Prime Ate Prime

#1) Primate photography continues apace—five posts in a row, by my count—and somebody should pull the alarm, make it stop. Okay, what does that even mean? Sometimes my own nonsense shakes me up slightly.

#2) "Things I learned this weekend." Apparently, wasabi is absolutely harmless, judging by how J wolfed it down. He did, briefly, turn into the Tasmanian Devil, but you had to look really closely to spot the change. Next week, I'm going to try some w myself, maybe up the nose or straight into the heart. Then I'm going to knock down a herd of buffalo with my fists and butt heads with Galactus over cribbage.

#3) My girlfriend bought me a couple of cds on Friday. Okay, that's the best sentence I've ever written. Let's sit back and take a look at it. Nine chief justices couldn't do better. Last year's [Edit: last year's? Oh, snap.] Breakaway hit was one of them, and I've been listening to tracks 2, 3 and 4, nonstop. Damn, I never realized how good "Because Of You" could sound in a dark car on an icy highway, it's gorgeous.

#4) Hic jacet The Wolfnote, rex quondam, rexque futurus. And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

"Heavy Lifting" + Like A Fox This song will Whoops! What song, again?

"A Little" + Like A Fox This song will apparently be the first track off the band's 2006 CD. I actually don't know if the CD has been released yet, but it's certainly worth tracking down. I, however, lack the skills to do this. I am not Holmes, dudes! I'm not even the good doctor. A little is all I've got, and I'm up against the wall, here. I just discovered this song last night! Anyways, the band's site has got the lead singer's email address tagged onto it, so if you're keen about keen songs, give way to a little care and message the man. Meanwhile, enjoy the soft-water-running and white-horses-in-the-rain of this song.

Come Wind, Come Weather + Daphne du Maurier The title comes from Bunyan's poem beginning "Who would true valour see." Like Bunyan's books, this, too, is a simple book. And, like Bunyan's words, this author's words cut to the heart of the matter. Du Maurier would agree with Carlyle when he said that all that history was but the lives of great men, for she, too, ascribes the motions of the political machines to the personal motivations of its leaders. National unity in 1940's Finland is brought about, not by some hallowed system of checks and balances, but by certain key people recognizing and laying down personal ambition and private pride. The most astonishing vignette, in this collection of very short stories, is, to my mind, "London, 1940?". The piece is told from the viewpoint of a Russian aristocrat during and after the Bolshevik revolution. Anna resents losing her place of privilege to a bunch of peasants who say, "If we can't be equally rich we can at least be equally poor," but the narrator comments, "She was lucky to escape with her life". Living a life of poverty, though, Anna comes to realize the troubles of the poor and the injustice of having lived thoughtlessly wealthy among them. She becomes ashamed of her past life, and when she and her husband are shipped to Poland, into an obviously very dangerous situation of poverty and jeopardy, she refuses to cave-in to self-pity or bitterness. Instead, she has decided to do her best to change positively change the people around her, and not, like a lifetime before, live without care or thought toward others. Her life, and this story, is to be a lesson for Englishmen and Londoners complaining about the loss of luxury in the middle of war.

This book is out of print.

These stories are Christian propaganda, of course, very simplistic. They are lessons more than they are stories, literature in the wholesome and nearly dead tradition of moral instruction. They are very simple, but that is the point. The world is not black and white, people are not irredeemably evil or consistently good, but one thing holds true, always. People are selfish, people can do better, private responsibilty will make public good. And if it doesn't, that's a lie, because it will.

England Prevails

Life, as I understand, is a semi-violent but always banal farce, where nothing that happens matters to anyone except the victims. Actually, that is a total lie, I don't believe that at all, but, sometimes, the circumstantial evidence can be fairly strong. Like the time I asked the operator, at one in the morning, for the number of a certain taxi company. And then I blow my one call on that number, only to get the answering machine for a taxidermy service. Taxidermy? One in the morning, guys, one in the bloody-bitter-cold morning! What was I supposed to do then? This homeless thing, let me tell you, is way over-rated. Don't let those guys selling The Voice seduce you. Or, there was the time I got pulled over by the same policeman four times in one week-end. Twice on the Friday, twice on the Monday. You know, on Monday he asked me how my stats final went and seemed surprised to hear that I'd failed it. Right, buddy, because I stood with you for two hours, waiting for the tow-truck to take my baby away! Remember? Life, I tell you. Sometimes, it's thumbs down.

V For Vendetta + Alan Moore This "graphic novel", or set of comic books fastened between two covers, is silly good. George Orwell fans like me can't get enough of his stuff. The whole dystopian universe/Batman feel of the book draws me in like pencil on paper.

But. An observation, which is this—if the graphic novel ever achieves anything more than a casual "That's interesting" in English departments around academia, then the university is dead. A lot of people, bitter and not so bitter, would say that the university is already dead, that it died over five hundred years ago when it radically departed from the mandates of the very churchly beginnings of the colleges and quadrangles established by John Wycliffe and such and became, instead, a place for confused young women to experiment with both their sexuality and tolerance for alcohol. Which would certainly explain why young men continue to enroll themselves in such soul-destroying institutions. Certainly, men like Egerton Ryerson would be dismayed at the flourescent classrooms and confused ideologies under the Ryerson University logo. Well, now I'm getting too serious for my subject. What I mean to say is, what part of the word "graphic" can be misunderstood as "writing"? Now, I understand that "novel" follows "graphic" and I understand that pictures scribbled over with dialogue and explication and bound together in book form can tell a story equal in character and content to any novel by Dickens or Grisham or somewhere in between, but just because it tells a good story doesn't mean something should be studied as literature. Films, anyone? Not lit, last I checked. My Grandpa? Also not lit. Literature is writing, not writing and something else. Godsake.

Still. There is nothing I can say which has probably not already been said about this work. V For Vendetta is wonderful and a better read than most novels I read last year. Which also goes to show that one doesn't have to be a regular novelist to tell a good story. You can also be a magician who worships, for instance, Glycon.

Sorry about the constant delays. The music post will be up Saturday night, either early or late. Four songs this time, one of my fave releases of last year. You'll either love them or hate them, or, possibly, not give a damn. What are you, Gone With The Wind? Shut it, Butler.

"Baby Said" and "Down With Prince" (the last of which you've already seen a billion times around the net) are, to me, pitch perfect examples of what Hot Chip can do with a song. Nobody knows what to call this band, genre-wise. Electro-blues? But R.L. Burnside already sort of notched that label, didn't he? These songs are smooth rides, not even the smoothest in Hot Chip's bag, but still killer compared to most hip-hop out there. No, it doesn't feel right to call this hip-hop or thug-pop or Your Sonic Lollipop. This stuff is too one of a kind. Blue Steel, that's what this business should be labelled. I'm announcing a new genre to the world, yes, blue-steel. The beast is ready to leave the cage. Anyway," Baby Said" is excellent, closing with enough crazy Casio to keep the painfully alone in warm company long after the song ends. Typical (this album, anyways, which is all I know) Hot Chip sound, a long low building buzz ending with either a bang or a whimper. "Down With Prince" stands out a little from the rest of the album, though, with a Prince haircut and some Princed-out clothes. Whatever, it's still got that Hot Chip chill. These songs are bulletproof, massive slow-beats for cruising around calmly to, or, even better, listening to traffic through an open window by. An almost-unforgivable sentence, that, but this music justifies—really—just about anything.

