Monday, December 06, 2004

there's a little tyrant in us all

A few weeks ago I swore that I would not join the voices which have opposed the imperial politics of George W. Bush’s America. By this I do not wish to suggest my complicity with the building of Empire, or the politics and culture of warmongering and domination required as the fundament of such an enterprise. Rather, I felt that a different approach was required. The cool thing about George Bush’s America is, of course, America and not its leader. Putting aside for a second the legality of either of Bush’s two terms in office – the computer fraud of 2004 is no more legitimate than the judicial fraud of 2000 – it is important to note that he is precisely the leader for the job.

It is facile and immature to blame one individual, no matter how seemingly powerful they may be, for systemic failures. Let me make this perfectly clear: George W. Bush is not the most evil man in the world, he is not the bane of decent civilization everywhere. If you truly believe that Bush is conspiring the vicious and repressive control of people and resources, then you are giving him the benefit of an intelligence which, in such a tragically funny manner as his infamous “they misunderestimated me” phrase, he simply has not demonstrated himself to possess.

True, there are many within the current military-industrial power elite of America who are indeed conspiring to control the world’s energy resources. Cheney, Rumsfeld, the rest of the Bush family, and the like, have in fact, under the guise of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), so thoughtfully provided documentary evidence of their endeavours on their website (www.newamericancentury.org) for future war crimes prosecution. And it is again true that many of these same people stand to enjoy significant economic gains by waging war against foreign and domestic populations, as they in effect transfer tax dollars to their companies through the fun catch-all of defence spending.

I do think, however, that it is important to take a step back a bit and observe the system as a whole rather than get fixated on one stupidly arrogant and fascistic Alfred E. Newman-esque part. If we are to believe that government reflects the people, it is easy to see how North American lifestyles so easily and categorically support the occupation of foreign lands and resources. Almost everything we use we over-consume. Oil is merely the most painfully obvious example of this capacity of ours. It is simply not fair to accuse Bush of being an evil person for invading another country for oil, when we ourselves use oil on a daily basis thus fuelling demand. He just stupidly followed the whim of his people – you want oil, then baby you got it. George’s what me worry? face, glossing even the most deplorably criminal and inhuman actions which his government has inflicted upon others with a certain je ne sais quoi, proves to us that even puppets can kill.

The Project for a New American Century is itself not a novel concept. The elder Bush’s New World Order, given to us as America’s wily first step to secure Iraqi oil as the first Gulf War, precedes it like a tragic nickname from childhood. A misnomer, it is neither new nor is it orderly. Humans have been fighting for the control of resources for the entirety of our existence, and the strategic control of the world’s rapidly diminishing oil supply is merely the newest occurrence of this trend. However, this particular instance can be regarded as being more widespread in terms of the territory it covers and the extent to which it will be felt by the world’s population. Neither can this hegemony of energy resources by called an orderly affair, as the horrific mess which was created in Iraq and Afghanistan during at least the past 13 years attests. More to the point however, the tendency towards violence will increase substantively as oil supplies begin to be outstripped by demand. There will be more small and large scale conflicts, and in very real terms the economic realities with which we have become accustomed will vanish. In light of his three key words then, at least Bush’s World will be realized, despite its lack of novelty or order.

The Zeitgeist of North America is spiritual actualization through material progression, of becoming a better person by achieving the “good life” of a house and family. By spiritual I do not mean to refer simply to those people who “ethically” voted against the rights of homosexual couples to equality. We all sing the mantra of consumption in unison, and this process is as rewarding to its participants as it is wholly and completely unsustainable for the planet. Consumption gives us all our identities; you are what you eat, in a larger sense of the term.

So leave poor George alone. Blaming for the ills of the world is no more productive than crapping on the kid at school. He’s no criminal, he’s just another average joe, watching football and choking on pretzels guy, right? [ed. note - to reverse and potentially destroy that analogy, Bush's proletarianism is like crapping on the poor kids in school and calling it a No Child Left... er, wait a sec] If you truly want to resist Bush, seek alternatives to the lifestyle which he represents. Trying to live close to jobs rather than close to suburban bliss is a start. Using public transportation and biking or even walking when possible is also key. Maybe the first thing you can do right now is to restrict buying American, as any money which flows south increases the taxes which are supporting the war this very second. A permanent shift in attitudes will be required to subvert American imperialism. The most fundamental is the following: we can no longer allow business as usual the way we got used to it over the 20th century. The corporations represented by PNAC recognized this fact a few years ago, and that awareness spearheaded the new American Imperial project.

There may come a point at which the entire planet will take up arms against American hegemony, but now is not the time. I hope to use this space over the coming weeks to elaborate a few strategies for resistance against political aggression in both consumer and environmental terms, and make it more widely known that people are indeed responding to PNAC’s call to war.

Friday, December 03, 2004

happy, happy times ten

joy is filling the skies with plenitude, so My Psychiatrist told me in a dream.

we fought over cupcakes and spat on our noses, the stars a happy antioch. i wept for a friday that was never there, only getting a new day as a pill. this was the hope and endeavour that would ensure its awakened prophecy. a nod to the coach and we both sat inside.

