sam’s making me listen to a swing orchestral version of the bond theme, this doesn’t bode well

Does anyone know if the Livejournal Feed for We Make Money Not Art?

I feel lit by the fall-out from my computer screen even when I’m on the bus. It’s how I haven’t been writing. The result is a litany in my head of things to write, moments to mention; the man in front of me with the fleshy ears and the Orson Wells voice who, when I looked back from the doors to see what he looked like, had lips flecked with foam, or the person at the party whose business partner had bitten out his girlfriend’s eye or how the mail delivery woman has, unsolicited, lent me her favourite novel. I’ve simply been too busy, though in a vague sort of way. I haven’t set aside any time for self-care. My room is a clutter of other people’s DVD’s, other people’s clothes, other people’s books. My laundry is threatening to implode, to cede from the country, to sprout new tendrils of species, to metamorph from silk and lace into sweat-pants and ugly knit sweaters made of reconstituted newspaper clippings of uninteresting murders. I even have dirty dishes. Only a few cups and possibly one crusty fork, but an obscenely slacker sort of thing for someone who never manages to cook a meal when single.

Watch this.

running up that hill


Fandango
Originally uploaded by Quasimodem.

MASQUERADE

June 9, from 8pm to 1pm with live entertainment beginning at 9:30.

Sunbury Hall, Sunbury Park, 10409 Dunlop Street, North Delta
(Arrangements are in process for a shuttle to and from Scott Rd. Skytrain)

Tickets: $20, $30 for an open bar. They are to be paid for in advance. Please RSVP at geminifest@yahoo.ca

No Guest Shall Be Admitted Without a RSVP Response Card. Pseudonym Formalwear and Mask are Required.

—-

Speaking of parties, I need a venue for my birthday party. My apartment has grown too small for the number of people who’ve been asking what I’m doing this Saturday. Does anyone have a flat bigger than mine they would be willing to put up for a night? Or a house? House preferable, really. Back yards and porches are a double plus for any party, in my opinion. We’re an exceptionally non-destructive group, the worst we’ve ever done was set off confetti bombs and I’ll vouch that you’ll get ice-cream.

Save Nazanin.

Tories to legislate fixed American-style election terms“: this is worrisome. Currently, it’s up to the prime minister to decide when to call an election any time up to five years. The idea is that the government should fall when it can’t pass legislation. Otherwise the electorate has no recourse, they have to wait for however many years to oust the government and get one that does have the support of the people. Right now in the U.S. George Bush’s government is hovering around 25-28% approval rate. If this was Canada they couldn’t get a bill passed in the House of Commons, but in the U.S. they get two more years of Bush. Another reason why fixed terms are bad is that only half the time the government is running for reelection (i.e. trying to please voters). Shouldn’t they try to please the voters all the time instead of whenever the election looms around?

Researchers found that mice can pass on traits to their offspring even if the gene behind those traits is absent.

people I know will pass by here on bicycles


reachin’ for the moon…
Originally uploaded by elfis gallery.

The Leaky Heaven Circus is putting on Oscar Wilde’s Salome. It ends this Sunday, so we’re going Saturday to the 8pm performance. Tickets are $24 for adults, and $18 for students and seniors. The show is not recommended for children. Tickets can be purchased through Festival Box Office at 604.257.0366 or online at www.festivalboxoffice.com.

The phone rang three hours after I went to bed. Michael, warning me he’s sent a present. “It should arrive on Monday.” I tried to repeat the address back to him, but put all the zeros in the wrong place. He’s changing cities again. Bamff? Something. Alberta. Synapses failing. The phone rang an hour after that. I’m clueless. The ceiling seems too far away. My eyes can’t reach that far. Ring. Solution, glasses, sleep. Ryan cancelling dinner. My hand fumbling, the clock coming into focus. I’ve been here before. Alive in my apartment that was not designed by a computer, I’m going to be late for work.

Today is Critical Mass.

