Tarantino, Music Hero

well now wow, what a night.

 a very full (in a great way) work day flowed right into Music on Main's cocktails with composers with Caroline Shaw and Nicole Lizée, and i'm so glad i was able to attend - not only for the delicious sugar cube-infused-with-bitters sparkling wine, with a sliver of lemon peel (which yes, was divine), but for the fascinating insights into these women's works. it without a doubt affected how i approached and processed tonight's musical experiences, which i guess isn't very post-modern, but i remain grateful for knowing things like the way they keep time is though a series of clicks broadcast through their headphones... fascinating!!!

the concert elicited so many particular (and at times peculiar) reactions. in the first offering, i found the visuals (or specifically, the editing of the visuals) wildly outshone the music, which could have been a fault of my ears, or the sound, or the way it was intended.. but the video!! i LOVED the way she found sound and rhythm in Tarantino's work! and some of her editing was truly masterful.

and then Piano Hero. look, i don't always love new music, but i always appreciate it, and this was a shining example. i had no real affinity with the wild cacaphony, but that's when i just sat back and said 'ok brain, you go and forge your new neural pathways!' and my brain rejoiced, like a dog let off its leash in a fertile field.

 and then oh, Caroline Shaw.

i might have a bit of a crush.. she is absolutely entrancing. she'll be performing a PuSh/Music on Main co-pro during the PuSh Festival in January: An Evening with Roomful of Teeth. i'll definitely be going to that. the way she just seems to breathe the music out of (into?) her violin so delicately grabs me.

 and then finally that karaoke bit.. the technique! the skill! the creativity and skewed view! and funny... which was funny. in the pre-show talk, Nicole Lizée said she wasn't trying to create something humorous, and she spat out the word ironic. and yet, through her pieces, the laughter welled and it felt conspiratorial or at least appreciative, when in fact i guess it was irking her. whereas Caroline said she embraced that playful spirit, and yet her music did not elicit laughter, but transported us sublimely to a sweet soft place of joy - rid of the raucousness of laughter...

 weighing, contemplating, processing all this, i boarded my bus home, and rejoiced to see my favourite seat unclaimed: back, left. and then a sound.. was it outside..? it was so faint.. an acoustic guitar softly sighing Randy Rhoads' Dee. Dee!!! and then i saw him, in the dark first seats of the bus, exactly opposite me in the very front right seat. he finished and i clapped lightly.

he kept playing. i picked up my shit and went to sit near him. he was shy, said i probably knew everything he was doing wrong. i pshawed and awed, said "you just played Dee!! you're doing everything right." and he lit up, apparently nobody recognizes that song. and we talked about Randy Rhoads. and he said imagine if he'd lived, and i chose to imagine a collaboration with Stevie Ray Vaughan. and he smiled.

and he played it again, sometimes haltingly, sometimes shyly, but at all times beautifully. and then he played more, and more still, and i sat smiling, happily watching fingers reaching through fingerless blue gloves to slide against a bright red guitar. i could not have dreamed up a more poetic scene. and then his stop arrived, and we wished each other a good night, and i knew that i'd already well achieved that.....

listen to Randy Rhoads' Dee here.

fall is the new summer

i've posted about this before. but i'm posting again because you know what? every frikkin year i find myself reminding people about last year. and the year before. oh, silly humans with your fickle memories and your penchant for la whine. yes, there's a bit of a bite in the air, at dawn and at dusk. but simmer down kids - it ain't over yet. there'll be warmth again, i promise. 1 if not 2 more dilligent and sturdy stabs at summer, without the awful ickiness. it's why so many of us herald fall as our favourite... that last glimpse of yes when all hope seems lost - is there anything more divine!?

make love not war, man

i'm not a violent person.
i was in one fight, once, way back in grade one.
i'm a lover, not a fighter, man.

but there have been two women in my life, people i have shared a work environment with, who have inspired thoughts of ultraviolence in me.

we'll call the first shmay shmitter.

shmay was.. shmay... articulated every letter. she was very precise. she was perfect. and everyone around her, hopeless fuck-ups. (as precisely outlined and formally communicated by her, anyway.)