Hot Chip refuses to remain the single avatar of its own genre, though. It keep bringing other kids to the yard to play, and some of them are pretty popular, like Franz Ferdinand's "Take Me Out (Hot Chip Remix)", which I don't like at all—for one thing, it's too long— mostly because it's like sandpaper on my eardrums. Whatevs, I'm just posting it so you can hear what HC is capable of. There's no way to improve on the Scottish band's single, but kudos or jeers, whatever you think best, to Hot Chip for trying something new. BUT this business, The Go Team's "Ladyflash (Hot Chip Remix)" is brilliant, I like this better than the first effort, and I loved that first effort! But this eliminates all the confusion from the original while still keeping the heart and enthusiasm of the piece AND still leaves enough room for the hearer to draw a few deep breaths of delight. Wonderful stuff, music should always be this good.

Oh, there is too much music on my computer.

Let's Make A Deal

This article in the NY Times has me ripped to go see the Tristram Shandy movie, which I hope will be brilliant. However, if the film is not brilliant, if it is unbrilliant, I am not going to cry or perform any drastic action, like jump into the water by the plastic pirate ship moored in the West Edmonton Mall (an action, which, as far as harm goes, would probably do little more than severely dampen my clothes and also wash the gel out of my hair—also, I have been told that there are cockroaches in the Cinnzeo's located beside that pirate ship and that these horrible insects love the tepid water, so, as you can imagine, I am definitely NOT going to leap into or even dabble in that fetid pool they call Marineworld or whatever the blazes they DO call it—plus, I don't wear gel in my hair or at all, that was just a lie, it seemed interesting to say at the time). But, if the film succeeds, I'm going to purchase Adaptation and just stare at the DVD covers for it and Tristram Shandy: A Cock And Bull Story all day long, my post-modern meta-textual brain fizzing with pleasure. Or just fizzing.

"Bathtime In Clerkenwell" + The Real Tuesday Weld Stephen Coates is a one of a kind, and that's all right with me. The world doesn't need two of him—one will do just fine. But why will one, and only one, Stephen Coates be all that is ever neccessary to the well-being of Britain and listening audiences everywhere? Probably because he does his job so damn well. Another Stephen, not without Merrit (ha!), liked the man's music so much, he took SC out on tour with him, and people all over Europe got to hear the funderful tunes of The Real Tuesday Weld. This tune was everywhere a while- and-a-while ago. Didn't it win some award, or maybe that was the whole album, I, Lucifer, that is. The dancing beast was released in the spring of 2004, and this song was wonderful and unexpected. It still is. The video is pretty famous, too, or maybe it's he look of the video, more than anything. Which seems a stupid thing to say, but, watch it, and you'll know what I mean.

The Arctic Fox: Francis Leopold McClintock, Discoverer of the Fate of Franklin + David Murphy Sometimes, it's not the writing, it's the subject, that makes the book. Like photography, isn't it? Murphy writes a plain strong narrative, nothing wrong with it, but certainly nothing to make you drop to the floor and wriggle unless you happen to be interested in what he's writing about. Which is why I did The Worm for about ten minutes after finishing this book. Francis McClintock was about as tough a baby as anyone ever is in this harsh world. This book is the first biography of him to come out since the publication of Clements Markham's 1909 biography (a book which I have not read). Anyways, McClintock. McClintock was amazing, virtually indestructible. He was that rare man in the British Admiralty, a person not afraid to learn. He basically came up with the idea of sledging across the ice as the most viable means of Arctic exploration (check out one of the cool sledge-flags he used), he organized satellite expeditions, pioneered the idea of moving from cache to cache instead of from ship to starvation, and discovered the only surviving document from the disastrous Franklin expedition of 1845. Did I mention the man was tough? He once travelled 770 miles in 80 days across land so jagged and tough and cold and treacherous—oh, there is no describing how bad it was, you would have to see it for yourself. Or read the book. You know what, stay away from the Arctic. The book is far more comfortable.

D.A.R.E.

The voting stations were down at the Legion this morning and I went behind the cheap cardboard box and checked my vote. Not that I believe my vote actually matters in my strongly Conservative riding, but it gives me the right to complain until the next federal election, right? You know what? Most people are surprised to learn that I vote conservative along with the county. I am not for the Conservatives, I am against the Liberals. Winston Churchill once said, "Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains." People hear my facetious comments about racism and homophobia and assume I actually support their own positions on those subjects, when, maybe, I'm just against racism and homophobia. And heartless, apparently. Just because I make fun of one party doesn't mean I believe in the other party. A vote for the Liberals is, in my estimation, a vote for a leader who literally contradicts himself in public forum, a vote for an ignorant man. A man who, despite video evidence, denies contradicting himself. His words, then, are meaningless. This may seem small potatoes compared to, I don't know, 1) millions of stolen dollars, 2) a gun registry which has cost billions and actually encourages gun crime, 3) the constant lowering of national and provincial educational funds and standards, 4) ramming government motions through Parliament at ungodly hours and away from the public eye, 5) ultimate power to be given to nine unelected judges (what is this, a democracy or an oligarchy?), 6) the segregation of natives, and 7), the wilful and alienating favour shown to Quebec to encourage that province's dependence on the federal government—all policies which would be shameful to any democracy, never mind the one I live in—but what disturbs me more than any of these numerals is Paul Martin. He is a smart man. He ran his own international shipping company for years, and successfully. How can a man this smart, this educated, act like an unintelligent idiot in public? Does he see himself on television? Does he hear his own words and slap his forehead in exasperation at himself? Why does he say one thing and then say another thing which cannot, with logic or common-sense, be made to agree with the first? There is some sort of disconnection deep within this man, some sort of divide or misalignment, which does not allow him to see things as they are. I do not want a leader who appears to be disconnected from reality, from hard surfaces and long division, from economics and spring and summer. I want a leader who knows what his own words mean. If Paul Martin has different meanings for his words than those which the rest of Canada agrees upon, how can he understand this nation, how can he talk to this nation? He does not appear to comprehend either himself or those he is talking to—then how can he represent those people? Paul Martin has made himself ineligible for my vote. His words do not mean what my words mean. His actions are contradictory and corrupted. Unless we, too, are contradictory and morally corrupt, how could we ever vote for this man? I, for one, cannot.

"You Gonna Be My Love Machine? (Jet vs Girls Aloud)" + Lionel Vinyl I heard the most irrititating mash-up EVER on a blog called good weather for airstrikes. It's an uneasy mix of The Killers and Bloc Party and it chafes, O my sisters and brothers, it chafes badly. I listened to it once; I'll probably never listen to it again. I'm not saying it's bad, of course. I'm just saying I loathe it and that the world is the worse for its existence. That's all. But thinking of the worst can also remind one of the best, and that frenzied mash-up led me to remember one of the most natural and positive mash-ups out there, an mp3 which ripped through the internet more than a year ago— and increased my appetite for mash-ups from something like zero to infinity. This is one of the few mashes, I think, that's withstood the test of time. These things usually burn out faster than the song they're based on; this one, I think, actually improves both songs. Hate them or love them, Jet put out a brilliant single with "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?". And Girls Aloud crushed heads with "Love Machine". This mash-up does what the DJ is supposed to do with different songs—the mash becomes an exhibition, not only of the DJ's discerning ear and talent, but of each song's strengths. The apeneck-Sweeney scream and growl of Jet's instruments are the perfect foil to GA's matter-of-fact taunt—there may be equals, but I'd be hard pressed to name a better mash out there.

Words on books will be published this evening, sometime between eight and nine.

