Author: foxtongue

in this rain, I miss someone more than I thought I would

The trip into the theatre today went well, in spite of my almost complete lack of sleep. My interview with Dorothy from the Globe & Mail went far longer than I expected it would, as did their attempt to get the perfect “girl gazing vaguely over the red chairs” shot. This means I didn’t get a chance to go over any of the theatre with the people who came with me, but something, more certainly, was accomplished. It’s just that I’m a little too tired to figure out precisely what, exactly.

Or write a sentence that doesn’t take three or more commas to read correctly.

Adam, my webmaster, has uploaded his pictures already, here.

I didn’t get a chance to take any, but Scott and Alastair did.

I’m sure their photos will be posted soon too.

my sparrow tongue in aspic


TV….
Originally uploaded by natalia*.

A beloved friend of mine, (who will remain nameless), inspired by the anonymous love letters I was receiving last spring, has been sending me his own letters. They carry me more than I have the ability to tell him. They paint me as I feel in my most glorious moments. I have quite a collection of them now. I spread them across my room, tuck them into books, and generally leave them where I might re-discover them later. I’m not sure why I’ve decided I should start posting them, but this one came today addressed to Dr. J. Holmes Esq.

Dear Jhayne,
&nbsp &nbsp Once upon a time, long, long ago, there was a girl who made herself out of wires, feathers & tiny silver bells. Precious thing that she was (& she was) she was ill used by the winds of fortune, tossed hither & yon by rapacious storms ’till one day (a day like any other) she said
&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp enough
& thrust half of her wires deep into the soil & wrapped the other half tight around a nearby tree & screamed in pain and defiance as the winds tore at her feathers & set her bells a-ringing & the cacophony was almost as unbearable as the wrenching tearing straining & then it wasn’t, and it wasn’t.
&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp Here I’ll stay
&nbsp she said & the trees all bent to listen, for precious thing that she was (& she was) the peal of her voice was like fresh fallen acorns gone to root in spring sunlight & they bent their trunks & spread their boughs low & she slept in the shade for a century or three until the raggedness of her feathers receded & her cables grew back thick & strong. Precious thing though she was (& she really was), memory is not forever & she spread her wings one autumn morning & flew straight back up into the waiting arms of the storm.

And this one is a favourite. It lives next to my bed, where I don’t have to read it, but simply know that it’s been carefully folded and placed there in memory of something that almost was as well as what most certainly managed to be. I refuse to admit how much of this I have actually spoken.

&nbsp “Intelligence cannot be a one way street,” you lazily alleged, more to pick a fight than because you really believed it. Or anything.
&nbsp &nbsp (Your hair, burnished copper, framed your face like the latin in a sermon, painfully bright against the cool ebony of your naked shoulders)
&nbsp “When we think about things, things think about us,” you continued blithely, “Think about it! Why does genius die young? It’s not simply that nature abhors a smartass. nature abhors everything, but only in the presence of brilliance does it have the wherewithal to do anything about it.”
&nbsp &nbsp (I traced the lines of your stomach, the graceful curve of your hips as they levered you upright with that gentle susurration of rock on metal.)
&nbsp “It works with people, too. Intelligent people don’t cluster, have no real power to attract each other; they make each other, force each other up out of the endless sea of stupid, form conversation partners out of, effectively, dust.”
&nbsp &nbsp (The clack of gears is the voice of angels as you stand and look down at me, amber eyes glinting, teeth glowing gold in the firelight)
&nbsp You add, offhandedly, “Of course, this applies doubly to us.”
&nbsp &nbsp (You may be right, but I’m not listening, am too wrapped up in the wonder that I could ever build anything as beautiful as you.)

not sure what to

HeartOfTheWorldLogo

I would do terrible things to have a website this good.

It’s been a strange week, cradled in stressful days. I walked a city block today with my eyes shut and didn’t make it into work. Tomorrow I will, tomorrow I will be farther away. The Globe and Mail want to talk with me.

Wednesday I’m going to the Penny Arcade Child’s Play 2006 Dinner Auction.

Thursday, a group of us are going into the theatre building.

It’s the small carved lines that I still see, like when I look at him with my glasses on, all I can see is his age – the distance between us for all that we’re very much the same.

as soon as the sun sets, all bets are off

According to Jason: “Jhayne Holmes has long been a fixture in the Vancouver progressive arts community, energizing flash mobs and zombie walks alike. Seeing the Raja Cinema building go up for sale drove her entrepreneurial initiative towards creating a next-generation arts space. A relative newcomer to running a business, Holmes has been able to turn ingenue into ingenuity in opening Heart of the World by launching a website to harness the power (and dollars) of the web 2.0 world.”

I’m impressed. Also, tired.

The next step is to shop the business plan out to investors and raise a minimum of $500,000. Not as bad a goal as one might think, when that’s only 2500 shares. Two thousand shares and some change, that’s what we have to sell. If we can raise more, getting the theatre on its feet will be a lot easier, but I’m not counting on it. Our numbers have been worst case scenario for a reason, not only out of pragmatism, but to count on having less than expected, so when we succeed, we will already be ahead.

