Tag: shane koyczan

letting the cat out of the bag for a trip around the block

Shane Koyczan
Promotional photo for Shane Koyczan.
  • ChatRoulette Love Song: speed dating done right.

    Arron took me on a driving lesson the other day, all the way from Home Depot to Metrotown, the farthest I’ve ever gone in a car. I suspect he found it vaguely terrifying, but given my lack of experience, I think I did rather well. No one died, nothing got wrecked, and I finally found myself okay with driving at more than 30 km/hour. I had been vaguely concerned that driving his truck would be somehow scarier than the little car I had been learning in with Young Drivers of Canada, (bigger equals more dangerous), but instead I discovered that though I disliked the hugeness of the thing, (the amount of space it takes up is slightly ridiculous), my years of living in a truck have apparently made me significantly more comfortable sitting higher up. It feels more natural being able to look down at other vehicles, rather than up at them. I blame my mother and her addiction to vans. Also, not dealing with a clutch meant that I stopped mixing up the pedals, so that was a victory, too. The best one, probably. Notes: remembering to check blind spots, figuring out how much space is actually required to change lanes. (Hint: significantly less than I think).

  • Little Wheel: a sweet, beautiful art game involving robots.

    I had a try-out day of work with Agentic yesterday, the web development company I’ve been interviewing with that I rather like. It was a very relaxed time, some easy work in a nice environment, surrounded by quiet, friendly people, not stressful at all. I was mostly left to myself, just me and a desk and a small pile of simple tasks. It was only after, during my gentle walk home, that I started feeling worried I wouldn’t get the job, as if my body had saved up all my concerns for later, tucked away in a bottom drawer of my heart until it was deemed safe to let them out. Silly, in a way, as it is out of my hands now. Everything left to do is on their side – talking to my references, deciding which candidate to hire, then calling us with the decision. (I was told they’ll let me know no later than Monday.) In the meantime, all I can do is wait and cross my fingers that I am what they need. It would be great to work in a positive environment again. I’m tired of spending time in offices where you can tell that everyone there wishes they weren’t.

  • Mills & Boon: self-portraits that mimic the covers of romance novels.

    My others news: Lung and I are finally starting a photography business together, Fox-Rain Wedding Photos. We’ve been talking about it for years, but the timing was never quite right. This time, however, I’ve already kludged together a solid rough draft of our website that I plan to take live in the next few days, before he leaves for California next week, and hope to get some sort of quick logo nailed down by the end of today, the better to toss on business cards asap. Neither one of us is particularly flush at the moment, so start-up money is tight, but I’ve done my research and I’m not only certain we can do this on the cheap, I’m absolutely confident we’ll succeed. If we can get everything together quick enough, things could even be up and running by the end of the month. Expect us at a tacky wedding fair near you, soon! We’ll be the people who don’t suck.

    • looking for atlantis

    Shane Koyczan
    Another of Shane Koyczan.

    I attended a Napoleonic Star Wars themed birthday party on Friday until the small of Saturday morning, dressed as a courtier/tie-fighter rebel pilot, lace ruffles fluttering from the cuffs of my orange pilot’s jumpsuit, a flouncy white cravat at my neck, hair snail-coiled into tiny Leia buns, lips painted in a tiny red heart, and then I walked three miles home in the incredible snow, taking the long route to see a man who wasn’t there, and stopping to buy ice-cream on the way. Coated in white, dripping as I walked up the counter, the windows obscured by flurries. Seriously, you should have seen the sales clerk’s face.

    -::-

    Shane called just after midnight the other night, thrilled with his pictures, asking if I could shoot his band soon, too. Of course, I said, I would love to, so we set it up that we’ll see each other next month, when they’re in town rehearsing for When I Was A Kid, his upcoming show at the Cultch. If all goes well, however, I’ll miss it completely, as I’ll be out of the country as he stands on stage, somewhere I have never been before with someone I’ve never met yet utterly adore. (My favourite kind of exciting!)

    -::-

    I have a job interview coming up on Friday, a follow-up to a promising phone call I had last week. I really hope I get this one, far more than usual, as it seems like a perfect combination: a company of good people doing good things, ethical, open-source, media-savvy, and clever, within an easy bike-ride from home. I’ve been keeping busy lately, taking pictures, writing, catching up on MIT’s open course-ware, learning new things, but underneath the triumphant glaze of productivity, there’s been an unwavering desire to jump back into the workforce, take part in more than my own little projects. This job, if I get it, could be the key to an entirely new level of personal satisfaction, so fingers crossed that I am what they need.

    bittersweet week

    THE BROTHERS QUAY DO STANISLAW LEM’s MASKA!!

    My plans have been falling through left, right, and center the last few days, near unbelievably so, but there’s been just enough nice to make up for it. I had two shoots this past weekend, one with Mishka and Jim, who wanted engagement photos, headshots, and wedding invitations, and another with Shane for promotional photos for his new website, and I might be spending this upcoming weekend in Seattle, following my dear friends The Mutaytor as they kick off their Pacific Northwest tour. (I was given an iPod touch for the engagement photos, too, which means I NOW HAVE INTERNET IN MY POCKET. So. Exciting!). Good times!

    Today I’m processing my photos from the weekend, picking through and polishing, getting into the sort of flow I can get lost in for hours, and writing poetry back and forth with New York. I’ve already finished my first run through the engagement photos and soon I’ll be finished with Shane’s pictures, and then it will be time to start making Valentine’s dinner for my sweetheart, who I look forward to seeing. Things there have been an odd, bohemian mix of blissful and bizarrely unreliable, dotted with both raw adoration and vast misunderstandings, so the prospect of an actual “date” night, though unusual, is somewhat reassuring.

    this is the sea, for him to have a challenge, I must accept one

    cultch_webflyer

    Larry, my friend who’s master of Sinister Bedfellows and the Sharing Is For Communists t-shirt, is caught in a bit of a financially worrying situation. As a result, he’s put our book on sale.

