rhyme ching clockwork

Half a rap regarding Little Red Riding Hood (with apologies to Calvino and the venerable Italian folk tradition)

2011-03-07T17:06:00.001-04:00

My what big teeth—
and the wolf was in his element.
The proud species-delusion he spied
sparking a specific seclusion
barked about the tenement
of the house that was my grandmother's
(before the war broke out
—in spots prompted by the spoken openness of our lonely ancestors, professing:

we who work the land and till the soil will hold the understanding hands of those who
milk the cow with twisted horn who tossed the dog who worried the cat who ate that rat who lived in the house that JACK built.
I guess we only hold these truths until the bread and oil runs out.)

Anyway, back to the story where I'm still running and the sorry River Jordan has swollen his banks and won't let me pass for lack of ring-shaped cakes.
He likes to spin hoops in his whirlpools—
give him a doughnut, and he'll assault its sugary miracles 'til it sinks
—and then start the cravings. He'd been dry as fuck for ages
but it's an uphill battle both ways and now he's lookin' kinda cranky
and swimming's not an option so
I guess I'd better turn back now and try my luck upon the winded wolf…

Polyrhythmic Scree

2011-02-21T19:25:00.000-04:00

polyrhythmic scree by sheep with Teeth

February afternoon loop-based improvisations.
Have a listen if you like.

kl tk st ls

2011-02-10T23:14:00.000-04:00

In the snow a half-started angel:
darling Ariel, fallen, lies embraced in
low clouds made amber by city light.

Empty trees search the solemn air.
Steady melt-water drips from eaves.

2011-02-05T14:41:00.000-04:00

snake-skin dry and cracking

the dried-up ocean
mystic marking territories
water gone south

sharp nails split backs to spines.

2010-12-12T22:59:00.000-04:00

Three times 'round the block
A little slower each time

& I'm so tired

End-of-Semester Papers

2010-12-12T20:20:00.000-04:00

As I work toward 30 hours since I last slept, I am caffeine-jittery and there are italics everywhere.

Half of a Telephone Conversation

2010-12-12T08:19:00.000-04:00

Hello!

Yes! On Thursday!

Well, what are you doing this evening?

Splendid! What do you say we get together and do some sort of inconsequential secondary activity which we can eventually ignore as we get a little too drunk on tequila drinks mixed progressively stronger and remove parts of each other's clothing which are better left on in mixed company?

Sure, sounds fine.

Hm, better make it a half-hour later. I've got dinner with my mum.

Cheers, see you then!

perhaps you would like to have a listen to a song.

2010-12-11T19:37:00.000-04:00

Sun by sheep with Teeth

I present to you, recorded in bits, some sketches toward a piece I've been working on for a while. The results of a recent desire to use my recording programs as a compositional aid, in the hopes that it can show me things I otherwise wouldn't notice.
There were portions I was absolutely married to that I've since abandoned, but as things stand right now I think everything you hear here will be present in some form in the final version of the piece.
I'm considering replacing the first 'James and Daisy' bit with a more abstract voice-manipulation section and making the second incarnation of those words sound more similar to what is currently the opening section. I think this might make some of the transitions easier to swallow. The a capella bit in the middle was actually the building block around which I built everything else. It will probably get accompaniment of some sort by the time this gets around to the final version.
Thoughts and any sort of feedback about this work in progress will be appreciated and thoughtfully engaged-with.

New[s] (which is not really new/s at all)

2010-11-27T22:28:00.003-04:00

I realised the other day I don't really have time for a lot of things & actively seeking a relationship is one of those things. Having realised the peacefulness of this position (although it happened quite accidentally), it occurred to me that much of what now seems to have been silly tension in my life had been re-purposed to the pursuit of now-more-pressing issues.

This might have something to do with the fact that I have limited time left here in the city, or the fact that school has been repeatedly beating me over the head with Important Work, or the fact that I've recently begun cohabitating with a mostly-delightful-if-occasionally-kinda-neurotic cat named Penny and more recently her newly-minted (and potentially virgin-birthed) kitten, who we've named Benjie (a name at several removes).

This also might have something to do with the fact that several of my friends have just gotten out of relationships and the rose-coloured glasses (and all gloves) are off.

(comparing this position to some of the more anguished outbursts I've posted here in the past is a bizarre experience. Tangentially, I've been close to deleting or editing the archives a few times but some perverse instinct for authenticity has made me balk at that. They all remain, unchanged)

2010-11-18T21:47:00.001-04:00

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domesticity

2010-09-29T15:44:00.000-03:00

do dome(s) me(s) domestic e(a)st tic city
cite ticit some domes mest west domicit sit
yet lest set bets tacit tact ship sick lips stick

dome sticky city
set stip u late
sit

intuit

2010-09-29T02:29:00.002-03:00

This Logic is Real

such strange trees
with slanted tops
and tarry leaves

Block blocks
Stock rocks
Box box

a s igh t h roug h a ze
th is b in d in g be a st
w it h bl in d in g a ze

magic is

the wrong corners

2010-09-21T03:28:00.000-03:00

all possible suitors not thinkers or suited
everyone new is so young.

& related
I can't find a decent pair of sneakers

I would just stay home
but surely someone has been here before me—
has he sewn his own?

You play covers.

2010-09-21T03:13:00.002-03:00

I don't much care about your bar band.

James told me to listen to my heart

2010-09-01T00:36:00.000-03:00

...but upon closer inspection I discovered that my heart had gone batshit insane and besides the palpitations was spitting gibberish
and I tried to humour the poor little bastard but there are only so many ways to ignore it humanely before you have to start thinking with a knife.

ran out of bandaids an hour ago and James has still not returned. It'll be his fault now if we stain the carpets and I told him so.

Pressed in glass and rolling

2010-06-05T18:31:00.001-03:00

The walls of reality are impossibly thin and impossibly strong. They might even be hollow: surrounded by a resin of careful training in social expectation, they might still be bones without marrow.
Pressed in glass and rolling you will break through these walls endlessly. It is something neither wholly painful nor wholly pleasant; more a peeling-away of the resinous layers. Do you feel a little raw? Pinned, playing a game you can't fully comprehend, your role is to break the rules.

There is a man over there. He stands watching, making sure that you don't catch on to the game. It is your constant struggle and your single objective to gain control, but becoming aware of his gaze upon you is enough to render you entirely powerless. He is the most proper man, and he expects compliance. It is a powerful expectation.
You cannot quite see him, but everything around you is whispering his name, laughing as if you are an impish little child—they find your desperate attempt to betray both charmingly futile and somewhat more daring than they could ever attempt. The objects seem to be living vicariously through your daring, but you feel ragged and wronged. They are trivialising your struggle—don't they know who you are?

It occurs to you that you don't really know who you are either. The excited laughter of the objects builds to a multi-faceted pulsation, the rhythm of which says endlessly without words "you shouldn't be doing that. you shouldn't be doing that." But you are, endlessly, because those are the rules.

Meaningless.

Always shifting never joining

2010-03-16T05:11:00.004-03:00

Tonight walking home I saw my shadow and I liked it. I cast a lovely shadow. But then I saw another, and another, and another. I cast so many lovely shadows and they were all me and none of them were all me. As I walked ahead they got closer together, and I thought 'soon they will become a single shadow'. Pure and dark. But instead they just got lighter until I couldn't see them anymore, and then I saw two more enter at the corners of my eyes. New shadows always shifting never joining. And they were never whole and my eyes got a little wet and my throat tightened involuntarily.
It's a silly thing to cry about but when the sun went down this evening light diffused into the sky like every evening, and the shadows grew confused like every evening. And when even that light faded because the sun was on the other side of the planet the city streetlights came on.
And every city streetlight was another little sun trapped in glass tricked into burning confidently. No air to burn themselves out. Each shadow convinced it was my only in the sun until it drew closer to another and recognised its own rotation. A thousand shadows dying in front of me, growing pale in recognition; a succession of streetlights passing behind me, fading in the distance as I walked home.

And so I thought about the shards of all my fractured identities that exist in my relations with the world's other entities, and what happens as I leave them behind. I saw the projection of a postmodern individual at night-time on the city cement, and it was the first time that I've truly grasped what's lost.

unconscious, entitled

2010-03-09T17:58:00.000-04:00

a trail of pig shit between the pens
those dens they inhabit
shadows dusty with smoke
no longer struggling
thoughtless they spread
sweet malignancy snuffling
a hard snout roots his chest

wince

2010-03-03T21:45:00.000-04:00

clumsy eyes brush
purple yellow
bruises on
the sky

(post-modern man visits the apocalypses)

2010-03-02T18:55:00.001-04:00

spent time
in the night leaving
blues bar jukeboxes full
of happy people playing
the wrong songs –each
one gathering in an
eternal crescendo

new.

2010-03-02T03:24:00.002-04:00

old things might look a little different now.
i might not fix them
you are warned.

2010-03-01T03:25:00.002-04:00

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

i suppose we tried

2009-09-14T00:57:00.004-03:00

twitter and co destroyed everything including our nascent blogosphere
i think i need to find a new outlet
i've twenty-some 'followers' which looks cool but nobody reads this anymore

and now i really feel i have been shouting to the dark.
this time i'm asking you:
is it worth posting more or should i just hold more poetry recitals in real life?
should i 'cheer the fuck up?'
what would make you want to read this blog?
should i become a more engaged part of the community?
should i talk about my 'real' life?
should i post m0r lInKz?

do tell.

ASCII

2009-09-13T16:42:00.002-03:00

there is a lonely corner

just above
4 8 15 16 23 42 iteration 452

we might already be dating

2009-09-11T00:46:00.004-03:00

there is a boy
there is definitely a boy
we can talk until dawn
or see each other every day for a week
and still i am not sure if he's on my page about it all
how confusing

tell

2009-09-10T03:39:00.013-03:00

tell what is broken
all these promises made in pieces
& talking all night
one who has still not said enough

tell what has passed
for now
only time

tell what is here
there is one who shines
like the stars in his eyes
and there is another who glows

tell what will be
a monument
fragile and unclear

a day at the beach

2009-09-07T02:52:00.000-03:00

two black cocker spaniels
come a-running
chasing snails
fighting tooth and claw and nail!
fighting tooth and claw and nail!

