Month: July 2007

as I collect, as I fall

August 6th is coming up quick. We are ditching my grandmother-blue velveteen sectional couch, would anyone like it?

I have begun something this week, wrapping my fingers in scarlet coloured string. A new slice of history, doomed to repeat, something that looks like broken water – a rusty puzzle that I can lay on a table, translucent pieces breathing slowly under my fingers, like a fever building and taking away the safest powers of language. My thoughts on the topic are surprisingly vague. I am being warmed by the next best thing. Unclarified affection.

The Boy left some things here I have yet to send back to Beverly Hills. A phone charger written like a nostalgic poem in my window, a pair of Armani shirts that I want to wear until they smell like my body instead of his. These stories are meant to hurt. This is what I tell myself as I stand over them, seconds from wanting to uselessly cry again. I can barely bring myself to touch these things, and I have made certain that it is someone else who fills the drawer I emptied for him when he was living here. (Walking past where we’ve been, the sidewalk is a staring contest.) Objects as a doorway, his voice over the phone describing the hot mathematical arc of Los Angeles traffic, apologizing for missing my birthday. I am caught imagining the shape of his body as he stands at the beach, remembering being in his apartment, naked on the porch except for a blanket, and us, the pictures we took at the airport, reaching out goodbye, the most honest portraits I have ever seen.

Social Suicide, our favourite UK tailors, have an interview with PingMag.

She stood in front of me with a rainbow of metal studded hair-bands on her metal studded belt, looking like a young crow clone of a first nations girl I used to know. Long dark hair, silver printed t-shirt, short denim skirt. Too young for me to watch. I almost said Hello. She swayed with the bus and got off at the Skytrain, oblivious, leaving me to my borrowed Pynchon, a fictional account of WW2, thick as if the paper had been dropped repeatedly in water and dried without care.

where do they all go?


R.I.P. Ingmar Bergman:

“Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls.”

….

“I have no regrets. I wouldn’t have lived my life the way I did if I was going to worry about what people were going to say.”

And the creative world flinches as it suddenly becomes a little less interesting.

EDIT:

And R.I.P. Michelangelo Antonioni too.

“somethingsomething the bees knees somethingsomething try to please”


the photographer’s frazetta
Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

The One Laptop Per Child Foundation’s beginning production.

Fourty-five minutes until freedom. There’s a loud show downstairs, lacing the air with frantic piano, lathering the foyer with a nervous energy. Some student thing. It’s the sort of music I would choose to unsettle an audience with, as if I wanted to dislodge their perception of time, kick it disjointed and paste filters all over the lights. In my head, the dancers are testaments to fanciful make-up and Cirque-style motions. They kick, scream, and astonish.

It’s actually a ballet performance. Something bleach-blonde and mild, culturally appropriate for the family and friends in attendance, many of whom were too old for the stairs. Many of which, I’m sure, are currently wincing at the thrashing rock music that’s replaced the piano, that’s begging for big hair and glittery tight pants lined-up outside of cheap bars where the floors are perpetually sticky with spilled and stolen beer. Of course, any minute now, this will all segue into something hideously classical.

And, yes, there it went. French baroque, rather, and overcooked, dreaming of soulful arpeggios that might travel barefoot on horseback in the rain along the Seine into the sunset. And it didn’t do the dishes, either.

Oops, no. Now it’s faux-traditional Irish rock, a la Riverdance. Mixed with beat-mix 60’s remixed retro-pop.

Thirty-five minutes until freedom.

the city strike cancelled my fireworks. be afeared.

Laurenn and Nicholas are looking or a ride to Shambala.

A snake, as well as a bag of frozen bunnies, is to be dropped off at my house today. It apparently comes with a table as well, so I expect my livingroom to be oddly crowded for the next dew days until Amy moves out. (Graham who was Sasha is now Amy, which is a lovely name which I think suits her immensely.) As I’ve never taken care of a snake before, I am still uncertain if I am looking forward to it. My attitude towards them is one of carefully friendly apathy. Charmed, I’m sure. Mostly I’m curious if it will carry enough consciousness in its cold-blooded body to have an opinion of me.

I’m beginning to pick up the steps of the old dance again, treading softly over the frozen bones of rabbits, but it’s not so much that I am beginning a new chapter as shelving the hopes of the last one and stepping carefully backward as far as I can safely reach.

I just lost two years worth of writing to that damned widget

It’s Celebration of Lights time again!

Formerly the Symphony of Lights, this event marks when all of Vancouver crushes into English Bay to watch one of the biggest firework festival contests in the world.

Who wants to meet up ahead of time to go down together?

My vote says that we have dinner on the Drive around 6-ish, likely at Fet’s, and then take transit down as a group. The people who were pushing for dinner at Fet’s have cancelled. I’m throwing my lot in with Micheal. I have a tried and tested true method for making my way through the crowds to the very best beach-side seating downtown, and the press afterward isn’t so bad for those simply willing to wait it out.

Wednesday, July 25 — Spain
Saturday, July 28 — Canada
Wednesday, August 1 — China
Saturday, August 4 — Grande Finale

Each show is approximately 25 minutes and set to music. If you’re watching from downtown, which is what I do, music is provided through a public address system. For those in Vanier Park or Kitsilano, there are generally enough people with radios to make up for the lack of city-provided speakers.

no one’s staying settled

The search for a new flatmate is over. Marika De Mooey will be moving in August 6th. She brings with her multiple snakes, a cat, and a coffin for a coffee table. I think we’ll get along just fine.

Jenn and Fitz are looking for a new place to live. Here’s their Craigslist ad.

Some people have voices warm as low flute on a summer night. Even over the phone, their kindness flows like warm honey, curling like a loved one’s hand, their words the solid grip of consideration. There is something of their timbre that soothes, that creates a space where only you and they exist, a thick shroud of direct appreciation. It’s a little like falling into a book the colour and texture of sunflowers.

Chelsea is moving to Chicago for three months, so she’s giving her lovely cats away.

izzy1 izzy2
neo1 neo2

She says, “Izzy is a lean orange tabby, about 3-4 years old, and is clutzy and wonderful. He can talk sometimes but is generally quiet and gets along great with other cats when he gets to know them. He is very relaxed and SUPER affectionate. Being young, he does still love to play but is also content to just relax with you. Izzy is SUPER tolerant of everything and just loves to be around you.

Neo is a cat I rescued from a friend who adopted him but decided to give him up after only two months of having him! He is black with a small white bib and is VERY well behaved. It took him a little longer to get used to the other cats (about 5 days rather than 3) and he loves people. He is about 5 years old and reminds me of a panther. He strikes me as a cat who has been outside before, which I can’t say about the other two.

They all get along GREAT with people and kids alike and enjoy the company of other cats. Neo loves his new friends but would be just fine on his own. All my boys are classified as pretty big cats but they are SUPER calm and are very content to just relax with you.”

EDIT: homes for all the kitties have been found. Thanks!