where to be on Sunday

WAYFARERS OF THE GYPSY MANSION
a musical bazaar of sorts with
HUMANWINE, THE BLACKBIRD ORCHESTRA, NATHANIEL JOHNSTONE, TOY BOX TRIO, MEISCE, FINN VON CLARET, and DJ Q.

“These are the times, my friends. And these are the days. Where the world becomes malleable, palpable. When novelty and genius are within our reach. We are cautioned against being passionate about these things by tales of progress turned to greed and of technology turning on us. And yet, the golden light is just right, the clocks are synchronizing, the stars are in alignment.

This is what we celebrate tonight. We celebrate these transient times, with these transient artists.” – c. lantz

Sunday, May 10, 2009 3 pm to 10 pm
The Little Red Studio
750 Harrison Street, Seattle, WA
ALL-AGES, $15 donation

Wearables, craftables, and edibles provided by a plethora of local and regional artisans. (ex. Sock Dreams will be arriving from Portland to vend excellent foot/legwear.) We will take a dinner break (with DJ) at 6:30 pm – please bring your own sack meal, a picnic to share, or food can be acquired from two of our vendors. Vegan options available. Adult beverages can be purchased by 21+ individuals.

Spread the word. All are welcome.

[Another fine event brought to you by the incomparable Libby Bulloff and Willow Brugh.]

a satisfying week

Bill Murray has been crashing parties and hanging out with strangers.
(It could happen to you.)

Across the buildings, a slight gap in the clouds. Keith looks out and says, “oh look, a nice day.” A shift in the sky and the blue goes away. Weather whispering gray. Today it snowed briefly in a winter half effort. White flakes, fat with promise, that melted as soon as they touched ground. Now, as before, it is raining.

I’m glad my week has been wonderful enough to make up for the weather. I cried upon waking my first day back from California, mutely, pained, unhappy. “What’s wrong, what is it?” A thousand things, a hundred disappointments, ten I could say aloud, but only one to share, “There’s no sky.”

Tuesday: Finally seeing Cory McAbee‘s The American Astronaut on the big screen was absolutely fabulous. Officially Duncan was hosting it, but my involvement (with That Mike) brought me to the front of the room, answering questions as I sat beside him, swinging my legs under the table that only came up to his knees.

Wednesday: Amanda Palmer‘s show with Zoë Keating and the Australian theater company The Danger Ensemble was outrageously Off The Hook. It’s an expression I sometimes hate, but I can’t think of anything more apt. Zoë Keating was exactly as mind-bendingly glorious as expected, but Amanda Palmer raucously surprised me. Her humour and spark and pure scintillating shine blew juicy, delicious bubbles of overwhelming near-religious delight into every nook and cranny of my brain. Just like everyone else at that show, I think I now love her. It was also a great time to play catch up, as people I love were in attendance I haven’t seen in absolutely forever, like Dragos and Tall-Travis. (Also, Kyle, I said Hello for you. She was thrilled.)

Thursday: As a fluke, while waiting to get in to see Zoë & Amanda Palmer, Andrew Brechin gave David and I a free voucher to Waltz With Bashir, a strong, very personal animated documentary into the horrors of the 1982 Lebanon war. Telling the story of the 1982 Sabra-Shatila massacre of Palestinian refugees through the director’s own reclaimed memories, it was educational without preaching, and painful without guilt. At first I was skeptical of the animation style, which reminded me too strongly of old cut scenes and on-line java cartoons, but the story pulled us in, and the animation smoothed as the film continued, leaving us rapt as it drew to a close.

Tonight: There’s a Tom Waits Tribute Night at Cafe Deux Soleils from 8:30 – midnight. “a line up of the who’s who in east vancouver gather together to sing the songs of one of the most influential artists around. his world of strange wit and hard luck characters has made a home in each of our hearts. come out dressed in black, red and your fancy feel ready to sing along and stomp the floor silly.” Featuring: Blackberry Wood, Tarran the Tailor, my sweet and charming friend Jess Hill, our very own RC Weslowski, CJ Leon, Christie Rose, Chelsea Johnson of the Foxy House which hosted my birthday, Corbin Murdoch, Jeff Andrew, Buffaloswans, Maria in the Shower, Fraser Mclean, Christa Couture, Nick Lakowski, Sarah Macdougal, Pawnshop Diamond, Katie Go Go, and Mike the Swan.

