothered In Hugs, who put on a terrific show, despite some crappy muffled sound out of the Gussertronic™ PA. Those guys are fantastic. I can't stop listening to their CD. And we kind of kicked a** too. Meg put me and Ali up for that one. Her roommate, Carina, served us some exotic snacks at three in the morning like some kind of awesome Portuguese grandmother.

And then, last night, our friend Dusty came to Wolfville to host an open mic night at legendary local Irish pub, Paddy's. We went over to be entertained by his strummin' and croonin', and then he stayed over at our place.

This Friday we'll witness the unveiling of Acadia's latest musical acquisition, a full set of Javanese gamelan instruments, facilitated by Ken Shorley, exotic music afficianado extraordinaire. And the following weekend is Neil Young and Wilco in Halifax. Can't wait!

In the meantime, here's some more of Ali's awesome photos, from an evening walk we took a couple of weeks ago.




- Andrew

Happy Hallowe'en!

And happy anniversary to us! Number 14, don't y'know.

We didn't have any parties to go to or anything, but I thought we'd put on a little bit of a show for the kids. I found a couple of Elvis masks at The Bargain! Shop [punctuation theirs] and we dressed as a couple of Elvis fans. I also carved an Elvis-o-lantern that I think turned out pretty great.



I can never figure out how to do that sneer.

Alison's got it down OK.


I realized we didn't have any Presley records to play in the background, so we decided to be undiscriminating Elvis fans and listened to Costello all night instead. I'd bought 84 little chocolate bars, so we sat by the door with The Attractions blaring and waited for the miniature tykes... Unfortunately only six kids in total showed up. And one of those was the daughter of my coworker, Sherri, who lives out of town and who'd shown up to see the awesome pumpkin and terrible costume her weirdo friend (i.e. Sherri's friend, i.e. me) had come up with. She was the world's cutest horse (the daughter, not Sherri). I wish we'd gotten a picture of her (daughter again). Princess Leia, Hermione (sp?) (from Harry Potter), Spiderman, kangaroo, and vampire, by the way, in case you were wondering.

I'm starting to wonder whether there actually are any kids in Wolfville. There are plenty of old people and university students, and we see kids at the farmers' market on the weekends, but they could be brought in from surrounding towns. Alison claims to have seen at least five babies being pushed around in strollers by different women, but I say they could all be the same baby being cared for by some kind of communal mothering group. Sounds like the kind of thing they'd come up with around here. The Wolfville Baby, then, could be the hero in this sort of anti-Village-of-the-Damned story. Or maybe it's more like the reverse of that Star Trek episode where they visit a planet whose adults have all been killed off and Kirk has to try to reason with the children that there is value in adult life while they childishly ignore him. "NO blah blah blah!"

Our recently licensed Haligonian friend Johanna's coming this afternoon and staying overnight. She's driving! I'm hoping she'll want to watch the '70's version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers with us. We watched the recent remake, The Invasion, last night after the non-existent Wolfville kids failed to overcome their non-existence and show up looking for I have to say some pretty darn good candy which we'll now have to try very hard not to eat for weeks and weeks until there is none left. It was a slightly different take on the story, and very good. Nicole Kidman is a good emoter through feigned non-emotion. And Alison is a perfect horror movie audience: she jumps and shrieks in all the right places, a quality which I have a feeling Johanna shares.

- Andrew

Road Test? Check!

Now we just need a car!

-Ali

Thanksgiving Weekend

Hi, everybody! Here are some pics from when Andrew's parents visited us Thanksgiving weekend. The first three shots are from the Botanical Gardens at Acadia, but the rest are from our hike to Cape Split. I had never been there before and didn't really know what to expect.

The trail was 16 kms round trip! I think I stopped taking pictures on the last 4 kms. By that time, I felt like my feet had turned into wooden blocks on the ends of rubber bands! See if you can spot two photos where we have basically become part of the landscape.

Later that evening, we went to the Blomidon Inn for a special dinner. I had the best salmon ever and then slept like a log. Ahhh. It was truly a lovely day!































-Ali

Katie Won

... as predicted. She and Preetha went head to head for eighteen rounds in the regular spelling round, but Preetha finally buckled under the weight of "bourgeois". She clearly did not know the word. A few words before that she got temporarily stumped by another French word, "dossier," with which she also seemed unfamiliar, but managed to figure it out. Meanwhile, Katie aced both "fricassee" and "sassafras," both of which I would have gotten wrong. It was real exciting.

