I didn't read the piece on China's faceless masses

Hey Krantz, listen to this. (PALS!)

2012-01-29T18:31:00.000-08:00

The mist was riding slowly on the reflection of birch trees; now it was piled like a snowdrift.

(L.C., The Favourite Game)

Homework

2011-11-30T07:27:00.001-08:00

Wish I were on a train instead:

small birches all in a row, tall and skinny with everything flat around them.

villages on a hill, the church at the highest point.

a wooden table on a lawn with misty glass bottles on it.

fences with thatches missing.

fields brown from rain-flooding.

patches of industry and back to another village on a hill, sprawling out into fields, into almost-forest.

a woman in a pink sweater is gathering twigs into a wheelbarrow.

a couple sits with a thermos watching the train pass,

and then to a middle-of-nowhere platform where old Polish women sit in long wool coats, hats, inherited earrings and sober looking shoes.

the vanishing point recedes, again and again.

a man stands, bicycle parked, by the tracks watching the trains pass as though he knew someone once who could be shuttling past

or the motion calms a wandering part in himself that he has never been strong enough to let wander.

Like the wiggling of ears, the passing trains whir his soul back into his body while his heels stay planted firmly on familiar soil.

Beatitude

2011-11-02T07:10:00.000-07:00

The fact that I'm posting again must mean that I have homework to do. Here's something that I posted a piece of a while back but I really like the whole thing now:

Double-headed Canoe

This is how she looked the day

the men harvested the nests and stood knee-deep in the river:

breath in cold gusts,

eyes slits of slate,

hands to her heart.

Thick, alluvial mud slid between toes

and she saw the sky lit with lightning;

bones like a skeleton-leaf though the water.

Summer passed that year without ritual.

I read how a voice falters,

how words flutter and fade.

Hers fills every crevice;

my hands wrap around echoes,

tiny bones grasping for age and wisdom.

The passing to and fro of grief, like the ocean's swell,

is the movement of logic and mystery;

sinking into pores as to sand,

the motion of memory.

Clasping water sounds,

(the markings of shells)

she dug her heels into earth and opened her palms;

seeds catching the breeze.

No dirt under nails,

no thumb to mark a spot, a hope, a prayer.

We are the folding, the unfolding.

Some more thoughts for cold weather.

2011-10-31T13:15:00.001-07:00

Muffle the wind;

Silence the clock;

Muzzle the mice;

Curb the small talk;

Cure the hinge-squeak;

Banish the thunder.

Let me sit silent,

Let me wonder.

(Orders, by A.M. Klein)

When wool-sweater weather comes...

2011-09-09T17:19:00.000-07:00

I must go to Scandinavia immediately. And live in this house.

More.

This doesn't help the craving either:

city lights turn to tree lines

2011-08-16T13:39:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos that I took on a roadtrip to Nova Scotia a few weeks ago with Emily, Sarai and Ali.

New Brunswick has frighteningly large moose.

Yup, glass tiger house on Brier Island.

Sarai has crazy good aim. Watch out water balloons!

First mates.

Whales are actually dinosaurs. And their breath smells like rotting cauliflower.

Eeek!

Lawrencetown Beach.

Papermaking!

2011-07-05T19:56:00.000-07:00

Last week I decided to recycle some class notes (for a class that I didn't even end up finishing in Holland) and make pretty paper that I'll hopefully use to bind a few poems together. I did some youtube research and it turned out to be super easy.

I made a deckle from an old ikea frame, nails, screen and some jewellery wire.

I ground up torn sheets of paper with water and decorative kitchen supplies. This is a turmeric batch but I also made some sheets with cinnamon, rooibos tea, cayenne pepper etc. They smell delicious, which is also cool.

And then I just put the pulp into the deckle, drained it and pressed it with a sponge to get all the extra water out. The sheets came out a little thick so I know now that I can be fairly economical with how much pulp goes in to each sheet.

Fun summer project! I think I'll make some more sheets tomorrow so that I have enough to put a few books together.

Summer Storm

2011-06-26T22:13:00.000-07:00

This is how she looked the day

the men harvested the nests

and stood knee-deep in the river:

breath in cold gusts,

eyes slits of slate,

hands to her heart.

Thick, alluvial mud slid between their toes

and she saw the sky lit with lightning,

bones like a skeleton leaf through the water.

Summer passed that year without ritual.

Stragglers

2011-06-23T19:28:00.001-07:00

I just got the last rolls of film developed from Europe. These ones of Mac and I touristing around Paree make me miss that gal.

I particularly like this one of the sun setting on Berlin.

May 5th, 2011

2011-06-16T20:04:00.000-07:00

Divinity must live inside herself:

passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;

grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued

elations when the forest blooms; gusty

emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;

all pleasures and all pains, remembering

the bough of summer and the winter branch.

These are the measures destined for her soul.

(Wallace Stevens)

Catalogue

2011-06-14T20:01:00.000-07:00

Curiously, the light around him

makes an arc,

a broken halo.

(Irving Layton)

Mac pre-drinks.

Mac post-drinks.

I can't thank all of you enough for your love. I wish I was saying goodbye with you. Good luck out in the real world!

Berlin

2011-04-18T06:28:00.000-07:00

Alex Normandin is officially the best Berlin tour guide. Thanks for having us and see you Ottawa in t minus three days-ish!

B & N and colour photo mash-up:

Heffe Weizen!

These are from a great flea market in Mauerpark.

Cheapest breakfast.

Alex's cute apartment and me diligently recording our ramblings.

Here come the blues...

2011-04-06T11:28:00.000-07:00

Studying in the sunshine through my window, the view suddenly struck me as depressing now that the sun's going down.

Yup, merry xmas. It might be slightly better if it said "Gelukkig Kerstmis".

Poland

2011-03-31T14:42:00.000-07:00

As I said a few weeks ago, Krakow is now my new favourite city. ALTHOUGH, I'm going to Berlin tomorrow so I'm going to guess that it might take over the top ranking.

And no pants man, just for good measure.

And, I'll actually be seeing you Canadian folks in just a few weeks!

Morocco

2011-03-29T05:34:00.000-07:00

Finally got some film developed:

Carpet weaving on a roof seems like a nice employment. Apparently men only make the easy carpets because they're easily distracted. This guy made so many poses for me!

Tannery! Not that smelly in the winter, actually.

These are the ruins of a Roman town just outside of Fes. Mac and I sat around the temple and sunbathed, listening to tour guides. Apparently there is no consensus on whose temple this was. We heard Minerva and Jupiter. Probably the tour guides couldn't care less...

