Those weird in-between years

To my elders,

I am at an age where people are trying to figure out what to do with their lives. Undergrad (or their early 20s for the non-university types) is over, those weird in-between years are ending, and now we're at an age where people are actually starting to do things with their lives.

People who knew what they wanted to do have finished their schooling and have started working. People who wanted to go to grad school are going. And the number of weddings I have to go to in the next year and a half... let's just say I need to buy a couple more nice dresses. 'Cuz I can't wear the same one to every wedding. I even know a couple people who have kids. Scary.

Then there are The Wanderers. The people who have no idea and can't stand the idea of settling, of doing something just to do something. They are the ones who are perpetually wishing and searching and hoping for inspiration. They are looking, or maybe just waiting, for serendipity to happen upon them. Don't get me wrong, it is a very romantic and lovely notion, and it does happen to some people, some times. Heck, in part it happened to me. But it happened to me when I wasn't actually looking for it. And in the traditional K way of doing things, it was kind of an arbitrary whim that ended up sticking. My best decisions usually work that way. But the point of serendipity is that it is an accident. By its very definition, you can't look for it.

These people are sometimes frustrating, but (almost) always sympathetic. You want them to find something that fits them. That makes them happy. That fulfills them and ends their strife. But in some ways, I think it is kind of similar to the "I'm going to do (fill in something important here), but I don't have time while I'm in school. I'll do it when I graduate." Which very quickly turns into "I'm going to do (fill in something important here), but I don't have time while I'm building up my career/ before I make any real money/ old enough. I'll do it later on." There are things that turn into habits and one thing doesn't lead to another, and it become part of who you are. Not that people can't and do break their habits, but reasons become excuses pretty fast, and then even if something did come along, a perfect job, a perfect career path, a perfect apartment or house or hobby or bf/gf, you still wouldn't go for it because of something. And the something is (almost) always a mediocre reason. And I hate to admit it, but this is the age. The mid 20s are the "start to get your shit together" years.

So I say, just do it. Just go for it. And you know what? It is anything. It is a new haircut. A drastic move. Applying for a programme or job you think is awesome and ridiculous. Starting something. Learning something. Doing something. Because otherwise, life really will just kinda pass you by. It doesn't care if you're onboard or hangin' out. Because life is not anthropomorphized. It doesn't have feelings. Or a brain. Or a corporeal body.

-K

p.s. There is a Library Voices song that they played when I saw them a few weeks back that had a chorus that went something along the lines of "All of my friends are buying diamonds for their girls and bringing people into this world and I'm just playing songs." And Not that I want them to, you know, stop playing songs, as we've established that this would actually and literally make me cry, but the sentiment is pretty relatable at this age. I will update the proper lyrics and the context of the song when the album actually comes out.

What You Love Begets What You Love

To My Youngers,

My roommate has a great philosophy of home decorating: If you love everything in a room, it will all go together just because you love it all. And it works! It works for lots of reasons that I could pick apart and logic-ize, but I choose to focus on the less tangible reason for its utter success: Things you love love to be around other things you love. And not just in your abode, in life in general.

There are many things I adore. Not all things (though I realize it might seem that way after reading all these blogposts ;o) but there are certainly a few faithful go-to things which stay with me, which offer me solace and comfort and joy, things which define me. The colour turquoise, murder mysteries, existential artwork, beards, music, mapping (oh mapping…)- I could go on listing them off, but that would be a whole post in and of itself! The important bit is that many, if not most, of the things I adore have very little in common outside of the fact that I love them. Usually.

Every once in a while (or more often if I’m really paying attention) several of the things intersect, creating a fairly magical and incredibly satisfying moment of collusion. A moment when you can just feel one of those invisible puzzle pieces click into place. When the universe seems to be saying ‘Yeah, I know you exist, you thought I forgot about you but you were wrong!”

Sometimes its easily explained away- maybe you forgot that thing one was the original inspiration for your interest in thing two, maybe they both came from thing three, some long-lost original connection (maybe you saw a roller derby movie and wanted to go to roller derby and then just happened to be in a certain place at a certain time when there was an awesome roller derby double header happening)... But sometimes its two things that exist in different spheres, that came from different original universes who just suddenly decided to get together for a little party, just for you.

I recently started listening to Collider by Sam Roberts Band (there is a whole sidebar here about listening to a CD vs listening to a CD, but I’ll save that for another time- suffice it to say that the italicized version is more… involved ).  As often happens, the realization of which song was my favourite arrived via unending-in-head-singing (complete with skipped verses, messed up lyrics, and stuck-in-a-loop guitar solos). This usually also means that I have no idea of the title of said song  (despite spending days and days with it) and eventually results in the inevitable ‘Oh thats what its called!”

So I had that experience with this one- stuck in my head on repeat, driving my roommate crazy with my incessant whistling, keeping myself up at night until finally it was playing on the computer and I happened to glance at the ‘track playing’ bar.

Without a Map.

Now maybe I subconsciously knew there was some reference to mapping in the song (despite completely falsely singing any such references prior to my discovery of the title of the song), maybe I just like songs about maps because I love mapping, but I choose to believe that its just one of those things.

Nice one universe.

-E

Whip It, for real

To my elders,

So last weekend I went to visit E for the Elliott Brood concert. Which really did rock. I did not turn my pan into a bowl however. Its called using the flat side of the wooden spoon, not the edge.

After our eventful Friday of a late night concert, we decided to take it a bit easy Saturday and saw a Hitchcock double feature (Psycho, which was actually pretty creepy, and surprisingly progressive, even though one of the pivotal screens is ridiculously famous, its only half way through the movie, so the rest is still a) a surprise, and b) really interesting and The Trouble with Harry, which I had seen before, but the dry humour came off better the second time). And then Saturday night came and somehow, one thing lead to another and we ended up going to Roller Derby. My first ever roller derby bout, actually.

Now I, like many a young person before me, had seen the Drew Barrymore/ Ellen Page movie Whip It last year when it came out, and I, like so many other people, walked out saying "I am going to track down a roller derby game and go. Because its awesome." I then proceeded to never actually do this. So with E and myself encouraging one another, and feeling a little stupid and shy along the way, we made it to our first game? Tournament? Whatever, I sat through an entire sporting competition of my own volition. Pretty impressive if you ask me.

I must say, Whip It really does help to understand the rules of Roller Derby and what the heck is going on, cuz its confusing to watch for the first time. Though the teams did give us a demo to help out the "first timers." But that's really where the similarities kind of stopped... The game we went to was populated with, well, some of the people you'd expect to find at, you know, a roller derby game, your average alternative kids of many varieties. But there were also your standard twenty somethings. And your middle aged parent types. And old people. And thirty somethings with small children. Seriously. SMALL CHILDREN. Wearing Roller Derby t-shirts. I am perpetually impressed by this generation's parents of being cool. Well, when they're not being neurotic. Oh, and the players do actually dress like the girls in Whip It.

Moral of the story: Roller Derby is awesome. And kinda hot. And if small children can go to a match, so can you.

-K

p.s. Montreal Roller Derby game. July 9th.

p.p.s. Slaughter Daughters rule.

Participatory Rock

To My Youngers,

Elliot Brood. Seriously. So Good.

They make banjo sexy.  Combine now-time rock with olde-time sound. And lets not even talk about the experience of closing your eyes and seeing tumble weeds roll by a saloon full of bandits and bathtub whiskey, poker games and a player piano... Lets talk about audience participation.

