nice grainy boyvoice pop describes grace

DoubtingParis – Good Intentions (band web site)
Immoor – Underside Up (band web site)

ah so that's it, 12.31.o6

12.31.o6


















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Stop! Thief! - Did I Shave My Legs for This?
faintedink fort erie singalong material?

hey, 12.31.o6










.
Vetiver – You May Be Blue (To Find Me Gone)

for Virgo this week: In Kabbalah, the tree of life is the primary symbol of the universe. In Norse mythology, the World Tree links heaven to earth and shelters all living things; beneath it lies a magical well with water that confers special powers on those who drink it. The ancient Chinese spoke of a peach tree that bore a single fruit once every three millennia, and provided immortality to anyone who ate it. In the mythic tradition of modern science, trees have a crucial role in maintaining the ecological health of the planet. I mention all this, Virgo, because in 2007 you'll benefit tremendously from deepening your relationship with trees--both the actual and mythical kinds. Get to know them better. Learn from them. Plant some. Put a picture of a favorite tree on your altar. Hug one now and then.

Hug a tree. Hug a tree? Does he mean Markedly Undemonstrative Persons?

moka hotel this tree pic waiting there (the first after-xmas My-new-year posting) along with a folk music list to accompany their trip to a cabin in the woods : “unbathed, hungry like the wolves, going out at night to caress tree’s crust . .” What a dumbstruckingme coincidence also that there is on the list a Manassas song. If you were still crapping your pants in the 1970’s, then you’d know that Manassas is another name for Stephen Stills of Crosby Stills Nash & Young, and you’d know that because your daddy would have played you your favorite CSNY album as many times as

Manassas – Johnny’s Garden
CSNY – Teach Your Children (so highly recommended)

Damien
(when he kisses mouth and back and laments “come read me the story of o” could convince me to change my name to Amy)
Rice – 9 crimes

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.
Business Man - Wicked Game ( trentmoller Chris Isaaak dubmix)

James Brown died. That's Life

the end

one xmas mine field to another dash, though I'd rather be invisible than have super speed

guess maybe cuz I've got the runnin' off part down

restive melt playlist:
the cowboy junkies - blue moon
sparrow house – when I am gone
ray charles and nina simone -baby it's cold outside
the soft boys - got the hots

"Freedom is the right of all sentient beings."
-----Optimus Prime

I'm somewhat lazily studying the difference between American and Japanese Transformers.

jimi hendrix - machine gun

xmas presence v.3

miles davis - I fall in love too easily and not easily enough

xmas presence v.2

damien rice & lisa hannagen - silent night [wow]

I hate christmas music. If I must have sentimentality (which oddly in spurts of real xmas tree type smell urges I do I do okay sue me whatever), I want it to at least be peculiar. Damien and Lisa, they do it again and again and again (thrice is also an adverb, btw).

xmas presence (v.1?)

"God Knows (You Gotta Give to Get)," El Perro del Mar (that'd be enlightened self-interest, I believe)

twice is an ADVERB Etymology: Middle English twiges, twies, from Old English twiga



Today is global orgasm day. No, seriously:

THE EVENT-

WHO? All Men and Women, you and everyone
you know.
WHERE? Everywhere in the world, but especially in countries with weapons of mass destruction.
WHEN? Winter Solstice Day - Friday, December 22nd,
at the time of your choosing, in the place of your choosing and with as much privacy as you choose.
WHY? To effect positive change in the energy field of the Earth through input of the largest possible surge of human energy a Synchronized Global Orgasm. There are two more US fleets heading for the Persian Gulf with anti-submarine equipment that can only be for use against Iran, so the time to change Earth’s energy is NOW!

ambulance ltd – stay tuned

m. ward - chinese translation

john tavener - the lament (of the mother of God at the foot of the cross)

(jingle bells . . . ) that one's for DmS

I woke up and watched the light bounce around as I like to—a gallon of honey would be kind of perfect next to the window . . . What if by mutually compelling forces of chance and reason (chaos is order seeking itself, and vice versa, someone told me that) it turns out that although AstrologyGuy pulled it outa his ass he stumbled into some weird truth of blessing traveling creation via portals of honey pots? (What if even AstrologyGuy has P-on-the-end-Woman pussywhipped?) Things I know for sure: honey doesn’t rot, it would look good near a window of light, that I upend the bottle of it straight into my mouth on a regular basis, that it’s good especially with peanut butter, that it heals wounds, that I’m buying two gallon glass jars of it today and sending one to my father. And that with the cranky storm (wooow) of the last few days breaking up in my head finally, my first thoughts today were of ‘highest values’.

