<< October 2006 | | December 2006 >>
November 30, 2006 >> Beerfest teaches you politicsOkay I actually sat down and watched Beerfest and everything has become clear. The Americans are just trying to find their place in a big, crazy world of underground beer games, and there is a heartwarming story to be learned about whorish grandmothers and evil German schemers and international stereotyping. This movie also contains political depth: the Canadians and the British are the first to get behind a flagging USA team! Just like with the war on Muslims! Team Coalition of the Willing. Holy shit.
Uh... and Mexican guys wear wide-brimmed hats while drinking pitchers.
Posted by Chris at 12:35 AM >> Commentations (0) | Permalink
November 28, 2006 >> USA! USA! USA!
Kyle is watching a movie called Beerfest. I am not especially amused by its alcohol-related antics because, let's face it, that's a little fratty. But at the end of the film Team USA predictably defeats Germany and the film closes to a European crowd of beer enthusiasts chanting "USA! USA! USA!" At this, I laughed and laughed and laughed. Given the current political climate, what international community is ever going to applaud an American victory? Let alone chant along like a bunch of cheerleading idiots. I think the time of Evil Foreigners vs Noble American Underdogs, with the world behind them, is pretty much over. Hollywood doesn't seem to understand that they are beating a horse that has already been beaten far too many times and then turned into glue sticks for Kansas City kindergartners to eat at lunchtime.
Nobody likes you. Stop fooling yourselves.
Posted by Chris at 05:36 PM >> Commentations (1) | Permalink
November 27, 2006 >> Ante Anty Ant
work work work work - work work work
let's all remember to do our work
if we forget that things don't work
we'll never ever finish all this work
fall behind and face THE LOOMING POSSIBILITY OF FAILURE AS A HUMAN BEING AND A GENERAL DISGRACE TO THE RACE!~ Grawrrhh! Homelessness beckons its skeletal claw! Your sister is in a bottle with a hand puppet! Let's just finish this semester!
Posted by Chris at 01:23 AM >> Commentations (1) | Permalink
November 25, 2006 >> I (Forcibly) Recalled the Grocery Pig
Hallucinogenic mushrooms are an interesting drug. Everything ripples and moves like a lake on a slightly windy day. The world breathes; trees and grass and organic things become more vibrant and more alive, while man-made constructions like concrete and housing appear as drab barriers behind which an imprisoned earth jostles and heaves. Patterned wallpaper crawls like a multitude of insects and occasionally Dave Matthews will lurch off his poster on the wall, face dripping and rotting like the finest of zombies. It's good fun!
I am constantly reminded of childhood when attempting to describe the influence of this curious fungus. It is a difficult task. As my friend Lisa once said, in frustration: "Words are not enough." She said it many, many times that day and it became a mantra for personal experience, something you desperately wanted to share but which lay outside the boundaries of effective communication. "Words are not enough," became our way of saying, "Yo, I just experienced something fucking amazing... no details, but I just wanted you to be happy for me, okay?"
I can say that mushrooms tilt the balance back towards the great unknown: imagination is once again given a powerful hold over reality. There is suddenly a sensation of improvisation and play and wonder that brushes aside the sensibilities and behaviour checks which ordinarily dominate semi-respectable young adults. You roll gleefully down soft hills and lie in the grass and look at the sky in moronic awe. A melting forest in the springtime is Narnia. Fifteen minutes later, a dusty baseball field in the fading dusk is 1930s small-town America. The story flows without rhyme or reason but it doesn't matter.
Like kids, you are mildly suspicious of 'outsiders' - those outside the circle who don't understand, who might ruin your fun in some serious, adult way. You are somewhat aware of the fact that you should be acting like them, because some bastard moral construction in the back of your mind is screaming about acceptibility and social convention and telling you not to lie down on the sidewalk, but usually you can ignore it. Those people who are always asking each other, in furtive, hushed whispers, whether they seem normal or sober? They're the ones who aren't able to ignore their internal screams.
Chances are you'll have a hell of a time looking normal, anyway, on mushrooms because I usually find that you don't. Your pupils are huge and you can fall into them if you look in a bathroom mirror. The liquid properties of the world are mirrored in your physiology: palms sweat, your nose runs and moisture feels like it's seeping from every pore in your body. It's not uncomfortable, just... tropical. Rainforest-y. But most importantly, your eyes water and tear. I like to think it's from the vibrancy and overwhelmingness of everything.