Then Alison and I got to go to the wrap banquet afterward, and sit with the president of Acadia University and his wife. Giant cheques and bags of Japanese electronics were given to the kids, who then played hide and seek and swung each other around ecstatically.

I'm hoping we'll have time to get to the Wolfville farmers' market tomorrow morning before my parents get here, but there's also a certain amount of cleaning up that needs to get done. We'll see I guess.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian friends. And if I have any American friends, happy Columbus Day, you crazy messed up maniacs. If you vote for McCain I will start building a home deep underground that will make CERN look like the Empire State Building, and into which you will no longer be welcome. Not even if you are bearing iPhones and Twinkies.

Anyway, sorry. Everyone have a nice long weekend.

- Andrew

Wow!

I'm so thrilled to tell you all that I sold a print at the ViewPoint today!

This one:


I'm beaming here... beaming!

-Ali

Identifying with the Pain Body

Sorry I haven't posted in so long. I'm just now realizing I've been somewhat depressed. No real good reason for it, but then it wouldn't really be depression if there were, would it? We've got this exciting new life in a really cool house, but mostly I don't feel like doing anything to enhance it when I get home from work, and can't seem to make myself get up early in the morning to do the things I need to do to stay mentally fit.

I've been blaming the cold weather and dark mornings, but I don't think it's just that. I miss my friends. I'm creatively uninspired, and have no musical projects I'm working on. I think about the absurdity of life a lot, and worry about all the people I know. I'm nostalgic for times when I wasn't even happy.

This weekend at the softball playoffs I found out that my friend Tim is moving back to Toronto tomorrow. It's a good move for him, 'cause he has a loving family back there and things aren't working out as rosy in Halifax as he'd thought they would. But it still totally bummed me out. At the end-of-the-season party I decided it would be a good idea to get drunk, since everyone else was already plastered when I got there. It IS weird being the only sober person in a roomful of people you love, but still that would normally not convince me to partake, because I know how badly alcohol affects me. Well, so of course it did, and I acted like an idiot, and got REALLY depressed for the next couple of days...

But in the end, that was actually a good thing, because it made me realize there was a problem. I started rereading Eckhart Tolle's Practicing The Power of Now yesterday, and it's really helping me a lot. I still feel sad, but now I can actually feel myself feeling sad. My friend Meg also burned me a CD of him reading an earlier book, so I'll probably listen to that too. Now I'm listening to some Roberta Flack, whom I've never actually checked out before but there was one of her records among the vinyl being given away for free outside the Wolfville head shop a couple of weeks ago and I picked it up and it's really great and exactly what I seem to need. It is a sad and beautiful world.

Anyway, there's plenty of happy stuff to tell about too. We've found a weekly yoga class here that seems like the kind we like: slow and aware, with lots of variations and reminders about breathing and attitude. I was going to go tonight, but didn't feel like it without Ali, who's in Halifax. I've actually only seen her for an hour in the past four days!

Oh yeah, happy stuff. Alison did a couple of full days of paid shooting last week for Acadia, on my recommendation, and I got to direct her. It was a lot of work, but nice to work together and everyone's pleased with the results. My parents are coming for a visit this weekend, for Thanksgiving. I hope they feel like doing some walking, because I'd really like to try hiking at Blomidon. There's also some local winery/vineyard tour stuff going on that I bet they'll be into.

And Super Speller, Canada's national spelling competition, is filming its semifinals and finals here this week. I went to the first day of taping yesterday, and it was quite exciting. Or, at least, it would have been if the excitement hadn't always been put on hold while they fixed technical problems. But the twelve phonically gifted kids are adorable and impressive. In a sense, they're all winners. Unfortunately, in another, more accurate sense, only one of them will be. My money's on Katie.

And also, Meg turned me onto this great and totally stupid show that really makes me laugh even though I know it is wrong. And Alison and I have (separately) been watching Californication, David Duchovny's recent (very adult) Showtime show, on DVD, which also makes me laugh misguidedly.

So don't worry, things are looking up, but I just wanted to let you know what's going on, because people don't generally talk about it when they're feeling down and then other people are like, hey what's wrong with that guy, why doesn't he ever call me or want to hang out, I guess he must not like me anymore, and that of course just makes things worse. And also, who knows — maybe someone can even relate.

- Andrew