Hey.

Flatbread hot out of the wood stove. Yum. Goes well with mint tea!

So many mules.

Our hostel was right in the middle of the meat market in the old Medina. Live chickens for 300 dirhams! I wonder how much the camel heads cost...

This is the view from the roof of our hostel. A good place to play 'count the mosques'.

We were surprised by how green everything was. Besides the mountains, this small town could be in the Netherlands.

Finally, I hate blogspot. I realize that I'm a technologically disabled but I'm ready to admit that blogspot just sucks. Boo.

2011-03-24T11:53:00.000-07:00

I was chatting with Andrea this afternoon and she sent me a link to a podcast that she did with Rue Morgue magazine for their Women in Horror profiles about her recently published book When There's No More Room in Hell: the Sociology of the Living Dead. I'm ashamed to say that I haven't read her book yet but I'm even more excited after hearing her talk about it today. Admittedly, I am really not a horror fan at all but I am a religious studies minor and that aspect is really as interesting as the film analysis, I think, and I hope Andrea doesn't mind that I'll probably read those parts with much more enthusiasm. Actually, the weekend that I went to Toronto for her book launch I was reading an ethnography about a Voodoo priestess living in New York and it was cool to make some connections. Those places where religion and sociology intersect seem more and more important to me lately and I only wish I knew more.

This is the podcast.

Honestly, I got goosebumps hearing Andrea on this podcast. She is so smart and eloquent and inspiring. Andrea Subissati: "bonafide force of nature". Couldn't have said it better. Miss you, lady.

And gather.

2011-03-21T04:33:00.000-07:00

This week has been unusually hard. I've reached the two month mark here and the strange feeling of dislocation I was warned about in the first few weeks seems to finally be settling down on me. The sun was here in full force this weekend, not just the half-sunshine between showers. Mick's friend Richard is visiting from New Mexico and hanging out with them the past two days was perfect medicine for the heart-sickness I felt after Poland. We picnicked and went to the international short film festival on Saturday. A few of those shorts were also really uplifting, particularly one about the unset of alopecia called Cheveu by Julien Hallard. Evidently I relate to baldness in a very unscientific way.

I haven't developed any of my rolls of film from Morocco and Poland yet because going into to town is out of the way and developing film is a financial burden. Here are some more photos of Lent and hanging out with Mick and Richard. Yes, that's a bathtub. This place gets more and more bizarre.

Singing "baruch atta adonaï".

2011-03-15T14:07:00.000-07:00

Long week of exploring and I'll have to get back to real life tomorrow. Wake up, brush teeth, write paper, read, read, read, read... and hopefully plan future train rides.

Here's a picture from my digital camera. This is Bart who sat across from me on the train ride from Krakow to Oswiecim and who kindly drove us to Auschwitz. Krakow is now my absolute favourite city. I plan to bring some rolls of film in tomorrow and have them as a reward for a finished paper.

From the refugee camp:

2011-02-28T12:07:00.000-08:00

I thought the stories about Lent having been a refugee camp were totally fabricated to exaggerate our dismal accommodations but the other night I was having dinner at a squat a few kilometers from Lent and a group of locals assured us that it had been a refugee camp only about a decade ago. I think this place can be pretty homey once you fill it with lovely people.

Went to the market in town and bought veggies and olives. Came back to Lent and made a feast:

Nighttime:

She sends me blue valentines.

2011-02-26T08:04:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I bought this toy panoramic camera in a second hand shop. Basically it's just two pieces of plastic blocking the top and bottom of the lens. Here are some photos I took with it while biking around Nijmegen the past few weeks:

Amsterdam

2011-02-17T14:31:00.000-08:00

Amsterdam is not a city I've ever been particularly excited about because its popularity always seemed somehow based on novelties. It was hard to picture real people living there with commutes to make, groceries to buy, lives to live. This illusion seems an inevitable consequence of the tourist trap and a difficult one to conquer. Mac and I spent three days in Amsterdam this week with this in mind and I'm really not sure how successful we were. My prejudice against "gimmicky Amsterdam" has been shattered though and that says something.

Favourites:

1) Nine Straats Neighbourhood: This neighbourhood was pretty small (nine streets separated by three canals) and was both charming and cool. Galleries, bakeries, bookshops, great vintage shops, coffeeshops that sell coffee. It reminded me of Mile End because the older shop and restaurant owners kept a really unpretentious watch over a clearly pretty hip takeover.

2) Van Gogh Museum: Duh. They also had a cool sub-exhibit up about Montmarte in the late 19th century complete with Toulouse Lautrec posters.

3) FOAM gallery: One of the best parts about the FOAM gallery is the beautiful building it's in. It's an older building but the new skylights and stainless steel stairs fit perfectly. I would love to do my homework in the cafe on the bottom level. The exhibit that was on was on W. Eugene Smith's development of the photo essay.

4) Cafe Welling: I'm not just saying this because they have a cat. Okay, maybe a little. Poes sat with me on the couch the entire time we were there and I would go back just for her company. Everyone in Welling seemed excessively intelligent and friendly. And they were playing Tom Waits.

5) Debalie: This cafe/ bar seems like it's in an old theatre or station and has really good (but expensive) coffee. They screen films and have seminars on almost a nightly basis. We walked in as a band was just starting to play songs from the Pulp Fiction soundtrack and everyone got up and danced.

6) Poffertjes en slagroom: Yum. Pancakes and whipped cream.

Nice to know that these are only a short train ride away.

I started an Introduction to Social Dutch class yesterday. My goal is to be able to do my groceries without looking completely bewildered. Sentence of the week: Vandaag at ik twee appels. Today I ate two apples.

New Friends

2011-02-06T13:18:00.000-08:00

I've never been to summer camp but it seems to me that living in Lent is comparable. Privacy is hard to come by and friends are not. After a completely lazy day of Mad Men and Elizabeth Gaskell, Mick and Alex came over and we made savoury and sweet pancakes for dinner. Perfect cheap student food made better by mangos, berries and wine.

Yesterday Mac, Tien and I explored the stalls in the market, filled our pockets with candy and went to the Het Valkof Museum. We thought that the exhibition was about mythology and I kind of assumed this would relate to Nijmegen's Roman history. As has often been the case over the past few weeks, we totally misunderstood what was written in dutch and the exhibit was actually called the Studio Myth and was about an artists relationship to their working space. Way better. There were quite a few photographs of studios, which were by far my favourites. This painting and series of photos were in the section about George Hendrick Breitner. They are so, so beautiful and my mind keeps drifting back to them today as I sit reading on my comforter covered in a gaudy newspaper clipping print. I want to be the girl in the kimono on the pile of ornate blankets.

