once you’ve found your way back

Tonight a whole bunch of us will be performing at Catfish and other Delicacies, Beth Brown‘s musical brainchild. (Nicholas is coming from Victoria to play).

Johnny Depp to play Sweeny Todd.

Have you ever met someone who tasted like wind? Their hands feel pleasingly tarnished, as if at one point they were molten. One day, walking, you may find yourself an inch above the ground. They will not notice and you will not tell them. They open their clear water eyes and the earth slips away, tumbling away like rainclouds. It rushes away with the sound of quick violin.

Treading on shadow, voice like the vectors of a moths wing, he is skin tattooed with opiates. Installed into his world, I feel the fortune-teller again, like my body is becoming a messy chapbook of small beautiful prophecies. My kiss becoming inexplicable, knowledge pooling in the crevices of my joints, ready to spill out and stain my lips with black twists of old-fashioned ink. His name becoming something other in my mouth, a brocade curtain illuminated as a religious manuscript, each letter exhaled as stars, reclaimed into treble clefs, sharps, bright notes of terrifying purity.

He has built a thousand ships so that I may capsize within them, day by day, every time I step toward him. My eyes are cameras that will never be good enough. Our plans coalesce from whims, they thicken and grow from thin candles to blazing soprano ravens. This is a man who grew up in homes, celebrating roots and history and form. He speaks of security as a casual thing, the waxing of the moon, as I watch and feel as a mouse might, worried about being trod underfoot. It is as foreign a concept as a rainbow in a catacomb.

Mexico’s Partial Vote Recount Confirms Massive and Systematic Election Fraud.

For those who are interested, I have been informed that the zombiewalk will probably be covered on Canada Now at 6PM PST tonight.

CBC TV as well as CBC Radio both spent the last 45 mins interviewing Andrew and getting some of his photos of the event, including the car photos, (license plate & driver). They’re possibly interviewing a couple of high school kids as well and the whole thing will apparently be on sometime in the 6 o clock news hour.

Apparently the driver of the car has only received a traffic ticket at this time. The police are getting in touch with Andrew tomorrow, so expect further details then.

Bush Now Says What He Wouldn’t Say Before War: Iraq Had ‘Nothing’ To Do With 9/11.

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.

I didn’t join so much as I was assimilated

I’m front page at Sinister Bedfellows this week. buy my book.


Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

So very suddenly I find myself attached to a band. A band that is going on tour this weekend. I only found out yesterday, but the plans are well in place. I’m not sure how this happened, that I’m coming along, but it seems I am some sort of package deal. I’m going to Victoria this afternoon to hook up with Nikky for his gig, then I’m to meet a van-load of musicians at some random cross-roads disastrously early tomorrow morning to go to Gabriola for a concert at their wine festival. Sunday we’re back in Victoria and only returning to Vancouver for Monday night. I foresee a lot of not sleeping, really. Part of me is glad and part of me wants to know what the hell I think I’m doing. I’m not a musician, it rails, I’m barely even a writer!

Monkeyfluids is pretty good today, thanks to Michael for reminding me it exists.

Yesterday I went to a surreal educational puppet show about bees put on by DeeDee, a transgendered line-backer of a harpist from New York who drives a giant custom tricycle. It was in the park near my house and I know Vern, the fellow who made most of the bees. April was there. Strange days on paper, but alright in person. I’m still unemployed, though I’m crossing my fingers for a local PA job that looks like it would be utterly perfect for my odd myriad media skills. (I have a viral marketing gig for September lined up in case everything else falls through). Last night I got some recording done at my mother’s house, so there’s a mp3 polished ready to send out to the darling people who thought I was worth paying for. There will be more when I return. It’s been a stupidly busy and unexpected time lately, I’m sure you understand. See you after the cut.

Jesus Monkey Pants in Space has a new home on Warren‘s The Engine.

my bed is right here,yes.. yet..

World Jump Day was a resounding global success. You can check out photos on the Lambda Omega Lambda website under RECENT EVENTS, videos are found here.
(The Richmond Night Market Excursion and the first Mad Hatters Tea Party went pretty well too, more later).