Which leads me to the Grocery Pig. I felt it might be helpful to outline the underlying circumstances first, for those who haven't engaged in such illegal practices themselves. I would recommend it for some and not for others - the experience hugely hinges on your own psychological make-up and the people you're with - and eating mushrooms can result in nightmarish scenarios. I feel pretty okay with it, although there may be long-lasting repercussions: I haven't done mushrooms in a long while, but walls still ripple slightly if I concentrate and if I've had enough coffee. It's a rather entertaining side-effect and not really anything I regret.
Ah yes, Grocery Pig. Well, me, Carly, Chad, Jen and maybe others had all eaten large quantities of mushrooms (is this a surprise?). The hideous fungus taste was masked deep within peanut butter sandwiches. And we had a mission (a mission of unusual complexity, considering our severely altered state). We were going to walk aaaaaaall the way down to the Princess Cinema and watch The Animation Show, Year 2. So we did the walking, and we managed to purchase tickets with reasonable success and seat ourselves without too much commotion. This felt like the biggest accomplishment since the Gutenburg press at the time, by the way.
As the theatre darkened and the film began, I watched in near-hysterical amusement (although I seem to recall being distracted by things happening on the fringes of each segment, rather than the primary action). This all changed with the Grocery Pig, however. I watched as an elderly female pig, dressed conservatively with a bonnet, went to the market and picked out some fruits and vegetables. It was clear that she lived alone, a pig happy with the simple things in life. She had whistled in the kitchen; she had a happy bounce in her step.
That all changed when she arrived back home, however. As she trotted along the sidewalk towards her small, quaint apartment, a taxi cab screeched to a halt beside her and an incredibly fierce looking rooster emerged. His glare was legendary, the stuff of Jericho fallen. I gasped. Grocery Pig was similarly startled and dropped the bag laden with her purchases. Apples and potatoes tumbled into the gutter, hard-won items spilling every which way as the frightened pig rushed into her home, leaving the bag behind on the curb. As she calmed herself with a cup of tea, held between shuddering hooves, my eyes widened and widened until they split. Grocery Pig was shaken, I was tramautized. Her life had fallen apart over nothing and it was too, too much. There would be no potatoes for dinner.
"I think I'm crying," I whispered to Carly. "That was so incredibly sad. But I don't really know, because of the mushrooms." And she laughed, later, very loudly, but I suspect she thought it was endearing and maybe sweet that I would cry over something so absurd. I am not much of a crier with regards to the ups and downs of my own particular life, the one I am engaged in at the moment, but sometimes you lay your heart open to play and strange animals will steal a piece.
Posted by Chris at 06:25 PM >> Commentations (1) | Permalink
November 24, 2006 >> I Recalled the Floppy Hat Cat
Today I asked my tutorial class to think of images that have stuck with them for many years, images of emotional longevity. Then I had an early childhood FLASHBACK of the time I saw a picture of a sad cat in an issue of TV Guide and started crying, to the great perplexment of my mother. I think the issue was the cat was both hungry and wearing a fancy floppy hat, some sort of stupid dichotomy between extravagance and poverty. I hadn't remembered that in quite a while. Very embarrassing.
Posted by Chris at 03:55 PM >> Commentations (2) | Permalink
November 23, 2006 >> Racially blind for 50 pages
Multiculturalism in novels makes me edgy because I always assume characters are white. This is because I myself am white, and also because I've noticed authors tend to immediately introduce their characters as otherwise, very blatently, when they are not. "Sal was a crook-shankin' Latino b-boy with a saucy grin." "Marlo was a heavyset black man who looked fierce as a bear but, as Joe knew, had a heart as soft as a deer's hide." It's almost always in there.
And if the writer doesn't come right out and say it, my racist motherfucking imagination will automatically paint them up as whiteys. The worst thing, of course, is when you're about fifty pages in and you already have a pretty good idea of what the main character looks like, and who they are. Then some casual conversation bombshell will hit - "Joe, do you remember when we were in the Black Panthers together?" - and you'll have to completely refabricate this character, and the way you think and feel about them. This may be construed as "racially exclusive" depending on how damnably PC you are, because I am judging people by their outsides and stereotyping groups... but I know and you know that race is a pretty significant factor in this world. Oh come on! It totally is. People be different, but everyone's special. Ya ya.
