n: vb: the spice of imagination
alive
6″ x 6″
mixed media on masonite
ALIVE also arrived in the mail yesterday, my favourite painting by Kevin TikiKing, (though full props to the torture tubby, hells yeah).
Thank you, internet, for restoring my faith in humanity.
Thanks to Warren, I’ve been in the number ten slot on BlogPulse, (an automated blog trend discovery system), for two days in a row now and I’m listed as the 34th most popular blog.
If I were the sort of person to use exclamation points, that would be a few of them right there.
I’m doing civil war themed pin-up photography with Spider Robinson’s photographer before the garden party today. I’m not sure how that sentence came into reality, but I blame living on Commercial Drive. He’s making me breakfast, then we’re going to figure out how to fake vintage lingerie.
Montreal team announces advance in HIV research.
Oliver and I have found ourselves a month together held in our hands like sticky string, (fun, wonderful, but what the hell is it?). We’re still being late to everything because of the trouble we have dragging our bodies from one another. I should have left the house already, but the chance at internet is too good to pass up. My evening house, my fairy-tale, it has a computer but no connection. I am cut off when the sun sets. I am directionless, trapped in warmth and white sheets, unable to find purchase in the ether. My fingers tap away on count-tops and tables, asking for information, trying to morse code the air itself. Late at night, I look down into my unemployment and try to wonder what’s going to happen.
I never heard back from the people who asked me to be their company blogger, Telus didn’t hire me, though the interview seemed almost perfunctory, but I have extra work again on Monday, a paid focus group on Tuesday evening, and a freelance odd-job coming from RipTown Media. The longest I’ve been without gainful employment, but somehow I’m keeping it all together. The utility companies are going to threaten me again soon, but I’m hoping that I can cover that by taking Robin out and about the town for a little Social Therapy.
To the people who bought mp3’s off me. Yes, they are coming, and I am most dreadfully sorry it has been taking this long. My microphone died, leaving me with little equipment options. I have been using my mother’s home-studio, but it’s all the way across town, which can be literally hours away by bus, and I’ve been scrabbling so much that I haven’t had a day to devote. (Some of the work has been finished, but I thought it would only be fair that everyone have to wait together. Think ‘according to the principles of Mercerism.’). I’m planning on going over to her house early Wednesday and not leaving until everything is finished or the busses stop running, whichever comes first.
Thunder at five in the morning. Thunder as long as my kind of kiss. I have only just sat down in my two foot office, the square at the foot of my bed, and outside, the sky has sung to me in the tones of metal shaken behind a stage or perhaps the sound that old houses use to appreciate the heavy wooden furniture that moves across their floors. Now the seagulls are screaming. Entire flocks of them disturbed by the magnificent cloud drum-roll.
All day there was the threat of rain. Jay would call in and the weather forecast would give us depressing percentages. Fourty percent, seventy percent. Conner shook his head, Nancy Lee shook her head. All this work for nothing, camaraderie aside. Instead, it didn’t happen. We lit fine. We lit and it was glorious. Dangerous light.
And now with dawn comes the rain. It’s a sweet sound now, welcome, fresh and pleasing. I want to be out in it, while knowing that this is about the best place I’m going to get right now, warm and safe, next to my bed, with dawn beginning and threatening to crawl in with me. It was close to fourty-eight hours long, but still the nicest day I’ve had in a very long time.
Greek Day is on Sunday from noon to 9 p.m. Broadway will be closed from Blenheim to MacDonald to make room for vendors, music, performances and dancing in the streets. Bring yourself and your friends and be prepared to shake some poly-rhythmic booty. Liam, Vicki and I will be going.
So the other day, Monday actually, Dominique and I did something extremely silly. We made this sign:
Dominique wrote the sign and, after attaching it to sticks, I carried it. (I lack the skills required to create something so girlish). We only got as far as Penelope’s before someone stopped us. A friendly older man in a white shirt thought it was funny and insisted we go in and show the owner.