V.1 Freedom is a Necessary Burden. I have been thinking about this a lot recently in regards to work, for instance. DmS looks for work, a mournful process. I have been barely able to do it in my life, waged work with hours quantifiable in that way. In fact, most of the people most closely related to me by blood and closest to me by choice and emotional attachment—these people are for the most part organically biologically spiritually intellectually instinctively intuitively allergic to selling their time. They’ll give it away. They’ll piss it away. But if you try to buy it off them, forget it. Some have chosen poverty. Some, like me, have wiggled themselves into a lifestyle of fixity wherein automatic deposits and withdrawals take care of themselves, as if for the most part money doesn’t even exist—don’t want anything beyond the means of that fixity and you never have to think about it hardly until the car breaks down. Some have looked for work that transcends its day in social value and is as a result of course a fraction of lucrative. Then there are the (sometimes lunatic) businesses, “pet sitting and interior design”, junked snowmobiles compiled into one working and sold, hell maybe a bridge of swizzle fucking sticks from one end of nowhere to the other, just not 9-5 of tasks with no inherent value of being interesting. Or death (off and on). So be it.

I am looking forward to more opportunities to think about this Value 1 in all terms, not just the personal where it is most difficult to apply in ideal balance. P-on-the-End. All the women in my life so far whom I’ve gotten to take that personality test and tell me, they’re all J-on-the-End of the same string of mine except for that difference. Once I sprayed the tub with Scrubbing Bubbles and realized that the clean-smell had to be actually a physical substance, molecules of whatever, little tiny beings going into me via my nose, and the thought freaked me out. Feelings are like that. Invisible, but of a substance that is measurable, but not easily so. Intuition is a name for one method of measurement. Some are slower to add things up than others. But they get there, and maybe the time it took them (P) cements their judgments. Add in V.1 and the Get Offa Me backlash . . . well let’s just say you can take a swing at somebody so hard it knocks you on your own ass too. For xmas, I’d like to be able to keep my ass up off the ground with the cold seeping in.

bill (always good) evans – when I fall in love
marit bergman – my love (timberlake cover—can’t believe it’s good but it is)

for Virgo this week: Mytho-poetic scholars say that honey symbolizes emotional maturity. When it appears in your dreams or reveries, it may mean you're expanding your capacity to experience feelings that are positive and healthy for you. It suggests you're ready to shed distorted psychological patterns that you unwittingly absorbed as a child, and replace them with new imprints that are in harmony with your highest values. Since 2007 will bring opportunities for you to do these exact things, Virgo, I suggest that you give honey an honored place in your life. Maybe buy some of the best stuff on the market, put it in a fine decanter, and keep it on an altar in your

or whiskey 12.06

Robert Dick - Voodoo Child

oy, 12.06

grading finals geeod blow my head off out of all patience for geewhiz I thought this book was swell like I give a shit why don’t you tell me to shove it just for a change and everybody else say something else for a change and you might ask for a password if you're clueless instead of being a dumbass about it snortstamp god damn playlist:

Renee Olstead – Someone to Watch Over (Me, duh)
Chet Baker- Tenderly
Diana Krall – Peel Me a Grape
Sarah Vaughn – Whatever Lola Wants (tango)
Faithless ft. Nina Simone – I Want More
bonus: Imogen Heap – Missing You

coincidence
a year ago today I get into this accident and who was noticing and who didn’t was impossible
only stand-byes tonight for-real voices wish it were a bit longer of a
playlist:
Janis – me and bobby mcgee
Johnny – in my life
Bobie – go now or stay all night

When I was younger, I’d wander in the insomnia. There was a very large space of undeveloped acreage near our land that eventually got drained of its boggy tendencies and turned into mc mansions. But at the time, it was empty save for the paths, which I’d wander almost nightly. The only person who knew I did that was my father, also a life-long insomniac. He never reprimanded me for it, or for anything I did really. His violent storms would break over me for reasons of his own inner phases, which I knew, and thus I monitored them closely. little-girl-barometer. Once I was wandering back in the still-dark, and I found him in the yard taking pictures of the night sky. He had the tripod set up, and when I looked I saw what he was trying to capture despite its movement, the layers of clouds vaporous enough to see through. “Full moon”, he said. “I knew there was a reason I felt like beating the fucking shit out of somebody all day.” I remember watching my own mind think the kind of things it generally did against the backdrop of reading his: the moon’s gravity is responsible for tidal patterns in the large bodies of water on the earth; the fuller the moon the closer to sunset will be moonrise or something like that; 12? men have walked on the moon; one of them was named Buzz; my father scares me; the brightest stars in the sky are actually planets; if near dusk, it’s probably Venus . . .

chopin - prelude in E minor

"This is about Darwinian prosperity. Males who did not successfully guard their mates are not our ancestors."

smitten kitten

.

(some) Women go bonkers for men’s voices and stink, off and on, and their brains expand/contract over the whole thing. I had to pause and investigate. [After I got done listening to George Clooney.] A woman’s brain can shrink as much as 8 % during pregnancy. In fact, the shrinkage starts pre-natal. (duh) Then on the hormone rebound, the reparative connectivity of the brain exceeds the original un-apple-carted state.

= aslkjdalrprrrrdkj : zzzzzz : whatthe?!

erma franklin – piece of my heart (joplin cover)

bonus track: the bird and the bee – f’n boyfriend

creeper lagoon - under the tracks (his and)

certified bananas – kiss the girl (baltimore remix)

[look at d' boy so shy la laaa]

'under control / in control'
2005
Lucy Petrovich Johnie Hugh Horn

I'm wondering about the range of human(e) personalities. INFP sounds better than my homespun "frigid nymphomaniac", but Fred Savage as a possible soul mate is a tad depressing.