Chief Donnacona

2011-01-31T14:56:00.000-08:00

(Alexa Hatanaka and Pat Thompson-- acrylic on found book cover)

When we observe a moment through the gossamer veil of time,

it is just far enough out of reach that it may become our own.

In the gradual moment of history

limestone turns to marble,

from fossil to monument.

These streetlights as torches:

pines burning in the delicate instant in which past and present meet.

Les roches connaissent de nombreuses histoires

C'est l'oeuvre d'une vie que d'excaver ces mystères.

Je desire connaître un adage du Royaume de Saguenay

(les mots de la bouche de l'histoire ajoutent de la profondeur).

Ici, les pierres murmurent de proverbes nouveaux

et on oublie les chuchotement des grands bois.

Ici, ce sont les ainés, saisis de crainte,

qui raniment les jours anciens et cherchent les tombes oubliées.

To hold history, bound and catalogued,

to feel the weight of legend

(vos contes fabuleux),

hold yellowed pages in my palm...

But when we clutch history,

the instant the flash blinds is silence.

"What is silence: emptiness or fullness?"

Paris 2011,

Rue Séguier, en bordure de Seine,

le tombeau de Donnacona

q'on passe en cherchant un club de jazz.

Last week, Pat Thompson and Alexa Hatanaka's exhibit "Chief Donnacona" opened at La Place Forte gallery in Paris. Donnacona's story is an interesting meeting point of history and myth in Franco-Canadian relations. Kidnapped by Jacques Cartier and brought to

France, Donnacona fabricated tales of the golden kingdom of Saguenay, which presumably fed the appetite for exploration of this New World Shangri-La. Donnacona died in France, never seeing Canada again, and was buried below what is now a street near St. Michel in Paris. A few days before the exhibit opened Pat and Alexa explored Paris in order to locate the purported site of Donnacona's tomb. Walking the streets trying to find Le Caveau, Pat, Alexa, Larissa and I walked by Rue Séguier and they pointed the location out to me. They planned to put a plaque up but I'm not sure whether they did before leaving Paris. Alexa has more images from the show on her blog and they look incredible. I hope to go back to Paris before the end of the month to see the exhibit.

Above is my homage to a discovery of this history.

("Red Toque Forever": Alexa Hatanaka and Pat Thompson-- wood type, etching on handmade paper (recycled cotton, abaca)

Paris!

2011-01-24T10:55:00.000-08:00

It's cold in Paris and I didn't bring sweaters. Still, on Saturday I made myself a map of bookshops and braved the rain. I found this guide to acclaimed bookshops in Europe called the bookstore guide which will undoubtably become my version of the Lonely Planet. I found five or six really great sounding ones but only made it to two because of my lack of navigational skills and how easily I'm distracted by crepes. I headed to St. Michel and I told myself to just get the touristy Shakespeare and Co. over with right away. It is touristy but seeing a lot of those books was still pretty thrilling and it's a beautiful place. I would love to sit and excavate without the bustle of camera lenses. Next I went to The Abbey Bookshop owned by this Canadian book guru who sat as his desk with a young french girl telling her about Vivaldi, who he played loudly. He offered me coffee when I came in and I looked around for quite awhile and warmed up. On my list for next time are The Red Wheelbarrow (complete with William Carlos Williams poem on the door), Tea and Tattered Pages (I hear that they have a cat!) and hopefully some french bookstores as well.

I also went to the Centre Pompidou to see the Mondrian exhibit and their permanent collection. Man Ray's photos were my favourite. I wonder what it says that I'm more interested in portraits of the artists than the art itself.

Orientation at Radboud starts tomorrow and I feel a lot more excited than I did a few days ago. Strangely, Paris also made me appreciate where I'm living. Paris is beautiful but these fields that I can bike by are much more suited to me.

Nijmegen

2011-01-20T10:23:00.000-08:00

I'm getting settled here in my teeny dorm room. I can hear my roommates speaking their respective languages with their friends in the common room (Polish, Lithuanian and Italian) and also once in awhile English that we speak to one another. I explored all day and now I'm feeling comfortable here. Tomorrow morning I'm going to take the 6 hour bus ride to Paris to meet up with Larissa and Pat Thompson for a few days since I don't have any friends in Nijmegen yet and orientation at the University isn't until next week.

Here are some photos from todays exploration:

This is what Nijmegen looks like from the bicycle bridge in Lent. Big boats and big white geese.

This is Lent, the small "suburban" town that I live in. There are lots of sheep.

This is the bridge that I cross to get from Lent into Nijmegen.

This is a ruin of castle that I came across by the Waal river today. Apparently it was made from some of the remnants of Charlemagne's castle, which could just be a legend but is still very neat.

Day after next.

2011-01-15T08:24:00.000-08:00

It's snowy this morning and I'm feeling ready for an adventure. So long Ottawa, see you when you're sunny.

Thoughts, words and deeds.

2010-11-24T14:34:00.000-08:00

Spending the day reading about the Dalai Lama's flee through the Himalayan foothills:

my feet were so cold in the library that I thought of using my mittens as a second pair of socks;

I have chai tea and dark chocolate now and am dreaming of those mountains.

Rivière

2010-10-15T20:00:00.000-07:00

J'habite près d'une rivière et a chaque nuit

je me laisse emporter loin par son courant.

Et au fond de cette rivière,

j'ai trouver un trésor

plus précieux que de l'or,

plus précieux que l'amour.

And a blanket of clouds moves toward the Atlantic...

2010-09-29T22:23:00.000-07:00

An unkindness of ravens:

those that seem a sieve through which

the gray light reaches the Taiga desert

and the silence we impose.

The goldenrod, would-be-lavender,

sifted over rock,

you step over or drift by.

The shifting horizon is, for you, true summit of this pile.

While I press sap into pages-

embalm a smell, a thought, the silence-

you capture the words my silence speaks in your daguerreotypes of light.

Sometimes I am the ghost in that light;

the proof that warmth waits in empty spaces,

someone to stand at the edge of your horizon,

prove the clouds are not unmapped islands on a setting sea.

I wrote this in response to a moment and to the clarity (or uncertainty) that light can offer. Shortly after I wrote this I found, in someone else's words as always, the thing about light and meaning that I was trying to capture. This is from Anne Michaels "The Weight of Oranges", probably the most beautiful and real collection of poetry I've ever read.

"You explained visual time,

how there's no weight without shadow.

Nothing falls, every figure has a ghostly buoyancy.

