Tag: friends

tag “john peel” should make this easier

Mark on the calendar, October 13th 2005 is the date of the first John Peel Day. Later I hope to have time enough and the inclination of the awake to collect together as much John Peel as I can to share with you all. audiography has dedicated this week to him and has already been posting some very choice music. However, my main contribution to the discovery of new music will be slightly early, as Nicholas has pointed me to loveliness this evening.

The artist is that 1 guy, and he is the best one man music I’ve ever heard. His lyrics are superb, his wacky home-made instrument intimidating awesome. It’s called “The Magic Pipe” because it is. I’m not sure I know of anything so captivatingly versatile. There’s a Listen To Entire Album button. I highly recommend it and also say, watch the video too.

I’ve discovered that I’m still twanging in dangerous ways from my dancing binge. It’s effort to turn my head, it goes against the natural reaction of my body complaint. I’m impressed. I walked away from an afternoon a few weeks ago attempting to teach Graham and Ryan how to use a sword with less bruises. (And Graham catches on quick to the idea of being hit without being hit). Course, part of it is the stupidly long walk I took with Alastair earlier today. He’s only in Vancouver a few days before leaving for San Francisco and Fiji, so we went for breakfast at Slickety Jim’s Chat & Chew this afternoon. My first mistake was expecting service on a holiday, my second was walking with him from there to Commercial and First, then up to Broadway. My eyes waved at some houses I knew and some interesting landmark graveyards, but the blisters are trying to argue that it wasn’t worth it. Lying on the couch at Korean Movie Monday was like sinking into hot chocolate on a cold day.

The film tonight wasn’t astonishing, My Beautiful Girl Mari was too mellow for that, but it was legitimately beautiful. The IMDB summary tells you nothing of use. What’s needed is an appreciation for magic realism, for the illusion of edgeless animation, and a commiseration with the logic of children. There is no painfully basic plot, only a gentle climb into a remembered summer that unwinds into terrifically averted disaster and cleverly prosaic goodbyes. The alternate world the boys enter is deeply reminiscent of dreaming, (that the cat also visits this world, they do not bother to explain, and nor will I, as it should be evident), being a place of clouds and peculiar consequences that drops them back into the real world without any warning, though certainly with the sadness of parting.

I remember when I was beautiful to you

Donald Rumsfeld is giving the president his daily briefing. He concludes by saying: “Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed.” “OH NO!” the President exclaims. “That’s terrible!” His staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the President sits, head in hands. Finally, the President looks up and asks, “How many is a brazillion?”

The bottom of the world fell out beneath me when I saw you on the street. My lungs dissipated, my breath sinking out of view. I was in the wrong company to stop, with the wrong people to demand they leave me behind. I’m wide awake, wishing the lights were out, but knowing that it wouldn’t help at all. Sheer certainty makes your name a holy thing, hard in my mouth like stones on a pale horse. In between the click of my teeth against yours, there used to be rare moments of brevity. Now there is a vacuum. I am in no safe hands, there is no warming me. I told Michael the truth, that every night I wake up crying. Court was held on the front porch, a open floor on which to pour my wounded emotions. You looked away and wouldn’t speak. Instead there was a comment about speech, about thought, and then a turning around and away. I feel like I’m a symbol for every woman who stood in the street and cried out, “You don’t know what you’re doing to me.“

I carried a sword with me to the car. Black and silver, same as my hat. Same as my jacket and pants and eyes. The strap of my bag bit into my shoulder and I winced, hitting my knee when I leaned down to drop it into the back seat. The father sat in front of me, in the drivers seat, and reminded his daughter that her ex-boyfriend is now an age where he can be legally tried as an adult for rape. I saw where his direction of conversation was going five minutes before she did, and so I put a fist to my mouth, smothering bitter laughter and looked solidly out the window where she could not see my face. I wanted to believe in something beautiful again, so I tried to remember standing on the beach in California, but all I got was the memory of feeling incredibly unattractive on the white sand of Santa Monica.

