Cellphoto: Our Morning Guest

[Sent via BlackBerry]

Photo: Augusta & Nassau

Photo: Western Hospital #3

Photo: Oxford & Bellvue

Photo: Hoskin & Tower

Fall

Leaves fallen,
now like fish
swimming through and over concrete,
under foot.



















Like sticks of paint,
smudged by a perennial
Impressionist.



















A forced perspective.
Nature saying:
"There is beauty."
Against all we throw
at her.

Mobile: Photo: "A"

[Sent via BlackBerry]

The Dark Side

I was flipping through the NYT last Sunday and came across a short collection of riffs from filmmakers about their favourite "Holiday Movies". The following, submitted by screenwriter David Benioff, was regarding Planes Trains and Automobiles by the late John Hughes:

Hughes once wrote: “I understood that the dark side of my middle-class, middle-American suburban life was not drugs, paganism or perversion. It was disappointment. There were no gnawing insects beneath the grass. Only dirt. I also knew that trapped inside every defeat is a small victory, and inside that small victory is the Great Defeat.”

I immediately caught the reference Benioff (via Hughes) was making and it struck a chord. You see, when we (in filmic terms) discuss the "dark side" of the middle-class in America, who else is this synonymous with? Correct: David Lynch. And was it not Lynch's seminal dark-side-of-middle-class-America, Blue Velvet, which features - literally - gnawing insects beneath the grass at the beginning? Oh, and the drugs and sexual perversion? Still don't believe me? Try this: Blue Velvet came out in '86. Planes Trains and Automobiles? That was 1987.

When I read Hughes' quote, I knew he had more to say about it. I could tell that he thought Hughes' film (and perspective on America) got short shrift.

In any case, what I'm saying is Hughes was picking on Lynch, perhaps more so picking on all of the cineastes and self-styled torch holders of American Surrealism. Look, he's saying (or I'm paraphrasing), why does any intelligent discussion of the "dark side" have to fast-forward to the Devil? Why are we in such a rush to point to the murkiest common denominator?

I think Hughes' perspective is more realistic. Perhaps even more frightening because it is anything but abstract. If there's anything which immobilizes the positivism of American  can-do - an adult Boogeyman if you will - it is the spectre of defeat. It is, after all, failure. There is nothing which cuts to the heart of our civilized fears with more power than failure, pure and simple. We do not want it infecting us. We do not want it living beside us, dying slowly.

I like the drama (nee opera) of Lynch's perspective. But it is only that: one perspective. I feel we cheat ourselves by claiming that one perspective as definitive before we've truly allowed ourselves to look at the whole landscape of the human psyche.

I also think John Hughes had a good soul.

Mobile: Photo: Lesson Plan

[Sent via BlackBerry]

quote

"Celebrities are not superlatives in our field of expertise. If celebrities that are schnoring in on our field started out trying to do what we do and were held to the standards we started out upholding, a great many of them would've never made it."

- Billy West, voice actor ("Futurama") on the use
of celebrity voice work in animated films.

Mobile: Kensington Market Pumpkin

[Sent via BlackBerry]

Hello, It's Me

Hi there,

First: everything's fine with me (and I define fine as being "things are going well, no dramas, no chronic issues for me to be concerned with").

I realized that the previous blog post - written/posted in a vague cyber-scrawl - could be misconstrued. All is well in Cahillland. In fact, things are going well enough that I have very few opportunities to blog.

I wanted to express what I considered to be rumbles (predictions) of change around me.

A diner I went to on the east end (near work) that I hadn't been to in about a month, where the same waitress asked me the same question she (and the owner) asked a month ago: how's the new house? I wanted to pick up my plate and whip it across the vintage 50s decor'd aisle, preferably smashing violently against a wall. The new house? I wanted to respond. I've been there - every single day - for the past three months! I imagined yelling. I've seen its insides, I know what it is, I'm intimate with it. It is many things, but - in the name of the Lord Baby Jesus - it's not new! I imagined saying, holding my arms out dramatically, waiting for the curtain to close and for the audience to clap.

I didn't say that. I hunched my shoulders and said: it's good. Thanks.

At work I felt I had been snappy, officious.

Later I dropped by a sometimes getaway, an Irish pub downtown I know. I sat there with a Guinness and the bartender, a lovely person, said: "You okay? You don't seem yourself today.". I was tired. Tired of non-stop work, frustrated that I was frustrated with the waitresses' question from lunch, my crankiness on the job, and now - apparently - the answer to the question that I didn't know how to ask was written on my face for her to see: You okay? You don't seem yourself today.

I'm fine, I said. All's good. It's just this (I thought): when it seems that I am triangulated by revelations of change (which I interpret the above to be) or change-which-needs-t0-be-made, I cannot help but ask whether this is a fin de siècle in some way, or whether I'm just looking for fatalistic icons. Stressed and desperate for more drama?

And this: it's hard to be eloquent with a cellphone, so I appreciate the responses of those who were concerned with the content of my previous post.

All is good, if not necessarily crystal clear.

(One of the problems of being busy is not only not enough time to write, but also not enough time to revise for clarity.)

Mobile: Not Myself

If I am not myself at work.

If I am not myself at the diner @ lunch.

If I am not myself at the bar.

Who am I, if not different? And when, in retrospect, did this revolt happen? And will there be a ransom posted, or will the old me be shot or brainwashed?

All I ask is that I live honestly, if not with clear intents. Or answers.

[Sent via BlackBerry]

Mobile: Bay Street Fire Drill

[Sent via BlackBerry]

Mobile: Good Morning, Chinatown

[Sent via BlackBerry]

Mobile: quote

"He blamed himself for not realizing that the area of leprosy was also the area of this other sickness. He had expected doctors and nurses: he had forgotten that he would find priests and nuns."

- Graham Greene, "A Burnt-Out Case"

[Sent via BlackBerry]

Cellphoto: Strachan Sidewalk

Headline Grammarama ®

From CP24:

Three-year-old hit, "By Lightning", leaves: Hospital.