Dali + Paul Moorhouse I love these albums, these cheap collections of glossy masterpieces. There is no messing about with analysis or "What the artist really meant" here. Oh, that's all there, I'm not saying no, but the chief emphasis of this publication is pretty pictures. It's sort of like pornography in a way (a comparison to which Dali is not a stranger, I'm sure), because while the printed word may occupy half of this page or even three-quarters of that other page, nothing gets in the way of the pictures. These are books for the masses, these collections of Dali and Rembrandt and Klimt, etcetera, and about time, too. Obviously, PRC Publishing or whoever owns that imprint, is trying to cash in on the Taschen festival which the rest of the publishing world has been shouting about for the past ten years, but that doesn't matter. The point is, these books are cheap, they're plentiful, they contain masterpieces. Love it.

Orange Alert (Saturday "Into My Arms" Edit)

Last night, Roxy Epoxy and her oddly named band-mates rolled into town for a show at The Victory Lounge New City. My profane friend J attended, apparently bringing with him something less than Mary-Poppins-benevolence. With drum rolls, then, here is his somewhat-censored take on The Epoxies w/ the Frosted Tipz:

"F**k that s**t. F**k that b**ch. We're not going back to Detroit, that's for damn sure." Such was L's and my battle cry as we pulled onto 102nd for the Epoxies show last night. Of course, by the Big D, we meant R, and we were both expecting the worst. Nobody was there for R's band, so I laughed, and went upstairs. The big man, the little man, and an assortment of girls ready to put R in the hospital, were all upstairs, so I felt warm and safe and cozy. Anyways, around 10:30, I heard that The Epoxies were starting up their set. I headed on downstairs, and, after an awkward exchange with R on the stairs, I arrived in front of a smoke-filled laser-blasted stage. Yeah, that's right, there were lasers. Green ones. The Epoxies ripped through their set in about 45 minutes, came back for an encore, and then bailed. The sound could have been a lot better, but it did make me dance, which is a rare and horrifying sight. And L and I met three dudes from Fort McMurray."

Um. Brilliant? Nice to see a shout-out to The Fort, btw, J. Alright, the book review (well, recommendation) and the mp3 will crammed into this post on Saturday evening. A big edit. I'm really excited about the mp3, actually. Maybe it will even be up Saturday morning. Oh, maybe not. Have a good week-end, then. Lucky bugs win prizes.

"Into My Arms" + David Fridlund This is what you write about a song like this. First, you don't write about a song like this. You let the lyrics speak for themselves, because they're hearts and bones and life, everybody sacred and bleeding: "I don't believe in an interventionist God / But I know, darling, that you do / But if I did I would kneel down and ask Him / Not to intervene when it came to you / Not to touch a hair on your head / To leave you as you are / And if He felt He had to direct you / Then direct you into my arms". A lovely timbered piano, something you would hear in church just as the last of the congregation washes into the chairs, washes over my chair as I listen to this song. "Into my arms, O Lord," sings Fridlund, over and over. This song is a departure for him. As he explains on his blog, the man doesn't usually cover other people's songs. But there's sentiment and memory and even comfort behind this piece and it bleeds (you can feel the warm blood) through the words and the notes and, most of all, the voice of the singer. He covered The Pixies a while back—I think it was "Wave Of Mutilation" (don't quote me). That cover didn't move me. This Nick Cave cover does. There is other music he's written and sung and it, also, is wonderful. If you don't listen to David Fridlund's music, you'll probably wish you were dead. But if you listen, his songs might save you.

I'm writing about this song, C, for you. I mean, this song belongs to everyone, that's a cliché and true, but I hear the music and think—what else—about you.

Sunday evening, this sentence will be replaced followed with some words about a certain book. I'm pretty interested in it, and, hopefully, I'll get you interested in it, too. BTW, just for the record, I am not a large black woman, nor at all succesful in television, and my name is not an ode to the Marx Brothers. Sunday, then.

King Kong + Lorenzo Semple Jr Okay, this is pretty late Sunday—actually, the clock is blinking 12:03, and it's not early afternoon—but who cares? Not me, that's who. Question asked, question answered! To the book, then. The book is garbage. I don't know why I own this book. This book is not even good garbage, like that in which I classified the latest Michael Crichton. But, even worse, it doesn't even have the guts to be bad garbage and will never win any This Is The Worst Of The Bad Garbage awards. Foo! What I like about this book, apart from the probably-meant-to-be-erotic cover (a reigned-in Frazetta must have scribbled the image of Kong and the python and the girl's improbable Serena-like buttocks in about half of a careless hour), is the introduction. Oh, wait a bit, I like the title, too, which is, properly, The Complete Script Of The Dino De Laurentiis Production Of King Kong (fantastically awkward!). But the introduction! The introduction to the script is so excellently enjoyable. The scriptwriter, who I've never heard of, details Dino de Laurentiis—hereafter referred to as Dino ("His last name isn't used much, even by total strangers, though some of his most immediate entourage tab him 'Mr. D'")—is a brilliant piece of puff-pulp like I've never read before. Dino plays King Kong to the scriptwriters' beautiful blonde, and it's a wonderful mix of humour and farce.

I enter Dino's office on North Canon Drive in Beverly Hills, an enclave so richly Italianate that one expects a Borgia Pope to be working the Xerox machine.

"Borgia Pope"? Note the shiny technology, too. Xerox! Anyways, writing and colour like this, the reader can't lose. The scriptwriter talks about men named Larry and John and Jerry ("Jerry . . . had a mental picture of a terrific scene. Kong in a supertanker . . . ."!) but it's Dino who repeatedly, and not unlike Kong, takes the stage.

Dino capered around his office, pantomiming an enormous monkey plucking off a girl's vestments, delicately, as one would pluck the petals off a flower

All [Dino] really had for a follow-up [to Barbarella] was a setting and a terrific title. The action was to be submarine, and the title Going Down.

[Dino speaks:] "Lorenzo, I give-a you jus' a title, two words, you tell-a me what you think." Dramatic pause. "King-a Kong!"

I Don't Use A Helmet When I Rollerskate

We were sitting in HUB and A says to me, "The new word is fellationship." Which word makes the other two people we were sitting with stop talking immediately, the girl actually snorting. "As in," I say, "we're really committed to this fellationship, or, this fellationship is never going to work." "Exactly," grins A.

Which leads me to speculate, so bear with me. I keep hearing this persistent rumour about St. Albert girls—my girlfriend told me; a classmate, unasked, told me; A (a different A) told me; and now, yes, I realize, I'm telling you—which is that the coloured braces these little teen girls wear are supposed to designate how many guys they've had fellationships with. I don't know, it sounds very urban myth to me, you know? Sure, every school has a couple of Rizzos, but this Rainbows & Braces Club is too elaborate, too much work and design. Nobody needs to be told who the sluts are—that's why God invented STD's.

"Taxi" + My darling YOU! In honour of their new EP, The winter will take us all, which came out last week, here's some old MdY (I have absolutely NO idea how to do that acronym). I posted on this song back in the coldest greyest month of them all, when music like this was sorely needed. That was before this blog became a Yousendit blog, though, so those old posts don't count. This song is brilliant pop, very lo-fi instrumentation, but talent like whales in the sea. I like the part where the singer closes his eyes and lets the taxi-driver have his way with him. It's funny, but sad, but mostly funny, and very well sung. Actually, MdY songs tend to be very roughly sung, but with a certain skill that displays a definitely deliberately awkward cadence. Which, of course, adds to the heartstrings of this song. I've been listening to My darling YOU! for something like fourteen months now and for those fourteen months, in two and three minute snatches here and there, mostly in the evenings and once when I had a barbecue, they have made my world a better place. Love them, love their crazy hair, love their music. Hey-o, they have Myspace, don't you know?