Today after I sleep, I’m helping my mother move, (as so should you), and then heading over to Oliver’s to die in a kiddie pool that Veronica set up last night in his front yard, back when I should have gone to bed. You can come too if you want to pack boxes with me and my mum. There will be a skill testing question, maybe to do with accordions, but we can deal with that later, after the sun has fully arrived in the sky above my bed. Until then, amuse yourselves with some lovely charming art, k? Thanks. Notes left on my messenger will be dealt with when I’m not homicidally tired and yes, Amber, I will be calling you back. Nighty night.

can’t take me to the nearest cultural event, I’ll know everyone there

attempting to beat Francesco

After one intensely trying game of bowling with our afternoon “boyfriends”, it was decided that we probably couldn’t manage another. Instead we went to the J.J. Beans across the street and settled in to try and talk. (The staff thought we were brilliant). Conversation with Memo was pleasant, his default seems sweetly liberal, stone-faced or cheerfully surprised, but attempting to discuss the world with Francesco was too socially dysphoric to succeed for very long. His views are almost traumatizing to encounter. Thankfully, Oliver was there with a friend, and joined us before we got desperate. (When Francesco said, “I’m certain I speak for all the guys here when I say that naked men are disgusting.” it was like time stumbled over his tongue and slapped us all in the face.)

boyfriend two: Francesco

We sat together for almost an hour before Francesco left. Dominique admits that she worries now about encountering him. She thinks to cross the street before going past Abruzzio’s. I told her I have no such worry, being distinctive gives a girl practice dealing with strangers. Later I saw him across the street when I was shopping for nectarines and I almost waved, just to be contrary, but instead decided it wouldn’t be politic after he’d called me creepy so many times.

A bad case of Humans.

Memo we brought with us to Korean Movie Night and I plan on dropping by Penelope’s the next time I go and asking if he’d like to come again. He added himself to my messenger after I sent him a zipped folder of the documenting pictures so practicing the sloshing dregs of my spanish, (scraping off the rust with the lingual sandpaper of babelfish), is on the agenda.

We got my favourite picture of the event, (posted here, to the lower left), before we left Oliver behind. He had things to do, people to see, a bag to pack for a month in Italy. Friday was his last day here. His time was less flexible. Coming with us to KMM would have been too much procrastination to easily brush off, especially with La Fete de la Musique events later in the week. (He’s the raison d’être behind Toot-a-Lute, Vancouver’s awesomely eccentric folk-group.)

we traded in boyfriend #2 for one of superior quality

Nanoparticles and Lasers Create Cancer-Killing Microbubbles

Tuesday I had a really good job interview. Good people, good company. A respectable reprographics firm tucked in across the street from BJ’s house, over between Main and Cambie. Quick to get to, easy atmosphere. It gave me hope. Some of the other places I’ve been having interviews have been vaguely terrifying. The last one I had, on Friday, was in an office that so reeked of papertrail graveyard that my initial impulse was to turn around and walk back onto Kingsway. A small tele-company, the interview impressed upon me why people popularly use offices as metaphor for prisons. I kept in mind the reprographics firm the entire time I was there, using the memory of their professionalism as a life-raft. “Not everyone is like this.”

Wednesday I applied for my daily minimum of ten jobs, then was shut down at the park for attempting to barter my inelegant collection of uncomplicated fantasy novels for muffins and pocket change until Toot-A-Lute came to play. It was alright, the man who bashfully threatened me with a fine was very apologetic, and Paula arrived before I’d managed to drag my heavy bags to the bus-stop. She helped me carry them across to Turks coffeeshop, which is where the rest of the band was collecting, and bought me a tasty breakfast slice of lemon chocolate cheesecake, for which very kind things should happen to her. (Get on that, won’t you?) I was meant to meet them at the park after dropping my groaning bags of books home, but I missed them, getting too involved talking with James. By the time I got back to Grandview Park, the stage had been taken over by a salsa class with a boombox.

The Hanover lab is trying to detect the space-time gravity ripples created from merging black holes or exploding stars.

The likelihood of finding them again was similar to snow here in July, but running into Oliver on Monday had reminded me of the Morris performance promised on the Musique Day press package. Kits Point, 8:30, I’d asked Liam about it. Without really thinking, I steered my way to Hastings and caught the first bus downtown. Five hundred steps to Burrard, caught the 22 and wondered what I was doing. Warm sky, crossing the bridge, I remembered talking to someone who used to think Vancouver was a famous city, “Only for our science fiction authors.”

Walking through Kitsilano was like remembering a song I always used to sing in my room, something in my head fighting to accurately recall the lyrics, the names of the streets, instead of what life I used to wear. I found the one street, that against all emotional logic, runs all the way down to the end of the point. It ends at the tall totem pole by the Maritime Museum. They weren’t so far east, however, they were closer to Kits beach, still dancing. The Morris was over, but everyone had been comfortably sucked into dancing. It was fun. Vicky was there, bouncing away with her friend who plays banjo, and Troll and I fell and scraped so badly that people are still asking what I did to myself. “Oh, these wounds? I went folk-dancing.

I’m more scraped up from folk-dancing on monday than learning to roller blade today. I lose.

