THE FRONT

Friday, 10 July 2009

  • The Better/The Ugly










    Right now, I am going to shower and brush my teeth, while I am in said shower and not take an hour because I need to wash off the horrible melancholy that draped itself over me and get into the sun. Also, I should eat something. Maybe my stomach will get confused/distracted and stop tying untying tying pulling itself over and over and over into anxious, gnawing knots.

    Otherwise, I am going to start screaming and not stop and be a generally horrible monster of a person. There are no lovely words today, only the grumbling of prematurely aged old woman, aches and pains included, with the shortest fuse, weepy eyes and exhaustion running through her veins.

    Adieu, I trust the shower and God's sky to heal me.

Tuesday, 07 July 2009







  • The fortune says, Stop searching. Happiness will come to you. Moleskin page.

    Months ago, I felt very very dislocated, lost, adrift - that feeling comes and goes in so many variations and strengths. I drew the below spread in an attempt to help clear my head - to remember, to mark things that locate me - my desires/passions, what I love, where I want to be.

    (In past weeks, the feeling remaining beside me has been that of being overwhelmed/exhausted) I look back on it today in the midst of  continued struggle, and often failure, to live simply, to strip things to their slimmest bones. It is so important to remember.     Truth is simple, I am not. The world is not. People are not. Truth is simple. Action is not. In this moment, in all the moments I want to remember that the simplicity of truth is what will sustain and make it possible for me to continue to live/love/care. Stop grasping, it will come. Remember, it will come.




Wednesday, 01 July 2009

  • Currently
    Cold & Kind
    By The 1900s
    see related







    Today? A hypothetical project by Alex Cornell as part of his graduate degree. The branding for a WES ANDERSON FILM FESTIVAL.

    These kind of projects (clever, effective, and incredible well executed) are the kind of thing that made me decide to go to design school. It did not occur to me that I wouldn't be this good. I'm not - maybe someday, I will be - doubtful, as I'm going back to school part time come fall and pursuing global development. However, I have found my niche in other areas - or am beginning to, at least - in photography/typography, illustration. Mostly, I'm okay with that. I also know that most designer's bread and butter is what I do (the more lame corporate side). Anyway, enjoy. And, bonne fete! It's Canada Day!












Tuesday, 30 June 2009

  • What I Do At Work When I'm Supposed to be Working.

    This week on the blog:
    THE WEEK OF AWESOME.


    As some of you know - I am an internet/art/typography nerd times a million and spend a lot of time with my computer/BFF. (Not really, but sometimes, I really wonder. If this MacBook could speak/hear for real - it would know me pretty freaking well. Typing in lame/not lame words - scowling, smiling, crying - clothed, naked)

    Back to my nerd factor - I have reference file of inspiring, interesting, clever, beautiful things on my computer that is enough for 10 people.  Today's I just saw today. Below are pieces from an exhibition by David Fullarton and part of an exhibition organized by John Herschend of Skydive called Sisyphus Office. It is currently taking place in Houston, Texas.

    The artists involved in the project are collaborating with businesses and offices in and around Houston in order to highlight art as an integral and necessary distraction in our day to day life. The artists and offices involved in Sisyphus Office are working physically and conceptually with the notions of existentialism, capitalism, artistic romanticism and deadpan slapstickism as a means to examine the artifice that keeps us clinging to reality and distracted from the void. It’s about recognizing the comedy in the tragedy of the day to day… and then waking up again to do the same thing all over again the next morning.

    David Fullarton's contribution below: is an installation in the offices of Houston radio station 90.1 KPFT entitled "What I do at work when I'm supposed to be working." It consists of a number of small works made entirely from office supplies, which are pinned up randomly around the office, in amongst the notices, flyers and memos that were already existing in the  environment. More details here: http://www.theskydive.org/








     

     

    I am back from Keats (lovely, calm, crazy Keats) and took a Holga. I am anxious to see the pictures, but they need to be sent away and sent back - at the moment I am having trouble remebering that one of the reasons I like film is the whole delayed gratification/more real factor. I really hope they do not look like garbage. Tomorrow? More awesome!


Saturday, 27 June 2009




  • The idea of a quiet existence is unbelievably appealing to me. Maybe I could call it the Stone Cottage Syndrome, this idea that I could burrow away in this amazing cozy home/house, wooden beams overhead, more than one room but barely - wall partitions instead of doors. And every morning - there would be no alarm clock and I would rise and stretch and rise and meet the day in its newness, without waking up with some sort of lingering regret (as I have the last couple days - what the hell is that?) And I would walk and write and draw and cook, I picture this all alone - but I very much doubt I could float along in an idyllic existence alone.

