I was sitting in my favourite Mile End café pretending to study for my final tomorrow (to keep up appearances), cuddling with the local cat, and listening to some musicians set up for a set. As often with foreign languages I caught mostly only the conversational fluff, the fillers that frame communication - we need to, we have to, where is, I'm glad that... A pleasant lilting melodic background until I realized something. The musicians weren't speaking the usual background Québecois French. They were speaking Spanish. Because I have a familiarity with but not a fluency in both languages, the framework seemed natural even when I couldn't perfectly understand it. My preoccupied mind just harmonized with the flow of the language, got into its rhythm, prepared to maximize understanding, without even bothering to register what it was trying to understand.
Odd.
19.12.10
14.12.10
Viral
Julian Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, founded and controls Wikileaks. Assange has white hair, grew up on a place called Magnetic Island, never attended school regularly, spent ages 11 to 16 in hiding from his mother's abusive cult-member ex-boyfriend, and adopted the online moniker "Mendax" as a teen when he began hacking into servers at the Department of Defense, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and other sensitive targets. He was arrested by the Australian National Police in 1991 and charged with 31 counts related to his hacking; he pleaded guilty to 24 of them and avoided jail time. Prior to founding Wikileaks, he spent time as a programmer, blogger, security consultant, and physics student at the University of Queensland. He is essentially homeless, spending the vast majority of his time couch-surfing around the U.S., Iceland, and Europe. In his OKCupid profile, he described himself circa 2006 as engaged in changing the world through "passion, inspiration, and trickery," and his CouchSurfing.com profile promises that he will regale hosts with tales of "attempted assassinations in Africa, telephone taps in Australia...election rigging, the Russian mafia...and politicians' wives." He has a 20-year-old son, Daniel Assange, in Melbourne.
-Gawker's crib notes on Julian Assange
Julian Assange sounds like the sort of badass nerd-cum-hero every pasty high school computer geek wants to be when they grow up. [Also allegedly an egomaniac and less than savoury character in some aspects, but what's to be believed?]
Apart from all that, this new role model for the nerds, despite a notsoslight immersion in it I've always been wary of the viral world (this is the point where the hypocrisy of this blag comes to the forefront, I know) as at once a watered down, pixelated substitution for the real world and the best marketing tool in human history. Information especially from the social aspect of the Internet is collected in mass quantities and used for the clever targeted sales pitches that then insidiously bombard us from all sides. It's inspiring to me, then, to see this network of nerds fighting back, using information and computer code as their weapon, telling the world things it needs to know. It seems almost too blackandwhite, good guys versus bad guys, and of course it's more complicated than that even if we like to think it's not. But lately I've seen the Internet as overwhelmingly a banal distraction/ purveyor of quick gratification/ marketing machine, so it's a nice reminder that people out there who understand this particular system far more than I ever will are using that information as power and having a very real impact.
One of my close friends had a poster on the wall of their dorm in freshman year. Soundbytes in pretty font are oft derided for being almost too easy, but this one rings true and perhaps sometimes a salve against the onslaught is not so inexcusable:
-Gawker's crib notes on Julian Assange
Julian Assange sounds like the sort of badass nerd-cum-hero every pasty high school computer geek wants to be when they grow up. [Also allegedly an egomaniac and less than savoury character in some aspects, but what's to be believed?]
Apart from all that, this new role model for the nerds, despite a notsoslight immersion in it I've always been wary of the viral world (this is the point where the hypocrisy of this blag comes to the forefront, I know) as at once a watered down, pixelated substitution for the real world and the best marketing tool in human history. Information especially from the social aspect of the Internet is collected in mass quantities and used for the clever targeted sales pitches that then insidiously bombard us from all sides. It's inspiring to me, then, to see this network of nerds fighting back, using information and computer code as their weapon, telling the world things it needs to know. It seems almost too blackandwhite, good guys versus bad guys, and of course it's more complicated than that even if we like to think it's not. But lately I've seen the Internet as overwhelmingly a banal distraction/ purveyor of quick gratification/ marketing machine, so it's a nice reminder that people out there who understand this particular system far more than I ever will are using that information as power and having a very real impact.
One of my close friends had a poster on the wall of their dorm in freshman year. Soundbytes in pretty font are oft derided for being almost too easy, but this one rings true and perhaps sometimes a salve against the onslaught is not so inexcusable:
13.12.10
Saudade
I just came from the company of friends. In the face of exams we talked at length about the concept of view opinion and even experience being intimately tied to language - how the means of expression you have at your disposal almost predetermine how anything presents itself to you. Your mind packages things simultaneously with their occurrence, as they come up rather than after the fact, subconsciously categorizing and organizing, choosing what information to take and which to ignore, where to go from here. Language is intimately linked to that process of mental sorting - you can only communicate your experience through the limitations of the language you employ. Orwell's newspeak simplistically illustrates the causality of this perfectly - control language and you control thought.
The fact that there is so much to know means I know nothing about anything, I feel. There are seminal works in every field that I don't even know I don't know - I learned who Hegel was a year ago (and haven't gotten past "philosopher" in the time since), I learned the very extreme Magic Schoolbus-style basics of how a neuron fires around that time, how a bottom bracket works is still a mystery to me. I am accepting of, and perhaps almost detrimentally comfortable in, this ignorance. Often I don't read the news.
Being through no merit of my own fully bilingual brings a more unsettling, profoundly divisive ignorance to light. I am culturally Czech and American. I can function in both systems and think in both cultures, and this brings something up - each language, with its accompanying modes of cultural expression, attains sentiments and ideas that are inaccessible to the other. That cannot be translated, that cannot be explained. Not small things, either - fundamental ways of looking at the world, keystone ideas.
These are, mind you, two modern western countries sharing many of the same mores and conventions. What then must it be like to be Mongolian? To speak Creole or Urdu or Icelandic or any of the thousands of tiny dying tribal languages that dot the globe. I am unaware not just of facts and ideas, then. There myriad entire frames of thought absolutely inaccessible to me. To borrow a phrase, entire doors of perception infinitely shut.
A lifelong fascination with this wall of perception, in a nutshell, is why I translate, or attempt to. A bit like an irate American tourist storming the Bastille with a toothpick, admittedly, but we stand only to gain.
I came home from that conversation (with two friends who between them speak English French Russian Spanish and Urdu, no big deal) to another friend's one-word facebook status - Saudade. She is part Iranian, part Portuguese. I looked up Saudade. It is again fundamental and untranslateable. I know what it means, now, I identify with the feeling it describes very strongly, but I will never know what it means. I will never be culturally Portuguese. I know this and accept it - I also, despite my (American) second grade teacher's proclamations to the contrary, will never be an astronaut - but it makes me wish, just for a second, that saudade triggered for me what it does for Maryam.
The fact that there is so much to know means I know nothing about anything, I feel. There are seminal works in every field that I don't even know I don't know - I learned who Hegel was a year ago (and haven't gotten past "philosopher" in the time since), I learned the very extreme Magic Schoolbus-style basics of how a neuron fires around that time, how a bottom bracket works is still a mystery to me. I am accepting of, and perhaps almost detrimentally comfortable in, this ignorance. Often I don't read the news.
Being through no merit of my own fully bilingual brings a more unsettling, profoundly divisive ignorance to light. I am culturally Czech and American. I can function in both systems and think in both cultures, and this brings something up - each language, with its accompanying modes of cultural expression, attains sentiments and ideas that are inaccessible to the other. That cannot be translated, that cannot be explained. Not small things, either - fundamental ways of looking at the world, keystone ideas.
These are, mind you, two modern western countries sharing many of the same mores and conventions. What then must it be like to be Mongolian? To speak Creole or Urdu or Icelandic or any of the thousands of tiny dying tribal languages that dot the globe. I am unaware not just of facts and ideas, then. There myriad entire frames of thought absolutely inaccessible to me. To borrow a phrase, entire doors of perception infinitely shut.
A lifelong fascination with this wall of perception, in a nutshell, is why I translate, or attempt to. A bit like an irate American tourist storming the Bastille with a toothpick, admittedly, but we stand only to gain.
I came home from that conversation (with two friends who between them speak English French Russian Spanish and Urdu, no big deal) to another friend's one-word facebook status - Saudade. She is part Iranian, part Portuguese. I looked up Saudade. It is again fundamental and untranslateable. I know what it means, now, I identify with the feeling it describes very strongly, but I will never know what it means. I will never be culturally Portuguese. I know this and accept it - I also, despite my (American) second grade teacher's proclamations to the contrary, will never be an astronaut - but it makes me wish, just for a second, that saudade triggered for me what it does for Maryam.
11.12.10
I'm trying to read your portrait, but I'm helpless like a rich man's child
How could I answer that question if you've got the nerve to ask me?
10.12.10
As mental doors finally clang shut and the balance between a levelheaded vision for the construction of something worthwhile and the youthful bloodrush to the head that is not yet in its dying throes (I hope, for it's a sweet siren song indeed) is sought with clarity that increases every day, I'm torn between expansion and self-control, whimsy and rigor.
Screaming "Kick out the jams!" is the antithesis of saying "Save a small part of the world through math and sense and sensibility.", and I want both.
And allthewhile avoiding being derivative is almost impossible. Perhaps that's not remotely undesirable, though.
Screaming "Kick out the jams!" is the antithesis of saying "Save a small part of the world through math and sense and sensibility.", and I want both.
And allthewhile avoiding being derivative is almost impossible. Perhaps that's not remotely undesirable, though.
8.12.10
There Are Those Who Love To Get Dirty
There are those who love to get dirty
and fix things.
They drink coffee at dawn,
beer after work,
And those who stay clean,
just appreciate things,
At breakfast they have milk
and juice at night.
There are those who do both,
they drink tea.
-Gary Snyder
Oh, Americana! One of my favourite wanderers suggests that I am doing just fine indeed. Alas my fixing has been less than my breaking of late. Blizzards aren't good for bikes, and theoretical math isn't good for getting dirty. Or fixing things.
Them's the rules, though:
1. Everything will be alright always.
2. No decaf anything ever.
and fix things.
They drink coffee at dawn,
beer after work,
And those who stay clean,
just appreciate things,
At breakfast they have milk
and juice at night.
