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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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".

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.

Still Alive

Just busy. I'll post later, better, faster.

oh god wonderful things keep happening to me

Got this from Metafilter, possibly one of the best pieces of audio I've ever heard. Sean Landers, doing sort of a Neal Pollack "I am the greatest living artist of our time" thing. Also, from Gmail ads, a pretty reliable source of hilarity:
All About Goats - goats.hybinteractive.com - Awesome goat site with history, lessons, pics & vids.

The website is even better. It tells it like it is:
"You should stay informed of the latest goat information."

Yes. Yes indeed.

TUBEDUMP

NOTE: If you're looking at this on Facebook, do yourself a favor and click the link to the original post- embedded videos never show up, and that's basically all this is.

Tonight, watched some experimental film in preparation for my Canadian cinema class. The sad part was, we started with some really awesome Norman McLaren shorts:





But then we watched some contemporary experimental film, which I found...less interesting. Especially a really long "zombie" film that made the heavyhanded connection that, dude, like, businessmen, capitalists and consumers are TOTALLY just like ZOMBIES, a conclusion that every other zombie movie since Dawn of the Dead apparently DIDN'T GET. Also, presenting a homeless character as a shambling, drooling zombie tends to obviate any sort of revolutionary message you might be trying to present, since the presentation of homeless persons as such is a specifically reactionary trope YOU ASSES.
Sigh, I'm going to the angrydome.

While searching for this sequence which I can't embed (yes I know King Crimson I hate myself too), I happened upon this, which is a pretty good (and academically credentialed!) examination of some of the stuff I really liked about Children of Men:

P.S. Zizek sounds like he's eating a juicy peach at all times.
Finally, Spike Jonze's intro for the new "Fully Flared" skate video:

Which I wish wasn't so EXPLODEY, because Jonze's intro for the "Yeah Right!" skate video is an amazing piece of art that highlights the physicality of skating in a really amazing way:

As Prof. Thain said today, in an oddly candid moment, "Too many good movies to watch, too little time."

St. Joseph's Baby Aspirin, Bartles & James

As the pictures should have indicated, yesterday's Jar Party turned out pretty awesome, with jars for everyone and gallons of alcohol for my body to attempt to process. It didn't actually get to all of it before I had to get up for Kristin's brunch, so I ended up being an hour or so late- mainly because I was stumbling everywhere and thinking without any real structure. It's very much how I sometimes think just out of bed, and usually I can blast it out with the shower or coffee. This morning was pretty awful, though, and I had to fight back all the cobwebs in the shower, microwaving some old coffee (couldn't BEGIN to deal with the coffeemaker this morning), piling on my layers and smoking a cigarette on the way over to Kristin's, just repeating her address under my breath until I got there. But it was pretty awesome too, a kitchen filled with homies and soon-to-be homies. Also there were crepes and pancakes and cookies and tea, good god, tea. All stuff I needed, in increments, and good conversations. Big plans were made- it turned out that everyone in attendance had a pretty big love of Douglas Sirk and attendant melodrama, and also dinosaurs? So there is a Melodramatic Dinosaur party in the works, as well as Serge's pajama party.
Afterwards Lily came over to finish off watching Sands of Iwo Jima, a movie that totally failed to make a case for war or killing or actually getting out of bed at any point. The rest of the evening was spent walking around in the cold and losing feeling in my face.
I've been trying to keep up with Louisvilleness through the Bejeezus blogs- you can check those out, but like a lot of blog projects, it looks like there's not a whole lot of updating going on. I've also been reading Erin Keane's blog. Any other good Louisville or Kentucky blogs I should be aware of?

postscript- as I use this blog as a linkdump so that I don't forget about things, this stuff is just really damn awesome.

It Became a Commodity, to be Bought and Sold Like Rock and Roll

PICTURE POST- CHRISTMAS IN NEW YORK, JAR PARTY



A cat that loves laundry.



Also, sleeping.



David Byrne Grocery.







PUPPY



JAR PARTY PHOTOS:


























No photos from the delightful brunching this morning, sadly- too hungover to remember the camera.