It Doesn't Need To Be This Way

I was having brunch in the Market with my friend, Lady B, whom I've known for over 10 years. We were talking about "life changes" (we both being close to 40). We got onto the topic of how her and I sometimes are conditioned to expect the worst.

"With the house, didn't you feel that, somehow, everything would inevitably go wrong and you wouldn't get it after all?" she asked.

"Yes!"

It was as if she had read my mind. We were eating palacsinta at a small Hungarian bistro.

We talked about this, because she'd felt the exact same way when she and her partner bought their house. She speculated, correctly in my estimation, that this mode of thinking - let's call it auto-tragic thinking - was the result of her and I coming from divorced families (the divorces or circumstances surrounding them being particularly destructive). The end-result, if not in all cases then certainly in ours, was that we were conditioned to expect gift horses to have mouth cancer and every silver lining to have a cloud moving in its way. Happiness was a pulled rug away from tragedy.

I thought about moments in my life - moments that everyone experiences - like applying for a job, asking someone out for a date. Moments where, realistically, we hope/aim for the best. The difference between the average person and people like myself and Lady B is that, in the event we don't get the job we hope for, in the event that special someone isn't interested in us, we tend to see it as a fateful inevitability; a symptom of a curse. Of course, we say to ourselves. Why should this be any different than any other time?

The subject clearly struck a chord for both of us.

"You expect it to be like in Carrie." she said in a follow-up email, discussing how we became conditioned to expect the worst. "You're at the prom, thinking that everything's turning around in your life and then suddenly you're covered in pig blood."

The best male equivalent I could think of was Laurence Harvey's character in (the original) The Manchurian Candidate; a tragic puppet whose fleeting tastes of freedom coincide with horrific end results.

So, no, neither Lady B nor I are cursed. Our houses have not fallen down or been taken away from us by a nightmarish bureaucracy. If anything we are only beginning to sense just how much re-wiring is necessary for us to see things clearly, without the faulty psychological infrastructure that led to us to believe that, indeed, the odds were stacked against us.

The mind is a frightening thing. This is why I read books and watch films which challenge my preconceptions. This is why I am lucky to have friends such as Lady B.

Mobile: Cellphoto: Market

For *'s Sake

It's been one of those battle-cries of mine the last while. Everything in the world, culturally-speaking (and I don't necessarily mean high culture) seems to be evaporating into mindless bullshit.

The AV Club - a site I admittedly have a love/hate relationship with already - just posted an interview with actor Paul Giamatti. In the opening summary, the interviewer describes the plot of his latest film, which reads like a counterscript of 1999's Being John Malkovich and yet there is no mention of this parallel anywhere in the article, something even Entertainment Tonight would do. The interviewer talks about this upcoming film with Giamatti as if it and his role - the John Malkovich role, if it were Being John Malkovich - were just soulless objects to be discussed out of necessity. In other words, it's just like any other media-junket interview, like something you would read in InStyle or Chatelaine. Not that those examples are b-a-d, but when you pride yourself as better, especially savvy, tongue-in-cheek better, you shouldn't even be in the same postal code as InStyle or Chatelaine if you want to retain your reputation.

The Motley Fool - again, a site previously known for being savvy, even though they deal with the stock market - now reads like Ain't It Cool News, complete with arguments which, under rational analysis, seem completely idiotic and antithetical to what one would assume is their mission statement (ie. being different than the rest of those brain-dead-and-short-sighted Money sites).

Oh, and CNN. Not that they've ever been more relevant than a Reuters news ticker, but they've gone from mediocre to stupid by allowing one of their show hosts, Lou Dobbs, to continuously question the origin of Barack Obama's citizenship, a paranoid suspicion virulent in the libertarian/right-wing fringe of the U.S. that has been repeatedly disproved (read: he doesn't want Johnny Foreigner running and ruining the most-possibly-greatest-country-ever-in-the-world).

Now, one of the arguments I can imagine hearing is: well, Matt, in a 24-hour newsday (whether on TV or the Internet) when people expect constant information there inevitably has to be weaker material. To which I say: I understand, but I'd settle for less information over less hours (if need be), if it means the information will be consistent and better. After all, you are what you eat, and in this day and age we feed on media in an astonishingly unconscious and voracious manner.

Man invented mathematics in order to demonstrate that memory alone is inherently faulty.

Photo: Chain Link #4

Photo: Men #1

Photo: Alley Corner #3

Returning

Although this will go down as a formative, self-defining year, one of my great frustrations of 2009 is the inability to find the time and/or energy to collect, polish, publish all of the things, happenings, and concepts that come across my path - not even a healthy fraction. I've had more success capturing visuals but that's due to being in the right place/time with a cellphone camera rather than wilfully executing a deliberate agenda.

Work is going like gangbusters, which I am thankful for, the novel is improving with every moment I spend revising it (helps that people actually want to read it), and most recently/surprisingly I have become a homeowner. Just two days ago I was offered a part-time teaching position from a respectable college for a respectable film/TV program.

And yet, at risk of portraying myself as spoilt (or tetched), it seems as if it's not enough. I feel there is so much going on that I want to grab hold of: the recent (Twitter-inspired) trend of authors turning around and publicly accusing peers of personal attacks when in fact they are just doing their jobs (eg. book reviews), the aesthetics of stereoscopic imagery (that's 3D for you junior rangers), and the way in which the world unravels and combines at the same moment in time like a Möbius strip, and what about the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo...?

It's too much for me. Everything: life, art, work... I hit the mattress every night and practically pass out. I used to read... I read War & (f'ing) Peace in the time between laying down and actually sleeping. Luxury! says the current me. Mind you, he gets more sleep and perhaps has a better grasp on the whole "early to bed, early to rise" thing. Maybe I shouldn't be visualizing the voice of "current me" as being spoken in the harsh brogue of a Scottish authoritarian.