There are those who do both,
they drink tea.
-Gary Snyder
Oh, Americana! One of my favourite wanderers suggests that I am doing just fine indeed. Alas my fixing has been less than my breaking of late. Blizzards aren't good for bikes, and theoretical math isn't good for getting dirty. Or fixing things.
Them's the rules, though:
1. Everything will be alright always.
2. No decaf anything ever.
6.12.10
On a pair of socks
A year ago at a party I was party to an effusive hug which ended in a fall, a stocking ripped at the toe, and a badly twisted ankle. Yesterday in the library wandering around without shoes I noticed a subconscious twinge in my ankle, a ghost-sprain, as it were, the slightest feeling of unease, the smallest worry fighting to escape the back of my mind. I looked down and saw the hole in the toe of my sock.
A strange sensation to be sure, but my young malleable consciousness has learned the lesson. Today I am wearing sturdy wool socks and my feet and mind are calm and warm and dry.
A strange sensation to be sure, but my young malleable consciousness has learned the lesson. Today I am wearing sturdy wool socks and my feet and mind are calm and warm and dry.
1.10.10
Last Weekend Retrospective
When I was a young idealist
(as opposed to now
when I am old bitter and cynical)
(evidently)
Kick bag, dig, while we do it to you in your eardrums.
(as opposed to now
when I am old bitter and cynical)
(evidently)
Kick bag, dig, while we do it to you in your eardrums.
29.9.10
I'm nearly out of things to say
This blog is undergoing a planned demolition on Saturday, but today I learned to prove the following:
If you take any two numbers on the real number line - any two numbers at all - there will always be both a rational and an irrational number between them.
It's been a while since I found math beautiful.
If you take any two numbers on the real number line - any two numbers at all - there will always be both a rational and an irrational number between them.
It's been a while since I found math beautiful.
28.9.10
Use your words
"When you're getting into sort of very heated ideological debates like that, it's going to get heated."
-McGill Tribune
-McGill Tribune
26.9.10
RIP Toxie
When I was growing up, NPR was the only radio station that my parents listened to. Eventually I quietly rebelled and struck out to expand my horizons by listening to 88.5, the UPenn college radio, but Planet Money, All Things Considered, and CarTalk were the background to many cooking sessions in my kitchen.
So I was saddened greatly to hear that NPR's pet toxic asset, Toxie, died on Friday.
Hats off and a moment of silence.
So I was saddened greatly to hear that NPR's pet toxic asset, Toxie, died on Friday.
Hats off and a moment of silence.
24.9.10
Weekend Not Retrospective - very much right now, but suppressed
The Talking Heads make me want to run ten miles at sixminute mile pace wearing hot pink spandex and then punch someone not out of dislike or illwill but out of sheer joy at being alive:
I'm in a library writing proofs, I don't own any pink spandex and I can't run at sixminute mile pace for very long anymore, so that may have to be postponed for the time being.
I'm in a library writing proofs, I don't own any pink spandex and I can't run at sixminute mile pace for very long anymore, so that may have to be postponed for the time being.
21.9.10
On this day in 1934...
My anarchist student planner (very similar to a regular student planner except for its endorsement of views which range from vaguely leftist to absolutely extreme and an apparent inability to spell the word its) reminded me today that it's Leonard Cohen's birthday. Living in Montreal, I have acquaintances who claim to have seen him walking his dog in the park and go to a school whose Daily newspaper he used to write for. Like every female from the age of fifteen I've had my Cohen phase and still think he's rather a sexpot.
So happy birthday:
Grooveshark also has a Regina Spektor cover of the same song which may have the rare quality of being even better than the original.
Sidenote: Regina Spektor has long been one of my feminine vices. During freshman year, a friend and I discovered that one of the most intense and intimidating men we knew also liked her. The information was a bit like Christmas come early while serving as affirmation that even people who run on motor oil have souls.
So happy birthday:
Grooveshark also has a Regina Spektor cover of the same song which may have the rare quality of being even better than the original.
Sidenote: Regina Spektor has long been one of my feminine vices. During freshman year, a friend and I discovered that one of the most intense and intimidating men we knew also liked her. The information was a bit like Christmas come early while serving as affirmation that even people who run on motor oil have souls.
20.9.10
I just noticed this
I live on the border of the city of Montreal and the rich, white, very anglophone enclave of Westmount, a city within a city that defected from Montreal after refusing to pay poor people's taxes for things like public transit. Today I noticed that the main artery Boulevard René Levesque (named after the founder of the Parti Québecois, a Canadian political party whose main platform is to defect from Canada), becomes Boulevard Dorchester (possibly the most Anglo-Saxon name I can think of short of Nottinghamshire) upon entering Westmount. Apparently white anglos can't stomach him. I don't know nearly enough about the controversial figure of Monsieur Levesque or his politics to pass judgement, but I do know the following fun fact: He once ran over a guy lying in the street and the policeman fined him $25 for not wearing his glasses.
19.9.10
WR: Muzeum
Jaromir Nohavica is a prolific Czech folk songwriter who provided the background to all car trips in my youth, before we switched to Deep Purple. In elementary school, I knew dozens of his songs but was staunchly unaware of the hip music of my day (fourth grade: N'Sync and the Backstreet Boys - my ignorance made me firmly uncool).
The remarkable thing about Nohavica is the spectrum of the human experience that he adresses. On one side, twenty/thirty years ago he was a man who wrote and sang brilliant protest songs against the regime in a grey time when most people kept their heads down. (It's pretty easy to protest the government in a country that has at least a theoretical notion of free speech; it takes a lot more personal bravery when you know consider the consequences in a totalitarian state). He wasn't allowed to record, but his songs survived and circulated through illegal concerts and tapes and twenty years after they were written my friends and I were still singing them around fires. At the same time he wasn't strictly, or even primarily, a protest song writer - he has hundreds of songs, silly and serious, about history, love, the metro, soccer, having children, alcoholism, and sex and life and death. His songs aren't all great, but they all seem to at least authentically comment some facet of a human experience that is both very universal and very specific. He still sings through the decades - when I was thirteen I heard him sing a song called "The plane from Prague to Montreal" at the Czech embassy in Washington, D.C.
This song is called Muzeum and it's about a tram ride in the town of Opava and a museum and life and eternity.
The remarkable thing about Nohavica is the spectrum of the human experience that he adresses. On one side, twenty/thirty years ago he was a man who wrote and sang brilliant protest songs against the regime in a grey time when most people kept their heads down. (It's pretty easy to protest the government in a country that has at least a theoretical notion of free speech; it takes a lot more personal bravery when you know consider the consequences in a totalitarian state). He wasn't allowed to record, but his songs survived and circulated through illegal concerts and tapes and twenty years after they were written my friends and I were still singing them around fires. At the same time he wasn't strictly, or even primarily, a protest song writer - he has hundreds of songs, silly and serious, about history, love, the metro, soccer, having children, alcoholism, and sex and life and death. His songs aren't all great, but they all seem to at least authentically comment some facet of a human experience that is both very universal and very specific. He still sings through the decades - when I was thirteen I heard him sing a song called "The plane from Prague to Montreal" at the Czech embassy in Washington, D.C.
This song is called Muzeum and it's about a tram ride in the town of Opava and a museum and life and eternity.
14.9.10
Can you poke Israel on Twitter?
Israel has acquired the user name @israel on Twitter, the microblogging Internet service, from the Spanish owner of a pornographic Web site, in an unusual transaction intended to help Israel exercise more influence over its image.
- The New York Times
- The New York Times
13.9.10
Excepting Alice
With return to my educational institution comes less time available to post silly shit on the internet, but with sweaters and an eye to winter here is a very awesome print by the graphic Adolf Born called "Komensky's winter ice skating school in Naarden":
10.9.10
Them anarchopunks are mysterious (Last night on Rue Atwater...)
I saw a kid with a mohawk going down the (fourlane, semihighway) Atwater hill on his BMX - one foot on the handlebars and one on the seat. He may have been sixteen, but I was exponentially more impressed than with the omnipresent skinnylegged skinnyjeaned hipster kids who can't make it up University Street on their fixies.
7.9.10
On Pronunciation
I was fortuitously born into a country whose native language often lacks vowels and sounds to the untrained ear mostly like a throat infection. I then proceeded to skip the part of Czech school where they corrected the inevitable enunciation errors that tend to crop up due to the aforementioned vocal situation while at the same time moving to the States too late to learn how to pronounce American vowels correctly. Thus I remain the only person that I know of who has either an accent or a speech impediment in every language they speak. Additionally, because the languages I (somewhat) speak all have different emphasis placement and verbal structure, I tend to on the first try get it wrong, disastrously - (see the words impotent, Antipodes, and disgusting, among others). This came to a head the other day when I discovered that the pop minstrel responsible for such musical wonders as "California Girls" and "I Kissed a Girl" was named "Kay-tee", (not CAT - E) Perry.
All this to say that I empathized considerably with the poor Germans in this education ad, whose premise is "Don't go to schools whose name you can't pronounce, even if they're MIT."
All this to say that I empathized considerably with the poor Germans in this education ad, whose premise is "Don't go to schools whose name you can't pronounce, even if they're MIT."
3.9.10
Descent into the mundane conformity of the ninetofive grind
Today I felt rebellious because I drank coffee out of a white mug that said "tea" in black Times New Roman font.
2.9.10
Well, yes, that's also a fair point
Cheerfully cynical. My view of the world is not that different from Kafka's, really. The difference is that Kafka let it make him miserable and I refuse. Life is too short. My personal motto has always been: Joy in spite of everything. Not just mindless joy, but joy in spite of everything. Recognizing the inequities and the suffering and the corruption and all that but refusing to let it rain on my parade. And I advocate this to other people.
-Tom Robbins
Or just validation for my mindless ebullient exuberance.
Either way, my map of South America now has upwards of thirty colours on it, and ice cream was on sale today even if a national food chain robbed me unjustly of two tacos and left me hungry on the streets of Arlington.
-Tom Robbins
Or just validation for my mindless ebullient exuberance.
Either way, my map of South America now has upwards of thirty colours on it, and ice cream was on sale today even if a national food chain robbed me unjustly of two tacos and left me hungry on the streets of Arlington.