    (I’d very much like to see a printed version of this eventually. I’m told it’s popular in American libraries, but I’ve only a PDF copy, myself.)

    My story was about Shane Koyzan, (teaser: here), who is conveniently performing at the Cultch this Tuesday with all the lovely people mentioned in the flyer stage right. I’m told that I’m to be the official photographer for the evening, which is a task I’m beginning to look on with mounting panic. For one, the plate to my tripod’s gone missing. For another, as my mending is at two months behind, I’m going to have to very hurriedly find some theatre blacks with appropriate pockets. (This is where, simultaneously, one of you feels guilty and someone else laughs). Oh, watch me begin to scurry. while. stuck. at. work. Head, this is the desk.

    how to properly put on a kimono.

    The feet on the floor above me sound like an amplified heartbeat taken from a terrible new age TV show, as if they’re pushing blood through the building by the mystical power of dance. Heads thrown back, arms out, legs crashing in slow motion, blue waving graphics meant to symbolize something drastically spiritual and unlikely to be true. Either that or they sound like feet and I really should have slept more last night than I did. It’s a fifty/fifty bet.

    Part of my mock-panic worry are the miniature New York Times Bestseller hallucinations floating around in the penumbra of most of my sensory input today. I’m not so far gone that I’m seriously considering joining the Project 365 Photo-a-Day, but I am beginning to sift through my pictures, trying to pick what to give to A View In Your Mirror. The idea is to create a collection of self-portraits from people all over the world, artists or no, in the medium they prefer. I fall into the categories presented, I like what they’ve chosen to show so far, but most importantly, (not to mention unexpectedly), I can’t think of any reason not to.

    this is an oldest story


    sarah boyer – freshmeat
    Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

    I have found my laughter from where it was hiding. This time, for the very first time, it’s allowed out of the closet with tears still in its eyes. When I grew up, I grew up in a strange canadian cultural vacuum. I would stare out the window of the truck at all the houses gliding past and wonder what real people had inside thier houses. What was on the other side of so many doors? I lived in hotel rooms and on some basic level, they’re all the same. Clinical transiency. Fake flowers, soulless bedspreads that match the thick ugly curtains, television remotes that you either find next to the miniature fridge or bolted to the table. Cable is an option, but there’s always an ice machine that clunks in the middle of the night. I used to pad out into hallways and sit against them sometimes, because it was a light I could read by. Anonymous. The trick is that they’re always anonymous. The furniture is not your furniture, the life you live within those walls belongs to no one. I grew up being not real people.

    My body jerked me across my bed when I woke up this morning. An unfamiliar hand had touched me on the shoulder. Left over reflexes I really should work on controlling a little better. I was up late, reading, unable to think about my tomorrow. Too many things. I have a livingroom picnic this afternoon with Brian. We’re putting down a blanket and making sandwiches. If I was a better person, I would suggest we pretend we’re on a beach somewhere, but I’m not. So I won’t. Breakfast today with precious friends led into a pleasant walk up the drive and some actual grocery shopping. It’s like my world spun around. A smile has been affixed to my face. Someone I don’t know stopped me on the street on my way home with my bags, “I see you all the time on the drive, but I’ve never talked to you, but today I felt I had to say something. You’re really pretty when you’re happy”. He was my height, with dark brown hair and a slightly crooked baseball hat. I wouldn’t recognize him again.

    When you speak, even silence listens.


    Sun Wheel Reflection
    Originally uploaded by Sylys Sable.

    Shane stayed over last night, the way his head rested on my body made me aware of my collarbones. We have a strange friendship, he and I. When we are together in a room, we pair off, we pool our attentions. I am continually The One Who Got Away While Standing in The Same Room and he is That Man Who Speaks Like a God Creating but Likes Me Anyway. Dawn painted light onto my ceiling and I watched it, the sun sparking off the gold sequins attached to the cloth that hangs over my bed bright enough for my blind eyes to see, and considered why I didn’t blush when I finally read to him his poem. He’s just back from the Edinburgh book festival, where he was on a panel with John Saul, Salman Rushdie and Margaret Atwood, (his book’s been released already in the UK), and here I am, a girl in a bar with funny hair and a lopsided smile, for a moment attempting to be literary, reading to him, the man who won the world slam three years running, about how I don’t love him as much as he loves me. If it were two years ago, I would have laughed at my inestimable gall, but now, somehow, it’s alright. In my own way, I’m on par.

    A little bit that’s scary.

    Broken Flowers was artfully ingenious, by the way, before I forget to say ecetera. Jim Jarmusch catching intelligently how lonely our memories are, and ending it with such implied emotion that it went past being clever and landed squarely in the masterful category. Bill Murray plays a similar role to the one he did with Lost In Translation, but twists it slightly, resulting in a more black and white character, one more inclined to allowing for dry assumptions. I really liked it, the humour was provocative and cheerfully nasty, as it tends to be with Jim Jarmusch, but I don’t know if it’s going to catch on the way Coffee & Cigarettes did. One can hope, certainly.

    Today the majority are over at Playland, shouting on rides and watching animals snuffle about in pens. I’m caught still clinging to the internet petticoats, wandering the flooding catacomb of New Orleans and am wondering if I’ll make it out at all. Ray should be calling, confirming if we’re going to go rollercoaster or not. I hope he does it soon, as Reine called recently and I’m feeling bad that I haven’t been able to ring her back yet.