Anyway, this is all just assuming that I am somewhat engaged with the story. Lots of times I don't even care this guy is suddenly white or black or blue or whatever. I'm just hoping he dies so something interesting might happen. Or at least take a trip somewhere cool. God damn it Joe, I'm sick of listening to your stupid talk of grapes and rolling countrysides!
Posted by Chris at 02:53 AM >> Commentations (0) | Permalink
November 22, 2006 >> I am not crazy
Gears of War is awesome. Basically you get to go on the internet and face off against little kids from Texas in a crazy bloodbath jihad of shotguns and aliens. And they will try to chainsaw you into a lifeless carcass, but you will fight back bravely until their friend from down the street comes in from behind and pistol whips you in the head. Then they will dance around your dazed, prone, soon-to-be-extinguished body like Indians (Natives) at a pow-wow (politically incorrect), because one of them will have jammed a smoke grenade in your neck and you are now on fire. Then someone will stomp your face and put you out of your misery, just so you can respawn and do it again.
This may sound a bit masochistic, but I play with Kyle and he's pretty good so I can still take vicarious revenge on his half of the screen. Or sometimes I get shot in the face and fall down, but a guy on my team comes along and revives me by pulling my hideously wounded character up (no medical assistance required!). Also, the sweetness of managing to cowardly sneak up on one of those Texans with the chainsaw while they are fighting another guy, and chopping them up like lunchmeat, it indescribable. Punk ass bitch little kids! They usually whine like helium turkeys. Every once in a while, your team is losing badly but somebody named Judas Iscariot comes to save you with a sniper rifle, and you have to wonder what really happened to Jesus.
Is fun and exciting!
Also, Buy Nothing Day is kind of a stupid deal because everybody goes out to buy necessities like cigarettes and vegan food the day before Buy Nothing Day, which means that people are still buying the exact same amount of commodities, they're just sold one day earlier. And, in fact, maybe buying more than you would ordinarily because you'd be thinking stuff like "Huh... will I want chips tomorrow, on Buy Nothing Day? Or maybe Slim Jims. I'll get them both just to make sure. Wouldn't want to sucumb to wrongful consumerist cravings during our token one-day abstinence from cash transactions!" You would buy based on probability, which is dangerous if you've ever gone grocery shopping while stoned. Very expensive.
I mean yeah, Buy Nothing Day a good idea fundamentally. Because capitalism is pretty fucked up when you think about it. I hate TV commercials, and also Valentine's Day. But when people start saying things about taking a message to the corporations, I don't really think the corporations are listening. They're like "Survivor 11 action figures!" And North Americans are like "Yeaaaaaaaaaah biatch! I want them all!" Basically you're gonna buy a ton of shit anyway and you know it. Useless shit that you probably don't need, and you'll do it just like everyone else (including me, of course) and if you need to take a day of postponement from the endless march of mandatory consumerism, well then...
Buy Nothing Day! But nothing will really change. Except that you will probably not eat anything tasty that day, because you'll have forgotten to buy food and all there is in the cupboard is crackers. That sucks.
I like how both of today's topics fit together... I am trying to think of some kind of super-cool title for this entry, like "Gears of CAPITALIST MADNESS" or "Buy Nothing Today... Except Hit XBOX Game Gears of War!! Only $59.99 at Future Shop," but that one is too long and I don't get paid commission. Either way, there's some rad machine... bureaucracy... system... thing happening here, and I believe it is called juxtaposition or ironic counterbalance or some other such stupid narratology word. Big words are good times. I am not crazy.
[Gears of War]
[Buy Nothing Day]
Posted by Chris at 02:05 AM >> Commentations (1) | Permalink
November 20, 2006 >> SudVegas
When I was in Korea, trucking around the antiquated countryside and sleeping uneasily in orgy love-palaces, it occurred to me that I haven't really seen much of my own country. I've visited most of the larger cities in Canada, the pockets of unusual density, but as for the rest - the well-advertised vistas of bountiful nature - well, nope. As I am unfortunately mired within a labyrinth of theory and thick books with no dust jackets, opportunities are slim. Still, Hags invited us up to Sudbury for the weekend and I figured I should take what I can get.