30.8.10
28.8.10
27.8.10
WR: Come on now, Newsweek.
Rock radio may have gone soft, but 'Exile on Main Street' is still musical Viagra.-Newsweek article on how remastered Jagger kind of pales but is still Jagger and indie kids are pussies
This, at least, is undeniably true. Fittingly, the album starts off with the best song about erectile dysfunction ever written, to my knowledge at least. When I was fifteen, I was not aware that it was about erectile dysfunction, but it definitely became my teen angst anthem.
The video is worthwhile as well.
This, at least, is undeniably true. Fittingly, the album starts off with the best song about erectile dysfunction ever written, to my knowledge at least. When I was fifteen, I was not aware that it was about erectile dysfunction, but it definitely became my teen angst anthem.
The video is worthwhile as well.
26.8.10
Tendon, we need to talk
Look, I like that you make great ropes at half the price of Mammut. I like that you're a Czech company and small and not notably evil. But I have an issue: What the shit is a womens' climbing rope?
I get that the gender divide thing is lucrative. At least women's clif bars taste marginally better, but they have less calories and protein which kind of defeats the purpose of a clif bar, and the New Age woman dancing under a moon on the wrapper is kind of irritating. Women's bike shorts also somewhat make sense, although I bought men's bike shorts because they were cheaper and they work just fine (maybe because I have the ass of a small man). In almost every sport there is a women's edition of something, usually pink or turquoise and covered in those really annoying flowers, to show that we women athletes are sassy yet feminine, obviously. I like that in our grand capitalist economy I can buy skis for my weight and gloves that fit my hands, but I would appreciate less pink in the marketing and more common sense.
As a woman (pseudo)climber, I weigh about as much as your average fourteen year old boy and I'm sure your rope can't tell the difference. If I fall, I just need a rope that won't snap, regardless of my gender. The only logical way to market a women's rope would be to say it's lighter (say a 9) for our frail frames, but the Tendon women's rope is a solid, midweight 10.2 mm.
So yeah, Tendon, stop abusing the gender marketing thing so flagrantly. I suppose I should be glad that your rope isn't pink.
Remotely related: Beth Rodden is a sexpot.
I get that the gender divide thing is lucrative. At least women's clif bars taste marginally better, but they have less calories and protein which kind of defeats the purpose of a clif bar, and the New Age woman dancing under a moon on the wrapper is kind of irritating. Women's bike shorts also somewhat make sense, although I bought men's bike shorts because they were cheaper and they work just fine (maybe because I have the ass of a small man). In almost every sport there is a women's edition of something, usually pink or turquoise and covered in those really annoying flowers, to show that we women athletes are sassy yet feminine, obviously. I like that in our grand capitalist economy I can buy skis for my weight and gloves that fit my hands, but I would appreciate less pink in the marketing and more common sense.
As a woman (pseudo)climber, I weigh about as much as your average fourteen year old boy and I'm sure your rope can't tell the difference. If I fall, I just need a rope that won't snap, regardless of my gender. The only logical way to market a women's rope would be to say it's lighter (say a 9) for our frail frames, but the Tendon women's rope is a solid, midweight 10.2 mm.
So yeah, Tendon, stop abusing the gender marketing thing so flagrantly. I suppose I should be glad that your rope isn't pink.
Remotely related: Beth Rodden is a sexpot.
25.8.10
The Umbrella from Piccadilly
My translation of Deštník z Piccadilly, my favourite poem by Jaroslav Seifert (Nobel Laureate in poetry and one of the best Czech poets). I started it a few months ago and took a hiatus when I misplaced the original collection. By the time I found it it was finals season at university and I was not feeling particularly romantic. It may have been translated before and my version may not really approach the towering heights of the original, but I quite like it.
He who is lost in feeling
should fall in love
perhaps with the Queen of England.
Why not!
Her face is on every stamp
of the ancient kingdom.
If, however, he asks
for a date in Hyde Park,
he can be certain
of waiting in vain.
If, however, he is even a little sensible
he will wisely say to himself:
But of course, I know,
It's raining in Hyde Park today.
When he was returning from England,
my son bought me on Piccadilly Circus
a walking umbrella.
When I need to,
I have above my head
my own small sky
which may be black,
but in its taut wires
can stream the mercy of God
like electricity.
I open the umbrella, even when it's not raining
like a canopy
above a book of Shakespeare's sonnets
that I carry in my pocket.
There are moments, however,
when I am terrified
even of the brightly lit bouquet of the cosmos.
Regardless of its beauty
it menaces with its infiniteness
which is all too similar
to the sleep after death.
It menaces with the chill and emptiness
of its thousands of stars
which lie to us at night
with their light.
The one they named Venus
is simply monstrous.
Cliffs still boil there
and like gigantic ocean waves
mountains rise up
and flaming sulphur rains.
We always ask where hell is.
It's there!
What use, though, is a frail umbrella
against the cosmos!
Anyway I don't even carry it.
I have my hands full
with walking
clutched tightly to my Earth
like a night moth in the daytime
to the rough bark of a tree.
All my life I've searched for the Eden
that used to be here,
and traces of it I found
only on the lips of a woman
and on the contours of her skin
dewed with love.
All my life I've yearned
for freedom.
Finally I've found the door
through which it is possible to enter it.
It is death!
Today when I am old
once in a while a lovely woman's face
passes through my lashes
and her smile stirs my blood.
Shyly I turn to look at her
and I remember the Queen of England
whose face is on every stamp
of the ancient kingdom.
God save the Queen!
Oh yes, I very well know,
it's raining in Hyde Park today!
He who is lost in feeling
should fall in love
perhaps with the Queen of England.
Why not!
Her face is on every stamp
of the ancient kingdom.
If, however, he asks
for a date in Hyde Park,
he can be certain
of waiting in vain.
If, however, he is even a little sensible
he will wisely say to himself:
But of course, I know,
It's raining in Hyde Park today.
When he was returning from England,
my son bought me on Piccadilly Circus
a walking umbrella.
When I need to,
I have above my head
my own small sky
which may be black,
but in its taut wires
can stream the mercy of God
like electricity.
I open the umbrella, even when it's not raining
like a canopy
above a book of Shakespeare's sonnets
that I carry in my pocket.
There are moments, however,
when I am terrified
even of the brightly lit bouquet of the cosmos.
Regardless of its beauty
it menaces with its infiniteness
which is all too similar
to the sleep after death.
It menaces with the chill and emptiness
of its thousands of stars
which lie to us at night
with their light.
The one they named Venus
is simply monstrous.
Cliffs still boil there
and like gigantic ocean waves
mountains rise up
and flaming sulphur rains.
We always ask where hell is.
It's there!
What use, though, is a frail umbrella
against the cosmos!
Anyway I don't even carry it.
I have my hands full
with walking
clutched tightly to my Earth
like a night moth in the daytime
to the rough bark of a tree.
All my life I've searched for the Eden
that used to be here,
and traces of it I found
only on the lips of a woman
and on the contours of her skin
dewed with love.
All my life I've yearned
for freedom.
Finally I've found the door
through which it is possible to enter it.
It is death!
Today when I am old
once in a while a lovely woman's face
passes through my lashes
and her smile stirs my blood.
Shyly I turn to look at her
and I remember the Queen of England
whose face is on every stamp
of the ancient kingdom.
God save the Queen!
Oh yes, I very well know,
it's raining in Hyde Park today!
22.8.10
WR: Ah ouais, ah bon.
Another car ride tune - Quebec ska, Les colocs, whose musical career ended when the lead singer committed harakiri. This song is pretty cheerful, though, and features depanneurs, tabernac!, and hitting on way too young girls. Solid way to spend an afternoon I suppose.
20.8.10
I love you Canada
Land of weed and bears, pretty much.
Strange to be reading the BBC (and using highspeed internet) in a place where warm water is somewhat of a commodity and getting the daily paper involves a bit of a trek.
Strange to be reading the BBC (and using highspeed internet) in a place where warm water is somewhat of a commodity and getting the daily paper involves a bit of a trek.
19.8.10
From a Newsweek article on logic
Even when we intend to deploy the full force of our rational faculties, we are often as ineffectual as eunuchs at an orgy.
Thank you, Newsweek, for keeping it classy.
Thank you, Newsweek, for keeping it classy.
17.8.10
To do after a long bike trip
Read books, repeat quotations, sleep, enjoy the feeling of a mattress, eat cream jogurt constantly while not getting any physical exercise at all, get violently ill, meet puppies, drink beers, ride trams, argue with the national government, buy old books in a frenzy, listen to grandparents.
So far so good.
Also:
Domorodci na pobřeží slonoviny
Posílaj si ráno slony pro noviny.
Když je cestou ztratí, hloupí slonové,
musí zpátky do trafiky pro nové.
Unrelated minor rage: Perhaps I am hopelessly pedantic and old-fashioned, but stop making movies out of Dr. Seuss books that don't feature Dr. Seuss illustrations - you're making a trite piece of shit out of a nicely illustrated poem. Gargh.
So far so good.
Also:
Domorodci na pobřeží slonoviny
Posílaj si ráno slony pro noviny.
Když je cestou ztratí, hloupí slonové,
musí zpátky do trafiky pro nové.
Unrelated minor rage: Perhaps I am hopelessly pedantic and old-fashioned, but stop making movies out of Dr. Seuss books that don't feature Dr. Seuss illustrations - you're making a trite piece of shit out of a nicely illustrated poem. Gargh.
16.8.10
Today in the main town square (under the tail almost)
I saw two somber men on the porch of a pub drinking halfliters of pilsner - and eating slices of watermelon.
1.8.10
The land overflowing with mead
"Find the land overflowing with milk and mead."
-prophecy to the leader of the Slavic tribe that became the Czechs (sound advice as to what to look for in a country)
Ah yes. No mead in sight, but sunset on tramlines, old staircases in musty apartment buildings and real beer and real bread as we pack our bags and look southwest, all the while anxiously scouring the Internet for at this point overdue news from Bolivia. My stalwart cycling companion is in the courtyard, putting the finishing touches on what has become affectionately known as the caravan (think plastic Carrefour bags and interestingly placed bungee cords). I laughed at him until he pointed out the cucumber poking out from in between my extremely professional drybags. Our dreams are ambitious to the point of farfetchedness, but euphoria is mounting.