(You try it.)

"I Think I'd Like to Go Back to Heaven," Alec Ounsworth

untitled, kenichi hoshine












loren connors - along the way

(bonus track - whistle while you work)

bobie dylan - don't think twice it's alright

For Virgo this week: Here's the bad news. Sometimes your perfectionism verges on being a sophisticated death trip--a manic compulsion to trap life inside a tight little cell where no change is allowed. Here's the good news: You now have the power to strip away the pathological part of your perfectionism and liberate the healthy core of it. Please swear to me that you'll figure out how to be more fluid and playful with your zeal for excellence. Spend less time running your mind in vicious circles and more time running your mind in upward spirals. [“and down is very close to the ground. And I'm trying to go up without thinking about anything trivial”]

secret see thru catpeople haunting the working superman playlist:
Cujo (Amon Tobin) – Catpeople
Emilie Simon – Secret
Gil Scott-Heron – Ain’t No Such Thing as Superman
Muzykoterapia – Love Haunting
Flunk – See Thru You
Pj Harvy – Workin for the Man

Things I remember learning in college about the Far East:

That attachment is a disease [though of course Dylan would be worth it], via about 100 trains of thought, such as : Zen: Japanese; Ch'an (Chinese); a branch of Mahayana Buddhism which developed in China during the sixth and seventh centuries after Bodhidharma arrived; it later divided into the Soto and Rinzai schools; Zen stresses the importance of the enlightenment experience and the futility of rational thought, intellectual study and religious ritual in attaining this; a central element of Zen is zazen, a meditative practice which seeks to free the mind of all thought and conceptualization. [Later, I go ga-ga for this guy who is like the ones I fall into, both without a solution and difficult besides, and who advises that we herd an ox over a cliff to get over all forms of desire, and the ox is our own minds. (pause) oy vei]

That the Cultural Revolution was a bitch. But there was something a wee bit compelling in the fantasy of chopping any talking head right off. Cranky then, I remember often having guilty identifications with the bad guys, from Lex Lurther to Mao Zedong.

The Yellow River. The Yangtze River.

Night Soil.

Empress Dowagers. A couple of them were real hardasses, one in the 1600’s and another at the end of the 1800’s. One was Ghengis Kahn’s grandkid or something like that and she ruled wedged up her heir’s ass like a toggle.

That in China even a peasant could advance to higher education, during some of the dynasties anyway, by scoring well enough on Confucian exams, and that a person was judged on all sorts of rote knowledge repeated to perfection and that the handwriting was also to be aesthetically perfectly representative. (Like black fascist boots, i.e. loved that despite myself while simultaneously wallowing in The Closing of the American Mind.)

The myth of Mulan. Maxine Hong Kingston’s version. I particularly liked the part when her parents tattoo their list of existential complaints all down her back back back.

Madeleine Peyroux - Blue Alert (highly recommended—ying/yang balance droll/sexy.)

miles davis - thought about you

I haven’t yet had the nerve to ask FaintedInk what she wears to work because how geeky is that? (very) Flying solo then on the question of corporate environs vis a vis my wardrobe, I conclude that the glow-in-the-dark MEOW panties can stay (who’ll know?), but that my t-shirt collection is probably not going to be spot on. So I drag my butt to the mall a couple of times, the excuse being that really a person my age ought to have at least a few ensembles that do not include any thrift store elements . . . but I just can’t hold that thought after the reconnaissance. I do not mean to offend any of my younger loved ones, but apparently if you were still crapping your pants in the 80’s you might not realize this: THEY WERE UGLY YEARS. Rules of thumb:

• A leotard is not an outfit. (Let’s review: No.)
• Leopard print leggings are never a good idea.
• Leopard print anything is never a good idea.
• A 3-inch belt over a sweater will bunch the thing up on your ass something terrible.
• Faux fur edged down alternative hooded coats are sold at Farm & Fleet, as is everything Will Geer wore on The Waltons, and so unless you’re into cow tipping . . . .
• Stiletto ankle boots might have some purpose, but not often and probably not in public.
• Dalman sleeves maybe, but be careful of the Maud factor.
• Cowl necks are similarly suspect.
• Don’t. Rat. Your. Hair. (On purpose anyway. I mean, if it gets that way riding behind Prince on a purple motorcycle, I can kinda see the retro appeal, but otherwise no.) And bangs should never go as far up first as they come down thereafter.
• Ideally, earrings should be neither the size of your head nor red.

I love Paula, but do you see her wearing bubble shorts and leg warmers lately? And then, on top of the assault to eyes, the mall adds a retro xmas soundtrack. Can someone please shoot Elton and put him out of my misery? MY EYES!! MY EARS!!! AAAAHhhh.

Age has some benefits. We haven’t died, we’ve moved on. Catch up.

Cyndi Lauper lately – At Last

Being noticed can be a burden. Jesus got himself crucified because he got himself noticed. So I disappear a lot.

