April 2012 – Dreampepper

annual introduction innoculation (come say hello!)

IT’S TIME FOR THE ANNUAL SHOUT-OUT!

Please tell me your names, introduce yourself, post a picture! Everyone’s invited – friends, strangers, the lurking anonymous – especially those who are otherwise silent. Like a good house party, it’s always fascinating to see who turns up.

Tell me who you are, why you’re here, how you found me, what inspires you. Even if I know you, introduce yourself to others and tell me what you’ve done lately. I want to see your faces, I want to read what you’d like everyone else to know. Tell us your stimulations, titillations; show us your pretty hidden treasures. Explain a piece of your world with something beautiful, make something new, or dig up the grave of an old favourite. Anecdotes and self-promotion are welcome, as are photos, job descriptions, awesome links, and whatever else.

Journals have been dying lately, I’d like to see who’s chosen to stick around.

-::-
I want to know who’s on the other end of my screen, what fun and fantastic people are out there, waiting to be met. You are artists and scientists, nihilists and dreamers, comic book illustrators, archeologists, hackers, retail managers, photographers, teachers, librarians, hair dressers, and submarine captains. You are novelists, derby girls, musicians, and accountants. Optimists, pragmatists, magicians and politicians, fencers, film addicts, home owners and homeless. You are lighting designers, poets, animators, and lawyers. You are glorious, fabulous, interesting creatures, rich in colour, thick with story – and I want to hear from you all.

For those new, my name’s Jhayne. I’m an unemployed writer and photographer currently trapped in Vancouver, Canada. My website is foxtongue, which is also my on-line name 99% of everywhere. I live on the internet, but share an apartment with two cats, one roommate, and a bunny on the porch. I’m also an amateur taxidermist/cryptozoologist, occasionally play french horn and the saw, and edit other people’s novels. I once started a global initiative to save a local turn-of-last-century theater and turn it into a new multimedia venue called Heart of the World. It fell down, went boom, and buried me in crippling debt, but oh well. Other people have recently managed to save it, at least, so I guess that’s something.

Welcome to my journal, a mixture of wonder, pointlessness, isolation, and community where I talk about life, love, art, technology, and try not to hate the world.

Now it’s your turn. Spill.

truth

“There was an episode, one of my favorite moments in Star Trek, when Captain Kirk looks over the cosmos and says, ‘Somewhere out there someone is saying the three most beautiful words in any language.’ Of course you heart sinks and you think it’s going to be, ‘I love you’ or whatever. He says, ‘Please help me.’ What a philosophically fantastic idea, that vulnerability and need is a beautiful thing.”
– Hugh Laurie

my life as a douglas adams character

My Improbability Field’s been cranked up this week. Saturday I went to Shane’s show at the Vogue, (beautiful as always, moving as always), and left with him after. We went to meet some of his friends, then, once the pub was closed and everyone finally dispersed, we crossed the street to Wraps Plus, a late night drunk-food donair sort of shop to get something to eat in the hotel room. While there, Shane received a text from a girl he knows, “Hey, we’re coming to you!” She arrived very soon after, highly excited, “Look! Look outside!”

A man was standing outside with his head on fire.

Flames at least a foot tall, licking the sky, shooting upward from his hat.

Turns out Ole, who it just happened to be, (as he also just happens to be her roommate), had swiped an oil candle from a bar up the street as they’d walked past it, dumped the oil onto his hat, and then set it on fire to impress us. Then, once he knew he had our attention, in a move that would have worked in a perfect universe, he swept the bowler hat from his head to wave out the flames. Instead the flames transferred to his hair. I have to admit, we were, in fact, impressed.

The next morning, on my way back home, our weird neighborhood foot fetishist got me again. Months and months ago, I met him on the bus. I was sitting with one leg crossed over the other, making a table for the book I was reading. He sat next to me and pressed his hand against the bottom of my shoe. I apologized and moved my foot to the ground. Natural, right? But then he dropped to the floor of the bus, lifted up my foot and put his hand underneath it, and asked me to step on him, while continuing to press down on my shoe with his other hand. I refused, tore my foot from his grasp, told him he was being inappropriate, and then he got off the bus. End of story. Weird, weird story.