Transit is the same every day. Don’t look into the windows of the hotel I have to stand in front of. Tiny stories, buried in a book. Shouts of Jesus Christ. People run in the street. Saviour. Don’t scan the windows of the building I have to stand across from. Davie street, men in t-shirts that don’t fit them. Tanning salons with impossible promises. Opening the door, hoping that no one noticed I was meant to be here half an hour ago. I sweep, aware my movements are hundreds of years old. Lean, push, dust. Into the street. Here the ceiling is gold leaf squares left over from a record shop. The shoes are black or red or white, colours of a foreign flag for a country I will never see. I can’t see the moon. Instead, it’s raining.

Today is the premiere of Souvenir of Canada.

people keep asking how I am

Fondue was a success thanks to Ryan, Eva, Silva, her two friends, Ian, Ethan, Lung, Michael, Imogyne, Mike, Nick, Duncan, David, Beth, Mike, Alice, and Adam. At one point, the teahouse ran out of seats and I stood, leaning over people to get at the tasty treats.

  • The origin of HIV has been found in wild chimpanzees living in southern Cameroon.
    we look like we're related

    It doesn’t seem real that my birthday is so close again. Just Monday, Monday and the number clicks over another digit. Three to four. My mother got it wrong, thought I was older. It was her graduation from the University of British Columbia yesterday. I got the day off work to watch her walk across the stage to receive paper proof of her achievement. The pride that thrilled through me was burnished bright by the satisfied smile on her face. I took pictures after of her in her cap and gown, holding the blue folder that contains her degree. Then we took pictures of me in the gown on the basis that it’s very likely the only chance I’ll ever have to wear one. Driving home with her through the sharp rain on the motorcycle, I had to lean forward and hug her, the love and respect simply swelled to more than I could contain. She’s survived a ridiculous amount of harm to get where she is, and though it’s not ideal, she’s still scraping to get by, it’s a testament to her tenacity that she persevered and put herself through university as a single mother with three kids. It’s more than most have done.

    Tonight I have dinner with friends, tomorrow I have dinner with Silva, Saturday Ray is rescuing me possibly from my masque-panic hell and sweeping me about town to try and find something to wear, (suggestions bloody appreciated), and there’s (as yet unverified) rumour of a second SinCity to be held at Richards on Richards. (If there is no Sin, who wants to have a party?) Sunday I’m still planning on being down in Seattle with Eliza, though it’s looking less and less likely as the day approaches and no rides have been forthcoming. Monday my mother is bringing me to a soiree at the Mansion, and Tuesday is the last May Mandarin Movie Tuesday.

  • heaven feels like teeth

    I think part of me is disintegrating. Today came another anonymous letter. Reading it, a surge of sharp sorrow welled in my chest and threatened my eyes. With the last line, I felt on the verge of a revelation, as if this time, instead of the word Love, the letter would be signed.

    Treasured Jhayne,

    Once upon a yesterday, when waves
    whispered secrets that seashells never
    tell, the man in the moon appeared behind
    you in the mirror. “I can tell you a
    story, of the girl who gave away a stone
    heart and died without it,” he said.
    “Sounds like a sad story,” you replied.
    “All stories are sad,” he said. “They all
    end, don’t they?” “What about happily-
    ever-after?” you asked. The man in the moon
    smiled and touched the reflection of your
    hair. “There’s happily, and there’s after,”
    he said, “but I am too much like the
    moon herself to promise
    anything forever.”
    Your reflection
    whispered, “Promise
    me a story then.”

    X

    Love

    Previous letters: one & two, three, four & five & six, seven, eight.

    reminder: today, wednesday, may 25th, birthday all-you-can-eat fondue, $10, the capstone tea & fondue, (1118 Denman), 7:30 onward.