Tomorrow: Our all day, all night non-denominational, costumes optional, holiday social and house party to celebrate David moving in, with crepes in the morning, tea in the afternoon, and candle-lit silent black and white horror films until dawn. (In regards to BYO: Bring your own syrup, eggs, fruit, or toppings, bring tea, cookies, or pie, bring flowers, feathers, or figs, whatever you feel appropriate, but most importantly, bring yourself.) Extra guests welcome within moderation

Bonus: Amanda playing Radiohead’s Creep on the ukulele for Kyle and Neil at the Cloud Club.

spellcheck doesn’t think “motherfucker” is a word

“London, London” a video by Cibelle featuring Devendra Banhart.

I went to Vancouver Island alone for the first time in my life on Friday. All I knew was that somewhere in front of me was Oliver, whose name creates the feel of kisses on my tongue. He is an older man, as mine are, and sweet as I always wanted them to be. He won’t tell me he loves me yet, but says instead that it’s close, as if the words are a race he hopes to win.

I like the way he looks at me, mildly stunned, as if I am some ultimate unexpected good fortune. Silva likes it too. He is a nervous man, but his worries are only an outward mark of his extreme consideration, like a gold birthmark that stutters in the sun. He wraps his body around mine when we sleep, so always I wake with his arms curled around me, warm ribbons tying me comfortably to him.

I wonder if I will like his parents.

My inclination is for description, for setting down my appreciation for his hair and the length of his body, but no matter how charmed I am with his colours, his skin darker than mine, the streaks of tarnished blond silver that paint the frame of his friendly Brian Froud smile, it is other things that want to drop here. Moments of personality, of detached devotion. Thanks you’s for finally bringing me to somewhere safe. Today he gave me a key to his house. On my way home, I had the men at the hardware store cut him copies of mine.

Mexican court rejects full ballot recount, leftist candidate blasts partial tally.

Coming back was not as difficult as going. In spite of a messenger glitch, meaning I didn’t get one damned message all weekend, there was plenty of news waiting. I didn’t get the job I’d hoped for and there’s nothing I can think to do about it. I have a little design portfolio made-up now that was in case of a second interview, perhaps it will come in handy later. At any rate, there was good news too. This week looks to be intensely and awesomely busy.
Tonight (or tomorrow night, her and the websites have different opinions on when), April and I are going to the Thee Silver Mt. Zion Orchestra & Tra-la-la Band concert at Richards on Richards. (A group led by founding Godspeed You! Black Emperor guitarist Efrim).

Thursday and Friday I have extra work on a film named Hot Rod, out at the Cloverdale Fairgrounds. (I have to figure out how to bus there first thing in the morning, augh).

Friday is the Robot Skytrain Party plus Sam‘s big party at the Treehouse. (“Come to the party that will send a shiver down your back years from now as you suddenly think “Oh, God… I remember that party.””).

Saturday is Vancouver’s first Flugtag, our Second Annual Zombiewalk, and Bob‘s party.

Wolf Parade plays the Commodore on Sunday, (not that I have a ticket, I’m just lusting after one), and Andrew says there’s something else but he forgets, so if you remember, I’d love a heads up.

Oh! And Snakes On a Motherfucking Plane is this Thursday at the Rio, (Broadway & Commercial), at 10pm.

If you comment here saying you can’t come, Andrew will have Samuel L. Jackson call and persuade you.

Also, he checked with the box office, you can buy your tickets at the Rio anytime it’s open now.

Oh, and CROSSPOST this mofo! We want to own the theatre.

why it’s important to leave the house #45908

A patient’s self-rewired brain revives him after 19 years in a vegatative coma.

Minus Kyle, Duncan, & Grant, you people missed a fantastic show. Tigers crept off the stage, dreams of lights, lakes of visionary stormy weather. The Roman Empire shuddered and fell under the waves of Atlantis. Shane brought his mother back to life as the audience cried and his grandmother told us all to rise and shine, all to a really good steel string slide. I managed to film clips of most of the first act, but not all of it, only enough to give you the barest skeleton of what actually happened. In the end, I have shaky teasers, but no real trailers. Next time, you, be there. Get out your silver kitchen knife and go culture hunting when I tell you to.

So with only about a full day’s warning, we managed to get almost thirty people to Pirates of the Caribbean. An affable man sitting behind me noticed that our group took up two full rows and asked how much organization went into it. When I told him we hadn’t bothered with very much this time around, how it was entirely arranged through our on-line journals, he mentioned oh-so-fortuitously that he has an event coming up at the Planetarium. He handed me a cleanly designed flyer, the sort of thing I would notice on a table, and smiled when I said I would give him a plug. After a bit more conversation, he asked, “Will you really mention us?” Then handed me a free ticket.