Until Sunday morning, when I overshot my bus-stop by a few blocks and found myself walking down the hill home, checking my e-mail on my phone like the little net-addict I am. A stranger caught up to me, then fell into step, then very suddenly pulled off his jacket off and spread it out on the ground in front of my feet! Given my years of reading and walking, I auto-corrected my path and stepped off the sidewalk without even looking up. Assuming he had just pulled some sort of bizarre Walter Raleigh sort of move, I eyed the entire motion with suspicion. What terrible thing did he just unnecessarily cover with his jacket?

But no, it was far sillier and almost a little more sinister. As I moved to keep walking, he said, “Wait! Please walk on it, get it dirty.” I almost hesitated for a split second, a nearly uncountable sliver of time, but he continued with, “For art!” So I did. I stepped all over that jacket, very deliberately, from one end to the other. It wasn’t until about six feet later that I realized what had happened. Sure, I couldn’t help but laugh at myself the whole way home for being so easily profiled, but seriously, I really have to start recognizing that guy.

Once home, I started contacting people, scouting for someone to go to the Vancouver Fan Expo with. Chris was game, so we met at the Conference Center and ventured in, running into only half as many of the approximately billion people I expected to. (Yanick was there, in from Montreal as a guest, which was great. It was his birthday on Saturday, so I gave him the best possible present, a tiny sassy miniature of the Bulleteer, the pin-up superhero character he used me as a rough body model for, that Don Debrandt gave me for my birthday many years ago. She’s from a fighting game and comes with a stats card that states, and I kid you not, that she has sixty-nine health points. Fuck the patriarchy, kids.) Eventually exhausted with the endless parade of bizarre anime costumes, and with no further opportunities to stalk John Delancy, we decided to find somewhere to eat. We didn’t have any clue what direction to take, but then! Across the street, a man in a suit, earphones in, wildly dancing the Christopher Walkens piece from Weapon of Choice. So of course we followed him, which led us on the path to Save-On-Meats, where we camped until half past nine, talking about politics, gender relations, authors, and pretty much a little bit of everything. Best possible destination.

From there we went to the theater, spur of the moment, to see Cabin In The Woods, the new Joss Whedon film neither one of us particularly knew anything about. Oddly, it was only showing in a very particular theater, one with an acronym neither one of us had heard of. Curious, I asked an usher what it meant, only to have another theater patron stop a moment to listen to the answer. (Which, for those that must know, boiled down to, “we charge you an absurd price for leather seats and call it a premium experience.”) I replied with something that wasn’t quite funny, but the stranger, being a nice sort of stranger, grinned at my joke enough that a dialogue started. Soon all three of us found ourselves standing in the upstairs lobby, deep in conversation, thrilled to have met, until we were almost late for our films. Contact info was exchanged and a possible plan made to meet up after our movies and swap reviews.

The film itself was spectacular. I want to gush about how completely fantastic Cabin In The Woods is, but I don’t want to ruin anything. Which is more grace than were given, as the projector shut off at the very end of the film, literally just minutes before the credits rolled. Not the sound, only the screen, leaving us listening to the incredible denouement that the movie had been working towards since the opening scene. Improbability engage!

The staff eventually fixed the issue, rewinding the film back, and then forward, and then back again, with the house lights on, then off, then on again, and gave us free ticket coupons for a future film, but it was almost no use. As soon as the projector flicked off, everyone’s phones were out, everyone was texting, and the ending was ruined. Amazing, though, as the movie failure tweaked our exit time just enough to run into the fun stranger again. Noah from Oakland, it turns out, up on holidays for the week, only knows one local and she’s way out in Langley, so he’s completely open to random adventures. Which meant, of course, Hamburger Mary’s at one in the morning until they kicked us out, and then hanging out all yesterday until two a.m.

This evening we’re going to Chambar for dinner, with a stop in at Guilt & Co. after for The Decadent Eccentric, a belly-dance, contact juggling, sideshow spectacular with Luciterra and one of my favourite acquaintances, Chris Murdoch. Tomorrow we’re renting a bicycle for two and riding the seawall and dropping in on Salt Tasting Room. The day after that, who knows? Finally my underemployment has changed into funemployment.

One of the best things I’ve ever seen. I am smitten.