After an extended side-view panorama of the Lesser Canadian Wilds, navigated via the decisive highways bored through its heart, Jack, Kyle and I came across Woodcock Road (or a similarly named phallic thoroughfare... someone can correct me later). Kyle gleefully pointed out that this road was on Route 69, exactly 69 clicks away from Sudbury. If you add, to this scene, images of plaid shirted workmen and sad-looking counter girls at Tim Horton's dreaming of escape from tinytown nothingness, then that was our trip in a nutshell. Oh, and highly noxious anal gases brought into our car by poor dietary planning. My God, Kyle smells bad.
Sudbury is oversized for its image, with a population of approximately 200 000. According to our survey data, seven (VII) of these people are black. Only 1 (I) wears a furry pimp coat. Sudbury looks like the scarred aftermath of a bloody battle against Nature. Fierce vertical structures of rock and soil still stand as bastion temples of the earth. Copses of trees wave defiantly from the hilltops. But humanity has largely imposed its will on the landscape: blasting and cutting, deploying strip malls and suburban architecture and places of learning. Bitter and vengeful, Nature has covered her downfall with a sheen of ice and gritty grey snow that eats at the concrete. Guerilla warfare comes easily for abstract notions of resistance; our myths repel the bulldozers. Roland Barthes + self loathing.
The students refer to Sudbury, somewhat lovingly, as SudVegas because there is nothing to do way up there but drink and fuck. Of course, there is nothing to do in any university town but drink and fuck. This is because drinking and fucking are clearly the most fun things to do, anywhere, period. One might think that casinos might fall under the SudVegas umbrella too, but I suppose choosing to live there might be enough of a gamble in itself. What with Nature clearly wanting everybody dead and all.
Until that time, the Sudbury bar scene seems to be going strong with every self-respecting young adult fully aware of what places are good on what nights. A cell phone is a useful implement of indecision. Unnecessarily long line-ups indicate a strong whiskey economy. Girls wear shirts that say things like "Newly Single" and "If you're rich, I'm single" and "Yo, I'm not single but my boyfriend is only a car mechanic" which all point toward strong underlying desires to bang a heart surgeon until money hemorrhages from his eye sockets. I hear that's why people go to university in Sudbury, anyway, to tread water until they have a nice marketable body. Maybe that just came from one of those mass "my-university-is-the-bestest!" WLU emails though.
As a male of personable character, Hags is positioned in Sudbury somewhat like a farmer about to harvest a volumous field of golden wheat. I would like to give him a million dollars and a list of sassy new STDs to collect.
I talked incessantly about the Big Nickel for the whole weekend, not because I thought it would be awesome but because it's Sudbury's big Cultural Identifier. Every place needs something to call its own and Sudbury, in the tradition of Albertan small-town insecurity, has made a Large Statue of Something Unique. In the Nickel's defense, it is intrinsically linked to the city's history: some stupid thing about mining, I think. Mining nickel. And gay space-cowboys.
Hags and co. took me there after I whined a lot. I suppose the Nickel is a lot like the CN Tower for Toronto residents - you see it, you go "huh...", and then over time you begin to resent it for being more representative of the city than you are. The Almighty Nickel is extremely large and, upon closer inspection, hollow. It bears the scratches and pock-marks of having many rocks thrown at its faces over the years. It is sturdily pinioned and cannot be rolled crashing down the hills and escarpments to wreak devastation below. If you managed to steal it with a helicopter, you could probably melt it down in exchange for a mid-level secretarial position in the Liberal party.
For children who are not as intrigued by the Big Nickel as any God-fearing Canadian citizen ought to be, there is an adjacent playground. It has a big slide and it is scary, but with love and compassion it can become a site of grand triumph over gravity. And it struck me that this pleasure tube embodied the true spirit of Sudbury more than the Big Nickel ever could. The slide represented challenge, adversity, and ultimately the human capacity to overcome the obstacles of his or her northern environs.
In Sudbury, honest folk struggle daily against the pitchforks of Nature, boredom, snow, isolation, skateboard kids in Burger King, and mental retardation. The Big Nickel only struggles against oxidation and scraggly birds that crap on its contours. Only when Sudbury constructs a Magnificent Space Slide will it ever fulfil its dreams of becoming a complete and autonomous region, with a symbolic structure it can truly be proud of. Until then, SudVegas will happily hold up its quotia of hushed-up abortions and continue spawning a veritable army of Communications majors.