The Small Boat Of Great Sorrows + Dan Fesperman Aside: the best novels always transcend their genre (and, yes, I just used the word "transcend"—God help me, my tiny vocabulary can't come up with an appropriate synonym). Instead of being a science fiction novel, for instance, a novel merely happens to contain a lot of elements of science fiction: I'm thinking of my softcover The Caves Of Steel, here, a schlock Azimov mystery which determinedly presents what it means to retain a soft human heart in the face of prejudice and technology—and, in so doing, becomes a wonderful novella and not schlock. When I was a wee tyke, I read science fiction novels and mystery novels like they were going out of style. It was the details of the genre that appealed to me, the Barsoomian death ray, the body in the library, Alan Dean Foster and Agatha Christie. But then I read Bradbury, as every twelve-year old boy should do, and I was carried away by the emotion of the stories, and the romance. And then I read Dorothy L. Sayers, and realized that a mystery novel could be so much more whole and complete than a mere whodunnit. Which is not to cry down those classic detective tales, because I still love them. I'm just arguing for the superiority of novels over genres and for the unforced equality of those same good novels, no matter what genre they happen to illustrate. The Small Boat Of Great Sorrows is one of those genre-overwhelming novels. The plot of the novel, a great deal of the action, happens to revolve around a mystery, which is not so much who-did-what-to-whom as it is what-is-going-on-right-now. It's a novel of secret agendas, a Cold War thriller set in modern Sarejevo and Germany and The Hague. It's extremely well written, very noir, every chapter ending with troubling beginnings for the next chapter. I haven't read the novel that comes before this one, a work called Lies In The Dark, but, based on this book right here, based on the intelligence and empathy and sheer pleasurable-writing, I'm going to try and track the prequel down. For sure.

See Jews Run

Sir Thomas Browne wrote a very wise thing, once. Actually, he wrote many wise things and more than once, and also some very silly things. He wrote about his own writing, for instance, saying, "It was set down many years past, and was the sense of my conceptions at that time, not an immutable Law unto my advancing judgement at all times; and therefore there might be many things therein plausible unto my passed apprehension, which are not agreeable unto my present self." Which is a torturous sentence, bent all ways upon the mind, but very true. Some people might think it a cop-out to, in essence, say, "I wrote it when I was young and foolish. Now I'm older and wiser and don't stand by it," but I think it takes more courage to publicly change your mind or admit that you were mistaken than to merely hold the line as it was formerly held. So this paragraph is my formal declaration to whoever reads my words—I write a lot of foolishness, some of it in earnest. And I reserve the right to deny my old self in the sentences I have written. All is flux, of course, and to reject that concept would be to deny the nature of this world and the hearts of men.

"Opulent Canine" + The Gay The big producer in this band's 2003 release, You Know The Rules, was Kurt Dahle, who a lot of people know of as the drummer for a little outfit called The New Pornographers—thus we have the cut-glass explanation for les sonic similarities between these two bands. The Gay was not one of Dahle's most successful efforts, endurance-wise, unlike Limblifter or Age Of Electric (whose wailing "Remote Control" sounds not a lot like a pile of sand and quite a lot like a rocked-out The Gay). The band seems to be on permanent hiatus (their label, Mint Records, has them listed as "inactive") which is a shame, because the music they made was gorgeous, filled with more hooks than a thirty-year old sturgeon. That was a local-colour-reference, btw, since both the fish and the band are indigenous to British Columbia—Vancouver, to be exact. Anyways, I still remember heading down past Kingsway and hearing this song on the radio, a brilliant piece of Victoriana by way of the 1970's, just an unending wash of sound and harmony like you don't know. The lyrics are nonsense, of course, but in a good way—"Push Mister Pillow away", anyone? Somewhere in the mists of the last month or two, I read about a DVD along the lines of DIG! detailing The Gay's tour with The New Pornographers. Apparently, there was a lot of office romance between the two bands, which may partly explain the former group's long inactivity. Oh, let's face it, the band doesn't exist anymore, it's just me hoping they'll regroup and swing through Edmonton again. They're so brilliant, I've got to give you another mp3 from their release, another gorgeous hit for your musical vein, a very good song called "Critics". DL immediately!

Yiddish With Dick And Jane + Ellis Weiner / Barbara Davilman You know, S really surprised me, handing me this book as a Christmas present. It's a joke book, but a good joke book, something along the lines of that Nancy Drew parody that came out a while back. Dick and Jane have become part of the post-modern world in this little fable slash Yiddish lexicon. Sally is overweight, Tom is gay, Mother's just had a stroke, unsatisfied wives are cheats and so are mercenary shop-keepers. Cave canem. This book is worthy of being read for two reasons: 1) Sally signs up for a course called "Transgressive Feminist Ceramics"—and any book that mocks modern politically-correct academia pretty much gets the smile from this lad—and 2) the immortal line, "See Jane schlep."

The London Library

I very badly want to be strolling down a London sidewalk and to perhaps turn in at 14 St. James Square, which is the address of the London Library. I would sit in Sir Thomas Carlyle's sofa (or perhaps it is his wife's sofa) and I would think about the English language, how wildly romantic words are. Afterwords, I would have a plain cup of tea in a sidewalk cafe. I would talk to no one and it would be wonderful. I would know only three people in the whole of London and I would spend an entire slightly-rainy afternoon or perhaps a warmish summer afternoon avoiding them in the well-lighted but very narrow aisles of the London Library.

I'll stick a picture in this post, but not right now. Later. The light, pictured here, is from Rutherford North, down at the University. The white desk, in the post below, is in Rutherford South. Monday should see the long-delayed resumption of regular posting on this blog. Les pictures + les books + les music + le etcetera. Have a nice week-end, my netminders. Lucky bugs win prizes.

Five For Fighting

I wrote one hundred posts last year. There will be no top ten highlights. I do not believe in Top Ten, or Holy Hundred, or Excellent Eleventeen. It's like saying so-and-so is the fastest sprinter in the world. No, he's not. He's really not. He's just the fastest competitor in the race or the round-robin or whatever. There's for sure some Ugandan dirt-farmer could absolutely kill Donovan Bailey or Maurice Green in the hundred yard dash—probably while dragging a pair of screaming water-buffalo with him, too. Anyways, wait for it—wait for the turn—there it is! My Subjective Seven Of the Year!

SS#1) Best Candy: Starburst, baby. You don't even know. So tidily squared away under neat waxy wrapping. Does synthetic flavour get any better than this? Times like these I realize just how wonderful it is to be part of the great consumerist society of money and idols we call North America. Isn't life juicy?

SS#2) Best Music Video: There was the usual brilliant selection of songs and pictures out there this year. Let's not pretend you weren't affected by that M83 business for "Don't Save Us From the Flames" and it's sister video, "Teen Angst". I loved the classic Watch the Band Play video from the White Rose Movement as they did "Love Is A Number". In fact, it was just narrowly edged out for best of the year. Such beautiful people, such timing between hand gestures and music, I'm not even kidding. That one blond guitarist has some killer hair. And I'm awarding Most Gratuitous Use Of The Concept "Twee" In A Music Video to the guys in Eskimo Disco for "Picture Perfect", a super-catchy single, too. Best video, though, is simple. And I don't even really like the song. U.N.K.L.E. killed all the visuals and storylines with their huge twist video for "Rabbit In Your Headlights", my hands-down subjectively best video of the year. Thom Yorke and DJ Shadow have crafted something simply out-of-control good.

