February 21st, 2009

Sometimes

Sometimes, I become so upset at my teetering stacks of books and papers (commented one recent guest, “You’re busy!” me: “Or should be!”), email queue and general failure of productivity, that I resolve to scale back on all frolic, forthwith. Which is of course the signal for an eruption of amazing frolicking opportunities amongst my friends and acquaintances. Thus, last night spent on the announcement of the Descant Winston/Collins poetry prize (congrats to all the long- and short-listers, and to Descant for the amazing bash) and later on guitar harmonies and silliness (I sure know the words to a lot of bad songs). And then today, between the yoga and the photo shoot and writing this very important blog post, I had amazing things planned, workwise…which didn’t quite happen. And in a few hours, I have to go out for Mexican food!! How do these things happen?

Something, obviously, has to scale back. Don’t worry, it probably won’t be this blog; does a junkie ever get too busy to shoot up? I fear it’s sleep.

Wake up
The house is on fire
And the cat’s caught in the drier
RR

January 23rd, 2009

Recs

Yes Man is a B-minus movie, but for some reason the music in the film is A++. The actual soundtrack album of the music that plays in the background of the film includes *nine* Eels songs, (including very annoyingly, *one* I don’t have). In addition, there’s tonnes of diagetic music that is way more fun to watch/listen to than the rest of the film. Go fig. But PS–are we offended that there is a band out there called Munchausen By Proxy? I think I am. If a band was named “Child Abuse,” that wouldn’t go over too well, and how is this any different? Their songs are so darn neat, though.

Desk Space is always awesome, but as a literary voyeur herself, Julie Wilson, gives particularly good desk-details.

You wouldn’t think I’d like a blog called Brazen Careerist. In fact, I almost never care about the actual advice being offered, but the woman who writes it, Penelope Trunk, is a very good writer, very funny and generous and *fascinating* on the topic of her own life history, and also quite possibly the woman least like me on the planet. I *love* reading her blog.

I’m going to stop pretending I didn’t break your heart
RR

December 24th, 2008

The Merriest

This has been my standard Christmas wish for some years, but it does still very much apply, and hell, it’s worked for June Christy since 1961.

I’d like to fix this bag of tricks
And hand’em out with a fleeting greeting:
Smiles for the frowners
Saluts to the uppers
Boosts for the downers
May the day be the bowl-of-cherriest,
And to all, the merriest.

Hope you swing during the season
Hope the days go great
Hope you find plenty of reasons
The whole year long to celebrate.
Sun for the mopers
A laugh for the criers
Luck for the hopers
To the strange and the ordinariest
Me to you, the merriest!

Thoughts for the musers
A cheer for the winners
Breaks for the losers
To the beats and the debonairiest
Greetings like the merriest!

Hope there’s oil under your rose vine
Hope you get that raise
Hope you hope everything goes fine
The next three hundred and some-odd days!

Friends for the loners
Songs for the singers
Grins for the groaners
Make the day nothing-can-compariest
At the most, the merriest!

RR

December 9th, 2008

Admirable Words (II)

I wanna take a streetcar downtown
Read Dostoyevsky* and wander around
Drink some Guinness from a tin
Because my UI cheque has just come in.
Aw, where you been?

Because
Everything is coming up
Rosy & grey.
Yeah, the wind is cold but
The smell of snow
Warms me today
And your smile is fine
And it’s just like mine
And it won’t go away
Because everything is rosy & grey.

You’ve been under my skin for more than 8 years
It’s been 8 years of laughter and 8 years of tears.
And I dunno what the future could hold or will do
For me and you
But I’m a much better man for having known you.
Yeah, you know that’s true.

Because
Everything is coming up
Rosy & grey.
Yeah, the wind is cold but
The smell of snow
Warms me today
And your smile is fine
And it’s just like mine
And it won’t go away
Because everything is rosy & grey.

Well, I’ve been told that there’s a sucker born every day.
Well, I wonder who, and I wonder who.
Maybe the one who doesn’t realize there’s a thousand shades of grey.
‘Cause I know that’s true, yes I do, yeah, I know it’s true.
Yeah, I know it’s true, how ’bout you?

They’ve been pickin’ up trash and they’re puttin’ down roads
They’re brokering stocks
The class struggle explodes
And I play this guitar just the best that I can
Yeah, maybe I’m not and maybe I am.
Aw, who gives a damn?

Because
Everything is coming up
Rosy & grey.
Yeah, the wind is cold but
The smell of snow
Warms me today
And your smile is fine
And it’s just like mine
And it won’t go away
Because everything is rosy & grey.

