how embarrassing



Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

“TVfolk.net now presents 409 videos of traditional music from northern Europe.” via sir w. vitka.

http://www.tvfolk.net/

First video: Oort: Öised orjad.

Have you ever felt such a connection with someone that you knew it must be broken? That you would have to walk away for fear that, no matter how inappropriately, you would kiss them on the street? It’s darkly entertaining, catching yourself about to forsake everything anyone knows about you, understanding that your decision would be irrevocable, and simply not caring.

Billionaire Warren Buffett made the news this weekend with his announcement that, instead of waiting until his death, he’s giving away the vast majority of his enormous wealth now.

There might be something wrong with me. I found Outkast on my computer, and.. well.. it’s groovy. A lot. To the point where I have Hey Ya on repeat. Is it sleep dep? I don’t know. I just know that I really want a pair of loose shiny pants and somewhere to wear them while dancing to this. (This and some Gnarls Barkley, please.)

Don’t get me wrong, Speakerboxxx is still perhaps the worst dirty south hip-hop album I have ever flipped through, and you won’t catch me defending these lyrics unless under extreme duress, (“Don’t want to meet your momma, just want to make you cum’ma”), but this song is rocking me. There is bop happening. Head nodding. Shaky things in my hips that remind me of the twitchy tip of a purring cat’s tail.

Dear porphyre,

You have a nice______. You make me _______. You should _______. Someday I will ______. You + me =________. If I saw you now I’d __________. I would build a _______ just for you. If I could sing you any song it would be _________.

Love,
_______________

(P.S. ______________.)

this album is too sexy

In memory of language, I will spit you, craven, from my mouth. Every day that was a letter with you, I will burn. In memory of words, of meaning, of the double-handed dealings of my tongue between your lips, I will tear you from me, reject your chrome sensationalism, my infatuation, my glorified attachment to your acquisitive frame. I will deny and repeal all rights your hands had, all liberties of motion, all the rapacious, itching greed I had mistakenly, lasciviously, authorized and stamped with the sanctioned approval of my gentlest kiss.

I will not allow you the animistic gift of speech. It is mine.

In respect for adoration, I will not name you. Your face will be blank, as slate on concrete, as lacking in feature as you were in grace. In respect for devotion, I will not need you, not crave or desire your golden smile, your irrevocable beauty, your unfortunate habit of junk crashing my mind. I flatly refuse to focus on your absence or notice the anger on my hands, my thwarted fingers, or my dizzying feeling of rejection. Your singular admiration will sink into time like twinkling stars into a cold winter sea, your voice will be like an aftertaste, and the flame of your being will be as to ashes dusted out of a failed marriage bed.

Medical-tophat, the creator of The Doctor Pepper Show, has a flickr account.

The latest in WTFJapan: “I think I have that song for DDR” with dubious thanks to Ed, who wants to know why Japanese women “sound so uncomfortable?”

Stevie Wonder setting fire to Sesame Street with an injection of pure funk into the Sesame St. Song and Superstitious.

another day applying


cheers!
Originally uploaded by postdesigner.

Matthew Hurst of Nielsen BuzzMetrics created a map of some thousand or so of the web’s most popular blogs.
One for Livejournal is posted to his blog.

Almost fifteen years ago, celtic arm band tattoos took Vancouver by storm. It was the big trend, the most awesome fad. It went well with the Irish pubs that were quietly springing up all over downtown and the Xtreme sports and the short spiky hair that looked fried into position.

The driver of the bus I was just on, he had one on his right arm. His hair was just beginning to go white.

I like things like that, cultural ways to mark time.

Websites as graphs.

I’m playing a silly meme game that’s wandering around livejournal right now, a dungeons and dragons maze, where it takes your list of interests and the names off your friends list to decorate and populate a simple dungeon. Mine are turning up some really pretty ideas, embarrassingly like the sort of thing I write, like “Across one wall is a faded fresco of thoughts.” or “You notice some graffiti about explaining intuition.” or “It tastes like climbing trees.” It’s sort of a little one-handed thing I can do instead of reading a book while I’m eating my sad five dollar lasagna dinner from Quest for the Holy Donair. The only drawback is my sudden deep and abiding desire to dig up a copy of ADOM and tap away little ASCII monsters until dawn.

can’t take me to the nearest cultural event, I’ll know everyone there

attempting to beat Francesco

After one intensely trying game of bowling with our afternoon “boyfriends”, it was decided that we probably couldn’t manage another. Instead we went to the J.J. Beans across the street and settled in to try and talk. (The staff thought we were brilliant). Conversation with Memo was pleasant, his default seems sweetly liberal, stone-faced or cheerfully surprised, but attempting to discuss the world with Francesco was too socially dysphoric to succeed for very long. His views are almost traumatizing to encounter. Thankfully, Oliver was there with a friend, and joined us before we got desperate. (When Francesco said, “I’m certain I speak for all the guys here when I say that naked men are disgusting.” it was like time stumbled over his tongue and slapped us all in the face.)