SS#3) Worst Moment To Be A Penguin: Turns out, there is no "best" moment to be a penguin. Consider the egg freezing about thirty seconds after it's popped out of the mother. Boom! Consider the starvation trek neccessary to pop that egg out in the first place. Boom! Consider the skua-bird and the leopard seal, each looking for a tasty piece of penguin wing. BOOM! Consider that in the end, if you survive all these, yeah, you're going to die of cold. But you know what? They still look like they're having so much fun! Oh, you big lardy penguins!

SS#4) Best Film: There was none. I'll have no argument, here. You can talk about Batman Begins and, yeah, I loved it, too. You can talk about March Of The Penguins which was not really a documentary so much as Little House On The Prairie with weird flightless birds, and, yes, it was a good film, alright? But there was no best, not even subjectively. Where are the Wayans Brothers when you need them, right?

SS#5) Best Sunrise: I only saw one, so I'm going to say December 3, 8:31 AM. It was grey and watery and I read the newspaper.

SS#6) Best Moment In The Car: Back in August, when C ranted for a solid two minutes about the truck in front of us cutting us off. She employed just about every vile word she knew and then started laughing at herself and made me laugh, too.

SS#7) Best Song: This is not even possible, but just because, I will name Of Montreal's wonderful "The Repudiated Immortals" as the best single song of last year. I've listened to this song over a hundred times, easy. The first time I heard it I wanted to cry. Ridiculous that a mere two minutes of music could do that. Of Montreal are becoming a god to me.

The Divine Comedy

In the middle of the crystal desert, in the middle of the lake in the middle of that desert, I put down the delicate oars of my narrow boat and picked up the untitled book which came floating by me on the water. A lion, a leopard and a female wolf regarded me from the icy beach. And in that untitled book, I read of the year and where it had been and what it had seen and what it had heard. Good music and conversation, good sights and situations, everything was pleasant but also a little empty, a little doesn't-matter, a little self-bitter, too, and definitely lacking excellence. It was a book of bleakly petty trials and nasty mares'-tails, a book of lovely episodes and awkward dialogue, good sunsets and cold mornings. There was the Starlite concert in late spring, with DFA79, a brilliant show, best ever. There was Of Montreal's wonderful release around the same time, every song an intricate and ornamental and clockwork waving hand-of-sadness in the water. Moving down to Whyte Ave was all but said and done—then life laughed last and turned the whole thing into a theatre of the absurd (though more so for others than myself). There was a terrible evening in Morinville, and three other people know of this middle-summer evening. There was an old blue car mouldering in the garage, an economic decision to quit playing golf, a heart-stopping letter from university, a pear rotting in the grass. There was the occasional party, the occasional argument, the occasional crisis at work or home. No transportation (as always) divided hours apart from hours. Long warm days became long warm days. Ice-cream cones on Perron Street, and cold lemon sherbert from Block 1912, country music on the radio after midnight, too, and a day or so at Sylvan Lake. Not the worst of things, surely. My debts slowly cleared up, Arcade Fire sang in the autumn, the new Lemony Snicket came out, my girlfriend had a birthday and decided to head back to school. I started borrowing different digital cameras. December was brutal. Long days at work or at school made each day longer than the day before. The Chronicles of Narnia was a brightly coloured picture, Christmas morning was a brighter, C's face the brightest of all, like excellent jewelry or virtues from hardship.

I turned the book over (for it contained all my latest life), and read the newly-glowing numbers on the cover, 2005. "Last year was not all bad," I thought. "Last year had some very good evenings. Next year's book will have better things to report." I threw the book back in the water and looked to the frosty shore. The animals were gone away. Six pale towers remained, instead, long thin ladders up their sides. Only the new year might say what they contained. I picked up the oars and rowed for shore.

Gloria in excelsis Deo

Angels we have heard on high—Merry Christmas, C. Merry Christmas, J. Merry Christmas, b. Merry Christmas, S, GH, K. Merry Christmas, M, K, E. Merry Christmas, Mom + Dad. Merry Christmas to the cats, too, Merry Christmas to all and to each and to every breathing living loving thing on this planet. Cranberries, sparkly paper, red wine, turkey dressing, ugly sweaters, "What movie should we rent?", endless stockings, new clothes, old relatives, a sense of a better world come down to this one.

Sometimes You Get The Blue Potato, Sometimes The Blue Potato Gets You

Sometimes life surprises. Because sometimes you get blue potatoes—deep indigo blue potatoes—for dinner. Hey, I went Christmas shopping today and found the perfect present for my brother. It's beautiful, shiny, red, and fits in the palm of your hand. It does not play music, it does not feed the cat, it does not accept a cheque in lieu of cash. "Let the circle be unbroken"—that's my only clue. It's a gooder, though! This was me getting my Christmas shopping done early, by the way. Work keeps calling the house, and on Thursday Friday I'm going to be at both places for a total of fourteen and a half hours. So glad exams are done, yeah?

"Carbon Paper Skies" + Shelley Short There's a certain singing style that is perfection (all styles of song have their perfections, of course). This song by Shelley Short is one of the more obvious examples of such clarity. "Take me down where there's no one else around / Tell me things, tell me things". A man with the strange name of Larry Yes provides the male backing-vocals (don't worry, his voice was made for unremarkable lanes and tall goldenrod). I don't know who sings the female backing. This piece is from her debut album Oh, Say Little Dogies, Why? (2004). This song is a pool of music in a field, and a girl sitting on a fence. Someone was flying a kite not half an hour ago, and the nearest house is over a mile away. Her next album will have maybe one of the best precious titles of the upcoming year—Captain Wildhorse (Rides The Heart Of Tomorrow).

State Of Fear + Michael Crichton Doestoevsky was a pragmatist (I think), but he would probably have forged a strong community of redemption between himself and others before he picked up this book. Thomas Hardy would have frowned mightily and composed a bitter elegy describing how The Implacable English Moorside would never notice either global warming or the hearts of men. Chinua Achebe would merely comment acidly upon the plight of the headstrong Inuit and the refusal of any nation to take responsibilty for the destruction of the atmosphere. Me, I just picked the book up and started reading. The book is junk, of course. Events happen in wildly improbably fashion. Characters believe the stupidest lies. Plot-point follows plot-point. There should be more novelists like this. This book is a great read. Canada, btw, is sprinkled all over this book—Alberta and British Columbia, Montreal and Vancouver. That's just a side-note, though, a drop in the definition of exotic to people who live outside this country. Crichton is a good first-time read. I've never read any of his novels twice, but I've never started one of his books and not finished. Doestoevsky, Hardy, Achebe, they're brilliant. Crichton keeps me turning the pages.

I'm A Ghost Like Swayze

Keep checking back. With a little luck, this post will be replaced with something better later today, say erotic Battleship or the number 9 ("smell the colour nine") or even live animals!—or not live.

This Narnia business is *B*R*I*L*L*I*A*N*T (via PolloxNiner).

2sday #2

Just came out of a final, another final tomorrow. Can't seem to pass the Monday post without tripping, you know? I might read a half-hour or so of The Small Boat Of Great Sorrows tonight. No, I won't. I work until ten, I won't be home till past eleven. I have a hard time getting around, sometimes. Then there's studying. I'm getting Arrested Development taped this evening. I'll watch it Wednesday morning. U can read my next post tomorrow (always tomorrow)—Tuesday, between the hours of seven and eight in the morning. Good night and good luck, as they say.