Teeth to the wind!
-prophecy to the leader of the Slavic tribe that became the Czechs (sound advice as to what to look for in a country)
Ah yes. No mead in sight, but sunset on tramlines, old staircases in musty apartment buildings and real beer and real bread as we pack our bags and look southwest, all the while anxiously scouring the Internet for at this point overdue news from Bolivia. My stalwart cycling companion is in the courtyard, putting the finishing touches on what has become affectionately known as the caravan (think plastic Carrefour bags and interestingly placed bungee cords). I laughed at him until he pointed out the cucumber poking out from in between my extremely professional drybags. Our dreams are ambitious to the point of farfetchedness, but euphoria is mounting.
Teeth to the wind!
28.7.10
LESS INTROSPECTION! MORE INTENSITY!
As I check BBC for news from Bolivia, I dream of high mountain passes and morning soggy oatmeal euphoria. Today I biked 16 miles to work. Next Monday I will bike across countries, and I'm convincing myself that my absolute lack of training/biking/doing anything other than enviously gazing at Andy Schleck's calves is absolutely irrelevant. Andy Schleck has absolutely nothing on my borrowed maillot jaune and our slackline.
This will be me:
This may also be me:
Which is cooler?
This will be me:
This may also be me:
Which is cooler?
27.7.10
Today on the metro
I saw a man wearing rubber toe sock shoes with a three piece suit.
It was beautiful.
It was beautiful.
22.7.10
A well-respected man about town
Armed with a cardigan, a lanyard ID, sensible shoes, and a perfunctory knowledge of the DC metro, I have entered the (unpaid) workforce! I have a job that doesn't involve drinking terrible beer, spandex or chasing bears! Currently my job description is broadly to save the world but essentially to poke a model of Andean hydrology and watch it refuse to do as I say and read articles about other models that may cooperate more. My new favourite socioculturally appropriate acronym is FIESTA: Fog Interception for the Elevation of Streamflow in Tropical Areas. Meanwhile Gary and I bike the many socially responsible bike paths and marvel at the ingenuity of suburban planning. In a little over a week I will be in Prague and setting off on another epic failure/adventure (cross out which doesn't belong).
The Rio Magdalena has a beguiling watershed.
The Rio Magdalena has a beguiling watershed.
16.7.10
Napoleon in rags
The second to last day of treeplanting in a region called Temagami, desperation was starting to show. Bad money, no sleep, no booze, weird headspaces, drizzling rain. Bodies starting to wear after what would be a seven day shift. Days spent tapping rock, exhaustion, anger, and in everyone's eyes a burning desire to just go home. I was closing mental doors and steeling my head towards new circumstances, so for me it was a case of balls, meet wall. We slouched off the bus at the end of the day and threw our gear out of the way of the pickup trucks. No one cared enough to put it where it belonged. Trudged into the mess tent, ladled soup, drank our last few beers, sat around and stared, cracked a few cynical jokes. Half the camp was still planting and wouldn't be back till midnight. Someone put on Like a Rolling Stone. The harmonica wailed and suddenly everyone, with dirt on their faces and blood on their knuckles, ragged and haggard, really just Napoleons in rags, sang along to it. It was heartfelt and defiant, and it would have been clichéd anywhere but the Ontario wilderness.
Photos of misery:
Photos of misery:
14.7.10
Intensity!
I was unable to walk for a whole week after that, so much did the race take out of me. But it was the most pleasant exhaustion I have ever known.
-Emil Zátopek, after winning the 1952 Olympic marathon in Helsinki
Fun Fact! Did you know? This guy won the 5k, 10k, and marathon at the same Olympics, the only person ever to do so.
Look at him go. Those ears. That struggle. I needed a reminder of what intensity looks like, as my only intensity has been in destroying the relics of my childhood as I clean out my room, and even that has been perfunctory at best. I should be thankful that my family has moved nine times in my life, as the clutter would otherwise be far worse.
13.7.10
Fire no guns, shed no tears.
Weeks of wilderness give a unique perspective on things like the importance of PhDs, the Internet, and showering. Back in the real world I'm a bit at a loss - no bears? no Alberta Premium? My problems can't all be solved by screaming "ON YA BIKE!" and planting harder? Oh.
The end of treeplanting involved hitchhiking to Montréal, cooking a large amount of bargain seamonsters, biking while singing sea shanties, tea, guitars, the Montreal International Jazz Festival, Dollar Cinema and in general one of the happiest weeks of my life. I'm currently in Philadephia tying up loose ends and my life is relatively calm, which allows for the blag.
Sometimes treeplanting isn't very fun. Luckily, my crew and planting partners were pretty cool, and when things got annoying, we sang songs. Favourites were I've Just Seen a Face by the Beatles and various old Maritime songs, so I learned more sea shanties in the landlocked province of Ontario than ever on the coast. Barrett's privateers was a perennial, if only because it has eight verses and features cannons.
The end of treeplanting involved hitchhiking to Montréal, cooking a large amount of bargain seamonsters, biking while singing sea shanties, tea, guitars, the Montreal International Jazz Festival, Dollar Cinema and in general one of the happiest weeks of my life. I'm currently in Philadephia tying up loose ends and my life is relatively calm, which allows for the blag.
Sometimes treeplanting isn't very fun. Luckily, my crew and planting partners were pretty cool, and when things got annoying, we sang songs. Favourites were I've Just Seen a Face by the Beatles and various old Maritime songs, so I learned more sea shanties in the landlocked province of Ontario than ever on the coast. Barrett's privateers was a perennial, if only because it has eight verses and features cannons.
19.6.10
2.5.10
WR: But what they do they will do without me for I have gone to the mountain trees
So about this time last year I was in a very small, very shitty car with people I loved, driving on small shitty roads to a small shitty town with a large shitty log pile. There was euphoria and sadness and quintessential summer, you know the kind, in movies with blurry soft lenses and popsicles and sand under feet and all that. And we listened to this song and for me at least, (there we go with the Americana again), it was a fitting backdrop to all the sun and the rain and comings and goings. Two of us were starting an extremely difficult backcountry job, one of us was emigrating to France or East Africa or Kashmir or something, two of us were breaking up, all of us were kind of freewheeling at least a little bit.
I've since developed a pretty strong relationship with the Greyhound, which is good because it looks like we'll be continuing that liaison this summer, starting tomorrow, when I go plant trees again, this time alone. So see you later blog, civilization, bike lanes and butcher shops, all that, I'm out, to be resumed in a few months' time.
I've since developed a pretty strong relationship with the Greyhound, which is good because it looks like we'll be continuing that liaison this summer, starting tomorrow, when I go plant trees again, this time alone. So see you later blog, civilization, bike lanes and butcher shops, all that, I'm out, to be resumed in a few months' time.
25.4.10
W.R: In which it becomes obvious that I'm a math nerd
Right now I'm spending hours at my desk studying for my last exam, which is math, because I'm partly a math major. I've liked math all my life. Like pi. And pie. We played this song in ninth grade I think, and math is on my mind:
Related: It irks me when professors use π for anything other than the concept 3.14159. Yes, it's a greek letter, but there are others. Pick xi or something, I think it feels neglected. Also using the letter t as a variable, because with my handwriting it looks like a plus sign, so you get something like ∫t2 t t ttt tt 89 d/dt. Stop that shit.
I need to get out more.
Related: It irks me when professors use π for anything other than the concept 3.14159. Yes, it's a greek letter, but there are others. Pick xi or something, I think it feels neglected. Also using the letter t as a variable, because with my handwriting it looks like a plus sign, so you get something like ∫t2 t t ttt tt 89 d/dt. Stop that shit.
I need to get out more.
24.4.10
The Sun sets near Flagstaff
I remember rolling evening into night, having passed the plains of Kansas with their giant windmills imposing a sort of Don Quixotic view of a land otehrwise brown and flat. Flyover country at its finest. Low buildings and the American lonely road, route 66 indeed, down to northern Arizona. I had borrowed a book from my seatmate and read it, an uninspired drama mystery ending in extortion and love and of course an oozing blood trunk. And then there was nothing to do at all. I sat crosslegged watching the road, counting mile after mile and twentyfive minutes seemed so long a time to wait. Nothing but darkness and an illuminated shrub here and there and the endlessly repeating reflective strips on the side of the road, signalling towers on the horizon blinking red in the distance. And the bus rolled on in my impatience.
18.4.10
I do this for myself because I am my own fatherland, and my handkerchief is my flag.
I'm taking a break from memorizing neurotransmitters and ionic/metabolistic gates (fascinating to the many neuro/med kids in my classes, a bit distant to me) to bring you some quotes from Reinhold Messner, one of my many heroes, to remind myself that within two weeks I will be in a place that no pavement can reach. It's terrifying, and exhilarating, and stressful, and worrisome, and inviting, and I don't know what else. I guess that might describe Messner's life as well:
“Today I am amazed that my father did not forbid us to make such first ascents. At that time I had a confused picture of freedom: today the name is the only thing people know about freedom. They want to be free of laws, free of everyday cares, free of hate, free of ambition. Who knows what freedom is? No one. I often think that we mountaineers get nearest to it, this paradise on earth. Or, to put it another way: the truly free climber is one who obeys no rules. He is no high flyer, keeping up with the Joneses; no slave of others or of the summit fall line, like the directtissima men. I am sorry for them all, but especially for those who do not realize at all that rules force their way between them and the mountains.”
“I do this for myself because I am my own fatherland, and my handkerchief is my flag.”
“Over time, our only chance at safety will depend on not turning the mountains into Disneyland.”
"I am nothing more than a single narrow gasping lung, floating over the mists and summits."
"Mountains are not fair or unfair, they are just dangerous."
“Today I am amazed that my father did not forbid us to make such first ascents. At that time I had a confused picture of freedom: today the name is the only thing people know about freedom. They want to be free of laws, free of everyday cares, free of hate, free of ambition. Who knows what freedom is? No one. I often think that we mountaineers get nearest to it, this paradise on earth. Or, to put it another way: the truly free climber is one who obeys no rules. He is no high flyer, keeping up with the Joneses; no slave of others or of the summit fall line, like the directtissima men. I am sorry for them all, but especially for those who do not realize at all that rules force their way between them and the mountains.”
