Monday, June 27, 2005

Listening too long to one song

I've noted that both Andrew's and Matt's worthy travelogues have been noted by the outside world for their impressive photo and story boards of their recent adventures. And they are impressive. But what also struck me, especially in respect to my last post, was Chris' efforts at publicizing the wonder that was Debaser (now with the actual recordings! check it out if you're not near children or small animals that may be seriously injured with prolonged exposure).

Listening to the three currently available songs, I think "I hope that those were the ones recorded with the little magic tape recorder on one take." At least that way, I can still pretend. And I think that there was something there, somewhere. The earnestness, at least is clear.

For instance "Why", it starts out OK for the first 18 seconds, at least. The simple fingerpicking, while a bit clumsy, is a nice introduction. Then, there's a spare note from the bass that arrives a beat too early and then we notice that the guitar is horribly out of tune. Things pick up a bit with the arrival of the second guitar and troy's evident but aimless musicianship. The lyrics are also the best of this bunch of songs. I mean , there are still lines like "mother and father never paid him heed/but soon they all will pay" but this is definitely the high point of what is to follow, lyrically wise at least.

Then "Funky Song". Again, it starts out well. The bass line is clear and catchy, but then I kick in with the guitar and it's so inappropriate. It makes me laugh out loud now. It does get better as we settle into the "groove" and the distortion kicks in to make things better/less easier to hear. It goes on for much too long...the final chorus/verse/chorus is really unnecessary...and that entry into the quiet part at 3:30 could be better...and the solo is what happens when you let the tone deaf near musical instruments..but otherwise there's an element of rocking.

It surprised me though that "Green Bathing Suit Girl" has held up best, since we almost never played it. If only we had taken the good parts of this and built on it, well, it probably wouldn't have mattered. Lyrically, this is clearly the worst "when I saw you standing there/I just had to stare/ you're my vision/you're my dream/you're my object of desire/ I'm on fire." OR "when I saw on the beach...desire/you were just out of reach..admire" But while the execution is a little shaky, it has a real energy to it that the others lack.

I'm curious about the Mike's solo song...what is that one? I'm a little scared to find out.

In other music news, I've grabbed most of the New Pornographers new album (which is unsuprisingly excellent) and put it in the artichokes@ account. I've used this thing called Gmail Drive which makes gmail look like a disk drive to the computer, so it's easier to upload and download to the account if you use it.

Thursday, June 16, 2005

A is for death and pumpkins

So I'm back in Ottawa for a few days. I've been looking through my box of letters and other memoriabilia. There's almost nothing in there past 1997. I blame the internet. It's interesting what I have in there and what I see there looking back on some of the stuff now. For instance, I have a surprisingly large number of letters from Sonia, for those who might remember. I thought nothing of it at the time, but there must have been something going on there, given the dozens of long, decorated notes I still have. Or it just may be some wierd freak archiving accident.

More amusingly, of course, is the poetry. I found some gems I think may need to be immortalized by the internet. Names will not be included here to protect the guilty.

For instance, I have the near original copy of "The Library Song" [NB: Not written by me]. How glad I am that we lived in a pre-columbine world!

When I'm feeling down and blue,
There's only one thing left to do.
Library, Library.

Lots of fun and thing there to do
Books and maps and folders too.
Library, Library.

Put a gun to the librarian's head
Shot my gun and now he's dead.
Library, Library.

Set fire to the shelves,
Go the the basement and hang myself.
Library, Library.

There are lots of things I like to do, When I'm feeling down and blue.

When I'm feeling down and blue,
There only one thing left to do.
Bowling, Bowling.

Lots of fun things there to do
Pins and [unclear] and even strikes too
Bowling, Bowling.

Throw the ball at opponent's head
Lots of blood, I think he's dead.
Bowling, Bowling.

Run from the alley in insane glee
OD on drugs, I'll cease to be
Bowling, Bowling.

These are the things I like to do, when I'm feeling down and blue.

When I'm feeling down and blue
There's only one thing left to do.
French Class, French Class.

Lots of things there to do
Work and [unclear] and dialogues too.
French Class, French Class.