when i started working for shmay, i may not have been in one of the more self-confident phases of my life. and as such, she rattled me. she rattled me deep and hard. ooh, that sounds kind of exciting actually - not intentional but whoa, freud would have a field day with that! anyway, onward.. i started to think maybe she was right and i was, suddenly, totally worthless at a job for which i had received glowing praise from 3 other supervisors in her exact position. and as i'm wont to do when i perceive i'm not doing something up to what i like to think are my high standards, i beat myself up pretty badly about it.

and then one day, i got the bestest email ever from a friend - a former colleague. totally - really, totally out of the blue (i don't even think she knew i had just started working for shmay), she wrote me telling me of the dream she'd had the night before. she said though it'd been months since she'd last even thought of her, shmay was in her dream, and in it she'd gone up to shmay and told her to FUCK OFF, YOU FUCKING BITCH!!!!!

heh

it was... a comfort of sorts to realize i wasn't alone. and through this, and the many other revelations from colleagues that crept out over the few months of hell i spent working for her, i learned that this woman was, indeed, evil. she really was. i mean, i can get along with just about anybody. but she... wow. i wanted to hurt her in ways i'm still trying to erase from my psyche... chuckle

and then funny thing - i was relating that story to my current coworker earlier today, she said "shmay shmitter??" in that say-no-more kind of way. my current coworker is a soft swaying gentle sighing kind of a girl. she likes people, and people like her. and the way she said shmay shmitter.. i heard something from her i wasn't used to hearing. something deep and dark. incredulous, i asked her how the hell she knew shmay shmitter! turns out she'd served shmay at the very hip jazz bar she worked in years ago. before leaving, shmay had left her card. once. years ago. that's how profound of an impression this woman has..

and now, i work with a younger version of her. she could be her apprentice.. gawd, i hope they never meet, it would be like.. like... who's a really evil duo? like.. hitler and mussolini. anyway. we'll call this one shmushmee. shmushmee is.. a fucking bitch. she... oh i don't know. it's still too close. i guess i can't talk about it yet. that way she has of talking, as if she knows everything when in fact the poor thing is too fucking dumb to realize how little she fucking knows and she should just shut the fuck up and listen for a fucking change. or you know, something like that. gosh.

breathe
love
love
breathe
joy

ahhhhh

thank you shmay shmitter and shmushmee for giving me the opportunity to learn more about myself. and to practice wave form cancellation.

: )

too easy to ache

my heart swells and sighs for the people i see, everyday reducing themselves to hate. i watch them directing, misdirecting their compressed confusion, their distilled disgust every which way but up. i watch them in traffic, in line-ups, on sidewalks releasing their inner demons, unabashedly belching out their frustration with a boss, a job, a lover, a fucked up world.

i empathize with them. i allow my energy to shift so that i resonate with them. and instantly, i feel my heart starting to ache, swollen with a depth of sorrow, of despair that wants to overtake me.

but then i take a step back, i take a deep breath, and i really watch. i watch very carefully, and i can see how these people are suffering because they are addicted to their ugly behaviour, in ways they haven't tried to understand. in ways i'm only just now beginning to understand. i know that for the majority of these people, their intentions are not ugly, nor are their souls. they mean well, and truly believe they want beauty in their world. but they don't take the time to watch themselves, to recognize how they perpetrate frustration and ugliness in their lives, letting it well up in them until they unleash it on any innocent (or at least unrelated) bystander.

and i realize that my propensity toward taking on this confusion, this anger, this sadness: this is my own behaviour addiction. addicted to their drama of sorrow and anger under the guise of an empathy that makes me ache, not act.

but i'm weaning myself. avidly focusing my energy on transforming that negativity into something positive, into a goal to strive toward. i'm reshaping my life so that all my energy - work, play, rest - is directed toward harmony. peace. compassion. that's the behaviour i want to become addicted to...

lucky me

the other night:
a fellowship of four
at the lotus
(is it still called that? is it called something newer and trendier?)

i stood grinning stupid
and the sexy friend approached
and giggled.

what are you so happy about?
she shouted,
her subtle smile elevated to blaze
in this tooloud room.

she needed to ask!
i gasped:
look at you.

we watched together the other two -
thrusting, laughing, twisting, churning,
giggling,
being,
on the dance floor.

isn't it beautiful? i rhetoricalized.
she nodded happily.

glide.
glide.
glide for a moment
on the sigh of the music
and the now
and the yes.