You go to a concert and you expect people to sing along, you expect people to dance, and jump around and rush the stage (okay maybe not that last one, but as with a surprising number of shows I've been to a few overly enthusiastic souls jumped up on stage and ran around in gleeful delight, much to the entertainment of the boys in the band...). All of those things are excellent, all of those things are what I love about concerts, but Elliot Brood takes it a step further: they pass out pots and pans and wooden spoons. And you hit them. You hit them in time to the music. You hit them hard, and loud, and with great amounts of enthusiasm. And it is awesome.

Now I admit I can get a little overly enthusiastic, but give me a pan and a wooden spoon and Elliot Brood and you are putting your life in your hands. I almost hit K in the face, and my spoon flew out of my hand on at least two occasions. My once-flat pan turned into a now-rounded bowl. My sock-feet got full of splinters and my ears were ringing with wood-on-metal and banjos and drums and foot-petal bass... So. Much. Fun.

I love Elliot Brood's music, I love their enthusiasm, and their unconventional sexiness, and their ability to time-travel, but most of all I love how I feel when I listen to their music; like I'm a part of it. Like its all around me. Like I'm home.

Also like I'm five years old and playing drums on the patio furniture with a paddle I found in the shed. Rock on.

-E

Aliens

To my elder and younger,

I found that K’s post was very thought provoking and made me think about what I would ask if I had 5 questions to ask.

I came up with basically the same list as K. However, I came up with two more questions that K had not. I would most likely ask my 2 questions in place of K’s Greek playwright question and the Kennedy question.

1) Are there other intelligent / sentient being in the universe? And do they know we exist?
If the situation were as K proposed and you were in an afterlife, then really what does it matter. However, as with all the questions, they are simple curiosity. Wouldn’t it be interesting to find out once and for all (eve if it’s 100’s of year ahead of schedule) if there were “others” out there. And not saying the little green men would be on their way here to probe us. But just to know if the odds panned out and the miracle of life (aka the evolution of ameba to primate or whatever) occurred on another planet.

2) Will mankind ever live on other planets?
Similarly with whether the miracle of life occurred on another planet, is there another planet out there in a distance to which humanity can reach by current or unknown future tech where life can be supported. As with “alien life” the right circumstances would have needed to be in play to create such a situation. But what if there was a planet out there that fit all the criteria for supporting life save one that preventing life from forming on that planet in due course. Then we would have a planet that could support life.

But as it were, if we ever got answers to our questions it would not be all that satisfying as we could not share it with anyone else. Our lust for answers to the big questions in our minds would be answered and then left like an empty cola can on the counter. What would the answers do? They would satisfy our curiosity for a moment and then what?

-A

What do JFK, The Loch Ness Monster and Euripides have in common?

To my elders,

Talking with my bestie the other day, we pondered: if you died, and, you know, there was an afterlife and all that, albeit a strange one, and you can find out anything in the history of the world, what would you ask? If you could find out the truth about anything that has ever happened, but only, say, 5 things, what 5 things would you ask?

"Why only 5?" you ask.

"Because I'm Jesus," said Jesus.

The top 5 things (I can think of at the moment) that I would want to know are:

1) Who shot Kennedy. And why.

I am not actually generally an American History buff or anything, and I kind of care about JFK as a president, but I love conspiracies. And getting to find out who actually shot him, and more importantly, why he was shot. Like, the Mob? Someone who just really didn't like Jackie's hats?

2) Atlantis. Go.

Did it exist? Where was it? What was it like? When did it exist from and to? Is there anything to the story of Plato getting his source information from Egyptian priests? Did Atlantis influence or create any other cultures?

3) Is time travel possible?

Of all plot devises of science fiction, time travel is by far my favourite. Wibbly-wobbly, time-y-whimey bits. Is it like Back to the Future? Doctor Who? Star Trek? Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure? Can you change the past? Or is anything you do in the past "meant to be" because its already happened? Though I suppose that isn't finding out about something that happened so much as about the universe.... or is it?

4) Are the surviving ancient Greek playwrights actually typical of Dionysian festivals and otherwise?

This one is uber nerdy, but I love Greek plays. And only drama playwrights that survived, or, their plays survive, are Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Aeschylus and Sophocles have 7 each, and Euripides had 9 on purpose, and 10 or so that survived by accident in an attic of a monastery in the Medieval Ages. All but one, The Persians, is based on a myth. But these three dudes were considered the best of their time. What if what they wrote was waaaayyyy off what everyone else wrote? What is everyone else wrote about, I don't know, philosophy, or daily life, or daisies. (Hey, there is an entire comedy about frogs. It could happen.) But my classics major brain wants to know. And, you know, see one in 450 B.C.E. in Athens at the Dionysian festival. And understand ancient Greek. Minor detail.

5) Does the Loch Ness Monster or any other folklore creatures exist now or ever?

Call me a child, but I want some concrete answers here. Nessie could so totally be a dinosaur. Underwater dinosaurs existed and looked remarkably like Nessie. And Loch Ness is a super creepy loch. Once upon a time, the Northern half of Scotland was part of Canada. Like, Newfoundland or something. It continental-drifted across the Atlantic and crashed into the southern half of Scotland, trapping four lakes in the Great Glen. One of which is Loch Ness. So Loch Ness, originally part of the ocean, is hundreds of meters deep and took thousands of years to become fresh water. So the fish and stuff got trapped and evolved completely independently. The fish that live at the bottom of Loch Ness are gigantic cannibal fish who grow to be like 6 feet long. And just look like huge, well, fish. And live at the bottom of Loch Ness. Crazy.

-K

And On The Big Screen

To My Youngers,

So we've talked a lot about storytelling this week. Storytelling through books, in life, through art, and arguably in music (though it seems not so much through lyrics as through the experience of a song or band as a whole...) but surprisingly not really at all about storytelling through film. Maybe that's because it seems a bit obvious (what with characters and plots and narrative being some of the key elements necessary to film-making) but there is a whole other dimension to movies that tends to goes overlooked in today's age of downloading, streaming, and netflix...ing- the movie-going experience.

As lame as this sounds, one of my favourites was seeing Snakes On A Plane on opening night. It was like being at the first participatory screening of Rocky Horror, the audience spontaneously got actively involved in the showing: shouting out lines in time with the actors (they were so predictable that we could guess at what was going to be said and be right every time); cheering or booing key characters; and even counting down to with the clock and yelling 'Snakes on a plaaaaaaaaaaaaaaane!' when the carton of snakes burst open... It was awesome. I don't, however, recommend watching it at home. Its just not that great. Its not! The plot is disruptively simple, the characters are one dimensional and the snakes are just, well, just snakes. I know many people who have seen it and asked me 'How on earth did you like that movie?' and I just tell them that it wasn't really about the movie by itself, it was the whole thing all together.

If you're someone who only watches movies on your computer, at home, pretty much by yourself, I'm tellin' you, you are missing out. Few things can compare to the experience of seeing a film on the big screen in a room full of people who are really into it. Its like a concert, only with plot, characters, and no cell phones.

