foxtongue – Page 229

if I walk around him seven times, maybe I will break the power of this spell

I realized somewhere last night that the Saturday Thickets Show had entirely slipped my mind. Frack. Sometimes I feel like I must be on some subconscious regimen of torture and sedatives to have a memory this full of holes, but then I remember how little food or sleep I’ve been getting and realize my cognitive functions have simply disappeared in convulsions of polite deprivation.

For about a month, I’ve been unable to sleep a night through. Going to bed promises bad memories, sexual assault, being chased. Dreams that hate me, want me aching. Something snapped last month, some last hope was defeated, some essential promise was struck down, and I can’t find the tools to fix it. The required faith is gone. My innocence hesitated and was shot trying to run away. I can’t get up on the mountain without the knowledge that I can tear the thing down.

The experience was different when it started. I would remain trapped writhing in whatever perjury my brain was providing for me, but by now I’ve learned to suddenly wake instead. Surroundings don’t matter. I do the same whenever I’ve been and with whatever company. Utterly awake in half a second and completely dead inside. I feel contagious.

The moon is coming and with it, poor decisions. Chemicals words whispering bad ideas. I’m scared that I’m going to go hunting for a savior, now that I’ve been taught to be weak, instead of finding answers by myself.

In Würzburg, a small town in Germany, on November 8, 1895, Wilhelm Röntgen was experimenting with what’s now known as a cathode ray tube. He noticed that when electricity was turned on in the tube, which was new then and an unknown quantity, a plate painted with platino-cyanide would glow. Platino-cyanide only lights up when hit by particular frequencies of light, frequencies the human eye can’t see. Further experiments showed him that this light could pass through some objects, a discovery that he improved when he was able to photograph the interior of people. This type of photography was roentgenography, otherwise known as the x-ray. The first famous picture taken was this one of his wife’s hand. Both he and his wife died of radiation exposure as his discovery was being adapted by for medical purposes.

apparently no one else has volunteered

Welcome to the start of BladeRunner outside your door.

PARADE OF LOST SOULS MEET-UP IS AT MY PLACE, STARTING AT FOUR:THIRTY. bzzr 201

Olbermann compares how Clinton and Bush have handled 9/11 and Al Quaida.

Sam’s in a silent Italiana nunsploitation film this year.

The CELLULOID SOCIAL CLUB presents OH, THE HORROR
on WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25th, just in time for Hallowe’en.

Screening of the Completed 5 min. Short Horror Films in 2006 BLOODSHOTS 48 HOUR HORROR FILMMAKING CHALLENGE

Other Films to Be Screened Time Permitting

Doors – 7:30pm Show – 8:00pm Admission – $5.00 at the door
The ANZA Club, #3 West 8th Ave. at Ontario St., Vancouver, B.C.

ZOMBIEWALK, written, directed and produced by Kryshan Randel, co-written by David Lewis, music by Goblin, starring David Lewis (Lake Placid, The Bully Solution) and hundreds of zombies. 5 min., documentary / news segment, 2006. Produced for Novus TV’s news program “City Lights” – On August 19 2006, hundreds of zombies marched the streets and beaches of downtown Vancouver; stopping traffic, climbing into moving vehicles, terrorizing beachgoers, and eating a whole lot of brains. And all of this was caught on tape, as exclusive media coverage of Vancouver’s second annual ZombieWalk.
WARNING: What you are about to see is 100% real, and is not for the faint of heart.

Time permitting, these will also screen:

VICTIM, directed by Kryshan Randel, written by Kathryn Cottam, produced by Tammy Bannister and Kryshan Randel, DOP Jason Pope, music by Julie Blue, edited by Tony Dean Smith, starring Victoria Bidewell (What Lies Beneath), James Lafazanos (Stargate: Atlantis) and Katrin Bowen (Bang!). 5 min., horror, 2004 – In the early ’70s, Jessie frantically searched for her missing boyfriend deep within the woods, and discovered a terrifying secret. VICTIM was made for the 2004 Bloodshots Film Festival, and had to incorporate backwoods horror, a crab, a chainsaw and the line “I gave blood last month”.

