Thursday, February 28, 2008

What I Dig

Oh, man, talk about coming out of the past- I found an unlabeled CD in my old room tonight and popped it in when going to see Sam Dough. It's so strange to hear a mix CD that I made only a few years ago, only to find that I've forgotten a lot of the bands. I had totally forgotten about an awesome live Yo La Tengo cover of the Sneaker's "What I Dig." In addition, while trying to find the original "What I Dig," I stumbled across the complete playlists for my old Barnard radio show, The Ids Are Alright- no archived MP3s anymore, but at least I'm spared my own crappy, halting radio voice.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

The Lonesome Death of William F. Buckley


I think my favorite moment in William F. Buckley Jr.'s life was when he called Gore Vidal a queer and threatened to punch him in the face on national television. Growing up reading the National Review, I still have sort of a small spot of love for someone as blantantly elitist and divorced from the reality of everyday Americans- he never seemed to realize how growing up rich and going to prep school and Yale probably didn't entitle him to speak about the majority of Americans. Although I'm not sure if he really cared about the majority of Americans, having countered accusations of racism when he said that blacks should be denied the vote by announcing that he didn't believe uneducated Americans of ANY race should be allowed to vote. In any case, I liked his vocabulary, up to the point where it became a cudgel to beat people who hadn't been to prep school, and his impish sense of humor. At least his evil wasn't banal.
The last few years, I saw him a few times on Fox News (which is always playing whenever I get home) and he looked like hell. He was having a hard time speaking, and an even harder time articulating why he was supporting the Bush Administration; I don't think he knew. I think, on a certain level, he realized that the last 20 years of conservatism was hollow at its core, simply a ladder for people that he must have considered beneath him to grasp their way up to undeserved riches. And he had helped them. I like to think that, every night, he heard Bush's dulcet tones, running his beloved English language through a damn mangle. Poor, poor William F. Buckley- you could have done so much, if you'd just been a little bit smarter.

Moments Later



Also, if you search YouTube for "Half-Japanese", get prepared to be doused in Rivers Cuomo's wank liquid.

More People Dying



"Couldn't You Wait" was a song by Silkworm that was on some old Matador Records sampler ("What's Up Matador"*, I just pulled my copy off of my shelf- it's missing the first disc, the one with the song on it, dammit) I picked up for a few dollars at a used record store in Bloomington, Indiana, when my brother and sister were at IU (not the good used record store, the really, really shitty one). The spring break before I went to RISD and then to New York, I spent a few days in Bloomington sleeping on their couch and wandering around the crappy college shops, buying a pair of old Wranglers at a thrift store (I later ended up working, in Louisville and for a short period of time, for the woman who at that point was managing said thrift store, which I think was over a place that produced truly awful burritos). Anyway, I brought "Couldn't You Wait" with me to Rhode Island and listened to it over and over again, eventually ordering their out-of-print album "Firewater" off of eBay and putting the song on every mix CD I made that summer. But Firewater never caught my ear the way that "Couldn't You Wait" did, and when my computer crashed and I lost all of my music, I basically forgot about them.
But tonight! I got linked to MINMAE, a pretty cool Portland band whose sound reminded me a lot of that one song, on that one compilation, and so I decided to check in to see how they were doing.
Of course, they've been doing tragically. Michael Dahlquist, one of the members of the band, was killed with two other friends and musicians when a 23-year old attempted to kill herself by crashing her car into theirs, succeeding only in killing everyone in the other car. Obviously, I have no connection with anyone involved in this, and it happened in 2005 (I came as soon as I heard what happened all those years ago!), but this sort of thing always makes me want to lie down and weep. I'm reripping my copy of "Firewater" right now.
I'm alright, in Kentucky. Dealing with family stuff, buying a banjo, sleeping a lot. Driving around, because I don't really know if I'll be seeing anyone this break. Bought the new Joe Manning EP (my friends Busse, Molly and I are 3 of the top 5 "Joe Manning" listeners on last.fm), which has but two songs that aren't on his Myspace page, but whatever. Always a joy to support Joe Manning. Watched the '74 Great Gatsby film with my mom, was startled by how by the book it is. In any case, go to the Minmae mp3 page and get you some musics.
Oh! One more thing- drove out Dixie Highway today to look at some banjos, was once again terrified and confused by the place I live in. Man, how can a concrete statuary place sell pickaninny statues in neighborhoods with black people living in them? Drove by a Mr. Gatti's pizza place with Bible trivia questions on the outside board. Also, I realized why February in Kentucky is sort of depressing, although not like Montreal- because we're in a valley, clouds just congregate overhead, so it's just grey all winter. Cold as it is in New York and Montreal, clear, sunny (and even colder!) days are pretty common. Here, the sky is a bruise for months.
Kristin grabbed me an advance reader's copy of Chip Kidd's "The Learners", the sequel to "The Cheese Monkeys", the book which made me want to be a graphic designer and thus started me down the road to ruin. When Kidd was signing my copy of his monograph of work, I told him this, and he asked how it was going; after I told him that I dropped out of Parsons and was inbetween schools, he sighed and suggested that "drinking helps." But, yes, the Learners is really good. I've been sort of embarrassed by my adolescent "Cheese Monkeys" obsession, but it's just written so damn well.
Reminder to self- buy Half Japanese album, write post talking about being in New York. Start writing posts again.