Already feeling pleasantly ridiculous, we went in and let everyone read it. The owner laughed, said he wished he was younger, then told us to wait, he had just the person. The first man was then sent out to fetch someone as we assembled for a picture to celebrate our first successfully acquired “boyfriend”. The man returned with Memo, a tall young fellow, who had no idea what was going on.
Memo, it turns out, has only been in Canada a month and is still learning english. We asked him if he could bowl and, with a puzzled expression, he said yes. The other men, with shooing motions with their hands, told him he was to go with us. He acquiesced, which was nice of him, and walked up the Drive with us while we laughed and explained that Dominique had been worried that no one would say yes.
Our second “boyfriend” was collected at Abruzzo’s, an Italian cafe in the block after Grandview Park. Francesco, a real character, who admitted a block later that he lied in answer to our skill testing question, “Do you know how to bowl?,” so he could come with us. I’ve never met anyone so stuffed with machismo. He was amazing. Dominique describes him as perhaps “the most macho thing to walk the earth,” and she may be right. He has a small tattoo of some sort of horned creature on his right arm and when I asked him what it was, he fumbled around and replied with, “Something strong, you know? Scary, and big, dangerous or a bull or something, really manly. Masculine. Strong. Fierce. Maybe like a demon thing. I don’t know what it is, but it’s, you know, manly.”
When it came to bowling, the woman who worked there was better than all of us put together. She threw a strike from the seating area. Through pure luck, we each got a strike too, but I was bowling left-handed to save my wrecked shoulder from agony, Dominique can’t stay upright to save her life, Memo had never bowled five-pin before, and Francesco took everything far too seriously. He won, actually, in spite of our group effort to beat him. No matter how poor our aim, he had some terribly encouraging comment, like “It’s going to be a strike this time, I can tell.” or “Oh good try. Good try. You’ll get it next time.” Memo was an angel throughout, grinning when we had fun swinging Francesco’s words back at him, twisting them from irritating to funny. All three of us found it nerve-wracking, but silly too, how little Boyfriend #2 realized we weren’t appreciating his help. There was an especially choice moment, just after Francesco realized he was in the lead, when he asked if the winner got a kiss. I think I saw Dominique’s hands tighten on her ball for a moment and I know I saw Memo just freeze. Instead of looking at him to answer, I kept my face as straight as possible and answered in a level voice, “I would hope not,” I said. “How painfully antique that would be. No fair at all. The winner already gets to win. I say the loser gets a chocolate bar.”
But as it’s now dawn on the longest day of the year, I’m to bed. This is the television to be continued…
Tomorrow is the longest day, the summer solstice, officially celebrated through France, and in cities such as Barcelona, Berlin, Sydney, and London, as La Fete de la Musique. This year Vancouver’s making a start in public places and needs participation. Here’s part of an entry on the official website fetedelamusique.culture.fr:
Completely different from a music festival, Le Fete is above all a free popular fiesta, open to any participant – amateur or professional. Launched in 1982 by the French Ministry of Culture, the Fete de la Musique is now held in more than 100 countries every June 21st. … This Music Day allows for the expression of all styles of music. it takes place in the open air, in streets, in gardens, in squares, in courtyards.
For practical and legal reasons there are no stages, no crews, no amplification. Just people making live acoustic music for free in the open air, whether performing or practicing, rehearsing, jamming, playing solo or in a group, it doesn’t matter.
While participants are invited to create their own event where and when they want, there are several “official” areas which are particularly suitable for people to gather and make music. Some activities are tentatively programmed for these places in the late afternoon and evening
From east to west the more official venues are:
There will also be free performances for La Fete de la Musique at the Alliance Française de Vancouver, 6161 Cambie from 4-8 pm.
I’ll likely be hanging out at Grandview park, easy to find. I’ll be the girl on the blanket covered in terrible novels, trying to trade them for high denomination pocket change.