It's just, you know, so interesting. And you can get a job in PR when you're done!
Posted by Chris at 02:52 PM >> Commentations (2) | Permalink
November 17, 2006 >> Big Nick
I am going to Sudbury for the first time eva this weekend! It is a place, I'm told, that houses some sort of extravagant giant nickel which towers above a barren and unforgiving landscape. Twisted rock formations from hell glower upon the inexperienced traveller and... oh fuck it, it's just Sudbury, okay?
How fast can you say "How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood" out loud? Time yourself. Some of my 10 year old students in Korea managed to rattle the whole thing off, near-coherently, in under 3 seconds. The bowel-shattering effort usually sent them to the bathroom immediately afterwards though.
Posted by Chris at 03:02 PM >> Commentations (0) | Permalink
November 15, 2006 >> Jetplanes of Abraham Hypertext
I fucking love Toronto. You can be an unprepared douche when it's your turn to find "something cool to do" and - what's that? - Eye or Now or any number of TO scene rags will save you handily, last minute. Through these tomes of street wisdom the Horseshoe Tavern was pinpointed as a suitable venture. Live music! No cover! Pow! Sluts!?
I especially like seeing bands that I know nothing about, because then I can't possibly be disappointed. I mean, a band can still suck but at least then you can say stuff like, "I can see why nobody's heard of these assholes," and fall asleep, or go vomit or whatever.
If you're at a show you dropped coin for, you are required to pay attention no matter how atrocious the performance, because otherwise you are admitting you got gypped. It's the same deal when you purchase an item that sucks - clothing, say. A new, suck-ass jacket. You are obligated to give your jacket a chance. You'll lie to yourself about value; mentally compensate for its faults. Maybe try overmuch to convince other people of your purchase's worth: "Yeah the sleeves are a little short, but I really like how this polyester collar covers my ears when I flip it up... it's really warm. Really." All this is just for peace of mind. Nobody wants to admit that they fucked up and made a bad choice. Hey, it was on sale for a reason.
I am doing a poor job of relating all these ideas together, but that's okay because paragraphs are a "self-contained unit" for the purpose of ordering "varied points of discourse" and what that means, motherfuckers, is that I can do what I like. As long as I separate ideas, I guess. One good thing about postmodernism is that confusion is idealized, multiform scatterings of text supposedly reveal complexity, and we can all write like ADD squirrels and get away with it. Yes, these are grand days for English literature. The blogs of the unwashed po-mo hoes.
The Marble Index (blauuughh) were radio kings of yesteryear and are now playing free shows at the Horseshoe, apparently. But I don't much care to write about them because there was another group called Jetplanes of Abraham, out of the wilds of Ottawa, who were much better. I am a sucker for a lady with a violin (like Sarah from The Arcade Fire!), and for bands that crowd the stage with silly instruments and too many guitars (like The Arcade Fire!). Scutt likes tall nerdbags with glasses (Richard from The Arcade Fire?). And clapping - oh God, clapping. Clap clap clap. I think The Arcade Fire does that too. There's something here for everybody! ...who likes The Arcade Fire.
Anyhow, Jetplanes of Abraham are catchy and fun in their own way - I am just saying that if you like The Arcade Fire, you might enjoy Jetplanes of Abraham too. We were sad when their set finished, so we tracked them down in the bar to demand purchase of their CD. They were nice people and right this moment they are singing in my ear, scrambling my thoughts and turning my... making... finger... click... submit... button... not fini
Posted by Chris at 02:49 PM >> Commentations (3) | Permalink
November 13, 2006 >> Bank on China
Does TD Canada Trust own Toronto's Chinatown? Or lease it, perhaps, as benevolent multicultural barons? There are an inordinate number of familiar green banks lining the streets, and their signs are all half in English, half in Chinese. OR the converse question is: do the Chinese own TD Canada Trust? Does China touch TD Canada Trust inappropriately in the back seat of a Honda?
Because this is really important and everything...