Re: already sold shares. Can everyone who sent me money send me their address? I’m slowly working through my e-mail to match deposits with people, but it’s slow going. If you send me your info, you’ll get yours first.

And for those people still asking – yes, you can still buy shares. It isn’t too late. I’m sure they make great gifts too.

I find this photo hilarious


looking into the future
Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

I didn’t get home until four in the morning, but I finally got to sleep at my own house for the first time in something like twelve days. I woke fully dressed, pigtails still in, one forlorn glowstick still clasped around my left arm, remembering only at first that Antonio has pictures of me that will further guarantee – “no career in politics”. I think I was on a table or maybe in a cage. Either way, I look like I’m a lot of fun.

Now to go drag Breakfast out of bed. Alastair, Duncan, Andrew, and Dani. Yes. We’ll be there for awhile, different people at different times. You’re invited too.

Metal Walls.

You know the way.

paying (back) different people

Leisure Alaska, like a love child of Kashmir and the Polyphonic Spree.

I would like to meet you in a coffee shop somewhere. Accident instead of design. I want that moment of feeling my heart leap in a mix of pleasure and terror when I see you. My stomach stabbed with ice, your face suddenly unreadable. I want us to look like a badly cut piece of film, staggering and awkward and so cold. There might be ashtray weather outside, there might be sun. Either way it doesn’t matter. After painfully polite conversation, we would escape from the public glare of the cafe and find a place to sit and stare out at the world. It would be too cruel to stay where anyone could overhear us.

If you do nothing else this week, click here for music.

Someone else, someone who’s just heard of you.

A restaurant, we’re friends with odd flashes of intimacy that don’t lead anywhere. You walk like a drumbeat and I appreciate how your large hands flutter around your anecdotal stories, pale birds battered by how you frame your history. We’re talking about melodrama, how you declared you would never love again at age twenty-five. I thought that was charming in the way that embarrassing young mistakes can be until I realized that twenty-five is older than me. Then I looked down at my plate.

Later, in your antique apartment full of follow-the-instructions furniture, the music is wildly inappropriate, a random playlist shuffled from a little white box the size of a nineteen thirteen suicide. The urge to write is distracting, but my fingers stumble when they dance across the keys. Instead I get up to watch the miracle of your pencil outlining something that only had a blurry reality inside of my head. I’m caught in a chemical loop, scales of thoughts playing my spine for kicks, ignoring my more rational decisions. It would be unfortunate if it weren’t only two days a month. I think of clockwork, how the victorians made mannequins that played chess. Spinning brass gears and crystal eyes dyed as blue as yours. Hands that held pencils, that could only draw one figure. One figure, perfect, for ever. I think of hands.

the hot tub helped, so did seeing Shane and TOFU

Apgar told deputies he was smoking crack in the park, but it was unclear why he was naked or why he was attacked by the alligator.

Getting in touch with people I used to know lately. It’s disconcerting, makes me want to write again though I don’t have the time. I might to make sure I still can, though, sort of like drinking a bottle of lemon juice to prove a point.

One of them, dear soul he is, took me snowboarding Saturday morning – the first time I’ve ever gone. We went to bed late, got up stupidly early, watched the dawn as we drove, then went crashing down the mountain strapped to a stick. Strangely, I think I recommend it. Except the early in the morning bit. That can go hang.

My favourite was the chair lift, being suspended high above the thick white silence and the candy-coated snowy trees.

Bad news, though. I had a terrible collision with a little kid. Some boy on skies with a blue and yellow helmet, couldn’t have been more than ten years old, he smashed into my knees going fast down a hill and almost broke my leg. Sent me flying, knocked the wind out, and all of this still half way up. I could barely walk by the time I made it down, and spent all evening on a cane. Strained ligaments. I’m still hobbling today, but it should be alright in a few days. Just a bloody nuisance.

Today I feel the rest of it, the aches involved in that much new exercise. My hands are tender, my ribs are bruised, like I’m wearing another layer of skin, one that’s an inch farther into my flesh and far too tight.

A greeting-card company is selling pop-up greeting cards based on Robert Sabuda’s pop-up version of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”

As spotted by Hank Bull, exec director of the van international centre for contemporary asian arts

Heart of the World got a mention in the Georgia Straight, Vancouver’s weekly “alternative” newspaper.

BRINGING UP HOUSE LIGHTS ON THE DRIVE

Local artistic coordinator Jhayne Holmes has launched a campaign to raise $48,000 by next Friday (December 8), as a deposit toward the purchase of the 300-seat theatre at 639 Commercial Drive (most recently the Raja Theatre, and formerly the New York). Holmes hopes to turn the cinema into a multidisciplinary art and performance space called Heart of the World, open to hosting film festivals, cabaret events, visual art, live music, and dance. Even if she makes the deadline, however, she’ll still have to come up with the $935,000 balance. Check out www.foxtongue.com/ for the complete picture.

> Brian Lynch

Link found here by Duncan

Rowan says it’s in the bottom right of the Arts Review Capsule.

And, as it stands, we have the deposit down to 25,800$CAN.