    But alone seems less complex than the million heartstrings that push and pull long past their expiration date. And I find it easy to fall/stay in love with places - they are so solid - they change, they do - the weather wears them, the sun fades them, parts need replacement, but so often you return to somewhere you have not been for a long time and when you run your hand over the wall or up the banister - it feels the same. The comfort I draw from interaction with inanimate structures really astounds me - why it evokes such a reaction. Perhaps it is because the amount that they change is limited and that the changes they go through are quite expected.

    I am rambling into screen later than I should be as I have to wake up in a mere 5 hours to catch the early ferry to Keats. Good night lovely screen starers, I retire.



Wednesday, 24 June 2009

  • Currently
    The Sparrow and the Crow
    By William Fitzsimmons
    see related
    ART BY CLARK GOOLSBY







    Today, the air conditioning is "on the fritz" as my Mom would say, and so I am cuddled into my corner cubicle quite happily - the fritz meaning I can pretend I am near a fireplace on this rainy day instead of in a frigid recycled air environment. Maybe all we need are fireplaces everywhere.

    Huddling is good way to describe my week so far, I am in hurricane mode (internally) and so I find myself cocooning a little. (MONDAY) I slip into a room which grows darker with each passing minute and sit on a rolled carpet, a room a few doors down from happy, laughing friends doing baseboards - I am apart but intentionally close so I still can hear them and smile accordingly. I write an inscription to my Mom in the front of Rolheiser's The Holy Longing before I send it off in the mail, a late birthday present, along with the rest of my Dad's Father's Day stuff. I rewrote something from Rolheiser's first chapter - part of a chapter being the only words of his I've read in the front - Spirituality is what you do with the fire inside of you.

    The laughter left the room and halls as people went on with their nights - I waved goodbye, my second load of laundry just in - wanting and welcoming the quiet, but a little wary of the combination of 8,000 square feet of it and myself. I came out of the room and settled into the corner of the left behind couch we claimed as our own and spread out my books, journals, pens, etc. Merton, of course, was picked up and as I read and underlined, always underlining with Merton lately, but it came to life so unexpectedly, I was on my haunches whispering the words aloud as I read them before I had time to realize it - a little creeper I know, but it was also kind of totally great. Yet it is in this loneliness that the deepest activities begin. It is here that you discover act without motion, labor that is profound repose/You should be able to untether yourself from the world and set yourself free, loosing all the fine strings and strands of tension that bind you, by sight, by sound, by thought, to the presence of other men. I keep reading. I turn the page.

    But in these quiet churches one remains nameless, undisturbed in the shadows, where there are only a few chance anonymous strangers among the vigil lights/Let there always be quiet dark churches in which men can take refuge. Places where they can kneel in silence. Houses of God, filled with his silent presence. There, even when they do not kno how to pray, at least they can be still and breathe easy. Let there be a place somewhere in which you can breathe naturall, quietly,, and not have to take your breath in continuous short gasps.
     

     


Sunday, 21 June 2009

  • Just Me and My Dad.








    It's Father's Day -  and I am insanely lucky have all of mine. My father, top. Richard "Grizzly country? I've got this can of bear spray, no problem" Ashton. Middle, Lorne "Two eyes are overrated, plus I get to wear this sweet eyepatch" Ashton. Paul "Before I played this game of Scrabble I shoveled two tons of snow in -40 weather, no big deal" Ikert.

    My Dad and two Grandpas are alive and well. And hardcore. And amazing. They persevere. They are men. They are strong, they are gentle, they have battled cancer, they have battled their own demons and fears, they have come through tremendous loss, they build things with their hands, they puzzle out problems with their brains, they take care of me & I can't imagine my life without them.

    Below, just me and my Dad. I love you, I love you, I love you.




Wednesday, 17 June 2009

  • We're all just taller children.


    CURRENTLY LISTENING: This morning I've been all over thesixtyone.com. My repeated listens today? Muchuu, Priscilla Ahn, & Elizabeth and the Catapault.