*Here's a fun exercise- what are the compilations that have really altered your listening tastes? Looking through the liner booklet here, I see that this is where I found out about Helium ("Pat's Trick" is on here, which I later got on "The Dirt of Luck"), Bettie Serveert ("Tomboy"), Cat Power ("Nude as the News")and several bands where I'm not sure if I was listening to them yet (I think I bought the Yo La Tengo "Night Falls in Hoboken" album a few years before?), as well as bands that I should have been listening to (how was I not immediately struck by Guided by Voices? I had them IN MY HANDS!). I'm also not sure whether I enjoyed the song by Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, but I liked their name so much it became lodged in my brainfruits for years hence.
Maybe next week I'll do the Chickfactor "All's Fair in Love and Chickfactor" compilation, bought in Chicago along with a used copy of that Belle & Sebastian box of EPs (before they were all rereleased in that Barman thing) a few hours before a Badly Drawn Boy show.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Got Back the Plague

So exhausted, but still here.
Today was the STEPS bake sale, for which I made Triple Chocolate Espresso Bean Cookies, following my custom of pouring hooch onto desserts (see below for recipe) by pouring espresso beans into cookies. I also made some vegan cookies with flax meal in them, which are on the post-punk kitchen website. After getting too little sleep (after too many broken, highly-caffeinated cookies)I headed down to school, running into Lily where we were setting up. All in all, we made more money than I had assumed- here's hoping that we make even more at the Ghostbusters showing tomorrow.
In other, extremely exciting news, Lily got BoingBoing'd! If, like Lily, you refuse to look at BoingBoing, basically a dude named Xander found Lily's piece while researching mushrooms for a fiction piece he was doing, found it awesome and sent it in. The BoingBoing comments are hilariously off-base, assuming that Lily's piece is a screed against genetically engineered foodstuffs.
In more universal news, the vârcolac devoured the moon tonight.
I'm adding my high school associate Caleb's journal to the side bar; I think this project in particular is effin' awesome.
Sending out internship applications, writing cover letters. Hating self.

MY MOM'S RUM CAKE RECIPE:

Combine in mixer bowl:
1(18.5-oz.) pkg. butter golden cake mix
1(3.75-oz.) pkg. instant vanilla pudding
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup light rum
1/2 cup water
4 eggs
Beat 2 or 3 minutes
STIR IN: 1/2 cup chopped nuts ( I used pecan crunched up pieces)
Pour into a greased and floured bundt or tube cake pan
BAKE in 325% oven 55 minutes. Pour Glaze (below) over cake while hot.
Allow to cool 30 minutes in pan, then remove from pan.

Glaze

Combine in saucepan:
1/4 cup rum
1/2 cup butter (one stick)
1/4 cup water
1 cup sugar
Boil 2 or 3 minutes.