UK scientists have developed technology that enables artificial limbs to be directly attached to a human skeleton.

I’ve been listening to the music The Beige have on their website for hours now and I’m going to leave one on when I finally go to bed. The flyer design made me ask if it was ambient, but though their songs powerfully insinuate Brian Eno leanings, they seem to play something else, a translucent mellow jazz with a delicate twist of quiet pop. I really like it. Stylistically, they remind me charmingly of Múm. The musicians, Andrew Arida, Geoff Gilliard, Mark Haney, Rick Maddocks, and Jon Wood, manage to dance the line between chill, softly effervescent, and catchy without being fluffy, bland or relying on hooks. I’ll have to remember to bring extra money when I go, because I want to buy the album.

The show is only an hour long because they have to vacate in time for the stoned kids to watch the resident Doors/Zeppelin/Hendrix/Pink Floyd laser show, but they’ll have drinks and mingling downstairs afterward and their own visuals projected on the ceiling during their set. I’m curious to see what they’re going to do with the space. It can be awkward to set up anything meaningful around a giant robot projector ant that rises from the floor, but already I can imagine how their melodies could transform awkwardness into underwater gracefulness, sort of how a good director cuts out the sound in moments of tension.

University of Alberta researchers have created an ultra-sound technology to regrow teeth, the first time scientists have been able to reform human dental tissue.

About half my books have been spoken for and some already bought.
a list of what’s left

the store just filled with MySpace hair


softly sounding nicely
Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

Haunting the hospital, I walk barefoot down quiet hallways. Together we go in circles. This door, the next door. We hit the button and they swing open like prophecies. The cold sound of planes traveling overhead can’t touch us here. This is life. Chilly floors, small milky plastic cups of ice. All around us are other lives. Recovering under different names, other paths to guide us by. Some of them are happier than I am, some of them more depressed. Me, I’m trying to be content. Pictures out the window, a thousand thousand directions, every one thinking they have something to do, knowing the faces of their parents more than I do. Dreams about my father lately. Running away when I’m asleep from the violence, the danger. Springtime. The petals falling from the trees.

Definitions with references of the different species of science blogs.

I’m booking a trip to Santa Monica again. This ruins all my concert plans, I’m torn. I can stay and drown in music for three days straight. Share a connection with people here I love, or I can go alone on a train to Cinco De Maya in Santa Barbara, see Ashes and Snow, then dance in the glory outside under starry skies next to the ocean with hundreds of people I’ll never get to know. Either option is grand and a little bit terrifying. If I don’t go south, I’ll miss the show. If I go south, I miss my favourite music. This is my last chance to go. Operative word is chance.

Who wants to buy some tickets? I’ve got TV on the Radio for Saturday May 6th, ($17), Sunset Rubdown & Frog Eyes (w. a member of Wolf Parade) for Sunday May 7th, ($10), and Secret Machines for Tuesday May 9th, ($16.50). All are at Richards on Richards. Depending on responses, I’ll likely decide tonight which way I’ll decide.

I actually met the Wolf Parade fellow on the street yesterday. I saw him coming and said, “I love your band,” as he walked past me. He looked startled, said thank you, and generally acted stunned. We had a short conversation, “Well now you’ve been recognized on the street it’s like you’re a real rock star.” When I said I had a ticket to his next show, he managed to brighten even more, “You’re coming to Coachella?!” Out of my range, I said, but made a note of it. I suppose they’ve Made It now. He made sure to shake my hand before skipping off down Davie St. It was a small thing, but it made me happy. He was so surprised that I suspect he’s going to tell more people about it than I will.

Mexico proposes decriminalizing pot and cocaine

everything that you are, because this crown of love won’t fall from me.


E smokes a cigar
Originally uploaded by George H..

I love re-dying my hair. Colours get everywhere, marking me guilty of vanity, guilty of having more fun than blondes. Red like roses, like letterboxes, like the inside of your lips when we kissed that once and my eyes were closed. That’s my hands now. That and purple. Purple like a Kate Bush song. In the shower, the dyed water is bright enough to blind and I have to watch where I touch else I leave vivid murder prints on the walls. It makes me giggle.