From Dylan’s acceptance speech for the Tom Paine Freedom Award, Bill of Rights Dinner, 1963:

I haven't got any guitar, I can talk though. I want to thank you for the Tom Paine award in behalf everybody that went down to Cuba. First of all because they're all young and it's took me a long time to get young and now I consider myself young. And I'm proud of it. I'm proud that I'm young. And I only wish that all you people who are sitting out here today or tonight weren't here and I could see all kinds of faces with hair on their head - and everything like that, everything leading to youngness, celebrating the anniversary when we overthrew the House Un-American Activities just yesterday, - Because you people should be at the beach. You should be out there and you should be swimming and you should be just relaxing in the time you have to relax. It is not an old peoples' world. It is not an old peoples' world. It has nothing to do with old people. Old people when their hair grows out, they should go out. And I look down to see the people that are governing me and making my rules - and they haven't got any hair on their head - I get very uptight about it . . .

My friends are my friends, and they're kind, gentle people if they're my friends. And I'm not going to try to push nothing over. So, I accept this reward - not reward, award in behalf of Phillip Luce who led the group to Cuba which all people should go down to Cuba. I don't see why anybody can't go to Cuba. I don't see what's going to hurt by going any place. I don't know what's going to hurt anybody's eyes to see anything.

.

There's no black and white, left and right to me anymore; there's only up and down and down is very close to the ground. And I'm trying to go up without thinking about anything trivial such as politics. They has got nothing to do with it. I'm thinking about the general people and when they get hurt. --From a letter to the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee

I don't mind being shot, I just don't dig being told about it.
- No Direction Home

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bob dylan - you're gonna make me lonesome

Who knew?
Just think of the possibilities. "Ya fuckin puck chuckin puck head!", for example.

There is something coming. I can feel it. Like rain, where my son broke my pelvic bone and it aches in the damp, so I know. I don’t know what it is though. It/he/she is not in general circulation. For instance, to be specific, the cute bartender isn’t it, no matter that he remembers my name a couple weeks later like it was nothing. I look at him and I can’t imagine the raking of my teeth cross his shoulder in knowing, because I don’t remember his name in turn, and have to ask it again. I could go on with the instances of what it is not, and what masks it like air freshener over the smell of real air. It’s always like this.

Welp. 12.06

Meanwhile, Fort Erie Cognitive Dissonance ft. (They know all the words) playlist:

Eminem ft Nate Dog - Shake That (and good for yoga-no seriously)
Buckcherry- Crazy Bitch
Counting Crows – Mr. Jones (acoustic) [you would think the shift between those last two would give a person whiplash, eh?]

untitled actually, 12.2006

The wind’s picking up. Storm warning. It’d be odd if the last day of classes were called off for snow. We would all then disperse like motes, without goodbye. And as it will be not just the last day but my last day, it would be hard not to read significance into that. They will never have heard Howl. I could not be evaluated. It would not be my choice, none of it. I suspect that is often the case.

For Virgo this week: I can't believe I'm saying this, but doing lots of housework in the coming days could give you a big lift. At least for now, organizing the clutter and cleaning up a hundred little messes in your home could directly or indirectly lead to improved health, interesting developments in your sex life, and upgrades in your relationship to future work possibilities. It might even free up psychic energy that has been stuck, help you rediscover an important thing you thought you'd lost, and remind you to take better care of a crucial connection you've been taking for granted.

Welp, I already painted the bedroom, so that’s not it. (Turned out lovely btw, melty ice cream as the sun hits it. My older son says, falling asleep, “Dad is better actively because he can make cardboard machine guns, but you’re better making things soft. And you smell better.) Every day I pass an orange tapestry embroidered with little mirrors. It hides the wall gash. It bugs me every time because it is false. It would not bother me to see the gash, obviously I know it’s there, so for whom do I keep and hide it? I’ll take it down and hang a pointless picture, like of a knee or some random thing.

Buddhist proverb: Meeting is only the beginning of separation. I know that too. But I learned it when my first child left my body, and so I could not take it as a corrective suggestion not to say hello with all my heart. The proverb then is merely a statement of fact. (i.e. Tough cookies!)

Bob Dylan – All I Really Want

Furthermore [she says lecture-ly, missing already the student(s) gone], the problem with the wisdom of detachment: by the time it is time for a write off, the exhaustion of having reached that point makes the further work of ‘letting go’ seem like a monumental effort of the Will. How can you look across at what needs parting and not wonder how you could spend that effort on something not worth the keeping? The only honest solution I can think of is to leave the gash. Open. In The Antelope Wife, the mother thinks of her lover while her twins lounge on her, and she thinks of her stretch marks as cartography as they trace them with their fingers. I have no marks at all. Body in Cognito. And I gave the book away, a gift not a loan.

Belle & Sebastian – Step Into My Office, Baby

christmas list spelling

Power Rangere-s
Lion
Pokeman
Video ranjer
v.flash
ninja turtulz
yo yo
zipzaps
Game (g inverted) Boy
Magaman (g inverted) comes sold zepretle
Norito ninga mastr
PRIMES!
Trile pack (of?)
Heper scan
Miechsm-
Onsters

Some day I’ll claim to you how all used up
I am because of you but in the meantime the ride
Continues. Everyone is along for the ride,
It seems. Besides, what else is there?