"have you been experiencing these reports every morning?" already knowing yes, a mark was encoded forever in science and the barren trees surrounding my childhood years. he put the notepad down and looked deep into my black composure.

"there will only be triumphant and ecstatic fullness, a fuel for exposing the true nature of where it sits and where you stand. take this", he said passing me a dollar.

the coin was swept clean of its blood and still did not shine as my convictions felt it should. solely, it was turned sideways in my palm and broken home. i looked at the raincoat on the floor by my envy, and it was weeping.

the door opened and slowly backwards was a field of mice spilling. i pitied the wrong doctor, i told myself. my foot reached the earth for the first time in a week, and a daisy grew sadly in my place.

Monday, November 08, 2004

alfie goes with the flow

like i've said before, sometimes all i want to do is talk to you through things. sometimes paper bags or held-up newspapers, sometimes telephones, sometimes other pieces of culture. I did manage to get this one in print for next week though, so maybe the paper bag thing is the way to go...

Isn’t it such a great feeling when you are living on top of the world. You get to enjoy a sense of absolute belonging as play, people, and opportunities flow through your life. At least, they do if you are that perfectly hip GQ man that serves as a role model for so many. You know the type: that one person you know who has great clothes, finds himself at all the right places every night, and graces himself with many of the most exceedingly fine women the city has to offer. Desperately you want to be this man. Desperately you buy another beer and disgrace yourself quietly.

Alfie is one of these guys, a perfectly charming young man, British, and living in New York to the best of his abilities. His job at a bleakly on-the-verge limousine taxi company seems to provide Alfie with the income he needs to live in a shitty apartment so he can afford nice Gucci suits. If you’re quick you’ll quickly notice how brilliant a flirt this gentleman is, as a playful sense of wordplay and body language attracts nearly all of Manhattan to him. In fact, the film slyly points out Alfie’s fantastic charm as he tries to seduce the viewer through witty monologue after witty monologue. Maybe it’s best to think of Alfie as an attractive Woody Allen, cunningly willing the film’s audience to side with his audaciously neurotic personality.

It is the charm of Alfie which will make or break this film for most people, and is arguably the thematic focus of the movie as a whole. While his silver tongue and quick wit do indeed work for the most part, there is a sense of inconsequentiality to everything around him that truly shows Alfie for what he is. Despite wanting to ensure that the women in his life are made happy by his actions, he never seems to respond emotionally to the women around him. The one exception occurs the moment he discovers that one of his girlfriends is a fairly decent alcoholic and is immediately consumed by the need to break up with her. In this moment alone in the film, love is examined with a degree of maturity and insight, as Alfie realizes that he has conflated feral desire with moral responsibility.

Other sequences aren’t anywhere as effective. Alfie’s nightcap with Lonette, who had just exited a lengthy yet tumultuous relationship with one of Alfie’s best friends, teases with the issues of abortion and fidelity. Their scenes together are indeed touching, yet are almost entirely empty of any character or thematic analysis. This intellectual void is filled with an insincere sentimentalism – small emotions of little consequence are exchanged between the two. Similarly empty is Alfie’s response to Susan Sarandon’s character, an older lover who dominates him despite Alfie’s best attempts to use her for a quick “class jump”. Was it a sense of need for domination which drew Alfie to this woman, a sense of infantilisation which makes him feel disempowered and thus “in love”? Sadly, the film does not explore these areas in enough detail for the audience to care either. Writer/Director Charles Shyer never really gives any space to work out such themes.

Indeed, seen this way, it is difficult to accept that the film makers choose to examine the concept of the promiscuity which captivates Alfie’s identity. Token scenes depicting Alfie’s emotional crises dominate the last half-hour of the movie, and they serve to point to the emotional vacuum of the hour leading up to them. The biggest difference between Alfie as a lead and the aforementioned Woody Allen is that the latter understands that it is the flaws in his personality which invites the audience into his life as his luck gets worse. Alfie bemoans his position like a whiney prince who can’t have his way, and it is this ineffectual, boy-who-cried-wolf existentialism which cracks the plaster in this film. If Shyer wanted an homage to the screwball comedies of the 1940s – arguably the true inspiration for this remake of the 1966 version which starred Michael Caine – then he should have kept any seriousness as an undertone to be teased out by film buffs, and not as pivotal moments to forward the plot.