“I do this for myself because I am my own fatherland, and my handkerchief is my flag.”
“Over time, our only chance at safety will depend on not turning the mountains into Disneyland.”
"I am nothing more than a single narrow gasping lung, floating over the mists and summits."
"Mountains are not fair or unfair, they are just dangerous."
17.4.10
Weekend! Retrospective
Nope, no Panic at the disco here, I was too old for them by the time they came around, thankfully. But when I was a kid, I listened on tape to the adventures of a giant talking St. Bernard dog in stopmotion. The music for it is very characteristic, but I can't find any of it, so here's a short stop-motion clip of a giant St. Bernard taking a drive - a bedtime story, actually, when I was six. You can kind of hear the tune. Man, my childhood was awesome.
13.4.10
Don't let that horse eat that violin, cried Chagall's mother
Whimsy with a touch of surrealism, or potentially surrealism with a touch of whimsy.
It would be wonderful to see an edition of Master and Margarita with illustrations by Chagall - I wonder if that would be possible, or if it would violate all copyright laws known to man to put two such disparate individuals' work together.
I personally think his paintings fit in rather well with the flying through the night, masked balls at Satan's place, burning manuscripts, white flowers, talking cats thing. It was actually my immediate association. My second association is one of my favourite Ferlinghetti poems. Ferlinghetti, Bulgakov, and Chagall - strange bedfellows indeed!
Don't let that horse
eat that violin
cried Chagall's mother
But he
kept right on
painting
And became famous
And kept on painting
The Horse With Violin In Mouth
And when he finally finished it
he jumped up upon the horse
and rode away
waving the violin
And then with a low bow gave it
to the first naked nude he ran across
And there were no strings
attached
It would be wonderful to see an edition of Master and Margarita with illustrations by Chagall - I wonder if that would be possible, or if it would violate all copyright laws known to man to put two such disparate individuals' work together.
I personally think his paintings fit in rather well with the flying through the night, masked balls at Satan's place, burning manuscripts, white flowers, talking cats thing. It was actually my immediate association. My second association is one of my favourite Ferlinghetti poems. Ferlinghetti, Bulgakov, and Chagall - strange bedfellows indeed!
Don't let that horse
eat that violin
cried Chagall's mother
But he
kept right on
painting
And became famous
And kept on painting
The Horse With Violin In Mouth
And when he finally finished it
he jumped up upon the horse
and rode away
waving the violin
And then with a low bow gave it
to the first naked nude he ran across
And there were no strings
attached
11.4.10
Weekend Retrospective: The Bus Edition
For my summer job, I plant trees. Lots of them, little ones, big ones, all over the place. We own northern Ontario, yo. (Well, actually, the Queen does.) The thing about this job is that a lot of people hate it, including a crewboss that shared my ride to the block every day. (Incidentally, my ride to work every day was a blue short bus named the Vagiant, which was written in big letters on its front roof). His supreme hatred for planting trees was kind of a spectacle and increased exponentially throughout the season.
Northern Ontario weather is famously fickle, and we were at least 100km from the nearest place anyone took readings for, so when the weather forecast was seventeen celsius and it started snowing, no one was that shocked. As we huddled into our fleeces, started bitching at least a little because that was allowed, and played mental gymnastics with our resolve, he put on this song:
The rest of this post is dedicated to the insurmountable entity that is the planting bus. Old schoolbusses with 200000 km on them, driving where the average SUV fears to tread, always there, sometimes pushed, sometimes pulled, but always there.
Northern Ontario weather is famously fickle, and we were at least 100km from the nearest place anyone took readings for, so when the weather forecast was seventeen celsius and it started snowing, no one was that shocked. As we huddled into our fleeces, started bitching at least a little because that was allowed, and played mental gymnastics with our resolve, he put on this song:
The rest of this post is dedicated to the insurmountable entity that is the planting bus. Old schoolbusses with 200000 km on them, driving where the average SUV fears to tread, always there, sometimes pushed, sometimes pulled, but always there.
9.4.10
Trouble me tomorrow, today I have no sorrow
It's a well-known fact that I have a huge affection for various good old days Americana. I also have a huge affection for bluegrass. In honour of my friend's pretty fantastic bluegrass show last night, during which they played this song:
8.4.10
It's Finals Season at McGill
Subtle clues:
-I made an industrial sized quantity of chicken-pineapple-cheese-pasta and am eating it this entire week.
-All my time seems spent rewatching lectures on 1.8 speed.
-Math has abandoned the concept of numbers altogether.
-The library is full of people who aren't MathPhys, who are in there all the time anyway.
-I'm wearing my father's flannel and carrying a colourcoded binder everywhere (I mean business).
-I've relented my coffee abstinence, had a cup four hours ago and am now wired to the point where I can't focus.
-All of McGill is full of couples making out. I'm not sure if this is because of a need for an output for the sexual tension due to stress, but it's causing obstructions. Today I nearly tripped over a couple vigorously making out in the middle of the doorway of Architecture Café. As Architecture Café is a fairly frequented location, I put on my grandma voice and pointed out that "This is a hallway, guys", something I don't think I've said since middle school. Crotchety crotch crotch.
Also, on an unrelated note, I'd like to take this opportunity to critique the following composition and the paradox it poses:
This song confuses me. I can't seem to avoid it, I hear strains, usually terribly trebled due to shit speakers, all over the place, even in the middle of traffic on Sherbrooke a few days ago. It seems to try to straddle the fence between respectful love- or at least appreciation-song and YOUZSOHOTDOMENONAMESNEEDED. But that's kind of a barbed wire barrier, ya know? The first lyric I heard was "I'm trynna find the words to describe this girl widout bein disrespetful" and it kinda struck me as out of place to the point of silly and wussy and difficult to take seriously. This genre of music does not do respectful and thoughtful well - if you wanna write a misoginistic song, it had better be a good misoginistic song, and leave it at that. Try:
See? That's how you write a brilliantthoughactuallykindaoffensivebutwhateverit'sJagger song. Don't water down your misogyny!
The second confusing part of this song is that it then repeats "DAMN GURL YOU'Z A SEXY BITCH" a bunch of times, and involves the phrase "neighbourhood ho". Which totally kills the I'm not being disrespectful concept without fully embracing the unapologetic, lusty cry it's clearly meant to be. Get your act together, rap industry.
You can't have your cake and eat it too,
or,
in the experience of the eskimo who burned his watercraft for warmth off the coast of Greenland:
You can't have your kayak and heat it too.
Sorry for the awful joke.
-I made an industrial sized quantity of chicken-pineapple-cheese-pasta and am eating it this entire week.
-All my time seems spent rewatching lectures on 1.8 speed.
-Math has abandoned the concept of numbers altogether.
-The library is full of people who aren't MathPhys, who are in there all the time anyway.
-I'm wearing my father's flannel and carrying a colourcoded binder everywhere (I mean business).
-I've relented my coffee abstinence, had a cup four hours ago and am now wired to the point where I can't focus.
-All of McGill is full of couples making out. I'm not sure if this is because of a need for an output for the sexual tension due to stress, but it's causing obstructions. Today I nearly tripped over a couple vigorously making out in the middle of the doorway of Architecture Café. As Architecture Café is a fairly frequented location, I put on my grandma voice and pointed out that "This is a hallway, guys", something I don't think I've said since middle school. Crotchety crotch crotch.
Also, on an unrelated note, I'd like to take this opportunity to critique the following composition and the paradox it poses:
This song confuses me. I can't seem to avoid it, I hear strains, usually terribly trebled due to shit speakers, all over the place, even in the middle of traffic on Sherbrooke a few days ago. It seems to try to straddle the fence between respectful love- or at least appreciation-song and YOUZSOHOTDOMENONAMESNEEDED. But that's kind of a barbed wire barrier, ya know? The first lyric I heard was "I'm trynna find the words to describe this girl widout bein disrespetful" and it kinda struck me as out of place to the point of silly and wussy and difficult to take seriously. This genre of music does not do respectful and thoughtful well - if you wanna write a misoginistic song, it had better be a good misoginistic song, and leave it at that. Try:
See? That's how you write a brilliantthoughactuallykindaoffensivebutwhateverit'sJagger song. Don't water down your misogyny!
The second confusing part of this song is that it then repeats "DAMN GURL YOU'Z A SEXY BITCH" a bunch of times, and involves the phrase "neighbourhood ho". Which totally kills the I'm not being disrespectful concept without fully embracing the unapologetic, lusty cry it's clearly meant to be. Get your act together, rap industry.
You can't have your cake and eat it too,
or,
in the experience of the eskimo who burned his watercraft for warmth off the coast of Greenland:
You can't have your kayak and heat it too.
Sorry for the awful joke.
6.4.10
Inspiration: Afro
I'm white. I'm actually about as white as it is possible to be, being from northern Europe. One of the sad things about being white is that I will never, ever have an afro, that majestic fullblown glory of HAIR. Sure, some of my friends may rock the jewfro, which is approaching the concept, but my own physical features consist of high eastern european cheekbones and impossibly straight hair (as seen at right) - therein lies the conundrum. A girl I see around McGill's MK has the most gorgeous afro I've ever seen, and the girls I used to go to school with sometimes had epic ones that made me jealous as I sat in first period with a bun of wet hair. (Fun fact: I attended all award assemblies my senior year of high school with wet hair, not on purpose but out of an inability to organize my hairwashing schedule). So, in celebration of something I can't have:
and this is how you coquette
Erykah Badu, enough said.
Vogue tries, and it's quite aesthetic in its own right, but...
nineteensixtyeight, dearies, not nineteenfortyeight!
Louis vuitton runway - miss sticklegs still fails to capture it for me.
my friend. He's African. From South Africa. And he has gorgeous hair which he insists on cutting/mohawking/something
portrait of my friend as a young man.
In mourning for limited hairstyling options,
Guy Fawkes
and this is how you coquette
Erykah Badu, enough said.
Vogue tries, and it's quite aesthetic in its own right, but...
nineteensixtyeight, dearies, not nineteenfortyeight!