    Who are you, writer? I am divided. Your name would menace my loneliness, but shatter the mystery. Where are your stories going? Every ur-fable steps closer to me, who I am, the way I speak. My words are quoted through these like scattered rain on a lake. That last line, that last line is vividly mine. The shape of those words slots onto my tongue every time I love someone. You mention my hair in such a way that I think you have touched it, that you have spoken with me, that I have held your hand and grasped it tightly. I was beginning to be afraid there would be no more letters, that the terrifying intimacy had ended, but you sent again a letter, one so awful and personal that it scares me and I’m glad. These are magic and magic is not meant to be safe.

    too tired for anything but 99c pizza

    I really appreciate Tilly. Once a shaved-head lesbian who wrote bad poetry, she’s such a heavily blossoming human being now that it gives me hope for my body, for the wreckage of emotional scenery that surrounds it. I love when she explains her past, if she had a job somewhere as a programmer, she would be the power-point perfect love interest for a Douglas Coupland character. She groans along with us at the more delightfully embarrassing habits she used to have, and it plucks out my hiding grin and shakes it in front of my face like a dusty rag.

    jacques' b-day

    Outside black clouds are chasing sunlight across Davie Street in waves. Shadow, sun, shadow, darkness, chilly, light. I want it to snow. I want flowers to bloom so hard they pop in small explosions. I want my feeling of betrayal to launch into the air and be hit by a large blue truck. The snow would be crunchy as I walked out slowly into the street, and the yelling of the panicked driver, oh my god, I’m so sorry, it just ran under my tires, I didn’t see it, would be quiet compared to the styrofoam compression of ice-crystals under my feet and the scorched flower petals falling from the trees thick enough to blind.

    Today will continue Mandarin Movie Tuesdays with The Promise, Chen Kaige’s newest and phenomenally beautiful film.

    Perhaps irrationally, I feel this psychedelic cartoon of “Love is All,” performed by Ronnie James Dio of Black Sabbath, explains my ex-husband, Bill, somewhat more comprehensively than I’ve been able to myself. It precisely encapsulates a chunk of the media mind-set that he grew up with on Vancouver Island in the 70’s, one that I’ve always had troubles mentally capturing outside of films like Wizards. It’s like those taupe and dark brown houses that cover swathes of suburbia, little tear-downs always with the same hardware store cupboards and red brick fireplaces, nestled in trees that look like they need pruning, that are like fading photographs of twenty minutes before I was born, when he was a teenager fresh from conquering high-school and discovering Vancouver as the fresh place to be.

    I found a picture of him while I was tidying this week. It’s a photograph I insisted on taking from the stage before we mounted a play, possibly The Heretic, in Waterfront Theater. It’s him with a bunch of people who used to be our friends, Johnathan Ryder, his wife Nancy, (still pregnant with the baby), John Murphy, and Tom Jones, sitting in first row. If anyone has a scanner I could use, I would like to make a copy to send to him. I think he would like it.

    Download Music: New DeathBoy Track: Anuism (feat. Mog Xykogen)

    I remember the feeling of being a widow



    Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

    As if I’d conjured him with thought, I encountered the sweet latin-american cocaine dealer on the bus again, the one I’d lent my copy of Pattern Recognition to weeks ago. He was sitting in the back wearing a black oversize Francisco football jacket, huge dark blue jeans, and a face that cheerfully lit up with recognition when I said hello. I like him, he doesn’t know what to do with me, and past our brief conversations, we have no social connections. When he told me he’d called me, I belatedly realized that he must have been the mystery caller that I’d been neglecting to call back, assuming, due to the timeframe, that it was the producer creep who’d got my phone number off a drunken friend in a nightclub. I hope he calls again. I hope he reads the book. I picture him at home, flipping it over in his hands, reading the back cover again, wondering what sort of person I am to give it to him like that.

    Trojan Nuclear Plant Implosion – May 21, 2006

    My birthday is quick coming up. Celebrations are to begin this week. Wednesday evening, there will be a gathering of like-minded individuals for an All-You-Can-Eat chocolate fondue at the Capstone Tea & Fondue (1118 Denman). It’s something like a $10-ish minimum tab per person. I would appreciate an RSVP as the venue is very small and I feel we should warn them if a slavering horde is to descend upon them and ravage their fruit like a glittering pack of starving crows.