Well, I’ve kissed you in France and I’ve kissed you in Spain
(harmonica)
And I’ve kissed you in places I’d better not name
(harmonica)
And I’ve seen the sun go down on Sacre Coeur
(harmonica)
But I like it much better goin’ down on you.
Yeah, you know that’s true.

Because
Everything is coming up
Rosy & grey.
Yeah, the wind is cold but
The smell of snow
Warms me today
And your smile is fine
And it’s just like mine
And it won’t go away
Because everything is rosy & grey.

Yeah, rosy & grey!

–“Rosy & Grey” by The Lowest of the Low

*This is from the concert album, *Nothing Short of a Bullet.* On the studio album, *Shakespeare My Butt*, it’s Henry Miller. Take your pick.

October 31st, 2008

It’s Hallowe’en

…but I’m only sort of half-assedly celebrating. I mean, I’m in all black…except for the rose-patterned tights. I ‘ve got green eyeshadow and black lipstick on, but I passed up a severed ear made out of chocolate (and scabs made out of dried cranberries, and an eyeball made out of who-knows-what) because it sort of squicked me out. Lame, I know, very lame, but the actual Hallowe’en party I’m attending is tomorrow (All Saints party?) so I’m getting another crack at the whole thing.

In the meantime, I leave you with the completely unspooky but totally astounding Against Me. I especially recommended “Borne on the FM Waves” (track 4)…oh, Tegan Quinn, you are adorable-punk.

Anxiety anxiety / you give me no mercy
RR

August 25th, 2008

Rose-coloured Reviews Neon Bible by The Arcade Fire

Writers are obsessive creatures, many of them (us?) worse than footballers with their lucky rabbits and left-shoe-firsts. I’ve seen many acknowlegements pages that thank a particular brand of pen, a restaurant owner, someone who leant the author a lucky sweater–anything in the writing environment that seems like it might have leant a charm to the process. Nothing is so common among these gratitudes to atmospheres as those to bands and albums listened to obsessively in the background while typing. The repeat button is a creative security blanket, and unlike a hunk of fur or crossed fingers, music is at least good company.

I say that all by way of making myself feel better about the fact that it’s a strange day in 2008 if I don’t listen to Intervention by The Arcade Fire six or seven times. I’m a sucker for the strings and the soar, the intensity of Win Butler’s histrionic vocals, the organ music… That is perhaps my perfect song.

I know, I know, I like a lot of schlock (full disclosure: the symmetrical purchase to Neon Bible in the twofer record-store deal was Metro Station by Metro Station). But I think I can recognize the good stuff when I hear it, and Arcade Fire seems to me to be making sonically complex, lyrically fascinating songs.

Some people find this band a little intense, and I believe Sasha Frere Jones thinks they’re one of the whitest bands ever (not touching that one)–so, not for everyone? And if you don’t like their music, I imagine you’re *really* dislike it: Arcade Fire are notable as much earnestness of message as they are for pyrotechnics of medium; the vocalists tell stories and embody characters within them, and those characters believe their stories. If you dig that sort of thing, this is a nice change from pop music (ie., Metro Station), who only ever embrace sincere emotion for romantic (“Kelsey, I’d swim the ocean for you / the ocean for you / the ocean for you / Oh, Kelsey”) or erotic (“I know you’re dying / to take off your clothes”) declarations.

Arcade Fire has a much much wider range of material. Their last album, Funeral seemed to me to about the dreamspace of the suburbs, the fantasies and nightmares of snowdays and boiling kettles, lonely children and lonely marriages. It was fascinating to see them build a world with these songs–Funeral is not a concept album, it’s not a linked narrative, but it is a creation larger than the individual songs. After you listen to the whole of it, you feel of that place, and partways in it.

*Neon Bible* really does take on the bible and relgion, particularly revivalist (is that a word? I’m trying to write this review with as little recourse as possible to outside opinions) Christianity, throughout the ages. One of the best pieces on the album is (Antichrist Television Blues) (no, I don’t know why the title is in parentheses). It’s the fairly straightforward story of a guy who hates working downtown parking cars and wants to serve God, so he grooms his young daughter as a singer of religious songs. She is successful, and he gets what he wants (whatever that is.) You feel like this is character who told himself lies and believed them, who really never got the exploitation in one he did, until the last line of the song, where he snaps, “So tell me how am I the Antichrist?” Like the endings of all my favourite short stories, this song ends with insight into both what came before and what might come next, but not nearly enough to feel you’ve got it fully nailed down.