& the sand is made of anvils
& your evil twin is placing pretty pennies on the rails
for the train that never comes –
it's running late!
the conductor's face is always pale
and sweating shotgun shells

o honey make it a day to remember...

i think god's the maddest hatter
through the night the sand is hotter
all the blacksmiths in the water
trying to woo the captain's daughter
with their swords – THEIR PERFECT SWORDS

& all day the clams are spitting shadows
and the birds are hitting windows
in the sky – IN THE SKY

& you'll never see the splatters
when the clouds are coming over
but it's filling up the ocean
and the stairs are sinking lower
what's buried will never be UNCOVERED

o honey make it a day to remember...

ROT! LYING ON THE ROCK IN THE MIDDLE OF YOUR POND
YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT'S GOING TO COME ALONG UNTIL YOU'RE GONE
FLOATING ON YOUR COT ALONG THE CURRENT OUT TO SEA
YOU'VE BEEN THE SORRY WITNESS OF A DAY AT THE BEACH

tonight I

2009-07-09T20:37:00.011-03:00

tied to earth with stern rope
sharp frozen stone
angry reflections in the river
shattered teeth
knives &
thorns

drip tapping of liquid claws stabbing the sky
stained everything pale steel
a gunmetal ballet to malnourishment

the needles are shooting stars
fallen from graceful suspension
& tonight the man in the moon is screaming in pain

grey skies turning blue

2009-07-08T13:12:00.003-03:00

clouds break – run!
i will meet you halfway

there is shelter in the mountains
and keeping warm with exaltations
we can share all we have learned
heavy air filled with questions

did i tell you of this dent i have discovered?
here in my heart
i think you fit inside

grey skies turning blue

please reassure me

2009-06-22T13:57:00.015-03:00

he is the man
at the end of the table
a littl e
too enthusiastik

&have we only been screaming to the black all along?

and i've been living at the end of the alphabet

2009-06-22T10:27:00.004-03:00

j woke up to the power clock screaming he threw it off a building he jumped after it beautifully.
he went into orbit but the clock (scared of asphyxiation) fell down instead hit a man killed him shattered into bits and time was arrested for murder (reduced charge of manslaughter for good behaviour).
the electrical company is a terrorist group and wouldn't have it. they spoke up they assumed responsibility the cord strangled him they said. they said we're killing all sorts of people that way. we provide the electricity to power the alarm clocks to kill people. flat out contradicted time's testimony. but another part argued it was only an illusion anyway (created by consciousness) and you couldn't imprison a relative concept.

x was the first one to die. he had been working on an impenetrable jailhouse he was trying to isolate the atom he was speaking out against the power lines he was building hammers. he was made of glass. he shattered.
y was second. she had no past or future spoke frightening words and ate only dreams. only too fragile made of skin almost air torn apart by the jagged heart shard.
z was a mother who ate all her babies the cord around her neck she spat on windows and broke her back on the sidewalk. murdered a whole city block. stole all the air.
asphyxiation.
twenty-six.witnesses

photoshoot

2009-06-21T13:39:00.007-03:00

i had a lovely photoshoot a couple of days ago with becky and colin. i snapped so many pictures, and never once thought about the fact that the camera hadn't finished the roll.
well shit. i got home and discovered that the shot counter was just over the 36 mark – i'd had 24 exposures on the roll, so i assumed that something had gone wrong in the camera, and I probably had a roll of twenty-three great shots and one which had been exposed a million times.
still, i held on to the idea that i had probably kept the first twenty-three shots. even though i felt kind of sad (because we had some really really neat stuff at the end of the shoot), i felt like if i could at least get those developed, there would be some great material to redeem the evening.
so i tried to rewind the film. this constituted bad news moment number two: it seemed like the film had been torn off the spindle by the automatic advance mechanism on the camera. i panicked a little bit – what could I do? I wouldn't be able to do ANYTHING without the light on, but exposing the film to light would mean losing all of the shots.
finally, after dithering a bit, I decided it would be lost one way or the other, so I shut off all the lights, hid everything light-emitting in the room, and popped open the camera to see what I could accomplish in the dark.

about the only thing I was able to determine was that there was, in fact, no film in the camera the whole time. jesus.
i guess we'll be doing another photoshoot fairly soon.

"evan, you tool. don't bother. there's not even any film in that."

o! the cosmotic

2009-06-21T13:31:00.009-03:00

i am grounded!
i'm spinning!
i'm electrick!
i'm magical!

i am UP IN THE STARS
i am UP IN THE STARS
my head's up in the stars

i'm mystic!
i got visions!
i'm speechless!
i'm secret!

i am UP IN THE STARS
i am UP IN THE STARS

cast off!
my head's up

2009-06-18T18:43:00.001-03:00

i feel like
i am moving
in a new direction.

ghost hotel

2009-06-18T17:49:00.005-03:00

despite his misgivings
he checked his belongings
though once he was kind of partial to givingitup and breaking it down
the malleable masses built a pyre to their memories
why don't you give it a shot?
they forgot they forgot what the memories were

it was the eighth of may
in the twentieth year of a new era
(though no one knew it yet)
it was a dangerous day
explosions filled their eyes
and they SANG A PONDEROUS TUNE
a fallow incantation TO THE GODS OF THE MOON
there are no gods
there is no moon
he broke his wrist on the doorframe entering the room
and the bell rang
and the malleable masses sang

where are our memories?
where are our memories?
we've worked all day and lost them
have you seen them madam morris?
have you seen them?
have you seen them? madam?
madam?
madam?

madam morris.
her real name was charlotte
she lived outside of town and she knew all about it
she knew all about everything
but when we asked her she took it so unkindly
she took everything too seriously
once
she'd had a bee in her bonnet
and she knew it
so she threw it away
and passed into a brief coma, standing up
later
they found a bee in her bonnet, dead
and the stinger in her head
they said she was never the same after
the travelling doctor had a term for it
the travelling doctor had a magic elixir
but she wouldn't have it
and the malleable masses had their prayers and their mustard plasters
but she threw them all off
and now she lived outside of town in her house all made of ALABASTER
and the children all got there when they were lost
the crazy! the crazy! she lives outside of town
unmedicated

but now we've this pyre
and no memories to burn
a funeral fire
and no past from which to learn

we mourn the dead
because we feel they are dead
and we don't know who they are
because we don't know who they were

let us sing a song for the departed

because we feel they are departed
but all their ghosts are here tonight

and we dance around the fire
and we dance until the morning

but we don't know who we are
and we don't know who we were
can you save us, strangers?

a definition

2009-06-08T13:59:00.002-03:00

fail win: to execute a series of fails so improbable that it constitutes, in fact, a win.

to win at failing.

Establishment of Terminology

2009-06-03T16:13:00.001-03:00

I dislike dumb people.
This was a revelation I had recently, and the epithet "dumb" is currently one I find extremely useful to have kicking around my head, since naming and sorting-into-categories is one of the things humans have been doing since we came up with language.
I do realise, however, that my usage of the word may be at first confused with a more general sense of the term on a par with "stupid". This is not my intention. By "dumb" I intend a very specific concept, which to my ears cannot be adequately expressed by any other word.

Dumbness manifests itself as a lack of analysis and awareness. At its most loathsome, this appears at the deepest levels of the self. It takes the unique form of a complete lack of analysis on one's own actions and exists as an ultimate failure on the grounds of self-awareness.
However, there are other areas in which people can be dumb. This complete lack of self-awareness is the worst end of the scale, but there are a variety of other ways in which dumbness manifests itself, some far more minor and excusable than others. So when I open this post by saying that I dislike dumb people, this is not to say I dislike all people who prove dumb in any respect, but rather that I dislike those people in whom the level of dumbness exceeds their relatively positive characteristics. Ultimately, I end up feeling they just aren't worth it.
In fact, that which I find myself truly able to dislike in anybody (including myself) is that which is dumb within them. Not only is there no quality worse than dumbness, but there are also no truly negative qualities in a person that do not, at their most fundamental level, find themselves rooted in dumbness. The more I think about this, the more I am convinced of it, as I am increasingly unable to find any sort of exception.
As an important side note, I should mention that this concept has very little correlation with education. While I believe some types of education are less likely than others to retain the interest of dumb people, I can say without hesitation that I know many dumb people who have achieved high levels of education and the subsequent sociocultural success this usually entails, and currently occupy positions of great authority and power. I also know a large number of very uneducated people who understand a lot more about themselves and the world than any of these SUCCESSFUL BUSINESSMEN.

Ultimately, I feel like every action is defensible if it is grounded in an understanding of its implications. This means that, while a dumb person can do good deeds based on some system of morality (and still fail to understand properly their reasons or the implications of their actions), I hold greater regard for an insightful person who can find some rational ground upon which to act – whether or not this conforms to traditional moral standards. I may disagree with their conclusions, but I hold them higher in my esteem.

I plan to post more about the ins and the outs of this theory as I figure it out myself. Answering questions like:
- If dumbness forms the core of all negative qualities, is it possible that the core of all positive qualities is, in fact, insight? This does not seem immediately obvious to me, as I can think of many positive qualities that do not necessarily involve insight – but maybe that's just an incompleteness in my thought.
- Is dumb art really art? Or has it been reduced to the level of kitsch, commodity, or simple decoration? This is equally applicable to all of the different arts.
- What are the deeper implications of this rejection of traditional prescriptive morality? These are codes for social existence which have proved useful, but is it not better to examine the facts and decide for yourself, without recourse to universals which will inevitably fall short of their practical application?

For now, I turn the questions to you:
What's up with dumb people?
Am I being too hard on them?
Is there something I'm failing to see?
What do you think?

