sabato, novembre 12, 2005

Wave that flag or shake that ass

Saw Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings at the Horseshoe last night. Good company, bad energy. Everybody was at a low ebb, sometimes reaching actual illness. Some of the company left almost as soon as the show began, and the rest of us trickled out with fluidity. Maybe it was Mr. T’s Flowers, as Lady Smellypants disingenuously calls the reefer from our adorable Man. I don’t think so though, as I was fine outside of an end-of-week exhaustion and I’m known more for my enjoyment of the Handsome Blossom than any high tolerance of its nocive effects. In fact, I fainted at Pride just this summer. Mortifying. If you see me about to faint, remind me to just fall down and not grab onto people as I try not to fall down. Because at such times, down you must fall and no fooling.

I think part of that bad energy was Sharon Jones herself. Nothing to do with her band. They rocked every which way and made my bones feel goooood. And nothing to do with the woman's obvious skills. She has a hell of a stage presence and a wicked voice with the slaphappy power of an atomic buzz saw. Still, she lost us in two ways.

First was political. Marvin Gaye showed the planet soul music can be political and wonderful, but his themes were universal. Sharon Jones belted out the original (not Canadian, god forbid) version of ‘This Land Is Your Land’: that isn’t universal. Neither is George W. Bush, who got his own lengthy number. He’s the elected head of another country, and while the legality of the practices of that country is controversial, George W. Bush isn’t. He’s there because enough people wanted him or because American democracy is flawed; either way he’s no Castro or Hu Jintao. Fuck. Is it so hard to imagine that when we get our fine Canadian booty shaking, we don’t want it to be to United States anthems or denunciations of George W. Bush? It seems no matter what some Americans’ dumb fuck political affiliations are, the notion that people in other countries might not care is beyond them. Second reason Jones lost us was the choice of non-political songs. She gave a high energy but harmonically flat cover of ‘Respect’, for example. We’ve all heard Aretha Franklin give 'Respect' energy and tune too often for that to do. I would have liked to hear Jones singing more typical male-voice standards; her voice has the kick, not the range.

Ah, I’m probably just whining because I was part of the bad energy last night. But I went there expecting some harmonies and tunes and things, and what I got hardly kept me awake. Anyways, tonight is the opera, so hurrah. If the flyer isn’t lying to me, Renaud gets naked, which is fun. Naked opera! I saw a naked ballet in Paris a couple of years back. The dancer performing had a substantial package, which performed a pendulous little dance of its own in response to that of its owner. Packages are awesome.

venerdì, novembre 11, 2005

11/11/11 and Smack

Remembrance Day, Armistice Day, Veterans’ Day. The Great War ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. Bunch of poncey fucking twatty fucknard cocksuckers. Oh, it gets my blood going. 9 million young men die, civilians get extra fucked-over because any pretence at ‘chivalry’ goes up in aeroplane exhaust, and the Armenian Genocide gets slipped in under the radar (not that I have any confidence in the international community to intervene in any genocide anywhere anytime); there’s no symmetry, no beauty or rhyme or reason here, and the poncey fucking twatty fucknard cocksuckers still have to try to make it all pretty and meaningful by calling it off on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. MAKE IT ALL PRETTY AND MEANINGFUL BY NOT DOING IT AGAIN, COCKSUCKERS. And then less then a generation later . . .

God, Remembrance Day puts me in a foul fucking mood. Usually I can live with the fact that man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards, that conflict is a part of life, that we’re all a bunch of territorial animals, and such. But today I get overwhelmed with frustration about how countryfuls of people get led to the slaughter by more or less charismatic leaders taking cleverly cynical advantage of their nationalism and territoriality.

I recommend a book that, according to the author who I met during a trip New York this September, nobody but me read – Rediscover Toast, by Alfred Wolfgang Truss. Not only does the author have the best nom de plume I’ve ever heard, but he conjured up a very vivid paranoid vision of a patrician class dominating global politics whose purpose was almost wholly to control population growth. I think my paranoia-levels are low, and that most truths are evident if you think about them for a second. But I wear the poppies, I look at the poppies other people are wearing, and today I'm not thinking Flander's Fields so much as the heavy, smacked-out sleep the population goes into when they play along with the horrific.