Things felt as if they were falling apart in the spring, like when the aperture ring on my Zorki-4 came loose, right in the middle of shooting some nice "golden hour" shots on Dundas West (just south of Kensington Market) after a fallow 35mm winter. Little could I guess that within a few months I'd be living in a house just five minutes north of where I took these photos. Thankfully, most of them came out fine. Perhaps it was all an elaborate metaphor for being patient, for trying hard to see the forest rather than scrutinize the pines, the mouths of gift horses, etc.

This may all be true, if terribly clichéd. And who would give a horse as a gift in the first place?

This is not a lengthy letdown friends, as if to say that this blog has served its purpose and is to be cast onto the great cyber-somethingsomething where cyber-things are cast and probably set on fire. No, I will not be taking this blog on a walk into the woods, with Daddy and his shotgun. I'm just reaching a threshold where life is requiring more concentration and energy, leading me to ask (hello, rhetorical!) how imaginary magnitude can adapt to suit these changes without looking like an outmoded vehicle or an abandoned hobby (or both). Yes, as I said, rhetorical. But since when has rhetorical ever been a particularly devastating accusation?

Rhetoric is just a temporary building material, made up of the same stuff that kludges are moulded out of. Hope (if not faith), led by patience. That word again: patience. I think I met you somewhere, at a bar maybe, when I was younger and looking for your type. It is true that rhetoric cannot keep a tower standing, but it can inspire the building of towers.

Where am I going with this...right: things are odd, and unbalanced, and it all points to a giant (fictional) neon sign blinking just above my head, big-city halo-like, which says: TRANSITIONAL PERIOD OF ADJUSTMENT. Fair enough (if not sexy).

I suppose I am writing this to say that I'm here for you, but not in the way that I was, which is not to say that I am not still here. My focus is changing, not changing for change's sake but fermenting into something more stable and powerful. I guess, if I may go back and answer an earlier question, the reason why I am not as prolific here as before is that - now that I am slipping into a new stream of life - my energy must be treated as a finite commodity. Perhaps this, for now, is "success", and I'm just looking at it like a paleontologist holding a magnifying glass against a piece of the Arctic ice shelf, unsure of what is before him.

Tell you what: when I find out, I'll let you know. The long and short of it is that I'm still here, but here may be changing to suit my needs. We'll see. We.

Miss You...

Cellphoto: Shaw & King

Book Review: Night Work, by Thomas Glavinic

One of the nice things about following blogs (certain blogs at least, or at least the few that are still being updated) is the wealth (and depth) of recommendations one can find. In this case, I happened upon Ward Six one day and found a description of an interesting novel, called Night Work. I'd never heard of it before and probably would not have if it weren't for their recommendation. This is the nice thing about the Internet.

Written by Austrian author Thomas Glavinic, Night Work tells the story of Jonas, a young professional living and working in Vienna, who one day while waiting for the morning bus finds that the bus isn't coming. It isn't coming because, as he soon discovers, everyone is gone. Every living soul in Vienna seems to have disappeared and there is no television or radio reception. He calls his girlfriend, Marie, who had just left the day before to visit relatives in England. No answer. Everything is silent.

There is a decided chill to the first half of Night Work, with Jonas dealing with an overwhelming fear that he is not alone, that he is being watched. His unexplained predicament, while extraordinary, is rendered in ways which make it easy to relate to. His fears are human fears: being alone, being permanently separated from those he loves, not knowing what lurks in the dark. There is a pronounced longing for his family; one of the first things Jonas does is move into his father's townhouse. As the novel progresses, his preoccupation with his childhood and family life becomes an evolving theme, particularly - as he explores the city and the remnants of places he knew - the question of what is left when people leave the earth.

The book's title takes its form as Jonas suspects that something may be happening around him - perhaps to him - when he sleeps at night. What begins with a single video camera taping his sleeping patterns evolves into an elaborately orchestrated multi-camera obsession: to solve the haunting clues left behind on the videotapes he watches the next day.

No matter how far the book progresses, Glavinic manages to keep taut the suspense surrounding the question of whether Jonas is truly alone. We share his childlike fears as he attempts to methodically explore his surroundings, eventually to make one last attempt to contact Marie. Obviously, it's a challenge for any writer to keep the reader's interest given a single character, his reminiscences, and a world filled with abandoned artifacts. Glavinic manages to do this without cheating the reader or over-spicing the soup with unnecessary (or illogical) scares. Indeed, Night Work is about atmosphere and memory: these are, after all, the only things Jonas is left with. And, despite its sci-fi/speculative nature, it evolves into a rather touching literary and philosophical tale.

There are some small quibbles: not knowing Vienna (or Austria for that matter), Glavinic's reliance on Viennese street names/neighbourhoods to denote where the story is taking place can be a little confusing (Brigittenaur Lände, anyone?). Also, I wish at times there had been a deeper view into Jonas' emotional realm - that said, not to dwell on Austrian cultural stereotypes, the protagonist is an entirely practical, self-reliant character. This aside, I would recommend this novel for those looking for something different; perhaps for readers who like a little speculative fiction mixed in with their personal journeys.

Night Work, by Thomas Glavinic [ISBN: 978-1847671844] is published in North America through Canongate U.S. and is available at an independent bookseller near you, or readily available online. This edition was translated into (UK) English by John Brownjohn (I mention this in case you don't know what a lorry is, etc..).

Parade!

Cellphoto: 95 Ossington

House

The following tale could be told, all story elements considered, over the course of an hour. I shall, for sake of blog aesthetics, keep it brief.

Ingrid and I decided not too long ago that it was time to look for a house. We went through the movements - contacted a mortgage broker, then contacted a real estate agent - and found ourselves seriously looking at houses. As in, "come to the house for 2pm and have a look".

You learn very quickly what it is that you want, by virtue of what you don't like: suspicious patch jobs, poorly graded foundations, murky unfinished basements. Then, of course, comes price. Finding a house - a good house - in downtown Toronto for a decent price is difficult. All the talk in the media about flailing real estate markets may be correct on the whole, but I can tell you from experience that downtown Toronto prices are still inflated (or, at the very least, stuck at pre-recession-2008 prices).