- John Ashbery, "Worsening Situation"

Like Cinderella, I left a token behind in good faith but skittish(ed) away before the coach turned to a pumpkin after all. The good thing about going to China, so far, is that I cannot tell what the good thing will be about it. It will at worst be no happily ever after, and at best it’ll be god only knows what. (And the red guys won too, and I was the only one paying attention, almost.) Sometimes it feels as if someone has a crowbar between my rack of ribs and with leverage I might break open.

piers faccini – if I

Ron Sexsmith – Foolproof

Feist - Foolproof (Sexsmith cover)

I shouldn't tell you that the upshot is at the end, bc the impatient deserve what they don't get.

from The Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac:

I looked at him, his head was buried way under inside his duck-down bag. His little huddled form was the only thing I could see for miles of darkness that was so packed and concentrated with eager desire to be good. I thought, “What a strange thing is man . . like in the Bible it says, Who knoweth the spirit of man that looketh upward? This poor kid ten years younger than I am is making me look like a fool for forgetting all the ideals and joys I knew before, in my recent years of drinking and disappointment, what does he care that if he hasn’t got any money: he doesn’t need any money, all he needs is his rucksack with those little plastic bags of dried food and a good pair of shoes and off he goes and enjoys the privileges of a millionaire surrounded like this. And what gouty millionaire could get up this rock anyhow? It took us all day to climb.” And I promised myself that I would begin a new life. I went to sleep after burying my nose under the sleeping bag and woke up around dawn shivering, the ground cold had seeped through the poncho and through the bag and my ribs were up against a damper damp than the damp of a cold bed. My breath was coming out in steams. I rolled over to the other ribs and slept more: my dreams were pure cold dreams like ice water, happy dreams, no nightmares. [but I bet his ass was cold]




toss and turn
12.2006

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denison witmer - northern sky (nick drake cover)

For Virgo this week: In one of Aesop's fables, a donkey becomes enamored of the crickets' serenades. Longing to produce the same sound himself, he goes to a cricket for advice. "What kind of food gives you that sweet-sounding voice?" he asks. The cricket says, "My food is the air and the dew." The donkey then begins a new diet, hoping that by eating nothing but air and dew he too will be able to make beautiful, whirring melodies. It doesn't happen, of course. The donkey merely starves. Let this be your teaching story for the coming week, Virgo. Sing your own song with your own voice, whether that sounds like a hee-haw or a warble. And get the exact nurturing that will help you sing your own song with your own voice, not the nurturing that helps others sing their special tunes.

Huh. Well it cannot be denied that recently and repeatedly I have been a half-starved (dumb)ass.

So upon reflection, I cannot teach the following: How to avoid being a half starved (dumb)ass; How to use a power drill; How to relent; How to be a good citizen; How to be a model employee; How to be a cricket; How to develop professional skills (on purpose—incidentally yes, but not on purpose); How to be on time (too early yes, but not spot on); How to sleep through the night; How to make a good break (in pool, for instance); How to plan for a comfortable retirement; How to care about worksheets; How to fake caring about worksheets; How to fake it (well—badly yes, and most people don’t notice); How to eat the vegetables first and the dessert last, generally speaking; How to spell (I’m not even sure about dessert—desert?); How to be beige; How to want what you don’t and/or unwant what you do, no matter how perverse or perverse-seeming to others; How not to be perverse or perverse-seeming; How to understand or embrace ‘productivity’ in any worldly way; How to finish, which is for being dead, so why teach that in any form anyway?

I think I’ve been straying, out of desire to do the right thing, from what I know and my own voice. I teach: For No Good Reason. Someone has to do that, and that’s what I do.

Ballboy - I Need Two Hearts

djchampion - no heaven (highly recommended)

It’s all about folk music right now. I can’t let them get by me without knowing about it. Not have heard Bob Dylan? O no no no. I can hardly let them get past me with so little milked off, so swollen with knowing and randomly interesting unnecessary things.

the obstacle is the path playlist:

the weepies – say I am you
bob dylan – desolation row
the weavers – kisses sweeter than wine
rhett miller – bird in a cage [your] {nervous heart} repost
lisa loeb & elizabeth mitchell – big candy mountains

The future is a wall of black, cold exciting infinite backdrop of nothing. I’ve always felt that a lot. Time fleets. I've always hurried to plant seeds while I could while I could. Then there are the moments when I was held or I held someone and for that fleeting time, that embrace made falling backwards into the future seem not so bad, almost dreamlike, melty. It was not that they would be there when I died. It was that the moment itself with someone held-holding confirmed that there had been some reason, some sense, in and for having been alive. And that feeling is Alive. And that feeling is some kind of faith. It is difficult right now, because I crave a dollop of that feeling very keenly. Like eating up before a hibernation or expenditure. The future is at my back and I am striving for purchase as I walk backwards into it, wishing and waiting patiently for the Alive bits to make themselves felt. Kisses at the nape of the neck so pure and pleasureable that they make the howling wind recede in shame at their beauty.

