like watching Oscar Wilde fall down the stairs


wire
Originally uploaded by dew_wipe.

This interview makes me want to track down Andy Partridge and make him a happier man. I wish I were kidding. If I could send him anything, it would be Baraka. He’s sounding a too raw, too worn. There is in me a constant desire to justify the world to creatives, to create a space that allows them faith. I want it apparent that the world is awe-inspiring and a gift and endlessly new, that with six billion people on this planet, there will be some they’ll like.

Jean Baudrillard died this week, age 77. “He died after a “long illness,” Delorme said, a term that in France most often means cancer.” I’m sorry I don’t own any of his work anymore, it was a source of endless inspiration.

‘holograms’ a favourite excerpt from Simulacra and Simulation

sekrit dinner tonight is at 6:45

Would anyone like a pair of incredibly cute long haired ferrets? I would take them myself, but I’m already well on my way to being a crazy cat-lady. (I’ve even started leash-training mine.)

Over the knee stripy socks and stockings arrived in the mail yesterday. They are just as fun as I’ve always suspected such things would be. Part of my I-missed-out-on-being-a-girl stopped clamouring as soon as I put them on. Now, evidently, those particular brain cells want me to get a skirt that doesn’t go down to my ankles. I am dubious. Confirmation of one suspected good idea does not guarantee another.

THREADLESS is having another ten dollar sale.

To further my angry-at-the-world, various brilliant things are happening simultaneously tonight:

7 PM: Sex Pheromone in Tears: An unusual aspect of courtship in mice. University of Tokyo biochemist Kazushige Touhara gives the 21st annual Linville-Wright lecture on advances in olfactory sciences. SFU Harbour Center. 515 W. Hastings. Free admission. Info 604-291-5100

7 PM: Hope And Fear In Black Rock City. Kryshan Randel screens his short film about one of the most spectacular, creative and inspiring and places on earth. There will be a small donation ($3-5) at the door to help pay for the licensing of music used in the film (enabling them to enter film festivals etc). The Jupiter Lounge, 1216 Davie. Reservations not required.

Later this week:

Cory Doctorow is making an appearance with his talk, The Totalitarian Urge: total information awareness and the cosmic billiards. The lecture is presented by the Faculty of Applied Sciences’ Leonardo Institute, a non-credit graduate program that examines the risks, uncertainties, ethics, and art of applied science.

It will be presented twice:

Thursday March 8 at 6:00pm in the Fletcher Challenge theatre at SFU Vancouver (515 West Hastings St.) Free. Seating has all been reserved.

Friday March 9 at 3:30pm at SFU Burnaby in Academic Quadrangle, C9001. Free. Arrive early to ensure a seat.

from the clever Ben Peek

The Chinese government began blocking access to the popular blogging site LiveJournal on Friday, cutting off its citizens from the roughly 1.8 million blogs the service hosts.

SixApart, the company behind LiveJournal, says there are 8,692 self-reported Chinese bloggers on the site, a number that’s likely low since it’s based on information volunteered in user profiles.

LiveJournal announced the block Monday. Ginger Tulley, director of worldwide strategy and analysis for Six Apart, says the company isn’t certain when the censorship began. But the site GreatFirewallofChina.org, which tests connectivity to popular websites from within China, first spotted the block Friday.

Link.

miss you too

I like that he tries.

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

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

(Hi Blake!)

this was going to be something else

Switzerland Invades Liechtenstein.

If you stare at a dead channel long enough, you begin to see pictures. It’s like picking out mythology in static. Imagine a line, a straight line, and you’ll see it. Imagine a letter, an initial, a simple symbol, and it will appear. Pattern recognition, linked to our ability to recognize faces in clouds, but the image will keep moving, you’ll follow the line back and forth around the screen. Letters will slowly rotate. This is a trick I learned in hotel rooms. If you’re dedicated, it will also work with scrambled pornography.

Jon was the kind of tall that has to slouch to smile. I’ve written about him before. Thick plaid shirts and dark black jeans, he would whistle like a bird, a beer can in his hand and a mischievous smile for the confused cat, Merin, that came with the house. He would look up and catch me dishevelled, new to morning, watching shyly from the bedroom door, all of nineteen, and I could see how much he wanted to quietly reach out to pull back my robe and push me back against the wall. Soft-spoken, he used to scare me, but I never felt it as anything but a sacrament. Every conversation we carried was a dare. He would lick my heart with illicit games, see how far I would be willing to shed my skin.

I only wish I’d said yes a little earlier. I should have been brave. I’m even sorry I wasn’t the one to find him. I miss the kiss of his hands, his insane intelligence, the strength he offered me that I was too nervous to take. No one else could catch him looking anything but nervous, but he was a beautiful man. With him I could look past the static to pick out stars, supernovae, all the gentle secrets of the big bang. It’s been a few years, but I will never know all I lost. The categories are too vast, the themes too closely kept.

Mortality. Love. Just do something.

http://iraqinvasioniscompletenow.ytmnd.com/

zombies get a step up

Calling classy zombies of all persuasions for a …

?! Gala Premiere Screaming of “Fido” !
A heartworming film about a boy and his pet zombie…

Thursday, March 15th; show up at 6:30pm SHARP!
Paramount Theatre (Burrard and Smithe) – sophistication neon style!
Zombies get in free!

Hot zombie starlets, suave zombie fellas, and undead big-shots of all kinds are invited to this gala affair.

If you’re more inclined to be on the other side of the lens, then bring along a camera and a nosey-parker attitude – zombie paparazzi are invited as well, just to make things fair.

Lurch, bike, car pool or cab your way to the red carpet for the premiere Vancouver screaming of Fido, a homegrown Pleasantville-meets-The Power of Nightmares-with-zombies film (more info here: http://fidothemovie.com/ )

If you’re coming from work, think day-to-night Barbie, but with more rotting. If you’ve been sitting in front of a computer all day then chances are you’re already half-way there!

If you’re unemployed then you should have no problems disguising yourself as an actor…adding zombie to the equation isn’t really that much more of a stretch.

Try to keep your oozing to a minimum as the poor ushers at the Paramount don’t get paid nearly enough to clean zombie goo from the seat upholstery.

sorry I’m only thinking out loud

There’s a black silhouette engraved in the corner of my screen I find as comforting as a cigarette always seems to be (looking from the outside in). He drinks coffee and talks with his hands almost savage enough I might pick out words. I’m working on the pictures I took at the Cultch for Shane. Some of them burn with light, some of them are too blurry to use, but there’s not one bad picture in the lot. I’m a little proud and yet it’s anticlimactic. They’re everything I expected them to be. Everyone kept mistaking me for a reporter.

BomChickaWahwah.

It’s snowing again. Two days now of brittle sunlight and these flakes floating down like the ashes of someone’s favourite million page book. It makes me want to find a vast pale room with a giant skylight and a hardwood floor and lie in the middle of it with grand orchestral pop music on, just staring up into the sky.