I've been working on this post for a couple of weeks. I hope it satisfies.

resolution (brief)

2009-05-15T12:44:00.001-03:00

need to start using more/
some

pictures in my blog.

it really opens it up.

heading home

2009-05-01T17:55:00.002-03:00

my parents are arriving in halifax tonight. i'm in the middle of packing, and cleaning the house a bit, and listening to music.
swan lake's new cd. that's the canadian-indie-music supergroup with dan bejar, spencer krug, and carey mercer (of destroyer and the new pornographers, sunset rubdown and wolf parade, and frog eyes, respectively). go check it out somehow: it's pretty great if you're into densely poetic songs and weird sounds and stuff.
anyway, the reason i'm in the middle of all this is that i'm going home tomorrow! it's exciting. i have a job back on the smallest-province-in-canada island that starts on monday, and i'm just tying up the loose ends around here before i leave for the next 4 months.
though it's only 4 hours away (tops). we're definitely taking a trip here in the summer at some point.

also, chances are i won't be posting very much in the summer. the combination of nice sunny days and the dial-up internet i have at home doesn't make for a very good combination in terms of keeping a regular blogging schedule.
but i'll try.

it's a rainy day here,
but i have sunny plans in my mind.
ah, summer!

something old i just remembered:

2009-04-28T11:13:00.003-03:00

everytime i see a shooting star
or a moonbeam
i wish for love and truth
i think it just came true

my love songs always seemed a bit dangerous and disingenuous to me. but i kept on trying, in hopes that someday the secret inner-beatles in me would just pop out and write a song that sounded like it was written and forgotten c. 1962.
but then i was always more lennon than mccartney

i propose that those are the true opposing-artistic-forces! ah, nietzsche: bugger off with your apollinian-dionysian! it's all about lennon and mccartney!

if i were interested in following that further instead of just asserting it wildly, i could probably find something of the dionysian in lennon and something of the apollinian in mccartney.
yeah, it's in there probably.

i just realised that this post makes the second reference to nietzsche in a row.
he is a fascinating and troubling thinker. i frequently find myself scared by his ideas.
or, in the words of some guy on youtube:

so, nietzsche. interesting guyy. as many of you knoaw. nietzsche has, uh... he's got a big grife with, uh... a lot of the way that people, yknow, religion...

i somehow doubt that grife is a real word. f=p?
to be fair to this guy, i don't know if it's possible to do a better job just after first year...
though i wouldn't have volunteered to put a video of myself on the internet trying to talk about it if i had that kind of failed analysis.

oh dear, what a ramble of a post. sorry.

the greatest haters

2009-04-26T04:00:00.009-03:00

went to a comedy festival show yesterday night.
i found myself hating everybody/i want to watch a lot more comedy on television
but never again am i going to a comedy show marketed to the general public.

i found myself in the middle of people who wanted a laugh.
the kind of people who say things like:
"the jokes about marriage are funny cause their true"
and
"your gay"
and stuff like that.

i went for seán cullen but i got a fuck of a lot more.
a lot of jokes about gay people and how the comedians, as heterosexuals, didn't feel comfortable around the gays.
(sometimes cleverly disguised as pleas for tolerance)
i felt kind of uncomfortable
also i was the only person whose years-on-this-earth could be expressed by: 14 ≤ age ≤ 37

Nietzsche got it wrong
or at least put the wrong emphasis on the issue
all positive emotion does not come from negative emotion
all positive emotion is negative emotion
and vice versa
laughter is hatred is love
deal.

what a beautiful day!

2009-04-24T16:14:00.002-03:00

it's SO nice outside today. the sky is blue blue blue/it feels like summer

only a little bit chilly for summer.
but this weekend is supposed to be in the twenties! amazing.
a bunch of us are playing soccer tomorrow! and then i'm going thrift-store/vintage shopping with a friend.
and i have my last day of work tomorrow night, 'cause all the first-years have to be out of residence by tuesday.
and the halifax comedy festival is on! i'm going to see sean cullen tonight!
omg!

and i'm going home in eight days!
and my last exam is on monday!
and that means i have nearly a week in halifax after all my exams are finished!
can you spell funtimes?

and it looks like we're not getting any subletters for my flat this summer (which is sad, because it means we'll have to pay for a flat in halifax all summer).
but on the bright side, we have a flat in halifax all summer!
can you spell weekend-away?
can you spell more-awesome-funtimes?
can you spell?
what a beautiful day!
everything is going well.

esprit de corps

2009-04-20T00:04:00.003-03:00

1. departure

walking
hit by a vision i

see my futureself
seconds ahead
becoming him

feel my pastself
seeing me
becoming me;

startled by
this kind of time
but then i see.

2. the establishment of principles

time is
a film in four dimensions
lived in three

time is
only our perceptions

time is free

i am
a lot of little pieces
and so are you
and so is the air we breathe

we are
not so different
from the trees

and if you took a snapshot
where everything was still
all the empty space and atoms
make a moment

and when we see a moment
and it's followed by another
and another
all the moments
flow together

because time is
a film in four dimensions
and only our perceptions
make it three

3. the exercise

let go of your body
one part at a time
imagine it blending
losing itself in
the air around you
is
matter
is
you
can imbue your
perception of the physical
with that sensation
remember how it feels to
let go of your body
one part at a time
imagine it blending...

4. but for now i am too weak:

there remains
a dagger jagged hole
in my heart
the core of my (physical) being

there remains
for me
some kind of time
i know it is illusion
but against all rationality

there remains
a spot untouched
in my brain
the core of my mental (well-)being

5. return

walking
hit by a vision i
live three moments at once
this is a nascent eternity

Metric: My Stadium Love

2009-04-19T20:05:00.004-03:00

So I've been listening to Metric's latest record, Fantasies. I picked it up a couple of days after it came out, but (true to form) I also picked up five other disques the same day. So in attempting to digest all that music at once, it's taken me a little while to get really enthusiastic about it.
But over the past week-or-two, I've gradually been realising that it's absolutely my favourite Metric album yet.
I always felt like Metric had some really good songs, but their albums weren't really unified. I like almost all of the songs on Old World Underground...? and Live It Out individually, but the collective effect was always rather under-whelming to me. By far my favourite album was Grow Up and Blow Away, but that was also really early, when Emily Haines and James Shaw were just "some kids with day jobs trying to work a drum machine recording a feeling breathing diesel trucks" and neither Joules Scott-Key or Josh Winstead were in the band. So it isn't a 'real' Metric album.
But then they made Fantasies. And it totally sounds like the Metric we've always known, but they've also made a huge progression in terms of both their sound and their cohesiveness. The variety of sounds and textures on the album is held together beautifully by Metric's singular aesthetic, so that every moment feels like a part of the unified whole. Of course, they're still providing highly-danceable music, and I forsee many fantastic summer-party hits coming from this album. But more importantly, I feel like Fantasies marks Metric's movement into maturity. It took a couple of albums to get here, and the members' involvement in various side-projects could only have helped, but they finally sound like a band that has taken the vital step into confidence and self-awareness. Combined with their undeniable songwriting and performing talent, Metric seems poised to just keep getting better. I think they'll be around for a very long time, and that makes me really happy.
Thank you, Metric. Please keep on making music this good.

♥ e

Personal Problem

2009-04-15T06:10:00.004-03:00

If, sort of hypothetically, there was someone you kind of really couldn't stop thinking about, and if this person were to possibly also be maybe thinking about you a lot too or at least perhaps be kind of interested in you
(except you really weren't sure, except you were pretty sure, except you also had a history of raising your own expectations so that you could kind of be making things up in your head a bit maybe, but this time you didn't actually think that's how it was because you knew you had a history of raising your own expectations and kind of making things up in your head and you were trying to compensate for that),
what would you do?

Or, if we were in a grade __ textbook:
40. After drifting aimlessly through empty space for approximately one year, object u approaches object s at a velocity of 5 m/s. The force of attraction exerted by object s at distance x is measured at 7x-y+5, but the force of attraction exerted by u is unknown, and s is moving in an unknown direction at an unknown speed.
a) What is the minimum amount of supplementary information required to determine if these two objects will collide?
b) Recalling the uncertainty principle, which are the most reliably measurable pieces of information?
c) Keeping in mind the observer effect, which method of measurement would you most likely use? Why?
d) If object u is the spaceship from question 36 and there is only enough fuel for one landing attempt, when should the captain turn on the booster rockets?

Oh, wow. I didn't think I'd be able to translate that so seamlessly. Kind of makes me wonder how much of Anna the Word-Problem Writer's personal life made it into those questions.

Now I feel bad about always getting them wrong.

I bend for linksys.

2009-04-12T19:54:00.003-03:00

I am crouched in the corner of my kitchen, elbow propped against my knee and my laptop perched somewhat precariously between my legs. I have discovered that if I let the computer touch the ground, I lose the delicate wireless internet signal I have just found. So I am bent between the pile of recycling (pizza boxes and empty juice bottles prevail) and the door we never open because those stairs lead to the crypt.
Somehow in all this twisting my neck has turned into a Möbius strip. There is an infinite distance between my head and my body. This worries me briefly but I figure with a pencil and some sellotape we can work it out.
Kate Bush yells at me from across the room. She wants to be a rubberband girl.
I yell back that the internet has turned me into a pretzel. Maybe she should try that instead.

We steal the neighbours' wireless internet, but recently the connexion to our favourite unsecured-network-named-linksys has been rather tenuous, and it's been right out for the past several days. For now, and out of some degree of desperation, I have located a network named "default" which seems to be fairly reliable as long as I am crouched in this exact position—
Does anyone else remember when the teevee worked with an antenna,
and you could get the coolest station with all the awesomest programs as long as you stood with a piece of tinfoil in your mouth on your left-tip-toe and your right ring finger on the tip of the rabbit-ears
or was that just me?
They're slowly phasing out the analog world (no one ever watched it after they laid cables and the satellites came) but stealing internet from the neighbours is the Modern Equivalent for the Generation to Come.

I can't figure out if these tears are nostalgia or lactic acid.

nailbiter

2009-04-12T18:37:00.000-03:00

i have been trying to figure you out
i believe that you too have been circling
we are not quite cautious animals –
territory; fear
but when we read each other
by posture, tone of voice (here
you must listen at three levels down
because that is the cloak i put on)
animals come to my mind

and we're too damn intelligent
and we're both good observers
and we're probably not making anything any easier

playing at masks
and meta-levels
as fun as it is
as unavoidable
as ironic
as it is
– makes it very difficult
to figure you out

and so we keep on circling
(or maybe that's only just me
running 'round my mind)
not quite cautious animals –

i wonder...

2009-04-06T22:19:00.002-03:00

does writing a paper on hipsters-as-a-subculture for my pop culture class
diminish any indie-cred i may have acquired?
does asking this self-aware question put it back?

Aw fuck it, I guess we lost.

2009-04-03T16:47:00.003-03:00

Summerside Feast Dinner Theatre Audition Requirements:

1 two minute monologue
2 contrasting vocal pieces
1 headshot
1 bio or resume

Please come to the Halifax location on Grafton St. at 11:20am on Saturday, April 4th, 2009 for your audition.