    My weekend in photobooth snaps (perhaps irrelevant as it already Wednesday - this week is flying) below.     I was a little girl. It is an incomplete representation - you do not see an immense of time spent is pools, a head of unwashed hair, et a lot of lovely people (more people need to exist in my photobooth records). I was a little girl. I burrowed into bed. Movies, moleskin, water, water plus ice tea crystals, the best patterned pillows, Beth's t shirts, naked spidery limbs, crossed/uncrossed/extended.     Are we shy, are we setting new ground, are we different? Look close, your face is changing, it's only aging from all those tired tears. Look here, the fight is starting. As we near the people are parting, Oh my, my tired soul. Are we high when we're watching downtown? (<PA lyrics)



     
    A very long time ago, as I sat on the top of a picnic table outside the pub, I quietly declared that I was going home. To go to bed. Only one person heard my quiet declaration, and with a cigarette dangling, a grin and a glint in his eye, he  challenged. Alone? I lifted my head and answered. Yes. Alone. Always alone. I sleep alone. That's a shame. The good humor of the line balanced my reaction to the undeniable fact that it was one. I answered again, It is no shame. Where is the shame in claiming my bed as my own, as no one else's? I had gotten louder now, slightly. Show me the shame in this, I quietly demanded. He could not.






    I made meals just for me - it was strange. I grocery shopped only for myself, for my desired items, what did I want to eat this weekend - it was so strange. I felt single for the first time in recent memory. It was so strange. Here in life, we live. Here in life, we are living. Here in life, we live. The last two captures? Moleskine. And what was missing from this weekend - not in thought, but in physical presence. I am here, you are are here, we are here.







Monday, 15 June 2009

  • Currently
    Nico
    By Blind Melon
    see related

    Phenom. Art by Derek Albeck.



    This weekend, among all the wonderful events/exhaustion/swings, I managed to watch two movies. I've Loved You so Long and Milk. I recommend both highly and they are both additions to (along with Rachel Getting Married & Seven Pounds) my nebulous, but strict, top movies list. Heads and shoulders above the norm. You may not like them or want to watch them - one is in French, and is "slow" & I totally get not wanting to read subtitles. The other is about assassinated gay activist/politician Harvey Milk - I acknowledge that for some people this is enough of a reason to walk by it. Not in their (the movie's) defense - they need none - but mine, I suppose, was that they told stories worth telling (which is surprisingly rare) with both delicacy and strength. They were brilliantly acted/directed. I will carry them with me, I will watch them again.

    The story of I've Loved You So Long is centered on two sisters, Lea and Juliette. Juliette has been in prison for 15 years, she was dispatched when her sister Lea was still very young. There was no contact between the two until shortly before her release. They have both changed immensely and separately in that time. A location that is repeated in the film is the two sisters swimming, speaking, floating in an indoor pool, the same pool (a club/center that Lea holds membership to) and as one day Lea speaks about her life - how her academic career has changed since adopting Il Petit Lys and Emelia, comments on her colleagues and notes Mr. Lucien's (a fellow pool goer) new young lady friend, Juliette bows her head and responds, You'd forgotten about me. What? questions Lea. I said, You'd forgotten about me all of those years. They swim out of the picture and the next shot is of Lea's hands opening a box filled with journals, or what we see in the next moment are her day planners. Go on, take on at random, Lea says. Open it at any page. As Juliette does so, we see a that picture of her smiling is tucked in to the first one and then on every page as she flips through years - Juliette 429. Juliette 430. Juliette 431. The first thing I did every morning was to write your name and the number of days you'd been away. You might say it only took a few seconds, that it was just letters and numbers. But I thought so much of you in those moments. Every day. Like being reunited.


        

    Note: Derek Albeck does not just do political work. He also has done work for Vans, drawings of shaker faces and comments on the state of humanity in a clever and technically astounding way.


     

Thursday, 11 June 2009

  • Currently
    Hecho en Cuba: The Complete Collection
    By Various Artists
    see related

    Orzo Asparigi.


    I left work yesterday with excess amounts of energy. It was my self designated night to stay at home - cook supper, talk to my mother via Skype, and accomplish some of the to do items on my ever stretching list (which, to be honest, intimidates me every time I remember it/all of the time).

    I began cooking while video conversing with my Mama, talking my face off. First in the pan - the tiniest amount of butter (I am conscious, really I am, salt and butter worriers) and low heat for the diced and sliced onion and garlic. They sauteed as the volume of my voice rose up and down, my Mom listening, smiling and being lovely all the while, forgiving me for my distraction and knife waving. When I pulled out the stalks of asparagus from our cool white picture and post it covered refrigerator, I generously chopped the ends off - I wanted no woody disgusting factor from those end bits in my (hopefully delectable) dish. I worry about chopping too much off, the wasting, etc. However, those extra couple centimeters chopped prevent grimaces from crossing my face while eating - a good trade? Maybe. Waste, want, whatevs. I chopped the asparagus into a plentitude of small discs, the good end left completely whole and thrown on in with a bit of cream (the last of it, none for coffee this morning for B Mans - yike town), salt/pepper, little chili powder and a bit more butter. Add insanely slowly roasted slices chicken breast to the reducing concoction, mixed with orzo. My Mom let me go somewhere in there, and forever later, as I buzzed around getting distracted (pinning back hair, sorting clothes, soaking the garbage can) I spooned out a huge helping and cut up a medium sized tomato into eight, threw some torn up romaine, a handful of whole pecans - drizzled a bit of balsamic - and dug in. Only a two hour process - but totally worth the pleasure it afforded.

