Monday, October 31, 2011

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Ack II (Seen One)

Well, a hundred bucks, half a day's work missed, and two cab rides later, it turns out to be a fan that needs replacing. Could've been much worse, I guess. But now I have to wait two days for them to get the part in, take the computer back to them, and pay them another $50 to install it. At least I got to have lunch with Ali while I was waiting around downtown, so that was nice...

Ack

Taking my computer downtown to the Apple store this morning because the hard drive's making a horrible whirring, grinding noise, and I'm afraid it's going to conk out any minute. Yikes! Wish me luck.

Monday, October 24, 2011

Happy Birthday, Erika!


Hope you're having a nice one, sis.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Happy Birthday, Dad!

In case you ever find yourself thinking, as I sometimes do, that you miss being gainfully employed by someone else, here's a comic I saved to bring you back to reality.


Have a nice day doing whatever you want!

Monday, October 17, 2011

Ambient Surf

Here's a little music video I made using an iPhone and a microKorg. It's at the beach on the island where our friend Johanna's parents have a cottage. Alison and I were there with her over Thanksgiving weekend. The light on the sand under the water was mesmerizing.

Wednesday, October 05, 2011

Religion! Science! Go to Your Rooms!

So, getting back to the whole "How can we integrate spiritual thinking into a culture whose worldview has become almost 100 percent empirical, and what exactly are those justifiably grouchy atheists missing when they want to chuck the whole enterprise of self-transcendence over the side?" question, about which I never really stop obsessing... I think I may have stumbled onto an important distinction between science, on the one hand, and less rigorously causal ways of looking at the world, like art and religion.

Here it is; see if you think it's workable: the nature of science is to narrow possibilities, so that we can more accurately predict what will happen next or determine why something happened in the past. Art and religion perform the opposite role from this — they're meant to expand the range of possibilities available to the heart and the imagination.

I don't know if someone else has pointed out this difference before, but it strikes me as a potentially very useful partial definition of each field. Because if we can keep this distinction in mind, we might be able to see when one way of thinking is straying too far into what should properly be the realm of another, and thereby prevent things from getting all messed up in terrible ways. For instance, religion notoriously makes claims about the origins of things, which claims end up disagreeing with science. It should stop doing that, because that's not its job. Or at least, it should admit that its origin stories are to be taken as fictional: there only to open our minds to possibilities that are not allowed by science.

Telling us what we should and shouldn't do, at least in concrete terms, is also something it should stop doing. Again, this is a way of narrowing possibility, rather than broadening it. Having us look inside ourselves at our motives, imagine what might be going on in other people's minds, or try to experience everything we perceive in some different way — those kinds of things are all fine and exactly what the point of religion (and partially of art) should be. But rules such as the ten commandments will have to go if we accept this distinction as prescriptively valid.

On the other hand, science can definitely overstep its bounds too. For instance, when people put their faith in the progress of technology as the way for the human species to realize its potential, that's probably not a very good idea. Technology does, granted, open up possibilities that were previously unseen, but it does so only in combination with imagination. If we start allowing technology's evolution to usurp the need for human imagination, as we seem to have been doing for a few decades now, we're in big trouble. Think The Matrix/Terminator scenarios, assuming we don't destroy our own habitat before creating artificial intelligence.

A broader mistake that science can make, and I would accuse Richard Dawkins and his disciples of this one, is to think that it has the answers to all the interesting questions humans can meaningfully ask. To put it negatively, the position is that if your question is not in principle answerable by verifiable, objective observation, then it turns out to be meaningless. It's the kind of smug, positivist attitude that convinces people who have no interest in science that the whole field is bad news. But luckily, it's just not valid.

Science is great at answering questions that demand a narrowing of options: What is the principle cause of global warming? (Twentieth century human culture.) What existed before the Big Bang? (Nothing.) Does God exist as some kind of being or measurable force? (No.)