One of the many things I love about my city is the abundance of alternative choices for movie viewing. I mean the silerplexmcmegatheatres have their place I suppose, but they just don't give you that same sense of community that you get at a local venue. We've got a great place that shows independent movies, a fantastic old repertory theatre, and our own cheapie Rainbow cinema (where you can still see Tuesday toonie movies for an actual toonie!), not to mention an real live actual drive-in but twenty minutes down river. I have yet to make it out to the drive-in, but the past two weeks have been absolutely chock-a-block with trips to see old movies on the big screen.

Last night I saw JAWS in a theatre full of people, flanked by two friends who had never seen it before and a small dinosaur we found on the street (we named him Wash, he sat on the seat-back). It was an original print, pieced together from three separate copies of the film, chocked full of scratches, warbles, shifts in colour, and cigarette burns. And it was amazing.

I have seen Jaws before. I remember really liking it (I mean really liking it- it is one of those gems that remain inexplicably un-spoiled despite feeling like you know the movie before ever having seen it). I saw it up at the cottage with my sisters and my neighbors. We rented it from the marina. We didn't go swimming for days. It was really good, really effective, really great story telling, music, atmosphere... it was fantastic. But nowhere near as fantastic as sharing that experience with 150 other people. Hearing a collective gasp at the discovery of the severed arm, feeling everyone around you tense up when the dog is missing, the spontaneous applause that erupted when the shark explodes! Getting caught up in the moment, getting swept up in the crowd reaction. Mob mentality at its finest.

Jaws has got it all- suggestive framing, fantastic pausing, lingering camera shots, and the music- oh the music! But the effectiveness of each and every one of these things is exponentially increased by the presence of a crowd, a big screen, and the smell of popcorn. 

If you haven't seen a movie on the big screen in a while, do yourself a favour and just go. Tonight! This afternoon! Now! Pick something horrible (best at the drive-in!), something scary (midnight showing!), or something classic (from Hitchcock to Evil Dead, even if you've seen it before, I promise you it'll be even better in theatres!).  Find a locally owned independent cinema, get yourself some popcorn, slouch down in the seat, and enjoy spending the next two hours bonding with a roomful of strangers over a fishing boat being eaten by a shark.

-E

Little Paradox

To my elders,

Storytelling is, I believe, how we humans see the world. I am on point with E for that one. They say we can't remember anything before the age of 3 or so, because we can't organize out memories into narratives, so we just can't remember them. We want to see plots and characters and beginnings, middles and ends. Its how we organize things to explain them later.

This leaves us with funny habits though. We need our characters to be consistent, and complex, but interesting, and yet characters are not real people. They cannot be nearly complicated and convoluted, ambivalent or rich as characters. We are not simple. We are infinitely more complicated by experience and history and baggage.

But humans are storytellers. We include the relevant information; we characterize people. Funny story. When I was 15 and had my first job, me and my co-worker had a lot of time on our hands some days. So she came up with a game. Well, she noticed a peculiar habit of mine, and made it into a game. Aka she would say a word, any word, and I could come up with a story that referred to it. My favourite: Dinosaur. As in, my buddy J, who had a mohawk in high school, or, for part of high school at least, Came up to me in english class one day and asked if I thought he looked like a dinosaur. Because his cousin had said his hair made him look like a brontosaurus. I said no, of course, but kinda. In a punk-kid-o-saurus kind of way.

But all this storytelling has had a weird effect in the social media world, apparently. We post so many pictures and status updates and tweets about these awesome stories, the photos of us having fun and smiling and being, well, perfect in our own ways. But the lack of truth, the lack of context, and the tunnel vision of these posts, these photos, makes people feel more alone, less satisfied with their lives, and gives them more of a complex about their own lives. So regardless of the content of our own posts, we believe other people's more. Which is one of those wonderful little paradoxes of life.

So really, Chuck Klosterman is right, in a way. Choices make us happier in the short term, in the now, but less happy in the long run because it makes us feel more alone and less connected. So I propose something unorthodox. Ambivalent stories. Stories that are good and bad, funny and sad, shallow and deep. Because I believe that we can use all of this media to share. We can use all of the things available to us to connect more, or at least, in more authentic ways, because we can be ourselves, have those options, and connect with people all the same. Connect with people who are better suited to us. More options means that we don't all have to fit into a clear cut mould. And that can be better. If we stopped comparing ourselves to other people and judging our lives against snapshots.

-K

p.s. Ambivalent story of the day: Last spring I had accepted my grad school offer and had all these plans for the future and had, at least on paper, figured out my life. But I was bored as crap. Waiting to start your life, or a chapter of your life, is incredibly dull. I worked a bit, I volunteered, and I hung out. And ya, I had fun, but empty fun. Unsatisfying, vapid, useless fun. I don't regret it, and I feel bad calling it vapid when I made friends out of it and do have fond memories of bits of it. So I saw how those people live. The ones who go out all the time, and make random friends and hang out and have fun, and produce Texts from Last Night. Its funny, sure, but life is about a lot more than soundbites and tweets.

Storytelling as ... Everything

To My Youngers,

I was catching up on some vlogbrothers videos yesterday (as I am wont to do) and was struck by a particularly loverly sentiment (as I am also wont to do) expressed by John Green about the purpose of studying/discussing literature: "Its not so much about uncovering secret mysteries for the sake of uncovering secret mysteries, its about using story as a way into thinking about our actual lives and how we're actually living them."

So first off I love the enthusiasm with which Mr Green (ha ;o) states that the true purpose of hearing stories is to learn from them, to apply the lessons within to our own lives and to benefit from the experiences of others, even if those others are fictional. Its seems a rather obvious idea, but also unfortunately one which is often lost on the hoards of students forced to analyze everything from Dickens to James Joyce. I have had so many students beg me to tell them 'What the author means...' as if that will somehow magically provide them with the answers to life, the universe, and everything. Its not about what the author means but about how you relate to the story, the novel, the work. What does Napoleon's take-over of the farm remind you of? Haven't you ever felt like one of the invisible unwashed masses like David Copperfield? What about Holden Caufield- I mean haven't you ever seen a giant 'fuck' spray-painted on the side of a school and just wanted to go berserk? Apply, apply, APPLY these things to the real world! What is the point of storytelling if not to form connections, to bridge the gaps of human existence, to make webs where once there were voids? To make magic out of molehills.

That is part of this sentiment I find, frankly, absolutely fantastic- the idea that a reason to read stories is to discover secret mysteries, to understand the magic of existence! Now of course our esteemed Mr Green  says that discovering said mysteries is not the point of reading books- but wait, no! He says discovering them for the sake of it is not the purpose...  Now that's the magical part. Its not secret mysteries as set out by the author (because "What authors mean doesn't really matter") but instead the secret mysteries revealed to you through your interpretation of the author's words. Definitely more important and, I think I am pretty safe in saying, also much more awesome. The way that something said by Yossarian can make you re-imagine the universe, that something done by Charles-Wallace can make you re-evaluate your perspective, that the world-view of Tyler Durden or Rob Fleming can make you stop, look, and listen...