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Nicholas has just informed me that earlier today there was a Vancouver Island bomb scare on the Pat Bay Highway. In response, they closed the highway down and, (this is the good bit), “rushed” the Vancouver Bomb Squad in. On BC Ferries. For those who don’t know, the ferry ride takes two hours. They’re on the 3 PM sailing, so if the bus hasn’t blown up they’ll deal with it around 5:30. GO CANADA!
Sunday will be the next ANNUAL CAR-FREE COMMERCIAL DRIVE FESTIVAL.
The Drive will be closed to all motorized traffic from 1st Ave to Venables from 10am to 8pm, with free entertainment from noon to 6pm. (Yes, expect the Carnival band, though fantastically, artists are welcome to perform in the street all they want, with respect to the neighborhood and festival rules).
It’s a grass-roots event, entirely funded by local businesses, (word has it they turned down corporate sponsorship from Pepsi this year), and run by volunteers, with performance stages at either end and in the park, a roped off street hockey area, a contingent of crazy chopperfest types, (the Burrow-y people with the strange bicycles). Last year there was an approximate twenty-thousand people wandering about and enjoying all of it. (Which might explain why it was impossible to find anyone). According to their website, “new this year is the WORLD CUP ZONE in Victoria Park. In honour of the ongoing World Cup of Soccer, the Festival will celebrate this truly global sport and the Drive’s cultural heritage with a showcase of international entertainers as well as family activities hosted by the Vancouver Whitecaps.”
Last year‘s first-ever Car-Free Commercial Drive Festival was wonderful. Regrettably I missed most of it because I was too busy with other things, (Sunday Tea, The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party at Trout Lake), but even late, the street was a sea of clearly happy people. This year I’m going to devote my full Sunday to it and run around to see as much of it as I can, camera in hand.
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Monday, Korean Movie Mondays is showing Shadowless Sword this week, a Duelist-like, style over substance, sword-fighting film. As Duelist immediately catapulted itself into my top twenty within the first half hour, I highly recommend dropping by. Remember, if you’re reading this, you’re pretty much invited. Psychic lady building, 8 pm. If you don’t know where to go, just say.
Video Warning: features nudity, water, music, burlesque and probable carnage. pass it on.
The Vancouver Art Gallery has switched cheap day from Thursdays to Tuesdays. This week, luckily, that’s the day the Ad Mare Wind Quintet premiere music written especially for the rotunda’s unique, reverberant acoustic qualities. They’ll be playing new pieces by three local composers, Jennifer Butler, James Beckwith Maxwell, and Jordan Nobles.
AD MARE
7:00 pm
Tuesday, March 7
Rotunda of the Vancouver Art Gallery
750 Hornby Street, Vancouver
Admission by Donation
Information: 604-730-9449
I haven’t seen the current exhibition, though I’ve been wanting to, (Brian Jungun being snazzy and all), so I think this will be a perfect opportunity. It’s always a treat to have someone provide sonic landscapes to compliment the gallery’s exhibits. Wandering the vast rooms in silence just isn’t as kind.
Also, and more personally important, Theater Under The Gun is this week. What happens is that 10 to 12 theatre companies and/or ensembles are given an inspiration package that contains an image, a prop, a sound bite, and a line of text, all of which must be used in the final performance. They have 48 hours. When I worked in theater, this was one of the most twisted, intensely fun things I ever took part in. (I will carry the mental scars of John Murphy, (he of The Heretic), fucking a plant on stage to the end of my days.)
This is splendid news, because as far as I was aware, Theater Under the Gun had died this year. Chris McGregor and Trever Found, the two folk I used to know who ran it, hadn’t been able to find time for it. Apparently, though, it’s been taken over by two fairly-strangers-to-me, Heather Lindsay and France Perras, and they’ve stuck it into the new Show-Off Festival, Here Be Monsters, (here’s a flyer), which is being run by Monster Theater, a group who work occasionally with my Calgary friends, One Yellow Rabbit.