Nanalew & Meekakitty – SAIL, by AWOLNATION

Thank you Corey. Even though I saw it about five minutes into being awake, this video completely made my day anyway. The whole damned thing. And maybe tomorrow, too.

the anatomy of the box under my bed

Still Life at Dusk
by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

It happens surprisingly fast,
the way your shadow leaves you.
All day you’ve been linked by
the light, but now that darkness
gathers the world in a great black tide,
your shadow leaves you to join
the sea of all other shadows.
If you stand here long enough,
you, too, will forget your lines
and merge with the tall grass and
old trees, with the crows and the
flooding river—all these pieces
of the world that daylight has broken
into objects of singular loneliness.
It happens surprisingly fast, the loss
of your shadow, and standing
in the field, you become the field,
and standing in the night, you
are gathered by night. Invisible
birds sing to the memory of light
but then even those separate songs fade
into the one big silence that always
seems to be waiting.

Your Weekend Reading: The 2012 Hugo Short Story Nominees.

The Mixtape Lost at Antikythera, by Rob Beschizza.

50 Sci-Fi & Fantasy Works Every Socialist Should Read as listed by China Mieville.

Once upon a time, before the invention of touch but long after writing, there was a voice on the wind that spoke to a boy and the voice sounded like the petals of a rose unfolding. “I offer you a wish”, said the voice. “What is the price?” asked the boy. The voice came closer, with a rustle like red feathers. “You must remember that I am real, even when it will make you unhappy.” The boy stood and thought, his face as serious as his face could be, then said, “That is a fair price. I will accept your wish.” And then there was a flash and he flew away.

I have now filled an entire recycling bin with discarded photographs. Close to an entire ten year history, destined for shredding. I have been scanning them, envelope by envelope, and throwing out the negatives, taking an entire day to do it, digitizing my past in the name of a better future. (Lung visited yesterday, looked through some of them, said, “Fuck, you need better memories.”) It is interesting how it still feels a tiny bit taboo, even as I find myself enjoying the act of throwing them away. Two piles: one for recycling, the other to be burned.

Meanwhile, I wonder if I should be better documenting this apartment, this nest that David and I have built together. Taking pictures of what we’ve done with the walls, how we’ve arranged our furniture, decorated the windowsills with plants. The place is changing, the illusion of permanence dissolving as my things leave, either given away or sold. I wonder how I will look back on this apartment, at our time together. Will I miss it? Or do I feel it’s more a duty to take note of my existence, archive it, surroundings included?

Going through old photos has only reinforced the notion, as I’ve been discovering that I don’t have any photographs of the many, many places I’ve lived, like my teenage bedroom, wallpapered in art posters and poetry, or the room I painted over by Victoria Drive to look like a sunset, stars made from pie tins thumb-tacked to the ceiling, with the tree in the corner that I hauled in from a wind storm and hollowed and carved into a shelf. Rare, even, to find pictures set in my old places, like the one of a friend who happened to be sitting on the couch in the converted storage unit I lived in with my first love in Toronto. Not that it shows nothing of any relevance, only a guy playing video games, homeless as his own apartment was being sprayed for roaches. You can’t see the absurd scope of the place, the huge roll-up door that sounded like thunder anytime anyone went in or out, or the hobbit-sized floor above, accessible only by a rough wooden ladder, which was our “room”, our bed under green hand-prints which probably only now exist as echoes in my mind. The list goes on – the cavernous ex-bank with the working vault that Grady found in the downtown east side, the terrible basement on the north shore with the deviant landlord, the house on 53rd with the gold and black velvet wall where that old guy tried to kidnap me – all of them worthy of being preserved, if only so I remember that once upon a time I lived there. It’s like I abandoned my history, as if because my life wasn’t happy, none of it was worth keeping. It seems negligent, as if I should have been preserving these places as I went, offering evidence that we existed there, that our lives once gave these buildings meaning.

all’s fair: there are so many kinds of love

Separation
By W. S. Merwin

Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.

-::-

I started wearing perfume again just over a year ago, not daily, but on occasions I want to be remembered. Because the olfactory bulb in the brain has such an intimate relationship with the emotional amygdala and the hippocampus, responsible for associative learning, scent can conjure memories like nothing else. Therefore my perfume, warmed by my body, becomes a language, waterlily sweet thickened with amber musk, sharp with vanilla, my name as a ripple through the air, ever changing, the apple bright notes fading quickly, replaced by apricot skin, delicious with chocolate and as smooth to welcome hands. It was chosen specifically to be as honest a self-representation as possible, so that I can be conjured with it, a spirit named. Triggered, linked, set, and match. My scent part of the toolkit, like my pen, like my tongue. Mercenary social graces, my hair my banner, my fight my own.