The Gorillaz – The Future is Coming On [sic], (Clint Eastwood video) mp3link

Are you gay?, 11.2006

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Lil’R notes recently, Hey Canada is a whole different country! You’d think that would be obvious, but it’s only minutes away and the people do speak a somewhat similar language and dress warmly most of the year too, etc. If you add American arrogance into the equation, it’s a simple matter to confuse the nation for an annex, sad but true. As it turns out, though, since it’s a different country maybe I can go there and not be in my own country, which metaphorically speaking could be the middle porridge moment in this sequence of my lost-in-the-woods story line. They open the kitchen for you if you’re hungry even if it’s after 9 p.m. Sooo nice, for real.

But what the hell is up with the obsession with whether or not you’re a gay man? I’ve heard of this, but from afar, and I chalked it up to something I know about but can’t feature, like the seal-only diet of the Inuit. In the states, men do call each other ‘faggots’ as an insult, from playful to violent in intent. But even if meant playfully, after a couple of times, an American ‘straight’ guy will probably punch the other guy in the face or something. My current hypothesis is that this running you’re-gay no-you’re-gay thing between Canadian men is partially the result of the lesser tendency Canadians have in general to interpersonal violence. Hence they can keep that up without risking bloodshed. Also the fact that it can be a never-ending topic/joke might indicate a lesser degree of violent homophobia. I’m not sure. I have to do more field work on this, which won’t be hard since all it takes is several Canadian men in the same room for the subject of whether one of them is gay or not to come up:

D. are you still faking this girl out that you’re not gay?, asks J. Does he go down on you for hours to cover his gayness?, he asks S., D’s girl.
You’re gay.
No, you’re gay.
Ok, it’s true, says J. to S., I’ve had your boyfriend more times than you have—Worst 2 minutes of anybody’s life, man or woman—but at least I don’t go down on women to fake them out, that’s pathetic.
What are you a Black Guy!?, asks M., J’s brother.
No, but there is no need for that kind of thing, sex is for the man, it’s for procreation, I’m a religious guy, says J.
You’re like that Black Guy, who works at such-n-such (there’s one Black Guy?), but he doesn’t have to because he’s got that big black cock.
You oughta know, since you’re gay.
It’s not about that, says C., the nice looking guy whose wife is pregnant.
Yeah, says M., straight guys and lesbians like to do it, Right?, he asks my friend K., whose eyes are wide with the hilarity of it all.
Um Sure, she shrugs. (lol)
M. says, If you’re good looking like him (gesturing at C.) it’s one thing, but a guy like me has got to have talent. [He does look like one of the pudgy minor characters from The Soprano’s, truth be told.]
It doesn’t matter if you are good looking, says C. You can’t spend your life with someone who doesn’t want to give you a blow job that lasts a good half hour at least, and vice versa. (Nods all around, a serious Truth of Life moment.)
I knocked up your wife, says J. It only took like 30 seconds, she hardly even noticed. I did it as your friend, it was a job that just needed to get done, ya know what I’m saying?
HEY, that means you’re kid’s gonna be GAY, says half the bar in unison. (lol)

for Fort Erie and FaintedInk in particular (f’n priceless so funny):

The Tragically Hip ("the Guess Who of Canada")- Bobcaygeon

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not for all North Carolina,
11.2006
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The Magnetic Fields - All My Little Words
Eef Barzelay (Clem Snide) - Thanksgiving Waves

ten yards at a time (self help + tunes)

Thanksgiving = Football. The feng shui of the game?, She wonders.

from Moving the Chains: Tom Brady and Pursuit of Everything by Charles P. Pierce:

It's within the movement of the chains that football finds its soul. It's within the movement of the chains that football players see most clearly how they are bound together. When an offense is moving the chains, it keeps its defense off the field, rested and ready, while exhausting the defense of the other team. When an offense is moving the chains, its success is easily defined in calibrated achievements, ten yards at a time, one after another after another again. Each player gains confidence -- in himself and in what comes to be seen as an inexorable whole. This confidence can become an almost physical force -- something Newtonian, like gravity or inertia: "An offense in motion tends to stay in motion, except when acted upon by an equal or opposite force, which is usually a linebacker with blood in his eye." In fact, an offense relentlessly moving the chains is often said to be going "downhill." The constant progress shortens the game. "Time of possession" is one of the most beloved statistics among football coaches. Moving the chains bends time itself to a team's will.

An offence in motion tends to stay in motion (so be careful) Playlist:

A Tribe Called Quest- I Left My Wallet in El Segundo (vamp. remix)
Control Machete y Blanquito Man – Cumbia Sobre el Rio
Ryuichi Sakamoto - e Preciso Perdoar
Nortec Collective – Panoptica (kkkkkribcraack)

bonus: EagleSeagull - Your Beauty is a Knife I Turn on my Thoat

parent teacher conference day

Independently of knowing of this blog, of course, The Beauootiful Miss Molly has nicknamed the littlest one “Mr. Justice”. You mean The Judge?, I ask. She laughs. He’s reading at a 5^th grade level and comprehending a couple grades higher . . . (back at ya, Ears, with the trophy thing). Also, um, Natalia and he are a couple—Natalia is determined and he has little choice in the matter. He seems resigned to it, Molly says. They’re the only ones at their level, and she outweighs him by about 30 pounds. Being gifted brings certain burdens.