Despite this prominent flaw, it is the acting which redeems the film and will likely allow it to capture an audience. Superficiality does indeed have a place in the cinema, and as an advertisement for success-through-consumption, Alfie succeeds in spades. Jude Law is perfectly cast as the puppy-dog womanizer whose every glance can inspire envy or lust. Susan Sarandon, Marisa Tomei, and Sienna Miller gorgeously portray his three “major” affairs, with Miller’s self-destructive pleasure seeker serving as the best romantic foil to Alfie’s personality. Like Sex and the City, Alfie causes viewers to want to be the characters in the narrative, living, loving, and shopping as they do. In fact, the entire film comes across as an essay in lifestyle enhancement for the retro-analog set. Beautiful interiors are filled with sensuous yet minimally arranged furniture and decor. You can’t help but enthusiastically consume every prop in the film, and this fetish is extended into the very look of the film. Everything is about flow in Alfie: the flow of women and pleasure in Alfie’s life is mirrored by the elegantly fast pace of the film’s sequencing. Maybe we can tease out of the film this one theme: life goes quickly so grab and love what you can. Gorgeous people doing mundane things: many people will follow Alfie’s motto in the movie, and just go with the flow.

Please don't confuse the enthusiasm I have for the review for the enthusiasm I may have felt for the film itself, however...

Monday, November 01, 2004

don't you throw that piece of shit Swiffer in the trash

This past summer, a friend told me that the $69 DVD player which he had purchased a little over a year prior had died. Naturally, this petit mort occurred about a month after its warranty had expired. I told him that he should get it fixed anyway, as the motor required to fix the loading tray couldn't cost more than $50 to install. That kind of thinking was absurd to him, as he could just pick up a new player for another $69, and that spending about $69 a year on DVD players was actually a pretty good idea. "It's like leasing a car," he admitted.

I tried to argue that there was more at stake than the cost of the player, as electronic components are not easily recycled on the consumer end of things. If Canada were to landfill, say, 200,000 DVD players every year, then we would quickly learn the value of keeping these things around for a while at an increased purchase cost rather than continually disposing cheap models. Then there's the fact that consumers are currently working too much as it is, and such product disposability would quite literally mean throwing away the labour required to earn the money to pay for the shitty product in the first place. Surely consumers would not put up with the illogical nature of an accelerating pace for product disintegration as our technological ability increases.

The first company to prove me wrong was Disney, which announced this summer that it would adopt the disposable DVD system of Flexplay, er, "Technologies". Flexplay thought it would be a good idea to produce DVDs that would self-destruct 48 hours after being exposed to air, thus rendering them effective pay-per-view options for all of us lazy bastards who find it hard to return films on time. Instead of bringing the film back, you toss the DVD in the garbage. Purchase price: $5 - $7 per film, roughly equal with high-end video rentals. Long term cost to the environment: rising logarithmically with trends in human stupidity. One of these trends would be the proposed introduction of these disposable DVDs into every fast food lid you ever purchase, from pop cans and cups to pizza and burger boxes. It should be noted that this trend was inaugurated by AOL's decade-long bombardment of our landfills with tens of millions of unsolicited CDs.

The recall of 175,000 Swiffer vacuums should further demonstrate to us the irrational redundancy of badly produced consumer items. There is simply no reason in contemporary technological terms that an item as benign as a vacuum could betray the owner in so widespread a manner. Companies like to make things as cheap as possible . And yet at the same time it is ungodly to think that we cannot simply make a vacuum and that would be the end of it. I mean by this that the vacuum you have would stick around for a while longer than Proctor & Gamble wants it to. But then in all honesty, no one purchasing a battery-powered vacuum would concern themselves with permanence.

The Swiffer rag came to prominence by confusing the public into thinking that things weren't clean unless you actually made more garbage than you had in the first place. Now you are expected to throw away your entire electrical cleaning system after a limited number of uses. Proctor & Gamble understands well that the foundation of the company's business is the production of garbage, and so they fetishize this act in their commercials. Nice ass you say, as the TV mom dances the dust into her garbage can, along with a Swiffer product. That paid actor sure looks happy now that her prop house is easily cleaned every day. In order to demonstrate the apparent ease with which you clean your house, the production of garbage is glorified by literally getting the cleaning supplies you used out of your life, kind of as though they were never there to begin with. I do hate to state the obvious here people, but those reusable rags that we all used to use before 2000 still work wonders.

We can indeed see these moves to complete disposability -- planned obsolescence, as those marketers like to say -- as demonstrating the end of consumer culture in a logical sense. I mean by this the fact that, in general, production comes pretty easy to us. The economic structures which provided so much personal, technological, and cultural development are currently operating in a field of hyper-production. Industrialism was the growth spurt which has allowed us to realize many benefits for individuals and society as a whole. Yet once grown, it should be time to put away childish things, or at least put them into their proper context. Now that we have demonstrated the capacity to provide for many, it is time to provide a degree of permanence to our possessions. Sustainability is adulthood in this context.

It is time for populations through government to stand up to the market whims of companies and force them to accept that which they have continued to regard as externalities: the cost of cleaning up the shit which they produce. This cost is deferred to future generations. Some US lawyers have even gone so far as to argue that this process amounts to taxation without representation, a position which would ultimately undermine the authority of the present government. We are, after all, in this together, and polluting the earth is to pollute ourselves. Do not kid yourself about involvement with environmentalism (to appropriate Lenin's comments on politics). We cannot allow companies to pollute the earth just because it interests them economically. This is a form of warfare, and perhaps the definitive Orwellian omnipresent-conflict that was heralded to consummate the 20th century. What we call economic logic in the present day is usually a euphemism for totalitarian greed and a tyranny for power which is antithetical to democracy. Ecology is democracy in its most primal and universal form.