Greek Day is on Sunday from noon to 9 p.m. Broadway will be closed from Blenheim to MacDonald to make room for vendors, music, performances and dancing in the streets. Bring yourself and your friends and be prepared to shake some poly-rhythmic booty. Liam, Vicki and I will be going.

So the other day, Monday actually, Dominique and I did something extremely silly. We made this sign:

The start of our grand boyfriend adventure

Dominique wrote the sign and, after attaching it to sticks, I carried it. (I lack the skills required to create something so girlish). We only got as far as Penelope’s before someone stopped us. A friendly older man in a white shirt thought it was funny and insisted we go in and show the owner.

Penelope's

Already feeling pleasantly ridiculous, we went in and let everyone read it. The owner laughed, said he wished he was younger, then told us to wait, he had just the person. The first man was then sent out to fetch someone as we assembled for a picture to celebrate our first successfully acquired “boyfriend”. The man returned with Memo, a tall young fellow, who had no idea what was going on.

Memo, it turns out, has only been in Canada a month and is still learning english. We asked him if he could bowl and, with a puzzled expression, he said yes. The other men, with shooing motions with their hands, told him he was to go with us. He acquiesced, which was nice of him, and walked up the Drive with us while we laughed and explained that Dominique had been worried that no one would say yes.

Clap hands.

Our second “boyfriend” was collected at Abruzzo’s, an Italian cafe in the block after Grandview Park. Francesco, a real character, who admitted a block later that he lied in answer to our skill testing question, “Do you know how to bowl?,” so he could come with us. I’ve never met anyone so stuffed with machismo. He was amazing. Dominique describes him as perhaps “the most macho thing to walk the earth,” and she may be right. He has a small tattoo of some sort of horned creature on his right arm and when I asked him what it was, he fumbled around and replied with, “Something strong, you know? Scary, and big, dangerous or a bull or something, really manly. Masculine. Strong. Fierce. Maybe like a demon thing. I don’t know what it is, but it’s, you know, manly.”

her first shot

When it came to bowling, the woman who worked there was better than all of us put together. She threw a strike from the seating area. Through pure luck, we each got a strike too, but I was bowling left-handed to save my wrecked shoulder from agony, Dominique can’t stay upright to save her life, Memo had never bowled five-pin before, and Francesco took everything far too seriously. He won, actually, in spite of our group effort to beat him. No matter how poor our aim, he had some terribly encouraging comment, like “It’s going to be a strike this time, I can tell.” or “Oh good try. Good try. You’ll get it next time.” Memo was an angel throughout, grinning when we had fun swinging Francesco’s words back at him, twisting them from irritating to funny. All three of us found it nerve-wracking, but silly too, how little Boyfriend #2 realized we weren’t appreciating his help. There was an especially choice moment, just after Francesco realized he was in the lead, when he asked if the winner got a kiss. I think I saw Dominique’s hands tighten on her ball for a moment and I know I saw Memo just freeze. Instead of looking at him to answer, I kept my face as straight as possible and answered in a level voice, “I would hope not,” I said. “How painfully antique that would be. No fair at all. The winner already gets to win. I say the loser gets a chocolate bar.”

But as it’s now dawn on the longest day of the year, I’m to bed. This is the television to be continued…

up too late at night, putting up the last drivefest photos


you have to be kidding
Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

I’ve created a Flickr Pool, Drivefest, to collect all the photos of the Commercial Drive Car Free Day. Add yours and tell yours and pass it on!

I wanted a water sprinkler to run through today. I wanted to run water through the ink of my hair and to desperately feel like laughing. It’s hard to explain. I wanted to turn to someone and share a conspiratorial glance, rife with a desire to smile a thousand times. I miss the anonymous letters. They were the closest thing I had to anyone calling to see if I was okay, now that no-one cares if I dream about them anymore. (I haven’t received any since May). Precious and rarest of things, they remain mine and only mine.

This lovely Levi ad has been posted before, but now there’s a sweet parody by a UK tropical drink company called Lilt.

I suspect the game became tired. Instead of posting my thoughts here, my lovely impressions, I kept them close to me, wrapped in my writing book and tied with ribbon like I was an old-fashioned child. How so, then, a reward? Reine read them today in the park before we got up to play frisbee with Will. I read one aloud this evening to dear friends who were driving me home from morris dancing. They’re beginning to slide into the consciousness of the people around me. I read them like rosary beads, asking who’s trying to make me smile, like perhaps I’ll be allowed to slip stories into conversation again some day. Ravenous angels dancing on pins, that’s me. A tiny figure, sitting at the feet of who I used to be, looking up and disbelieving. If I am a city, these letters have been tagging my walls.

UBC engineering students have built a vehicle so efficient that it achieves 3,145 miles per US gallon (0.074 litres/100 km)