Swinging lead pipes to the teacher's head
A squashed melon be his head
French class, French Class.

Run to the roof and off I'll go
Where he lands no one knows
French class, French Class.

These are things I love to do, when I'm feeling down, and blue.
The creativity of teenage boys is astounding, isn't it. To be fair to the true author of the previous opus, I will not print that treatise written concerning multiple arm breakages entitled "Oops, Not again!" I will print however a short work called "ALOHA" by another author:

A is for death and pumpkins
L is for fish and Ad Williams
O is for crazy cow sickles
H is for jumping over hockey stick
A is for aloha.


I'll admit that some of the allusions in the previous poem pass right over my head. It's maybe a bit deep.

To be fair, I will also transcribe a couple of embarrassing works that I actually wrote myself. I don't know what the title is of the first one, but the notation suggests the key of 'C':

In the moonlight, I get up
Sleeping all day
Not gonna get too much sleep again

It's 7 o clock
I take the bus
I'm gonna go down and see my baby again.
The next is called "One Short Sentence" and the tragedy of this one is that I have no memory of who I wrote it for.

When you smile your eyes light up like parasols on a tropical beach somewhere
and you have to bow your head slightly to the side
slightly shyly
slightly scared at being happy
But the movement makes a strand of your hair fall to cover your face
And you then look up at me and my insides turn to chocolate pudding and my knees
feel like water and my hearts starts to beat so fast I think it's gonna burst
I really think that they need to do something about teenagers these days.

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

I'm back.

I've been waiting for Andrew to get a little more done on his trip description before updating as he definitely will have the more detailed notes. But in the meantime, I wanted to post a few pictures.

The Time in Between

Sometimes, after a trip, I read something that takes me back to the country that I've been. I'm sure that it's mostly a coincidence, but it still feels special, like the author and I have done the same travelling, felt the same spirit of the place. For instance, I read Adventure of Kavalier and Clay--a book largely set in New York and Prague--after a trip to Prague that started in New York. This time, the book was David Bergen's The Time in Between. Although set mostly in Vietnam and Interior British Columbia, whereas I travelled from Toronto to Thailand, the book describes the cultural journey from Canada to South East Asia in a way that I related instantly to.

"The Time in Between" is about an American, Charles Boatman, who fought in Vietnam and in many ways never left. He lives in an isolated town in BC and seems to have settled down, but suddenly picks up, goes back to Vietnam, and then vanishes. Two of his children, Ada and Jon, travel there to find him. Told from the alternating perspectives of Ada and Charles, the novel traces Charles' journey back to the places that haunt him, and his children's struggle to find and understand. Along the way they meet a missionary family on their own journey, an alcoholic artist who befriends Ada, and Yen, a boy who can find anything.

I got this book courtesy of the good people at McClelland & Stewart (ie., Amanda) as part of a reading club that provides advance copies of soon to be published books (It's coming out in August) in return for reading it and writing a couple hundred words about it. Since I have to write about it anyway, I'd thought I'd do it here.

David Bergen is the author of "The Case of Lena S.", a novel I read a few months ago which won or almost won a number of major Canadian literary awards. The Case of... was a beautiful little book about a teenager and his relationship with Lena, a troubled and poetic girl who eventually ends up committing suicide. It reminded me of The Virgin Suicides in its vaguely surrealistic tone and haunting atmosphere. So I came to "The Time In Between" with high expectations.

I was not disappointed. The dream-like tone was, if anything, stronger here. Powerful images arise out of the sparse language. Details move in and out of focus. Characters are pulled by forces that they do not control and make choices that are only partially understood. It is that sense of hyperreality, that sensation of being lost in a foreign culture in a foreign place that Bergen captures so well. He brings to life the differences between residents and tourists and travellers, all observing each other with slight distrust and unease, unsure of their place.

Again, this book closes with a suicide. But, unlike in The Case of.., it didn't leave me sad, rather left me with a very powerful feeling of being unsatisfied. I felt disconcerted and I think I was meant to feel that way. The Vietnam of Charles Boatman, the Vietnam of war and destruction, never resonated for me, but the modern Vietnam and the feeling of journeying was all too familar.