...That would have been fine. Lovely, even. In fact, I was kind of looking forward to it.
And then school got really busy.
And then all of a sudden the audition was in a week. And I thought "Oh, I had better get that monologue memorised". And I thought "I wonder what I'll sing".
Then it was today. Friday, April 3rd, 2009 – and my monologue was still sitting at the not-memorised-enough stage, and I realised that I needed an 8x10 glossy headshot and I still needed to take it.
And on top of that, I have a presentation on Claire Denis to prepare for Monday. Which means watching excessive amounts of film this weekend (beyond what I've been watching already).
And then I have to choose and analyse a subculture for my Popular Culture and Modernity class for Tuesday. Which means finding one in the first place. Maybe I'll argue that bloggers form a subculture – that would give me a huge leg up, since I've already significant understanding of bloggers.
And then I have a Spanish oral exam on Wednesday, as well as a written Spanish exam.
And then a 'break' – during which I'll be writing and researching for my two major term papers due the following Monday. So no break at all.

I called the dinner theatre at 4:44 pm and told them I would be cancelling my audition.
It felt horrible, but what's the point in getting a great job and making loads of money for school, if I subsequently lose my honours qualification (which I need for my degree) because I can't put school first?
Now I just have to tell my mother.

If you need me, I'll be stress-cooking: Thai chicken-mushroom-eggplant green curry to take my mind off all of it.
And then watching copious amounts of Claire Denis.
♥ e

tonight it smells of spring

2009-04-03T13:53:00.000-03:00

tonight it smells of spring
it is a night for magic!

the dry scent of light rain
eyelash of wind
and the sky strangely bright

no –
not a night for magic
but a night that makes
the ordinary
magical

haiku for shivers

2009-04-01T04:00:00.000-03:00

i don't understand –
this flat gets so cold at night
where has the heat gone?

vertigo notes

2009-03-31T00:06:00.004-03:00

frozen in three sweaters i put on a coat i fall asleep because there is nothing better to do curl under a blanket ring the doorbell stop te frost
the heat's tyrned off.
and my scattershot heart makes disvhordant squaks and gibbles

we stopped believing a year and a ha;f ago on saint's day
it was a FRIDAY
i remember as i close mt eyes the feeling of waking up everymorning
the stairs faling out from under me
spun disconnecated
i
listen! it is the cats on the street!
they make terrifying noises
they want to eat you. they want to mind
they want your mind
your sneakers are too tight
and you briefly consider leabing town.
but you couldn't do it in those pants.

so you close your eyes.
you imagination running free and clear windows streaks free none
wipe em with newspaper.
you remenber fairly well where things are now. You have three parts musvle memory and one or two parts good old fashioned vetuigi gi
you are losing rthakck iof where it al it as you spun spun spum.
i hear yout mind is infestd eith mive ,egt fin't you send yrself toi tge ictir tey can fix you up for that.
you stopped taking var eof yourself years and teas agil
]this is not natyral.

someatimes as the vertigo holds i eonder if it is going to be real
if when i open my eyes the woerlds wil wctually BE spinning......
and it doesn't help.

so,

2009-03-30T23:25:00.002-03:00

i've been listening to
a lot of electro
recently.

i just thought maybe you should know.

haiku my blog:

2009-03-29T06:15:00.003-03:00

crush meant that we might
actually be able
to create something

haiku your blog?

(I kind of refreshed it until it was awesome. feel free to do the same)

oh, and kudos to ange ella and Saf for doing it first.
i forgot to put that bit in, sorry.

gentle defense of a beautiful band to a friend who does not yet understand

2009-03-29T04:52:00.006-03:00

when you told me you didn't like
modest mouse
i was concerned for a moment

but then i reconciled it
and justified it
everything came together

maybe we can get high
and listen to
The Moon And Antarctica

maybe then
you will
understand

after all
that's how the world began.
and that's how the world will end.

you don't really have to get high.
but i know you like to do that
you told me once or twice

and i know you have missed the way the words
make beauty or turds
either way they are saved by passion

you have missed what is really musical
the way the instruments and isaac brock's voice
make a universe all their own

I worked tonight, among other things.

2009-03-29T03:37:00.004-03:00

It was okay. Apparently last night was really busy, so everyone tonight was too partied-out to do anything – which is fine by me, since that means I didn't really have to do very much. Just the regular rounds, to make sure no one's dead in the halls.
No one was.

It was Earth Hour from 8:30 to 9:30. We turned off the lights at work and I called home to make sure I'd turned mine off before heading out. They were, but I also know my stereo was still on, drawing power, and my computer was only sleeping, as opposed to being unplugged.
I am therefore a Somewhat Bad Person.

Then we watched The West Wing. The season-two finale.
Then we watched some Clone High.
God, there's some good TV out there. Most of it is now on DVD.

After work was done at midnight, I decided I would go to a party I had been kind-of invited to. It was my friend's friend's brother's birthday party, but my friend (who also lives in residence, where I work, who I had really intended to see, who had suggested I go in the first place) had already left. The Strangeboys were still playing when I got there, though they stopped soon after.
Bright side: I went with Future-Roommate, a fairly-awesome guy who knows Birthday Boy and who had just happened to be at my house visiting Current-and-Future Roommate. And the other people who had gone with Friend-I-Went-to-See were still there – and since we all go to King's I kind of knew them. It was pretty fun.
Though it would have been better if aforementioned friend had been there.
(I am slowly realising that the attempt to make blog posts somewhat anonymous runs the risk of making them awkward when talking about multiple people.)

So I'm home. I am happy that my computer is fixed, and I am also able to steal the internet with impunity once again.
But maybe we'll buy it next year. It's been out a lot recently.
And combined with my laptop crashing that's meant a lot of difficulty in terms of basic keeping-up and also in terms of getting work done.
But hopefully everything is smooth from now on. I've replaced my hard-drive, and hopefully my neighbours have replaced their fickle wireless router with something better.
It's still the same brand name though. I don't know.

♥ e

♥

2009-03-25T22:11:00.001-03:00

i kind of keep thinking about you
without realising it
i hope that's ok

Oh, and...

2009-03-25T00:06:00.004-03:00

I chose my classes for next year too. That's kind of exciting.

In the fall, I'm taking:
Science and Culture, the third-year core class for my major in Contemporary Studies
Modern Film and the Theory of the Gaze
American Literature to 1865, not only because it's taught by my favourite prof thus-far in the English department, but also because: Emily Dickinson! Benjamin Franklin! Edgar Allan Poe! Henry David Thoreau!
Modernisms and Masculinities, a seminar on the construction of the modern Canadian masculine identity through literature
Intro to Music and Sound Technology: making music! electronically! how-to! arright!

And in the winter:
Science and Culture, still. It's a full-year course.
Contemporary Aesthetic and Critical Theory: Utopias and other Contemporary (non) Places, which is also taught by the aforementioned favourite-English-prof, but which is actually a Contemporary Studies class. Which automatically means awesome for me and my particular combination of majors. So I'm sort of excited.
Contemporary Critical Theory, which is just a general blanket-course in the subject, and which fills another English requirement, but which looks fairly interesting
Goethe to Hegel, because you can never have too much German Romanticism in your life. Also because I figure the more I study Hegel the better chance I have of actually understanding him someday.
Electroacoustic Music, which is a continuation of the music and sound technology class up there – except with more of a focus on the creative side, now that everyone in the class has developed the basic skills required. Amazingly exciting.

I can't wait. It all looks so great.
But for now I should be focusing on this year's classes. So I'll just turn over here and write about the French Revolution for a little while.
cheers then

♥ e

this isn't a poem really

2009-03-24T23:53:00.004-03:00

i'm sorry if i've been a bit absent recently
i swear it's not you
it's totally me

did i tell you about the internet?
we've been stealing it.
but i think they're on to us
or they've been on vacation
or something
it's up for now so i will post tonight

did i tell you about midterms?
well, more accurately papers due
presentations to prepare
proposals to get approved
lots of work i promise

did i tell you about my computer?
it's been giving me trouble recently
crashing all the time you know
the usual shit computers do
but i got it fixed today
took it out on the town
physical damage to the hard-drive
(that explains a lot)
so they replaced it
it's got a new heart
or something more biologically equivalent. a brain?

did i tell you about my heart?
it's doing fairly well
a little bit stressed
but pretty ok.

i hope we talk again soon
give me a call sometime
we'll chat or something.

mute

2009-03-16T15:24:00.000-03:00

i read your poems
found them scattered on the street
they sent me back
to everything we never said

of course i'd seen it there in your eyes
my keen sight for fine details
missed the drifting-apart
for too long
still i always knew you better
i'm an observer

i read your mind
it was scattered in the street
you always wrote better
than you could speak

for three years really
silence almost killed us
but we left so much unsaid
the sun could never set
a single ray remains
and the sky is danger red

slur

2009-03-07T04:52:00.004-04:00

spend your evening milking free drinks and flattery from a boy much drunker than you – and you never get where you want
tonight you met your friend's new boyfriend picked up smoking again and sang yourself a song as you walked home alone
i saw it. rubbish tuneless pathetic and your ears always go red when you lie to yourself

you've always lived uncertain
i see you in the moon
laughing at everyone
transparent
wrapped in animal noise

sometimes the thought confines us to my room for three days
during which we smoke pot drink gin and eat only pills
stay awake become shadows
sometimes you stay there alone
you promise me never to leave

spend your evening staring out the door
spend your evening escaping
spend your evening all in one place
spend your evening seducing
spend your evening milking free drinks and flattery from a boy much drunker than you

and you never get where you want
moments disconnected
only guilt stops you living

consumer beautiful

2009-03-06T04:29:00.004-04:00

an acid star inside
lighted eyes

i cannot look (away)
cannot really see

listen:
scream.

2009-03-01T21:53:00.002-04:00

oh, it's march. when did that happen?
i can't promise i'll post more often, but i'll damn well try.
there were all good reasons, i swear.
written-and-re-written post to come soon.

dear marie

2009-02-09T23:25:00.003-04:00

did you get the letters that i wrote?
i sent you an x and a t
they were part of some words
i can't remember now

i could not explain
all the voices i left
on your telephone answer machine
it was all them
it was all me

so i wrote you on paper
(it's coming back now)
about love truth and peace
and life on the street
and my tender left shoulder
(it must be the weather)
and tips for survival
when stranded in sleet
and everything else i could find on my mind
then i folded it into a thousand paper birds
and flew them into the wind

did you ever find the time?
i heard you were looking for it

the magician's faithful assistant

2009-02-07T14:47:00.004-04:00

the aluminium parade has come
we scrape a living from the stone
and blood and moss
and the taste of tin
your body breaks
your meaning tears away

the saw is metal thorns
it tears into skin
this time
you will not be repaired

boys are for fags.