    Not the meal of last night, but one
    concocted after Valentine's way back,
    below. It's weekend time.





Tuesday, 09 June 2009

  • What I Lost In Africa.

    POSTERS BY PUBLIC SCHOOL




    I've mentioned The Moth (a story podcast) before - hook it up for yourself here. The stories are so varied - some are enlightening, some amusing, some I will only listen to once, and some I have already repeated many times. I threw it on this morning after getting a crap start to the day - no coffee, out of sorts, a few minutes late - instead of music. Music tends to equal inspiration/reflection/digestion, while voices equal companionship/company and often supply more of a brain reprieve. Today it was Josh Swiller's What I Lost in Africa.

    "See, I'm completely deaf. I can't hear anything without my hearing aids. I had about 10 years of daily speech therapy after school to learn how to speak. And it worked really well, I     speak very well. I speak so well that people don't think I'm deaf. I speak so well that people don't get how hard it is. And that's frustrating, I felt like I was living a lie - I was lying to everyone yeah yeah I can hear you - and then to myself - it doesn't matter how much I'm missing if they think I can hear. So that's how I lived growing up and I was fed up and I decided I wanted to go somewhere so far away and so intense and so immediate and find a cause that was so intense that my deafness won't matter. I thought that was Africa. But when I saw these boys running away [with his bag containing money, ID, clothes and hearing aids] I was thinking, how can deafness ever not matter? When Maria and I were at the airport saying goodbye and I'm talking and she's writing notes back to me so I can understand her, and everything's changed, and there's this ocean between us, I mean, how can deafness not matter?"

    As I was listening I was relating it to myself (of course). I could change I speak so well that people don't think I'm deaf to I handle my illness so well that people don't think I'm bipolar. And it is frustrating. Here's the thing I think that makes it so hard for me/everyone else. I have to (or feel I do) act strong on the outside because I am so weak, so thrown, so out of control on the inside. With the hurdles which people are given - Josh Swiller is deaf, I am bipolar, you are (insert yours here) reactions vary. What Josh said resonated, I've had similar lines of thought - I decided I wanted to go somewhere so far away, and so intense, and so immediate and find a cause that was so intense that my ________ won't matter.

    Figuring out how my baggage (for true lack of a better word) and how I cope with it takes up much of my energy, too much. Because it does matter. That's where I get back to. I find a way to cope, to deal, to function - I try and forget that this is something that affects my every day, I want to forget, I want to be normal, I just want to live. But it matters and (wait for it) when someone steals your hearing aids on a beach in Africa - it all comes crashing down. On the way back to his base, after he was robbed and said goodbye to to his girlfriend, the bus Josh Swiller was in had a terrible accident. The little boy Josh traded seats with for more leg room died while he watched. He ends his story with the word unfair, a deep breath and a quiet thank you before he walks off. Sometimes that is all there is to say. It's unfair, and it's reality.






Monday, 08 June 2009

  • Bombarded.


     


    A beautiful wedding ceremony. I cry, as per usual.
    I am SO NOT READY to get married.
    Summerland was so good.
    Vicky - was so good. Quality time is rare with friends (somehow) and I am grateful for this weekend's gift of it.
    Train trestles, ice cream, grafitti, clambering.
    Magic hours. This past week I was aware of so many of the magic hours, this is good.
    (Magic hour = the time of day when the sun is beginning to go down and everything is golden)
    Bombarded with way too many thoughts and collected burdens.
    Bombarded with needs real and imagined - mine, yours, ours.
    Eff. Can you fee the shifting? I can feel the shifting.
    My skin is paper thin.

    Morning (Love Sonnet XXVII) by Pablo Neruda
    Naked you are simple as one of your hands;
    Smooth, earthy, small, transparent, round.
    You've moon-lines, apple pathways
    Naked you are slender as a naked grain of wheat.

    Naked you are blue as a night in Cuba;
    You've vines and stars in your hair.
    Naked you are spacious and yellow
    As summer in a golden church.