Okay, enough about how dumb people are and how much I hate them. Time for my new favourite word. 'Schadenfreude'. Guesses? Anybody know already? Bonus points if you can tell me how to pronounce it.

giovedì, novembre 10, 2005

Country music

I'm in a state of damp anticipation over Walk the Line (November 18th, baby, November 18th) which isn't just due to an ingrained genetic need to see Joaquin Phoenix existing. I haven't seen a Joaquin Phoenix film since Gladiator, and I'm not %100 sure I've ever seen another. Was he in Clay Pigeons? Or was that some other slightly doughy but not-to-be-denied piece of fine Americana? Too lazy to Google. As J*Fish and I concurred last night, the internet makes life and knowing stuff absurdly, obscenely easy, but my laziness will prevail. I shall overcome . . .

So, state of damp anticipation over Walk the Line. Johnny Cash is some kind of wonderful. Live at San Quentin is the only live album I'll sit down with and listen the crap out of. I realized when one of my stellar brothers played it for me, at 18 or something, that country music is not irredeemable shit. In fact, Live at San Quentin might have been the album that convinced my stunted little-girl-brain of the basic but oft-ignored fact that any good music is good music.

In that spirit I went to see Colonel Tom's Swinging Door, an incarnation of the Backstabbers, last night at the Cameron House - sweet. Bob Hannen's vocals were especially nice, and the bass player was hot. Hot! What is it with bass players? Bass players and drummers? Bass players, drummers, and guitarists? And pianists? And baritones? And counter-tenors? And painters, photographers, and dancers? Oh artists. But I digress. It was good. Bluegrassy. Bob Hannen's vocals were tenor-y, if country types talk about things like that - harmonies were good. Being born after 1970, a good fifth of my listening brain was confused by the lack of drum. Man, thank FUCK for Motown; it gave us the right to expect a good throbbing line anytime we want it. But it was good. I reckon 'I Still Miss Someone' was what really did it for me, Bob Hannen taking the lead so sweetly I didn't wonder why his kind lilt wasn't a Cash-y growl.

Anyways. This is leading up to the release of Walk the Line, which I'm anticipating. The only thing that worries me is that it will be crappily cobbled together in a rush to dash down the trail Ray blazed for biopics about troubled, inspirational musical geniuses. Incidentally, did you know Ray Charles did an album of country music standards in 1962? And that it's good?

J*Fish thinks the mad-dash thing isn't the case; he thinks that a biopic about Johnny Cash has been in the works for years because of the man's crazy life, getting busted smuggling drugs across Mexican border and whatnot. I'm not sure. Paul McCartney got busted in Japan for smuggling reefer, an intoxicant I've got a more loving relationship with than all those weird-ass pills American musicians poured down thier gullets through the 60s and 70s. And much as I love reefer, and as much as I've been divinely basculated by some of the music Paul McCartney has produced, I doubt I'd want see a biopic about him.

Unless it starred Joaquin Phoenix.

Ah, it's all a complex tapestry.



Speaking of which, the adorability of today's MSN gossip sheet is making me wonder if, in fact, it could be love:

Talk of trouble began at the film's L.A. premiere Thursday night, when Phoenix felt something funny hoppin' on his noggin during an interview with the Associated Press.

"Do I have a large frog in my hair?" he asked the reporter, who assured him his coif was amphibian-free. "Something's crawling out of my scalp," the star explained.

Despite the journalist's assertion that he "looked great," Joaquin wasn't convinced: "No, but I feel it. I'm not worried about the looks. I'm worried about the sensation of my brain being eaten ... What did you ask me?"

mercoledì, novembre 09, 2005

"There is no folly so besotted . .

that the idiotic rivalries of society, the prurience, the rashness, the blindness of youth, will not hurry a man to its commission."

Never thought I had much in common with Mr. Rochester - always thought I was more like sweet, morally upstanding, quietly clever Jane Eyre - but here I am. All of which is to say that in my post-needley temperature and illness I dreamt about my crazy ex 'spouse' (or whatever he counts as under French law), which suggests, Bertha Mason-esque, he's still locked in my mental attic. One of those nightmares where you're STILL THERE - nothing has changed and you wake up wondering how the hell to get out.