Tomorrow is the Nine Inch Nails concert. I have a floor ticket, currently in the hands of Christopher. I feel like I should be excited, but I can’t seem to muster any enthusiasm. My hips are going to swing, it’s obvious, but there’s no spark yet. When I get there, I’ve been told, it will be inescapable, and I believe them, but that still leaves me wondering what it is that’s currently wrong with me. I am still glad to meet new people, but how burned out can a human be without losing basic functions?

Vote a 10 for me.
if only because Topless Jhayne would make a great name for something.

Then download this.

no it’s not batman forever


three legged boy
Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

Tonight has been set aside for cinema. Dominique is visiting with a copy of Alphaville to watch before the midnight showing of Corpse Bride at the Van East. As ATIC has announced they do indeed have my power supply in today, today seems to be shaping itself into a day far more pleasant than yesterday. (Excepting you people in Houston, though hurricane Rita has just been marked down from a Cat5 into a Cat4, I still recco hauling ass out of there. In fact, escape the states entirely, I can put you up for a week or two depending on how well you cook. More permanent settling in will have to be dealt with on a case by case basis, and those who bring glitter, chocolate, and pretty dresses will get first dibs.)

Tyler‘s birthday was pleasant, (minus the being egged on the way and the drink knocked directly into my lap), as the company was splendid. We had a chance to talk about something that had been misunderstood a few months ago that had been bothering him, which is always positive, and I was reprimanded by the staff for being up on the tables, which is also usually a good sign. My real moment of excitement, however, was earlier.

My very first driving lesson in a four wheeled vehicle. Ray drove Ryan and I out to the airport and let me slide behind the wheel of his Element box. It was a tiny bit terrifying, that distinct feeling of being on the wrong side of the car. What we were doing was vaguely illegal, I don’t have a learners license yet, but as I didn’t hit anything or anyone, and didn’t flub the clutch thing half as often as I thought I would, I’m willing to say that it was a success. The cyclist even managed to get away safely.

I shan’t admit


091705-021
Originally uploaded by aeillill.

My suppositions were correct, the power supply had popped, and now we’ve got my machine plugged into Andrew‘s. We’re crowded on his bed, clearing big chunks of tasty media off my hard-drive onto various sized discs. When James left me his machine, he left it filled to the brink with wonderful films and brilliant programs. There is almost nothing it isn’t capable of, if I had the skills to take advantage of it or or if it had a damned power supply. Ah well. Tomorrow such problems will be fixed. I have breakfast in the morning with Matthew, which will lead into our mutual appointment with Sarah and drop me off at the lunch reservations I made for my mother‘s birthday.

He tells me he loves me when I say goodbye on the phone. There has never been a voice so sad as mine in my heart when I cradle the reciever back in its plastic bed. I don’t say it back, what need? I am branching, my arms boughs, my fingers as twigs. Someone has offered to teach me to float glass like air in my palms, like dreams. I want to. These lips are remembering his eyes and hair. I feel my Saturday as a wondrous thing. The Party Not Starring Peter Sellers was exquisite. The bit with Chris, at least, he is magic incarnate, and Crystal does things with two sets of tassels that defy the imagination. I won a dance contest while in a corset, though I will never attempt such a thing again. I felt like dying for fifteen minutes after. The rest of it was fairly basic, but enjoyable nonetheless. I reacquainted myself with lost theatre people, Terry, Jacques, darling Chris, and I finally met Bill’s wife ma’am. I touched her stomach where his child is brewing. I saw how he looked at her, I’d forgotten. I can feel his face in my expressions again. When he swung down from his perch, I had to squash my urges to go and hug him, instead I left my smile intact and tried to not crowd him. When I was downstairs in the hall, a staff member asked what I came for. I joked, “To see the show, of course, and to discomfit my ex.”