You explained how Chambers grounded things with his light,

leaving the ghost inside.

I understood this by thinking "language" instead of "light",

how everything stays temporal.

I understood it as a grammar of beauty,

with its apex of loss,

dishevelled burning trees half leafless.

As a room full of rain and the raft of our bed."

Those last lines...

Found it!

2010-09-21T06:29:00.001-07:00

Nick Cave - The Weeping Song
Uploaded by samithemenace. - Explore more music videos.

Attic

2010-09-10T07:55:00.000-07:00

Pop and Lock!

2010-09-09T19:36:00.001-07:00

Gary Franks has a radio show called The Pop and Lock every Thursday at 1:00 on CHUO 89.1 fm. It's a great show for more reasons than that Gary has a cool radio voice. Apparently radio mics are actually made to make your voice sound deeper. Maybe this is a better way to artificially enhance one's manhood than bicep implants? Lidija and I were actually on Gary's show today giving our two cents about free music sources and how we feel about free music in general. Lidija's opinion is a little more relevant given that she's actually a musician but I was happy to represent us regular folk. So, this weeks show is on Gary's new Pop and Lock website if you care to listen. The best part is clearly Gary's story about Adrien Brody and the club in which no one would dance.

I am still planning to talk about Fogo. There is just so much to be said that the task is a little daunting. I'll try to get some photos up soon, at the very least.

Home

2010-08-27T08:12:00.000-07:00

Made beavertails with Jes and Calum the other night. This apartment feels even more homey as the nights get cooler.

Butter and dark chocolate cocoa.

Kilalo Sunrise

And it's this kind of morning: Bonnie Prince Billy-- The World's Greatest

I think I'll walk to work rather than ride my bike today.

Researchers talk about the need to find the door in the fog or in the night. Local people say that it looks nice.

2010-08-24T19:02:00.000-07:00

Hurray to Adam Saikaley and Luke Ciesielski for winning at the first Ottawa International Film Festival! This video is great and made more so Lidija. I love how cute she looks waking from the dead.

I have so much to say about Fogo but I want to wait until I develop my photos so I can tell the story with full effects. It was a pretty inspiring experience and hopefully the productivity it's fostered in me won't falter before I adequately pay homage to the place and the adventure.

and you carry those bruises to remind you wherever you go.

2010-06-25T08:48:00.000-07:00

Montreal this week was:

A beautiful and surprisingly sorrowful dance show to live music played by members of Silver Mt. Zion and Plants and Animals put on by Little Bang Creations at Sala.

Port, cheese, strawberries, chocolate and Caitlin's birthday!

Bonfire on the traintracks and nighttime bikerides.

Breakfasts and pints and soccer games.

Friends who make this city feel a little bit empty, even as I watch what can be called bustle on a grey day in Ottawa.

Which leads me to this morning, which is:

Trying to decide whether my summer will be enhanced or ruined by an attempt to read Gravity's Rainbow.

Deciding instead to read blogs.

Wondering what the reality of living in a place where no one knows you will actually be.

At least there is this:

Justin Vernon- Bruised Oranges (Chain of Sorrow)

And I recall a gaze that never rests.

2010-06-15T19:38:00.000-07:00

I like this poem from this morning but I'm not sure that I'm quite done with it.

-To fall, to rot, to grow-

Oh,

our ship of oak, of spruce, of birch,

deciduous blooded vessel,

holds us a hairbreadth apart through the gales of a Boreal winter.

The forest dowry:

the moon in my belly,

the shifting tide of the valley snowdrifts,

the air filtered through the settling scent of pine,

as cinnamon weighs the bustling markets of my mind.

Are we lighter now?

We greet the sprouting milkweed

with our love's viking funeral.

Godspeed--

ochre beams of a Sunday morning,

the smell of fresh lemons,

my apricot breath

and the slow, warm decent of green tea in a mason jar.

The vessel burnt,

I sit,

this weekday morning,

taken with the prevailing wind

and the flurries of her fur.

Steady,

for this wisdom, this wrapped parchment of the touching of tongues,

we have bound safely from the tundra's whims

before deserting our Qumran.

The raven's nest in the Ottawa valley,

our cave.

What was always there to begin with.

2010-06-14T14:26:00.000-07:00

This week has been the epitome of what summer should feel like. I've been baking, reading and writing a lot but also spending time with new and old friends who are totally fun and motivating. This morning Zac, Jess, Calum, Jackson and I made a delicious breakfast of apples, brie, omelet, roasted tomato, home fries, bacon, rye toast, juices, coffee.

Today I'm reminded of a quote that I really love from one of Truman Capote's short stories: "As for me, I could leave the world with today in my eyes". That feeling was so hard to come by for awhile that I make sure to recognize the importance of it when it does surface.

I'm a little late with this, but my already well-established Jim James obsession continues with the Yim Yames album. I was listening to it while helping my mum pack last week (the new house is so, so beautiful. I almost want to move home just so I can have coffee on the veranda in the morning. There are pictures on here). She was really into it, mostly because its an album of George Harrison covers. Apparently My Morning Jacket is playing a five night show in New York in October. They'll play one of their albums in its entirety live on each night. The "At Dawn" night will be so lovely! So, this is my favourite from the "Tribute To" album: Yim Yames – Behind That Locked Door

On a rainy street.

2010-06-04T20:16:00.000-07:00

Evening Hymns - History Books from Mitch Fillion on Vimeo.

"Now the winds are blowing steady
And my bags are awful heavy
How I wish that I could stop and turn around
But there are no second chances
in a world of circumstances
And in this life you don't get no next go 'round"

But I dreamt we was all beautiful and strong.

2010-06-01T20:31:00.000-07:00

I went to see Silver Mt. Zion at the Mayfair last night. All the fallen things feel raised but I wish I had more moments to share with the people in my life who offer the hope that I recognize in these songs.

Mystery and wonder did light up the valley
To be beat back by dark clouds and a harsh reeking wind
And that battle staggered through three awful months there
To stop for a minute
Just to start up again
Your hands like birds in the trees
If the trees themselves were all on fire
Your hips on mine make a choir
Singing "baruch atta adonaï"
And the river never made it to the lake
So the lake surrendered to the mountain
And the mountain's heart did fucking break
At the sight of your nervous hands...
And oh my love
So gently breathing
So my heart does softly swell
So her & me did greet the evening
With much red wine and giddy yells
In these times of wandering soldiers
Building towers on ruined land
I hold my love to my belly
And feel her breath fall across my hands...
I have grown tired of the struggle
And i've grown tired of making plans
I think i'll quit to the valley
Regain my strength
And start again
Where once we were some clumsy army
Now we are just lazy hens
I think i'll quit to the valley
Until the light moves me again...
So, let's link arms sisters and brothers
And let's promise not to retreat
There is glory in our failure
So let's march to the rhythm of fatigue
To live our lives without leaders
To live in joy without fear
Let's walk together to the valley
And let the lights redeem our tears

-- There's a river in the valley made of melting snow

Can you see the world through a window?