2009-02-06T20:17:00.004-04:00

goddamn straight boy.
god damn straight boys.

ah well.

manipulate

2009-02-05T14:47:00.005-04:00

it is in the way he looks at you sometimes
you do not see it
that coldness inside his eyes
he disguises it well
a tv fireplace

it is in the way he questions every choice
that little exchange every day
he robs you of power
he gives you your freedom
he takes it away

you are bowing your head
you are always bowing your head

he cannot taste the beauty in life
he knows his detachment too well

it is in that gentle toss of his head
when he has been out too late
and he is giving excuses
he takes you away

it is in the holes
you cannot see
why do you stay?

there is nothing real here

the holes

2009-02-04T15:39:00.002-04:00

after that i ate off all my own skin. the blood dripped on the wolves gathered round falling through all infinite emptiness toward the wooden church spires. the soft-focus fire. and the yellow eyes shook for miles and the careful smiles creased the faces of the dictators. they were sweet and harsh and you breathed them in and they stained your lungs and they forced your knees apart and you forgot to care. and you forgot everything.

you always forget everything. but i remember – i remember so clear every moment in that year so confusing it was scratched in my mind. so detailed there is hardly room for anything else now but i have a sandpaper etch and no way to fix myself. you tell me to fix myself. i cannot speak anymore.
i remember walking into the bathroom to find you eating breakfast your head against the sink a plate on the ground in front of you. acting like a king acting like a fool there was no difference. i could never tell your mind. i will never forget: i will never understand.

and when the howl rent the moon i fell asleep troubled dreams.
come back to me go away.

"One of us is a cigar stand, and one of us is a lovely blue incandescent guillotine."

2009-01-26T18:16:00.005-04:00

Friday, January 16, 2009

You know how sometimes you've heard of a band, and everyone says they're the shit, the absolute shit, like just so good, no really, and you have this pretty clear sense that they're pretty important, and you have this vague impression of what they sound like, but you've never actually heard any of their music? Your expectations never really compare with what the band actually sounds like. Sometimes your expectations are way higher, and you're disappointed. Sometimes you weren't quite able to envision all of the awesome that was this band, and you're surprised. And sometimes, the band is just different, not necessarily better or worse than your expectations.

Pavement.
Two days ago I picked up Brighten the Corners by Pavement.
The first time I heard of them was in an article (probably in Chart magazine, but I could be wrong) concerning Broken Social Scene and their self-titled album (which contains a song named ibi dreams of pavement (a better day) and which is brilliant in its own right), where they noted the reference to Pavement and made a brief comparison. I didn't think too much about it, but for whatever reason, Pavement kept coming up in chats with people and articles I was reading. Finally, four years after I'd first heard of them, I decided I might as well pick up an album.
So two days ago I picked up Brighten the Corners by Pavement.
(it was partly because it was 18 dollars and it had two discs, forty-four songs – a special edition with B-sides &c – a deal, if you will!)
I tossed it in my stereo, and promptly decided it was necessary to make a sandwich.
While I was in the kitchen, I got distracted by my roommates and we ended up playing a game or four of Bananagrams, and I made a sandwich and a coffee and I sat around chatting and then I remembered that I'd meant to listen to the album. It was over when I got back to my room, and then I had to go... somewhere. I can't remember. Maybe to work.

Anyway, I actually listened to it for the first time yesterday. And it was amazing, definitely surprising, not at all what I was expecting, and wonderful.
Their lyrics are surreal, to say the least, somehow able to feel simultaneously very specific and very abstract. The first words on the album, from the song "Stereo":

Pigs tend to wiggle when they walk
The infrastructure rots
And the owners hate the jocks
With their agents and their dates
If the signatures are checked
You'll just have to wait.

And all of this great vocal wordplay happens with a strangely chromatic, almost a talking-style vocal delivery over a pretty distinctive background – sort of a unique-sounding variation on the traditional guitar-bass-drums with wicked pop-rock hooks.

I feel as though I am coming to this rather late. This particular album came out in 1997, and it wasn't their first album. The lead singer, Stephen Malkmus, has apparently taken his trademark monotone delivery into a moderately successful solo career, and I could possibly be writing about something you all know about already.
But I'm willing to take that chance, just so I can share my enthusiasm.

They also had a moderately successful video, directed by Spike Jonze, for their song "Shady Lane" which is also from Brighten the Corners.

freeze. don't move. you've been chosen as an extra in the movie adaptation of the sequel to your life.

♥ e

There is a police van outside my house.

2009-01-26T12:28:00.001-04:00

...it's been there for a very long time. I first noticed it just after I got back from my French culture class at 11-ish. And it's still sitting there. Right outside my window. Taunting me.

I considered closing my curtains but they're tie-dye, and I worry that'll attract their attention to the "fuckin' hippie upstairs in that house let's go bust him for all the drugs he's sure to be in possession of"

Because that's how police think.

I had to take some Advil because I had a HORRIBLE SPLITTING HEADACHE ROAR and I worried that they would imagine me to be doing something illicit. I washed them down with orange juice.

I practiced saying things like "You're going to need a warrant to search this flat" and "I have a headache; I don't need to deal with this right now."

I imagined horrid situations in which one of my flatmates was dealing heroin to pick up a little extra cash on the side and I didn't even know about it, but the police were totally on to him.

There has not yet been a ring of my bell or a knock at my door, so I'll assume they're just running a speed trap, or my neighbour is an international criminal gang leader, or something like that.

Wait! I hear an engine starting!

Yeah, they totally just drove away. I wonder if they arrested anyone.

This is a quick break.

2009-01-26T03:00:00.003-04:00

I'm actually going to finish this paper without staying up all night!

It's for Modern Social and Political Thought again, and it's about Friedrich Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals. I've read it twice through (no small task with all the other readings for this class, among others) and I actually finally think I understand it.

I mean, I've understood it enough to write a decent paper about it since before Christmas break. But when you're dealing with this kind of heavy thought it's not always easy to really get it, at a more fundamental level. Still, at about 1 this morning as I was writing (I was about halfway finished), I finally understood what Nietzsche was talking about, and I saw how it was all related and every part of his thought was really essential and tied into the core of his philosophy. I felt like I was floating for a moment.

Heidegger's discussion of the topic really helped. His lecture series What is Called Thinking? has five lectures devoted to Nietzsche's thought (Part I, lectures V - X). At one rather hilarious point in lecture VI he seems to question his entire endeavour, telling his students that "the most important works and labours of his [Nietzsche's] thought . . . make demands to which we are not equal. It is advisable, therefore, that you postpone reading Nietzsche for the time being, and first study Aristotle for ten to fifteen years."

Ten or fifteen years. Really?

That seems rather excessive. Though presumably that would give you the moral and ethical base you need to study Nietzsche and not go off hating everybody aimlessly.

But a lot of academics really were afraid of the consequences of this man's philosophy, particularly as it was coming to the attention of the public in 1960s North America. It's very exciting thought, and it contains many insights which are truly frightening.

I feel like I really learned a lot in writing this paper. I'm happy to have had the chance.

Now to get a good mark on it...

♥ e

tallphone extrusion (a Surrealist experiment)

2009-01-25T15:00:00.001-04:00

shard arrangements flutter around the head of a broken pianist
i knew she was my father
but the german arguments fell true brute froth
irk the future of manhood the copulations protruding
the electric mixer jumping when the buttressed communion shuttered up the sun

and the momentary collections flew under the good flow
the chartered flight popping
a pink starfilled plum
a pitted hole of truth of bar-fights of aluminium heart-holes
of balloon animal changes the bingedrinking allowances bright

book my transgressions or frighten my archer
but knowledge is vaulted against the advances of gore falling truth calling
the big faces of the intruders
flowing unending blue
they went to the blanket flop bones.

I don't know what to put on the stereo.

2009-01-24T00:35:00.003-04:00

Sitting paralysed in front of my CD racks an hour ago, I realised I had no clue which album I wanted to listen to. I just didn't know what kind of music would suit my mood – partially because I couldn't place my mood exactly.
It occurs to me that I actually classify my mood by the kind of music I want to hear. Hum.
"I feel like Rain Dogs right now."
(though lately I've been feeling pretty Alice, if we are to talk of such things)

So faced with this moment of indecision I decided to count my CDs. It was on my mind.

I have exactly 200 compact discs.
That doesn't include any of the burned mixes or albums that people have copied for me, because those (while pretty great in their own right) aren't quite the same thing as opening up a real album with real album art and putting the CD in the player, and hitting play. It's a total experience that a quick burned mix doesn't really convey in the same way.
Unless it's really well-presented and -put-together.
I have 200 CDs.
What am I supposed to do in a situation like this, then? My chances of picking the perfect album are 1:200. Those are horrible odds!

I love having such a selection though. Because it means I'll never be bored listening to the same five or six CDs.

Not to mention the boxes of vinyl records in my living room.
But they're sitting beside a record player that doesn't work properly. I need to get that fixed.
There are some true beauties in that record collection. The mother of one of my grandmother's sister's co-workers was getting rid of all her old vinyl and through some strange series of conversations it got to me.
Pink Floyd's The Wall was mixed in with multiple copies of Rita MacNeil records. I don't understand some people.

I just finished a mug of peppermint tea.
This post was pretty stream-of-consciousness.
And really soon after the last one.
I'll probably go to bed now.

♥ e

— oh, and I ended up putting on Populations by The Most Serene Republic. It suited well.

A band! Finally a band!

2009-01-24T00:07:00.000-04:00

...I am starting a band.
Or, more accurately, I will be actively starting a band sometime in the next couple of weeks. This weekend is a total write-off because I have another paper due for 25% of my Contemporary Studies core class. Maybe I'll make another post a little later explaining why exactly I'm not a fan of this paper, but that's not what this one is about.
This one is about me starting a band.

About a month and a half ago, I mentioned in my post "a list rip't from my Head" that I wanted to "be part of a worthwhile band". There are tonnes of reasons why I think this would be amazing fun, and a great creative outlet, not least of which is that I really do feel like there's a side of my songwriting which remains unexplored, since I'm always writing solo on an acoustic guitar. So I've been tossing this idea around, more or less idly but always with a lot of desire and intent to follow through, at some point.