Ingrid then left for a week's vacation to see a friend (and sometimes-bandmate of mine) in London, England. Two days after she left, I receive a house listing via email from our real estate agent - look at this, she says, it's perfect for you two. I was afraid of this; I lived in terror that this would happen - that, while Ingrid was away, I would find a house and (because the downtown buyers' market is still strong) would need to make a quick decision as to whether or not to put in an offer. I saw the place on Friday (same day I received the email) and needed to have an answer for Sunday. Nice house. Nice owners. Great neighbourhood. Good price, considering house, owners, and neighbourhood.

Long story short, I bought a house that Sunday which Ingrid has never seen, save for photos and descriptions sent via email. I am currently going through a swirling mass of elation, buyer's remorse, stress, and raw, drug-like excitement. I swear, my life mirrors B-movies and 80s TV shows sometimes.

Thankfully, she lands in Toronto tomorrow, so I will not be the only one trying to get a handle on this. I cannot even imagine - on her end - how surreal an experience this must've been.

I also don't want to see my phone bill.

Repeat after me:

there is no such thing

as mind control.

Images

I think images are worth repeating

images repeated from a painting

Images taken from a painting

from a photo worth re-seeing

I love images worth repeating

project them upon the ceiling

Multiply them with silk screening

see them with a different feeling

- from Images, lyrics by Lou Reed

Every May in Toronto there is what is called CONTACT. It is a photography showcase. What makes it unique is that, rather than two or three galleries being the centre of interest, the photographs are integrated into (and across) the city. Storefronts bear photographs, abandoned buildings bear them, you see them inside bars and cafés. Go along the Junction and you can't sit down without seeing signs pointing into stores, saying "Temporary Gallery".

This integration was quite stunning a couple of years ago; someone got permission to have their photographs - printed on clear plastic film - adorn the glass-paned bus shelters along Queen West. Each one responded to each other and the environment. It was thought-out. Choreographed, if you will. It was, photography or no photography, an art installation.

This year I find myself wishing CONTACT would end (if not May). Though I have not seen (what I can only assume is) the A-grade stuff in the chosen galleries, I have to say that I'm going to scream if I have to walk past many more of them. There is no order. Just image, after image, after image. Just images. Rectangular submissions without point, intent, self-awareness.

I am surrounded by photos, everywhere, at a point where I am going through a photographic/existential crisis. The film vs. digital divide has divided me, particularly since my 35mm lens is giving me problems (I sooo don't want to get out the jeweller's screwdriver kit). Meanwhile, I'm having great fun (at low resolution) with my BlackBerry's camera - it allows me to do so much I wish my manual film-camera could do: being spontaneous without lugging a 2lb Soviet brick. Having a preview window is also a great plus. In the end, however, the resolution isn't good and the colour is often skewed blue/cyan (meaning I often have to import the photo onto my laptop and futz w/ Photoshop before I can upload it).

Just before this all came about, things were quite different. I had joined a local, well-respected photography collective and was expecting a medium format camera to be sent from an eBay seller. My photographic future appeared, allow me this, picture-perfect. In short, the camera never worked, the seller was less than useless in helping the situation, and it simply can't be fixed locally. Add to this my affair with a shallow cameraphone, my 35mm lens issue, and said well-respected photography collective annoying me with "bulk" emails (filled with both utterly useless and useful information without care for clear formatting). Add CONTACT and stir, liberally.

In short, it has all forced me to face a philosophical and practical dilemma which I never really thought I'd need to face: why do I take pictures? What am I taking pictures of? What is the eye behind the viewfinder? Is it a diary? Is it journalism? How seriously are you going to take this? Professional-seriously or I'm-just-fucking-around-and-don't-want-to-think-about-it-seriously?

Thus I find myself subconsciously referring to a song from Songs For Drella, a dedication to Andy Warhol by Lou Reed and John Cale. It spins like a mantra, like a whirling dervish, and I stare intently at it hoping that I'll see the meaning in its elusive centre.

I'm no urban idiot savant

spewing paint without any order

I'm no sphinx, no mystery enigma

what I paint is very ordinary

I don't think I'm old or modern

I don't think I think I'm thinking

It doesn't matter what I'm thinking

It's the images that are worth repeating

Ah, repeating, images

Images

Mobile: The Friend Syndrome

Internet-based social networking sites (Facebook, MySpace) provide opportunities for us to connect with those who - for various reasons - used to be friends but are currently out of touch. Of course, if we have to find them (or they us) there would seem a reason why they are not pre-programmed into our mnemonic contact list.

There are many reasons. We go to school - sometimes different schools. We move from rural to urban, from urban to rural - sometimes different cities, different countries. We change careers, we change ourselves. Sometimes fate has more to say about it than we do.

Sometimes we are just different: the difference happened offstage or was always there in us. In some or many instances, we realize that the friendships which brought us from there to here were stepping stones and not great friendships to begin with.

This all becomes abundantly clear when we enter these online portals: invitations appear from high school ghosts and college classmates. We expect the past to remain fixed and when it's different (or more truthful than we are prepared to face) we begin to question these new-old friendships.

The ass who was your begrudged friend is still an ass (perhaps more accomplished). The self-obsessed are still self-obsessed and not magically cured by our precepts of maturity. True: people change. But that is something we often say in the mirror to comfort ourselves.

The truth is that time solidifies most people's characters. And if they leaned towards behaviour and/or beliefs which repelled us, why then do we expect them to be, in a Disney-esque way, "cured"?

Because we hope for the best, even when we suspect the worst.

[Sent via BlackBerry]

Cellphoto: Vineland Drive-By

Mobile: Dispatch #1

Dispatch...

1.​ to send off or away with speed, as a messenger, telegram, body of troops, etc.

2.​ to dismiss (a person), as after an audience.

3.​ to put to death; kill


Dispatch from the 501 Queen streetcar. Thoughts dispatched, sent like troops via cellphone: instant, unilateral.