Saturday, October 30, 2004

ladybugs should not be born on october 30



this is one of many bugs that were born in the field outside my house during the recent warm snap

maybe i'm wrong about this, but is it normal for ladybugs to spawn this time of year? oh wait, it's something like 23 degrees outside this week. so ya, perfectly normal

Thursday, October 28, 2004

2 Parties in 1 Night???

Well, it’s that time of a young Canadian’s year when all thoughts turn south, to warmer climes and sunny breaks from the late-fall rainy season. Actually, fuck that. I grew up in Thunder Bay, Ontario, and miss the cold and the snow. That's a rant on a different station though...

More accurately though, it is around this time every four years that many Canadians begin to wonder how the US elections will impact their lives. Will we get screwed by protectionist “free”-trade policies, strongarmed into military expenditures, or granted economic benefits that fuel Stephen Harper’s best wet dreams? Given the two-party U.S. system which limits the options considerably, as a politically conscientious Canadian it seems obvious to pick one or the other. Or more precisely, the one which is not George W. Bush. Frankly, that would be the easiest, most conveniently-illiterate-voter friendly system that could ever be introduced: Do you want George W. Bush to be your president? If “No” wins, then the country gets led by a robot monkey: a Canadian solution to an American problem. It’s likely that the monkey would show up to work more often than Dubya has, and maybe its health care policies would revolutionize America. Besides, by not getting mad about the wired-up speeches given in the presidential debates, America has already accepted the world’s first cyborg leader in G.W. Bush. So it would in fact boil down to this question: Do you want a cyborg or a monkey for president? See Mr. O'Riley, voting can indeed be simple.

Ah, but then there’s voting itself. In America, voting is to democracy what computer flight simulations are to planes. Sure, the basics are there, but it’s unlikely that anybody’s going to get off the ground. See, it’s one of the least popular things to do in America. And so we hear that the vote needs to be Rocked, Smacked-Down, Punked, HipHop’ed, or Prayed (I’m not making that last one up – google “Presidential Prayer Team” for a sublime experience). Just get out and vote, we are told. It doesn’t matter if you know about the candidates or their platforms, or how their particular ideologies could make or break the country. It’s all about the numbers, and everyone should participate. I’d like to think that the upcoming election in America is actually about the vote, but I cannot see the process itself as being all that important. Come to think of it, neither it seems do most of the politicians involved.

The precedent for the unimportance of the voting citizen was set by the 2000 election, in which every single vote cast was thrown away in order to give Florida the consequence it enjoyed (ie: Jeb Bush). Sure there were indeed votes counted, but those numbers didn’t add up to give Bush his office. No, that little slight of hand was accomplished by the whole 9/11 patriotism thing, which allowed the judicial decision for a Bush presidency to go ahead despite the recounts which gave the win to Gore. In fact, it seems more likely that voting actually gets in the way of things, from the point of view of the power elite. Forget for a minute the weighty argument that the democratic process requires a financially stable, educated, and healthy population to be properly realized. That can be faked (ie: Jeb Bush) or otherwise disregarded. Votes themselves are easy to get (ie: Jeb Bush). All you really have to do is speak the right key words (gun control, un-american, socialist, abortion) and you will mobilize a population in your favour. See you need those key words in place or others, like poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, violence, destitution, racism, and even torture, come onto the popular lips. At that point, whoever is in office has a Big Problem, as the citizenry has started to make the revolutionary act of actually thinking about what it needs to prosper.

More important, however, is the increasingly obvious fact that the only votes which count are those given to corporations. The 2000 election was a corporate coup of America, perhaps the only overt coup that the country will ever see. It is unlikely that power will be “voted” back to the Democrats any time soon, as the Bush Republicans are giving corporate America every dream it has always wanted: relaxed labour and environmental laws, new markets for expansion (Iraq, Afghanistan), protectionist trade policies, and the rescinding of personal liberties. Corporate individuals (you know they are legally classified as people, right?) can’t really survive without taking the place of actual persons within the political machine, as each is in a very real way antithetical to the other, despite their mutual dependencies. Political parties cannot survive without the support of such wealthy individuals as $hell, McDonald’$, and Micro$oft, and so those corporations get their justice while the workers of the country wait in line for flu shots and outsourced jobs.