The Arcade Fire has made music geeks exceptionally sexy. One member, particularly, stood out as an embodiment of everything Right with them by the way he played accordion like it was a superhero power, hips out and mouth howling, his mop of curly Dr. Egon hair falling into his steamed up glasses. Another played the tambourine as if it was an enemy he could kill with physically demanding theatrics. Wolf Parade was equally intense, a squeezing wall of traditional everything that made rock and roll dangerous to the adults experience, all the way down to the seething mass of crowd that shoved me to front and center at the expense of my breathe and balance. The lead singer still looks too wrung out to be alive and sings like he’s going to continue past us all on sheer adversity. (The other lead singer, the man on the electric piano machine, he came into the shop yesterday. It cheered me up immensely when he didn’t buy anything.)

Most concerts end with the finality of the period at the end of a favourite novel, but not this one. They crowded both bands onto the stage for the first encore, bringing up a member of the audience to look lost among them, then took their instruments into the crowd for a second one, leading the crowd around with a charming skeleton version of a New Order song. I’m terrifically glad I went. I feel as if my life would have been less interesting without them. If anyone’s got a full album of anything Arcade Fire, I would greatly appreciate it, as all I have to listen to are carefully collected little scraps of from ‘Funeral’.

munching on things that maul children carries a certain satisfaction. CLICK ON THE PICTURE.


Make way jungle, we want oil!
Originally uploaded by Nick Lyon.

So it’s not tonsillitis after all. Apparently it’s strep throat.

This week has been red lights and green. Wolf Parade was exquisite. A hipster sardine packed illicit space with ghetto lighting and terrifying wiring for the stage, I led Ryan and Andrew successfully to the very front. I leaned against the monitors and tried to dance crammed next to a short asian student of cultural ethnicity with my shirt off and tucked into my bag. I suspect her disapproving looks did wonders for my mood. The opening band was fun, stealing back everything from music that Weezer made suck, and when Wolf Parade came on, we offered them James‘ place in Montreal as a crash pad. (You should toss them an e-mail, lovely. See how serious they were, win some points with all those pretty girls with asymmetrical haircuts). Opening with Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts* set the tone well, though they could have been a bit louder with the vocals. You Are A Runner And I Am My Fathers Son is quite the experience live. The lead singer is a lean wrung out guy who froths at the mouth and screams with musical fury through a cigarette that he barely holds onto in a Keith Richard pout, and the keyboardist glares with such concentration it was surprising his intrument didn’t melt. His grandfather was in the audience somewhere, though I would imagine he would have been hiding in the back next to the hole-in-the-wall bar. I was situated a foot in front of the man playing theramin and he was just as impressive, holding his little electric keyboard above him as if that would bring is closer to some holy god, his eyes rolling trance-like into back into his head. The room was dripping wet, sodden with brilliantly sweaty notes that just didn’t translate well onto the album. (Though one must be mad to not to appreciate I’ll Believe In Anything.) In summary, the heat was unbelievable and the music just as hot. The concert next month, with Wolf Parade opening for The Arcade Fire is my next most anticipated thing. Everyone capable should go. *both albums for download with this link

The Fetish Masque afterward wasn’t half as fun, nor was the burlesque show. Andrew went home and Ryan and I stopped to dress properly for the occasion, gothing to the nines with feathers in my hair and running gold powder down my face. When we arrived, we let someone take us from the burlesque line-up to the fetish one around the side and downstairs, therefore missing the show entirely through a mismanage of poor timing. Aaron was there, and Brian and Kevin, but Herminia stole us away upstairs before I could properly find them. Tristan was upstairs, and a friend of ours was attempting to MC, poor thing, on no warning whatsoever. The show was apparently terribly last minute, so disorganized that it only took me a moment to infiltrate the blueroom and begin ordering people around. “Who’s in the band, you’re up next. This fruit is to go out to the table. You, cut it up with me?” Ten minutes later I was curling someone’s hair in the backstage bathroom and trying to think of ways to get away while the organizer thanked me. I don’t know how to curl hair. I escaped by carrying a plate of peanut butter chocolates out to the covered pool-table and re-collected Ryan. It was getting to be close to shut-down then, so after a bit of dallying, I smuggled us into the freezer and we stole out with some strawberries that no one was going to miss and a pineapple in my skirts. When we came back is when we found Kevin finally. His hair had gone from white to an attractive jewel-tone blue, and I’m remembering now as I write this that I really should drop him a ring. I hope e-mail will do, this not having a voice could make things difficult.

Tea Party

*sniffles*

Tea Party is playing at the Commodore on Sunday!!

Augh!

Why can’t the concert be on Monday? Oh world! Alas! I would be soo happy!!

I cannae afford a tickie. They’re $30 & I’ve $55 to feed Bill and I until Monday. (Monday is pay day).

Dammit!!

I wish there were someone I could offer to pay back next week…