We laughed, but I’m so sorry to say that it’s what happened. I miss his muppet gestures. In my recent cleaning of my room, I found a picture of him from one of our earlier anniversaries. There’s flowers in his hair and ‘I love you‘ written in chocolate on his chest. The rest of it, I dare not say in public, but needless to say, it was rather touching. I’d put up blue lights on the wall over the bed in the shape of a giant heart. It stayed up for months, though every time we had sex, we would tear part of it down.

I found Vancouver’s secret burlesque bar, Saturday. It’s a room fifteen feet wide, and as long as the block is wide. The second floor is a golden balcony overlooking the dancefloor, and instead of a disco ball, there’s a silver merry-go-round horse studded with mirrors. I fell instantly in love. Terry and Ryan and I arrived just as the very last of the burlesque ended, (two minutes of shadows having sex), and soon set up camp upstairs. Terry is especially brilliant, as he is one of those most precious people who continues to be astutely brilliant when proceeding to be drunk. We leaned over the balustrade and shouted communist political slogans at appropriate moments in between dancing ironically and splashing the people below with ice-water and gin and tonic. Within half an hours, I collected an entire stag party, (with phone-numbers), and commandeered a few of them into affixing a fan to a table for me to have a private dance-floor on the balcony. I felt, finally, like I was having the sort of evening that silver_notebook regularly inspires my jealousy with.

bustedwonder made a sketch of one of my favourite photographs


she knows what kissing’s like
Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

Mice infected with the Bubonic Plague are missing.

Sitting on the floor felt like a miniature picnic. Instead of a blanket, I had a book. Instead of a park, I had a closet-room full of costumes. Raising my eyes from the page to fetch my grapes, my head brushed the petticoats of a dozen frnech maids waiting on hangers, my hand grazed the hems of a dozen schoolgirl outfits. Next to me was a box of ballgags and next to that was one of garterbelts. My back leaned against a cheap plastic mirror and I faced a drawerchest full of stockings in crunchy plastic packages. It’s quiet there, the soppy unimaginative music can’t find me in among the skimpy pieces of cheap fabric. I didn’t think it was possible to suck the soul from a Phil Collings song. Work had been dragging, the clock, I swear, occasionally ticking backward. Customers were few and young and silly, boys laughing nervously and winding up the annoying hopping penis with feet.

Light bulb malfunction at school sends 18 to hospital with radiation burns.

Later was better, the day got it’s feet under it and began to stride. I had a pleasant interlude with a friend of mine from SFU, teaching him how to use a paddle in such a way to leave marks before he remembered who I was, and Aiden snuck in breifly to ask me to dinner while my manager was vaccuming the back. I learned how to properly mark costumes down as restocked, something that had been baffling me, as every employee possible had told me to do it differently, a practice rumoured to be common in retail that I had never encountered before and hope to avoid in future. I’m trying to grasp the essentials of shop-front politics, but so far I have only, “Don’t volunteer any information that doesn’t sell something.” which doesn’t seem incredibly helpful.

A blind man is accused of raping his own guide dog.

As if counterpoint to the early afternoon, dinner was splendid. I let myself out at nine to find Ryan and Aiden waiting out front looking incongruous, like a foppish rentboy and his thug pimp or rough and tumble boyfriend, and we walked up Davie to Denman with intent to go to Guu, a japanese pub known for it’s sincerely authentic food and drink. Our plans was thwarted, however, by my fish sensitivity, the air thick enough with it to set me leaning against the outside, choking to breathe, after only stepping foot in the door. It was a pity, the place looked interesting, the waiters shouting orders to the kitchen and the bar crowded by chattering people sipping odd looking beverages. However, we ended up at Moxies, who, before we left, allowed us to order a side dish of dry ice, so I suspect we had far more fun than anything that strange alcohol might have offered.

A Black Velvet Art Flickr Pool.

meme from riotlounge: If you have anything to say to the person who posts this, say it to them. If you love them, tell them. If you hate them, tell them. Whatever you have to say to this person, even if its something you’re having trouble saying, if the person posts this entry, say it to them. You may never get a chance to, so just do it. Warning: Do not post this in your journal unless you really want people to do it. I expect good things but I expect bad things as well, and that is something you have to take into consideration. Not all of what you hear will be good. Comments will be screened if I figure out how. All comments are screened.

no brains at 2:30 a.m.


