Author: foxtongue

this week in brief

Things I have not been mentioning here: I attended Matthew David Cale and Sarah Rose Edward-Noelle’s wedding on Monday, and, coincidentally, am planning to attend Matthew and Sara Rose’s newlywed picnic next Sunday. I hope for all the best to both couples and idly wonder if I should introduce them. Jim asked Mishka, finally, if she would marry him. She said yes. I am to be their Maid of Honour next summer and in charge of photography. I tapped Lung to do the honours while I’m standing up front, trying not to drop her ring. He and Tony and I went to see Twilight last Saturday, which was even more hilarious than the last movie. I accidentally left my hat there, but recovered it Tuesday. My mother is leaving on Friday to NYC for three weeks, where she’ll meet Van Sise in person before I do, as Lung already did. I am going to be recording her show on Thursday with Paul and T. Crane before she goes. She will be out of a job when she returns, as well as down one local child, as one of my brothers just moved to Montreal to learn Asian languages in french at the Uni of Montreal. A different family member was recently arrested and spent a night in jail, but we’re hoping it will turn out okay. The lawyer seems positive that charges will be dropped. At home, David has been given a raise and I am still looking for work, though not finding any. EI is still threatening to dock my social assistance, which has already dropped by a hundred dollars, no longer covering my rent. In hopes of softening that blow, I have been updating my Etsy shop, as I cannot rely on photography until my wrists have recovered. Also, to complicate matters, I am running out of space to put digital photos, a situation that will only grow more dire the longer I do not have access to my work computer, which continues to blackscreen during boot. On a more positive note, Van Sise sent me a vintage medium format pinhole camera so I will be able to take pictures at Burning Man. (I’m unwilling to risk my camera with playa dust). I have not used one since highschool, when I made a shoddy one from a shoebox, so it should prove to be a very interesting experiment.

“When life gives you mascara, make masquerade”

365:2010/07/07 - preparing

Tony and I have decided to go forward with our trip to Burning Man!!

Even though we’ve been planning on going together practically since our first kiss, we were a hair’s breadth away from cutting Lung free to try it alone this year as my injuries cascaded, stranding me immobile on the chilly shores of chronic pain and disability. Tony wavered, delighted to take me on my greatest adventure, yet terrified of the idea of abetting further or possibly permanent damage to my body. It was last week’s miraculous physio appointment, (where my dislocated ankle was put back into alignment), that finally tipped the balance, as well as this: my arm is no longer in a sling, in one week my broken toe should be fully healed, in two weeks my strained wrists should be better, and in three weeks my previously dislocated ankle should be almost fully functional. My right shoulder’s still an internal ruin and my recovering ankle will be tender and tire easily, but by the time we get to Black Rock City, I should be recovered enough that it won’t be actively dangerous for me to attend. Not any more than for other people, at least, what with all the DIY fire throwers and all.

So far we’ve booked a minivan rental, bought warm vintage fur coats for the cold playa nights, and Tony’s hooked me up with a truly sweet pair of dust goggles, as seen in the inset picture.

This week’s plan is to find a truly fabulous wide brim hat, three cheap-as-pity bikes with fat tires and good brakes, and acquire at least one Lawrence of Arabia outfit, the better to survive a week of searing desert sun, that which I am most afraid of. (Some people merely flush a bittersweet bloom of pink, but my flesh reduces to crispy ashes in under twenty minutes. My thin skin, pale like paper, burns as such, and the last thing I want to do is spend my trip hallucinating from pain with a back like peeling, bleeding bacon.)

Does anyone know a good source for such things? Local, (Seattle/Vancouver), or on-line.

No wonder I’ve been perpetually wiped out.

Good news!!


In the past two weeks, I’ve gone to the physiotherapist twice. First for my shoulder, second for my ankle. The first appointment was nothing special. He gave me some isometric exercises to practice at home, to strengthen my muscles and ligaments without moving them around, and hooked me up to a TENS machine that left bruised hickey octopus sucker marks all over my skin. The second appointment, though, which focused on my ankle, was a little bit life changing. Turns out, and why none of the doctors ever figured this out, I don’t know, my ankle was dislocated! The physiotherapist did a few motion tests, prodded conclusively with his fingers, then, incredibly, just pressed the bones back into place. It was a very peculiar feeling, but the relief was immediate. There’s still pain, but it’s a dull ache instead of a chronic, constant sharp pressure, and the brain fuzziness that accompanied it is almost entirely gone.

It seems that when I went rollerblading in broken boots all those years ago, the compression of the ill fit slowly shoved my bones out of place, wrecking some of the connective tissue and setting a precedent in the flesh for it to slip out in future, much like my shoulder, which is why my injury would flare up randomly when I ran or even stepped off a curb the wrong way.

To finally have an ultimate solution, to be able to stand and walk and know what was wrong, has been revolutionary. I have been given exercises to keep it in place – standing on one foot on a balance board, twenty minutes on a stationary bike, pushing with the other foot to give it a ride, and fifty pound leg presses, as gently as possible – and the fellow that sold us my new ankle brace recommended a very good series of stretches, where you trace out the alphabet in the air with your toes. My problems now are only healing and strength. Healing, to get over the tiny soft tissue tears from misplaced bones, and strength, to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

so listen

Vancouver is erased today by the souls of dead trees, smoke from fires up North and in the interior. It sifts down to the street, obscuring the horizon, clouding the city with a fog of trapped white ashes so thick you cannot see downtown from my balcony, like a television trick to hide the edges of a sci-fi set. The mountains are shadows, almost invisible in spite of their size. Above us, the sky is mediocre, streaked with only the barest smudges of pale teal, while the sun is reduced to a dark orange spot with visible edges, the burned heart of a glass flower fresh from the forge, bright yet safe to look upon directly. Light is muted in every direction. We are living in a light box. There are no black shadows.

Jeanet & Caro’s first film, The Bunker of the Last Gunshots, now available to watch on-line!

Via Twitchfilm:

Before The City of Lost Children, before Delicatessen, long before Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro would become international darlings, all the way back in 1981, the duo would make their live action directorial debut with The Bunker of the Last Gunshots. They had already collaborated on a pair of animated shorts by this point but Bunker was their first foray into the ‘real’ world and already their distinct style was fully on display. Running at 25 minutes, the start, seemingly post-apocalyptic film has been a hard one for fans to track down but the entire thing is now online and available for viewing. Take a look below.

LE BUNKER from kapelaans.