    Naked you are tiny as one of your nails;
    Curved, subtle, rosy, till the day is born
    And you withdraw to the underground world.

    As if down a long tunnel of clothing and of chores;
    Your clear light dims, gets dressed, drops its leaves,
    And becomes a naked hand again.


Tuesday, 02 June 2009

  • Currently
    The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
    By Lauryn Hill
    see related

    But life is long and it is the long run that balances the short flare of interest and passion. (Sylvia Plath)







    Excerpted from Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje. I read this on pages 181 - 182. I am now on 279 and am still thinking about this passage.

    Anil moves in silence, the energy held back. Her body taut as an arm, the music brutal and loud in her head, while she waits for the rhythm to angle off so she can open her arms and leap. Which she does now, throwing her head back, her hair a black plume, back almost to the level of her waist. Throws her arms too, to hold the ground in her back flip, her loose skirt having no time to discover gravity and drop before she is on her feet again. /// She is waking every muscle in herself, blindfolding every rule she lives by, giving every mental skill she has to the movement of her body. Only this will lift her backward into the air and pivot her hip to send her feet over her. A scarf tied tight around her head holds the earphones to her. She needs music to push her to extremities and grace. She wants grace, and it happens here only on these mornings or after a late-afternoon downpour - when the air is light and cool, when there is also the danger of skidding on wet leaves. It feels as if she could eject herself out of her body like an arrow.

    Sarath sees her from the dining room window. He watches a person he has never seen. A girl insane, a druid in the moonlight, a thief in oil. This is not the Anil he knows. Just as she, in this state is invisible to herself, though it is the state she longs for. Not a moth in a man's club. Not the carrier and weigher of bones - she need that side of herself too, just as she likes herself as a lover. /// She stops when she is exhausted and can hardly move. She will crouch and lean there, lie on the stone. A leaf will come down. Its click of applause. The music continues furious like blood moving for a few more minutes in a dead man. She lies under the sound and witnesses her brain coming back, lighting its candle in the dark. And breathes in and breathes out and breathes in and breathes out.

    Blow your mind art/murals by MAYA HAYUK and collaborators. Last image - today's moleskin.







Monday, 01 June 2009

  • Currently
    I'm a Mountain
    By Sarah Harmer
    see related

    Everybody has come home.


    When the days close on the memories that you've acquired
    And your body cannot hold your soul inspired
    You are here and not alone
    Everybody has come home
    There's a bed made up upstairs
    If you get tired

    All the heaviness around you will get light
    And your worry lifted up into the night
    Left with nothing but pure love
    Left with all you are made of
    Can I stay around awhile
    Is that all right?

    Oh lives don't end
    Goin' out to be brought back again
    Our lives don't end





    You are here and not alone. (Lyrics by Sarah Harmer. Garden of words/verses on moleskine collected from Taize, the lorica, the psalms. New poems on a National Post Corona ad, written on the way to and from the Gorge)

    Talking about faith - is a minefield. The chance and depth of misunderstanding so evident, so deep (to/for me). I have analyzed, argued, discussed religion/faith to death. Now that I'm being quiet, I feel the weight of my silence. I feel I am letting people down who I care deeply for, that I am failing to be an inspiration or encouragement (I must inspire everyone! All ! the ! time!) I feel illegitimate and I feel discounted (at times). I feel accepted, I feel supported (at times). Saying that I have few words to describe what exactly is taking place in me does not equal disbelief - it does not equal disconnection and it does not show a lack of commitment. It is, in fact, the opposite. It is the birth, it is the follow through. Perhaps it is that that I should communicate more clearly.

    Over and over - what has had any effect on my/others lives is the way and spirit with which I move through the world. This has not stopped, I am still moving. I am still learning, I am still grounded. And I am still firm. I still sob (sometimes) in the corners of bedrooms, huddled in a ball, my arms wrapped around my legs as tightly as possible - biting my hand to keep from crying out loud, alerting the people happily talking of books and pie to my state. I wonder if there will bruises tomorrow. I try not to break the skin. It feels different this time, my 120 pound frame feels strong and frail at the same time, my body wracked with the outpouring of all held in - the starving, the misunderstood, the pain is rushing around me. Among this, I think of the happiness of the women in my life. My mother, Meg - I imagine them content in a reading chair or in someone's arms. I think of Rosie and how she spread a table the last time I felt desperate. I know they would pick up the phone, I know they would welcome my call - this is enough. It is not a bad thing, this existence of sorrow, of great grief, and I have grown used to existing with it like this. I know how to exist with it alone in a room shaking, I do not know how to bring people into it. I am not sure it is needed or good, and I will never ask. I am already held in many hands and for now, perhaps for always, this is enough.