Can I make some friendly suggestions this miserable morning?

1. Don't use dumbfuck, dumbfuck reasons like these to convince yourself to commit to people, no matter how nice, rich, and loving they seem:
a)he/she is the opposite of the person who broke your heart before him/her
b) he/she is what this naughty world calls a '
catch' (see Mr. Rochester)

2. Leave as soon as you know you're going to

3. Being crazy-in-love-like-Beyoncé-Knowles (oh Pocket Dwellers - somebody let me know if I use too many similes, ok?) might not be all you need to make a relationship work, but take it away altogether and you're fucked

4. Out of all the fleshly sins (lust, gluttony, sloth, and anger), anger is by far the worst. Both to feel, and to watch. Day after day after motherfucking day

5. Reefer is for fun, not to help you ignore all the shitty things about your life you should be doing something about

6. There are far, far worse things in this life than being alone. So single people should stop. Fucking. Whining.




Enough of being a cautionary tale. Time for:

CUTE EXPRESSION OF THE DAY

Roman dialect from the Claudio Baglioni song 'Porta Portese': L'amore fa penà ma nun se mòre

Guess! Try saying it out loud. Clue: in AltaVista German - Liebeursachen schmerzen, aber töten Sie nicht

Don't listen to the song though. Poor Italian music. It's like when Puccini died they all decided not to care anymore.

martedì, novembre 08, 2005

Cute word of the day

Italian: Ventiquattrore

Guess what it means! Guess guess guess! This word has gone straight into my top ten. Right up there with 'parthenogenesis' and 'fuck'.

Let's see if I can put all three into one sentence to help you guess:

I remembered to put a whole box of condoms in my ventiquattrore, so the only way I'm getting pregnant this weekend is if that fucking parthenogenesis kicks in.

Don't look in a dictionary! Guess!

Updated clue:

Russian = ночной мешок
Dutch = nachtelijke zak

***************JOHANNES WINS!!!!!!!!!!***************

Ventiquattrore = overnight bag; travel bag that contains everything you'd need for 24 hours.

YAY JOHANNES! You win beer on my next trip to Ottawa, if you're unfortunate enough to still be there on that hypothetical day.

Want to know something gross about me?

I was once a finicky eater, willfully cutting myself off from deliciousness like sun dried tomatoes, pickled cabbage, sushi, olives, even mushrooms. I was a beast, a masochistic little beast. When I moved out of my parent's home at 18 I got better, since they weren't around to unimpress by me turning up my nose at my father's beautiful cooking. Also Ottawa, such as it was, offered better dining possibilities than the Bay.

But then I moved to Florence and met the best cook I've ever met in what has been a disproportionately lucky 27 years of meeting stellar cooks. He led me into a whole new world of delicious, delicious food. And it doesn't stop. Yesterday, Mr. Man tore down one of my last food hate-ons; oh, he should go into culinary conflict resolution!

Up until then I hated eggplant. I would only eat it if it was pickled into unrecognizability in oil with hot pepper, garlic, and a lot of salt (a piéce de resistance he laughed at me for not eating back in the day) or if it was cooked into unrecognizability at a North African or Middle Eastern restaurant (and then mostly out of a WASPy need to eat everything on the plate). And yesterday - words fail me so I'll cut and paste his:

'Here's one for you. Slice a Melanzane rather thinly. Then let it stand for a while. Then rinse and cut it in thin strips, almost like chips. Then put them into the oven with oil, garlic and the juice of one lemon. Leave them on a low heat for about an hour. When they're done sprinkle with parsley. It will change your life as it has changed mine.'

Oh eggplant. So many wasted years! Can you ever forgive me? Apparently you have, because YOU'RE SO FUCKING GOOD. So, another gross thing is needles. I had one recently. A flu shot. When it comes to sheer mortal terror, I have a hard time dissembling, and of course the nurse doing me couldn't fail to notice. Here's what happened:


An Autumn's Tale


Mlle La Spliffe enters the room. Her skin is white and clammy; her hands trembling.