Tickets are $12, unless you’re interested in checking out a few shows, then a pass is $25. I’m planning on getting a pass and letting the festival take over my life for days at a time. Anyone care to join me? It starts tomorrow at Performance Works at 8pm. You’ll miss the Low concert, but that’s forgivable. I promise.
“Hey you!!” “WHAT!” “Nothing…”
Remember a year ago, that Eurovision Contest Band that Nicholas and I were banging on about so loudly that BoingBoing finally picked it up a month or two later?
25 years after they disbanded, Dschinghis Khan has returned with a world-wide reunion tour called “Back On Their Horses”.
A little digging and we find the man who used to play Khan passed away from AIDS complications. When they played at the Olympiyski Arena in Moscow to 30,000 screaming fans on the 17th of December, 2005, they had a replacement. From pictures found here and here, it appears the years have not been as kind as they could have been.
This is the first video that I found. There were more found by Nicholas, but world save us if we spend the time to dig them up again. We’re already becoming dangerously interested in this retro-disco pop band from before we were born. Any more time spent researching Dschinghis Khan and William Gibson will dedicate a dry mocking paragraph of some short story to describing us in uncanny detail.
Environment in crisis: ‘We are past the point of no return’
Of course, a latent obsession with a discontinued gimmick band is admittedly a little outré. It’s much more conventional to share surreal clips of Japanese culture like this nicotine energy drink commercial featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger exploding out of a girl’s head or this happy-hardcore music video featuring a fire-breathing fat man in gold lamé dancing with a harem of pretty, um, genies?
It’s understandable, a country that gives us such gems as japanese girls versus the syncopated masturbation video of doom“, “japanese girls in meat-visor hats versus the giant lizard” or “japanese girls versus the giant black man” deserves whatever press they can get. (Doesn’t being Bob Sapp in Japan strike you as an excellent way to make a living? To hell with being a Pro Wrestler and K-1 fighter, just cash in on being incredibly big.) In fact, when I discovered “japanese girl in seal hat versus the polar bear“, I think I watched it three times in a row, my hand over my mouth in vague shock each time, more concerned for the bear than the screaming girl.
However, I think it’s only fair to give the rest of the world’s astounding media a moment in the sun. Like, alright, I know it’s not as weird as the hip thrusting lingerie flamingos, (and what do you even call Shingo Mama no oHa?), it’s more of a catastrophe, but what about the David Hasselhoff Ooga-Chacka video that’s been dominating my friends list? The thing with the fish or the eggs or the flying fairy children are all just as messed up as anything spewed forth from a pop idol incubator. (Don’t even get me started on the green screening. I did better with a painted floor and a second-hand handheld camera that had an eyepiece with a tendency to fall off mid-shot). After all, American Idol has its own trainwrecks, some so spectacular it’s a wonder they don’t bring back the tradition of leaving brain damaged babies in the hills to die of exposure at the Burger King Tender Crisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch.
Brain scans reveal men’s pleasure in revenge.
BoingBoing recently featured Heavy Ammunition, for example, who has put together a brilliant clip of the Che-Stormtrooper phenomenon comprised solely of individual photos put together to look like video and put to a catchy hip-hop version of the Vader theme, (Here is where to get the stickers). They also pointed the way to a neat page showing a side-by-side video of an eerily identical Apple commercial and a Postal Service video.
Not blindingly funny stuff, true, but decidedly as artistic as SHUN! or the classic slap-stick german safety film and about as equally creative as when The Tonight Show rigged a phony free photobooth and created a clip so delightful that LOL becomes LOL and not “I smile gently at this”.
As an eye-wash, even if you weren’t brave enough to click on anything else in this post, (and shame on you for missing out on the marvelously astonishing photobooth), Everyone must watch this video. That means you, yes you, who is looking at this with skeptic eyes that are already wandering down to what’s in the next entry. Too bad, toughen up, this is where your attention’s at if it knows what’s good for it. If you really must know, it features dogs and lasers, but that tells you nothing, so there was really no point in saying so. GO NOW WITH THE CLICK!