This is not a dialogue.

Dispatch. Done with; I am finished incubating this thought. I am done. It has been sent in contravention of MacLuhan, without a message.


Message sent.


[Sent via BlackBerry]

Cellphoto: Self-Portrait in Motion

We All Scream For Lies Green

If you've picked up a newspaper or magazine in the last three or four days, you will have inevitably noticed (if not on the front page then prominently featured inside) the word "green" in the title of the edition/main article/theme of entire issue. As I sit typing this, there is a magazine on the table in front of me (one of those supplemental magazines that the Globe and Mail throws in for free every week or so...you know, the type of magazine - either fashion-oriented, vacation-oriented, guys-who-like-cars-oriented - that you'd be hard pressed to have ever remembered seeing in a retail store, even one which boasts a million magazines). It's called Green Living and the front page trumpets "CANADA'S GREENEST CITIES OF TOMORROW" (with an asterisk at the bottom " * Is yours on the list?"). The Sunday New York Times Magazine was dedicated to this colour also. As were the entrails of most newspapers.

You see, this Wednesday (April 22, 2009) is Earth Day. Get it? Earth Day? Green? Ohhhhh!, I'm sure you're exclaiming, perhaps even tapping your noggin for foolishly neglecting to remember. Not that it's a holiday or anything. No, Earth Day is not a holiday. Not even the banks get it off (though I would've expected them to sneakily insert an Earth Day Eve into their schedules). It is, however, that time of year - like Poetry Month - when, for 5 minutes, we try to give a shit about something we do a much better job of conceptualizing when it's not being shoved down our throats by people who hold diplomas in Event Management.

Expect between now (Monday) and then (Wednesday) to be inundated with the environment, Mother Earth, drowning polar bears and the like. This is not to say that I'm one of those Ayn Rand-ian right-wing troglodytes who thinks climate change is a socialist scheme. That is not my point (and I'm happy it's not my point today because it's extremely convoluted and I did poorly in math). My point is that, in the same breath that these newspapers and magazines (and websites!) roll-out the green, there are hundreds of articles about how to "buy" green. Getting back to Green Living, the sad little magazine in front of me, some other articles listed on the front are "WHERE TO PUT YOUR ECO DOLLARS" and "20 Budget Smart Enviro-Tips" [sic?!]. Even in the otherwise lefty (rather Jeckyll/Hyde lefty, if you ask me) Toronto weekly, NOW Magazine, the emphasis is almost as enthusiastically consumerist as it is on scaring the shit out of the reader about our imminent ecopocalypse^tm.

In other words, legitimate environmental concerns aside, with every Earth Day I feel as if we are facing a new Y2K (i.e. a semi-manufactured crisis that wasn't entirely invented to make money, yet, hey, why should we stop ourselves from making a buck, hell, wouldn't you, let's see how long this lasts). Of course, there are substantial differences between Y2K and Earth Day: the latter is borne from a need to undo and/or mitigate the effects of society's footprint on the earth, the former was borne from a need to undo and/or mitigate the effects of a bit of coding corner-cutting. There are (and were) legitimate concerns in either scenario. There were (and are) also people who would do anything to cash-in on a fear-based trend which increasingly loses its reason due to the insatiable North American need - even in our present economic situation - to commodify e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. Basically: isn't getting people to buy a lot of stuff, green or not, counter-intuitive to the philosophy of reduce, re-use, and recycle? Furthermore - and this is me - I worry when a word (outside of religion) gets so stretched, mistook, mythologized, and appropriated that its meaning eventually loses all efficacy (see: sustainability).

I do not argue with the want or wish to use the word green, or to associate it with legitimate environmental concerns (because they are legion). I just wish it - and by virtue, Earth Day - did not seem like a St. Patrick's Day Parade where everyone - Irish or not - wraps themselves in the colour without really caring to know why, so long as there is the remote promise of an unrelated happiness (this goes for Valentine's as well, sad to say). The thing is - and I hope my father isn't reading this - we as a society can afford to misinterpret (or forget) what St. Patrick's Day means, but allowing our concerns over the environment to be cynically co-opted by purely commercial interests - whose concern for the environment is more or less a marketing strategy - is more disconcerting to this writer.

I'll take the Earth. You keep the green.

[P.S. Just as I was about to upload this, I received an email from a local limo company who fancies I am interested in their services. The subject: "Join Us at the Green Living Show". A limo company!]

Cellphoto: Branches and Petals

Master: "May the wind always be behind your back. "

Student: "What, and fuck up my hair?"

Cellphoto: Alley Chair

Cellphoto: Sink #1

Cellphoto: Residential Alley

quote

"The major philosophical problem with the block-Universe interpretation of four-dimensional spacetime is that it appears to be fatalism disguised as physics. It seems to be a mathematician's proof of determinism and a denial of free will dressed up in geometry."

- Paul J. Nahin, from Time Machines: Time Travel in Physics, Metaphysics, and Science Fiction

Dear Reader,

It may have come to your attention (those who visit semi-often) that I have not been posting here that often (aside from the Twitter-y things on the right column).

This is true.

I am a little swamped these days with non-Imaginary Magnitude-y things (i.e. work). I have not, I insist, lost interest.

Please stay tuned. I will eventually return with more consistency than what is currently on display.

Cheers,

Matt

Cellphoto: Morning Shadows (Self-Portrait)

Book Review: A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, by David Foster Wallace

For those of you who didn't know already, author David Foster Wallace took his life last September. It was an all-too-unfortunate excuse for me to delve into his work, particularly his non-fiction, having enjoyed it years ago when I was a Harper's subscriber (see here for context).

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again is a collection of seven essays he wrote during the 90's (there are other collections of more recent work available as well, fyi) for such periodicals as Harper's, Esquire, and Harvard Book Review. On display is everything I recall from my earlier introduction: his wry sense of humour, an idiosyncratic writing style (in particular his prominent affection for footnotes), and his ability to turn the subject matter back onto his own life without self-indulgence.