boyfriend two: Francesco

We sat together for almost an hour before Francesco left. Dominique admits that she worries now about encountering him. She thinks to cross the street before going past Abruzzio’s. I told her I have no such worry, being distinctive gives a girl practice dealing with strangers. Later I saw him across the street when I was shopping for nectarines and I almost waved, just to be contrary, but instead decided it wouldn’t be politic after he’d called me creepy so many times.

A bad case of Humans.

Memo we brought with us to Korean Movie Night and I plan on dropping by Penelope’s the next time I go and asking if he’d like to come again. He added himself to my messenger after I sent him a zipped folder of the documenting pictures so practicing the sloshing dregs of my spanish, (scraping off the rust with the lingual sandpaper of babelfish), is on the agenda.

We got my favourite picture of the event, (posted here, to the lower left), before we left Oliver behind. He had things to do, people to see, a bag to pack for a month in Italy. Friday was his last day here. His time was less flexible. Coming with us to KMM would have been too much procrastination to easily brush off, especially with La Fete de la Musique events later in the week. (He’s the raison d’être behind Toot-a-Lute, Vancouver’s awesomely eccentric folk-group.)

we traded in boyfriend #2 for one of superior quality

Nanoparticles and Lasers Create Cancer-Killing Microbubbles

Tuesday I had a really good job interview. Good people, good company. A respectable reprographics firm tucked in across the street from BJ’s house, over between Main and Cambie. Quick to get to, easy atmosphere. It gave me hope. Some of the other places I’ve been having interviews have been vaguely terrifying. The last one I had, on Friday, was in an office that so reeked of papertrail graveyard that my initial impulse was to turn around and walk back onto Kingsway. A small tele-company, the interview impressed upon me why people popularly use offices as metaphor for prisons. I kept in mind the reprographics firm the entire time I was there, using the memory of their professionalism as a life-raft. “Not everyone is like this.”

Wednesday I applied for my daily minimum of ten jobs, then was shut down at the park for attempting to barter my inelegant collection of uncomplicated fantasy novels for muffins and pocket change until Toot-A-Lute came to play. It was alright, the man who bashfully threatened me with a fine was very apologetic, and Paula arrived before I’d managed to drag my heavy bags to the bus-stop. She helped me carry them across to Turks coffeeshop, which is where the rest of the band was collecting, and bought me a tasty breakfast slice of lemon chocolate cheesecake, for which very kind things should happen to her. (Get on that, won’t you?) I was meant to meet them at the park after dropping my groaning bags of books home, but I missed them, getting too involved talking with James. By the time I got back to Grandview Park, the stage had been taken over by a salsa class with a boombox.

The Hanover lab is trying to detect the space-time gravity ripples created from merging black holes or exploding stars.

The likelihood of finding them again was similar to snow here in July, but running into Oliver on Monday had reminded me of the Morris performance promised on the Musique Day press package. Kits Point, 8:30, I’d asked Liam about it. Without really thinking, I steered my way to Hastings and caught the first bus downtown. Five hundred steps to Burrard, caught the 22 and wondered what I was doing. Warm sky, crossing the bridge, I remembered talking to someone who used to think Vancouver was a famous city, “Only for our science fiction authors.”

Walking through Kitsilano was like remembering a song I always used to sing in my room, something in my head fighting to accurately recall the lyrics, the names of the streets, instead of what life I used to wear. I found the one street, that against all emotional logic, runs all the way down to the end of the point. It ends at the tall totem pole by the Maritime Museum. They weren’t so far east, however, they were closer to Kits beach, still dancing. The Morris was over, but everyone had been comfortably sucked into dancing. It was fun. Vicky was there, bouncing away with her friend who plays banjo, and Troll and I fell and scraped so badly that people are still asking what I did to myself. “Oh, these wounds? I went folk-dancing.

I’m more scraped up from folk-dancing on monday than learning to roller blade today. I lose.

Greek Day is on Sunday from noon to 9 p.m. Broadway will be closed from Blenheim to MacDonald to make room for vendors, music, performances and dancing in the streets. Bring yourself and your friends and be prepared to shake some poly-rhythmic booty. Liam, Vicki and I will be going.