Some of the less rocking songs are a bit dirgelike, and I actually dislike the first single, Black Mirror (I *think* it’s the first single). They do better on the soaring line than the sinking one, I can’t really repeat that enough. But they do do dreamy pretty well in most cases, though you have to listen a number of times to really get it (the title song) or perhaps never will (“Windowsill”). The music is still hyponontic, even when the song doesn’t make *total* sense.

Even when they don’t make sense, the lyrics are still strangely effective at being affective (“We can reach the sea / they won’t follow me”–what sea? who are they? why would they follow you? Well, I guess I’m into it now). For me, despite the strings and the soar, it is the lyrics that puts *Neon Bible* above the merely very cool. But I do think it’s that, too (organ music? hooray!)

I’m free today
RR

August 6th, 2008

Rose-coloured Reviews *Avenue Q*

The musical Avenue Q has occasionally been compared to Jonathan Larson’s Rent except with puppets. Much as I enjoyed both musicals, I have to say this comparison is not apt; Avenue Q is a *parody* of Rent. Liking one is no guarantee of liking the other; in fact, if you are a terrifically intense fan of the dramatic, earnest change-the-world-one-block-at-a-time-ishness of Rent, it might really piss you off to see people and puppets waving their arms around and crooning, “Everyone’s a little bit racist!”

Not me (or at least not very much-the next line, “And that’s ok!” got me a little). The songs in Avenue Q are very very very funny, and often uncomfortably accurate. Like all the best parodies, Q loves its targets but doesn’t spare them, and that includes the audience. Songs like “Schadenfreude” and “There’s a Fine, Fine Line” (between love and wasting your time) make you cringe as you laugh, and that’s pretty impressive for puppets.

The other big comparison you hear for Avenue Q is with Jim Henson’s Muppets, and you definitely do see that in not only the fuzzy humanoid forms but also in the dexterity of the puppeteers. However, while Henson’s creations have at least a pretense of *not* being puppets, all I could think when the stage lights came up on Avenue Q is is “You can *see* the puppeteer!!!” It took me a while to adjust to seeing Kate Monster and Princeton, allegedly freely acting people, being trailed by actual people dressed in grey with their hands up the puppets’ shirts (none of the puppets have any legs). What’s amazing is how quickly my alarm disappeared. You really start seeing only one being in these units. It helps that the puppeteers are really actors, and give incredible performances with both their hands and their faces. When Kate Monster looks sadly down at the ground, so does her puppeteer, a concept that works amazingly well. I think all the puppeteers were moving their lips, but we had terrible seats (I could’ve stood on my seat and touched the ceiling [but I didn’t]) so this didn’t trouble me overmuch. The upside of seeing the people behind the puppets was more than worth it. The best moment of puppet-engineering is when the sexy bad-girl puppet leaves a room and, since the puppet has no lower body, the puppeteer swings her hips. Hilarious, and effective.

Great songs, great performers, cool puppets and stunts used to cool effect-what could be wrong? Well, in light of all that other stuff, it wasn’t *very* wrong, but, um, the story? Such as it was. Wondrous Fred recently called “Greatest Hits” musical storylines like *Mamma Mia* basically “song-delivery systems” and sadly so is the book for Q. The songs are pretty biting but also present the characters as semi-complex (well, it’s a musical) and confused. In dialogue, however, they are a seventh-grade guidance class on how to achieve maturity. The closeted gay guy has no motivation, the commitment-phobic guy has no motivation, the sloppy irresponsible guy has no motivation-eventually they just stop doing the self-destructive stuff they were doing. Oh, and the women just don’t have flaws to start with-except the slut.

This stuff wouldn’t be problematic, really (it’s a *musical*!) but towards the end of the second act, everyone starts squawking about how much they’ve “learned”. Couldn’t we have just left this as a cool entertainment with a few really insightful thoughts about social behaviour, without trying to crazy-glue a moral on it? Because, by my count, both major problem sets in the show were solved by money falling from the sky, and the last song (“For Now”, which is as brill as all the rest of the songs) is about making do with whatever you’ve got because it is what you’ve got.

Now, I’m totally recommending you see this show and I think you’ll love the whole thing, but really, *really* don’t try to learn too much from it. You might, actually, anyway, but that’s not much the point.

Back out on the car
RR

July 30th, 2008

More cheer

A quicky post of further things to distract you from your woes, if in fact you have any woes from which you need distraction.

–Amusing and insightful: Fred’s wisdom and wit as applied to The X-Files movie
–Sad and sweet: Lydia Millet’s lovely strange short story, Walking Bird at Joyland New York.
–Hilariously tragic: Gonzales’s clever rhyming triplets in Working Together

See, it can be a good day even though it’s raining!