It’s perhaps most fitting that the sole challenger to the oil-fuelled Bush campaign is the obesity-fuelled Heinz heiress and her war-vet husband. What a perfect way to say “Now is the time for change!” I would like here to forward a notion more heavily favoured by recent history: there is only one real political party in America, and so it does not really matter if you vote. Much has been written in the press about how the platform tabled by the Democrats is actually the same as the Republicans’. The war in Iraq will continue (if the money from Iraq’s oil does get into American coffers soon, look forward to a recession the likes of which have not been seen in generations); no actual money will be marked for health care or education; individual liberties will be curtailed by the “War on Terrorism”. Kerry will seek the properly corporate citizens to lend support in his favour, and that will mean less consideration for the working family. And yes, Kerry will surely favour protectionism instead of fair and free trade, O wondering Canadian. Sure a few details of his platform are genuinely in opposition to Bush, but the Big Wheels will keep on Turning for the Right People, if you get my meaning. Four years after a Kerry presidency, many will be calling for some good ol’ Republican change.

I say we let a robot monkey lead the country through world war III until Hillary Clinton is elected president in 2012.

Hopefully that's not the last time that I get to use that sentence...

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

Orpheus Was Right

The Welsh left me for dead by the roadside. It had been hours since they had first picked me up, but I could hardly remember any of it. All that was left was an impression of red. My clothes were sticking to my back and my hair matted to my face. There was nothing left to do but pick myself from off the ground and try to get back to Dallas. Such a long way, and somehow I had travelled without my wallet.

'Is there anything I can help you with?'

A man was suddenly standing over me. I grabbed his ankle and felt my way up toward his belt buckle. It was there that I discovered the true nature of our burgeoning relationship. It was his job to keep me from falling back into the sewer, but also was it his job to ensure that I never really brought myself from such apparent depravity. I thought I could see the shining metal star on his right breast pocket, but instead it turned out to be the tip of a pen. The manner in which his gaze accused me of such evil wrongdoings sent me reeling as he grasped my wrist with an unmistakable firmness. I had to say something to pacify the situation.

I need to find the Welsh and get back to my home, was my intention, although in retrospect I must have said something much more hostile as I soon found myself being dragged into a brightly lit room. I prayed for a music, an enlightenment, to break up the monotony of the white linoleum and flickering neon. I felt that this man who brought me into his office wanted me to resist him -- It doesn't matter, I wanted to tell him, c'est toute une absurdite. The pain he was inflicting on my left arm while fastening me to my seat suggested that he knew little of Sartre's dictates, however.

'I think we need to talk about your future with this firm'
It was at this point that I know my..........what consciousness i had left was a mental illmness as i let my head fall onoyo theh keyboard...............


what am I supposed to be writing here? my memory fails.


'You've been wasting a lot of our time by means of this acid acid aicd acid acdi adic aidca caiad cida dcia icad as of late fallen by the corporate wayside. It has been brought to my attention that you left thursday's meeting without signing the new agreement. All of our representatives have been signing this agreement and you must be one of our representatives...'

The conversation apparently had continued along these lines until my falling onto the floor broke the eerie silence between our respective understandings. It was at this point that I realized that I had been re-enacting something which had been staged before, and this event was not in fact worthy of such distinction as becoming the ritual in which I was currently engaged. There was an unmistakable tension in the air between us, as red once again filled my vision.

Promptly I left the room, and the Welsh left me for dead by the roadside.

I got up from my bed and felt around for my keys. Instead all I could find were quills, an endless sea of quills stretching from my fingertips to some exotic and sublime beacon. Am I a true renaissance man? asked the poet in me. I was determined to ignore his damn preaching, despite his pompous righteousness. My determination quickly failed as thoughts began to wash themselves upon the poet's shores...Even though I can find a tangible nothing at the end of a sentence, I can't find my place in anything. Localization! That's what I had been told by the man who made me sign that agreement. Fuck me, do I ever need to find the Welsh! was my mantra to a song. It was meant as an attempt for the poet to reign in its quills.

Friday, September 03, 2004

hey, stop all the downloading!! -- this is for me, and you'll waste your time reading it

i noticed that my old university is having some storage problems or something, as some files are offline. or maybe the campus paper is going back to the cart and buggy distribution model, who knows. in case this comes in handy next time you are out and buying good good things, here's some bullshit of a cd review page.

LIGHTNING BOLT
Wonderful Rainbow

So you picked out the right jacket, found yourself some killer spiked jewelry, and got the boots to end all life. Now, finally, now you are punk! Yo, don't mess with me cuz I'm counterculture. Well, not that 25 year old trends hold any degree of legitimacy in the opinions of the truly with it, but if you're going to be punk, at least go in a non-MuchMusic direction.

Here's the album to start the revolution. A drummer / vocalist and a bass player? How the hell can two people make The Noise that puts the right people against the wall? By playing their goddamn heads off, that's how. After all, how rebellious can you be in a traditional four or five piece? No more fucking punk than the Archies.