    The Taize service was moving on Saturday - Taize combined with the Abbey is a pretty amazing combination. "Since my youth, I think that I have never lost the intuition that community life could be a sign that God is love, and love alone. Gradually the conviction took shape in me that it was essential to create a community with men determined to give their whole life and who would always try to understand one another and be reconciled, a community where kindness of heart and simplicity would be at the centre of everything." - Brother Roger, founder of the Taize community in France

    I will leave you with a few more words from another. "Our vocation is not simply to be, but to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own identity, our own destiny. We are free beings and sons of God. This means to say that we should not passively exist but actively participate in His creative freedom, in our own lives, in the lives of others, by choosing truth." -Thomas Merton

    My body can not hold my soul inspired, it is my body and my interaction with all that is beyond it, what flows in and out that holds me - it is that hands that hold me. There's a bed made up upstairs if you get tired. It is commitment, it is simplicity, it is swollen eyes.



Thursday, 28 May 2009

  • SASQUATCH 2009.











    I've been throwing around the word epic a lot in regard to this weekend. But it works - for real.

    EPIC: Noun a long poem, typically one derived from ancient oral tradition, narrating the deeds and adventures of heroic or legendary figures or the history of a nation; a long film, book, or other work portraying heroic deeds and adventures or covering an extended period of time
    Adjective of, relating to, or characteristic of an epic or epics

    We, a clan of six to begin with, left at 3 pm (we could tell by the sun's position in the sky) yet did not arrive at our destination until 11 pm that night. While going through the mountain pass, along with many other caravans, we inched slowly through three passes of the hour until finally - the cork flew out of the bottle and we gathered speed out of its neck, flowing like liquid up and down, up and down to a great chasm in the midst of the majestic Washington state. The Gorge outside of George, Washington. We arrived at long last & set up camp by the light of both traditional and Newton's fires. After set up and sustenance (smokies, meat, unhggggg - said the men) four set off to explore the camp they had joined, as one stayed behind to guard theirs. As the intrepid four wandered in search of purported comrades among thousands of people, the convoys were still lined up for miles. I wandered ahead, ever moving, as my friends heard a yell - "Beeeeeethhhhhh!" She leaped out of the rented RV, I turned and we embraced tightly - brothers from another mother (our shared hometown, Regina SK) and having been through adventures with this lady before, I was glad to welcome a seventh member to our clan. The next day, a short sleep away, we played with discs that flew through the air and guzzled liquids to guard against the heat, more comforting than oppressive at this point - and headed towards the concert grounds, our heart and feet pounding with movement - current and anticipated. Four more friends, from home and heart joined by happy accident when our cell phones all failed us.

    Slathering on suncscreen we claimed our territory and opened our ears. Doves, Decemberists feat. Shara Worden, M.Ward, Animal Collective, Devotchka, Kings of Leon, Yeah yeah yeahs (KAREN O! Beyond...) Bon Iver (ahhhhhhh)    , and as you can understand with a list so inspiring: a few us were unable to leave the epicenter of sound - the stage with the sky as its backdrop - and after hours in the relentless sun we were fading fast - exhausted, dehydrated, wilting as the moments passed when a clear gatorade water filled with H20 (not whiskey, not vodka, not....urine!) was thrust at us along with a smiling bearded face. "You need water, I have water!" And thus, three new members of the clan were born throughout a storybook set played start to finish - we teared, we smiled, we exclaimed, we congratulated on convocation from Dal, we were transfixed. Friend's eyes exchanging wonder without words, all we could do was grin and shake our heads, smile and sigh, close our eyes to shut out everything but the sound and open them again to refill. Turning our heads to connect the dots, we connected.

    As night fell and we welcomed the cooler air caressing our sunburnt and sweat encrusted skin, we slowly headed back to the tent city, gathering one last member on the long road home. This one won us over by his earnest nature, and his unapologetic love of M. Ward and microbiology. We ate and ate and after only stopping to sleep for the fewest of hours, we continued. And although not pictured - we headed down at 12 noon to a terrible terrible exclusive American summer community (members only members only) but despite a very unfavorable first impression, we found our way to the icy river and drenched our hot hot hot bodies. With cold hands we flew through the air in an ultimate fashion to catch and intercept discs with ease (sometimes) and crashes (sometimes) and trouble (sometimes). We lay on the lush grass, fed with money - not ours - and soaked the moments in.