I say real crazy
RR

July 23rd, 2008

Creative Endeavours

I don’t really mind heat, even on the extreme side–I have a lowish body temperature, and sort of even like an occasional scorching day. Some do, some don’t, with heat–but does anybody really like humidity? Other than making my skin look really good, I don’t know what there is to like about maple-syrup textured air. If you have pro-humidity theorems, I’d love to hear’em–it might make me feel better. I hate air-conditioning, but I think I hate humidity more, so it’s a fine dice of discomfort lately and really just hard on morale. Also on getting anything done: I’m working as much as ever, but at much slower rates. To slow down ones running or lifting of heavy objects in the heat seems logical, but since mine are mainly endeavours of the mind (wow, that’s a new height of pretension–I’m leaving it in!) it seems odd that the humidity has dragged me down.

It’s better tonight, whetherwise, so maybe work will improve also. In the meantime, inspiration!

I discovered The Ting Tings on David Whitton‘s website and felt an immediate sympathy with the plaint, “That’s Not My Name.” Besides having a wicked beat, the song perfectly captures my pain: despite my so-called “cool name” (I certainly think so), I am frequently called “Jane.” Also, “Rachel.” Also, very often, “you” and yesterday, “whatsyername.” This song makes me feel less alone and anonymous, but the other ones I’ve heard are good too.

Virginia at UofT Alumni endeavours made a beautiful webpage for *Once* on the Great Books by Great Grads site. You can’t see it unless you are an alum, unfortunately, but if you are one, I urge you to check out the full roster–who knew there were so many published past students?

Finally, a dead-sexy website showcasing a designer’s talents–that works. Even if you don’t need a website or letterhead designed, you should look at Create Me This for sterling examples in the form.

Ok. I’m gonna go accomplish stuff now. Really. Yeah.

Maybe Julisa / always the same / that’s not my name
RR

July 6th, 2008

Onrush

So many lovely new blogs this summer. Shouldn’t everybody be out in the sunshine? Canadians are funny.

Ideal Tigers is the work of musician/scholar/example-to-us-all Ross Hawkins, and it contains examples of all his roles in society, such as this:

“What I want to know is, where have all the fools gone? Where are the jesting ne’er do wells? Where’s Puck? And most importantly, where’s the trickster? In another age, joking might have been a courtly, even stately practice; or it might have been a means of accessing the sacred. Could it really be that pranking now is mostly the business of morons on MTV, office zaniness, or kids beating people up and filming it on their mobile? I hope not, and that’s why I’d be very grateful to be the vicitm of a great divine prank.” (April 1, 2008)

The blog dwells especially on Ross’s one-man dream-factory/band, the Idle Tigers. You could, if you were inclined, see and hear those tigers, this Friday night at the Drake Hotel. It should be the best kind of bizarre.

David Whitton has a blog…website…thing with amusing anecdotes about music, cool/disturbing art (take a real close look at the kissing couple), and most importantly, links to a bunch of his stories. My favourite is “Robin”

“Everyone worked in financial services nowadays. My mom, my dad, my aunts, my uncles, my parents’ friends. Even the Goat worked in a bank when he wasn’t making art films. If you don’t fall off a balcony, you’ll end up in financial services eventually.”

But I’ll let you choose for yourself. I guess this is the other best kind of bizarre. I guess I shouldn’t hierarchize.

Alex Boyd has a new movie-review blog at Digital Popcorn. I can’t much speak to the accuracy of the film reviews, because I have seen exactly one of the dozens he’s reviewed so far (it was Sicko and I agreed with that review 100%). This is another proof of the already impressive thesis that I have crap taste in movies (if I had my life to live over again, I might not see both Harold and Kumar movies, but then again, I might.) But the reviews are a joy to read even if you don’t know the films, because Alex writes like this:

“Some men are cruel and some men are pretty darn OK and just play the harmonica or whatever. And, it’s a pretty darn sad world when the cruel ones get ahead. In the final ten minutes or so the enemy invades, and even our best stock footage doesn’t stop them.” (*From Here to Eternity,” review June 24, 2008)

Even better, he also wrote a beautiful book of poems called Making Bones Walk, which I spent the afternoon reading in the park:

“If I demand of the air that my head turns
back to look at a woman, the air holds my chin,
turns it like a lover.”
from “Shapes of the Air”

There will always be reasons to go out, and reasons to stay in.

I’ll cover you
RR