It is delicious and DRUNKY.

Monday, February 18, 2008

He Was a Friend of Mine

Man I didn't write nothin' in my ding dang blog for days! Why not? Because I was busy! Goin' to potlucks (I made cornbread with hot and sweet peppers in there, and coconut rice with scallions and mushrooms and lime-braised cashews- all pretty tasty!) and keggers and slow dance parties! Oh, also, before that I had papers and finals, but that's why I had to party extra hard this weekend. I feel pretty good about everything, especially the cooking. Also, I made a hat that has headphones built into it. Hooray!
Right now I'm listening to Dave Van Ronk & Ramblin' Jack Elliot's "St. James Infirmary," which is especially good- I've gotten interested in DVR since I realized that he basically looks like me. The good thing is is that I'm guaranteed to look like this before I die:

What else is new...still reading Kentucky Ham, and I've sort of written a song for the band about it. Going to New York and Kentucky next week, which promises to be awesome.
Oh! The slow dance party! It was at Cagibi and pretty awesome and I've got a dancecard with all of the songs listed- so I'm going to post the videos below, you can pretend to have been me, tonight.













Enjoy

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Moments Later

Oh, shits! Lily and John got the new, awesome issue of STEPS up, including my piece on the Pope Lick Monster. What that monster is, is, of course, explained inside. The next thing I do, I swear to god, will NOT be about Kentucky.

Mad Dogs & Englishmen

Why is it so difficult to find a copy of Umeki Miyoshi's "Japanese Farewell Song"? You know, the one that goes, "The time has come for us to say sayonara", followed by predictably Oriental (in the Said sense) tones? You know, it was in "M*A*S*H"! Soulseek fails me, songerize as well, and youtube just gives me anime like whoaaa. All I can find is Martin Denny's crap-ass exotica xylophone version.
Up late studying for my Sociology of Literature course, which, given the extensive attention paid to how ridiculously difficult it is to be a published author, and how absolutely mindshittingly insane it would be to suppose that one could support oneself, might be called the Sociology of Watching Your Pathetic Dreams Die. Whatever, whatEVER. By definition, any creative field is going to attract more people than can support themselves in it. Also, most of those people are probably assholes. By being someone who can actually talk to people and be relatively pleasant, I'm already way ahead of, say, Joseph Conrad. But I don't think I'm enough on my own. I've decided to push the friendly, go-nuts aspects of my personality. I've decided to become...the Eugene Hütz of literature.

Man, who is gonna say no to ME?

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Nothing Wrong With Old Kentucky

I don't mention a lot that I'm originally from Kentucky, at least not here, although that is literally all I write about in STEPS, and a lot of the blogs on the side are Kentucky ones. One of them, Crow's Nest, which I found through Bejeezus Magazine (always cite your sources, kids!), had a recent post that made me really jealous, starring perennial Kentucky crush-ee Joe Manning. I used to work with Joe a while back, he plays lap steel and guitar (and writes ridiculously good music on them) and mixes a mean Bloody Mary. He also has the most luxuriant of all of the post-Will Oldham Louisville beards, thereby winning the Kentuckiana trifecta of music, liquor and facial hair, making him what mommas should encourage their babies to grow up to be instead of cowboys. His first(?) album, which I lost when my computer just totally ate shit and died, was recorded in a tunnel in Cherokee Park, and you can hear the crickets of summer in the background the entire time. You can also hear the cop that rousted him, but in any case, very good stuff.
As long as we're dropping mad MySpace music linx, check out these guys, who I found through this animated thing from Mr. Chen.
Sunday night, all of a sudden, it felt like someone had grabbed my back muscles and pulled. I took a shower and went to sleep, hoping that it would go away. INSTEAD, I woke up unable to move or even roll over without whimpering in pain. It was AWESOME. After throwing on clothes and occasionally falling down from pain, I went on a really long bus ride to a medical clinic that refused to take my Johnny American insurance and instead demanded $200 in cash. I called bullshit on that and instead bought some over the counter muscle relaxers and got on with my damn day. It feels better, but occasionally my back clinches like a fist. I really need a damn vacation.