What's The Gorilla For?

Newton's Law #9 (previously unknown): the frequency of posting on one's blog is directly linked to the frequency of shifts one works, which is to say, more work equals less blog. Who knew? Also, unrelated, last year's best commercial pop song, Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone", is also this year's best commercial pop song. New Year's will probably be at The Starlite for Shout Out Out Out Out and similar song-stylings. Plus a black-and-white party back in St. Albert (Capote would be delighted). ION, this house is getting CROWDED, the family coming in for Xmas. I've been banished to the basement (insert DFA79 lyrics). Finals are still not done and I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here. Ping-pong at work will clear my head. What do you guys think about t-shirts decorated with the sickle-and-hammer—ultimate capitalist triumph or post-USSR equivalent of wearing blackface? Have a good week-end. Lucky bugs win prizes.

"Grim Fandango" + Cadence Weapon This is your Friday eye on the local guy. Today's topic will be all about Cadence Weapon. Regular readers of This Old Blog know I'm a fan of the young Weapon, which reminds me, I've got a favourite un-episode to tell. These dudes I know from this band are at this party I went to after a Cadence Weapon show. They saw the so-called "mixtape" that Rollie Pemberton aka CW flings bolo-style at the unsuspecting audience from that backpack of his (I grabbed a copy) and they laid their reverent hands on it, saying, "This is the freshest indie." Something about that description started me laughing and I haven't really stopped since. Anyways, you shouldn't check out Cadence Weapon because he's "the freshest indie", or the Fresh Prince, or just plain refreshing in a dull sea of blathering earnest gangsta hip-hop. You should check out CW because he's GOOD! How many times did I burn the bleeding-perfect "Oliver Square" onto a cd? "He's arrogant," you say (I say) and he nods. "He's cocky," you say (I say) and he nods. You know what? He's not that cocky, not that arrogant. But you know why he's nodding? Because he has every damn right to be as stuck-up and high on himself as anybody outside of a hat trick in the seventh game of the Stanley Cup has a right to be. Because listen to the music. It's that good. And you know what? If Arrested Development doesn't make it to Showtime, it's still going to live on in this mix-master's music (both versions). What's the gorilla for? Anyways, The Weapon's cd came out December 6th, it's called Breaking Kayfabe, be thinking words like solid solid solid. Listen, repetition means This Is Important. Every song is its own piece, and the style is blazing. The cd release here in E-town is the 17th. That's this Saturday. Dance the grim fandango.

Circus + Alistair MacLean The first MacLean novel I ever read was Where Eagles Dare. There was a reason that book was made into a movie (although you'd be hard put to find that same book in that same movie). The way MacLean kept spinning the reader around with double-cross after double-cross was amazing, a brilliant game well-played. MacLean is a hack writer, of course. So was Charles Dickens. I'm not saying MacLean is anywhere near the author of Great Expectations, I'm just saying, is all. Circus is filled with the usual tricks—MacLean is like s strange cross between Dashiel Hammet and Dick Francis and even Dorothy L. Sayers, which sounds terrible on paper (on screen) but works really well on the page. His heroes are always these cardboard cut-outs who could probably out-hunt James Bond, but have way too much heart to do so. They always act fiercely and coldly, but only for sentimental and humanitarian reasons. They're dads, for godsake, every one of them. The hero of Circus is no different. Bruno Wildermann is an American acrobat with a photographic memory who works in an Eastern European circus. A setting, I think, which was once used by the old Mission: Impossible television show. The plot is improbable: keep the anti-matter out of the hands of the bad guys. The world's fate rests in Bruno's hands. This book is ridiculous with death. Everybody dies in amazing ways. Quentin Tarantino should not be refilming Casino Royale, he should be scripting this book and ratcheting out a cast right now. There are so many gotchas! in this book, well, it's not for the ticklish. Even the very last freaking line of this book contains a surprise that cast the whole novel in new light. That's just MacLean's way of writing. The men are all strong here, except the dastardly men. The women are beautiful Amazons, delicate shepherdesses, horrible old brutes. It's good vs evil, and good is so darn clever at getting up from evil's beating that we all laugh and root for more. This is a good book. I'm not saying it's a great novel, I'm saying I wish more great novels were like this, that they gave one a reason to turn the flipping page. I'll flip the page for MacLean any day. Pulp fiction at its best.

We're Singin' In The Tiki Room / He Ain't Pro

Saturday night, I remember calling G a muffinhead. I do remember that. Also, bumming smokes off a stranger. Also, grabbing my boss' boss' boss and whispering in his ear for five minutes. Also, the shut-up game, where anyone who said anything to me received a "shut-up". Poor anyone. Also, I have this habit, on certain occasions, of grabbing the random people within arms' length and addressing not unkind comments toward them. Also, rye, gin, scotch, red wine, white wine, and something the girl called a mystery shot. I turned around in the car on the way home and saw K and S and GH crammed into the back. How did they get there? The next day was very unpleasant. My longsuffering girlfriend got me to work. I was fifty minutes late for my shift, with about fifty heaving reasons for being so. I found out (today) that there's video evidence of the frolic and speech impediments of the night in question. To all the people who helped me find my inner child, thank-you. I hope to one day witness the same in you. You know, I'm on the invite for an unofficial work party at my other work-place and I'm a bit hesitant about going. Actually, I'm very hesitant.

"The Tiki Tiki Tiki Room" + Hilary Duff I know, I know, I CANNOT BELIEVE I am posting this song. The humanity! BUT—this song is good. And I refuse to allow my own perverse snobbery to get in the way of me listening to good music. And this IS good music. By the way, in the Dad, There's A Little Phrase Called Too Much Information (thank-you, Out Hud) spirit of things, my brother loves loves loves Hilary Duff's "Come Clean / Let The Rain Fall Down". And I used to mock him for his fierce love. And now he can mock me back, if he so wishes. Because I love this Tiki song. I love the chaga-chaga chant, I love how you can practically hear fake bamboo shoots gleaming brightly, the generic wind-up bird-cheeps, the jazz-hands echo to the chorused "Tiki room!", the rattling percussion, the way the audience is addressed throughout the song, the inane rhymes, everything! Please download it. You'll love it, so wonderful.

The Chronicles Of Narnia : The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe Film today. No books for you! Well, there was the usual side-effect to watching this movie. I was so glad I was not there. Imagine facing down a twelve-foot tall two-sworded cavalry officer. I couldn't take a centaur if a Aslan himself was behind me. Or fight against a minotaur whose face is bigger than my entire body? Those horns aren't for me. Unlike this reviewer, I thought the CGI was top-notch, not the equal of LOTR, maybe, but still, top-of-the-pops-notch. On the way out of the theatre, I heard this one guy (clutching his wizard's staff) blare out, "That wasn't nearly as good as Lord Of The Rings." Come on, buddy. I understand they're both fantasies, but neither of them are Krull, either. All three movies are about a bunch of in-over-their-heads characters journeying toward some big-bang conflict that will forever change the universe. LOTR and Narnia are opposite side of the same coin. LOTR is the gothic face-melting humanist side, Narnia is the brightly-coloured religion side. Neither Peter Jackson nor Adam (Shrek this!) Andrewson can help that you like The Cure better than The Go! Team. You probably would have taken the blue pill, right? And the reason you like all the dark shadows so much is that that's the only time you can see your replica orc-sword actually glow. In LOTR, a bunch of humans and elves and those little guys band together. They're going to save the world by destroying the one ring, right? Their salvation lies within if they will only make the effort and work together. In Narnia, a bunch of humans and some beavers band together. They're going to save another human, because that other human has gone and done some foolishness and is suffering for it. In Narnia, rescue comes from outside the group. Like religion, but more feline. In LOTR, rescue comes from within the band. It's like the UN, but with magic! Whatever way you look at it, this movie is a good movie. It's full of bright colours, brave actions, and traitorous deeds shown as, well, not worth the candy. It's like Robin Hood. Evil gets defeated, the poor people get to be kings, and everyone lives happily ever after. And Robin Hood is an enormous lion who doesn't steal, only gives. It's a lion, folks! A lion!