One of my favourite Nick Hornby moments happens in Song Book when he is discussing his discovery of hidden meaning in About A Boy after hearing the Badly Drawn Boy song about the dead duck day (could that be more cryptic for anyone who is not a Nick Hornby fan? I think not. Read his books, enjoy, then come back and re-visit this post...)  Now I think K has mentioned this before so bare with me, but the idea that someone else's reading of your words can teach you something about yourself that you never knew- totally the very point of story-telling! The push and pull of learning, the 'student becomes the teacher; is mirrored by 'the teacher becomes the student...'  As a teacher I can tell you that my students teach me things every day- I know that sounds corny and trite, but its my favourite thing about teaching and what will keep me enthralled by it for years to come. You can never know everything, you can never even come close, and having a roomful of other experiences informing, changing, and building your perspective(s) is one of the most amazing things in life. Its not just the readers, the viewers, the audience, who experience this discovery, but the authors/creators themselves... it works with books, with artworks, with songs... Hornby says of the experience "I wrote a book that wasn't about my kid, then someone writes a beautiful song based on an episode in my book that turns out to mean something much more  personal to me than my book ever did." It is not only the power of music, the insightfulness of song writing, but the experience of having an author's words mean something to you that the author not only never intended, but which has the power to change how you see things...

Now I could go on here about the insane relevantness of song lyrics and connectedness of melody, about art and seeing things in the in-between, about books changing how I see the world, but I think I'll save that for another time. For now I'll just say that it is never what the creator means that is important, but the connectedness with which you interpret their words/images/ideas and the way in which you relate to them, which allows a book/song/painting/piece of art to achieve its full potential.

That, and that I love John Green...

Aaaaaaand scene.

-E

Curses: Coincidence or Truth?

To my elder and younger,

I have been watching a lot of Castle lately, and I mean A LOT! I have sat down and watched season 1 & 2 within 1 1/2 weeks and am working my way through season 3 now. I am not one to believe in pre-determined events. Moreover I think coincidences are everywhere.

A week or so ago I was thinking about how I seem to have bad luck with jobs, “the 3 month curse”, as it were. As coincidences go I then watched another episode of Castle, season 2 episode 19 titled “Wrapped up in Death” [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJuOCrlhc1Q]. The episode centered around the mummy of a Mayan King on which there was a curse. Anyone that set eyes on the King would be subject to his curse and would die.

“There is a broad popular belief in curses being associated with the violation of the tombs of mummified corpses, or of the mummies themselves. The idea became so widespread as to become a pop-culture mainstay”. However the pop-culture curse of the mummy typically involved the walking dead. Whereas “originally the [curses were] invisible, a series of mysterious deaths” such as portrayed in the episode of Castle.

This got me to thinking about what causes people, rational people no less, to think bad things are caused by curses. This is a rather large question, since it can also be posed to topics such as good luck, ghosts/spirits, evil eye and of course religion.

Regardless as to the reasons why someone believes in things as curses, they are interesting things to examine. As such the episode concluded in the curse seemingly to be a farce. Yes the curse came true, all that gazed on the King’s face died. However human action brought about the deaths, the deaths were murder and not some mysterious death. The bizarre thing about the episode is that even though they found out the curse did not come true Castle still found someone to “remove the curse”.

I need someone to tell me how to remove the curse I have on me, “the 3 month curse”. Running around in a circle counter-clockwise 3 times and throwing salt over my shoulder have done nothing. Any thoughts? LOL

-A

To Archive or Not to Archive

To my elders,

I am studying to become an archivist. Which, to a lot of people, is just about THE most boring job they could imagine. If they even know what an archive is or does. And sure, it can get a little dry sometimes. But learning and understanding what other people have done, what their jobs were, their accomplishments, and how they experienced the world, just for the sake of it, is amazing. Learning simply to explain it to other people. Understanding for historical perspective. Seeing all that has happened and all of the ways something could be important to someone at some point in the future, is just completely fascinating. I get to see all of those things that no one gets to see. I have to sign confidentiality agreements at every job.

I should admit that in some ways, my being a complete gossip-loving-snoop is, to some extent, the best and worst part of my job. Or future career, as it were. Because I love finding out all the interesting bits, love knowing everything that was ever in writing, but also get a lot of urges to facebook the juicy bits. Which I can’t do. Not that there is anything that is ever revolutionary or scandalous or anything, but it is still often pretty interesting and funny. And for a history geek who is just interested in who and how people are, how they really are, how society really worked, not romanticized, not censored, but how regular people really interacted and how they really expressed themselves, it is pretty much as perfect of a job as it gets.

I need a job that has some theory, that has some repetition and know how, that can be improved on, and that has a lot of constant learning. Not necessarily about how to do my job, because I kind of like being able to get good at a job, but one that I get to learn new things all the time. I am a bit of a repository for useless information. It is important that somebody know how many dimples there are on a golf ball (approximately 356, but varies between 300 and 450, depending on the brand. Almost all have an even number of dimples though) or how many curls Shirley Temple wore in her childhood movies (56. Hey, when you have Shirley Temple curls as a kid, these things are important). As I’ve already gone on about, I am not philosophically a fan of small talk. So I fill the awkward silences with useless facts. Like how Doctor Who has been running since 1963 with a brief break in the 90s, has had 11 different actors play The Doctor to date, a lot of the early episodes were lost in vault fires or were simply cleared out for space by the BBC, and that the Theremin (that weird electronic instrument that makes noise based on proximity and is played without touching it, as demostrated by Dr. Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory), was used for the theme song of the first 4 series of the 2005 reincarnation of Doctor Who. Fascinating, no?

Archiving is a job that I am not only interested in, but one that I am also interested by, and that makes all the difference. I respect it. I respect the purpose of it. I am not interested in money. Money is of no intrinsic value, it is simply a neutral currency one can use to exchange for goods and services (I would say "a post for another time," but I don’t really have anything more to say about it. Money is just sort of there. It is electronic numbers or pieces of cotton weaved paper with finely printed images that are made entirely of little lines with some coloured thread and wax droplets. It doesn’t make people better or intrinsically different than one another, and it does not give security or class or say anything of substance about a person. End of). I have no interest in having a job that is primarily concerned with the acquisition of money. I read somewhere that to be satisfied by your career, you have to find a field that reflects your values. And I think I have. But I also think you have to find something that is what you do anyway, like a tick of your personality. And preserving things indefinitely and organizing them incessantly is something I can do.

-K

The Live-Music Experience

To My Youngers,

I feel like those who say that live music is not worthwhile have just never been to the right kind of concert… Because there are bad ones- concerts I mean- there are those at which the musicians just don’t seem to want to be there, those where the audience is too cool to sing along, and those which, worst of all, have so little substance that even the most adamant fan of live music feels had….

But then there are the right concerts. The ones where everyone is bopping with all of their heart(s). Where you become temporary-best-friends with the dude beside you because you both got super excited about the same song. Where the guy with the guitar stomps around stage shaking his head to the music, not because he thinks it looks cool (which is good, because it looks like pretty much the antithesis of cool), but because he is having such a good time that he just can’t help it. Someone who has never been to one of these concerts, someone who has never had this kind of experience, how can we expect them to understand? And how can we not do everything in our power to help them have said wonderful, magical, ‘right concert’ experience?