2010-05-31T11:22:00.000-07:00

At the end of August, Jm and I plan to drive to Fogo Island, which means that Jm will be driving to Fogo Island and I will sitting in the passenger seat providing engaging conversation and choosing the albums that will keep him awake. A few months ago he sent me some photos that he found on eric demay's blog and I asked to be part of a roadtrip. Apparently Fogo is the eastermost tip of the flat earth, which makes it a worthy destination for its quirky factor alone, but there is much more to draw us there than a connection to the Flat Earth Society. It kind of seems as close to the romanticized Icelandic landscape as we can get for the time being. I hope it's as epic as we imagine.

Totally unrelated--

1) I'd like to issue a disclaimer on the use of the word epic here. And maybe also on the general regularity with which I use words like awesome. Jian Gomeshi recently talked about the ubiquitous misuse of words like awesome and epic and now I feel very sensitive about the fact that these words are in my daily vocabulary. I seriously say awesome a lot. But I like these words. And in this case I used epic properly and not like a teenage boy.

2) Ottawa kind of smells like fire today and mixed with the humidity it really smells like India on Elgin street. I woke up this morning with really vivid memories of Delhi because of the olfactory association. Weird how that works.

Since I've already brought up Q, I may as well mention how beautiful the new song that Band of Horses played on the show is. Ben Bridwell always sounds so real and sincere.

A spectre's haunting Albert Street.

2010-05-27T16:56:00.000-07:00

I saw this James Kirkpatrick installation in this month's Color magazine and immediately fell in love with his work. I wish there were more to look at on his website. There something about this particular installation (I think its installation? To be honest, I'm not sure what distinguishes installation from sculpture) that reminds me of the installations in the Marcel Dzama exhibit I saw at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Montreal in the spring, which was incredible. I love Marcel Dzama. Lots. And not just because John K. Samson approves, although I'll admit it was an easy in.

Here's an Department of Eagles video he did, if you need

convincing of his awesomeness.

Country Comfort

2010-04-18T17:55:00.000-07:00

Oh Boy Records is putting out a John Prine tribute album that will be released on Wednesday. Awesome.

Here's the tracklist:

1) Justin Vernon of Bon Iver – “Bruised Orange (Chain of Sorrow)”

2) Conor Oberst And The Mystic Valley Band – “Wedding Day In Funeralville”

3) My Morning Jacket – “All The Best”
4) Josh Ritter – “Mexican Home”
5) Lambchop – “Six O’Clock News”
6) Justin Townes Earle – “Far From Me”
7) The Avett Brothers – “Spanish Pipedream”
8) Old Crow Medicine Show – “Angel From Montgomery”
9) Sara Watkins – “The Late John Garfield Blues”
10) Drive-By Truckers – “Daddy’s Little Pumpkin”
11) Deer Tick featuring Liz Isenberg – “Unwed Fathers”

On a somewhat related note, Courtney told me about Deer Tick a few weeks ago and we've been obsessively listening to them at the store. As if I didn't already like them enough, I had to stumble upon them doing a "Goodnight Irene" cover. I swear this song makes me love anyone who covers it. Kind of like boys with nice beards. This is obviously not on the level of a Tom Waits cover but I still commend the choice.

you would fall asleep with your head in the book.

2010-04-17T16:55:00.000-07:00

Not much to say.

It's raining. I'm studying. One week and a half. Just did some baking to bide some procrastination time.

This poem is written on the sleeve of the evening hymns album and reading it just broke my heart a little. It hits you like a ton of bricks sometimes, you know.

"Spinning like a ghost on the bottom of a top. I'm haunted by all the space that I will live without you."-- Richard Brautigan.

This is Brautigan's poem "Boo, Forever". The guy who lives above me has started playing sad songs on his acoustic guitar and singing. I feel like I should be in some Wes Anderson movie shot that moves from window to window.

It's raining. I should be studying.

Jim Bryson-- Flowers

Hard Day.

2010-03-21T16:31:00.000-07:00

For some reason I've been writing a lot of poetry that uses soil as a metaphor. Hm.

When I called you teacher,

when I breathed your name with reverence,

desperation,

I did not know how easily the detritus blew to expose the sand.

How I feared the sand!

We spoke in strangled starling tongue:

un-naming, renaming;

retreating, re-treating,

I, honeycombed in the agelessness

of hand, elbow, prayer.

You, stoic as ever,

numb as ever.

Did he take what was raw and filter it to shamelessness?

(I say "he". You are not him.

You are gasping for air.)

Filter out the clay, the silt?

Leave you coarse,

deserving something from the earth,

always taking?

I will not hold you like a sceptre unless I choose.

There is no more fear but that of rusting,

stifling the true wetness.

I will not wait at Shalott for you.

I am in the rain when you reach up to hold me.

By your feet, another apple you won't eat.

2010-02-15T18:31:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day was kd and cupcakes with the girlies. I was totally down with that. Although, having guests over makes me wish my apartment were bigger than a closet and could fit more than two chairs. I can't wait to move into a bigger place in May. Jess and I will make it so lovely! For the past year or so I've been obsessed with emmas designblogg. This is my favourite photo from it. I now consider stealing those wooden shipping bases every time I see them. Maybe they're considered shared property, like umbrellas?

Montreal tomorrow for friends and reading and the Antlers! Yeah! I considered posting the video for "Two" but I actually think the video sort of ruins the song (except when he plays the bubble organ). Instead, this is what I plan on listening to on the bus:

Cedars- Evening Hymns.

Finding the right music for a Ottawa to Montreal busride is a really important ritual for me. I actually like the version of this song that's on the Friends in Bellwoods compilation better because it's simpler but this one is still beautiful.

My plan for tomorrow night...

2010-02-13T10:25:00.000-08:00

Je le veux! Je le veux!

2010-01-30T10:29:00.000-08:00

I ordered this book from Canteen and my impatience is growing greater as I watch youtube clips from the documentary. This stop-motion clip of the opening is too cute!