The Shrieking of Innumerable Gibbons

I spent half of today in major back pain. Tomorrow, tomorrow.

Monday, February 11, 2008

CAN ASS BE SAFELY CANNED?

I first read David Ohle's Motorman last fall, on the bus from Montreal to New York, so it's a strange coincidence for me to find this, in which a guy with a soul patch discourses about reading it on the train going the opposite direction. I pulled it out of the library after a long session of reading Jane Eyre to flush out my fevered brainfruits, and I wish I could describe what it's like- there's a pretty good article about it and Ohle here, including a few shots of "The City Moon", a surrealist newspaper Ohle published and distributed in Lawrence, Kansas. In the article, he states that "The motto that I carried away from the City Moon was to always stop just short...To never, ever completely tell enough detail for anyone to figure it out. And I think that applies in almost everything that I write. I don’t want to over-explain things. Leave it kind of vague and uncertain."
The reason why I picked it up is that I'm struggling with my own writing style, which is to keep putting down giant stupid words until I want to remove my own brain, and maybe I'm hoping that a bit will rub off.
Anyway. I suggest it heartily. I'm going to try to actually buy it one of these days, or steal Ben Marcus's photocopy. I have things to promote about Ben Marcus as well.
God, it's strange that they keep referring to William BurroughS, Jr., as "Billy." But now I want to read Kentucky Ham, and also eat some Kentucky ham.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

The Decline of Western Civilization, Pt. 1



It's sort of bizarre watching stuff like that now, after Johnny Rotten has been on a reality TV show, and thinking that some people actually thought that Western Civilization was going to collapse and turn into a giant mosh pit because of punk music.



"The Burger & the King"- A documentary on Elvis Aaron Presley's interesting diet.



I absolutely love the voiceover narration in this copy of "Le Voyage Dans La Lune." The entire site has a fantastic selection of awesome videos. If you've never seen "M" or "Nosferatu" or "Faust" or "Japanese Spiderman," well, that's the place to see it.

So I went to my massage appointment at the Ovarium yesterday, which, as Jason X-12 once said, was like getting "beaten up, in the best way." I walked to the place about 15 minutes before and got slightly pissed at myself for never really exploring the area as much as I probably should- I really want to go to Les Cuisines du Tibet Libre, a Tibetan-themed veg/vegan pizza parlour. Anyway, I entered the spa place, which was positively aggressive about being as relaxing as possible right off the bat. After leaving my coat and boots in a little side room and slipping into a pair of foam sandals, I met Sebastian, who was to rub my entire body for an hour. He showed me to the small massage room, which boasted both a dreamcatcher and a Hopi drum/drumstick set. After asking a few questions, he left me alone to "prepare" myself.
I didn't actually know what this meant. I've never had a full body massage before (and, at this point, I still wasn't aware that that was what this was), and so I basically considered taking my shirt off, shrugged, and sat down to try some deep-breathing before someone started slowly punching me in the neck. Sebastian came back in, saw me fully dressed, said, "Oh, sorry!" and began to leave. I managed to stop him before he got out the door, and asked what, exactly, he wanted me to do here.
"Oh, ha!", he exclaimed before explaining, a bit awkwardly, that he needed me to "take off all your clothes, naked with your underwear on, and get on the table, underneath the towel."
So I did so, folding my clothes and leaving them on the Om chair. I can't say that I was immediately comfortable with the whole "being almost bareass naked" thing, but that was just more from embarassment than anything else. God, I hope Sebastian doesn't secretly think my back hair is disgusting, I thought as I covered up with the towel. The massage itself was freakin' amazing, though, and besides the initial "Wow, you're rubbing my inner thighs/feet" thing, was totally comfortable. I never really got the whole fear that some guys have of being massaged by a man, like they're going to be getting off on it or something. I'm betting that if you're a professional masseuse, you're probably getting as much sex as you really want on your own time.
Anyway, after an hour that I spent drifting in and out of semi-consciousness (damn whale sounds CD, why you gotta be so soothing?), Sebastian came to the part of the table where my head was and told me that "your journey...is over." He then left the room, right after inviting me to get dressed and spend some time in a small parlour, where I could have my choice of exotic teas and peruse their library of art books. I did so, reading through a really amazing copy of Ernst Haeckel's "Art Forms in Nature". I cannot emphasize how amazing Haeckel's prints are. Then I put on my outergarments, tossed my sandals in the "Dirty Sandals" bin and walked home, all loose and jiggly-like.
I also found out the other day that the guy I got my cat from specifically trained her to chew on wires, which explains why I've spent $200 on damn computer cords since I've gotten her.
P.S. "The Proposition" is well shot but kind of sucks (suffers from a really, really obvious case of Women in Refrigerator Syndrome), while "3:10 To Yuma" is just generally amazing, featuring the world's most badass sassy gay cowboy villain.