Posted by Chris at 08:34 PM >> Commentations (4) | Permalink
November 12, 2006 >> Borat Fallout
The whole world is abuzz with news of Borat's unabashed cinematic success. Usually I would tell the whole world to fuck off, but the robot spammers who pepper my comments with cam-slut advertising have taken to using Borat press releases to trick me into approving their shit, so maybe a Borat post is in order.
Review: The film is funny. Yep. Americans look, for the most part, like idiots, which is something everyone can appreciate (U.S. citizens excepted). Perhaps the film is too funny.
Aftermath: We are on the cusp of a hideous Napolean Dynamite-esque phenomenon where we will hear poor impersonations of key catch phrases by drunken frat boys on every street, at every social juncture. It will be hateful. Everyone will soon fervently wish that the movie hadn't got so damned popular. On the plus side, Rick James and Lil Jon will finally be allowed to retire from public humiliation, never again to be mined and raped of their personalities by those with nothing real to say. Borat will weep over their graves: "I a-like you! Why you dead, Africa robots? I's sad."
More Vindicating Aftermath: Those RV frat guys who rant and rave to Borat about how minorities are taking over and how women need to be taught to love cock (or something like that) are fucked. Apparently the movie's producers got these fine young men hammered before they signed release forms and were paid a whopping $200 for their redonkulously ignorant 'performance'. Now they are suing, having lost their daddy-crafted corporate jobs and internships in the ensuing debacle over them being, you know, racist and mysogenist retards and documented alcoholics. Yes Borat, it's all your fault that we've been tricked and exposed as theta subhumans!
Perhaps the best part of this whole thing is the evidence that these dudes actually were dudes, not just actors reciting some farfetched script playing up fraternity stereotypes. A startling and somewhat fearsome revelation, especially considering they would've been firmly ensconced in the business world had Sacha Baron Cohen not stepped in to shank their ambitions. As far as I'm concerned, he should be awarded some kind of Wall Street honorarium for sparing the world from these plantation donkeys.
Kazakhstan save America now?
Posted by Chris at 04:10 PM >> Commentations (0) | Permalink
November 06, 2006 >> Fiction Afterwards
I don't know about you guys but whenever I read a novel that's halfway passable, I turn the last page a little bit sadly. These are characters that, love or hate, I have spent lots of time riding the subway and procrastinating with. It's sad to see the final print that puts them to rest. I usually want an epilogue... a little bit more.
Now I like how contemporary authors are starting to get a little bit 'real' with their drama. That is to say, specifically, they are acknowledging that this big crazy thing called The Internet exists and that their characters would probably use it from time to time. Because, you know, they'd be freaks if they didn't. Email! Text messages on phones! Fucking insane cyber-donkeys!
Usually the author will cleverly think up some witty login handle for their protagonist and stuff it haphazardly into the plot. Or they'll mention a character's blog, or Google searches they've done, or whatever. Canadian Jesus Douglas Coupland does this, by the way, all the time. In Eleanor Rigby, the book's title comes solely from our leading lady's email address: eleanorrigby@arctic.ca. That's a pretty salient plot point, wouldn't you think? Something that people might be curious about interacting with, given the possibilities of this beatific cyber-world we currently prance in? I mean it's right there.
Well let me tell you, I wrote a very compassionate email to Liz (the character), telling her how I thought she probably had psychic powers at that point in the narrative - I wasn't done the book yet. I poured my heart out to this make-believe woman for at least 30 seconds. A few hours later, the email bounced back. Address does not exist. What the fuck, Douglas Coupland?? You're supposed to be the voice of modernist counter-malaise.
Where's my clever e-epilogue? How come TV shows like Heroes get to have fictitious online personas and yet the novel, the esteemable madame of the fiction world, is a static hardboiled entity cooked between two covers? Now I am sure that some novels on the precipitous edge of publishing have played with interactive elements, but I haven't found them yet. It's a little upsetting. I think it's rather unfair to write the Internet into your storylines and not let it work for you. Or, more specifically, to work for me.
[Douglas Coupland] [Eleanor Rigby] [books] [fiction] [interactive characters]
Posted by Chris at 10:41 PM >> Commentations (3) | Permalink
November 05, 2006 >> November Slims
Water in the morning tastes terrible - that glass you left beside the bed last night is full of bubbles (carbonation? what the hell is that?) and it goes down like a punch in the throat.