In high school, I was in a band called The Delusions – it was my friend Nyall and I, and sometimes Nyall's cousin Sam playing drums. But the core of the band was usually the two of us: we played a few original songs (they were either mine or his) and covered a lot of CCR when we performed. We played twice: at a 50th birthday party and at a fundraiser for Nyall to go to Scotland with the College of Piping.
We wrote a song together that was a lot of fun to play sometimes, mostly because we'd written it together and also because of the wicked falsetto chorus, but we never performed it.

I had an idea for a band called the Lonely Sarahs: nobody would ever be credited in the album's liner notes and we would attempt to keep our true identities secret for as long as possible. The cast of players would rotate constantly, based on whoever was around and wanted to play. It would be somewhat of a weird project probably approaching Broken-Social-Scene-gone-secretive in proportion and logistics (I only made that connection later). I played a couple of battle-of-the-bands shows under that name, with whoever was available, but it never really took off.
It might still happen. One never knows.

For about a year and a half, Nyall and I barely talked at all. It was nothing particularly conscious, just more of a drifting-apart. And during that year-and-a-half, I went off to university and Nyall stayed back home. I don't think we talked at all while I was in Halifax. But I thought about him a bit, particularly when I was wishing for a band, or when some material we'd recorded came up in iTunes.
And then gradually, Nyall started to become an actual part of my life again. When I got back after first year, we got together to catch up and we ended up (of course) playing music together again, which felt great. I had kind of forgotten how much I enjoyed jamming with him. It turned out that he was planning on going to university in the same city as me.
We got together a couple of times while we were both in Halifax, but then the pressure of final exams and the midterm-to-end-of-semester crush meant that we didn't see each other very much, really.

So I thank various deities for parties and alcohol and drivers who need most of a day to recover before they can drive again. I had a party over Christmas break just-past, and Nyall showed up in top form. It was great to see him again, but the real treat was the next day when the guy who was supposed to drive him needed a nap – an extended nap. Even though we woke up pretty early, he stayed until two or three in the afternoon and we passed a guitar back and forth, playing songs for each other. I couldn't believe the songs that he had written. They were amazing, and he had so much new material since he'd last played for me. We promised to get together more often in Halifax, and to jam again very soon.

And a couple of days ago, Nyall got in touch with me again. He said he'd been wanting to start a band, that he knew a fantastic guitar player who was on board, and did I want to be part of it?
I said yes. Obviously. Nyall and I have both grown so much as songwriters that we might actually be able to create something worthwhile, and now that we're all of age to get into bars, there are so many more venues where we can play.
My flatmate Calum said he'd be interested in playing with us (and I'm newly amazed at the extent of his drumming chops every time he sits down to play), so all we need is a bass player. I'm going to go out and seduce one.
I'd also love a synth player. Anyone want to send me one in the mail?
We'll all be playing together for the first time sometime next week. I hope it turns out well – I dearly want it to turn out well.

♥ e

idle hands

2009-01-21T23:35:00.007-04:00

you do me violence, love
feed me sweet oranges
until i am sick
until even a gentle touch
infuriates
but i lay here full and poisoned
for now i am paralysed
as you bring forth
the items you carry always
in your sinister bag of tricks
a three-hole punch
(one hole for past
–one for present
–one for the will-have-been)
three empty syringes
three vials of memory
i see this now

i know i will not think the same
tonight
i will pledge my self again

I love concerts.

2009-01-17T03:04:00.005-04:00

I just got back from watching one of the best shows I've ever seen, at the Marquee.
It was the CD release for Ruby Jean and the Thoughtful Bees, with Woodhands and Tomcat Combat opening.
Blew my mind.

Tomcat Combat did a great set of instrumental indie-rock, with some really solid playing and songs that seemed at once meticulously planned and somehow spontaneous. It was great.

And then Woodhands came up next. I hadn't heard of them before, but everyone seemed pretty excited to see their set: "It's a dance party!" "They're just so good!"
It was a dance party. They were just so good. Imagine two guys on stage – one behind a drumset, the other frantically pounding on an assortment of synthesizers (including a keytar, which never fails to make my day) and shouting things. They were endlessly danceable and they definitely knew how to turn a hook.
At one point they covered "I Kissed a Girl" and it was fantastic.
But their originals were better.

Ruby Jean and the Thoughtful Bees were the main reason I'd gone to see the show. I'd heard of them, and heard that they were really good, but I hadn't actually seen them play before or heard much of their music.
Earlier, I had been considering going to a different show at the Wardroom (our cherished campus pub), for a fun, free night of anti-folk and indie-pop (this is what the posters tell me). But then I happened to see the CBC Radio 3 website, where the Ruby Jean CD release was listed as one of the top five must-see events in all of Canada this weekend, so I decided that I'd rather not miss something that spectacular.
It was certainly no disappointment.
The band came out in gold lamé jackets. Ruby Jean came out shaking a bottle of champagne. She proceeded to pop the cork all over the audience, take a drink, and share some with a couple of people in the front row (she accomplished this by pouring it into their mouths while still standing on the stage).
Over the next hour or so they played their album in full, as well as a couple of new, unrecorded songs, a cover of a Paula Abdul song I'd never heard before, and (as an encore) a wicked version of "Barracuda" by Heart.
That hour was also host to more wardrobe changes than I had ever previously seen at a concert. Aside from the band's removal of their jackets, Ruby Jean made frequent trips offstage, coming back each time with a new outfit – each one seeming to sparkle a little bit more than the next.
There were sequins all over.
It was a glorious show. The audience danced its collective ass off.

****

e(van) /// the dashboard melted says: (10:00:47 PM)
i'm gonna go DANCE.
e(van) /// the dashboard melted says: (10:00:55 PM)
maybs i'll pick up a hottie.
Colin | & <3ecky says: (10:00:55 PM)
k
Colin | & <3ecky says: (10:00:58 PM)
DO IT!
e(van) /// the dashboard melted says: (10:00:58 PM)
hahahah
Colin | & <3ecky says: (10:01:02 PM)
a HOT one

...I failed to pick up a HOT hottie at the show. I did, however, manage to attract the attention of some drunken het, who was there with his friends. It was weird. We started out dancing like normal audience members do, and he would leave to get a drink or something, but he kept coming back to exactly the same spot, and talking to me, and engaging me in dance again and again. And then (even though we hadn't exchanged names or anything) when he had to go he looked at me and said, "I'll see you later!"
And then it almost looked like he wanted to give me a hug, but he kind of extended his hand at the same time, so I grabbed it and turned the whole thing into a handshake-and-elbow-pat of supreme awkwardness.
In retrospect he probably just thought I was someone else.
On the other hand there aren't really that many people around here who look like me.
It was really confusing.

minus forty-seven degrees celsius

2009-01-16T05:17:00.003-04:00

the tear frozen to your face
halfway down your cheek
turns all meaning to disaster
turns all suffering concrete

i hear there is drought in africa
i feel i ought to care
but i've never been to africa
i feel this cold
immediate
i see your tears

and soon when the temperature drops
our words will freeze in the air
but you waste this last moment in sobs...

abandon

2009-01-13T23:19:00.004-04:00

these walls are so thin
the sounds of sex reach me
from the next room

i sit alone
this room is blank space
a screen

outside the window
i see people smoking
posing self-conscious unreal

i put on a record
and shut my eyes

charisma

2009-01-10T04:28:00.004-04:00

you are always last to leave a party
you dread the thoughts that come
on the way home

a night walk will never
clear your mind –

when you return
you will still sleep
alone

henry street, 4am.

2009-01-09T04:28:00.002-04:00

since the snow
only one set of footsteps
has walked this way

i begin to walk beside them
fall into easy step
our paths twist
create another story

and suddenly
he turned
walking backward

i did the same
walking more slowly
joyous now

as my eyes rose to the lightstained city stars

two

2009-01-08T03:56:00.004-04:00

hopelessly awkward. back in grade ten he handed me a sheet of paper with his phone number and his address. he said, "here, i want you to have this. i'd feel better if you had it." and i said "thanks?" and put it in my pocket.
later with people who didn't know him i remembered it and used the story to fill a gap in conversation. and alanna who had been there said, "i'm sorry about my friend. he..." and even when she didn't finish the sentence i understood and it was ok. i showed them the paper – i still had it with me. and then i privately almost subconsciously ripped it in small pieces in my pocket. i threw them out later.
at home two days after, i realised i really did want the number. i remembered the address vaguely so i looked through all the people in the phone book with the right last name (there were three pages of them) and searched for the street name. i never found it.

nearly a year passed. we had a few common friends so i saw him every once in a while; we were friendly but we never talked about the time he had awkwardly handed me his number. that was ok.
then suddenly we had a lot more in common. we had both been cast in the school's musical (a true return to form, the first full-scale production since before any of us had been born) – suddenly, we had scenes together and a duet and we were seeing each other all the time and i asked do you want a drive home and he said sure so i did. and then i kept on driving him home. i pretended it was a small trip out of my way but it really would have been more convenient to not be doing it. i enjoyed his company.
beyond that, nothing ever really happened. we got together a little bit outside of rehearsals and a few times after the musical was over. we would watch movies or go for drives or listen to music. and at the end of that summer he moved away for school. i was a year behind him so i stayed in our town for my last year of high school. we kept in touch occasionally over the internet and we still had not talked about the time he awkwardly handed me his number.

when he returned for the holidays that winter, we made plans to go for a picnic in a small park near his house. i planned my outfit carefully and went into town early to buy all the supplies but when i got to his house to pick him up he didn't answer the doorbell. i waited for an hour, back and forth from the door to my car, before i finally decided to take the half-hour drive back home. When i got back there was a message on my answering machine: an apologetic explanation that he was jet-lagged and had been asleep right through our appointed time. he suggested that we get together another day before he returned to school, because he still wanted to see me. he left no telephone number.
i wrote him an email and we ended up getting together, for a movie with two of his other friends. he sat beside me but i felt sort of strange because his friends were there. and still nothing happened. the movie was alright but forgettable. i ended up giving him a drive home, and his friend who i kind of knew came with us because he lived on the way back to my house. we never really got to talk the way i'd wanted to.

there was something in him that made me oblique. he was the same way; i never determined if he was like that with everybody or if it was something in the way our personalities mingled. we circled each other like cautious animals trying to gauge a new rencontre. and eventually we both got tired of that.
we kept in touch vaguely through emails and instant messaging but i always wrote first. sometimes we would go months without any contact at all. but he finished his year-long course at the end of the summer and i went off to school and i still had not forgotten the time he awkwardly handed me his number and we still had not talked about it.
when i got back for the summer, we again made plans to meet for the picnic he had missed last time. we picked a tentative date, because he didn't know his work schedule, but he promised me he would get in touch as soon as he knew.
the day his work schedule came out, he didn't call me. two days later I wrote him to ask if everything stood as scheduled or if we had to change it. two days after that I wrote again, reminding him that we had been intending to meet the next day, and that I would appreciate a phone call if our plans were still on.
two days after that, he finally wrote back. he was again apologetic, and had some good, rational reason for having missed both my messages and our rendez-vous.
i can't remember that reason anymore. he suggested that we meet instead the next week.
we decided on a date and when i tried to set an approximate time he took so long responding that i wrote him again.
he still had not responded two days before the day we had set, so i wrote him one more message. it was four words long and spoke only a fact. it was neither confrontational nor particularly friendly. it was very deliberately as neutral as possible. it was written partly from exasperation and partly from the hope that there was yet another good reason for everything, partly from the desire to cut myself off from him entirely and partly from the desire that he would come back properly.
he still has not responded; it has been nearly a year and i have nearly made peace with it. i do not think about him often

—only i still regret not having explained my grade-ten self to him.
somehow i feel that things could have been ok if we had only talked about that time he awkwardly handed me his number
but we still haven't.
and these things are not ok.

eat sleep

2009-01-08T03:42:00.004-04:00

indiscretion
indirections
please
identify identities
for the state police

or
a reversal address for the hearse

Nice WEATHER we've been having...

