Vicki and I are leaving on her motorcycle for Seattle tomorrow afternoon. We’ll be staying with Robin, Joseph wants to go dancing, Ivo put dibs on Saturday brunch, MJ’s asked for Saturday afternoon/evening, and Kyle and Trillian have called Sunday afternoon/evening. After that, we’re on the road back home. Pray, my people, it does not rain.
Month: September 2008
five bottles of things going wrong
Heisenberg, Goedel, and Chomsky walk into a bar. Heisenberg says, “From the fact that we are all here I can infer that this is a joke, but cannot determine whether or not the joke is funny.” Goedel says, “No, we can’t tell if the joke is funny because we’re inside it, if we could observe ourselves from outside, we would know.” and Chomsky just shakes his head sadly. “No, no,” he says, “The joke is funny. You’re just telling it wrong.”
Crossing the park outside the train station to buy our tickets back east tonight, the night smells like dark, warm grass and marijuana under the broken lights. A man on a park bench to my right sings a snatch of song as I pass, though with a falsetto woman’s voice, sweet, light, as if they were secretly a ten year old girl in a ratty disguise of fourty years of hard drinking. Inside the train station, I don’t see David, who’s to meet me here. The building is mostly empty, the sort of vast space which hushes conversation, forces everyone to talk a little quieter as if our voices might be swallowed by the square footage if we were to speak too loud.
I walk past the bench with a young dreadlock-attractive couple, the sort that are nationally recognized as being from British Columbia. They both look like they should live starring on Folk Festival posters, but a little more tired, a little more worn around the cuffs of their sweaters and indian cotton shirts. The next bench only has a studious young man all in black, with a pair of new wing tip shoes in a box resting next to him. I sit on that bench, after pinning him on my mental map as the least likely to talk to me, and take out my book instead of strike up conversation. David has thirty-five minutes to arrive with our cash, and then the discount on our tickets will vanish.
The clock ticks..
After every page, I look at the clock, trying not to fret, but thankfully, it all works out. David arrives with our money, the man behind the counter apologizes for the flawed website and the terrible help-desk women who hung up on simple questions, explaining that the help desk offices are located in Dallas, Texas, Nova Scotia, and Bangladesh. He is generous, kind, and completely helpful. (Thank you man-behind-the-counter, you’re excellent.) We buy our tickets, I shake his hand, and we walk off into the night, three minutes to spare.
Wagons ho, we’re going on the 18th.
I like that Palin sort of guarantees an Obama win
the trials and travails of nothing in particular
Anyone want a chandelier? How about a lamp? Please?
The weekend was spent moving David from his cave apartment of the mysterious smells to a pleasantly crooked #9932CC-darkorchid room in an old heritage style house on Arbutus street, right across the street from the Ridge Theater. It was an alright move, as such things go. Nothing irreplaceable was broken, nothing precious was lost. It involved many, many boxes of books, one might say too many, really, a veritable library of books, and little else. Some clothes, some furniture, two rabbits, but mostly boxes and boxes of books. I drew a floor-plan before we moved anything, so the chaos was almost instantly organized. Already it’s a habitable room, minus the stuffy proximity of the rabbits, who are currently living under the desk. I feel I should be proud of what I accomplished, though right now I’m too tired, too worn out, and too absently annoyed at my life. (I’m not sure I would date the man who would bring me back to that room.)
My house remains untidy, though order has been emerging in leaps and bounds. It’s possible to see how nice it will look when everything is done, which is new, as before I would examine the apartment and see only disaster. Boxes of extra kitchen stuff, old clothes, and unwanted books have left, either given away to friends or donated, and what’s left is shrinking almost daily as we recycle, sort, and dispose of what we don’t need, want, or could possibly use. It helps, too, that our landlord has finally given in and provided our building with recycling. Where there were piles of folded cardboard and plastic containers, now we have floor-space. It’s almost novel. I’m only sorry I won’t be able to finish everything before I leave for back east.
I’m packing too much into too little time, with too little money, and not enough resources, yet somehow, I plan to survive. To start with, my next two weekends are going to be spent in Seattle. This weekend, I’m biking down with my mother to visit with Kyle “freaking” Cassidy, (who has just proved himself to be utterly fantabulous YET AGAIN), and his lovely beau Trillian, who are in for a wedding, and next weekend I’m going down with Nicole to shot-gun shoot at hipsters with Eliza, who has an art opening. Then, I’m gone for two weeks as I travel by bus to Montreal and Toronto and pray to whatever is available that I’ll manage to pay for it all and still be able to eat.
falling in love with the fall
In Los Angeles circa 1915, a little immigrant girl (Catinca Untaru) is in a hospital recovering from a fall. She strikes up a friendship with a bedridden stunt-man (Lee Pace), who captivates her with a whimsical story that removes her far from the hospital doldrums into the exotic landscapes of her imagination. (All of which are actual places ~jh). Making sure he keeps the girl interested in the story he interweaves her family and people she likes from the hospital into his tale. Shot on location in 18 countries around the world, The Fall is a moving, visually sumptuous fantasy of exotic bandits, evil tyrants, dream-like palaces and breathtaking landscapes.
I’m showing Tarsem Singh’s The Fall at my place Sept 9th, 8 pm.