People will often surprise you in conversation by being exactly, 100% what you expected of them. And then you say "Oh..." because that means a mission. That means it's your mission to be increasingly bizarre until you elicit a reaction that is no longer predictable. And sometimes this means talking about pyromania and tasty babies. If you can't get something interesting out of that, you're beating a dead horse (baby?) and should get the hell out of there ASAP. This person is an emotionally dead sociopath.
One reason why people might not act like kids anymore - find their 'inner child' - is that we were so goddamned dirty back then. I spent an entire subway ride trying to shake dead leaves and sticks out of my hair and jacket while people looked at me like I was homeless. I have a home, people! I HAVE A HOOOOOOOOOOOOOME!! I just saw a leaf pile on my way back there.
Posted by Chris at 01:20 PM >> Commentations (7) | Permalink
November 01, 2006 >> Synapse to Synapse
Death Cab For Cutie's infamous front man, Ben Gibbard, trips over loose wiring on stage and falls backwards, flat on his ass. He flails about for several seconds, and for some strange reason he looks like an IT professional wrestling with cables in a server room. It must be his haircut. He manages to locate his mic and finish the song before angrily kicking over the mic stand and his set of tiny drums. "We'll see that on YouTube tomorrow," Ben says, half bemused. I just checked - it's not online. Yet.
Yeah, I was there at Massey Hall. Death Cab, collectively, look like big nerds who love to rock out. You wouldn't think it from looking at the guys, but somehow they have a death grip on sad little boys and girls who love without context and routinely break up just to feel something different, something steeped and sharp enough to tear through the apathy. Death Cab songs are anthems for turning romance into a Shakespearean tragedy, of telling a story about a girl who just wasn't good enough. It's self indulgence, selfishness really, but music sorta works that way: it's a catharsis. For angst, for facile politica, for anger, for relief. And Death Cab is one of those bands that pokes and pokes at romantic nostalgia until the tear ducts open wide.
And so, surrounded by couples and emotional sieves, we watched four middle-aged men push and tweak the memories of those in attendance. Now Death Cab For Cutie is not a 'good' live band. Banter: okay. Do the songs sound like the CD tracks? Sure. But the band is a relatively static entity on stage (unplanned tumbles notwithstanding). You can only watch the stage attentively for so long, even from 6 feet away. And so a large part of the show is looking around and trying to see who looks like they're about to cry at any given moment.
Was that 'your' song? Do you remember when he said you weren't really alive, just faking it? And that summer, long ago, when everything seemed okay... and then, oh so predictably, it wasn't? Hey, this song was on 'The OC'! All those recollections. All that shit. The synapses fire and connect, and the experience rapidly moves away from the figures on stage and into the corners of depressive masochism. You could really do this walk down memory lane from home, and for a hell of a lot cheaper too.
Still, diversity pops. The Japanese kid headrocking against the stage knows every word of every song, but he doesn't look sad: he just digs the music. Cupcake girls spend the entire show taking pictures of themselves, trying in vain to fit Ben Gibbard into the background of their shot. They snap and snap and snap and giggle, negotiating the complex, vicious processes of teenage friendship while the girl relegated to the fringe of the group awkwardly looks on, unnoticed. She's probably forming new, bitter connections with Death Cab. She'll be the one who eventually delves deeper into music to find something for herself and only her. She is the future of hip.
And so the self-indulgence continues and the band becomes background, having sparked the memory impetus, at least until they build a crescendo through 'Transatlanticism' and leave the stage to thunderous applause. Shortly after they return, dressed in yellow worksuits and orange hardhats. "We're Devo!" they proclaim, and they certainly are: they play four (FOUR) Devo songs and uncertainty sweeps the floor. What strange new catalyst is this? Halloween ridicule? These guys look like they have an Aztec temple on their heads and sweat is pouring out of Gibbard's sleeve like a waterfall, drenching his fret board. Say goodbye.
Oftentimes I hear people say that seeing their favourite band live was a disappointment; that it forever soured them on the music. Maybe the band itself just isn't that interesting. Maybe other things are. Maybe people just aren't looking around. I think it's something remarkable when the mechanism of the show is enough to supersede the headline act.
[Death Cab For Cutie] [Massey Hall]
Posted by Chris at 04:30 PM >> Commentations (3) | Permalink