Friday, February 08, 2008

Lee Marvin in "Point Blank"



From IMDB:
"During a rehearsal taking place in the home of Lee Marvin, he hit John Vernon so hard that it made Vernon cry."


AAAAHAHAHA

Body Breaks

The show last night went well in spite of All The Problems, which I think is probably the best way it could have gone- going on an hour and a half late, weird soundsystem, not doing a level check, my lap steel going hilariously out of tune and not being able to use one of the strings...Anyway, yeah, it was really fun despite getting home at 3 am to a really pissed off cat (I forgot to feed her before going out). However, because I am an old man, my entire body is killing me today. And it's not like I was doing windmill kicks on the stage that couldn't fit the entire band (now named Rusty Horse Band, apparently)- I've just got waaaay too much muscle tension. It's gotten to where I can hardly take notes, because my shoulder is just totally froze up. Tomorrow I'm going to the exceedingly ridiculous Ovarium for a "deep tissue" massage, which I hope is masseuse code for "slamming pints of horse tranqs directly into your trapezius muscles."
STEPS is done, printed and directly behind me, piled up in boxes. I'll probably carry out some today and try to get a meeting set up where editors take armfuls for distribution. Then maybe bandtymes watching awesomely bad kung fu at my apartment, passing out, the massages.
MASSAGES.
I really want to try their, uh, ovums? The sensory deprivation chambers that the Ovarium offers, but I'm afraid it'll end up just like Altered States. AGAIN.

Thursday, February 07, 2008

TONIGHT AT BARFLY, ME

The band (now tentatively entitled "BEAR HUG GREGORIOUS") is playing a stripped-down set tonight at Barfly, at 4062A blvd. St-Laurent. We'll be on probably at around 11:15 or so.

I'll write more when I have time, but until then, this should give your little brains something to chew on:



Based on a badass Jamie "Tank Girl" Hewitt strip.

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Folie à Deux, Folie à Wikipedia

"Folie à Deux" is a beautiful name for a terrible disorder: "a rare psychiatric syndrome in which a symptom of psychosis (particularly a paranoid or delusional belief) is transmitted from one individual to another" (wikipedia, of course). Got here from the equally if not moreso terrifying "delusional parasitosis," the syndrome that kept me awake worrying about getting after reading A Scanner Darkly. Too many terrible things to worry about, although based on reality I suppose I should be worried about Toxoplasmosis gondii, a parasitic microbe that lives in cats (like the one not three inches from me!), has infected one half of the human race and causes "neuroticism, defined as an emotional or mental disorder characterized by high levels of anxiety, insecurity or depression." Has a cat, acts like a jerk- it's like these scientists know me. Oh, Nomi, you're Daddy's little disease vector!
This all makes me think about body horror, a concept that Cronenberg plays around with a lot and thus one finds out about in Canadian Cinema classes. The wikipedia entry for body horror also hooks one up with Ionescu's play Rhinocéros, which is allegedly an allegory for the rise of facism and Nazism in Europe through the eventual transformation of almost everyone in a small town into the titular creatures. It also apparently has this piece of dialogue, which makes me want to take it out of the library tomorrow:

JEAN: [to BERENGER] Instead of squandering all your spare money on drink, isn't it better to buy a ticket for an interesting play? Do you know anything about the avant-garde theatre there's so much talk about? Have you seen Ionesco's plays?
BERENGER: [to JEAN] Unfortunately, no. I've only heard people talk about them. (...)
JEAN: [to BERENGER] There's one playing now. [both JEAN and BERINGER turn to face the audience and stare, breaking the fourth wall] Take advantage of it.