Rivers

2010-01-28T17:11:00.000-08:00

This subject may be sort of trite but I think that it's extremely rare to feel anything of true substance when reading either slave narratives or early twentieth-century black american writing. Even without ever studying specifics, I think that we (and by we I'm not even really sure who I'm defining- white middle-class Canadians? I can only speak with honesty from my own experience) each feel that the history is familiar and doesn't really warrant further emotional and imaginative analysis- analysis is cold; I mean authentic, real feeling. Maybe I exist in naive isolation but the weight of a struggle hit me today in a way that defied more than just my expectation. And I believe that I'm an extremely empathetic human being. There is something in the realization that injustice, profound injustice, can happen in a landscape that is not foreign. It was something about the landscape, that it was North America, that made this real for me today. I'm really unsure of how to describe this feeling without sounding totally ignorant. It was that it was a river. That is the best way I can explain myself.

I read these two Langston Hughes poems in the library and I cried. And not in some second-hand displacement way. I cried for these voices.

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

I've known rivers:

I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the

flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.

I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.

I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.

I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln

went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its

muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset

I've known rivers:

Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

1921

Mother to Son

Well, son, I'll tell you:

Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

It's had tacks in it,

And splinters,

And boards torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor--

Bare.

But all the time

I'se been climbin' on,

And reachin' landin's,

And turnin' corners,

And sometimes goin' in the dark

Where there ain't been no light.

So, boy, don't you turn back.

Don't you set down on the steps

'Cause you find it's kinder hard.

Don't you fall now--

For I'se still goin', honey,

I'se still climbin',

And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

1922

The Light

2010-01-25T21:20:00.000-08:00

She had gone.

"She had walked across the yard like a mink

trailing her young behind her"

and climbed aboard the wagon.

And the dust settled upon the earth.

Is this how you watched me leave?

Wild and giving myself to the fate of the exiled-

the soil of freedom degraded

and I eroding still

to wash clear your misgivings

and withholdings.

Is this town but a dust bowl?

Blinding and fasting and forgetting

what the bison and the silphium saw?

Do we know nothing but the hollowed wind's whistle,

nothing of the riddles in the shadows?

But

she stumbled back.

Not unscathed, not even resolute,

but as the matryoshka waddles,

filled with child and myth.

Maybe not seeing through the dust

but settling beneath it

where light and darkness

are but day and night

and

you sit waiting on the hearth.

When we're middle-aged, tell me I loved you like a renegade.

2010-01-19T18:00:00.000-08:00

The Rural Alberta Advantage is my current favourite (thanks JM and Jess!) and this song in particular makes me feel really happy and hopeful.

This also reminds me that JM's photos being up at Le Troquet. He had a vernissage at the end of December and I think that his photography will be up until the end of January. He is so talented and his photos are so beautiful. I can't wait to get my paws on the one that I bought and I plan to go have dinner at Troquet with my mum on Thursday so she can bathe in Jammy's talent. He has a website that I don't think is quite up and running yet but even the homepage is gorgeous.

http://www.borrowedeyes.net/

They're coming to get you, Barbara.

2010-01-18T20:13:00.000-08:00

Books to read this semester:

News From Nowhere by William Morris
The Time Machine by H.G Wells
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
V for Vendetta by Alan Moore
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Surfacing by Margaret Atwood
White Noise by Don DeLillo
Through the Arc of the Rainforest by Karen Tei Yamashita
Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams
The Double Hook by Sheila Watson
Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro
Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing by Tomson Highway

I'm not kidding.
Seriously.

AH!

2009-12-18T18:52:00.000-08:00

It's almost 2010. Good grief. So, two posts and a year later I have achieved three of six goals for the past year. No quilt, no piano and having pulled myself together is up for debate. I'm not sure what I should put forward for the coming year and, in fact, I don't really want to put anything forward, except maybe "go with the flow". And make use of audiobooks as the untapped resource of an english student.
I've been having a pretty steady love affair with the library for the past month and I thought that I might take a short break tonight and allow my brain some time for creative output. It's totally fried and I didn't write a thing that I like so I went through my stack of old poems to make myself feel slightly more capable and I came across a poem that I feel is really telling at the moment. I wrote it almost two years ago about someone but it seems like I wrote it only days ago because my current feelings echo the poem's so faithfully.

How Stains Swallow and Cling

When I was told,
my soul is that of a child,
and you,
my guiltless prophet,
knew not of fossils but of scripture,
i wrote
(my heathen lettering!)
and tucked photos between pages.

Now,
I watch silently,
fraudulent Teiresias,
your tired carvings in the monuments you've ceased to own
and ask that you not follow,
though I fear to scale the mountainside alone.

So, sleep, study, exam, study, sleep and so on until cookie baking in five days!

Hold your breath.

2009-10-14T19:46:00.000-07:00

Nothing like procrastinating to get me writing again. So many endings and beginnings that I don't have the strength to write about yet. I have felt either completely disconnected from my own existence or totally crushed by the weight of my emptiness for over a month now and I'm not sure where the end is. These things take time, or so I've been told. I drove to Blue Sea with my dad and Tommy for Thanksgiving this weekend and the familiarity of being there at that time of year was just what I needed. The cottage looked the same, smelt the same, the patterns in the wood on the ceiling were the same. I came out of the bathroom, half asleep, to my dad and uncle Tom staring at the lamp with the carving of the man sitting under to tree.
"Claire," slurring, "do you like this lamp?"
"Yeah, sure I do."
"It is nice, isn't it?"
"I wouldn't call it nice but I like it because it's THAT lamp."
Something unintelligible.
"You know what I'm saying? It's just, you know, that lamp."
"Hm."
Being there, being reminded of those constants in my life, really made everything alright. I mean, I still feel so alone and scared and overwhelmed but it's going to be alright. I know that I've written about this feeling before. It's the one through which I recognize that it might not be okay right now but it will. It's that turning point, that realization of the strength of the self. And this is where I would normally quote Pirsig.

To whom this may concern- I flew over Istanbul.

2009-05-17T09:26:00.000-07:00

I've been in India now for almost two weeks. I have felt some truly beautiful moments and felt the loneliness of being across the world from those you love. This is such a short period of time, I realize, but I never did deal well with spaces. I have seen the a storm roll over the Himalayas, lightning sketched across the whole sky. I've seen the countryside wake up from the open door of a train. I've heard and seen and smelled so much to make me happy and still I haven't found that thing I'd hoped to find. So, I see now that this was the test. What I desire is in me. What I need I must cultivate for myself. I've solved the koan.

So, so sad.

2009-01-27T20:26:00.000-08:00

Goodbye home. Thank you for all of the memories. We loved you and will miss you.

I wish I lived beside a tree.