johnny cash - you know I see the dark(er)ness
(acid pauli remix) (link repaired-this song is like nothing else)

for Virgo this week: In the fairy tale "Hansel and Gretel," a wicked stepmother convinces her husband that the only way the two of them will survive poverty and starvation is to take his children deep into the woods and abandon them. That way there'll be two fewer mouths to feed. The kids overhear the plan, and as the adults lead them into the middle of nowhere, Hansel, the son, surreptitiously leaves a trail of white stones. This allows him and his sister Gretel to find their way back home later. The stepmom is chagrined. A few weeks thereafter, she once again convinces her spouse to leave the children in the wastes. This time Hansel drops breadcrumbs to mark the path, but they're eaten by birds and the kids have no way to get back. Moral of the story: When you get sucked away from your source, leave clues that are more like stones, not crumbs. Alternative moral of the story: Don't return to a source that doesn't want you there.

who knew?

amon tobin - deo
link repaired

(image from Artists in Buffalo)

T is for Titus who flew into bits.
(Neville and Maud)

it's like a preteen Olsen twin mash pit kind of thing .. somewhere between adorable and dashing out your brains

"Like a Prayer (Madonna cover)," glitterbug

Fate is not an eagle, it creeps like a rat.

--Elizabeth Bowen
The House in Paris (1935)

[if there were not DmS, it would not be bearable]

(gone fishing)

I made it on the bevel.

1. There is more surface for the nails to grip.
2. There is twice the gripping-surface to each seam.
3. The water will have to seep into it on a slant. Water moves easiest up and down and straight across.
4. In a house people are upright two-thirds of the time. So the seams and joints are made up-and-down. Because the stress is up-and-down.
5. In a bed where people lie down all the time, the joints and seams are made sideways, because the stress is sideways.
6. Except.
7. A body is not square like a cross-tie.
8. Animal magnetism.
9. The animal magnetism of a dead body makes the stress come slanting, so the seams and joints of a coffin are made on a bevel.
10. You can see by an old grave that the earth sinks down on the bevel.
11. While in a natural hole it sinks by the center, the stress being up-and-down.
12. So I made it on the bevel.
13. It makes a neater job.

--Cash Bundren

for Virgo this week: The Delaware Gap National Recreation Area in Pennsylvania has an outhouse that cost $333,000 to build. It's a two-hole beauty with a roof constructed from slate mined in Vermont, porch railings built out of Indiana limestone, and an indestructible cobblestone foundation. This is your symbol of power for the coming week, Virgo. May it inspire you to devote elegant, sumptuous attention to one of your most basic needs.

clem snide - grievance

frou frou - all the waiting

lady sovereign - love me or hate me

black painting 2 - cecily brown

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radiohead – how to disappear completely

mid drift, 11.2006

from Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity:

Free beings alone can be strangers to one another. Their freedom which is common to them is precisely what separates them. As a pure knowledge, language consists in the relationship with a being that in a certain sense is not in relation to me, or, if one likes, that is in a relationship with me only insomuch as he is wholly in relation to himself, [Greek word?, looks like kaOavro], a being that stands beyond every attribute –a being, consequentially, completely naked.

james eric - More than This (roxy music cover)

This week: Sometimes, Virgo, you're too damn smart for your own good. (LOL) You may describe a problem so brilliantly, for instance, that you think you've solved it merely by talking about it, and never get around to actually fixing it. On other occasions your fine mind runs amuck in an orgy of razor-sharp analysis (snort), cutting things apart in order to understand them but not putting them back together again. I beg you not to indulge in these excesses during the coming week. Your intelligence will be soaring beyond even its usual exceptional levels, and it would be a shame for you not to capitalize on it momentously.

O damn, ixnay the orgy this week.

Motor – Black Powder

(more new bedding la la la)

Matisse - Harmony in Red

So, the bedroom. Obviously, it’s a feng shui challenge. It used to be the “guest room” though we rarely had guests. I think of it as the room I retreated to and lived in apart, like an ill-performing au pair who could not yet depart for her own country. Yes. This is the room that was the waiting room for the departure to my own country. I had a futon on the floor, some books, some cans of orange soda and whiskey, and a laptop in the dark. It could use a chi pick-me-up before my ass cheeks crack into bits of ice and hit the ground. The book says to get rid of mirrors and any family photos. Ears broke the mirror recently and I decided that given the circumstances I’d count that as 7 years bad luck BACKWARDS. The book says that you should hang photos of happy couples, and I go with Fay Ray in King Kong’s fist. The book says to pick restful colors and colors to look good by, flesh toned hues. So I go to the paint store, the one I always go to, down on Best.

Those guys have been with me since the mid 90’s, through the commune and the sanctum and 12 and 81 several times over each, since I’m always remodeling something or other. I’ve got a fistful of off-whites. I’m trying to lighten up. I lay them on the counter, making my final selection: whipped cream, fresh bread, vanilla, champagne, or melted ice cream. See the punch line coming? Yeah, they’re all edible. I hadn’t noticed. I suppose it could be a backhanded blessing that my X told me once (and again and again and) that I am a Ridiculous Person. Good practice. Since this year has taught me that I can be lost in the Ridiculous Woods like Little Ridiculous Riding Hood and not know I’m about to get my frozen ass chewed off (or not, as my Unconscious would like to point out). I bite the inside of my cheek (shit lololo), one of the guys says “Toning it down, eh?” and I smile politely “Melted ice cream, please – Thanks.”