    Next on the list, I’m trying to find myself a ride to Seattle for Sunday, May 28th, the day before my birthday. After that, there’s talk of a party at my place for June 3rd. Nothing concrete yet, but words have been happening and words tend to have this nasty habit of becoming plan without anyone noticing. Just keep it in mind is all I’m saying. The week after that is the masque June 9th, (which you’re also likely invited to, just say the word and I’ll see what I can do).

    Man with viable(?) rocket boots – 2005

    My brain keeps playing callous tricks on me, blatantly assuming I have someone to come as my date to various special things, (a birthday dinner with my godmother, the party in Seattle, the masque), then reminding me as I reach for the phone that I’m not welcome to love certain people anymore, that I am to remember that such thoughts are supposed to be anathema. It’s frustrating, to be so pleased and then so hurt in the flash of a second. It’s not like I was shed yesterday or even last week. I should be used to the thought by now that I wasn’t worth more than a beddable test-drive instead of these contemptible, brief, indefinite intervals of softly smiling, touchy-feely experience, thinking that there’s someone special I’m still allowed to see.

    metal walls

    Some of us, (me, Navi, Andrew, Michael, Tillie, & Bob), are meeting for breakfast at Urban City on the drive at 12:30pm today (im 50 mins). You should come!

    Urban City is here.

    12:30pm! DELICIOUS FOODS!

    edit: breakfast was a success. Andrew, Navi, Michael, Bob, Erin, Avi, Tillie, Jeanette, and Amanda may all claim victory.

    We are now loitering at Andrew’s apartment. You’re still welcome to join us. Directions on request.

    felix culpa


    presents WarPlays

    The war over there. The war right here.

    Felix Culpa offers you three nights of plays, readings and dialogue on the topic of war and its consequences. This event is presented in the same spirit that created the monumental staged reading of Howard Barker’s The Possibilities three years ago on the dawn of the Iraq invasion. Then, Felix Culpa brought together over 50 of Vancouver best theatrical talents at the VECC as a benefit for the Canadian Red Cross’ relief efforts in Iraq. Today, that conflict has no end in sight. We pose the question – why are we unable to eradicate war?

    May 26th, 27th, 28th @ 8 pm
    Playwrights’ Theatre Centre Studio
    Tickets by donation, at the door only
    Proceeds to benefit The Canadian Red Cross

    Friday, May 26th and Saturday, May 27th @ 8 pm – Double Bill

    Raw
    Written and performed by Una Memisevic
    Inspired by events in Sarajevo during the Bosnian conflict, Una Memisevic’s RAW is an honest, unsettling and grimly humorous look at life in a city under siege. Trapped in her apartment by a sniper she may or may not know, a woman builds herself an impossible means of escape.

    My Holiday Photos from Afghanistan
    Written and performed by David Bloom
    The challenge – We give playwright David Bloom precisely 68 hours to write his version of Canada’s war in Afghanistan.

    Sunday, May 28th @ 8 pm

    Howard Barker’s The Castle
    A reading, featuring Vancouver most dynamic emerging and experienced talents
    After a seven year absence at the Crusades, warriors return to find that the womenfolk have overturned the old system of feudal patriarchy. There follows an appalling conflict that destroys a society. With Rukiya Bernard, Bill Dow, Alex Ferguson, Kevin Loring, Linda Quibell and Veena Sood.

    Felix Culpa is Vancouver’s première language-based company. The mandate is to produce work that explores contradiction, conundrum and moral ambiguity. Recent past productions include Howard Barker’s Und, Wallace Shawn’s The Designated Mourner and the Governor General’s Award winning The Monument, a co-production with Rumble Productions.

    For information contact Linda Quibell at 604.251.7889 or office@felixculpa.bc.ca

    -note- I was assistant stage manager for the Canadian Red Cross benefit, and it remains one of the more defining moments in my brief career in theater. Felix Culpa put on a damned fine show, to the point where I still have a placard from The Designated Mourner up in my room. Support these guys if you can, folks. There’s not enough people like them.