So the other day, Monday actually, Dominique and I did something extremely silly. We made this sign:

The start of our grand boyfriend adventure

Dominique wrote the sign and, after attaching it to sticks, I carried it. (I lack the skills required to create something so girlish). We only got as far as Penelope’s before someone stopped us. A friendly older man in a white shirt thought it was funny and insisted we go in and show the owner.

Penelope's

Already feeling pleasantly ridiculous, we went in and let everyone read it. The owner laughed, said he wished he was younger, then told us to wait, he had just the person. The first man was then sent out to fetch someone as we assembled for a picture to celebrate our first successfully acquired “boyfriend”. The man returned with Memo, a tall young fellow, who had no idea what was going on.

Memo, it turns out, has only been in Canada a month and is still learning english. We asked him if he could bowl and, with a puzzled expression, he said yes. The other men, with shooing motions with their hands, told him he was to go with us. He acquiesced, which was nice of him, and walked up the Drive with us while we laughed and explained that Dominique had been worried that no one would say yes.

Clap hands.

Our second “boyfriend” was collected at Abruzzo’s, an Italian cafe in the block after Grandview Park. Francesco, a real character, who admitted a block later that he lied in answer to our skill testing question, “Do you know how to bowl?,” so he could come with us. I’ve never met anyone so stuffed with machismo. He was amazing. Dominique describes him as perhaps “the most macho thing to walk the earth,” and she may be right. He has a small tattoo of some sort of horned creature on his right arm and when I asked him what it was, he fumbled around and replied with, “Something strong, you know? Scary, and big, dangerous or a bull or something, really manly. Masculine. Strong. Fierce. Maybe like a demon thing. I don’t know what it is, but it’s, you know, manly.”

her first shot

When it came to bowling, the woman who worked there was better than all of us put together. She threw a strike from the seating area. Through pure luck, we each got a strike too, but I was bowling left-handed to save my wrecked shoulder from agony, Dominique can’t stay upright to save her life, Memo had never bowled five-pin before, and Francesco took everything far too seriously. He won, actually, in spite of our group effort to beat him. No matter how poor our aim, he had some terribly encouraging comment, like “It’s going to be a strike this time, I can tell.” or “Oh good try. Good try. You’ll get it next time.” Memo was an angel throughout, grinning when we had fun swinging Francesco’s words back at him, twisting them from irritating to funny. All three of us found it nerve-wracking, but silly too, how little Boyfriend #2 realized we weren’t appreciating his help. There was an especially choice moment, just after Francesco realized he was in the lead, when he asked if the winner got a kiss. I think I saw Dominique’s hands tighten on her ball for a moment and I know I saw Memo just freeze. Instead of looking at him to answer, I kept my face as straight as possible and answered in a level voice, “I would hope not,” I said. “How painfully antique that would be. No fair at all. The winner already gets to win. I say the loser gets a chocolate bar.”

But as it’s now dawn on the longest day of the year, I’m to bed. This is the television to be continued…

up too late at night, putting up the last drivefest photos


you have to be kidding
Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

I’ve created a Flickr Pool, Drivefest, to collect all the photos of the Commercial Drive Car Free Day. Add yours and tell yours and pass it on!

I wanted a water sprinkler to run through today. I wanted to run water through the ink of my hair and to desperately feel like laughing. It’s hard to explain. I wanted to turn to someone and share a conspiratorial glance, rife with a desire to smile a thousand times. I miss the anonymous letters. They were the closest thing I had to anyone calling to see if I was okay, now that no-one cares if I dream about them anymore. (I haven’t received any since May). Precious and rarest of things, they remain mine and only mine.

This lovely Levi ad has been posted before, but now there’s a sweet parody by a UK tropical drink company called Lilt.

I suspect the game became tired. Instead of posting my thoughts here, my lovely impressions, I kept them close to me, wrapped in my writing book and tied with ribbon like I was an old-fashioned child. How so, then, a reward? Reine read them today in the park before we got up to play frisbee with Will. I read one aloud this evening to dear friends who were driving me home from morris dancing. They’re beginning to slide into the consciousness of the people around me. I read them like rosary beads, asking who’s trying to make me smile, like perhaps I’ll be allowed to slip stories into conversation again some day. Ravenous angels dancing on pins, that’s me. A tiny figure, sitting at the feet of who I used to be, looking up and disbelieving. If I am a city, these letters have been tagging my walls.

UBC engineering students have built a vehicle so efficient that it achieves 3,145 miles per US gallon (0.074 litres/100 km)

free music & trading fantasy novels for grocery monies

Mood-altering cat parasites make women friendly and men into jerks.