MLS: Hello. (abrubtly)

Nurse: (sitting at table) Good morning!

She stumbles to the chair and sits heavily; her chin starts to tremble as she sees the vaccination accoutrements on the table. The Nurse smiles.

Nurse: Scared of needles?

MLS: Yes. (concentrates on floor)

Nurse trembles with silent laughter. MLS's teeth chatter.

Nurse: Right or left-handed.

MLS: Uhhhmmmm . . . (holds up hands and stares at them blankly for a moment) This one. (Indicates right)

Nurse: I'll need the left then.

MLS's mouth gawps open as she envisions her left arm dangling uselessly at her side after being paralysed by the flu shot. She spins in her chair to face the wall, throws her left arm to the mercy of the nurse, and stifles a scream

Nurse: Don't faint, okay?

MLS: Fine.

MLS's chin trembles even more as the Nurse swabs her arm and the sound of the safety coming off the needle is heard. She stares at the wall like it's some nice person who might intervene in the travesty that's about to go down if she just looks sad enough.

The Nurse stabs the needle into MLS's arm. IT HURTS. IT HURTS ALOT.

MLS: Oh sweet fuck!

Nurse: There you are.

THE NEEDLE IS STILL FUCKING IN MLS'S ARM. Her skin turns a completely new shade of green as she realizes she can feel the steel puncturing her rippling muscles.

Nurse: (after far too long) All done. That wasn't so bad, was it?

MLS: Yeeeeeeurgh.

Send flowers.

lunedì, novembre 07, 2005

Speaking of melancholy. . .

John Fowles is dead. And I wouldn't be sad now, except the French Lieutenant's Woman was the first superb modern novel I ever read; really opened a whole new world. Nearly 14 years on and I still reccommend it. Not the movie. That blew. Fucking Meryl Streep. Oh man. Thanks for not blowing, John Fowles.

So many men I'm in love with are dead! Ghengis Khan, Bruce Chatwin, Laurence Olivier, John Fowles . . . all I have left is Joaquin Phoenix, Roméo Dallaire, Vincent Cassel, Bill Withers, Daniel Craig, strippers, Italians, Paolo Szot, Daniel Taylor, Stéphane Rousseau, Banquo, MacDuff, and a few other guys.

Yep, time to shut up. I love every boy!

My beautiful, beautiful navel . . .

I’m still in a mood about Paris – can’t stay there for two and a half years without caring when it goes through one of its periodic freak-outs. But looking over Costume Jewelry I realized I’m doing a lousy job of the obsessive navel-gazing the forum was designed for. So, here goes.

Little G and I talked about birth control pills a few days ago. She just started for the first time for medical reasons, and so far is happy, and I was happy she was happy. Happiness! She asked how I’d felt about them after using them awhile, and I said (thoughtlessly – reefer madness) I hated them and was glad to be off them. She asked why, and I had to think. It's not the idea the sex drive suffers; I'm pretty sure that feeling is just your body knowing you shouldn't be sexing the man in question before your brain does. And it’s not out of a passion for interrupting fine loving to stick icky latex between me and my fine lover. So I said, I don’t like them because they even me out. Little G gave me a look.

Yes, I know. We’re supposed to be evened out, aren’t we? Even out my fine round ass, says I. Unless we’re suffering a clinical state that stops us from getting out of bed or makes us attack ourselves or the people around us, we should embrace our swinging moods. I’m willing to tolerate all sorts of melancholy if I get the corresponding highs. I wouldn’t be pissy about Paris now if the city hadn’t enchanted me; I wouldn’t have had to wipe my weepy, non-smoking nose with cigarettes from time to time over men if those men hadn’t made me happy and enthusiastic; and I wouldn’t get into a bitch-funk over my lifestyle if I didn’t aspire to something nicer that I've tasted and want to taste again. Even myself out? Fuck that. The aftermath of menopause will do it for me someday anyways.