Louis vuitton runway - miss sticklegs still fails to capture it for me.
my friend. He's African. From South Africa. And he has gorgeous hair which he insists on cutting/mohawking/something
portrait of my friend as a young man.
In mourning for limited hairstyling options,
Guy Fawkes
5.4.10
Self-discipline by way of Peche Mortel
I like challenges, to a point. I agreed to swim in the salty St. Lawrence this weekend for that reason (although I was a huge wussy about it), and my summer job is supposed to be one of the hardest in North America, although I wonder about that, since I don't think the hardest jobs in North America are done by drunk college students. But, in any case, if I am allowed a significant level of good-natured bitching, I'll do a lot of things, so this week I'm trying to eat nothing with added sugar in it, for several reasons:
-I like sugar way too much, so it'll be good to not have it for a while.
-I no longer train as hard as I used to, so it might be good to stop eating like a very un-discerning horse.
-As Calvin's dad (and my older male friends who place an almost idiotic value on being hardcore) says:
So far today, I've had an orange, some cheese and a bottle of really strong Québecois beer called Peche Mortel. Clearly, I am not doing this for health reasons. I might make this whole issuing self challenges thing a regular occurence. That could be fun. Or it could build character.
-I like sugar way too much, so it'll be good to not have it for a while.
-I no longer train as hard as I used to, so it might be good to stop eating like a very un-discerning horse.
-As Calvin's dad (and my older male friends who place an almost idiotic value on being hardcore) says:
So far today, I've had an orange, some cheese and a bottle of really strong Québecois beer called Peche Mortel. Clearly, I am not doing this for health reasons. I might make this whole issuing self challenges thing a regular occurence. That could be fun. Or it could build character.
3.4.10
Weekend Retrospective, or, the mood I'm in
„Koločava, krajina, kterou můžete najít na mapě, ale my jsme ji hledali v lesní tmě, v plameni a kouři sobotních ohňů, kdy se člověku zachce hodit všechno za hlavu a nemyslet na to, že po neděli přijde pondělí…“
Balada pro banditu is a Czech musical about a man named Nikola Šuhaj, a thief from the Karpathian region of Ukraine around the time of the first world war. It's a story about outlaws and war and love and death and sex and sadness and the choices one makes in a land where there is not much choice, really. And it's beautiful. It was filmed in 1978 on a low budget. I remember seeing it and hearing the songs when I was about five, having no grasp at all of anything that was going on but liking it. I remember running to these songs over the Czech hills in the fog. I forget about its existence most of the time, but it must be in my subconscious, because when I got my first guitar (which I never learned to play very well but someday will, I swear), I named it Eržika.
Balada pro banditu is a Czech musical about a man named Nikola Šuhaj, a thief from the Karpathian region of Ukraine around the time of the first world war. It's a story about outlaws and war and love and death and sex and sadness and the choices one makes in a land where there is not much choice, really. And it's beautiful. It was filmed in 1978 on a low budget. I remember seeing it and hearing the songs when I was about five, having no grasp at all of anything that was going on but liking it. I remember running to these songs over the Czech hills in the fog. I forget about its existence most of the time, but it must be in my subconscious, because when I got my first guitar (which I never learned to play very well but someday will, I swear), I named it Eržika.
1.4.10
Almost heaven, West Virginia
I never realized how much I would miss Shenandoah.
The beauty of Québec is stark and powerful and tinged to me at least with the vastness of pride, ouais, the poutine, the hockey, the habitants.
The beauty of Ontario is just as stark and desolate and miserable but everpresent, like cheap beer and hard hats and hardwon dirt, long lakes for naked swimming in the sunset.
The beauty of Bohemia is not as extreme, but a supreme loveliness prevails. One can feel that people have lived and loved here for millenia, without any sort of obligation to any grandeur but that what is - the ancient paths and quiet trees and odd rocks and wheat and mills and lakes.
And West Virginia, with its desolate trailers on beautiful mountaintops, raging rivers, waterfalls, old churches and old people, quiet mornings and raging rain.
Take me home, country roads?
The beauty of Québec is stark and powerful and tinged to me at least with the vastness of pride, ouais, the poutine, the hockey, the habitants.
The beauty of Ontario is just as stark and desolate and miserable but everpresent, like cheap beer and hard hats and hardwon dirt, long lakes for naked swimming in the sunset.
The beauty of Bohemia is not as extreme, but a supreme loveliness prevails. One can feel that people have lived and loved here for millenia, without any sort of obligation to any grandeur but that what is - the ancient paths and quiet trees and odd rocks and wheat and mills and lakes.
And West Virginia, with its desolate trailers on beautiful mountaintops, raging rivers, waterfalls, old churches and old people, quiet mornings and raging rain.
Take me home, country roads?
26.3.10
Weekend Retrospective Three
I've got loads going on this week, and just got my younger brother kicked out of a bar, so briefly:
-Sweet Jane
When I worked in a boutique, I got to play music, and among the CDs they had was Loaded, which I listened to over and over and over. This song kind of epitomizes them for me - "And the poets they studied rules of verse, and the ladies, they rolled their eyes" kind of sums up every generation of young bohemians.
-White Rabbit
Jefferson Airplane are obviously another favourite, but I actually started listening to them when a friend's younger brother (who was about eleven at the time) was singing this and imitating Grace Slick's voice uncannily well. This is probably Jefferson Airplane's most famous songs, but that doesn't make it any worse.
-You Name Begins with "A" (Native Spirits)
Strange but weirdly exhilarating Mayan background music that I used to listen to while doing chores and homework and suchlike.
-La Mia Ragazza Mena and
-Dentro Alla Scatolla
Once, I somewhat liked a boy I wasn't supposed to, which I knew at the time - ah the follies of youth. But he gave me Italian punk and rap and various other music, which was good, or at least interesting. It's interesting to note that music seems to get better when we can't understand it...
-Sweet Jane
When I worked in a boutique, I got to play music, and among the CDs they had was Loaded, which I listened to over and over and over. This song kind of epitomizes them for me - "And the poets they studied rules of verse, and the ladies, they rolled their eyes" kind of sums up every generation of young bohemians.
-White Rabbit
Jefferson Airplane are obviously another favourite, but I actually started listening to them when a friend's younger brother (who was about eleven at the time) was singing this and imitating Grace Slick's voice uncannily well. This is probably Jefferson Airplane's most famous songs, but that doesn't make it any worse.
-You Name Begins with "A" (Native Spirits)
Strange but weirdly exhilarating Mayan background music that I used to listen to while doing chores and homework and suchlike.
-La Mia Ragazza Mena and
-Dentro Alla Scatolla
Once, I somewhat liked a boy I wasn't supposed to, which I knew at the time - ah the follies of youth. But he gave me Italian punk and rap and various other music, which was good, or at least interesting. It's interesting to note that music seems to get better when we can't understand it...
23.3.10
21.3.10
Sip champagne and it tastes just like cherry cola
Yesterday, I climbed outside in the cold white stillness of southern Québec forests.
Today, I sit inside and rewatch lectures and eat a lobstertail from Patisserie Roma and nurse my welldeserved headcold.
Coloured pens make the world a better, or at least more organized, place.
We can't all be Wolfgang Gullich or Barbara McClintock, but there is worth in pursuing things without being the best at them.
This, perhaps, is the most important thing.
The title of this post is from the Kinks' Lola. The Faculty of Theology librarian turned me onto the Kinks one Sunday at 1 A.M. in a bar, a story too good to make up. When I first heard Lola (a few days ago) I realized that I was missing a huge part of the history of rock and roll. I then went around talking about how poignantly the song tells of a wimp being made a man by an older, powerful woman. It turns out the song is actually about a transsexual. Ah.
Today, I sit inside and rewatch lectures and eat a lobstertail from Patisserie Roma and nurse my welldeserved headcold.
Coloured pens make the world a better, or at least more organized, place.
We can't all be Wolfgang Gullich or Barbara McClintock, but there is worth in pursuing things without being the best at them.
This, perhaps, is the most important thing.
The title of this post is from the Kinks' Lola. The Faculty of Theology librarian turned me onto the Kinks one Sunday at 1 A.M. in a bar, a story too good to make up. When I first heard Lola (a few days ago) I realized that I was missing a huge part of the history of rock and roll. I then went around talking about how poignantly the song tells of a wimp being made a man by an older, powerful woman. It turns out the song is actually about a transsexual. Ah.
Second Sesquiannual Weekend Retrospective
This week, I made my professor (a sad, bitter old man) laugh using the word sequiannual. I mark it as one of the better achievements of the week.
Well, here we are. I'm trying hard not to have all of this be "things I listened to in highschool for a week or two" but it's very hard when I was extremely unaware of the musical word before I turned fifteen or so, but I'll try.
Telegraph road - Through a strange cultural twist, Czech Republic of the early 20th century was really into the American Wild West. So here's a cover of a song about the wild west that my dad used to listen to.
Too little too late - I can't say I ever listened to this song voluntarily, but for a few weeks in freshman year it was absolutely unavoidable - the bitchy timbre of an angry girl's voice as she berates her exboyfriend made it a onestop hit for a while.
Acetate - The Speechwriters LLC! Oh, the Speechwriters. The band of (I believe): The boyfriend of a girl who was friends with a friend of my highschool acquaintance's exboyfriend. Two guys with acoustic guitars with not very many fans but thoughtful and intelligent and catchy and generally protest- and love- and life-related songs. This version isn't very good, but the nice thing about the Speechwriters is that they post their songs on the Internets. The sort of blogging, self-deprecating snarky artists that seem to be a dime a dozen these days. Associated with Trader Joe's sunny lawn picnics and (for some reason) jellied lemon slices I used to buy for 16 cents. Note to self: find where those are sold, and buy them.
Wasn't born to follow - My friends had a habit of playing midnight semi-legal capture the flag in monasteries and abandoned construction sites in high school. As a part of that, I got chased off a (small) cliff (really I guess just an embankment) by a kid I had a crush on. He saw me crumpled in a heap on the gravel, jumped down, tagged me, and then asked me if I was okay. I was bleeding profusely from somewhere but insisted on finishing the game. I later went to the emergency room with one of my best guy friends and hallucinated a bit and internally chanted Buddhist prayers because they were the only thing that made sense at the time. The next day my face was swollen so I skipped school and watched Easy Rider and discovered this song (and one of my favourite sad angry overblown hippie road motorcycle movies)
Tunnels - Associated with a close nerd-cum-hipster friend who added a lot of music to my perceptions.