Actually, I should pause here and mention that the difficulty with this is that these ‘right’ concerts are not the same concerts for everyone. Therein lies the rub. For one person their ‘right’ concert might be Goldfinger at a giant outdoor festival complete with a mosh pit full of people with safety-pins through their faces.  For someone else it might be Sarah Slean in a little tiny pub where people sit on the floor because there aren’t enough chairs. Heck, one person could count both of those experiences as the right kind of concert for them (I should know, those were two of my favourite concerts ever…)! Its difficult to pinpoint what makes a concert ‘right’ but over the years I have come to believe that they all have the flowing things in common:

1) Enthusiasm! From the audience and from the performers. Of course enthusiasm on both parts is the best case scenario, but a not-so-great band can get energy from an awesome audience and end up having a killer show, as can a so-so audience take their cue from an amazingly into-it band and turn into the most participatory group of people ever… Some bands may be known for being energetic and enthusiastic on stage- but audiences can also have a rep! Which bring us to-

2) Venue! Certain places have reputations for having great audiences, and certain others have the knack for attracting kill-joys. Anywhere where the audience regularly seems to be more interested in what they look like than the music onstage is to be avoided at all costs.  My absolute, bar none, favourite venue is The Kee, in Bala. Its in the middle of cottage country so everyone is relaxed and chill. Concert-goers arrive dressed in sweatpants and flip flops, their skin rosy with sunburn and hair in the laziest wind-styled do. Plus it’s a boathouse. The whole place is over the water, so when everyone gets a rockin’ the walls and floor rock right along with you. Too awesome.

3) Familiarity! This one is not so hard and fast, but knowing most or at least some of the songs is almost always important to your concert-going experience. Study-up! Listen to the CD a few times in the weeks approaching the performance. Have your friend put some of the band’s stuff on your ipod. Being familiar with the music always makes the experience more enjoyable… Having said that, one of the most captivating concerts I ever went to was the first time I saw Arcade Fire. I had never heard of them (nor had anyone else at the time. It was early days- pre-Funeral- they were still selling their EP in plastic envelopes with a hand-printed placemat as the liner notes…), and I didn’t know any of their songs. But by the end of the second number I was dancing and singing along (albeit just making vague tuneful noises rather than actual words), absolutely captivated by their performance. A band can definitely sweep you off your feet without you knowing any of their music- Its just more likely to happen if you go into it with a few lyrics in your back pocket!

4) Good Company! Pick your concert-going partners wisely my friends… Don’t choose someone who only listens to Eminem if you’re going to see Elliot Brood. Contrary-wise a Cuff The Duke fan might not be the right person with whom to attend a Less Than Jake soirée… Try to find someone who is as enthusiastic about the band you’re about to see as you are. This goes both ways- going to a concert with a super-fan when you only kind of like the band is not any more fun than going to see your favourite group with someone who only likes their latest single… If its an obscure band or you just don’t know anyone who knows who they are, think about who they remind you of- who do you know who likes similar sounding bands? Maybe they’ll end up with a new favourite artist! Finally, as a last resort, ask someone who finds your love of the applicable band to be entertaining (note: finds it entertaining, not annoying, stupid or embarrassing!)- who will enjoy poking fun at you all night (as you are busy singing your heart out) and who will come away having had a good time without making you feel like too much of an idiot.

5) The Right Band! This is one of the most important yet most variable factors. What you need is a band (or performer!) who makes music that makes you feel something extremely muchly. Makes you feel super happy, or super creative, or super energetic, or super pumped… even super melancholia (Oh Decemberists, how your sea shanties make my heart weep…).  A reputation for being awesome live never hurts, and is possible regardless of genre (I have never known Arcade Fire, Sam Roberts, Elliot Brood, AC/DC, Paul McCartney, The Decemberists, or Great Big Sea, to disappoint!).  The right band makes for the right concert almost every time…

As a final thought, be open to any of these factors occurring out of the blue and you will find yourself having way more ‘right’ concert experiences. If you suddenly realize that you love a country-esque band, don’t shy away from going to see them just because you ‘don’t like country!’ Tastes change over time. Your perfect high school concert might totally beat-up your perfect university concert if they met in a bar, but it doesn’t mean you can’t love them both equally!

Spread the love, man. Spread the love.

-E

Decisions, Decisions, Whims and Whimsy

To my elders,

Alex Day, aka Nerimon, posted a video earlier today about Brain Crack. What John Green of the vlogbrothers calls those ideas that you can't quite sort out just yet, so you think about them and think about them and think about them until they basically just become crack for your brain. Other people call this "obsession." But, you know, a rose by any other name and all that dead-white-guy-Shakespeare-stuff. John Green's solution is that if you put it out into the world.... I don't know, you'll obsess less? I've never seen any of the vlogbrothers brain crack videos, so I'm just trusting Alex Day on this one.

It got me thinking though, of what brain crack I have, as well as how I make decisions. Because my brain crack is, at times, about something concrete, but is more often about ideas and philosophies that come to dominate and inform my entire life and my entire view of the world. I know you know what I'm talking about E.

I am a fairly logical person. I fully acknowledge my complete irrationalities when they do come up, but I generally don't get that worked up about things that apparently upset most people. This has lead A, on more than one occassion (thanks sis!), to call me a robot as a result. I kind of take pride in it. And yet, I have never actually made a decision based on a pro-con list. Don't get me wrong, I have made pro-con lists, but one option can be 4 times longer than the other on the pro side and I still may go with the other option. I make my best decisions on gut feeling whims. I suspect because it allows me to brush off a lot of self doubt with the idea that I did not, in fact, think something through very thoroughly, but it also, as my 5th grade teacher said, "[didn't] let [my] brain get in the way of [my] thinking." And I'm cool with that.

So while I made decisions like where to do my undergrad very dramatically, like fake television drama style, sitting on my bed at 11pm the night before my offer acceptance had to be sent off, both letters signed sitting there going "Ummmmmmm..... I think I'll go to that one. Just for fun." And then signed the letter and mailed it. And yet, I plan haircuts out months in advance. Not that I have done a strand test when dying my hair since I was 15 (it will be the colour it is, and there's no use cutting off a piece of your hair to find out 30 minutes sooner. You can always dye over it. Though this once led me to having pink hair... not that the outrageous colour was an issue, but I've never been a big pink fan...). I make a lot of arbitrary, unfounded, uninformed decisions. And I'm always pretty happy about them. Heck, I moved to a French speaking province for a change of scenery. It worked out. Thinking is stressful. O.o

But Brain Crack. Obsessing. Minor obsessing, not OCD obsessing. I am cracked (Yes, I have turned crack into a non-drug use verb. English is cool that way. You can make up words. Great lesson Shakespeare! You've been a big help today) about authenticity. Mostly a combination of Catcher in the Rye and Holden's obsession with phoniness and Jack Kerouac's Beat Generation preoccupation with, well, authenticity and honesty. Beat is about truth (small 't') and non-censorship. And I love that about 1950s outsider fiction. But I also love it about the 1950s post war Americana in general. I may have decided to read The Feminine Mystique because of the reference to it in 10 Things I Hate About You, but it became complete brain crack once I got about half way through. And started my being cracked about sociology type non-fiction books, too.

I am cracked about organic development of conversations, friendships, life, and don't believe in "forcing it" because of a line from a Green Day song ("You can't go forcing something if its just not right" from When I Come Around off Dookie). Which also makes me love archiving all the more, because the entire theoretical basis of archival arrangement is the organic development of records (more on this in my next post). But organic development also makes me a bit awkward at times, because even though I am analyzing everything that happens to me, I don't necessarily want to talk about it. I want to see where it goes, and maybe talk about it after the fact, but not necessarily.

I am cracked about maps and drawings of landscapes and floor plans and skylines. Probably because I have a very spatial memory and probably learned to read a map before I could, like, read English. Which makes it sound like I could read maps at age 4, but in reality I just couldn't read read until 3rd grade.