Ah, the voice of madness. It’s probably on my mind because I’m in a really nice maudlin state at the moment. This morning, as I was listening to Bill Withers sing ‘Grandma’s Hands’ in the sunshiny crisp weather, I shed maybe four tears. Even though my Nona died before I was born and Granny, still around, is nothing like Bill Wither’s grandma. I reckon I have the luxury of embracing the vagaries of my moods because I live alone with a really tolerant cat. Whenever one of my moods pisses her off, I just have to scratch her neck for a minute. As pictured.

domenica, novembre 06, 2005

My imaginary friend can kick your imaginary friend's BUTT

Communism 'started’ in England. It wasn't due to take off in feudal countries like Russia and Mongolia until after a proper industrial revolution - but it did anyways. The socio-economic conditions - hungry people, a rotten power structure- were ripe for the horror that was the Bolshevik Revolution. Even if they weren’t what Engels and Marx were thinking of when they were thinking of a pre-revolutionary society. You get me?

Johannes suggested that the religious extremists reportedly goading on the rioters in France are following the lead of the Saudi Arabians, who ‘started' reactionary Muslim extremism. However, I'm unconvinced that Saudi Arabian extremism is the key to understanding French Muslim extremism, and I'm sure it's got essentially dick to do with understanding the present race riots. Being Maghrebin in France has nothing to do with anything about being a Saudi Arabian in Saudi Arabia. Especially considering most Maghrebins I’ve spoken to on the subject have opined that all the guys in Saudi Arabia are gay. And, that that isn't cool.

This is a socio-economic question, not a religious one. Religions are just a bunch of made-up shitty ass dogmas people get excited about to give meaning to their socio-economic problems and to avoid spending time and energy approaching the divine directly. If it wasn't a bunch of Muslims goading on the rioters, it'd be a bunch of Catholics, Protestants, communists, fascists, anarchists, or whichever other retarded ideological force has turned Europe into a long series of ridiculous civil wars and bloodbaths by taking advantage of the anger of the marginalized and the paranoia of the dominant.

Instead of talking about Christian/Islamic incompatibility, it might make more sense to consider the social history of North Africa and the Near East versus that of Europe. Trying to work out the difficulty of communication between traditionally nomadic and clan-based nations and the more sedentary and mercantile European background is a lot more useful than wringing our hands over the crazy religions that sprang out of both conditions and got flogged to make everybody involved hate each other. Bruce Chatwin had some interesting things to say about this. I bet he was just stinking hot when he was alive.

That was just pillow talk, honey

Race riots in Paris! Quelle surprise! There are some things I would have adored to be wrong about. One of these things was the powderkeg-ishness of the Parisian ‘suburbs’, some of which I lived in and next to. How I harped on! ‘An Orwellian and cosmetic denial of the ghetto dynamic.’ ‘Post-colonial racism and chauvinism, rendering integration impossible and conflict inevitable’. ‘The systemic demonization of the Maghrebin’, ‘fundamentalist trends and reactionary sexism kick-started through police brutality and economic victimization’. Oh, and let’s not forget my favorite, ‘the simultaneous marginalization and abandonment of Muslim women by their own government’ following the headscarf ban.

How I opined! How I used big fancy words! How I attacked French interlocutors for their self-righteous condemnation of North American racism when the natives and the immigrants lived in two very different and very antipathetic solitudes!

Who cares how right I was. We’ll all be dead someday, the Earth will be swallowed by the sun, and everybody plays the fool sometimes. Saying it doesn’t change it. France would be Germany if the natives weren’t chauvinistic enough to put a line about ‘fertilizing the fields with the impure blood of the enemy’ in their national anthem; it wouldn’t exist if it hadn’t been an exploitative colonial power in Africa; it would be speaking English if it hadn’t been able to import cheap pools of unskilled labour from its old colonies after World War II; it would be of little diplomatic importance without its domination of ex-colonies’ political establishments now and through the Cold War; and even broker, if such a thing is possible, without its present economic interests in old colonies. France wouldn’t be France if it weren’t on fire right now.

That blows. That blows way worse than being wrong. It’s a beautiful country full of beautiful people, who are suffering the consequences and enjoying the benefits of an imperial history and who have an incredible talent for denying the brutally obvious. I love that country way too much to think about it as a bleak-ass cautionary tale. But what else is there to think?