But there are lots of other kinds of questions that science has nothing useful to say about: How can I better empathize with my neighbour? What is the nature of love? What does existence feel like if time is seen as an illusion? These kinds of questions require answers like, "Observe your own thought process without judgment," "Say this prayer with meaning," or "Listen to this piece of music." And it needs to be OK to only be able to give answers like that — otherwise, we miss out on too big and important an area of possible human experience.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Mixtape

Recently someone tipped me off to this incredible music blog, Hippies Before Priests. It's nothing but downloadable mixes of obscure and interesting music, each with its own inscrutable title and blurry black & white cover. Each mix is also compiled into one MP3 file (so there's no skipping tracks or shuffling), with all the tracks volume-equalized and cross-faded lovingly into each other. Just like an old mixtape — brilliant!

I've been downloading them like crazy and enjoying them all. Whoever the guy was creating them, he hasn't made one since December of last year, so I think he might be done. I got all inspired and made a mix of my own, though, so here you go. The title is the download link.


Breakfast Cloud
1. Sunday Morning (live) - The Velvet Underground
2. Ouroboros - Oneohtrix Point Never
3. Magooba - You
4. Besvarjelse Rota - Joakim Skogsberg
5. See Through You - The Oscillation
6. Father Cannot Yell - Can
7. Stainless Steel Gamelan - John Cale & Sterling Morrison
8. Cryndod yn Dy Lais - Super Furry Animals
9. Foot and Mouth '68 - Gorky's Zygotic Mynci
10. Momentary Expanse - Tristan Perich
11. Please Wake Me Up - Tom Waits

Friday, September 23, 2011

Evil Crows

These crows are driving me crazy! Why do they bark incessantly at each other all day, right outside my window? I like birds as much as the next guy, but that ugly noise is REALLY distracting. Do they have to keep yelling to each other for no good reason, like a bunch of obnoxious teenagers? I'm sure they're up to no good...

Monday, September 19, 2011

Good Weekend

Went to a party in my neighbours' backyard Friday night and met some really nice people around a small bonfire. Saturday, The Lodge played a show at Gus' Pub with art school upstarts Old & Weird. Someone recorded the entire set, minus the first song, and put it on the internet, so you get to hear it, you lucky ducks.



Yesterday afternoon, after brunch with friends at the Jerusalem Café, was the first two games of the softball playoffs, and we won both. They were expected wins, but still I thought we played very well and looked smart doing it. Ice cream with Meg, Project Runway with Johanna, an early Flannery O'Connor story, and that was all she wrote. Because she died young of lupus. Tasteless joke. Sorry.

Monday, September 12, 2011

OK, Here's Some

The view from our balcony at an inn in Baddeck, overlooking Bras d'Or Lake

Top of the first hill we came to the next morning

Only shot of our photographer



The clouds coming over the mountains were blowing my mind.

NOTE TO ALI: If we're going to do a series of these, you gotta get that sensor cleaned. I can colour-adjust everything at once, but all those spots have to be cleaned up one by one on every single frame!

I don't know why the really nice light in this picture gets lost once it's uploaded to Blogger.

A cute motel in Pleasant Bay, inexplicably painted to resemble a pro-life sign


View from the second night's inn in Chéticamp

The infamous Skyline Trail. Yikes!

Sure was windy.

Thursday, September 08, 2011

Long Weekend on the Trail

I should have mentioned after dropping that bomb on you in the last post that Alison and I would be in Cape Breton last weekend. I basically begged for feedback on my big news and then ran out the door for three days — sorry.

Anyway, we drove around the Cabot Trail, getting out many times along the way to take pictures, and even going on a couple of short hikes. It was beautiful. Unfortunately, you'll have to take my word for it, because Ali has all the photos and is now in another apartment without internet. Bah!

Maybe you can just pretend these are ours:

We saw a moose on the first trail we hiked along — REALLY close up! I'd only ever seen a dead one before.

This trail — the Skyline — was spectacular. It ends on a really high, really narrow ridge overlooking a deep valley, the ocean, and the Cabot Trail itself, far below. It's also the trail that that girl got killed by a coyote on, in case the view is not fear-inducing enough.

