Tag: james

miss you too

I like that he tries.

My twisted physicist friend Dee will be in town from Montreal from the 5th to the 9th. I expect to be encroaching upon his time and calling him “Doktor” as much as possible during these few days as I haven’t seen him in years, (somewhere I have pictures of him burning the only real-copy of his thesis). Until recently he lived in the UK and I like him more than almost anyone, so if I have any plans with you in this time period, say so now so I can figure things out ahead of time.

James will also be swinging through, though now he and Dee now live in the same city, he will be arriving on the 9th. James will have less time for shenanigans as he’s visiting with family in Comox for the majority of his stay, but we are planning on having at least one Everyone-Jump-Him evening. Further details will be posted once they are known.

—

(Hi Blake!)

Geocities + Web 2.0 = Myspace

Toot-a-Lute has put me in charge of their website. This makes me happy, as it needs a hell of an overhaul, and they’re a good group of people. They deserve a better on-line face. I’m thinking something sparse and clean, with a little bit of edging in green. In the interests of up-keep, would anyone with appropriate photos send them to me? Your work will be fully credited, with a link to you when possible.

Nouvelle Vague is coming to Vancouver!

So I’ve returned from Clinton, which wasn’t as strange as I thought it would be. In spite of my worries, I fit in well. It turned out I had fifty or so semi-unexpected friends and acquaintances there. More than I knew the names of, by far. As soon as we arrived, some pirates tucked us into a good camp spot and we were told to make ourselves at home at a number of different camps. Everyone was surprised to see me, but glad. It was fun though the sun beat us hard enough for me to question its self-esteem.

On Saturday, after an initial exploratory wander, Isabella tied me to her merchant tent and put up for ransom. Eventually James set out with this news and fetched Oliver back to rescue me, who manfully offered them his accordion. A price too steep, we decided, so instead we dressed him up in women’s clothing and took pictures. Emancipation was not so easy, as then she wickedly tied him up too.

Later in the evening, we started a dance circle and I taught steps to people and sang with the band. I’d forgotten what that could be like. Lantern lit and dust everywhere, hallelujah. Singing isn’t as terrifying as I remember it to be. It got dark as we were there. I partnered with Gerald for Morris dancing after that. I don’t think I would have gone through with it had I been paired off with anyone else. He’s a lovely giant of a man with tawny gold hair longer than my arm, and our crazies are so compatible that I used his machete instead of a stick during one of our rehearsal run-throughs and the only thing he did was laugh. See, I had this problem where I was breaking his sticks, all of them, until he finally gave up and, because he’s big enough to do so, used a length of tree trunk instead.

Sunday was more of the same. During the day was socializing with the ridiculous number of people I knew and wandering about with Oliver, who didn’t know a tenth of them, playing music, and eventually visiting the lake. It was atrociously cold. When people tell you something is brisk, what they mean to say is, “I would be a coward if I didn’t jump in and cowards are reviled, therefore…” I don’t recommend it. The chance to wash clean of the desert was nice, but the price was a little too high for comfort.

We were dancing and singing again by the time the sun set. When it came to be night, too dark to dance in large groups, I took out my chemical packets of powder and threw them in fires as we traveled from camp to camp, acting as an alchemist, bruising the flames into different beautiful colours. Blues and greens and purples. Instead of a lantern, I used extra long sparklers. The light was fantastical, radiating magic to the drunk people who were watching and didn’t quite understand. I felt like I was creating a circus all by myself. It was almost as glorious as fireworks.

On a more somber now, Veronica and I sorted out as much as is possible in such circumstances. We sat under the shooting stars and didn’t quite cry together, but it was close. We are in sympathy, we both know where the other person is, and I’m glad it worked out. I believe she’ll take time to vanish for a little while, but we’ll carve out a place to be friends again soon. I’m proud of her as I’m proud of myself. I was going to do what she’s doing now, and walk away, but she beat me to it. Honourable we. I’d like to catch her as she’s falling, but it’s not my place. I hope she knows I understand how it’s a lonely thing to be, brave.

Nicole is needing a two bedroom apartment for September. She’s looking for $1000/month maximum, East Van from Commercial drive area to Kits, and nothing over 30th Ave. Laundry on-site and with a deck or a yard. It’s a tricky one, but if you see anything, please drop her a line at 604-306-6188.