2009-01-07T20:51:00.002-04:00

Dear Mother Nature,

snow
ice pellets
freezing rain
rain.

would you care to invent some new type of precipitation, or are all the existing forms of falling water enough for one day?

with concern,
evanfm
(on behalf of the citizens of halifax)

since i've asked for it twice, i should probably just go ahead and put that up. right up there. just put it right on up. my own version. yeah.

2009-01-04T13:04:00.006-04:00

... copy, PASTE:

COMMENT WITH YOUR NAME, AND:

1. I'll respond with something random about you.
2. I'll tell you which song or movie you remind me of.
3. I'll pick a food substance to throw at you in the school cafeteria.
4. I'll say something that only makes sense to you and me (if possible, if not, I'll say something that only makes sense to me).
5. I'll tell you my first memory of you.
6. I'll tell you what animal you remind me of.
7. I'll ask you something I've always wondered about you.
8. I'll tell you my favourite thing about you.
9. If you play, you MUST post this on yours. ( You don't HAVE to, but if you want to it could be fun!)

Becky :)

1. For you, anything + accent = immediately twice as good.
2. Well, there are many. But every time I hear Pogo by Digitalism I do think of you. Every time. So that, or songs by the Killers, just 'cuz. Or emo. You know.
3. Hashbrowns. Because Tom Waits just said something about them on the stereo.
4. Take a pict of the most endangered cat around. Plz.
5. I vaguely remember you in junior high. But really, it was in grade ten.
6. You're a.... uhm..... i'm terrible at this one. You're something small and furry. I think.
7. What do you know about football?
8. I love how you look.
...and by that, i mean the way you look at things; the way you see things; the look in your eyes when you're about to do something fun, because you see possibilities where other people see regular objects. That's another reason you take beautiful photos.

MERP.
(that means CarRrole)

1. You can do that amazing thing with your elbows, where your arms are all like *BEND WHAAATT*
2. Ooh. Uh, there was that one time when you showed me those songs by Sarah Bareilles. And now I hear them and think of you!
3. Rapure ;)
4. Ah-ha! Si je dis des trucs en français, personne d'autre ne peut nous comprendre! Agadoute! Bonjour! Flocons de dindon! (♥)
5. You came with... Becky(? Or Kaytea...) to sit at that table with us in grade 12. It was soon after that I understood you were truly someone special.
6. Sort of... a cross between a mouse and a cat. If that makes sense. TOO BAD IF IT DOESN'T.
7. Do you actually know the rest of the words to the Agadoute? Because I only know it where it goes "dun dun dun dun moud'café..." and "thank you very much merci beaucoup"
8. My favourite thing about you is how kind-hearted you are. I feel like as soon as you care about someone or something, you really care about it. You don't give yourself in halves.

Colin. :)

1. You have those cats. And they're neurotic and they get hair everywhere and you love them. Especially Du(t)chess, I think. Especially her. Yeah.
2. I can't pick just one, so: This Lamb Sells Condos, and songs by David Bowie, and the Killers, and 'No Wow' by the Kills, and... a lot a lot a lot. We've kind of made a lot of memories over music. Also that movie in which the woman was single. Also, the new Ladykillers. And all the gospel choirs we love so dearly.
3. Some kind of fruit. Some kind of fruit off some kind of tree. Some kind of fruit off some kind of tree with a singer devoted particularly to it. Or something. Good taste prohibits me.
4. "And then... Bananabeer."
5. Probably in class, in grade 7. But I can't really remember exactly. .. .. .. .. and then we ate lunch a lot. And AY.
6. Genevieve. The Spanish Hen. That's what.
7. What will it take to convince you about Tom Waits?
8. I like how easy it is to be around you. You're one of the very very few people who I've never had any difficulty thinking of things to talk about with (and those range from the deepest conversations to the most absolutely superficial) and that's really special.

arranged so carefully...

2009-01-03T18:48:00.003-04:00

arranged so carefully
burning holes into my skin
i froze my emotions

the rent remains unpaid
it has been a full year
i have still not kicked you out

i speak in tongues
(or with my tongue at least)
i paint my face
i lose my way

and i am the disappearing man

night

2009-01-03T18:47:00.000-04:00

falling down
the poison has stained my skin
soak permeate
remember:

the fog on the road
the fog on my head
the fog on my heart

i feel somehow
they are the same –
all frightening

close eyes
compensate correct
create some vision
new vision

Another list?

2008-12-10T18:24:00.005-04:00

What a fantastic idea Sparklegreen had! She suggested that we all make lists – wishlists, in the general spirit of the Holiday Season – and send each other things! Today's the deadline by which we have to post the list, so that there's time to get things sent out before Christmas.
So, here's my list of 5 small things and 5 big things:

small things
1. something handmade.
2. a song! i dearly want someone to write me a song!
3. a ridiculous photograph or drawing i can put on my wall
4. sharpies, because i love them. and i'm running out of black :\
5. and everyone seems to love mixtapes. i know i do.

Big Things
1. Love
2. Happiness
3. Understanding
4. Honesty
5. Complexity

Well there it is! I'm excited to see what turns up of this.
And there's been this buzz about a LIVE gathering on Skype? Probably 21st ish?
At that point I'll be at my parents' place for Christmas with tehsuxx internets, but I am lucky enough to live close by some other awesome bloggers who may be willing to let me jump in with them.
So I'll (probably) be there!

love
evan

a list rip't from my Head

2008-12-08T18:43:00.007-04:00

One: Be part of a worthwhile band. I have created much as a solo performer and with the occasional band, but I want to play more than a couple of battle-of-the-bands and birthday parties for seniors (not that The Delusions wasn't a great experience, seriously).

Two: Live in Europe. It's all so close together that living anywhere in Europe means I can visit much of it. I was to London and Paris on a guided march-break tour, which was a great basic introduction to those two cities, but I need more. Ideally, I could live in London and make frequent trips out.

Three: Learn to make films. I used to think this entailed film school, but increasingly I wonder if that's true. At any rate, whether through film school or through other means, I would like to become generally well-versed in film production.

Four: Love. I have been doing well at loving the world. But I also wouldn't mind, oh, a relationship. Or even a passing interest. You know, just some sort of romantic interest. Something to wake up the sleeping audience inside.

Five: I want to get outside of the box. I believe that a successful post-secondary education entails one of two fundamental approaches (with opposite aims): either it strives to specialise, so that the student ends up well versed in a specific field, probably with good but more limited experience in related fields; or it strives to generalise, so that the student becomes capable of thinking across tasks and disciplines. No one will never be able to escape the boxes completely (if there's one thing studying philosophy has taught me so far), but as far as I'm concerned the striving is worthwhile in itself.

Six: See everyone on that other list I have been keeping in my head for several years, which is officially titled "Must-See Concerts. Very Important," and which contains any artists I feel it is absolutely imperative that I see before I die. I reproduce this list here for your praise and critcism:
To see: Tom Waits, Ani DiFranco, Broken Social Scene, Björk, the Killers, the Flaming Lips, Spiral Beach, Sarah Slean.
Previously attended (and from which I still carry many fond fond memories): Radiohead, the White Stripes, the Tragically Hip, Final Fantasy, Feist.
Of course, there are many more artists I would like to see but whom I don't think are absolutely imperative. There are also many concerts I have seen that do not fall into this category.

Seven: Leave a mark. A book of writings, an album, a film, or something. Hopfully all three(+).

Eight (ongoing): Pay more attention to my subconscious.

Final observations: The capital letters in this post make it look all crumpled. Eight is an odd number for a list, although it is an even number if we are to speak in multiples of two. This is clearly incomplete and less clearly unprioritised (the numbers unfortunately mean nothing but a tally). If there is a single theme that underlies this list it is the desire to experience everything and to synthesise it through art. Indebtedness to kirsj and b for doing it before me.

love
evan

three haiku

2008-12-06T03:09:00.005-04:00

you sent me a bouquet of dead roses all carefully run over by an expensive sports car. red pulp, tattered stems. you told me it was the latest trend (i was touched). the road we were taking was a dead end so we abandoned the bicycles scaled the fence and i ended up crawling from your mouth you had turned yourself inside out. i wondered aloud whether there was a point. three barbed arrows flew across the sky and i saw each one make a tiny tear in your eye. i wished for a million more arrows so you would go blind for no matter how many times you tell me you love me i would rather see your beautiful eyes destroyed than profaned by my vulgarity; and i hate myself for your love for me. you said well that's nice babe let's go to the service then.

after, we went to the small restaurant around the corner. they served us burnt green tea and it was too hot for our tongues. we spoke of the last three years and our recent histories until we ran out of breath and collapsed panting exhausted on the black and white tile floor. the waitress came back and offered to pay for our meal out of her own salary so we ran away before she could change her mind. we left a six-hundred-dollar tip.

the nicest people

2008-12-06T02:42:00.002-04:00

you do not deserve this
i do not deserve this
we are the nicest people

the nicest people
are always
in terrible situations.