A touch in the fiery tangle on top of my head and a touch on the collar of his shirt, a drop to the hollow of my throat, a drop behind his ear, a mist that became my invisible self, recognized as deep as the lizard brain.

Knife bearer, dream walker, post-geographic mythologist. I have been claimed again, a shadow drifting through space and time, a gift I left in a small green bag. He was downstairs, I was helping upstairs, packing alone. Enough time to leave my memory in his luggage, the only way I could think of to go with him, the scent clinging to his things like we did to each other, rarely farther than arm’s reach, as brassy but as certain as when I met his eyes, picked his necklace up from the dresser, and slipped the pendant into my mouth, (I, too, am like you), defiance, acceptance, a dare and a promise both. Story-telling subconscious, unconscious together, our minds told the same narrative while asleep our first night, something I had forgotten could happen, if I even ever knew, a cold-reading shared between us, a city to explore, climbing old buildings with rusted stairs, our footsteps clanging, a ladder. When we woke, even as it defied logic, all I wanted was to say, “Thank you”, “That was beautiful”, “I love you”, and “Let’s do that again.”

He unearthed it this week. I had been wondering when he would find my hidden, invisible gift, the only way I could be there when I need to be, even if only as a conditioned response. My ghost sent, wrapped in memory, a reminder of comfort and love during troubled times. My hope had been pinned on the chance that he wouldn’t open the bag during a mundane day, but only when he traveled again, leaving home to take care of heavy events. Now it has happened, a relative dying, I find myself waiting, my breath held, for the other penny to drop.

Drive: one of the only films ever to make me cry

“Have you seen Drive yet? You should.” I keep saying this, sometimes to strangers. It has become my sleeper hit, the film that sank into my skin and stayed there, an invisible tattoo just under the surface, built of silence, violence, and those terrifying, honest moments when you realize just how much you can mean to someone.

The plot is nearly forgettable, yet there were moments in the film that felt so honest that I can’t properly express why they were important, except to say that I miss some people, the same way all of us do. They’re far away or they’re dead or they don’t talk to you anymore and that’s just how it is. And this movie, Drive, a silly heist-gone-wrong movie with guns and blood and broken teeth, captured that completely.

He shyly smiles at her, then she looks out the window of the car as they drive through night-time L.A., (as you do if you live there, it’s just part of the experience, part of the mythology, as essential to the city’s identity as the palm trees that line every block), and he looks away and then, in that moment where they are both looking away and both of them are silent, only the radio plays, she reaches out and puts her hand on his on the gear-shift and it’s a revelation. He laces his fingers with hers and yes, I’ve been there, that precise feeling, I know it exactly, oh my chest hurts, this entire thing hurts, I want to cry, and the music swells up again and everything is just right.

Meanwhile the entire thing ticks on as calmly as it can, fueled by a killer, dreamy soundtrack, a quiet and efficient character piece dipped in low-rent Hollywood action. I’m a sucker for lovingly evocative images of downtown Los Angeles, but the true power of the film rests in how subtle the real story is, how intense its raw poetry. As far as I’m concerned, the title isn’t Drive for the expected reasons, but after the main character’s will and motivations, impeccably brought to life by Ryan Gosling. It’s a very fine trick for a revenge film, given how limiting the heavy narrative structure of a crime drama generally is, to have such a sincere respect for the complexity of human relationships, but underneath the cliché bag-of-money device and the scathing mob bosses, (played beautifully by Albert Brooks and an almost shockingly foul mouthed Ron Perlman), there runs an incredible focus on intimacy, interaction stylistically pared down to the basics. The film unfolds scene after scene like vivisection lessons on how much it’s possible to communicate without words. Even the clockwork-plot murders seem to be legitimate, less fiction than a memory that someone has chosen to share.

Some people don’t like it, you might not, (one friend of mine went so far as to say it was like watching unlikeable robots), but the fact remains that you should see it anyway. If only for the soundtrack. Or the bit in the elevator. I’d marry that scene.