You know what punks do? They beat up on shit like the Archies. Wonderful Rainbow pummels you right from the start and does not let go. Intense only begins the qualifying adjectives. "Dracula Mountain" will have you crying in your sleep. Don't expect nice singable vocals. If they ever grew teeth and listened to this disc, those Sum 41 kids would put on rabbit pants and meth out to crappy trance mix cd's for weeks. [Load]

BLACK DICE
Beaches & Canyons

Those who were lucky enough to grab tickets to last weekend's Godspeed [ed. note -- Jan 2003] show witnessed one of the most brilliant performances Hamilton has seen in a long time. Primitive intensities mixed with modern electronic composition and improvisation to reach orgasmic crescendos and breathtaking sublimities which the steel city does not usually experience. I wanted another hour of tantric beatitude. To be fair, Godspeed themselves were pretty good too. ;-) Black Dice originally made a name for themselves with painfully short and murderous shows that usually resulted in injuries to both band and audience. Loud and intense are apt descriptions. The Tivoli should consider itself lucky that the roof did not fall, killing everyone in a frenzy of fucking and bloodlust.

Yet with their new release, BD seem to have developed their capacity for texture and subtle melodicism, as Beaches & Canyons prooves to be the most melodic noise record in ages. Sounds are crystalized to their essence and repeated with increasing intensity over the course of 5 long tracks. Voices and high frequency passages weave in and out of the hypnotic mix, slowly pulling the listener into a space of absolute transcendance, where pain, pleasure, and consciousness unite in bliss. [DFA]

MOUSE ON MARS
Rost Pocks: The EP Collection

So I'm working at the Unyon store and in walks a man promising me the sky if only I let him record in our studios. Jeff's about 45 and looks like a poorly-dressed cross between Eric Dolphy and Mike Moore. Before I can say anything he breaks in with the American Idol and gives me everything: MJ, Temptations, Whitney Houston. "I can take any song, and BOOM! it's up a notch. See, it's about lovin' the women. They're ready for something like this. Becoming lesbians cuz they're looking for love. Low self-esteem, cuz you and me with the dicks, we're all assholes. I have a mind that can get the feelings of the people, before they have them. Reachin is preachin!! A photogenic mind: inspiration, a REVOLUTION!!! a nuclear bomb to stop other music. Movement of red mist over the land, freeing people. I'll set you free." Before I could be his Magdelena, my sweet Hobo Jesus was out of my life.

This collection of old Mouse on Mars tracks simply cannot touch the genius which is Jeff, no matter how essential they might be to 90's post-techno. [Too Pure]

BROKEBACK
Looks at the Bird

Beautifully laid back and contemplative, at the same time Looks at the Bird demonstrates the breezy sentimentalism and instrumental proficiency typical of Sea and Cake and Tortoise type TJ releases. Brokeback is actually the side project of the bassist for the latter group, and the heritage of jazzy post-rock which brought Tortoise to fame informs much of this album. Indie kids will in fact recognize many notable guests, including the late Mary Hansen *honour_her* of Stereolab fame.

Many of the compositions have an improvised feel to them, and yet they remain highly structured and narrative in style. In fact, there is perhaps an equal amount of computer processing as live instrumentation. The melodies are elaborate and touching, and yet one cannot help but smile at the kitchiness of the compositions. The lyric-free voices of many of the album’s pieces are perhaps the first indication that all is not serious with Brokeback’s aesthetic. Listen in the morning and enjoy the afternoon...
[Thrill Jockey]

TIM HECKER
Radio Amor

Maybe there is something to Montreal after all. Certainly the city has produced a good deal of Canada's most influential music in the past decade, and if you haven't made the trip for MUTEK, you just aren't into the avantguard my friend. Tim Hecker is currently one of the most commercially successful of Montreal producers, with releases appearing on many of Europe's top electronica labels. While under the alias Jetone he has produced some gorgeous post-techno, his name itself seems to be reserved for more ambient endeavours.

Ambient music should not suggest Muzak or New Age. Fundamentally it is a space for contemplation of subjectivities and identity, and consequently can engage the listener in a totalizing manner. If you're the ADHD type, I would advise smoking some good herb to induce concentration, as Radio Amor invokes a certain nostalgia and ephemerality which languidly develops over the listening session. Hecker processes his sources to an exceptional degree, with beautiful clicks pops and tones providing an almost organic soundscape. For a musical reference think Shuttle358, Oval, and a dose of Fennesz. Yet Hecker's somewhat iconoclast nature preserves a space for a truly unique voice in contemporary electronica. [Mille Plateaux]

SOGAR
Apikal.Blend

As always the case with Taylor Deupree's avant-hip 12k label, this cd is music of a certain volume. The ostensibly ambient tracks are frequently quiet and yet dynamic enough to fill a room. German expatriate Jurgen Heckel, otherwise know as Sogar, has released another very warm album of synthetic forms. Textures, minimal beats, and highly processed fragments of found sound sources within 'Isolohr' and 'Selkind' evoke a certain sentimentalism, a nostalgia for space also invoked in the cover design.