Saturday, September 03, 2011

Big News

So, you may or may not know this, but Alison's and my relationship has taken some interesting turns in the past year or so. I haven't talked about them on here, because people don't generally want to hear about the private lives of couples. Or rather, they don't want to hear about couples they know, directly from the horse's mouth, as it were. Gossip is another story entirely...

But it's gotten to the point where not talking about it is going to cause confusion among the people we love, as well as make us feel inauthentic or even dishonest with respect to them. So here's the basic story, leaving out the gory details as much as possible.

The big change that happened is that we started seeing other people, romantically, almost a year ago. It was a mutual decision, made for personal, psycho-philosophical/spiritual reasons. Essentially, neither one of us had ever seen monogamy as an important value, and we both realized we'd only lived monogamously up until then because it's the cultural norm.

So we talked a lot about it and read books and internet articles about how to develop and maintain loving relationships with more than one person in an ethical way, where everyone gets to be happy and no one gets hurt. It's called "polyamory," and you can find out LOTS about it just by Googling that word. The main ideas are lots of honest communication, empathy, and willingness to examine one's own fears and motives. The same kinds of qualities that are important in monogamous relationships, really, except that here it becomes apparent much faster when any of those qualities is lacking.

Then we went out to find other people who would be interested in being part of this social experiment with us. Alison met a few different guys, none of whom turned out to be all that interested in either the "honest communication" aspect of the project or its intent to expand the boundaries of real, genuine love. That was hard for her, but it also taught her something about knowing exactly what you want.

I, on the other hand, met a really nice woman named Amber who, if anything, is even more interested in breaking down cultural barriers with love and compassion than we had originally been. That was in October, and we're still together. I'll introduce you to her, if you're interested.

Does this sound like the craziest kind of lifestyle choice you've ever heard of? Are you thinking we must be some kind of masochists to want to put ourselves through this? It is definitely hard work, I'll grant you that. But there are a lot of people out there trying to make it work (more than you'd guess), many of them quite successfully. And, as they're all the type of people interested in honest and open communication, they have lots of good advice and stories on which to draw. I've probably gotten way more helpful and concrete guidance on how to do non-monogamy right than I've ever found about how to do monogamy right.

I'm not going to say everything's perfect now and we've got this all figured out, because it's not, and we haven't. We have definitely made mistakes. People's feelings have been hurt. Mostly, I'd say, fear has been the biggest problem, and lack of honesty because of it. For instance, I've been scared to tell people about whom I care deeply what's been going on, for fear that they would think badly of me, even knowing that I could be causing them suffering by letting them gather incomplete information on their own. And Amber has been hurt by my inauthenticity about our relationship, because it feels like I perceive the relationship itself as inauthentic.

Alison, meanwhile, has been experiencing fears of her own — that my new relationship will replace ours, that she'll never get over feeling jealous, and that this whole thing may have been a big mistake because she may really be a monogamous person at heart. I sympathize with all these fears, but I also have really good reasons for believing that they'll eventually prove unfounded. However, I don't seem to be the best person to prove them unfounded to her, at least not at this time. We saw a couples' counsellor for a little while, and she recommended that Alison find some ways to become more independent, in order to observe her own fears more objectively.

So, the latest interesting turn is that, starting next week, Alison will be temporarily moving into the spare room of a generous friend of ours for one month, while I stay in our apartment. The idea is that she will have a better idea of what she wants, given some alone time where she's forced to be more self-sufficient. I'm sure living alone will also produce some new insights in me. We'll see what happens after that, but I'm very hopeful, because we are both committed to maintaining a relationship full of love and honesty and generosity, whatever form that takes.

I'm sorry to hit you with such a potentially shocking bit of news and then end the story on a note of uncertainty. But I hope you get that a) we are both still mostly happy and positive about the future, and b) I'm telling you about all of this because I love you and want you to understand my life choices, even though you might not agree with them. I realize this is a weird bunch of information to digest, but I hope you won't be shy about asking me any questions you might have about it. And if you'd rather not talk about it, that's fine too.