I am cracked about believing what I sing. Which sounds stupid. Story: in 9th grade I was in choir at my high school. There was this girl I was not particularly fond of in choir with me. We had to sing some super religious, biblically based song about some river in The Holy Land. Now, I'm fairly sure, looking back on it, that she was actually just too lazy to learn songs she didn't already know. But I am also fairly sure that her rational for not wanting to sing the bible river song has shaped far too much about how I view the world. She asked me why I would sing a song I didn't believe. As in, why would I sing along with a song that I didn't agree with, who's lyrics I did not buy, who's lyrics did not reflect my own world view? So did I seek out only songs that reflected my world view? No. Being the person I am, I unintentionally, and sometimes intentionally, decided I must agree with the lyrics I liked the most. As if I couldn't enjoy them or sing them as whole-heartedly if I did not agree with them. So I started agreeing. Which I think explains a lot of my posts regarding music. But it also means there are great lines in great songs I will never love, because I can't agree with them. Sam Roberts' "Stay true to your friends, 'cause they'll save you in the end..." is a completely great line that I just can't believe, so I can never love that song as much as someone who does believe it. Believing in organic development of friendships also means accepting that friendships come and go and are not constant. You can effectively replace your family with friends, but where does that really leave you?

But back to Brain Crack. Tattoos are an interesting release for Brain Crack. Each of my tattoos (and E's too) was once a subject of Brain Crack. Not just the idea of getting a tattoo, but the content / subject of said tattoos. Each of mine were things I could simply not escape. I would buy things because they contained these images (mostly owls. Going into Urban Outfitters was like a battle between my bank account and my brain crack). I drew them on everything, all the time. I would doodle them on scrap paper, notebooks, my skin... I would actually Google image search pictures of them. Just for fun. And after I had them tattooed on me, after they were permanent, it was like I didn't have to anymore. They weren't going anywhere. I wouldn't forget about them only to go crazy feeling like I'd lost something if I stopped thinking about them for a day. So while I may have once spent a summer telling my friend "T-shirts, not Tattoos!" tattooing brain crack, getting it out into the world, marking it with permanency, really does help cure the Brain Crack. Maybe John Green should get a tattoo.

-K

The Quiet Epicness of the In-between

To My Youngers,

I get weird things stuck in my head. Okay, plain ol' songs = not so weird. But getting phrases stuck on repeat in my brain seems to be somewhat more unusual... It all started in grade five with 'Help I've fallen and I can't get up!' and has progressed from there. The latest? "Willie, Why did you give me campylobacter!?!" It just comes out of nowhere, and I start giggling to myself and everyone thinks I've gone bonkers... thank you John Green.

Hybridized-songs is another favourite category- I have one going on in there and it just morphs into another- then of course I can't hear either of those two songs without hearing my mash-up version instead. The other day I was singing I Could Never Be Your Woman by Whitetown to myself, complete with clarinet/synth riff sung in doo doo dee doos .... when somewhere along the line it turned into the death-star theme from Star Wars! Now I am aware (from the reactions of friends I was with at the time) that no one finds this as entertaining as I do, but its just so unusual to get startled by something that's in your own head... how could I not find it hilarious? Alright, now I really am starting to sound like a crackpot...

Aaaaaanyways, what I actually meant to be talking about is the more pleasant phenomenon of a stuck-in-your-head-song reminding you of something you haven't heard in years, prompting you to re-listen to a long forgotten but much beloved tune. I have recently been chain-listening to There May be Ten or Twelve by A.C. Newman. The absolutely lovely lyrics and the slightly epic musical arrangement are awesome in and of themselves, but they also very very very much remind me of Oysrterband's album Holy Bandits.

Now I'm not a huge fan of Celtic music -I'm sure I've mentioned before that I love bagpipes but can't stand fiddles- but this lack of enthusiasm is easily trumped my love of Oysterband. Epic riffs, sad yet beautiful lyrics, pounding drums and haunting tunes that stay in your head for days... Re-listening to the CD reminds me not only of the time I spent in my fourth-year studio blaring 'Road to Santiago' (and having friends express confusion at the uncharacteristic Celtic-ness of the music) but also of the worlds to which I was always transported when listening to their songs. Not the philosophically-laced fairy tales of The Shins, nor the Grungy Detroit of The White Stripes, or even the Ontariario of Elliot Brood, but the vast in-between that rests somewhere betwixt the real and the imaginary, betwixt fable and fact.

A.C. Newman similarly creates this feeling of within. Of being, not a fly on the wall, but being actually in between the feelings and the words and emotions of the situation, floating in the invisible waters of intangibility. Such a short song, so few lyrics, but believe me, the feeling of epicness rivals that of Homer. And no I don't mean the cartoon one.

There May be Ten or Twelve by A.C. Newman

There are maybe ten or twelve
Things I could teach you
After that, well, I think you're on your own
And that wasn't the opening line
It was the tenth or the twelfth
Make of that what you will

Once there was a haunted loop
Of your deep, fallen tears
A forehead resting on a record shelf
Amid moving boxes stacked
I'm still waiting for the right words
Make of that what you will

And the eyes they were
A color I can't remember
Which says more than the first two verses
And it is the devil you know
That will slam the door harder
Make of that what you will

-E

Air like Soup

To my elder and younger,

As the summer gets underway the inevitable happens, the weather get hotter and stickier and far more humid than comfortable.

This year seems to have had more thunderstorms than the past few years, and the summer has just begun. The sky has turned green several times in the past week making me fearful of tornadoes. And you are correct E, we won't be going to any drive-ins when the sky is green (a la Twister).

This Wednesday the temperature was like 33 C but felt more like 42 C with humidity. To put it mildly the air felt like soup! The Weather Network has written several articles about the severe weather warnings that have been happening.

Let just say I can't wait for a day when the air feels like air and not like a boiling pot of soup. Thunderstorm or not.

-A

Mixing Melody with the Memories...

To my elders,

I have a habit of visiting places, and really just experiencing everyday life, with a pair of headphones on. I realize that old people think its rude to bop your head through art galleries and museums and stuff, but I'd rather that than listening to teenagers on school trips or supposed know-it-alls who mess up their history. (A group I am sure I have belonged to on at least one occasion. Even I can't remember everything.) But this habit has a strange side effect. There are songs and entire albums that are linked to certain places and certain moments in my head. I cannot hear certain songs without thinking of specific experiences.

SSLYBY (aka Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, i.e. the best band name of all time) reminds me of taking the bus around the UK. Specifically, night busing between London and Edinburgh, which was basically 9 hours without sleep listening to their album Broom on repeat, for the entire 9 hours, right after it came out. Although the song "Think I Wanna Die" reminds me of sheep filled fields in the green belt surrounding London on the bus to Oxford. Random? Kind of. But mostly because there is a line in the song that goes "traveled all alone through foreign meadows..." which I think reminded me of myself so much at that moment that it stuck.

