Author: foxtongue

some ages are easier than others

Watching him through the partially closed balcony screen, he is beautiful, pensive, sitting with a cigarette, uncertain what he needs to say next. His gestures as he smokes are familiar, the slow, absent dance of the resigned to fate. (I am a comfortable witness.) In his head, he is silently writing a letter as he stares into space, turned inward, performing and rehearsing how to say goodbye. to my dear friends and family… He is new to this, but competent, and I expect him to survive.

(In my memory a day not quite the one before, myself in a mirror, comforting, holding a man through almost similar things.)

We fall asleep wrapped in the couch before the letter is sent, our heavy limbs a knot of courage as well as care, though his writing was finished by midnight, (a time significant only in passing, like a fallow attempt of a traditional childhood’s magic spell), marking like a hammer blow one of the last indivisible links in this particular chore.

dressing red as candy blood

Tonight at the Anza Club! Springtime Lullabye!
Jess Hill’s costume party music video debut!

“It’s true! As of yet there has been but a whisper in the wind of the coming of wonderful things. The magic people are busying themselves excitedly with the creation of an evening of dream and inspiration, song, poetry, burlesque, and decor. Minds, bodies, and spirits will then make a dream come true as we raise funds for the production of Jess Hill’s upcoming album: Orchard.”

doors at 8, show at 9. tickets $10 at the door.
Lullabye’s start at 9pm sharp. So don’t be late.

The night will feature la musique of Jess Hill, Tarran the Tailor, Maria in the Shower, CJ Leon, Chelsea Johnson, and Sneetch, burlesque performances by the fine feathered ladies in Booty Burlesque and the one and only Rad Juli, and mad poetics by The Svelte Ms. Spelte and RC Weslowski.

The theme is dreamland so do please let your imagination dress you. After all anything goes, it’s your dream.

PERFORMERS:

Jess Hill: Hauntingly beautiful, the shadow singing with her crows, the blond-haired, blue-eyed, guitar-riffing sweetheart of East Van, Jess Hill will be playing with her band The Dreams of All and Sundry featuring arrangements for strings by Aaron Joyce and electro-acoustic foley artist Lee Hutzulak.

Tarran the Tailor: An enchanter of hearts, eyes, hips, and toes Tarran combines boombox and banjo to cast Cajun-style charms on his enraptured audiences. His organic beats seem a perfect fusion of musical technologies from the past, the future, and the land of East Van.

Maria in the Shower: A fascinating troupe of soul-singing mimes! Their engaging performances mix theatre and cabaret, horn and voice, musicianship and character into an unforgettably ecstatic happening.

CJ Leon: Clever as a crow with cadaver in his throat, CJ is bleaker and funnier than Hell with classical guitar accompaniment.

Chelsea Johnson: Soulful and true, when she rocks the mic, the world rocks too.

There will also be performances by the folk = fun act Sneetch, the hot and fiery Booty Burlesque, the naturally Rad Juli, the scarecrow prophet of East Van The Svelte Ms. Spelte, and surrealist poet and the current Vancouver Poetry Slam Champion RC Weslowski.

also, we’re going to san fransisco in july


Long exposure Roomba path, by http://signaltheorist.com. (More from other people on Flickr.)

Nicole was hit by lightning this week.

Sarah is finally convacating with a Bachelors of Arts degree.

Tracey has just become finally engaged to her Edward, and they’re to be married in August.

Tony brought me to see Circus Contraption last weekend and it was so beautiful as beautiful does that it shattered me into a better person. I cried, watching it, as the experience shook my heart in my chest.

Horribly, painfully, (how could they), after eleven years of perfecting their incorrigible circus, they’re shutting down at the end of May, so, as Tony said, “if you are in Seattle the next couple of weekends (or can be so) and have yet to see any Circus Contraption show (or have seen them before) then make every effort possible to see one of the last shows that this exquisite troupe will ever be doing.”

We’re going again on the 23rd with as many people as we can.

Dee, (in town from Montreal), is coming, as is Nick Eddy, and maybe Rafael. Are you? Please say yes.

ps. I need need a place for my mum to stay in Seattle that weekend. Anyone have a spare couch/bed/room?

back, and to the left

We’re lying on the couch, grinding on the couch, when he says, finger to my lips, in an overly innocent voice that has no idea the incredible faux pas it’s about to commit, “Now you be a good little girl and don’t move. Just wait right here.”

I pause, distracted, jolted. “Excuse me?”

His eyes widen as the multiple potential layers of his statement sink in, meanings rife with candy, white vans, and puppies. “Oh dear!” he says, “I promise that’s not where I meant to go with that.”

We collapse laughing, the moment lost now in something else. We lie curled together, our hands lost in each other’s hair, and I tell a story of being approached once by a young man in a nightclub who’d had one too many beer, “We’d been dancing, nothing special. We didn’t know each other at all, but he came up to me in a pause in the music, drink in hand, smiling, and said, You know what I’d like? Of course I shook my head no. I didn’t even know his name. If you came home with me so I can show you who your daddy is.“

I can’t help but feel squidgy whenever I remember there are people in space!

via Warren:

Astronauts discover a long stretch of damage on the space shuttle Atlantis.

The shuttle appears to be in good overall shape, but the survey did uncover a 53cm (21in) line of chips on the vehicle’s right side. The line of chips uncovered by the inspection are in thick tiles that make up the protective heat shield on Atlantis’ starboard side. The damage is located where the right wing joins the shuttle’s fuselage. Nasa said the chips could be related to a debris event detected by the wing’s leading edge sensors 104-106 seconds into the lift-off.

This report leads to one of those surprising and uncomfortable truths about humanity’s current space travel skills:

If something goes wrong on this mission, Atlantis’ crew will not be able to shelter on the International Space Station (ISS). The station orbits at around 350km (220 miles) above Earth, while Hubble occupies an orbit about 560km (350 miles) up.

The Shuttle can’t fly there. It can’t shed 130 miles of altitude, establish a new orbit on a radically different inclination and maneuver to ISS. Because our things that fly in space still aren’t really spaceships as we’ve been brought up to think of them. In fact, the Endeavour’s on the launchpad now, ready to launch an unprecedented rescue mission if it’s determined that the Atlantis may not survive re-entry.

afk

He kisses me, and I thrill. “What about over there?” I ask, pointing at the tall stone cathedral across the street, “Those confessional things you were talking about, they have doors, right?” He looks at me, shocked, amused, and laughs. His body twists, he mimes my body on top of his in the cafe seat. “Oh”, he says, panting, “Father,” a gasp, “We’re sinning!”

zen flowers

Vicki Silva

Louisa May Alcott’s Letter to Her Mother

“Whatever beauty or poetry is to be found in my little book is owing to your interest in and encouragement of all my efforts from the first to the last; and if ever I do anything to be proud of, my greatest happiness will be that I can thank you for that, as I may do for all the good there is in me; and I shall be content to write if it gives you pleasure.”

Happy Mother’s Day, Vicki and Silva. Thank you for all your love.