Not sure where I'm going, except that I wonder if you could define "body horror"- as a phenomenon- as being overly concerned about the spatial limits of the human body. In any case, I take almost all of the bizarre aches that I experience- probably due to the fact that every muscle in my body is constantly tensed up like catgut strings- as bad omens.
While my first reaction is to be disappointed in Obama's showing tonight, but really it's amazing how well he's done. Even if I end up voting for Clinton, it'll be really positive to have a woman in the White House- I just wish it was another one.
Here's to relaxing.

Monday, February 04, 2008

You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory

Lily's piece for the new STEPS mentions Borges's facetious taxonomy, a "certain Chinese encyclopedia" that divides animals into those that belong to the Emperor, embalmed ones, those that are trained, suckling pigs, mermaids, fabulous ones, stray dogs, those included in the present classification, those that tremble as if they were mad, innumerable ones, those drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, others, those that have just broken a flower vase and those that from a long way off look like flies.
I reproduce this here because it, along with my previous post, have made me think about a taxonomy of what this is actually useful for. In my first post of the reboot, I mentioned trying to focus on the portions of my day that don't involve sitting in my dark, silent apartment and staring off into the middle distance while listening to Frank Zappa's "Watermelon in Easter Hey," with the idea that my life might improve if I relentlessly try to think about positive things or highlight the positive things that have happened to me. As Sam Eliot once said, I didn't find it to be that, exactly... But at the very least, I'm actively doing what most people do to their college years, that is, nostalgically edit out all of the shitty parts.
In other news, I accidentally told my dad that I have feelings tonight. I had called home to say hey, and he picked up the phone. A few short moments later, my mom picked up another handset and she took over the conversation; I assumed that my dad had hung up. I talked for a little bit about feeling really depressed, and then moved on to other topics, before my dad spoke up to ask me a question and I basically shat my pants. I try not to trouble him with this stuff- this is probably the first time he's really heard that I'm depressed a lot, unless my Mom has told him (judging from the past, she has not).
Awwwwkwaardddd.
Today was also the Super Bowl, and everybody knows what that means- another year where I don't see the Puppy Bowl because I live in the wrong damn country/don't have cable. Damn you, cable.

Sunday, February 03, 2008

Yes, Another Ten Minutes Later Post

Argh, wrangling a link list, mostly because I have this dream of using this thing (the word "blog" continues to catch in my fingers like a fishbone in the throat if choking on a fishbone also brought on self-loathing) as sort of a personal aggregator- so I can look through it later and, in between the mortification at what an idiot I am/was/will have been (?), be like, oh yeah, I like that band and that video and that book. It's not complete or anything, but I was like, oh, I haven't checked Bad News Hughes in a while- only to go and see that he's stopped writing for the site, if only temporarily. The link stays, though, just to remind me every now and then to read through his old posts and maybe buy his book.
In addition, I'm linking to Kiss Machine because a) it is awesome and b) I owe it to Julia because of a hilarious story. I got home last night, late and drunk, and started talking to Jules online. Then, all of a sudden, it was 11 in the morning and I was waking up suddenly to find myself sitting in front of the computer, fully dressed, with one boot off. Apparently Julia started talking to me about Kiss Machine, which she works on, and the two days of not really sleeping just hit me and I passed out. But! If you've been living a good life and sleeping on occasion and doing all your chores, Kiss Machine will not suddenly put you to sleep.

Are You the Favourite Person of Anybody?

YOUTUBE ULTAPOST GOOOOO



I saw this a few years back on the Wholphin DVD that came with the Believer and liked it, not knowing who Miranda July or John Reilly were. It's still a line I like a lot. Also, oranges.