Marvin Gay won’t get out of my head.

IMG_5715

After the Mongolian restaurant that had neither Mongolian food nor (apparently) staff, we climbed out of Chinois Town and left James to go to bed. He’d taken ill with whatever camouflaged “ethnic” food that he’d eaten. Joseph and Michel and I were left unscathed by our meal, though perhaps not by the restaurant, and continued bravely onward, collecting Johnathan and finding Saphir. Mistake. Hipster kids. Hipster kids and hipster goths. If possible, hipster 80’s music. Heavy metal upstairs with a live band and too much badly dyed black hair. Eventually, it was simply too many kids with trendy boots and ironic cut-out plastic earrings and not enough silver lame short short pirates.

So we went on a quest to find funk.

Unsurprisingly, as we’re a fine cluster of geeks, we failed. Not being able to find Rouge, (though I have on good authority that it does in fact exist), the newspaper led us to walking up St. Denis to Mont Royal and the Que De Quat, (sp? Sounds like Kitty Cat is all I know). Also a mistake. Twenty minutes trudging through snow to find that the club had canceled the show was a bit of a disappointment. Lucky for Montreal, next door had red strawberry jell-o. Otherwise, aching ankles or no: bloodbath. Actually, they also had clear plastic dishes of butterscotch pudding. That might have been what really saved the day as the jell-o, though shiny, was terrible.

  • Bob Dylan tries to win over another generation by being DJ and presenter for XM satellite radio.
  • YouSendIt.com is now offering a special “community” rate, (subject to terms of service), for people who have obscene numbers of people downloading off their site.
  • Other Music, an excellent alternative NY music shop, has listed their impressive End Of Year Best.

    • I’m always hungry for a little more than I’ve had in life

    Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

    —R.M. Rilke

    I’m floating too fast to close my eyes. My skin is still scented with someone else, the edges of them sitting on a bed, handsome head in hands, hair tied in black wheat warrior knot. I feel like I could make music right now, if only I had percussion. Inside my fingers have been trying to dance to a melody that has everything to do with the sounds of breathing. When I woke up, it was afternoon and the outside world was white. Everything buried and I didn’t know where my body began in relation to this strange acquaintance. Snow and light. Snow and a hand creeping into mine, a sigh, and they turned in sleep, delineating the places where my body began and the universe ended. The dry earth can’t kill me because once again I have meaning.

  • Alleged pope incarnate excommunicated.

    I’m so sorry he didn’t get the part. Later I’ll call in the afternoon, try for a rain check on breakfast. Films are like that. It’s fickle. They drag you in to threaten the other players, they drag you in and blow your face up ten feet tall and thirty million theaters wide. I understand the inclination as much as I understand the way a teardrop tastes.

    Before that, in a few hours time, James and I will be calling Michel, finding somewhere for breakfast, and making our way to the Urban Photography Exhibit currently taking up advertising space all over the subway system. After, James will vanish off to be a psychology guinea pig for some group studying how different artists solve the same problem, and if I’m lucky, I’ll have a date for lunch. Late afternoon, Jacob and I are going to hit up the House of Architecture and the skating rink in the Old Quarter. (On Saturdays there’s a fireworks show above the ice). It feels nice to have days planned again, as if now I’m safe somehow because I’m strong enough again to pull a city around me like a blanket. The stars, they are holes I punched there myself merely by searching for them.

  • Romania shepherd finds 80 human fetuses in forest.

    It felt strange to be at a party where everyone knew about the Zombiewalk. I stumbled, uncertain how to discuss it before I threw language barriers to the wind with enthusiasm. I’m beginning to recognize that I tread every day on ground that other people could never take for granted. It’s taking me over slowly, like the realization that most of my friends tell their friends that I’m a writer. I was so very good at avoiding that particular phrase. Smacks too much of art and creation, holy things, and I am but a girl who walks through the forest at dusk, who leaves before the gods come out to play.