    Dearest Gorge, dearest Sasquatch,
    you were good to us and we thought of you all the way home. Don't find another lover.
    We may not be Ulysses, we may be no Beowolf, but we are your epic.
    We'll be back next year. Xoxo.







Tuesday, 26 May 2009

  • Currently
    Circles in the Stream
    By Bruce Cockburn
    see related

    Photos/lyrics by Genii.


    I am thinking it's a sign
    That the freckles in our eyes
    Are mirror images and
    When we kiss they're perfectly aligned

    And I have to speculate
    That God himself did make us into
    Corresponding shapes like puzzle pieces
    From the clay

     

     




    (Photos by BMans)

    (IRON & WINE - Such Great Heights) >>> Who I am going to see on Friday night this August at Regina Folk Festival. Along with Basia Bulat (have not listened to, but have heard about for ages - she was touring with Final Fantasy last time I neglected to go to her show) Plants and Animals, K-Os (who Steve played while stuck in traffic on the way to Sasquatch - what have I been doing not listening to that sweet sweet man?) and Delhi 2 Dublin (who I have never heard of and will not judge too harshly for using a number instead of letters and instead focus on the two excellent cities in their name). All for 35 bones. Holla.

    Tomorrow, I am picking up my pictures from Sasquatch. Oh. Man. Get ready.

Monday, 25 May 2009

  • Currently
    Merriweather Post Pavilion
    By Animal Collective
    see related

    In Among (I Arise).



    (I quote the lorica (the deer's cry) - breastplate of st. patrick - 433 a.c.e  > All the italics in the entry) I am overflowing. This entry will be a little gushy - spilling and slopping out like cool water from a glass - the refractions of sunlight covering the area around it with tiny little shards of light, I arise today through a mighty strength. I am home from Sasquatch, from time with dear friends and beloved musicians - from new friends! - with sunburnt skin, and tired bones with energy filled marrow.

    I am staying steady. I am not running, I am staying. It is astonishing! I am still foolish. I still drink too much boxed wine. I am not as careful as I should be, but I am full. Is this okay? I am remembering this idea called grace, but it is a strange thing - it seems a contraction more than a reality in most moments.     Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me, Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me. Is it is possible with all the crevasses - the huge disparity of human existence and action to believe in the idea of something so beautiful? Freedom, love, acceptance extended to us, by us, through us - with no hand left waiting for a return. This is not the world I live in. This is not the person I am. But on this day, in these days I have been living, it has been happening - no hands left waiting, just extensions of kind words, smiles, and gestures.

    I arise today, through the strength of Heaven; light of Sun, brilliance of Moon, splendor of Fire, speed of Lightning, swiftness of Wind, depth of Sea, stability of Earth, firmness of Rock.





    In response to one such extension from Andrea in Winnnipeg I replied this (paraphrased) :

    I must admit, reading the Bible verses - my reaction to the verses once so dear, beautiful and comforting is not so pure anymore. I have been feeling unmoored in my faith recently - still living, and firm in it, the path set out for me in terms of being a follower of Christ, but in my heart and soul feeling so unsure of all the traditional framework. It will resolve, slowly - but this reaction of largely discomfort to words so beautiful just because they belong to a tome so misused is distressing.

    To even bring up my spritual location or, disclocation rather, is something I have not done in a long while. Something was catalyzed the day I spent with Ben and Johanna last summer, that conversation so chalIenging - it reminded me to fight again. To listen to what is inside and outside of me. To be more honest, to try to be more honest - that even though people I care for & respect with so much depth see things with their brains and hearts in different ways - I am not the same. And that is okay. (Deep breaths times a billion.)     I arise today.

    So, now, I am a little unmoored - the panic has now gone of having no ground to stand on. I feel I have a place in the world around me - the living breathing humming messy peaceful world where life and the source of it is evident, but not in the traditional christian framework and system of the church. Wtf? I know I am being glib with that exclamation, for what may or not be a bombshell, and I am not going to distill it any further at this moment. Why now? Why on the frickin' internet? More time, more space, less questions asked back (I have no answers.) I don't know. I am meditating, mostly wordless in the very quiet on this source of life. Sometimes to it, but I do not know this Source - I have been too busy pretending I knew for a long time, and I do not know how to do this. So I am trying to be quiet. I am reading Merton, Nouwen, I am trying to listen with more attentive ears to those around me - they hold wisdom.

    I arise today, through the light of Sun, brilliance of Moon, splendor of Fire, speed of Lightning,
    swiftness of Wind, depth of Sea, stability of Earth, firmness of Rock ---
    against snares of devils, against temptations of vices,
    against inclinations of nature, against everyone who shall wish me ill,
    afar and anear, alone and in a crowd.