With a joyous degree of subtle suggestion, Heckel teases highly danceable rhythmic patterns from very minimal sample elements. Sub bass patterns on 'Solang' slowly force attention to the insistent beats found in the simple counterplay of melodic tropes. And yet, his musical subjects are not analysed and refracted to the point where their melody might collapse. Sogar is perhaps the closest 12k has to pop melodic sentimentality: warm melodic tones, digitally crystalized to their essence. As a friend once told me in a different context, perfect for a winter sunrise, on both sides of the clock. [12k]

MANITOBA
Start Breaking My Heart

This wonderful release is actually a reissue of the SBMY album from 2001 along with tracks from a subsequent ep. Dundas native Dan Snaith just couldn’t find support from Canadian labels for his brand of melodic beats, and moved to London. It is a tragedy that North American listeners still cannot conceive of electronic composition separate from the club scene, as some of the best producers at work today hail from our shores, and are producing work exponentially greater than the simple 4/4 of, ahem, “genre pioneers” like Moby and the Chemical Bros.

Fans of the Warp and Ninja Tune rosters will recognize Manitoba’s lazy-yet-busy grooves and fluid melodic passages, while Mille Plateaux sympathizers will appreciate Snaith’s glitchy textural aesthetics. Several of the tracks betray his jazz and classical roots, with contrapuntal harmonic and melodic phrases oscillating in the mix, while the complex rhythms owe more to Art Blakey than a 303. The best of accessible electronica. [Domino/Leaf]

JAN JELINEK AVEC THE EXPOSURES
La Nouvelle Pauvrete

Those unfamiliar with the downtempo, dub-influenced glitch-techno that has been most notably perfected by a few German producers would be advised to pick up Jan Jelinek's new ~Scape full-length. If none of those descriptors above rings a bell, try imagining stuttering, granular sounds atop hypnotic deep bass lines and mid-tempo drum patterns.

This CD very adroitly captures the degree to which this sub-genre has progressed since the early Pole releases in '98 (oh, to be young again...). Melodies are tightly focused yet remain abstract; notable are the higher synth frequencies of "Music to Interrogate By" and the oscillating tones of "My Favourite Shop". Throughout, Jelinek meticulously pulls solid rhythms and intricate sample patterns from his analog detritus. A wonderful intro to the genres of both glitch and dub-techno: great both for dancing and for thoughtful reflection. Be hip already! [~Scape]

VENETIAN SNARES
Winter In The Belly of a Snake

sometimes it's cold in winnipeg. maybe that's why the city has for a while had such a great musical tradition. releasing 3 full-lengths over the past year alone, aaron funk has proven himself an interesting and prolific musician in control of his digital tools.
quietly falling with "Stairs Song", a melodic trope repeated while suggesting its own decay, while the highs in "Gottrahmen" and the bass in "Suffocate" sigh in melancholy. many stringed instruments are filtered in the process; funk knows the eroticism in torchering his subject, as proven by his exquisitely controlled dsp abuse. and yet he remains polite beneath his exterior: melodies and beats are frequently sentimental and sometimes a bit too obvious to be truly out there experimentally speaking.

there's even a lyric or two (Danzig!?!); the opener "Dad" is beautifuly tragic pop featuring Aaron himself in song. an underlining beauty and fragility in Winter ensure the repeated listens which truly illuminate this music. certainly the evolution of drill and bass post label_host muziq's output. one gets a sense of the typography in which he locates beats, surfaces, and passages of narrative composition. dark, but not his earlier "Doll Doll Doll".

snares's abrassively succinct and complex programming throught the album truly demonstrates that there is a interesting and accessible ghost in his machine. (Planet Mu)

VARIOUS
Grammy Nominees 2003

Sometimes the unexpected can come up and really bite you on the ass and otherwise wreck what would have been a perfectly good life. Like when the Germans went into Poland for the always fun game of That Isn't Yours Anymore. When a promo for this CD entered my life I felt sublimely graced by providence. Now in one hopefully childproof package I can enjoy the aesthetic triumphs of Nelly and the Dixie Chicks, Pink and Eminem. Go back to your hole in the ground Gorecki, you can't make music as transcendent as Avril Lavigne's. NSYNC and Nickleback: Just. Fucking. Stop.

Let's get this straight right now boys and girls, just because you want to have sex with many of the "artists" in this playlist does not mean they deserve your money. And the more money they "earn", the further away from your crotch they get. That's what makes them stars, the not boning you part. Because loser wannabes like you and me will take money from people and have the sex. Can't get on the goddamn television that way, padre.
[Warner]

Thursday, September 02, 2004

a sad day for hamilton, or is that a sad few decades?



they finally started to do it. hamilton's beautiful tivoli theatre, which began its life in 1875, will not remain standing.

was it a surprise? i mean, the people of this city have treated the city core as though it were Chernobl, avoiding the downtown for years. this is a car-addicted city, and the core will die as the suburbs proliferate. there's this thing called sustainability, and i really don't think suburbs belong to that category. neither did the tivoli apparently, but then, the world does keep its irony subtle.

let's all pray for the downtown to turn into a living memory: Cities Under Siege

Monday, August 30, 2004

frankenstein come into being thanks to a drunken party

i wanted to explain my position on politics to friends
they fought back

it's easy to get addicted to lifestyles
i wish my friends had never gotten so smart
because now they only wish to perform miracles

the night felt like fingers closing eyes by fingers
the uncontrolled fastness of it like a baby
you make it in them you can't stop seeing
them: i'm going into that one tonight, now that one.

this is society, this is fucking involvement.