    • also, we had dinner in a power outage

    Walking into a building draped with a giant inflatable orange octopus to discover that it’s a venue converted from a swimming pool carries a vestige of the same satisfaction as reading the line, “Deep Mix is a nice IDM/minimal internet radio station out of Moscow.” There’s just something inherently beautiful about the context, the message, no matter what the medium is discovered to be. “Scientists announced they’ve created mice with amounts of human brain cells.” Same thing.

    The white tile basin was scattered with inflatable red cloth couches and various forms of francophone hipsters in black clothing and striped retro boots. A table was in one corner of what used to be the deep end, flanked by lava lamps full of silver glitter and loaded down with copies of the trendy magazine the event was supposedly celebrating. Michel found his friend there, a dyke with pretty hair and a nice taste in shirts. She’s an SFX designer, makes amputated limbs for film and T.V. I didn’t catch her name, Veronique, until she gave me her card. It was hard to hear over the the two musician types on stage. Higher than us, even with the walkway where signs might have said PLEASE DON’T RUN, they stood wrapped in christmas lights. One was a good beat boxer with respectably solid work, the other insisted on crooning into a snorkel for the microphone over and over, occasionally dipping the end into a glass of water for atmosphere. The entirety felt like a film, like the two were too improbable to ever be expected to play music anywhere real, and especially not together. I tried saying as much to Yanick Paquette, but I think I was drowned out by the blurry sound.

    Once I was alone, I stood in the dead middle of the drained pool and practically sang “No known human has ever received an injection of embryonic stem cells because so little is known about how those cells will mature once inside the body.” I was loud enough that people standing at the edges looked at me as if I was insane, but I didn’t care. It was just the proper thing to do. These are the sounds that make my world continue spinning.

    Downstairs, found through a hole in side of the pool, was a tiny art gallery lined with pieces that I would have expected to be new in a very cutting edge 1986 or an evenly matched 1993. One wall was photoshopped photographs clumsily layered with pictures of women and digital scribbles, reminiscent of the pages of a wannabe Mondo 2000 magazine. Another was lined with mannequins with baby blue and brown corderouy dress suits appliqued with white flowers. To be fair, the smallest wall had interesting illustration examples in blue gesso, but they were badly mounted. The shine off them was blinding and made the art impossible to see unless you stood at an acute angle to the piece you were trying to examine. I gave up quickly on the basement, though it was quieter there, and went back upstairs to examine the space more. The possibilities of such a venue seem almost endless. If you could properly EQ a swimming pool…

    Damn me for finally leaving my camera at home.

    saint street ell


    read straight
    Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

    We walked four hours, returned, and subjected ourselves and Michel to Guitar Wolf. My head is splitting, the result of a nasty accident between it and the fridge door. An explosively loud japanese rock god movie might not have been the most wise decision. Over my shoulder, James is in his bedroom reading a book I cannot see. Tomorrow he goes to work early and I am left alone in the city.

    Tomorrow.

    I will spend time discovering the schedules required between here and Toronto. (I promise, these words are a rudder for you as much as me.) The train takes five hours. Ryan North tells us that the Secret Swing is gone, torn from the chains, but I still want to go. I suspect I will leave early Tuesday morning. Jessie will be meeting me there, she flies to Halifax Wednesday evening, and I have a holiday present for Katie that still needs to be wrapped. (Darren has yet to get back to me.)

    My eyes feel as if they have cracked.

    beautiful like it’s going to break me


    Jhayne
    Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

    The cab driver, a black shadow in a dark cab, asked us where we wanted to go, then turned on house music so loud that the seats reverberated with the bass. “Iz thise alright?” Perfect.

    We’d walked to far, my sense of direction ignored for James‘ right of way. He lives here. That way is North. There is snow on the ground, dry powder piles of it that shine into crystal when I throw them in the air. When I laugh, it’s with a new voice. I’m like a child. I love this place. How in every direction, there are people.

    There was no grand entrance. They were late, as I knew they would be. Flight times, arrivals. Different than what actually happened. I sat and shared an anemic sandwich with a boy who didn’t speak any english. I liked his clothing, military pants, a coat with antique clasps, a fall coloured tuque. He liked my hat full of feathers. I put it on his head and he smiled. He was gone very quickly, so I left my luggage within sight and went outside and threw snowballs at taxicabs. The drivers liked me. They waved and kept driving. One of them offered to take me for free, but I had no address.