Love,
Andrew.

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Like/Not Like?



Desperately trying to catch up with the culture I live in and failing miserably, I've been listening to this tUnE-yArDs (Do we have to write it that way? So silly.) song for a few days, trying to decide how I feel about it. I think I've decided I really like it. Reminds me of that mid- to late-eighties minimalist and afro-inspired American avant garde pop, like Laurie Anderson, Talking Heads, and Philip Glass. Peter Gabriel a bit, too. Maybe because all those people shamelessly ripped off Steve Reich, just as this does. But what the hell, I like it all anyway. It's not like Reich INVENTED polyrhythms or anything. Jeez...

Merrill Garbus' voice, on the other hand, is definitely a deal maker or breaker, as all great voices are. But I'm on board and quickly being carried out to sea.

You?

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Bike Brake Broke

My rear brake cable snapped on the weekend, so I had to take my bicycle into a shop to get it fixed. I asked them to give her a tuneup while they were at it, as it's been a few years since I've done any real adjusting of anything. I've had the bike for probably 14 years now, and it still runs pretty great. But I used to give it a yearly cleaning and tuneup every spring, and in the past few years I've let it slide.

Anyway, they kept it overnight and gave me a call to come and pick it up this morning. It's really unbelievable how much better it feels to ride. New brake cable and shoes, both brakes were tightened, the rear derailleur got a new cable and the gears have all been adjusted, the crank's been tightened, and the chain and gears are all clean and oiled. It's like I got a whole new bike for 45 bucks! Fast, cheap, and good — the supposedly impossible combination. Friendly, too! Bikes by Dave on Young Street, if you're interested.

Now to go for a nice long ride...

Monday, August 29, 2011

Friday, August 19, 2011

What I've Been Listening To

Here's some music mixes I made for my friend Tim, who claims controversially that hiphop is the only relevant musical genre. These are meant to convince him otherwise, and generally give him a taste of what's on my iPod these days. Click on the front covers to download. Limited time only!








UPDATE: I just tried downloading these myself, and noticed that there are a couple of tricky ads pretending to be what you want by looking like big green "Download" buttons. What you actually need to click on the sendspace page is the blue rectangle that says, "Click here to start download from sendspace."

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Just Because I Love It

Here's a short film written by and starring Miranda July, about whom I was raving in my last post.

Monday, August 15, 2011

Cooped

Summer's slowly winding down, I guess. How's everyone's been going? I'm finally feeling like I don't have a cold anymore, two weeks later. What a weird summer. Finally got in the ocean for the first time on Saturday, although it was at Blomidon in the Minas Basin, so there were no waves. Plenty of mud, though. I really need to get out more. Cabin fever is supposed to be a winter phenomenon, right?

I'm reading a collection of short stories by Miranda July, the director of Me and You and Everyone We Know. Her stories are just as weird and genuine and internally consistent in surprising ways as that movie was — really great stuff that takes an unexpected twist every couple of sentences or so. And all the characters are sooooo damaged and so sympathetic. Makes me feel like sitting down and just starting to write, but also like just giving up entirely, because it could never be that good.

I finished The Pale King awhile back. Did I already tell you that? I'd been wondering in what sense it was an unfinished novel as I read it, since it all seemed to cohere and there weren't any mistakes or gaping holes I could see. But towards the end I got a sinking feeling as I realized that the story had barely started and there were only a few pages left to go. So I imagine it was meant to continue for at least as long again as what we get in this posthumous version (548 pp.). Maybe even longer. It is still really great, though. Just makes you wonder what DFW would've come up with if he hadn't surrendered to the darkness.

That's it for now, I guess. I'll report back when there's more actual life to fill you in on.

Wednesday, August 03, 2011

PEI

Alison was on PEI a couple of weekends ago, visiting our friends Tim & Roberta & Tom & Jenny. I wasn't able to go, but I wish I had been, because the photos I've seen are beautiful. This is what the grass was doing one day.