On Shaving and Yeti, but Not on Shaving Yeti

So, if anyone out there is wet shaving with an old-fashioned safety razor (where you actually use razor blades for shaving instead of cutting cocaine or elective surgery), you should really experiment with the angle that you're keeping your blade at. Set the top of your razor (mine is curved, yours probably is as well) at a 90 degree angle to your face and slowly, every so slowly lower it. Basically, you want the handle at like a 30 degree angle, just keep it up there, because the lower the handle gets- the more acute the angle between your face and the blade- you're going to get less of a clean shave, and more cuts, burn, etc. I could probably do a whole rant here about using an old-fashioned safety razor vs. some 5-bladed Gilette crap...so I will. I personally think the whole multi-bladed razor craze is bullshit; they say that, by having more blades, you can shave in fewer strokes. But each stroke that you use with a multibladed head drags 3-5 razor blades over your skin. In comparison, using a single blade, I can get as clean of a shave with one stroke. Using an old fashioned safety razor means that I don't have to press (the metal body of the razor is heavy enough on its own). Finally, a pack of razor blades costs me $3. Of course, the savings are offset on the ridiculous shaving affectations I'm now addicted to- badger hair brush, pre-shave lotion, shaving bowl, cream jar (thankfully all gifts)- but I'm now slightly addicted to shaving.
In other news- if you're reading this on facebook, and some of the past posts have little leads to things that don't seem to be there- like a "watch this:" with nothing below it, that's because facebook doesn't import YouTube videos, so go to the original blogspot posts if you want to see the ridiculous crap that I like.
Speaking of stuff I like: the Abominable Charles Christopher is pretty much the best comic with a yeti I've ever read, and I am a man who knows his yeti. Nobody Scores is pretty fun as well.

Sad Terrible Brilliant

Heard about this in 2003, could only find the trailer, which I loved for both the aesthetic and the strange, oud-like music it had. Finally found this today- sadly, the music isn't actually in there.
In any case...

Notes from the Underground

Or rather, emails. Got back from sort of band/Sega Genesis practice to find some emails and messages that I just wasn't really prepared for. Not that I'm not happy to get them, just in that I'm sort of....maybe not overwhelmed, but I opened my email, looked at things and then just closed it and spent a few seconds doing slow breaths.

Ex-Con

Wow, I didn't realize that Tia Maria was a coffee liqueur until moments ago. I stopped in at the SAQ to pick up "coffee liqueur" for Giada de Laurentiis's Panettone Trifle, the manufacture of which I am undertaking as a SECRET SURPRISE. In any case- I was in there, and the only stuff I recognized as coffee liqueur was that bullshit Starbucks shit for like $30. The damn I'm buying hooch from Starbucks, man.
But today was a day of bigos! Actually, today was a day of being late to dentist appointments and pissing off an entire classroom of people by making fun of the Matrix (seriously? The Matrix? I have to fucking THINK about the Matrix again? Middle school was a long time ago!). But I did stop by the Polish deli/cafe/video rental place, which makes a hell of a good bigos for $4. You can't beat that with a hammer. Now Lily is on her way over so we can wash my terrible, demonic cat.
For entertainment today, how about this delightful list of all of the ways Bruce Banner gets angry in the old Hulk TV show?

Kentucky Waterfall

Anyway.
Things that I greatly enjoyed today- on the way back from school, doing some grown-ass-man style errands, getting off the bus at Laurier, getting Adam's Rib, Sands of Iwo Jima and Les Triplettes De Belleville, for 50's film (well, the first two were- the third was just so that I could take advantage of the Boite's 3 for 2 deal). I was going to go buy fancy outdoorsy socks but, well...I got intimidated by all of the stuff on the doors of the Yeti wilderness supply place, and a dude walking out with skis didn't help. I walked up a block on the Main and bought a heaping helping of tortillas des mais and a taco, before going up to St. Viateur and considering whether or not to get bigos from the Hungarian cafe. But then to the hilariously misnamed "Latina" grocery to get what is not, but what could be considered, a panattone and mascarapone cheese for Laine's birthday. Home again, home again, jiggety jig. Lily came over to watch Adam's Rib, which was confusing and terrible, and to eat some pretty tasty foodstuffs.
Man, I forgot how awesome the charicatures in the Triplettes are- of Glenn Gould and Django Reinhardt in particular.
But I still need bigos, my boots fixed and to finish the Pope Lick Monster story for steps. And somehow scam this t-shirt:



Night