    Gladness. Finally meeting Michel, finally being somewhere I don’t know the language, finally having to fend for a little of nothing with people. I was handed a leather satchel. I’m not sure I’d ever handled an object that was ever so clearly a satchel before. We talked about nothing, catching up, explaining computer problems, where in town the chinese food is, how to find, how to, how are you?

    We went to a party. Games industry, half of it. Someone from work, his wife’s friends, she said. The women, I don’t know to talk to. They nodded and smiled and pretended they knew what I meant when I said, “Yes, but what about?” In the livingroom, we played games. Hold this, pretend it’s a guitar, now rock. Long convoluted streams of referenced consciousness. Michel left early. We’ve come home closer to three in the morning.

    It’s not cold like everyone’s been saying it is. It’s warm here, the chill is a soft thing that covers the city like an expensively sugared blanket.

    the history books never mentioned us

    Cohesion drifting: goodbye James. He’s left now, on the plane for Montreal. If he has a window seat, he’ll have already lost sight of Vancouver. Soon even the mountains will fade. Echoes and footsteps in departure hallways. We saw him off last night, Reine and Ryan and I, my friend Steve caught along for the ride.

    We wish you luck, boy, wherever you land.

    medousa will be opening her apartment up for pre-fireworks meet-ups again on Saturday. Meet on the North West Corner of Barclay & Thurlow beginning at 7:30. (By the firehydrant). Any who are inclined are suggested to drop in between 7pm and 7:30pm, and we’ll probably head out around 8ish. There’s a possibility of heading out sooner as it’s the finale and will be more insane than usual.

    edit: I’ll be attending the Leo party after the fireworks.

    I’ve been out of charactor today, but would like to mark for the record that I blame the eye-liner


    City Girl
    Originally uploaded by cabbit.

    St Peters wolf is hunting me, licking at my traces on other peoples skin. My nails ask for defenses back please, they ask for water to drain from my eyes somewhere not in public. I saw today that someone’s referred to me as an ex, and when night falls, that’s what it feels like, though I know it only as a convenient term that explains really nothing of what happened or what might have been. He kissed me, you know, when he shouldn’t have. I understand deeply, like standing under trees, that there’s been a fundamental shift, that I forced myself to remember that I am a star collapsing. In waking to myself, I had to be alone of this one, this gold skein mannerism. Otherwise, when my heart was beating, it would be a violence, a darkening room without a coloured door.

  • stencil art billboards
  • the wooster collective

    Amusing to me, I realize as I write this that I’m wearing a stolen ring. Usually a sign of solidarity, this time it means a freedom in vocabulary, it means someone I feel quick enough to keep up with. These round celtic knots tied one into the next, this band, this loop, I’m twisting it around my finger. Metal there feels right, the flesh feels righted, but the implications, the loose ties of acquaintance versus friendship, they nag at me with a peculiar fascination. In my mind, there’s something waking. A fierce creature with steady cravings, I can’t see it, though I feel it growing restless. What it is I’m uncertain, something to do with words, with expression.

  • pictures of wall
  • intricate x-wing t-shirt

    Yesterday was long, a golden musical chairs of people in and out. It began merely an hour after returning from Beth’s delightful house-warming. Navi was over in the morning, and Ryan, with James visiting in the afternoon. We went to dinner with my mother, Vicki, and her father, John, at Wild Ginger. My first time meeting my granda as an adult. It was, shall we say, illuminating. He reminded me that I’m a quarter gypsy, which is something I had almost forgotten, but that we are related to the highest placed mafia family in Canada. This is especially delightful considering that I’ve finally discovered what it is he does. It was rather surprising. I knew that he used to be a salesman of sorts but I was entirely unaware that currently my granda is a bootlegging gigolo. I swear, my family only gets better. The best part? He’s a British Citizen, has been for thirty+ years. A landed immigrant back in the day when bombs still fell in first world countries. The way the laws are, that means that so am I. When I get my passport, depending on how soon I reapply, then it just might not be Canadian. (So anyone I asked to marry for citizenship, if you’re still interested, you’re going to have to supply another interesting country or two).