so much yes.
too much.
such great glorious yes yes

i geekily giddily overexplained:

i could never watch this long,
never take in
every
gorgeous
gyration
if i was other.

but being me, i can stand here,
grinning, staring,
taking you all in -

and you let me!
you invite me!

right now
right here:
i'm the luckiest grrrl in the world.

she cannot argue.

she watches
sighs
smiles at me happily.

and slides back into the stage of my creation.

sherendipitous shuffle

when i hit shuffle, iTunes immediately launches into "i dreamed a dream," Fantine's hard luck song from Les Miserables. i already know i'm in for it.

the next song is "black is the colour of my true love's hair" (Nina Simone). it's followed by "sweet dreams" by Patsy Cline.

my gut is throbbing and my shoulders are sagging. i'm still unable to go a single day without some intense thought about him. anger, sorrow, pity, confusion...
and i'm thinking.
and thinking.
and grinding.
and churning.

and then i hear the choir ushering in "you can't always get what you want" by the Rolling Stones.

i can't help but laugh.
i laugh at iTunes and i laugh at me and i laugh at him and i laugh at the world. i laugh it all off and thrust my hips around the apartment.

the shuffle demon rewards me by playing "bus to beelzebub" by Soul Coughing. i laugh some more and jump jump jump, flailing my hair and arms around. the KLF confirm that the mood is broken: it's going to be a good day.

life really is quite amusing and wonderful.
despite itself...

bjork!

so i went to see bjork, and it was...
well...

even before she walked on stage, there was a sense of reverence in the air.

we'd cheered and giggled at the neon-bubbles-adorned-with-red-flags that were the horn section/choir. we'd cheered (perhaps a little lacklusterly) at the men - one drummer and, what did she call them? electronists? digitalists? some weird new word... and we'd whooped for the serious keyboardist.

but when the man in black nodded off-stage urging her entrance, i felt it in every pore of my being: i was about to be in the immediate viscinity of true greatness.

bjork is even grander in person than in her wondrous videos and fabulously freakish photos. how can she be so many things at once? so large and so small.. she's a cute, tiny little being with gentle delicate features. like her hands - i was reminded of the e.e. cummings line: "nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands." but then, defying all tiny, was her voice, her titan voice. it seemed almost to drain and pain her at first, requiring vigorous vocal exercises between the first few songs.

in those moments, those desperate gasping breaks she took, she seemed like an orphan needing nurturing. did anyone else feel an urge to rush up and rock her gently, feeding her spoonfuls of honey? was anyone else shocked back into standstill when suddenly, she would smile (i was close enough to see her dervish dimples). i watched in glowing wonder as she would grin and flick her arm; even the most half-assed thrust would elicit a rush from the audience, entrancing us completely. i was reminded, again, of another line from that cummings poem: "in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me." she was suddenly no tiny orphan, but a giant, a goddess - and we were hers, hers alone. even the others on stage seemed closer to us than to her, straining to serve her, to make her smile, to make her proud. she stood alone in her aura of awe.

the music started slowly, with such sweet soft songs like Hunter and All is Full of Love and Pagan Poetry - the latter eliciting a spring of tears that slid along my smiling cheek. i was moved by the beauty, by the power, by the intensity. god, those notes, that music..

by the time they launched into the grandiose, sweeping Bachelorette (whose waves i swam with eyes closed, smiling brightly), i knew she had different plans for us. already my hips were swaying, and the poignant Hyperballad eased us from swaying hips into stomping feet. well.. i say "us" but sadly, not many people were dancing. not around me anyway, and i was only about 20 people back from Bjork!!! in fact, the uptight bitch next to me kept throwing me sidelong sneers everytime an energetic dance thrust would see my right arm gently brushing up against her left arm. (and understand, i was not dancing even remotely vigorously, but the odd sway would wrench itself from me, how could it be helped?? IT'S FUCKING BJORK, SISTER!! whatfuckingever.) she eventually sidled up to her boyfriend, leaving me space to sway in peace. poor thing..

it wasn't until the last song (pre-encore), Pluto, when Bjork fucking lost it on stage in a tangle of freakish thrusts and twists and flails, that most people let themselves sink into the music, letting it coarse through their limbs and souls.

it's interesting. the very hot canadian "electrivist/whatever" kept trying to get the vancouver audience to.. i dunno, wake up! we were EXCESSIVELY mellow. ok sure, maybe it was the stellar bc bud, but i don't think so. it wasn't quite that..