(he will always have what he wants
because money and power come naturally
as does his desire for money and power
and there will always be women
attracted enough to these twin virtues
that they overlook the coldness
the way he looks at them the
way he sees them
meat
capital social capital

and because all i want is love
i will never be fulfilled
perhaps a priority shift is in order

i too could learn to be cold
go into engineering
make tonnes of money
and find a nice woman
i would be so unhappy.)

ah, but

the nicest people
are always
wearing nice shiny dresses
squeezing uncomfortable
changing themselves

the nicest people
are always
strong for their friends
alone in public bathroom stalls crying
because they forget of themselves
until they are
alone in public bathroom stalls crying
and the rushing has come undone
and the dress is falling down
and tearstained
and wrong
but they are not really sad

the nicest people
are always
cracking a smile
throwing themselves into walls
trying to widen the crack
to escape

the nicest people
are always
perfectly open and straightforward
honest and upstanding
exploitable
manipulated

the nicest people
appear
impermeable
are always
vulnerable

modern romantic

2008-12-06T02:36:00.002-04:00

i have taken to
holding the gaze
of strangers in the street

because it is unnerving
and this makes me feel
i have accomplished something

but also
because i know one day
i will find someone who will not look away

prism

2008-12-03T00:01:00.003-04:00

you are all speaking a blur grey
i cannot discern
through the fog
any meaning
no expression

and it has been years
i have waited
expecting understanding

while one by one
the voices around me
mute
first a pastel wash
abstract watercolour
finally this
no longer even pleasant.

to make sense
is to concentrate
or not at all

i yearn to know a man
who speaks the spectrum angular

Erase

2008-11-30T20:25:00.009-04:00

Sometime last year (I can't remember exactly when), you gave me a small white eraser. You said here I want you to have this I said thank you very much but I wondered why you were making such a big deal of it. For one year it sat in a closed drawer in my kitchen, to the left of the unopened package of mechanical pencils and the sheaf of looseleaf with one sheet used. I only write indelible.
Later (I can't remember exactly when), you died. Everybody cheered at your funeral when you walked in exposed a cheap body double in the coffin and announced your glowing resurrection. But while they tore the corpse apart for gold and candy I sat alone in silence. I spat on your funeral shoes. Now I see you much more than I ever did and every day I have to make sure it is truly you. It never is but no one else seems to realise it.
Once (before or after that), I went to the Underworld in search of you. The daemon jailers tore out my soul when I arrived but I showed them the cracks in my brain and the claw marks on my wrists and they gave me some gauze to stuff the hole and they said don't come back. I tried to ask of you but they had gone deaf and could not yet read lips. They shouted obscenities at me until I awoke with the hellstained gauze in my hands and the house on fire.
And then sometime this month (I can't remember exactly when), I opened the drawer again. The eraser sat looking at me new as ever right angles square and snarling angry because I had neglected him so long. And I pulled out the old gauze and I started to rub at the rough edges it left behind. And behind my eyelids I saw your face laughing and I understood.
Now every night at 9:00 pm I sit alone in silence and erase myself. It is a slow process, but at this rate my heart and most of my hands should be gone by the time your new baby arrives.
(I can't remember exactly when she is due, and I'm not sure of today's date.)
Happy birthday, oblivion.

misdirected

2008-11-30T11:42:00.003-04:00

you always disappear
leaving only the faint scent of elderflower
and a hole in the air

—i feel that if I were to find the place
you had last been
(and if I were to replicate your position exactly)
my world would stop spinning
contradiction of atoms
holding pattern
and I would be torn apart.

No matter how i long for this
i can never figure out
just where you were
when i last saw you.

nine hours

2008-11-30T04:37:00.002-04:00

i'm going to bed.
that was ridiculous/fun though
nine hours with three of the most awesome people i know
is never time wasted

even if it is spent in front of a computer.
oh hey, saturday night. what happened to you?
oh, you know. just chillin'
happy detox night.

sleep well darlings.

again

2008-11-27T21:12:00.000-04:00

no i cannot write like this
it is a troubled mind that
sings
that cannot focus.

how to create new meanings

2008-11-27T01:57:00.001-04:00

it is time we went against our natural impulses
wept in corners of the room
for purposes
we deemed
higher

but now the wordsmiths do not notice
cannot look up
cannot look back

and no one throws
performance graffiti
in front of a train anymore
the jetplanes are so much more popular.

ah the oily slick of population
may be in the air
but the barricade
the motorcade
–in these we make it up.

all too many
floating human souls
well that's just entirely based upon the previous conception of creation.
why don't you loosen up a bit get out that 'one last' box?
i'm in my own though

you
are not being attacked
but i followed my impulse
and it pulled me out
and you I we work together
it was the overshadow
recognitions
and that is even an important transition
noise. fire fire
it ain't all in your headaches?

because we all just need to find ourselves
through the weaving lines
because we value the barbaric the
subconscious
changing slowly evolving
dependent on our dreams

but i never really knew it would turn out so close
no no
is it the night?
sunset?
because if we take that
highway
due East
we can see it rise again
so soon.

CRASH.

in a car accident please wrap those legs around me
stock up the pantry
my lord while now I am here I still remember those gym experiences
I know i think I know I think i think I know I think i know.

yeah you killed me
it was far more than i had dreamed
so final
so dead

lord you write rhythms by the way you write rhythms
slow? splash

oh dear the r-real american dream
it's too late you came the wrong day
but in my imagination
everything was in fast time
and the good news is
her majesty died

i i lost you
felt rotted and alone in the disco
you left me

faintslighthearted

2008-11-26T01:12:00.006-04:00

when will you become artistic truly?
there is a basket of oranges on the kitchen counter
i am transported
to a world of spherical investigation
where transvestite detectives
and shaken-up nurses sing
where far-cries and troubling notices come to be seen

but i realise nothing makes sense
and i have stopped paying attention
it's only the primitive chemical
intoxication
that breaks my spine
that builds up kills the brain cells
stops me thinking
critically.

and i have amassed a collection
a proud collection
of images broken by time
and the refusal to give up entirely
for the blue presidents the claw-footed lovers
and aluminium thrown far away
past the spinning newsreel unending
the piles of books on fire
and the tarnished silver friends
landing near ironic backlash
beside the next world
wartime
fence.

moderately drunk
we tiptoe past the bouncers
taking pictures
making good memories of
fog.

and i have forgotten your insult.

All Good Things.

2008-11-25T07:00:00.003-04:00

This weekend, I (finally) took the three-and-a-half hour bus ride up to see Colin. It was a really great time – I got to see the 'nish, and stfx, and, you know, just hang out with Colin for a bit. It was a good change of pace; even though it was only Friday evening to Sunday, it really gave me a nice break from Halifax and the same-old-routine, a chance to reset a bit. To sleep on the floor like way back in junior high when you watched a movie and then your mom came in at midnight to suggest you turn off the lights.

It was really great to meet some of his friends, too. Though it was strange being so surrounded by science majors, who could casually make jokes about fore-gut ruminants (or something) and understand them. I don't think I've been in a room with that high a proportion of science people since I started at King's. Funny, a small liberal-arts college just doesn't really have that kind of sciencey population...

There were also quite a few people from high school who were around. I sort of lost touch with that kind of history, since in Halifax I tend not to ever see anyone I went to school with. In retrospect, it was oddly reminiscent of grade twelve to be eating at the same table as Carole and Chelsea and Colin again.
(holy wow at all the C's)

Leaving on Sunday night I was kind of sad, but I also had a paper to finish up and a bit of a week ahead as we head into exams here, so it was a pretty necessary departure. And it also helped to remind me how excited I am that the whole group of us will soon be back on the strange little Island that I sporadically call home (for about 4 months of the year – 5 if you include the about-a-month I come back on holiday).

Also, and speaking of visits, Becky is coming to hali this week on a college-field-trip (awesome, yes), and she gets free time! We're totes going to hang out. I dunno what we'll do, but I expect just seeing b will make the day a lot more awesome. I should find out some better details about this whole thing though, 'cause I'm pretty sure she's coming on... friday? wednesday? or something. And I'm not entirely sure what time. Hmm. I'll have to touch base sometime today.

Speaking of today, I have officially declared it A Day of Musical Delight.
I had called it The Day of Musical Delight, but there have been other Days when Music has Delighted me, so it wasn't quite accurate enough.
Maybe I can call this The Late November Day of Musical Delight. That has a certain ring to it.
ANYWAY (get to your point, Evan):
Today, on this Late November Day of Musical Delight, I can finally purchase two albums whose physical Canadian release I have been anticipating for a while. As Colin actually mentioned in his most recent post, The Killers release Day & Age today. This is exciting because I really do quite like the Killers, and because I think this might be possibly their best album so far - if I am to go only by the single.
Also today (and to be honest I've been anticipating this one rather more), I can finally buy We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed by Los Campesinos!, who have this amazing chaotic indie-pop mess of a style, and whose other full-length album, Hold On Now Youngster..., totally captured my imagination and my heart when I first heard it in September.
Ask my flatmates – I had it on repeat for weeks. I played it so often T.J. had to gently tell me how tired he was getting of it, or else go mad.
The new one came out a month ago in Europe, apparently, so I'm just very happy that it's finally here!

If you still don't understand why I'm all hot and bothered, chexx these amazingly quote-worthy lyrics:

You said send me stationery
To make me horny
So I always write you letters
In multicolour
Decorating envelopes for foreplay
Damn extended metaphors
I get carried away
...
But nothing says "I miss you"
Quite like war poetry carved in your door with a Stanley knife

–Los Campesinos!, "My Year in Lists"

Yeah. I know. It is fantastic.
Anyway, so if I can find some time in-between all the classes I have today, and that paper due today, and readings to do for today, &c... I'm just gonna go ahead, right on down to the record store, and buy that.
I'm very excited. What a good week it's shaping up to be.

the advisor

2008-11-24T20:20:00.002-04:00

oh fix yourself
build a wall and sit inside
the miserable master of your own emotions
your own illusions

it would make everyone else a
hell of a lot more comfortable
suppress! suppress!

just fix yourself
be happy
and if the drugs help
just do them in secret

because no one wants to see it!
a hint not all is right!
cope goddam!
i suppose a less obvious way
would be to put on that smile
and never waver never crack never break it
not for the world!

i love the world
wouldn't want to hurt it