I got really into Colleen after reading an interview with her in Ptolemaic Terrascope, possibly the dorkiest/best magazine ever. Very, very amazing footage.
Weekend has been fine, parties attended, sambas danced to. Now is the time to watch a VHS copy of THX 1138 for classes.
In other news, I feel very weird liking Barack Obama as much as I do. I've never felt this way for a politician before. All these confusing feelings, and hormones! Internet people keep telling me that he's bypassed my thinking brain with his word magic, but we don't have any giant differences of policy- well, actually, let's just say that his policies are closer to mine than anybody else who's running except for Kucinich. Poor, sweet Kucinich. Also, as was pointed out by a commenter on Metafilter- there has been a Clinton or Bush in the executive branch for my entire life so far. I'm interested in seeing what other, non-Clinton or Bush people might do with the office.
In any case. The impetus for this is that "Yes We Can" video that's making the rounds, that I'm not going to link here because I can be for a candidate and slightly inspired and maybe even get a little bit of the misty eye but I have my pride damn it. You can find it pretty easily if you're into pretty celebrities talking over good speeches.
STEPS got done this weekend- it actually went really smoothly, we've got a lot of stuff that I'm really excited about publishing. As usual, the brunt of the work fell to Lily, so I really need to bake her a cake that says "WORLDS BEST MANAGING EDITOR."
THIS JUST IN my landlady JUDY BAUM just stopped by. It's pretty great that every time I see her I'm in pajamas of some sort, I guess I should just be glad that I was wearing pants this time. We talked about my lease, extending it until December, which is unusual for Montreal but she seemed to think we could do it. As she left, she said, "You know, you're a good tenant- why should I kick you out?"
It took an amazing amount of personal willpower not to say either, "Well, the meth lab, for one" or "Because I have run this apartment into the fucking ground".

Friday, February 01, 2008

Advanced Decrepitude

It's been a Blade Runner week! Meaning that I turned in a paper today on empathy as a motivator in Blade Runner vs. the source novel, PhilKDick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, so for the last few days, when I wasn't thinking about 1950's film, I was thinking about Deckard. Turned it in and trying to do a brainflush:
The new Director's Cut, the one that just came out, is beautiful. Enhanced, whatever, the print is amazing.
In the film, J.F. Sebastian introduces Pris to his little walking dolls with the line, "They're my friends. I made them.", which always makes me think of a conversation in Repo Man, where someone says, "Nice friends, Otto", and Otto replies, "Thanks, I made them myself"
Saddest part of the book is where sociopathic woman-hating bounty hunter Phil Gresch (who, for some reason, I always picture as Ned Schantz) is trying to convince himself that he's not an android, and keeps talking about his pet squirrel, Buffy, and how well she's doing.
Gaff, Edward James Olmos's cityspeaking cop, reminds me for some reason of Chris DeWolf. Maybe because he's so dapper? And speaks Hungarian?

Speaking of Chris!
Today was another day where, on the bus ride home, I get off and walk up the main and acquire things. In this case, socks, tortillas (also refried black and pinto beans, I actually switched to a cheaper brand), a taco and pierogies. I was sitting in the pierogie place, and three hip anglos around my age, maybe a bit older, came in and talked about how often they went there and how great it was, etc. I was sitting there, drinking my coffee, maybe being a bit lonesome and thinking about how I wish I had a group with me, to show them how cool I am, and then, out of the hail (it is hailing outside, size of BBs, I found like an inch of ice in the cuff of my jeans after I got home) comes none other than Chris and Jiajia, who apparently go whenever Jiajia wants soup, even when Chris has important things to do. I actually took the opportunity to check the validity of some stories I've heard (Jiajia was once face-attacked by monkeys while biking with her family; she also lived in a town where everyone rode unicycles, both occuring in Japan). Good fun, although I burned my tongue for the second time today on a hot pierogie. The middle school clique party is tonight, and I haven't the slightest what to go as. I guess "chubby nerd", which has been prettymuch constant in my life. I will take pictures, and post them I will.
Tired. Off to shower in hopes of waking up. Tomorrow is STEPS production day, and I finally finished my short fiction piece on the Pope Lick Monster today. After I edit it, I may put it up.