2008-11-11T20:11:00.000-08:00

I haven't been writing because: a) I almost never have anything to say anymore b) when I do have something to say I have been feeling far too apathetic to say it. Therefore my creative output has been nilch the past few months. Guh. I will start slowly then.

Things to do before '09:

1- Get mum to teach me how to make her pastry
2- Start piano lessons, finally
3- Start my quilt
4- Start taking vitamins
5- Pull myself together
6- Make a PLAN

Easy Enough.

I said, "it's a leap year".

2008-09-11T11:24:00.000-07:00

I have nothing to hold in the darkness.
I buried all the pamphlets mailed to my name.
I have no keys,
no maps marked 'x'.
I sent your recipes out to sea.

This is not the sound of a new man or a crispy realization.

2008-07-18T13:16:00.000-07:00

Everything I have to to say feels either completely irrelevant or too heavy for this particular outlet so I'll satisfy myself by reciting a bit of my summer thus far. I went to Montreal with Dario recently, which was really fun for me because I felt like I was sharing a part of my life that is really seperate from him. This is the first time in, I guess it's been three years now, that I've wanted to integrate someone so fully into my life. It's satisfying and slightly innerving. I may be sitting on the periphery of heavy here.
I spent the last two Sundays at my family's new cottage, which is just a little outside of wakefield. These visits have helped to make summer what I hoped it would be. Besides these small trips life in Ottawa has been fairly uneventful but I feel really fulfilled by the friendships I've been estlablishing. Chelsea is down from BC for the next couple of weeks and it will interesting to see how I am able to assimilate my current life with, well, former isn't the right word but I certainly feel detached from my childhood friends lately.

Otherwise, I can feel the sickness of the soul that I felt in Montreal creep back up on me, which makes me want to get on the move as soon as possible. I realize that this is a twisted way of dealing with depression but I know that I'll find something to solve this strange emotional koan if I search hard enough. Ugh, I don't really know how to say what I mean. Life just feels really short lately.

Evening:

2008-06-20T14:29:00.000-07:00

In my wakefulness,
I wonder how our ghosts rest
now that our bodies lie side-by-side.
Do they feel this moment,
truly?

Ottawa:

2008-06-15T14:02:00.000-07:00

I've been home for a little over a month now. This is my first entry since due to a combination of generally apathy and lack of internet access. I feel happy. I feel really happy and I find myself fighting the desire to be static. I just can't help but feel like I'm sitting still. The feeling of family and love that Ottawa offers me makes it really hard to imagine happiness away from here, and away from a certain individual. I'm saving money at a decent rate though, so September is still the goal for travels. In the long term, I will never be able to settle without leaving first. Then I can sit still comfortably.

Just a few a quick observations:

2008-04-11T10:55:00.000-07:00

1) Grown men should never, under any circumstance, wear platform shoes. What kind of world do we live in wear middle-aged dudes walk around all nonchalant about adding inches to their height in the same way as "rebellious" seventeen-year-old Asian girls? Good grief. I guess that this is what I get for working on this part of Mont Royal.

2) Word to the wise- when life is getting you down (whether or not it is a product of platform shoe exposure) by all means do not watch It's a Wonderful Life. You may think that the ending will make everything in the world sunshiny. It doesn't. You'll be lucky if you get to the end. God, if only I owned Easter Parade my eyes wouldn't be so puffy today.

3) The new Thrice, particularly Earth, is perfect. It makes it worth it to feel despondent. Like I said, perfect. I've almost forgotten about the goth man.

There are things that walk from you like a passing afternoon.

2008-04-06T09:36:00.000-07:00

Mesa Moda is a web-mag about original and ethically minded fashion, which, in this case, is a lot of vintage. It's really well done, everyone involved is super friendly and cool and I've modeled for a couple of their fashion spreads. Check it out.

www.mesamoda.blogspot.com

Otherwise, i've been feeling really good and ignoring my exhaustion the last couple of days because it's sunny. Jm and I walked to old Montreal yesterday and sat and watched the sun over the city. I think that beats a nap and very few things beat a nap.
Annie showed up in Montreal yesterday. I hadn't seen her since before Christmas and while it was really nice to spend time with her and talk about nothing, I always feel like there are so many things that need to be said between us but that the situation never allows. There are a lot of scars to be uncovered in our friendship but that's not something I can or will do alone because that would mean walking away entirely. The friendship itself is really something bigger than what either of us have become as people. I'm sure she must know this too.

These imaginary places.

2008-03-27T11:50:00.000-07:00

When I walk down De Bullion and Mont Royal on my way to work I feel like I'm part of a really sacred thing that's decaying. And it's a really beautiful feeling.

"Some say that no one ever leaves Montreal, for that city, like Canada itself, is designed to preserve the past, a past that happened somewhere else. This past is not preserved in the buildings or monuments, which fall easily to profit, but in the minds of her citizens. The clothes they wear, the jobs they perform are only disguises of fashion. Each man speaks with his father's tongue... So the streets change swiftly, the skyscrapers climb into silhouettes against the St. Lawrence, but it is somehow unreal and no one believes it, because in Montreal there is no present tense, there is only the past claiming victories." Leonard Cohen from The Favourite Game

As I start to think about packing my bags, I'm beginning to see that I understand Montreal and Ottawa as representations of two entirely different truths that have become equally important in my understanding of myself. In the way friends and family react to the decisions I've recently made, I can often see that they feel that I'm running from something. I've also considered this possibility but I know that, if anything, I'm running toward something. I love what Montreal has offered me. It has allowed me to embrace French Canada in a way I had always wanted to but never could before. I think I've grown more in the past seven months than in any other period in my life. One day I'll come back here and be ready to give back to and participate in this community. Right now I'm just grateful to have a home to come back to at a time when home is what I need to define.

I found the safest place to keep all our tenderness. To keep all our bad ideas. To keep all our hope.

2008-03-22T09:29:00.000-07:00

The still, sad music of humanity.

2008-03-19T22:26:00.001-07:00

I just finished watching Into the Wild. It has been a long time since I've felt so completely dispirited. I felt such a strong affinity with his ideals throughout the entire film and that lost beauty is really something that I feel the need to mourn right now. I guess that this is a common reaction to the story.
We should desire to feel strong. We should seek truth. We should live freely.
And then there is love and happiness and forgiveness that may come too late if we forget to cultivate them in ourselves and offer them to others.

