n: vb: the spice of imagination
COILHOUSE wants your mix-tapes.
Going over the chocolate curls of his hair, pixel by pixel, checking for colour errors, it brings me back to his voice, to the way he looked at me, what we were talking about in that moment. Frozen forever in a smile, frozen forever fiddling with his hat, we are frozen together forever, as long as the magnetic media holds. Trapping these things is important to me, and after, I always wish I had taken more. A man standing, looking to me, bashful, gentle, as violently whip crack clever as a black angel’s heart. Overhead, we are trapped by the sky. There, I point my lens, where a line of dark humour finds the curve of his eyes, meets the curve of the sea that’s soon to separate our quiet promises, empty my bed, leave my sheets and blankets cold to my tired fingers, slice my mind from my heart.
I think about how precise the winter felt, the taste of the temperature, of the season. My indoor shoes had soles too thin for the frosted sidewalks, my hands not enough blood for the frost. I liked how he fretted, didn’t want me carrying things, but gave in against my steady wave of obstinance. I carried on, glad, as careful as possible, as velvet certain as only the oldest child of too many siblings can be. Raised to do this, navigating heavy black boxes over frozen sidewalks from the van to the stage, considering that all doors should always be about two inches wider the same way platform wheels never seem to point in the same direction.
The staff talked as if I were one of them. Casual, off-hand, slightly derisive of the people drinking at the bar. It was appreciated, it reminded me of the bigger picture, told me I belonged where I had escaped. I watched the stage, obscurely proud, taking notes on set-up for later. My perpetual need to be useful. When I ran out of things to do, I went across the foodcourt to the bathroom and yanked my hair into a knot in the bathroom, pinning it up with a pen, to came back ready to make other men jealous. Soundcheck. Percussion. Sound filling the room. Howls. When they were gone, it was sudden, it felt like the room had lost a front tooth in a playground brawl.
Samorost’s artist made a music video.
Flying Inside Your Own Body
Your lungs fill & spread themselves,
wings of pink blood, and your bones
empty themselves and become hollow.
When you breathe in you’ll lift like a balloon
and your heart is light too & huge,
beating with pure joy, pure helium.
The sun’s white winds blow through you,
there’s nothing above you,
you see the earth now as an oval jewel,
radiant & seablue with love.
It’s only in dreams you can do this.
Waking, your heart is a shaken fist,
a fine dust clogs the air you breathe in;
the sun’s a hot copper weight pressing straight
down on the think pink rind of your skull.
It’s always the moment just before gunshot.
You try & try to rise but you cannot.
Margaret Atwood
As forwarded by Randy:
As you may know Steve Duncan, Diane Laloge and our very own R.C. host a spoken word poetry program on Co-Op Radio called Wax Poetic. Some of you have been guests on that show. What you may not know is that Co-Op radio’s license is up for renewal and the station is looking for public support so the CRTC can get a feel of the benefit of the station and our show. The station has received plenty of support in regards to their public affairs programming and now they are also looking for support from the arts community.
If Co-op Radio and Wax Poetic have been of value to you as an artist, please let the CRTC know this. There are instructions on how to do so at www.coopradio.org or just go to here and look for Vancouver Co-operative Radio. The deadline to submit your support is Jan. 23, 2008.
The CRTC is particularly interested in how the station helps the development of local talent (like you!). If you could tell them how Co-op Radio has been of benefit to your work as an artist, that would be very helpful. Thanks for your help and please feel free to contact Leela Chinniah if you have any questions about this.
found via COILHOUSE
She’s hoping to get some attention, so I’d appreciate if you dropped in and said hello. Especially if you know, at all, what sort of gear she should be looking into. I expect this sort of concept to look crackling simple on the out-set, but to be unmercifully riddled with ugly technical difficulties that won’t be apparent until much farther in. If anyone knows of a similar project, and I’m sure there must be some, (I have yet to be the dutiful daughter and properly sweep the archives of we-make-money-not-art*), that would be great too. The more information she has going in, the safer she’ll be, and though I love my mother dearly, I’m not in any position to be sweeping in, attempting a rescue should she get stranded somewhere in the middle of the prairies.
*which, btw, has a syndicated LJ feed here.
Back to the 365, my friend Jesska‘s got an ambitious take on the project, she’s posting a daily triptych. Because she is crazy. Crazy like a superhero, but with polaroids in place of wearing her underwear on the outside of her pants.
being a neo-victorian web-comic involved with gothic dandies, evil doctors, and girls with frilly underpants.
Dan Johnson says,
Three weeks from today (Sunday the 27th) is Lewis Carroll’s birthday, which means once again it’s time for your LiveJournal to fall down a rabbit hole and document a different sort of day from the ones you always have. Get away from the same-old and be someone else, somewhere else, doing something else for a change!
The Rabbit Hole Day community remains http://community.livejournal.com/rabbitholeday/
Tonight’s music: AIRtest.
found via Warren, who has this description: “It’s techno, played by a jew’s-harpist and a vocalist/beatboxer from Hungary and a didgeridoo player from Germany. Acoustic Goa.”
My usual Sunday office job bailed on me today, (no one had booked the building for the Sunday after New Year’s, so there was no reason to have anyone there. Scary, financially, but not unexpected), so Ray and I decided to step out and see The Golden Compass instead. Not really sure what there is to say about it, except that it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. I like the idea of a children’s movie that’s anti-indoctrination, but was not particularly thrilled with the formulaic, predictable plot or the overly drawn out fight scenes. Oh! And the bear! Ian McKellen playing a warrior polar bear prince, that’s great! Now could you please not let his character lose gravity every time he runs? Basic animation principles, people, basic!
Ah well, I also pointed out the poor copy and flawed marketing in the Earl’s drink menu booklet, too, when we went to dinner before the movie, so perhaps I’m really not in any position to be attempting to discuss design like a normal human being.