This is where I make a (hopefully) short (and hopefully respectful, considering the circumstances) tangent: after DFW's death, along with the dismay of those who were fans, I read just as many comments from people who - without hesitation - admitted to simply not liking the man's style of writing. This sentiment (though still not what I would call "the prevailing opinion") was even echoed in Harvard professor/New York Times book critic James Woods' recent opus How Fiction Works; for him Wallace's prose evidently did not. I figured this mood extended itself more to his fiction which - truth be told - I have not read. His most recognized piece, Infinite Jest, is over 1,100 post-modernist pages long. Not interested.

Because I had such little exposure to his work, reading ASFTINDA was an interesting experience: I could see what his detractors must have been referring to. While there is no doubt Wallace was an extremely intelligent and talented writer (which I shall get to), there are numerous examples in this volume where he comes across as rather pompous, which wouldn't be so bad were it not for his habit of typing huge swaths of text which any good editor would have asked him (nay demanded) he remove because of either its redundancy or its convolution of said essay's point. He also suffers an ailment similar to what I found with Carl Wilson (recently reviewed here) where, for no particular reason, he seems hell-bent on exhuming obscure words which stick out like antlers on a house cat.

Of the seven essays, three are distinctly underwhelming for reasons cited above. In particular, his essay E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction is a terribly long argument for post-modern fiction (ie. the type he writes) using academic media theory as a course of analogy (via reminiscences of 70's and 80's television shows). While the fact that his examples are quite dated is no fault of his (it was written in '93 after all - hello, St. Elsewhere), it is problematic that after many excruciating paragraphs of explanation/theorizing he never actually gets around to completing his argument in a way that satisfies the effort of having read it.

That all said (he types, rolling his eyes) the remaining four essays are gold and worth the price of the book. In particular and unquestionably his essays Getting Away from Already Being Pretty Much Away from It All (an assignment from Harper's to cover the Illinois State Fair) and the eponymous A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again (another Harper's assignment - do you see a trend? - this time to take a 7-day ocean liner cruise of the Caribbean). On display in both is the perceptive laugh-out-loud satire of society's absurdities as well as well-crafted reportage. There is also enjoyment in reading the essays on David Lynch (hanging out on the set of Lost Highway while opining on Lynch's place in the American cinematic landscape) as well as tennis player Michael Joyce (set at the Canadian Open in Montreal, one of many coincidental Canadian-content inclusions throughout the book).

These four essays provide an opportunity for us to assess Wallace, the writer and person, without the willing academicism or pro-post-modernist chip on his shoulder. There is, for example, a wonderfully personal (yet appropriately witty) gem in the tennis essay where he admits, having previously questioned Michael Joyce's IQ only to discover that, rather than a lack of intelligence it was an overwhelming physical and mental commitment by the athlete to his sport, and realizes by comparison that he can be a snob and an asshole. I like to come by my revelations honestly and it is in these four essays where Wallace's gift shines.

So, if you don't mind wincing a little and skipping a couple of entries, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again is rewarding in the end. When he was on his A-game, Wallace had a unique voice and a wonderfully biting sense of humour; it makes the suddenness and nature of his passing all the more sad. I'm sure I will pick up more of his non-fiction in the months to come.

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, by David Foster Wallace [ISBN: 978-0316925280] is available at a friendly independent bookseller near you, or online at numerous impersonal sources.

Cellphoto: Turn

The Happiness Project

My friend, Charles Spearin, has released an innovative CD he calls "The Happiness Project". The gist of it is that he began to interview his neighbours and recorded their conversations. Attuned to the tonality of how people expressed themselves he got the idea to replace the voices of his interviewee's with musical instruments which mimicked each person's voice pattern. The result is a unique (and very approachable) experiment which weaves voice, instrumentation, and environmental background sounds (birds, etc..). You may know Charles' other projects, namely Broken Social Scene or Do Make Say Think. If you're interested, please check out the site for "The Happiness Project" and see what he's up to.

Perspectives on Percentages

"Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it."
- Lou Holtz, American football coach


"Eighty percent of success is showing up."
- Woody Allen


"Ninety percent of everything is crap."
- Theodore Sturgeon, fiction writer


"Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration."
- Thomas Edison


"Ninety-nine percent of who you are is invisible and untouchable."
- Buckminster Fuller

Photo: Mist #6

Happy "Family Day"

Tomorrow (Monday) is a newly-created holiday (which, if you've been in Canada in February, is crucial for mental survival), called "Family Day". This is its second year in existence and nobody really knows what to do with it. Okay, when I say "nobody" I mean me.

I've never been someone who makes elaborate plans in advance of long-weekends. For me, weekends are about plugging-out of work and relaxing, writing, photography, and the occasional neighbourhood brunch. I suppose if I had a cottage up north things would be different (not that February is necessarily when you want to be at a cottage up north).

Add to this the ree-coc-u-lous name "Family Day". The premier of Ontario deemed it so, pinning its creation to his rationale; whether said rationale is window-dressing or solemn honesty is beside the point. I hate the name. I'm not a militant sort, but what of those of us without children? Should I spend the day meditating on my biological error? Are all those people gearing-up to get drunk up and down Ossington Avenue tonight doing so as a testament to the strength of the Ontarian family? Doubtful.

Rather than spending it with our kids (who don't exist, though we do have a lovely cat - her name is Selchie), I shall be mending clothing with holes, cleaning up some paperwork, filing things away, and reading. And yes, we're going for drinks tonight.

So, from our family to yours, have a lovely Family Day tomorrow, gracious readers.

Book Review: Let's Talk About Love: A Journey To The End of Taste, by Carl Wilson

Celine Dion.

There is something about the utterance of her name which induces an involuntary sneer on some faces. As a Canadian, there is a double-whammy to this in that - of all the internationally recognized names from our country - hers is the most prevalent.