"Some people feel like they don't deserve love. They walk away quietly into empty spaces, trying to close the gaps of the past." -Christopher McCandless

The distinction between cause and example and the falsity of the mixtape:

2008-03-18T17:56:00.001-07:00

We have stories and calculations and soaring ideals. We are the moment's followers of the ageless mythology (myth: dramatic or narrative embodiment of a people's perception of the deepest truths). In all these tired linear movements, I find no solice in late-night phone calls because words have become archaic in this repetitive form. Still, these songs leave me with the closeness of a half-dream in which our ghosts rise above the canyons that you (man) continue to construct. Then again, what can this even say if we speak but cease to grow?

A balanced diet to sustain life and health.

2008-03-13T09:16:00.000-07:00

I wish that it were easy to just be near to someone without having to say all that you feel and be held to those words. I guess that what I've been wishing for lately is a high school dance setting. I was doing dishes earlier and listening to some sappy Ryan Adams or Beck song and I got this really nostalgic longing for twinkle lights and slow dances. Just quietly moving in circles with someone I daydream about seems like the most comforting thing in the world to me right now.

"From now on cities will be built on one side of the street so that soothsayers will have wilderness to wander and lovers space enough to contemplate a kiss." -Saul Williams from "Said the Shotgun to the Head"

Prayer

2008-03-01T09:24:00.000-08:00

We are still
as hollowed factories,
as abandoned shipyards
in the bereft landscape of a room.

It is just a room.

And we are cultivating life
(folkloric hymns breathed from our distant highland.)
We are keeping in ourselves
the seaborne winds and the wayward breezes
to weave into our yarns.

We are the beginning.
We are the vessels of an instrumental rebirth.
We are the silence of a frozen lakeside.

But I will grow older
and maybe forget the beauty of a button jar
and maybe stop dreaming
(filling empty spaces beside me
with needlepoint pillows and dog-eared scrapbooks
and red hair.)

And you will grow tired
and maybe all the cliffs will be prisons
and you will know the crack of dawn
as fences to be mended,
as steps forward in time,
as words you spoke
to empty air.

There must be quite a few things a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know many of them.

2008-02-28T19:48:00.000-08:00

"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet." -The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath

I guess that it isn't very spiritually healthy to relate this readily to The Bell Jar but this quote really reflects what I've been feeling this past year. I sat in Cagibi this afternoon reading and stopped and starred at this page a long while. It's not unhappiness as much as it is just nothing. Just sitting at the bottom of the fig tree. I assume that this is common feeling; something we're supposed to struggle through. Luckily, I know more and more everyday that all of it is passing and I'm growing into myself again. I walked home from mile end, bought new soap from lush on the way, and took a hot bath.

I'm standing on this corner.

2008-02-26T09:24:00.000-08:00

I dreamt that the grass came back and that I was early for work so I went and made lemonade. I'm early for work, but that is all. I bought a coffee on my way here to offset the depression that came when I looked out the window and saw more snow falling.

I'm becoming seriously freaked out about how I'm going to make the money that I need to travel by September. Jonah's back in the store as of today so my hours will diminish significantly. I also have a serious retail addiction that I need to conquer immediately. The fact that an Urban Outfitters moved in a few blocks from me is certainly not improving this matter. I'm just so excited to be somewhere else, writing about things that are bigger and hopefully more important. I think that this anticipation is enough to get me through the next few months. I'm a really talented lucid dreamer.

2008-02-21T16:55:00.000-08:00

FM Belfast is my new musical obsession. The "killing in the name of" cover is my favourite but I'm far too technologically illiterate to figure out how to post it... Oh well, monkeys and boyfriends! Two things I like!

No one is coming for this dog, I hope you realize that.

2008-02-20T10:06:00.001-08:00

Best day off ever yesterday:

We went exploring in St. Henry with the initial intent of taking photos but quickly realized that I only had about three exposures left and JM's battery was dying. I'd never been there before, it's such a neat neighbourhood. We found the cutest little bookstore with a little cafe in the back and couches and chess tables. Apparently there is also an awesome gallery space close by (parisien laundry?) that we didn't come across. I'll definitely have to go back and check that out. Most importantly, I realized that fence hoping can lead to mysterious discoveries. We ended up in this deserted factory. It was huge, with several stories and was totally hollowed except for old pipes, a few mattresses and innumerable empty spray paint cans. Most of the graffiti was really well done and looked especially beautiful against all of the decay. It was just completely surreal. It kind of reminded me of photographs in an exhibit that I saw in New York of abandoned Soviet Russian factories. It was really one of the most beautiful places I've ever been.

I also finally saw Persepolis last night. The storytelling was really captivating and I found it really easy to relate to, likely because it's a girl's coming-of-age story. I can totally underatand the feminist vs. feminine dilemma and the challenge that it sometimes is to consolidate these two identities.

Aside from that, I've decided to kick my morning coffee habit. This is the second morning. I'm writing this so I'm obviously still able to function. That's a plus. Is black tea cheating?

Quem deus vult perdere, dementat prius.

2008-02-17T09:26:00.000-08:00

I know that you have some serious contempt for pigeons but I find it comforting that someone is feeding them in the wintertime.

Summer please come quickly. I want to ride my bike in the sun while listening to this song.

I have tried, in my way, to be free.

2008-02-16T09:38:00.000-08:00

I watched Heima, the Sigur Ros film, last night. Iceland seems so epic in this really silent, unassuming way. Everyone at the shows was wearing beautiful wooly sweaters. It was a really cozy evening in the living room with its burnt out lights. I listened to the new Silver Mt. Zion and finished a painting that I, of course, hate because I hate all of my paintings. I could kind of feel that this part of whatever I'm doing with my life is beginning to end. For the first time in awhile I could feel anticipation that is concrete. That "it's going to get better now realization" is here, or at least quietly approaching. Although, lately I feel really at home in this city. Last weekend I ended up at this house show. Just being in that sort of community environment, which is one that I've felt really displaced from since moving to Montreal, made me feel more a part of my own skin than I have in a long time. Everyone there seemed to have really strong creative drives and it really inspired me to align myself with them. Maybe sitting in a store starring antiques is numbing me even more than the winter weather.

It's just gossip, you know. Gossip is the new pornography.

2008-02-15T12:19:00.000-08:00

Over breakfast this morning I read an article in The Walrus about the legacies that we leave saved on our computers or on the internet. Basicly, the author argued that we are doomed to leave so much of ourselves behind to be scanned through after our deaths. Positive? Maybe. And so I'm starting a blog in anticipation of my imminent death? It sort of seems that way. Truth is, I've been meaning to hop on this bandwagon for awhile now. It has something to do with the winter lull in my creative drive. Any incentive to write is a necessary one. And I like reading blogs. They're fun. Maybe I'll even post some pictures of ghostface someday.