A Fine Frenzy reminds me of Paris. I fell in love with her album Bomb in a Birdcage like two weeks before I went to Paris. And decided that to mark my generic looking wheeling suitcase, I would not only tie a piece of 60s bed sheet, aka a sheet I used to make into blinds because its ridiculously bright green, blue and purple flower print and was actually bought in the 1960s and then left, forgotten, in the back of a closet for 40 years, which is frickin awesome, but I also used white electrical tape to give me writing space. And I wrote the line "If we were children I would bake you a mud pie, warm and brown beneath the sun..." which is the opening line from What I Wouldn't Do, onto said electrical tape with black Sharpie. I could see people stopping the read it all the way to and at the airport, not to mention everywhere else I ever took that bag, followed by smiles, because, really, it is an adorable line. And song, really. And I spent most of the time I was in Paris listening to that album. It was beautiful and just kind of matched how lovely everything is Paris looked. And I am sure I will look back and have at least a half dozen albums linked permanently to Montreal. Library Voices. Said the Whale. Specifically, walking to volunteering listening to Said the Whale. The Islands Disappear album. The 2009-2010 school year was amazing for cd releases. I was very happy.

But I also have some songs where the visual memory is of the song live in concert, and certain lines of the lyrics are forever attached to what someone in the band did at the time. Nada Surf's "Blankest Year," which E is now in love with, is connected to a concert I went to in 2006 at Lee's Palace in Toronto. Rogue Wave had opened the show, and by the time that song got played it was the encore and both bands were pretty drunk. And the Rogue Wave bassist was drunken- ass- shaking- dancing. Which is now burning into my brain. But it was an awesome concert. So I'll live.

Star's "Ghost of Genoa Heights" is attached to a semi-awkward live experience when Torq dressed up in like, twinkle lights and looked all ghost-y. And as much as I love him, Torq is... unique in concert. He is like a little kid on Christmas morning. I am a fan of all things adorable today, I think.

Two summers ago, me and a couple of my friends decided it was a good idea to see Library Voices 3 times in 7 days. Wednesday-Saturday-Wednesday. It was a good idea, actually. And we learned a bunch of the songs off their then forthcoming album just hearing them live 3 times in a week. And now, the chorus of "Haunt This House" Reminds me of walking back to my car, trying to figure out the lyrics to the chorus of "Haunt This House" (which are: I saw the future escape from a crystal ball / it said the present is just an afterthought / it said that Love, is a forget-me-not / so I guess the past is all we've got, in case you were wondering). And I also remember thinking that the first single off that album, "Drinking Games" was too slow, not dance-y enough for a single, and had a trite sounding name. But the lyrics of that first single are: "There she goes again, mixing melody with the memory. She's got a song for everything, everywhere she's been and everyone she's pleased ... I'm too old for these drinking games ... She's not one for lies. But she'll sure stretch the truth ... Until you're saying that you love bands that you can't stand..."

And that song, that opening line, gives me a Nick Hornby moment. Where I didn't know how I felt and thought about something until I heard it sung by someone else. (Well, for Nick Hornby, until you've read how he's described it.)

So I stretched the truth. I don't think I'm capable of never referencing Library Voices in posts. So there's that then...

-K

Home, Home, Hooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaame

To My Youngers,

K's Tuesday post from last week really got me thinking about the idea of home. There's too much to say for just one post, so let me try to start somewhere that makes a modicum of sense...

I lived 'away' for quite a number of years- four provinces away from home for over ten years to be exact, and I never stopped longing for that feeling of being where you're 'supposed' to be... Its great to travel, its great to see the world, and I could not be happier that I didn't just live in one place for my whole life, but there are places that feel 'right' and places that just don't, and the longer you live in one of those 'just don't' places, the sadder you feel.

Music was always the most difficult thing for me- on the east coast its all about fiddles and bagpipes- now don't get me wrong, I love me some bagpipes (especially piobaireachd) but east coast music is just not the same as music from Ontariario... I missed the experience of going to concerts, I missed the summer festivals and the accessibility of it all, but more than anything it was the overwhelming feeling that got all stirred up in me when I listened to a home-town band.

There was many a time driving home from work when a song would come on and have me in tears of homesickness, but no band was more responsible for these occurrences as Elliot Brood. I thought that I could pinpoint it to a song (for a long time I thought it was just Oh Alberta) but as I listened to more and more of their music, I realized that there is just something about it that screams home for me. Something about the sound and the lyrics and the enthusiasm and the unabashed love for where they live that jumps out and grabs me by the intestines. There are bands that are like this about many places, Old Man Luedeke will forever symbolize the South Shore to me,  just as the Decemberists practically scream Portland, but I'm not from the South Shore or Portland, I'm from Ontario, and Elliot Brood captures that feeling of Ontario Home like no other band I know.

The other day The Valley Town came on the radio. This time the opening banjo chord, the building complexities and the rousing chorus at the end made my heart soar instead of making me homesick. I don't know how they do it, or even what they're doing, I'm just happy to be able to experience it where I'm meant to be. Home.

-E

Resistance

To my elders,

I resist a lot of things. I resist going to bed at night. I resist falling asleep, even when I am tired. I resist growing up. I resist new technology. I resist external forces of change. I resist (some) authority. And I resist liking new music by much loved bands.

Now, this last one sounds stupid. I know that. By why mess with a good thing? As much as I want loads of new songs and endless albums from the bands I love the most, I almost hate it when they release a new album. What if I don't like it? What if its disappointing? What if the sound quality blows? And then there is always the issue of having to learn a whole new album. Such a chore.

So today, when I found out that one of my absolute favourite bands, the one that made me cry at the thought of not liking them because of some bizarre twist of musical fate, aka Library Voices, launched their new website today, including an adorable new emblem, some concert dates, an announcement of a new album out this August (!) and a stream of a new song, I was actually minorly concerned. Would this song be good? Could it possibly still capture what I love about them? Would it take 20 listens for me to hear something of value in this song, only to leave me with a weird memory of not having liked it the first 15 times? (Which of course, even if I didn't like it, I would still keep listening, just in case.)

So here is a link to the new website where you can listen to the song and watch a video from their last album. The new song is called "Generation Handclap" and the album is entitled "Summer of Lust." I anticipate many songs about picnics and falling in love and reading obscure novels on blankets on a grassy hill with ill-fated loves. Or maybe I'm just reading too much into titles...

But to sum up the song itself, the first few bars are a little awkward and left me somewhat sceptical, but about 28 seconds in it makes a pleasant turn to self deprecation ("... this is generation drunk text") and more melody based guitars. And some horns in the background. Which is nice. Subtle, and nice. And surprisingly 60s in the quality of the music. Which I am a big fan of. But really, the piece de resistance of the song is the line "They say you are what you read. You can be Copeland. I'll be Murakami." Which is mostly just cute and quaint and clever referencing to semi-obscure philosophers (or, at least, I think Copeland is a philosopher from the 50s... I may be wrong about this). But also amazing because of the following: (Which is from the random rants or missed connections section of Craig's List about a year ago.)

"You stole my Murakami at Library Voices - (The Horseshoe)

First of all, stealing people's stuff in general isn't cool. But then to steal someone's BOOK from a LIBRARY VOICES show? Seriously? ... I'll forgive you if you write something neat in it and then leave it on a subway. But that's about it."

I think two love letters to Library Voices is enough for now. I will try not to base any more posts about them until the album actually comes out. But I am totally buying the 7" single if they have it at NXNE next week.

-K

Postal Strikes and Existential Crisis(es)

To My Youngers,

So the post office went on strike last Friday. Not the old-fashioned sandwich-board, oil-drum-fire, scabber-filled, country-stalling general strikes of old, but instead a rolling strike meant to (hopefully) inconvenience us enough to (hopefully) make a point. I’m still trying to decide if it will be (has been?) effective at either.