Have a lovely Sunday.
Well, here we are. I'm trying hard not to have all of this be "things I listened to in highschool for a week or two" but it's very hard when I was extremely unaware of the musical word before I turned fifteen or so, but I'll try.
Telegraph road - Through a strange cultural twist, Czech Republic of the early 20th century was really into the American Wild West. So here's a cover of a song about the wild west that my dad used to listen to.
Too little too late - I can't say I ever listened to this song voluntarily, but for a few weeks in freshman year it was absolutely unavoidable - the bitchy timbre of an angry girl's voice as she berates her exboyfriend made it a onestop hit for a while.
Acetate - The Speechwriters LLC! Oh, the Speechwriters. The band of (I believe): The boyfriend of a girl who was friends with a friend of my highschool acquaintance's exboyfriend. Two guys with acoustic guitars with not very many fans but thoughtful and intelligent and catchy and generally protest- and love- and life-related songs. This version isn't very good, but the nice thing about the Speechwriters is that they post their songs on the Internets. The sort of blogging, self-deprecating snarky artists that seem to be a dime a dozen these days. Associated with Trader Joe's sunny lawn picnics and (for some reason) jellied lemon slices I used to buy for 16 cents. Note to self: find where those are sold, and buy them.
Wasn't born to follow - My friends had a habit of playing midnight semi-legal capture the flag in monasteries and abandoned construction sites in high school. As a part of that, I got chased off a (small) cliff (really I guess just an embankment) by a kid I had a crush on. He saw me crumpled in a heap on the gravel, jumped down, tagged me, and then asked me if I was okay. I was bleeding profusely from somewhere but insisted on finishing the game. I later went to the emergency room with one of my best guy friends and hallucinated a bit and internally chanted Buddhist prayers because they were the only thing that made sense at the time. The next day my face was swollen so I skipped school and watched Easy Rider and discovered this song (and one of my favourite sad angry overblown hippie road motorcycle movies)
Tunnels - Associated with a close nerd-cum-hipster friend who added a lot of music to my perceptions.
Have a lovely Sunday.
16.3.10
In which I get an A+ in pupusa ordering
So I failed my first exam today. Though there have occasionally been speedbumps on the road to academic glory, they usually aren't this bad. After the initial shell-shock and despair and self-beratement, I did what any reasonable person would do: I took myself out to lunch to celebrate losing my exam-failing virginity (how many things are wrong in that sentence?). I went to one of the Salvadorean restaurants in my neighbourhood (apparently, I live in an unofficial Little El Salvador, which is pretty awesome, if you ask me), and there discovered the national meal of El Salvador: the pupusa.
I was initially apprehensive, fumbling with my Spanish and occasionally slipping into French as the impassive salvadorian waitress looked me unimpressed. Living in Montréal has elevated my French to slightly below-conversational from essentially zero while bringing my Spanish down from near-fluent to also slightly below-conversational, meaning that basically I can't say anything to anyone. However, after an awkward moment I succeeded in ordering a pupusa revueltas, and sat awkwardly flipping through a paperback waiting for a very long time for my food to come. I had no idea what to expect but was instantly gratified as soon as I saw it: A flat fried pancake chock-full of gooey cheese and thinly minced unidentifiable-but-delicious pork bits, which came with a flagon of soupy pepper sauce, a saucer of hot sauce, and a JAR OF CABBAGE SALAD AS BIG AS MY HEAD. Because cabbage salad vaguely reminds me of the motherland and fatty cheese and meat really needs no help, I enjoyed my lunch immensely, reveling in the sensory overload and pleasantly full-but-not-overful feeling afterwards. When I went to the stoic waitress to pay for my lunch, I received a bill for $2.54, including tax, and went on my merry way.
Failure is often the second-best option.
Love,
Tom
I was initially apprehensive, fumbling with my Spanish and occasionally slipping into French as the impassive salvadorian waitress looked me unimpressed. Living in Montréal has elevated my French to slightly below-conversational from essentially zero while bringing my Spanish down from near-fluent to also slightly below-conversational, meaning that basically I can't say anything to anyone. However, after an awkward moment I succeeded in ordering a pupusa revueltas, and sat awkwardly flipping through a paperback waiting for a very long time for my food to come. I had no idea what to expect but was instantly gratified as soon as I saw it: A flat fried pancake chock-full of gooey cheese and thinly minced unidentifiable-but-delicious pork bits, which came with a flagon of soupy pepper sauce, a saucer of hot sauce, and a JAR OF CABBAGE SALAD AS BIG AS MY HEAD. Because cabbage salad vaguely reminds me of the motherland and fatty cheese and meat really needs no help, I enjoyed my lunch immensely, reveling in the sensory overload and pleasantly full-but-not-overful feeling afterwards. When I went to the stoic waitress to pay for my lunch, I received a bill for $2.54, including tax, and went on my merry way.
Failure is often the second-best option.
Love,
Tom
13.3.10
I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now
It's difficult to convey the feelings a particular piece of music evokes without sounding clichéd or overblown. The long-haired music-loving fiends of today (and of yesteryear, come to think) seem to tend to talk about music with a sort of lazy-smile, yeah-man nonchalance, a facade of cool. I have a theory that it's exactly because music is so powerful and we are so invested in it that we don't want to talk about it to people who aren't close friends. It's as though we invest a lot of our personal identity into what we listen to, which is fundamentally funny - "this are the resonance frequencies I enjoy perceiving, this is who I am", but in that vein, everything is, so I wouldn't worry about it overmuch. (Man, I'm just a bunch of phosphorelations, ya know. And then one day, they stop phospohorelating.)
All that to say: I remember looking through my old music - my parents' tapes of Bob Dylan that first introduced me to him, my rusty iTunes, even the records I can't play for lack of gramophone (my grandmother has The Wall, she's pretty much really awesome in every way) and am slowly starting to realize how much it influenced me, and I'd like to examine that a little, informally (no formal proofs here, goddammit). So through the medium of this blog, I'm going to try to write a Weekend Retrospective about a fews songs I remember.
The Moldau - I know this song because the Czech Airlines used to play it whenever we landed in Prague and to me it was as close to home as sound could get. The movement is so powerful, so joyous, so alive, and so unapologetically an ode to the beauty of a river, an area of the world, and existence. This particular version is conducted by Rafael Kubelik and is bitchin', as kids say these days.
This used to be my favourite Bob Dylan song. I don't know why, but I love the imagery, and I love the sort of understated intimation of a notperfect but perfect love from an asshole poet. I used to listen to this song a lot in high school - on long car rides, on long runs, reading books in bed on rainy days, and I still love it.
I was mocked by my more discerning friends for listening to this Vermont jamfool thing, but this was the first Phish song I'd ever heard, and though I never really listened to Phish much after all, I like the laughing irreverent absurdism. It reminds me of West Virginia bluegrass festivals and mistcovered mountains and all that sorta thing.
Ah, yes, teen angst. I remember my Pink Floyd phase - though I suppose my Pink Floyd phase was my entire childhood, as my dad sometimes has good taste, it escalated when I asked for The Wall for Christmas one year (to the joy of everyone except my mother, as my little brother decided to learn to play acoustic guitar by playing tabs from The Wall over and over). This song is so despondent and pathetic and wonderful. Pink Floyd combine their life sucks attitude with ballbreaking talent, so at least my sixteen year old self was blindly angry at the establishment to good music.
Emmaretta! Another long car ride song, riding west at 3am (I rode west at 3am a lot.), playing Deep Purple to stay awake. Deep Purple usually aren't melodic enough for me, but this is sufficiently plaintive and has cool drums.
And there you have it. Not exactly groundbreaking, but never fear.
Cheerio, then.
All that to say: I remember looking through my old music - my parents' tapes of Bob Dylan that first introduced me to him, my rusty iTunes, even the records I can't play for lack of gramophone (my grandmother has The Wall, she's pretty much really awesome in every way) and am slowly starting to realize how much it influenced me, and I'd like to examine that a little, informally (no formal proofs here, goddammit). So through the medium of this blog, I'm going to try to write a Weekend Retrospective about a fews songs I remember.
The Moldau - I know this song because the Czech Airlines used to play it whenever we landed in Prague and to me it was as close to home as sound could get. The movement is so powerful, so joyous, so alive, and so unapologetically an ode to the beauty of a river, an area of the world, and existence. This particular version is conducted by Rafael Kubelik and is bitchin', as kids say these days.
This used to be my favourite Bob Dylan song. I don't know why, but I love the imagery, and I love the sort of understated intimation of a notperfect but perfect love from an asshole poet. I used to listen to this song a lot in high school - on long car rides, on long runs, reading books in bed on rainy days, and I still love it.
I was mocked by my more discerning friends for listening to this Vermont jamfool thing, but this was the first Phish song I'd ever heard, and though I never really listened to Phish much after all, I like the laughing irreverent absurdism. It reminds me of West Virginia bluegrass festivals and mistcovered mountains and all that sorta thing.
Ah, yes, teen angst. I remember my Pink Floyd phase - though I suppose my Pink Floyd phase was my entire childhood, as my dad sometimes has good taste, it escalated when I asked for The Wall for Christmas one year (to the joy of everyone except my mother, as my little brother decided to learn to play acoustic guitar by playing tabs from The Wall over and over). This song is so despondent and pathetic and wonderful. Pink Floyd combine their life sucks attitude with ballbreaking talent, so at least my sixteen year old self was blindly angry at the establishment to good music.
Emmaretta! Another long car ride song, riding west at 3am (I rode west at 3am a lot.), playing Deep Purple to stay awake. Deep Purple usually aren't melodic enough for me, but this is sufficiently plaintive and has cool drums.
And there you have it. Not exactly groundbreaking, but never fear.
Cheerio, then.