Evening Standard: AAARRRGGGHHH!
Originally uploaded by DarrenS.

Sadly mirroring personal mythology, the enchanting piano man turned out to be fake. Blond, handsome, slightly strange, it blisters the mind to think of what beauty the original story creates. Avoiding the world, he lived there as a broken prince successfully and brilliantly, filling the void that so many of us have in our most secret of romantic hearts.

Today Ray and I went out fetching undead attire. A liquidation house near Aaron’s house just got in wedding and prom dresses. It was just what we needed to go with our dismembered arms and shrunken heads. We’re going as a possible wedding party.

Scott, lafinjack, is here, having flown in from Texas for Saturday’s ZOMBIEWALK 2005.

For those who asked – Yes, meeting up at my house is an available option. We’re going to likely start with make-up around noon and there are tentative plans to gather later at April’s apartment downtown, as it’s closer.

Kokoro tomorrow instead


masque
Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

We missed Butoh today. However, after an aborted Dominique-Jhayne&Chris are-going-to-steal-Reine-for-breakfast, Chris and I are venturing out to find him a new digital camera. For this we employ our secret spy, our in on the man, Mr. Ferguson.

My throat is still torn from howling at the women on stage last night. Called Stilettos and Strap-ons, Sylvia‘s group is new and rule-breaking. I entirely approve. As a segue into Rocky Horror, it was fabulous. A family reunion of utterly strange proportion. (No one knew I could femme quite like that, not even me.) We dragged my friend Amber from one event to the next, and I think she had a really good time. An unexpected meshing of social groups, but one I think I’m going to enjoy.

Is there anything going on tonight?

This is my friend Sylvia’s debut burlesque performance. Anyone interested?

Stilettos and Strap-ons Burlesque
queer femme burlesque
Friday August 19 – doors 8pm, show 9pm
Wise Hall – 1882 Adanac St
$10-$15 sliding scale

Their
virgin show is a fundraiser for YOUTHQUEST, an organization providing
drop-in and support services for queer and questioning youth across BC!

This damn sexy show is packed with power-femmes, drag kings
cage dancing, gender-fucking hotties, vinyl, muppet costumes, and good
ol’ fashioned nipple paisties!

With lusty special guests:
Brigee K
DJ Analog
DJ de Luxe (aka Mix Master Muff)
Darla Devine
Sweet Soul Burlesque
and drag kings cage dancing!
…and your fiesty, fabulous femme host:
Morgan Brayton!

doing it quietly, getting off the soapbox case


hammeryourface
Originally uploaded by avolare.

It’s all flashback The last time I spent a night in a foreign bed was the Leo party, far more recent than I first assumed. I found a picture of a hotel on my flist this week, a hotel that I stopped and had to look at twice, because it was that room, that one right there, and suddenly I was inside, looking out. Standing in a corner, knowing that I was invisible when I wasn’t being looked at. Just like every other human being. I should have taken a picture, but I was too lost in everything I assumed. I’m sorry, I want to say now. I wish you had told me. I’m sorry, but I held up a mirror and now I understand. It’s always a mistake to attack Russia in the winter.

This house is a different place, dark because it’s three in the morning and it’s not usual to turn lights on at such a time, not when other people are home and presumably asleep. There’s a wreath on the door, incongruous, but telling. I’m not sure if anyone who lives here actually bothers to live here. The carpets are deeper than I’m used to, but nothing else strikes me as special. It’s the room to the right, the only brightness in the entire black hallway. Be good to him. I heard her and understand, though I don’t know what else there is to do. I’m too damaged to be anything else. I’m too in love with somebody else. Being kind requires the least amount of effort. I don’t have to think about it. We were dancing, it was loud and industrial and not very good. My mother was a belly-dancer. There’s a trampoline in the back yard. He says it’s at my disposal the same way a rich man might offer me his secondary porshe.