THE CRITIC, written & directed by Jaman Lloyd, produced by Chris Ferguson, staring Matthew Walker & Paul Anthony, 11 min., Crazy 8’s, 2006 – a gothic horror set in 1840s Philadelphia exploring the last moments of a literary critic confronted by a spurned poet. James Wilmot narrates his final night alive when confronted by an obscured and bedimmed figure. The figure is Edgar Allen Poe who has come to kill Wilmot for the degradation of his early writings.

THE VEIL Directed by Mike Jackson, Written by Sam Dulmage and Mike Jackson, Cinematography by Sam Dulmage, Music by Jeff Tymoschuk, Edited by Jean-Denis Rouette, starring Corina Akeson, MacKenzie Gray & Charles Zuckermann with Toren Atkinson and Robyn Forsyth. 11 min., Horror, Short, 2006 – A young married woman is haunted by dark visions. Is it her medication, or something more sinister? A lovecraftian period piece. 2005 Bloodshots horror short competition. This 11-minute version has been re-edited and re-mixed, with additional scoring and visual effects. Official Selection of the Chicago Horror Film Festival, H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival, Chicago International REEL Shorts Festival, and plays Oct. 22 at the Toronto After Dark Horror Festival.

he’s certainly charming

So once again, (as it tends to), my livejournal is running out of Paid Account. If you want to help out, as I certainly can’t currently afford upkeep, then donate here to keep this journal alive.

The Complete Works of Charles Darwin are now available online for free.

Sometimes I feel like I’m crafting obituaries when I describe people here. “He was a kind man, Mr. Haversham, tall and slightly too commonplace. We loved his newspaper clipping accent, me and Dave, and now he’s gone.” That said, I think I’m going to give a shot to talking about Mark, (leaving out as much description as possible), as locals have been developing a curiosity.

We met in 1999, my mother was somehow part of an African music festival event that he was doing the sound for. We went home together after to an Art House on Fraser St. that he was watching for the out-of-town owners and, after we got rid of Lidd, we stayed up all night talking. (I would be shocked if Reine’s mother was not friends with the artists who lived there, just to give you some idea of what the house was like). I’m not sure why we went back together after, except that maybe things just happen sometimes and occasionally personalities simply click. He says now that I was very shy then and it’s sort of true. I didn’t talk as much as he did, not knowing how to speak with people yet.

Threadless is having another $10 t-shirt sale. Go through my link to get bonus levels of awesome and help get something neat.

Fast-forward to a few weeks ago, after I’ve moved to Toronto and back, L.A. and back, Montreal and back. After I’ve singularly failed to escape from this place, actually, but have thoroughly lost touch with Mark anyway. I’m at a Timothy Wisdom party, having been invited by an acquaintance on the street, an anonymous e-mail, and Angus Ms. Spelt. Set between a funeral home and an industrial warehouse, I didn’t know the hosts, but I knew the house. People spill out of it when there’s parties, and everything on the main floor, excepting the kitchen, becomes dance floor.

On this dance floor, this most fabulous and exceedingly crowded place, I encounter a woman who stops me to say, “I have the other half of your sewing machine.” It’s an odd statement, but she’s right, she does have my old sewing machine. I’m surprised. We used to trade one back and forth to summers ago. To her left is Mark. We haven’t seen each other since before I moved to Toronto, but we recognize each other instantly. (Amazing if you factor in that he’s not tall anymore because puberty wasn’t finished with me last we saw one another and now I’m an entire four inches taller.) That quirk of timing goes “click” again, and now we’re best of friends once more, spending time too late at night and sleeping over more often than is strictly necessary for a basic social life.

I think we have a date in December, but I’m not sure how things like that work. I’m going to have to ask.

I’ll be there with coconuts on

The VanCity Theatre is playing Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail tonight at 9:30. Tickets are $9.50.

scraps collected from the floor

The polished cement floors and tall white walls of the The Dance Center foyer give an impression of being professionally vacant and irrepressibly busy, all at the same time. I like it. The desk I sit at faces a long glass wall that I watch the street through, its beveled edges act as rainbow prisms on sunny days. I am mostly here in the evening, however, as the dinner-time crowd travel undistractedly past in long black coats and oversize hoop earrings. Sunday nights are traditionally unexciting.