2sday

I've been trying to build one house per week, 2700 sq ft, wiring, flooring, all of it. I've succeeded. To date, thirty-four houses. I've been trying to write a novel per month. So far, nine novels. I've looked into world peace, too. Expect to hear much celebration by about Wednesday next. But I just can't seem to stick to a regular blog schedule. Monday's post will be tomorrow, Tuesday. The usual pic, the usual song, the usual book and the usual personal. Oh my sons and daughters, yes, the week-end was very full.

Meanwhile, check out The 16mm Shrine. Ash is putting out the usual top-notch quality. Somebody give him a book-deal. And this kid (I've never met him, but a dude I first saw on the site showed me a picture of the kid) has one of the most intriguing photoblogs I've seen in a while. He's got some good pix of The Wolfnote up right now. Which reminds me (the pix thing) Absenter is still going strong. And a new site, Get Published Or Die Tryin, has some hilarious bits about the MFA process, including the line, "a dolphin punches frank conroy in frank conroy's face". I can live with that line. Also, Oprah is discussed. She's in bar and she's been rejected by the overweight white middle class housewives of the world. When this blog gets specific it doesn't mess around. Lastly, PolloxNiner has a new home, and she brought Feist. There's some new (depending on how you look at it) Vashti Bunyan, too.

Later, aviators.

I've Written A Piece For Them Called Spider Symphony Number Ten

The thing about crap jobs is that they're crap. You'd think that would be obvious going in, but not so. Whatevs. Plus, I left my cell at work. I HATE that. That's like leaving your best sweater at your friend's before a first-date night x 10! Right now, I'm so tired, I'm not even going to finish this post until tomorrow morning (today, to you, I suppose). I'm taking my black oxfords off, I'm hitting the shower, I'm having tea and kimchi or maybe something else. Maybe I'll give C a call again, maybe I'll read the editorials in the Tuesday Post. Doubtless my cat will sit in the chair across from me while I eat. Good night and good-morning.

"Past, Present, And Future (Live)" + Jens Lekman Morrissey was outdone on this one. Self-pity and pitiless carelessness for the self mashed up by a sixties girl band and covered by a Swedish singing phenom now trying to hack it in suburban LA. This song is the live version—the full applause from the audience at the end of the music is wonderful to hear, especially after Jens has just sung, "But don't try to touch me, don't try to touch me / Cause that will never happen again." Jens Lekman is a sort of genius, I think. His throw-aways are better than many bands' singles. His spider-babies song, for instance—"Boisa-bis-o-boisa"—was a bleeding slice of brilliance, too, say a theme song sung softly by the crow in Alice In Wonderland, or a Neil Gaiman character. Jens has masterpieces out there with "You Are The Light" and "Rocky Dennis' Farewell Song To The Blind Girl" and "Black Cab" and the hugely under-rated "Pocketful Of Money" and—oh, you get the idea. You understand me. This is a guy who wrote and sang and sings, "Oh, I still remember Regulate with Warren G / That would have been back in the sweet summmer of nineteen-ninety-three." Godsake, the Warren G was the unnofficial theme song of this grocery store I worked in back in the day! But it's that big rich voice of Jens, right? Those intricate and clever but also heartfelt lyrics, right? The Stephen Merrit of him, the Morrissey of the man. What I'm hoping, here, is that you are a JL fan. And, if you're not, that you will dl these very minor efforts by a very talented songwriter and say, "Sweet Lord, if these are the crumbs from the table, what's the full-meal-deal taste like?" Oh, I forgot, "F-Word" is better than a masterpiece, it's perfect. Long as you like cats.

[Edit/update: This is horrible news (via Said The Gramaphone). Jens is saying he's giving up the game, at least for a few years. Touring has basically wrecked his life and he's going to look for a day-job. His last show will be in Athens, Greece. Horrible news, that is, for his fans. With any luck, it will end up being good news for Jens. I so wished to hear him, though, and can hardly believe his tour was not a mega-blowout success. Every song he sings is a single. I hope, one day, that I look up from my coffee or cheap shiraz (hell, why not?) to hear the opening notes of "Maple Leaves" and see a mild-looking man playing the piano in the suddenly-brightest corner of the room. Don't give up on music forever, Jens.]

Prester John + John Buchan Remember this? "Look for a small humourous anecdote touching on Thomas Wolfe, a yellow Volkswagon, my Dad's Winchester .303, casting for the upcoming Rocky VI film, and a flourescent purple bikini." I lied. That was just to hook the unsuspecting reader of this blog. The good news is that there's an even better story here, something along the lines of Rider Haggard, but oh so much better. This is Buchan's finest work (and, yes, I've read The Thirty-nine Steps), perhaps only equalled by Buchan's excellent but entirely different Sick Heart River. PJ is the kind of book R.L. Stevenson would have written, if he'd had enough time in his short life. The hero of this novel is the eponymous British lad, the good old boy, the man who makes good, etcetera. The villain is completely out of the ordinary. The Reverend John Laputa is leading the native people of Africa against the colonial powers. He's doing this with the aid of a symbolic/talismanic necklace representing his royal African descent from the legendary Christian Prester John, with the help of a couple of sucker-trash Europeans from the shady side of the Mediterranean, with the charity of the English people he cons on cash-cow tours of Britain and, most importantly, with his own powerful charming force of character. Now, everything in this book is seen from the pov of the protagonist, Davie Burns. There's a lot of casual racism in this book. The kaffir negro is described a pitiful animal-like beggar lucky to be allowed employment in the colonial world of the British Empire. The Dutch do not get off much better. The lone Portuguese man is worse than both combined. John Laputa/Prester John is always clearly a man apart from his brother Africans, an exceptional human being. How much of this racism is the view of the hero as opposed to the view of the author is unclear, but it's there, and there's plenty enough of it. But it becomes part of the terms of the story, this racism; the terms of the large and careless empires which men could establish by sheer force of will—and corruption on every level. The plot of the story is nigh frantic, beginning with an eerie childhood encounter with the young man who will be become the Prester John. Davie Burns is then sent out to Africa, to earn his keep. He encounters very suspicious activity among the native Africans of the back country, and gets caught up in the just-hatching native rebellion to such an extent that at one time he finds himself in a large cave, surrounded by thousands of Africans, pledging enthusiastic heartfelt allegiance to Prester John in the person of John Laputa. The atmosphere of this book is of worlds at stake, of great lion-hearts struggling for expression, of harsh African country-side and the harsh measures by which men live. This book is a book, above all, of atmosphere. Additionally, it's a standout from the normal boy's-own-adventures of its day, because the obstacles which must be removed from the adventurer's path (I'm talking DB, here) are really the pillars and foundation of the adventurer's world. After the rebellion is quashed, there is nothing left for Davie Burns. He is facing a successful retirement at twenty-five years old. He is not displeased with his circumstances, but he is discontent, with less of the whole "no more worlds to conquer" idea and more of the "isn't it a pity" sensation. And the book ends. It's brilliant. Please read and enjoy.