We associate her name, subconsciously, intentionally, metaphorically with everything that is crassly commercial, saccharine, and paradoxically successful in spite of the fact that "people like us" (which is to mean, those of us with cultivated tastes) can't stand her music.

Yet, despite these reactions, are we giving her a fair shake? Are we just a bunch of snobs? Is it possible to approach her music as we would approach our cherished performer x. This is the premise of the 52nd edition of the wonderful 33 ^1/3 series of books (appropriately CD-sized) by the publisher, Continuum. The purpose of the series has been for various people to write about albums which influenced their lives (without constraints on form, so rather than all of them being journalistic essays, some are fictional prose, some are non-linear ruminations inspired by said album).

Whereas others wrote from direct inspiration, Let's Talk About Love: A Journey To The End of Taste is Carl Wilson's unique attempt to explore the Celine Dion phenomena knowing in advance that he didn't particularly care for her music.

What begins with curiosity (the fact that Celine shared the stage with Elliot Smith, a fave of Wilson's, during the 1998 Academy Awards) and a faint appreciation for her success turns into a deep exploration - the kind you would see a fictional FBI agent do in a movie, you know, the guy who gets into the mind of the killer, etc. - of Celine's life story (her disadvantaged roots in a small Quebec town), the power of her music internationally (from the Caribbean to the Middle East), as well as an astute aggregation of studies done on popular taste (which show that, yeah, sneering at Celine is kinda snobby and narrow-minded when you think about it).

Wilson's summary of Dion's youth and Quebec's socio-political history, the distinction of kétaine (a sort of Quebecois kitsch), and how she is both a product and a paradox of the society in which she was raised is brilliant. It is rare to find someone (Quebecois or not) who can write about Quebec, who can encapsulate its frustrations with the rest of the country, its cultural tonality and political upheaval without either trivializing the causes and effects or isolating the province further from our understanding. The fact that Wilson can do all this in a relatively brief chapter of an already svelte-sized book is commendable.

Also of note is the book's well researched and thought-provoking exploration of what we mean when we talk about taste and - intriguingly - whether there truly is any point in claiming that one form of art (or one artist) is intrinsically better than another. In particular the perspectives which support the (unfairly derided) trope of sentimentality, that hallmark of Celine Dion's repertoire, are fascinating. Why, Wilson realizes, must everything be so f#cking bleak in order to be seriously respected? I found myself nodding in agreement with him and pondering the philosophical reach of the arguments.

In the end this is a personal rather than purely journalistic task for Wilson. Celine's presence and music are weaved, sometimes touchingly, through various aspects and events within his life. However, if there is a fault it is Wilson's penchant for using 5-dollar words; it lends an unnecessarily academic tone to the book which (thankfully infrequently) obscures an otherwise fun and fascinating read.

That quibble said, I cannot recommend this book enough.

Let's Talk About Love: A Journey To The End of Taste, by Carl Wilson [ISBN: 978-0826427885] is available at a wonderful, friendly independent bookseller near you, or online via various impersonal vendors.

quote

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."

- attributed to Mark Twain

Photo: Garage #1

Book Review: War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy

"I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia." - Woody Allen

There is a time and place for everything. The trick is having a sense for timing; the place will take care of itself, which I believe is an as-yet undiscovered Newtonian law. When I heard/read that there was a new (somewhat bally-hoo'd) translation of Tolstoy's 500lb (226.79kg) gorilla, War and Peace, I felt it was the right time to tackle it. Santa Claus delivered and I begun my task of reading all 1,224 pages with the aim of finishing by the end of 2008. Now, normally I am not a slow reader, but because this was an exquisite hardcover edition (384cm² in size and weighing under 3lbs) it was not something I could take with me on the streetcar to work. It became my bedside book for the entire year.

War and Peace follows the lives of several members of Moscow nobility during the Napoleonic wars of 1805 and 1812. In particular, two families are focused upon: the Rostovs and the Bolkonskys. Skirting between the two, becoming the unlikely main protagonist of the book, is Pierre Bezukhov, an awkward intellectual who inherits his ailing father's fortune at a young age without having any sense of purpose to guide him.

The Rostovs, represented by their patriarch, the well-meaning but indebted Count Ilya Andreevich, feature the principle protagonists Nikolai and Natasha (as well as siblings Petya and Sonya - the latter an orphan). The Bolkonskys, represented by the hard-nosed military man Prince Nikolai Andreevich, feature the siblings Andrei and Marya.

Before I go any further, I bet you're asking yourself something: "Hey, that's a little confusing. What with both patriarchs having the name Andreevich and one of them sharing the first name with the other's son, Nikolai. Wow - how do you keep track?". One of the nice things about this edition (and I can only speak of this edition as I haven't perused another) is that it has a handy list of principle characters at the beginning...which you will need for the first, oh, 200 pages.

Right, where were we. Oh, yes, Russia. Introductions are made to the principle characters in a way which seems presciently tailored to a sweeping Hollywood adaptation: colourful fêtes with dancing and ball gowns, the young Count Bezukhov at his dying father's side, the talk of war amongst the men. It is from this point that the eldest sons - Nikolai and Andrei - ready themselves to join the military: Nikolai as a member of the corps, Andrei as an adjutant. During the build-up to the first battles, Pierre, a reluctant member of the nobility perennially in search of meaning without any family or friends to guide him walks through the lives of both the Rostov and Bolkonsky families, acting as both an outsider and confidante.

If I may take this moment to say the following: it's a really long book, and so I'm not going to draw a quaint plot summary. If anything, the book follows the travails of the Bolkonsky and Rostov siblings - through war, personal tragedy, love, and faith. Tolstoy renders the winding lifelines of Prince Andrei, Count Rostov, Pierre, and Natasha in a knowing way. He knows that, between idealistic teenhood and adult maturity, people's lives do not often move in diagonally vertical lines; mistakes are made, passions are erupted, and past conflicts infect our clarity. In short, Tolstoy has formed unique characters who capture the spirit of their day (and class) while also imbuing them with strengths and weaknesses which seem tangible.