12.3.10
(Or, J.R.R. Tolkien was a baller)
I might put it this way. The story is cast in terms of a good side, and a bad side, beauty against ruthless ugliness, tyranny against kingship, moderated freedom with consent against compulsion that has long lost any object save mere power, and so on; but both sides in some degree, conservative or destructive, want a measure of control. But if you have, as it were, taken 'a vow of poverty', renounced control, and take your delight in things for themselves without reference to yourself, watching, observing, and to some extent knowing, then the questions of the rights and wrongs of power and control might become utterly meaningless to you, and the means of power quite valueless...
Sincerely,
Tom Bombadil
Sincerely,
Tom Bombadil
"The sea! The sea!" "That's the St. Lawrence." (In which it is revealed that I am a plebeian)
So I went to the Opera the other day. I saw a performance of Nelligan, about the Québecois poet. And, I must say, I didn't enjoy it as much as I had expected to. The plot can be summed up as follows: young poet prances around dreaming to the disapproval of his father, young poet worries his mother, young poet argues with poet friends about who's more bourgeois, young poet goes downhill, young poet produces seminal opus, young poet goes even more downhill and starts committing depraved acts, young poet is committed to an institution, young/old poet is dying alone.
The imagery and casting were both very good - young Nelligan was appropriately naive and desperate and windswept and even received a sort of sympathy, and old Nelligan was perfectly beaten down and dark. The evocative and aesthetically pleasing lighting and set design cast the scene into a very dramatic view. However, I had several issues with the production, quite possibly because I am Uncultured. Firstly - the plot was awful. It was predictable in its steady downward crawl. There were no truly ecstatic (or even moderately happy) moments - even the celebration of Nelligan's opus didn't reach the heights that creating one's greatest work merits! This may have been the point, and it's a bit much to ask for running around being a pirate and seducing maidens and bullfights and swashbuckling and fairies and water spirits and lanterns in a Serious Work, but it still doesn't make the viewing inherently joyful. Secondly - on a purely aesthetic level, the often banal dialogue in operas sounds better when it's in a language that I can't understand. Though the writers used an interesting mix of English and French to bring to the forefront the bilingual tensions that would have been evident in Montréal at the time, (Nelligan's father was Irish and dissaproved of his passionately French output), things like "A poet! A poet! Anything but a poet!" repeated over and over are perceived better when one can dissociate their sound from their meaning. My final complaint would be that it was a bit drawn out. Maybe I, a product of the Internet generation, just have a short attention span, but a descent into madness that lasts more than two hours simply doesn't capture my imagination as vividly. However, the opera was still interesting and definitely exposed me to a poet that I had never previously taken the time to learn about.
Amusing fact: Emile Nelligan lived on the same street that my boyfriend lives on today, making them spatiotemporal neighbours!
The imagery and casting were both very good - young Nelligan was appropriately naive and desperate and windswept and even received a sort of sympathy, and old Nelligan was perfectly beaten down and dark. The evocative and aesthetically pleasing lighting and set design cast the scene into a very dramatic view. However, I had several issues with the production, quite possibly because I am Uncultured. Firstly - the plot was awful. It was predictable in its steady downward crawl. There were no truly ecstatic (or even moderately happy) moments - even the celebration of Nelligan's opus didn't reach the heights that creating one's greatest work merits! This may have been the point, and it's a bit much to ask for running around being a pirate and seducing maidens and bullfights and swashbuckling and fairies and water spirits and lanterns in a Serious Work, but it still doesn't make the viewing inherently joyful. Secondly - on a purely aesthetic level, the often banal dialogue in operas sounds better when it's in a language that I can't understand. Though the writers used an interesting mix of English and French to bring to the forefront the bilingual tensions that would have been evident in Montréal at the time, (Nelligan's father was Irish and dissaproved of his passionately French output), things like "A poet! A poet! Anything but a poet!" repeated over and over are perceived better when one can dissociate their sound from their meaning. My final complaint would be that it was a bit drawn out. Maybe I, a product of the Internet generation, just have a short attention span, but a descent into madness that lasts more than two hours simply doesn't capture my imagination as vividly. However, the opera was still interesting and definitely exposed me to a poet that I had never previously taken the time to learn about.
Amusing fact: Emile Nelligan lived on the same street that my boyfriend lives on today, making them spatiotemporal neighbours!
8.3.10
Talkin' 'bout identity theft...
-Is a lovely song by Nellie McKay (no really, listen to it!)
-The backtoback apostrophes above are either unnerving, lame, or swell, I can't decide which.
-(As far as I'm concerned, Pluto's still a planet.)
-To do this week: eat another five pounds of clementines.
-Also, listen to Klímentajn over and over.
(I have a huge amount of respect for the czech cultural scene of the sixties, especially the theatre Semafor - witty, relevant, irreverent, and infused with equal parts a humour that preserves nothing and class that cannot be taken away by anything.)
-Plot.
-Attend an opera, ah, yes, an opera. (This is me smoking an imaginary cigarette and half closing my eyes and looking debonair.
-Watch Ciao Manhattan online at the cost of my homework.
Love,
Mad Max
-The backtoback apostrophes above are either unnerving, lame, or swell, I can't decide which.
-(As far as I'm concerned, Pluto's still a planet.)
-To do this week: eat another five pounds of clementines.
-Also, listen to Klímentajn over and over.
(I have a huge amount of respect for the czech cultural scene of the sixties, especially the theatre Semafor - witty, relevant, irreverent, and infused with equal parts a humour that preserves nothing and class that cannot be taken away by anything.)
-Plot.
-Attend an opera, ah, yes, an opera. (This is me smoking an imaginary cigarette and half closing my eyes and looking debonair.
-Watch Ciao Manhattan online at the cost of my homework.
Love,
Mad Max
4.3.10
The sun shines on Decarie
and mountains recede into the mist of memory
as smiling baristas bring me another cup of coffee
on Fairmount Street I stand under their shadow in the morning sun
thinking of dark roast and mountain goats
another warm sesame bagel
another community playground
another bike path
another hint of a lazy joint
yet as the world turns to water
(and brown turns to green)
in the land of Molispeare I look
singletrackmind towards the summer
singletrackmind towards the world
as smiling baristas bring me another cup of coffee
on Fairmount Street I stand under their shadow in the morning sun
thinking of dark roast and mountain goats
another warm sesame bagel
another community playground
another bike path
another hint of a lazy joint
yet as the world turns to water
(and brown turns to green)
in the land of Molispeare I look
singletrackmind towards the summer
singletrackmind towards the world
27.2.10
She's so fine, but she's not mine, what will I do, what will I say
You know what's good?
Sweaters from Tadjikistan and high heeled boots, Montréal snowstormbiking in the middle of the night, Dorian, being anglo, being young, bad American movies, good American movies, Québec ska, Russia being out of hockey and out of luck.
What's less good is that unless I'm disorganized as usual someone may have stolen my wallet. Whoever you are, I hope you enjoy my FQME card, Czech Youth tramcard, five dolla bill, and lucky loonie with Terry Fox on it.
What's good, though, is that Terry Fox is a badass.
Over and Out.
Roger that, Captain.
Sweaters from Tadjikistan and high heeled boots, Montréal snowstormbiking in the middle of the night, Dorian, being anglo, being young, bad American movies, good American movies, Québec ska, Russia being out of hockey and out of luck.
What's less good is that unless I'm disorganized as usual someone may have stolen my wallet. Whoever you are, I hope you enjoy my FQME card, Czech Youth tramcard, five dolla bill, and lucky loonie with Terry Fox on it.
What's good, though, is that Terry Fox is a badass.
Over and Out.
Roger that, Captain.
18.2.10
Mr. Mojo Risin
I'll be seeing this
I'll be seeing you.
In these strange, bewildering times.
(Cat Stevens is a tad inappropriate here).
Also,
Bezdomny has been committed to a psychiatric institution and is unavailable for comment.
Love,
Mad Max
I'll be seeing you.
In these strange, bewildering times.
(Cat Stevens is a tad inappropriate here).
Also,
Bezdomny has been committed to a psychiatric institution and is unavailable for comment.
Love,
Mad Max
11.2.10
10.2.10
Nameless, faceless
I'm reading The Master and Margarita right now. I really like it.
Sincerely,
Bezdomny
Sincerely,
Bezdomny
Bitter? Never
How it sometimes feels to try to maintain a sense of positivity and constructivity in an age when glib media-blurbs are the norm and cool is the new apathetic (or vice versa?) and the fractal counterculture simply consumes differently, not less:
3.2.10
2.2.10
Current Obsession
This song:
Wet and crinkly and limp feet.
Five grapefruits for a dollar.
Beautiful streets.
Coffee in Nalgenes.
Long hair.
A girl named Vera
(She's not an obsession. She's just really awesome)
and all that.
Also, you know Johnny Weir (the flamboyant American iceskater, you know, that one)? And you know Lady Gaga (the crazy/amazing/ridiculous contemporary performace artist/pop star/too many forward slashes)?
Yeah:
Wet and crinkly and limp feet.
Five grapefruits for a dollar.
Beautiful streets.
Coffee in Nalgenes.
Long hair.
A girl named Vera
(She's not an obsession. She's just really awesome)
and all that.
Also, you know Johnny Weir (the flamboyant American iceskater, you know, that one)? And you know Lady Gaga (the crazy/amazing/ridiculous contemporary performace artist/pop star/too many forward slashes)?
Yeah:
26.1.10
Goodbye, Winifred
My (creepy) roommate found this lovely news article when searching about things about his girlfriend, an Aussie. (saucy Aussie! Ellen DeGeneres? yes?). Since I feel it's not really appropriate to appropriate the identity of someone who drives recklessly and kills people while high as on drugs, I'm abandoning my moniker. Maybe I'll abandon my name once a week from here on out (for practice).
Love,
Stenka Razin
Love,
Stenka Razin
23.1.10
-
Short lines written in the margin of notes for a class about the balance of the world. I make no apologies for it.
If this isn't good enough
let me write you
a soft sweet symphony
in C, to throw you
headlong
into the maelstrom
take a deep breath
and inhale the anestral choir of being
until we don't be.
If this isn't good enough
let me write you
a soft sweet symphony
in C, to throw you
headlong
into the maelstrom
take a deep breath
and inhale the anestral choir of being
until we don't be.
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