whatever it was - you would have thought people weren't really "feeling it." until the encore. there were no lulls, there was no shyness, no quietness - it started when she left and raged until she returned, a roar that was energetic, loud, even a smidge frenzied. we wanted more more more!

and she gave us more - but only just a little bit more. bjork, ever the petulant goddess, tossed us a few crumbs before trotting back to her retreat, clutching her already half-enjoyed glass of red wine.

yes, it seems she had better things to attend to... but it's ok, we'll happily forgive her any transgression.

fishbone and eddy

so a few weeks ago i went to see Fishbone. i'm not a huge fan, in that i don't own any of their albums, but that did not stop me from loving them. do you know Fishbone? they're... they're incredible. how to describe their music? in my scrawled scribbles from the night, i wrote "they're like the lovechild of Frank Zappa and Motorhead - though i probably say that because the image of Zappa's stache melding with Lemmy's chops pleases me greatly."

in truth, Fishbone is... well... people might be tempted to harken to Rage Against the Machine or Red Hot Chili Peppers, and they'd be right though they'd be reversing the influence flow. Fishbone's more primordial than them bands. they're like Zappa and Sabbath and Sun Ra and Slayer lovingly nurtured in Parliament Funk's ferocious grip.

favourite moments of the night include my friend Jessica mouthing/acting out that charming date-rape-to-anal-rape-in-prison ditty, with the lyric "that's when things got out of control!" i watched in wide-smiled glee as she did what we all do in our bathrooms or living rooms: she *became* the star of a rock video. it was brilliant!

i was also deeply impressed by the fact that, although there were.. what.. 60 souls in the place when we showed up, Fishbone were rocking as though there were thousands. no half-way for these motherfuckers, they were full-out, full-on, and i fully respect and admire them for that.

it was not my first time seeing Fishbone. i will sport always a dented scar on my knee from the last time i saw them. that was... 6 years ago? 5? i was with my punker-lover Eddy Kolasinski. sweet Eddy... we dropped acid and drank rivers of hooch and stumbled through the Commodore and stumbled through the streets of Vancouver, pulverized by Fishbone funk. it was a beautiful night.

i was remembering that night, watching Fishbone strut their stuff once again. i was not with Eddy, nor did i search the crowd in hopes to see him. not that i wouldn't have loved to see him - though romantic love didn't work out for us, i'll always love him. (i'll always smile when i remember how Eddy felt guilty for being heterosexual, worrying our boy/girl relationship was inherently patriarchal. ah, sweet Eddy!) but last summer, Eddy died of heat exhaustion. i knew always he was a tender and fragile soul, but who knew a 30-something year-old man could die of heat exhaustion in Edmonton? and yet, it seems fitting.

last december, i found myself sitting at a calgary table, sharing drinks with one of Eddy's heroes, Ford Pier. Ford remembered Eddy fondly, and we raised a glass to him.

hey Eddy, Fishbone was great. sorry you couldn't be there...

walking through the downtown eastside

white-bearded skinny man stands on street corner, clutching a small yellow feather with his left hand, brandishing a blue pack of matches with his right hand. he waves the matches around slowly. he stares fixedly, murmuring or chanting words my headphones block out.

i nod slowly as i walk by.

we're all fighting off the demons as best we can, brother.

i do it through tireless self-analysis.
(though it may in fact be my biggest, nastiest, fiercest demon.)

recurring theme

what else should i be
all apologies

people keep telling me "you have to write about this!!" when i'm recounting of the thousands of fabulous and fantastic experiences i keep being blessed with every magnificent day. these stories, tall and short, beautiful and trivial, are abundant though they have been left untold on this screen. and i'm sorry for that, if there actually is anyone out there checking in and craving updated anecdotes. what can i say? come find me, i'm the one huddled in amongst the old men around a dimly-lit bar, drinking cheap beer and sharing dreams and memories and philosophies and quips.

it seems my life away from computers, coupled with my intense need to process my experiences through retelling, is turning me into a barstool storyteller of great repute! (seriously, i walked in the other day and was greeted by a chorus of "kaen" from the characters around the bar. all began asking of my day's adventures. it was wild. i felt like.. someone between "Norm" and Bukowski...)