It is important to note several things about W&P and Tolstoy. First and foremost, that, as a book, it is not really easy to classify. In his own words (from the Appendix): "[...] it is not a novel, still less an epic poem, still less a historical chronicle.". Secondly, that it was first published in serial form, which may explain its girth (assuming he was paid by the word). Third, that regardless of its size, its ornate complexity as regards relationships between characters, regardless of Tolstoy interrupting the story from time to time to philosophize about the nature of war or critique the narrow-minded assumptions of historians, you will probably not read (or find) a book like this again.

There are three predominant voices in the book: Tolstoy the storyteller/character-driver, Tolstoy the military historian, and (as noted above) Tolstoy the agit-prop polemicist. I didn't expect that latter. I thought I was getting a thick slab of story wrapped in history, but what I didn't realize is that the wrapping is heavily spiced. In several places Tolstoy makes asides to the reader, and whether it is describing the clock-like movement of troops or the erroneous presumption of Napoleon's genius, I felt closer to Tolstoy the writer; although some will find these sections a bit out of place, his commentaries are poetic and philosophically powerful.

Excerpt:

"As in the mechanism of a clock, so also in the mechanism of military action, the movement once given is just as irrepressible until the final results, and just as indifferently motionless are the parts of the mechanism not yet involved in the action even a moment before movement is transmitted to them. Wheels whizz on their axles, cogs catch, fast-spinning pulleys whirr, yet the neighboring wheel is as calm and immobile as though it was ready to stand for a hundred years in that immobility; but a moment comes - the lever catches, and, obedient to its movement, the wheel creaks, turning, and merges into one movement with the whole, the result and purpose of which are incomprehensible to it." (Volume I, Part Three, Chapter XI, p. 258)

It is at this point where I return (briefly) to the translators of this new edition, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. They have (thankfully) preserved the Russian-ness of the book, unlike previous translations. Character names are left as-is and not Westernized, nor are elements like religious ornaments (such as the ever-present ikons) given Westernized names. When French is spoken, it is left in French w/ English footnotes at the bottom of the page. While this may require a little more dexterity on the part of the reader, this edition also comes with a handy 20-page appendix of reference as well as historical notes.

Will one's life be less if one doesn't read War and Peace? Only you can answer that. I'm happy to have read it, yet by the time I'd reached the end I barely had room in my head for Tolstoy's more essay-like commentaries on Napoleon, his so-called genius, and the philosophical symbiosis between freedom and necessity.

I will say that it is not light reading, in case this hasn't been sufficiently communicated in this review. Truth be known, there is much (much) more I could write on this book, but this is a blog and not the NYT Book section. I do, however, recommend W&P to anyone catching up on classics, or who are curious about non-traditional styles of literature.

War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy (translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky)[ISBN-13: 978-0307266934], is available at a fine independent bookseller near you, or via any number of places on the Internet.

Photo: Mist #13

Completion

A quick note: I've just finished Tolstoy's War & Peace. I've been reading it for just over a year - the gi-normous, anti-public-transit hardcover version of the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation - and finally read the last of the last pages last night (if that sounds awkward, the thing has an Epilogue in two parts, each spanning several chapters, plus an Appendix by Tolstoy). I would've finished sooner had the second half of the Epilogue not consisted of an essay by the author on the philosophical/socio-historical implications of freedom vs. necessity in society.

So, yes, in the upcoming days, I will post a formal review. There shall be more book reviews in general in the coming months, seeing as those are the things which are responsible for 50% of this blog's traffic. I'm assuming this percentage consists, in equal measure, of both curious readers-to-be and desperate students cramming for their essays/tests (Question 2a: "What are the themes in Hesse's Siddhartha?").

Photo: Mist #4

And The Nominees Aren't...

I will do what most major news outlets won't do and say upfront that there are an enormous amount of more important things going on in the world (or, conversely, not going on) than this...

That said, I'm a film hound and thus can justify this mirage of mostly-useless information

The 834th Academy Award (ie. The Oscars) nominations were announced this morning. I don't think there has ever been an Oscars year where I've been satisfied that the right films were (or weren't) nominated for the right category (or at all). And yet...

• WALL-E didn't get nominated for Best Picture, but was instead victimized by the mostly-useless ghetto category of "Best Animated Film of the Year", where it shares it's chances with such a memorable classic as Bolt. I will admit, I loved WALL-E; it was one of the most subversively humane films made in years. The sooner the "Academy" can eliminate the Animated Film category the better.
  
  
• The Reader...I haven't seen it. I don't know anyone who's seen it. Yet while it seemed to get slightly trashed when it came out (one of the Nazi-themed Christmas 2008 releases) - and by "trashed", I mean it was called a weak, manipulative Oscar-baiting film - it was nominated for "Best Motion Picture of the Year". Again, I don't want to criticize things I haven't seen...but...


• I haven't seen any of the films nominated for "Best Motion Picture of the Year". I do want to see Slumdog Millionaire (terribly), whereas Frost/Nixon and Milk - though I do not doubt their quality - will probably come into my life via DVD rentals. As for The Curious Case of Ben(*yawn*), I have no interest.


• Editing, that category no one seems to understand seems a mirror image of the Best Picture nominees, with The Reader swapped for The Dark Knight. I'm okay with that, yet - while I liked Dark Knight, I would not necessarily nominate it for best editing; the big chase scene in the Chicago (sorry, Gotham) tunnel was terribly disorienting (as in, this is all cutty and fast and good and stuff, but why does it make no sense to me?). I don't have a problem, on the surface, with a cutty style of editing (it was well-served in the Oscar-winning Bourne Ultimatum, perhaps one of the best action films of the decade), but it needs to make sense, which I felt was missing in parts of DK.


• Happy that Waltz with Bashir and The Class were nominated for Best Foreign Language Film - I want to see both of them very much. Would have been nice if the Swedish film, Let The Right One In, had been nominated, but that's me dreaming.

And now, on to more interesting things...