"Nobody Touches Pete's _____."

1) I watched Sky High (thank-you, C) and it was excellent—also, it was excellent because Bruce Campbell is in it. Bruce Campbell is a lousy actor but everyone in the audience (nearly everyone) is a happier person after watching him shout and act stern. It wasn't the trilogy that first made me his fan, though, it was that television series, Brisco County Jr. About other films which are not Bruce Campbell films, I have only this to say. I'll watch any film featuring Charlotte Gainsbourg, even the dreadful ones, even though they're all dreadful ones.

2) There's a ping-pong table set up in the back, now. I love ping-pong. The table is home-made, narrow, corners cut diagonally, net made out of painted cardboard. The paddles are tiny and plastic, matting carefully peeled off of one side. The one ball has a pin-prick hole in it. Work could be fantastic this winter. I like the Chinese grip myself.

3) I might talk a little politics in my next post. There's an election coming, and it looks like a monster.

Sneak-Thief + "Cold Ways (feat Lindsay-J)" The kids in the tight jackets and white pants probably yelled "Italo!" after hitting each other to this shiny-chain-swinging beat. Either that, or they started snapping pics of every flamingo they spotted. I could have helped them out with the photography, but the lingo? I don't know foreign languages. But I do know a solid bassline (who doesn't?), and this bass is solid cubed. I'm not going to try and fool you—yeah, Sneak-Thief aka Michael Morin is local, but he's not that local. Just like The Faunts, but at the opposite end of music, he long ago left the City Of Champions, and he's blazing around Holland and Germany all Peaches-style, where the closest thing they have to a guitar is a poster of Devendra Banhart in the record store. And DB doesn't go down very well on the dance floor. Anyway, this track is off Sneak-Thief's Cold Ways EP (2003), released on Lasergun. What's Lasergun? This is Lasergun, so get your rave on. Sneak-Thief has a website and thirteen tracks on the NMC business. This gold is old but it still gets glitzi.

The Riddle Of The Sands + Erskine Childers His cousin was the First Lord of the British Admiralty, and Childers himself graduated from Trinity College. He was not an unnconnected man. He volunteered for the British in the Boer War and was wounded. He wrote his only novel, a novel which heavily affected the British military, on his way home. Around the outbreak of WWI, he and his American wife were smuggling arms to Irish rebels, but he volunteered for naval service and flew a plane, earning the Distinguished Service Cross in WWI. He served as a member of Irish Parliament (despite his background) and was the father of the fourth president of Ireland. Childers was executed for treason against the British Crown in 1922, court-martialed for illegally carrying an automatic pistol . His last words were, "Take a step or two closer, boys. It will be easier for you." This book is about sailing, and war, and navigation, and ignorance, and so much more. This book is about two men who take a miserable holiday along the dykes and sands of Holland and Germany and Denmark and come to suspect that the Germans are making secret preparations to attack England and establish naval dominion over the northern half of Europe. The language of this book is like crisp poetry. Except for Kipling's Kim and certain sections of Defoe's novels, this would have been the first spy novel in the English language, perhaps in any language. What Childers did in this novel was successfully synthesize the German political stance and attitude into a novel, a novel which said Germany was going to attack England and Europe. The novel was published in 1903. WWI began eleven years later, and this novel reads like a history of the pre-war preparations. Correction: this novel reads like a thriller/adventure/spy novel/mystery/boys-own-adventure of pre-war preparations. It's the setting that dominates this book, though, the shifting sands of the title. The fog is always clearing or thickening, the water always rising or falling, the sands and shoals merging with the wind and water. Everything is temporary, everything is unknown, the enemy might be in the next country or a hundred feet away, who can tell? It's a good book, it's a standout. Look at the author's life. Whatever he did, he threw himself entirely into the effort. How could he not have written a fascinating novel?

Reptile Without A Body

Well, I don't know anymore, I was going to hang out by the big giant disembodied dinosaur head, but all the tourists beat me to it. So now he's got a new bunch of friends. Is this good? Looks like the bodiless reptile exhibit is the coolest kid in class now, which means we never talk anymore because now he doesn't know me. Alright, whatever. The West Edmonton Mall is insane. What happened, WEM? You used to be cool, but now you're crazy, too crazy for me. I can't hang out with the West End Carnivores, I drink milk, I like potatoes, I watch Gilmore Girls. Do you watch Gilmore Girls, WEM? Does Ichabod Rex here watch Rory and Lorelei? Rory has such a big forehead, doesn't she? A walking candy apple, that one. I didn't like her in Sin City. The actress, I mean, not the character. Rory goes to Harvard or Yale or something like that. She met her new boyfriend there. They might be getting serious. Does Harvard have big-headed tiny-eyed lizard-heads populating the halls? Does Yale? I don't think so, WEM. Stop being crazy.

"This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)" + Arcade Fire Is this as good as the original Talking Heads business? I don't think so (although I LOVE the translated sound, the vibrating guitar lines—plunk, plunk—and are those little taps being made on a xylophone?). Win Butler's voice is as ragged and torn as last year's jeans. And the AF version needs more voice, too. They really like their covers, but I've got mixed feelings. When this band played here, Butler said that he and the rest of the group were coasting toward the edge of crazy doing the same ten tunes over and over. So they played some Springsteen and some New Order. The Springsteen I didn't recognize, but the sound was very muddied on it. Have you heard the AF's cover of "Maps"? The thing is, the Fire don't attack their covers enough. They need more power out there (no puns, please). They need to beat the song up and not stand back and be respectful. Win Butler needs to sing these songs like he sings his own. Whatever, though. This is a solid cover, very decently done.

Note: I took these mp3s off a blog which I can't, for the life of me, recall. Random surfingness. But it was a good blog, I loved every selection on it, and I wish I could pass on the URL. All credit, unknown blog, to thee.

A Journal Of The Plague Year + Daniel Defoe This is a famous book. This book is famous because it is wonderful. This book is what everyone in those sap-headed creative non-fiction classes is trying to write. It's Wisconsin Death Trip but in London, while England is fighting off the Dutch. Shortly, the Great Fire will frost the entire city. Times are incredibly tough. This is a run-on book, a book of lists and figures, a book of anecdotes, a book on economics and politics and religion and superstition. This book is not a novel. This book is true and good. This book is common sense and heart-wrenching confusion and, more than anything, death.

In the first house, there died four persons. A neighbour, hearing the mistress of the first house was sick, went to visit her, and went home and gave the distemper to her family, and died, and all her household. A minister, called to pray with the first sick person in the second house, was said to sicken immediately and die with several more in his house. Then the physicians began to consider.

[Edit: Good God, I said local profiles on Fridays, didn't I? That was Note Number Two in the listening section. Apologies. Check back Monday for an atonement post. Have a good week-end. Lucky bugs win prizes.]

[Edit (Sunday): I found the blog and the blog is Hello Gina and she has the smile-out-loud "Sweet Troubled Soul" up right now, the stellastarr* single, along with the "stellar" James Iha remixplosion. Love the kick when all the instruments—except for that drumbeat—cut out for, like, two seconds, and Christensen belts out the title phrase.