David Gilmore Girls – House Warming Party

The Judge orates philosophical truths from the back seat. His latest: Life is like a race downhill towards a deadend. Then he ranked his grandparents for which he thought was out in front. He thought he was clever and lucky besides to be the youngest. But his brother pointed out that the dog was the first to go, and she was younger than he was. The Judge thought about it a second. “You’re Right”, he said soberly.

sometimes it's just too hard to go back i think...
sometimes there's nothing to go back to...
sometimes there was never anything there but attempt
turned inward contemptuous words breed contemptuous thoughts
maybe this is all there ever is

- words and image from faintedink

(come back, we’ll drink more wine)

It’s good to know some writers and some books. The need for expression and the capacity for it are two different things. The need for ______ and the capacity for it are two different things. Capacity for it and its existence are two different things. I had once and again the capacity for what did not exist. So I made it. I had once and again and again (and again?) the capacity to lend that capacity to others. I can make-pull a man towards me into being. I have need of this. But I should be careful, and now I try to be, stepping around the shards of glass barefoot, trying not to get cut but refusing to put my shoes on also because in safety you can lose your feel for it altogether. No stomp stomp stomp just to go downhill faster, as people seem hell bent to do, stepping on or over whomever they will like roadkill.

It is a beautiful day. We go for a walk. He seems happy. He says hello to almost everyone. He looks at me, asks me a question with this eyes: “Is it just me, or has that storm made a buffet of hard hats and rescue workers out of the city?” He takes a sniff. I always look at my feet when I walk, and have to remind myself to look up, which doesn’t cost anything if I don’t want it to, since I’m too short to make eye contact without further effort on my part. Usually, anyway. Our solitude together is interrupted when one says hello back, three times, and seems to be talking to me. Looking dead ahead, I am eye level with his diaphram, the hernia of which killed my brother. I hear someone else singing in my head, stare politely right on through. To one I would say “okay”, to someone else I would say “I always say okay.” This seems a crucial difference to me. But it probably isn't. Say La Vee.

Meanwhile, I study feng shui.

trentemoller - take me into your skin

tegan and sarah – when you were mine (prince cover)

tournament day

I definitely have a mood that would not be ill expressed by spinning nun(numb)chucks and knives in whirling circles and throwing them into the air to catch them on the turn around as I barked out EEEEYA at the top of my lungs over a deafening soundtrack of warehouse dance party heavy beat. The boys are in training for that mood. Like "Stop Drop and Roll", one hopes it’s an unnecessary precaution, but . .

Eeya: Disillusionment and Frustration Training, 11.2006

Ears won his first trophies, in forms and sparring both. The sparring was particularly impressive, since he is the smallest by far in his rank, and he came out of his corner like a leprechaun composed of adrenalin on a mission. His eyes were as big as half dollars, and he literally spun at his opponents in a blur of little "eeya eeyas". The first round, the Master stopped at the point hit and laughed out loud, "Wow little buddy, Geez!" I looked at him and thought sure he already knew plenty about that mood thing.

The Judge got 2 medals, and was disheartened by his brother’s larger success. Noticing that, then Ears refused to have his picture taken without him. I told Judge that all little brothers catch up to their older ones, and do better in the long run usually because they don’t make the same mistakes. I told him that my own sister was sad when I had him and thought she’d never have a kid so great, but that now she was having her own baby. He said, Well that doesn’t count because almost all girls wind up having some babies but not all boys wind up winning trophies.

Lifting Belly Baby and Bokun Playlist:

Outrageous Cherry – Paranoid World
The Knife – You Take My Breath Away (mylo remix)
Graham Coxon – Freakin Out
Ash - Meltdown
Juniper (Damien Rice + Bell x1) - World is Dead
Margot and the Nuclear So-and-Sos-Barfight Power Revolution Violence (o Canada la la la) [best in show]

bonus track:

the postal service - brand new colony

from News of the Weird this week:

In September, the headmistress of the Dvergsnes primary school in Kristiansand, Norway, proposed that boys be taught to urinate while seated, in order to reduce splashing and mis-targeting, which burden the cleaning staff, but many parents and politicians reacted bitterly. Said Vidar Kleppe of the Justice and Order party, "It's a human right (for a boy) not to have to sit down like a girl," adding that the school was "fiddling with God's work." Parent Nancy Bakke was proud of her 7-year-old boy's ability to aim: "This rule goes against everything I've tried to teach my son." [Daily Telegraph (London), 10-15-06]

the pretenders - precious

Lorenzo Martin, 34, was charged with domestic violence in September, accused of holding his estranged wife's leg in a bed of fire ants, resulting in more than 100 bites (Cottonwood, Ala.).

cake - world of two
elliot smith - ballad of big nothing