My favourite response to this ‘whole ordeal’ (if we can even call it an ordeal at all…) was a friend’s facebook status: “Oh no! A Canada Post strike!? That will totally affect my daily life. Just like when the typewriter factory went on strike and all the monocle franchises shut down.”  I think it pretty perfectly sums up the first reaction of your average Canadian (right down to the self-effacing take on so called ‘important things’). I found the post pretty durn funny, but I don’t really know how I feel about the strike itself... A few people responded with good reasons why they were upset about it (not receiving pay cheques, trouble invoicing or mailing out merch) but on the whole everyone seemed to agree- Not only was this rolling strike not really going to affect most of us, it is just downright humerous.

I myself bemoaned having to use a fax machine to send some government-type forms (like being forced to watch a movie on Betamax), but in all honestly, I was a little sad that I wasn’t more upset at the temporary (if spottily temporary) inability to send actual physical things through the mail. I can be a bit of a neo-luddite at times- I own three typewriters, a super-8 projector, a tape deck, and a collapsible overhead machine. I love old things. I love old technologies. I love winding film, and watching for cigarette burns, and setting type by hand. But I also love being able to talk to my cousin on skype even though he lives halfway across the world. I love being able to take my entire music collection with me anywhere I go. I love viewing vlogbrothers videos and being inspired by my modern metropolis. I love being able to watch Dr Who the day its aired on BBC and not having to wait weeks and weeks to borrow a tape of it recorded off of a friend’s Space channel… I’m sitting on a cliff on an island in the middle of a lake, writing this on my laptop and posting it online- Can I really simultaneously do that and mourn the loss of the importance of the postal service?

Is it possible for us to still value a method of communication (in the original sense of the word, everything from roads to photographs, to mail, to texting) if it ceases to be the most useful method? Is there an actual place in the world for things that no longer have a use? The obvious answer, logically speaking is ‘no,’ but that just doesn’t seem to be right. What about Art, and Film, and Music, and Literature? What about Bicycles? What about Chocolate? What about… everything that makes life interesting? But how do we tell what’s what- what’s worth keeping and what just isn’t?

I think that the rolling postal strike has made a point, but I’m not sure that it was the point they were trying to make. Maybe we are at a place where physical mail just isn’t really needed anymore.  Maybe my former thoughts on importance and usefulness are antiquated and no longer reflect my view of the world. But the idea of not having a National Mail Service makes me pretty sad, just like the idea of closing down all the typewriter factories and monocle shops. But what if their time has simply come, and all the being-sad-about-it in the world isn’t going to stop anything.

Then again, vinyl hasn’t sold this well in over thirty years…

-E

Little White Lie

To my elder and younger,

Today I went to the bank to deposit my measly pay-cheque and got talking with the teller about his dog and for some reason I felt the urge to share stories about M&A's dog. Before I started my story, I stopped and changed what I was about to say to make it seem like it was my dog I was talking about. Now this small white lie did not hurt anyone. Moreover it just made my story and myself seem more credible instead of talking about someone else dog.

So this made me wonder more about all the little white lies I tell every day. It also made me think about the show "Lie to Me" with Tim Roth. A brilliant show where they can, thru the art of facial and body signals we are not aware we are doing, tell who is lying and sometimes what severity the lie.

As an avid user of white-lies I wondered how many people out there can actually tell when someone is lying?! Furthermore, if they can tell you are lying is it a person by person thing? Like your best friend can always tell when you are lying because they have known you for such a long time. OR is it they can tell when anyone is lying?

I just hope that if I ever meet a walking lie-detector that they are not as blunt as "Lie to Me" character Cal Lightman played by Tim Roth.

-A

Talking Small

To my elders,

I am pretty bad at small talk. I usually come off as being polite but uninterested. Occasionally awkward. And always a little useless. I can manage polite concern towards the weather, but beyond that, I don't really know what to say. And while this can make me uncomfortable at times, philosophically, I prefer it.

Chuck Klosterman's introduction to his Hypertheticals is basically a diatribe on why small talk is stupid and why he has no interest in taking part in it. I do agree, on a basic level, but that's not what bothers me about it. Small talk is uninteresting drivel, sure, but boredom is not its most distinguishing feature.

Small Talk is, sans exception, without direction. Conversations of small talk can occur between any two people. And the problem is, it doesn't matter who these two people are. Or, more accurately, your small talk is the same, regardless of who you are talking to. And that bothers me on both sides. That it would be fake and fictional and plastic enough to say to absolutely anyone, but also, that my presence, my participation in a conversation is completely unimportant to the existence of that conversation. I could be talking to person A or B, or G, or N, or X, Y, or Z, and be saying the exact same thing with incredibly little variation. And you know what? I don't want to say those things, and I don't want to be talked at like that by anyone. I like to know that when someone tells me something, they are telling me. On Purpose. What can I say? I'm old fashioned. I like to be involved in my conversations.

But what can you do? Unless we abolish people getting offended and simultaneously prevent over sharing, I, sadly, accept defeat that small talk will not cease to exist. But I do solemnly swear to at least try to have something resembling a genuine conversation with every person I have spoken to more than once. Because I really can't stand the phoniness of it all. Unless, of course, the weather is really crazy that day.

-Holden Caulfield

aka K

The Sleepy-Time Energy Blues

To My Youngers,

Back in school I was a night owl. Well, I suppose more correctly I should say I have been a night owl since pretty much the day of my birth, but in high school and university I took full advantage of that. I would stay out at friends' houses until three, talk on the phone until five, or go on long walks through the marsh, sometimes not getting home until six or seven in the morning.

For much of that period I also worked doing theatre at an amusement park with many late-night and over-night shifts. I loved it. I would finish work at whatever time and be all hyped up and completely not ready to go home to sleep. Sometimes I would head over to a friend's house, sometimes I would tag along with some of the guys from work and go to the Wendy's on the highway to play arcade games (Oh Crazy Taxi how I loved you... ), but most often I would just pick a direction and drive. Bass pumping, lyrics blaring, speeding down the highway (always the highway or back roads, never by houses- I mean that would just be inconsiderate!). It was a half-hour drive home, but often I would just keep going north way past my exit, sometimes go east instead, the odd time even headed in the direction of downtown and driving until the highway turned into just a regular street.

There's something about being out at night, there are so few people about and everything is so quiet. The air feels different, the music feels different, the world feels like a completely different place. Things just aren't the same during the day time- sometimes they're just too crowded. Sounds over power you, sunshine distracts you. Conversations just aren't quite as funny, movies just aren't quite as entertaining, and Crazy Taxi just isn't as good on Playstation...

I especially love the part where night turns into day, when its still dark out but the birds have started singing. When the quality of everything you can sense starts to change. When the night-time people and the day-time people start to cross paths, when something turns into nothing and nothing turns into something. Its like you're watching the day get born... gets me every time. 

Now-a-days I am fonder of the day, I am fonder of the sunshine and the sounds, and the everyone-else-being-awake. But sometimes, coming home from a late day of work, or hanging out with friends, or sometimes just when its been a really lovely day and the night is still warm and sticky (or cool and crisp) I just want to not-sleep. To drive around listening to music, or go on a long walk, or lie on the dock or sit on the porch or the deck and have long conversations, get the giggles and make ludicrous connections between our lives and anything/everything else under the moon.

I guess once a night-owl, always a night owl...

-E