Occasionally a man comes in who looks homeless, long scruffy gray hair, a bright yellow rain jacket with a small hole over one elbow. He collects all the new reading material that’s accumulated over the week, pamphlets, brochures, upcoming events, and sits quietly reading them at the table, one after another, until either he is finished or it is time to close. I don’t mind, it keeps him warm and he seems inoffensive. I only wonder what he does with them after. A favorite idea is that of a small cooking fire flaring in the dark back doorway of a rich downtown hotel.

—

Jenn’s party last night, I felt like I’d wandered into three years ago. I wanted to be wearing something improbable, a snakeskin dress, a PVC corset, something with unlikely handfuls of feathers, just to put myself off balance, to rid myself of the feeling that I will never escape this place, that I will always return to these same people year after year in these similar places. That I can’t evolve or forget.

Even dropping by Oliver’s birthday party on Saturday after going to see The Prestiege did not feel so alienating. Of course, I’d made sure to arrive as late as possible to ensure that the guest of honour would have been steadily drinking himself into inoffensiveness since five in the evening, and I’m certain it helped. That and Mark dragging himself out of bed at two a.m. to threaten making me dinner after to fix how I might be feeling.

—

This year’s global ecological debt day, which fell early on October 9th, symbolizes the day of the year when people’s demands exceeded the Earth’s ability to supply resources and absorb the demands placed upon it. This means that it would take the Earth 15 months to regenerate what was consumed already this year.

My ecological footprint, last time I delved into this, turned out to be surprisingly small, (minus that I live in a first world country), so omitting some regrettable things, like not being able to shop organically or fair-trade at two in the morning, I think I’m doing okay. What’s your excuse?

finally home after four days

Red cape, red hair. I don’t know what I’m doing, but what time is it mister wolf? has found me on a doorstep at two in the morning. There’s an engine running metaphorically behind me, I had to force myself to go to Oliver’s party, I had to force myself to leave. Ginger beer in a keg on the front lawn where we fell dreaming together. There was a woman asleep in the bed. Brown hair, I don’t know. I hope she’s less threatening.

Finally it’s not raining, the weather this week calling for cold sun and circles of wind. Leaves making doughnuts in parking lots, perfumed drunk little devils throwing a thousand colours at the air and attacking my ankles with damp. The soft unbiting scent of alcoholism floating across the mulch and exhaust of the city. I like the fall, it’s not as unrelenting as the other seasons, it allows for mercury. Silver shining from puddles, from the sky, spitting on water to make it wet.

Richard Dawkins on The Colbert Report.

I let someone kiss me this week. I don’t know why yet. I’m wary.

now my bed, too, smells like clever musician

So my dear treasure of a friend, Mark Campbell, whom only a few of you have heard of, came over last night and introduced me to one of the most stunning spectacles I have ever seen, so consummately remarkable as to strain credulity. By chapter seven, I was struck speechless. I could barely process anymore, except to writhe painfully in constant breathless laughter.

Welcome, my friends, to R. Kelly’s superb act of genius, “Trapped in the Closet.”

Part I – Part II – Part III – Part IV – Part V – Part VI – Part VII – Part IIX – Part IX – Part X – Part XI – Part XII

welcome to indefinate martial law

“R.I.P. Habeus Corpus, 1215 – 2006” from jwz

The Military Commission Act has been signed.

Washington Post:

President Bush this morning proudly signed into law a bill that critics consider one of the most un-American in the nation’s long history.

The new law vaguely bans torture — but makes the administration the arbiter of what is torture and what isn’t. It allows the president to imprison indefinitely anyone he decides falls under a wide-ranging new definition of unlawful combatant. It suspends the Great Writ of habeas corpus for detainees. It allows coerced testimony at trial. It immunizes retroactively interrogators who may have engaged in torture.

All but one of the items on the bill of rights has been affected by this new law.

ACLU:

The president can now – with the approval of Congress – indefinitely hold people without charge, take away protections against horrific abuse, put people on trial based on hearsay evidence, authorize trials that can sentence people to death based on testimony literally beaten out of witnesses, and slam shut the courthouse door for habeas petitions. Nothing could be further from the American values we all hold in our hearts than the Military Commissions Act.

“One of the terrorists believed to have planned the 9/11 attacks said he hoped the attacks would be the beginning of the end of America. He didn’t get his wish.” George W. Bush, upon signing the Military Commissions Act of 2006 into law.