    I summon today all these powers between me (and these evils):
    against every cruel and merciless power that may oppose my body and my soul,
    against burning, against drowning, against wounding,

    I arise today.



Friday, 22 May 2009

  • Currently
    Only as the Day Is Long
    By Sera Cahoone
    see related

    The Days are Alive.



    When the days close on the memories that you’ve acquired
    And your body cannot hold your soul inspired
    You are here and not alone
    Everybody has come home
    There’s a bed made up upstairs
    If you get tired

    Oh lives don’t end
    Goin’ out to be brought back again
    Our lives don’t end

    The lyrics above are Sarah's Harmer's. Our lives don't end. Fires goin' out to be brought back again, our lives don't end. I stayed in bed for an hour past my 6 45 alarm set (why so early? I don't know. It seems like a very normal idea when I set it) which still saw me wandering out of bed before 8 00 - guilt free. I am mostly packed for the weekend ahead (Sasquatch music festival at the Gorge in Washington) although my current rocking of another near daily routine may get me into trouble. That routine being that I get up with loads of time available, then proceed to lollygag around, with or without Beth, making breakfast, drinking coffee, enjoying the morning light, and interneting until I am most definitely going to be late for wherever I am going. However, the enjoyment it brings to start the day in the opposite of rush means it will not be changing anytime soon. To paraphrase Into The Wild in a less serious manner, "It's (She's) a little stupid, but I like it (her)."

    While I just used the quote to refer my current pastime - in the movie a lovely/lovable man from Copenhagen with a goofy widetoothed smile says it about his companion Sonja - and all I can do is smile as his earnestness and good vibes.





    Everyone's saying the best is already gone, but I know what we got coming 'round.
    The days are alive and filled up with changes, it's only half of what we got coming 'round.

    The days are alive, lyrics by Sera Cahoone (one of last year's Sasquatch discoveries) and they're filled up with changes. The best isn't already gone, I swear - it's only half of what we've got coming round.     Love it. I've often held to the idea that's there's more to come - good (preferably and most often daydreamed) and bad (will happen, definitely, it shows up in nightmares, and all the black hole moments) - everything else fills the in between. That I've only experienced half what will come, seems pretty great.

    Into the Wild playing in the background as I tap away today, cheater style, watching only the light and happy scenes - the rapids, his time at the slabs with Jan and Rainey - the old man at Salvation Mountain.     "So, you really believe in love?" "Totally." [Imagine that totally said by the most beautiful, birdlike, leathery, serious and smiley old man, Leonard Knight, who built Salvation Mountain (a real place), with more sincerity that you hear in a year.]

    Au revoir, my friends. I am off to a hairy good time at the Gorge.

Wednesday, 20 May 2009

  • On Seeing the Rain Fall or Sur voir la chute de pluie







    Art by Nous Vous. Phrase below planted in my head while watching INTO THE WILD.


    With characteristic immoderation -  this phrase has been drifting around my head, leisurely ping ponging off the insides of my cranial cavity for a few days. And he did so with characteristic immoderation. She did so with characteristic immoderation. The sky fell today with characteristic immoderation.

    Tiff and I coordinated our lunch hours today, warmed up leftovers/ate toasted sandwich/sipped an americano, and chattered excitedly about fall classes, registration dates and the literal mapping out of possibilities. As we headed out the door, the rapping of rain against the pavement was impossible to ignore, even while still under cover and the heavy, insistent drops splashed on my head as I covered the few meters uncovered to my car in a dash. The sky was emptying out in sections, blue sky breaking through as each piece emptied its load - releasing its despair, sadness or weight of many small things built up over time. There is the increasingly stressful reality of pollutants entering its personal space and the fact that all the little people below it endlessly complain and insult its state of being (too sunny, not sunny enough, too rainy, too dreary, so depressing, and so on) without fail, and then blame their own emotional state on the innocuous expanse above them weighing on it. Rarely does there seems to be any thanks extended up for the ever present shield it offers- there are a great many scary ass things in space & the sky takes the brunt of them without complaint and perhaps it is this lack of gratitude more than anything that caused the sky to break down today and empty its load in uncontrolled bursts.

    She thought of the future with characteristic immoderation. She felt the pain of death, she felt her heart thump, she coalsced her thoughts, all with characteristic immoderation. The sky fell and left the most beautiful open wounds of blue light, and she walked with the slightest bound towards the rest of her day.


Tuesday, 19 May 2009

eja_crepusculario

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    • Name: Beth
    • Member Since: 3/25/2005

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