Thursday, August 12, 2004

war in hamilton




there were tanks, mortars, soldiers, and enemies in downtown hamilton this month, and this time the lister block was not involved (although it remained nearby in spirit).

Monday, July 19, 2004

eat em up, little pac



people who don't know videogame culture scare me. they can be older and that's excusable, but i cannot rationalize people my own age and younger who are self-consciously being left behind the preliminary aesthetic experience of the digital age. there's a speed that's lacking in these folk, and they will only lose themselves as digital screens continue to paint every surface imaginable with an opposition that will be far too great for them. i wonder if this is why the u.s. military started it's own vidgame training program, inviting us all into american's army

Tuesday, May 18, 2004

subway bag

you came and
went
like the wind in
fall, who had?
lasting clear, yet always,
and your country will always be

a new David and Artaud
built
like bread and clothing
with mournings at
minimum wage remembered
like yesterday's kings

the bag™ is the most important thing

Thursday, April 29, 2004

i don't think that

i don't think anything
i already know that i
don't trust, so there is no eye
that will always be a chore

all there is, is a lifting
simultaneous in rags do we drink it
removing from anything which is pure
and only itself joy
entombed in all that is seen
this tragedy, seemingly a betrayal
and a hope absurd, is all that is
and all that lifts itself into absolution

into ourselves we bring it
where all is memory
a ritual of prolonged extinction
where the only apostle is time
a wine which consumes,
intoxicates all senses

Friday, April 16, 2004

Exclaim 12th anniversary party


beans - exclaim party 2004

this is one of the few pictures that turned out.

it seems that my camera lens was obscured for most of the night thanks to a public celebration of Toronto's adoption of the smoking by-law (come this summer, you will not be able to smoke inside any commercial or public building in the city).

the several hundred people in attendence celebrated by smoking a half a forest of pot, filling the Phoenix to the rafters with a stinky haze and causing my images of both Four Tet and Tortoise useless for anything except abstraction. not that i'm complaining, as I myself added fairly substantively to the mix.

Beans was interestingly solo, beatboxing and MDing the place to a decent amount of gyration. not quite as strong as his Antipop days, but still pretty decent.

as for Four Tet, i'm not sure that KH has convinced me with his live show. CD yes, live no. Tortoise were their usual self, bang the fuck on the money. their songs might be diluting somewhat with time, but for sheer technical brilliance, it's tough to find a better live set in indie rock these days.

Sunday, April 04, 2004

me, an actor? that's a larf



thankfully, this is the only picture of my "performance" in waterdown theatre's production of arthur schnitzler's Flirtations

http://www.villagetheatrewaterdown.ca/flirtations/flirtationscastandcrew.htm

Thursday, March 18, 2004

wasting trees

i sit and waste trees
because
even words can cut
and so i fall in as the not-me
so beautifully green
my speech fleeting as a guitar
sonorous cousin in sleep
passes like a discovery
making all glow in time
that leaning so, slow
asking like a waiting room
but like a good patient
it's all in my head
and so patiently, everything
wasted and reborn

Friday, February 27, 2004

Robin

last night i dreamt of my father:
his face so close it chimed like a bell

i wanted to reach out, but remembering the rules i looked
the other way, into the subtle folds of his sadness,
where grace held triumphantly its shameful cup
and the days were equally marked by too much work

through him i learned that time seeds like moonlight
casting shadow upon shadow-all, wrapped in one intensity
it is the glue of bandaids holding us together
and keeping us all locked tight

in my dream i saw a black cat try to cross a highway:
this was my father's childhood
a mouth entered and every second breathing
a language, caressed by the tongues of silence

my father's leg, paralysed by diabetes
that old stick-in-the-mud who said yes
too often like a baby, i wanted more "no"
he looks at me, passing my inheritance
while clutching it fiercely, like a beggar
i wanted so desperately for him to walk
so i could take him out into the park
and we could fly kites written

what poetry is this, where grammar is so inarticulate?

i woke up and circled my feet like wings beating.
the day was sunny,
so bright that twenty-six years open
in front of me like a moth

Feb 27 2004 - Dec 4 1977

Friday, January 16, 2004

the end of capitalism

in my shoe
is
a foot
moving
grasping
holes and tears
like any other foot

i see better shoes
mounting other people
and i know that
with kicking
it will all end in a riot

Wednesday, January 07, 2004

wow, an old world record!

i found out today that i still have a record for long jump from back in 1990. guess that's my fifteen minutes right there, huh?

so here's the story from the winner's circle: it was my second jump, so i gave it a good %110. coach was behind me, and my fans... man, Derek Shantz, i'll never forget the smiles and the high five you gave before they even measured it. dude, i'm gonna take you to disneyworld one day!

look here