Tomorrow is the longest day, the summer solstice, officially celebrated through France, and in cities such as Barcelona, Berlin, Sydney, and London, as La Fete de la Musique. This year Vancouver’s making a start in public places and needs participation. Here’s part of an entry on the official website fetedelamusique.culture.fr:

Completely different from a music festival, Le Fete is above all a free popular fiesta, open to any participant – amateur or professional. Launched in 1982 by the French Ministry of Culture, the Fete de la Musique is now held in more than 100 countries every June 21st. … This Music Day allows for the expression of all styles of music. it takes place in the open air, in streets, in gardens, in squares, in courtyards.

For practical and legal reasons there are no stages, no crews, no amplification. Just people making live acoustic music for free in the open air, whether performing or practicing, rehearsing, jamming, playing solo or in a group, it doesn’t matter.

While participants are invited to create their own event where and when they want, there are several “official” areas which are particularly suitable for people to gather and make music. Some activities are tentatively programmed for these places in the late afternoon and evening

From east to west the more official venues are:

  • Commercial Drive, especially Grandview Park and the Britannia School playing field below it (all day)
  • Trout Lake in East Vancouver (evening)
  • The Ceperley picnic area just behind Second Beach in Stanley Park near Denman St. (mid afternoon to evening) where there will have an African ‘village’.
  • The Prospect Point picnic area (evening), where there will be a Celtic gathering of the clans
  • The wooded slope at the north end of Kits Beach (evening), where there will be English folk music and Morris Dancing

    There will also be free performances for La Fete de la Musique at the Alliance Française de Vancouver, 6161 Cambie from 4-8 pm.

    I’ll likely be hanging out at Grandview park, easy to find. I’ll be the girl on the blanket covered in terrible novels, trying to trade them for high denomination pocket change.

    Nicholas has just informed me that earlier today there was a Vancouver Island bomb scare on the Pat Bay Highway. In response, they closed the highway down and, (this is the good bit), “rushed” the Vancouver Bomb Squad in. On BC Ferries. For those who don’t know, the ferry ride takes two hours. They’re on the 3 PM sailing, so if the bus hasn’t blown up they’ll deal with it around 5:30. GO CANADA!

  • my computer speakers are dying


    Originally uploaded by
    skonen_blades.

    Job interview today. Oh sanity. Dressing extra-conservative to try and off-set my brightly coloured hair. They want a receptionist. It sounds simple, plugging people back and forth between phones, pushing people into voice mail systems, riding the tiny thunder of a dispatch system. It pays reasonably, but I’m still considering turning them down if they accept me. I like being in offices, hiding behind exorbitant desks is occasionally comforting, but I feel I need a quantum leap out of the threshing field of crappy low-level barely-paying employment I got caught in after my divorce. Small faced places, populated by disquieting smiling minimum wage children. Everyone twenty-something and toiling away in a place with no chances to change or climb higher. Retail, restaurants, coffeeshops without end, amen.

    Pilot finds snakes on a plane!

    I’m trying to decide if I’ve regained enough confidence to refuse the shelter of an easy job on the assurance that there’s something better, if I’m going to be venturesome and throw my faith instead with my applications to more interesting companies, more ethical employers, more complicated tasks. I’m fairly certain I have enough past experience pulling survival requirements from the air that I shouldn’t be too concerned to say “no.” I might be scraping, but I’m persevering. The language of desperation isn’t whispering softly in my ear, it’s stuck sitting with paranoid magazines in the waiting room, reading anecdotal articles on chaos fractal butterflies until next month and wishing it had thought to bring a book.

    better security

    There’s a new GROW game! This one involves six little shapes interacting in a forest. It’s deceptively simple looking compared to the twisty frustration that’s the GROW Cube, but one of the trickier realizations was that some items can “level max” without fufilling thier final functions.

  • Rhizome.org: Geeks in the Gallery: An Interview with Artists Tom Moody and Michael Bell-Smith (Part Three of Three)

    The Spaces Between Working Group, that I blogged about yesterday, is showing films again tonight after Commercial Drive Car Free Day has packed up. The community cinema’s made under an overhang that’s part of an autobody shop at Third and Commercial. I really like it. The venue was perfect for watching Metropolis. Tonight they’re keeping to the theme of No Car Day and showing End of Suburbia at 5:50, a documentary that asks if the world can actually supply the demands of the suburbanite lifestyle and what can be done before it destroys what’s left, Ikiru at 7:15, Akira Kurosawa’s masterwork about a bureaucratic city planner who discovers he has terminal cancer and, without telling anyone, sets out to change his life, and Run Lola Run at 9:40, which I’m sure you’re all familiar with.

  • The freely downloadable spoken words of Japanese Cyberpunk Author, Kenji Siratori meets the harsh audio of Nimheil: Kenji Siratori – Gene TV / Neo Drugismo vs. Nimheil