Monday 18 July 2011

A Little Wild

An unfinished first draft of something I may come back to. Or maybe not.

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Leaky portal dripping dreams,

 
Thirsty mouths with eyes that don't see

 
Falling asleep in time's lap



Running in circles until they collapse.


I am wild woman, running from truth,


I am dark skinned and barebreasted, a huntress,


Bearing the weight of centuries whips and pains,


Hunting for food that doesn't taste like children.

Potential Penpals

I should write to parliament every day. I should write to Stephen Harper every day telling him what I think of what he's doing. I could send comical yet scathing letters about the state of our education system and the treatment of First Nations. I could condemn his conversative views while poking fun at them in a jolly mocking way. Something Wildean. Mr. Harper, your privatization initiative is poppycock! He'll think I'm an old English woman, and listen to my wisdom. That's a lot of money on stamps and stationary. I could use recycled stationary with owl stickers. Maybe subconsciously create a sense of caring for the environment via owls. Owls are the answer for our future. Owl stickers to be precise. I will send him videos of myself lipsyching to Right Back To Where We Started From by Maxine Nightingale for when he is sad. Why would I take such care to tickle a man whose views I so greatly despise? Because you catch more flies with honey, that's why! I will drown him in honey, drown his closeminded soul with honey, sweet tender liberal honey from the loins of feminism! Exactly! I will also write to Rob Ford, using a large font and bright colours to peak his interesting, and explain to him why bicycles are good, and why books are good. I will draw detailed pictures, in crayon, and explain the history of Asian-Canadians, and why they've had to work so damn hard. (He said they work like dogs. Here's a link talking about it: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/rob-ford-and-a-decade-of-controversy/article1678543/

Canadian politics is at a golden age of warm, glowing bullshit.

Recently, in federal communcations, instead of using the heading Government of Canada, Harper Government has started to be used.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/03/04/pol-harper-govt-brand.html

"It's not Stephen Harper's government, it's the goverment of all Canadians," Liberal MP Dominic LeBlanc told CBC News. "You'd expect this kind of directive to be issued by the ministry of information in North Korea."
I agree with Mr. LeBlanc on this point. What next, Harper Government issued school curriculums, textbooks, Harper Government certified homes- fully equipped with 24 survellience and chains for women, people of colour, and gays, so they don't infiltrate the workforce?

If I mysteriously go missing, you all know why. It's because I can PREDICT THE FUTURE*.

*I cannot actually PREDICT THE FUTURE, uppercase or otherwise.

Thursday 14 July 2011

Various Delectables


What is happening to me? And is it worthy to even wonder what, or why? There are only more questions. If anything I've learned that. That there are only questions and pain, questions and pain. Questions cause pain, and questions can comfort pain. They can comfort pain because questions provide hope, somewhere to go, a journey which has promise. 

Answers are solid and immobile. What to do with an answer? A heavy moldy answer filled with years of shit and decay. Answers are always heavy. But can answers change? If the question changes does the answer change? Can perception change? Sure, perception can change, but can truth change? Can situations change? If truth is not a fixed thing, if truth is also perception... how to find another perception, another perspective? How to find a nicer rock to sit on? That's all it is, comfort, trying to find comfort. But comfort is boring. Ay, there's the rub. I am sad and angry, but is it all futile. Living without expressing is futile and useless and a waste of time. Everything is an expression. Non-expression is an expression. 

Twitter, Facebook, blogs, it's all about expression. People crave expression, people need expression, but we're all so fucking bad at it. Isn't that strange? One of the most essential desires for human kind and we suck at it. Well, we don't suck per se, but we're inefficient. Twitter is a useful tool no doubt, (revolution!) but it is a pathetic substitute for REAL COMMUNICATION, whether that be through conversation, visual or performing arts, crafts or trades, fashion, or otherwise. 

Fashion. Fashion. Fashion is useful for expression but so quickly turns into a status issue, a signifier of so many things except authentic personality. People love haut-couteur because it's crazy and wild and reveals something about it's designers-even if we're not sure what that actually is.

I have a hunger but it’s not for food. Not sure what it is. Am I just lonely? Is it that simple? It usually is. No, that’s not true. It’s 20 years of weird complications that can’t be fixed. Or is it just boredom. I don’t think I can believe that anything is ever simple.

I don’t know how to edit this. I’ll just heave it out into the world and see what happens. I want to be brave and hide nothing but I also fear seeming careless. 



Wednesday 13 July 2011

Sleep Dissonance.

How is it that in a single moment I can go from the verge of sleep, the very edge of sleep, from whence if I fall  it will take me to a sweet and glorious slumber, to being wide awake? Wide awake, but still tired mind you, 1000 miles away from the very border of rest which I was only a moment ago, so close to. What happens in these moments, what happens to the neurons in my brain, what do they say to each other to create these extra hours of restlessness for me? Is it a sign? Have I truly not completed my days work? And why so many thoughts- where do all these thoughts come from? The moment my head touches my pillow-THOUGHTSTHOUGHTSTHOUGHTSTHOUGHTS. A lethargic and dreary mind turns into a hyperactive mess of every single event, anecdote, fantasy, or displeasure it could possibly create. 


Is it merely that I am an artist? Is it merely that I have stirred my creative juices to the point of continual motion? Did I eat sugar too close to bedtime? Am I overweight? Is this payback for all my rudeness and coldness towards my family? Is there a child dying somewhere in the world who is praying for help, whose prayer isn't reaching God and is interfering with my dream channel? Can that happen? Does God exist? Dogs exist for sure. I have seen many in my time. Small dogs, big dogs, smelly dogs, hairy dogs, hairless dogs, fun dogs, boring dogs, skinny dogs, fat dogs, loving dogs, unhappy dogs- I have seen all of these dogs in my own dog actually. Except the hairless part- oh no wait, they shaved his leg for his surgery, I've seen all of them. Much as I've seen many sides of humanity in each person I've ever encountered, if only in small glimpses. In some people, I've seen the greatest shows of opposites. Ying and yang. Love and indifference. Love and hate. Caring and cruelty. I've seen these in myself as well. And will continue to. 


Goodnight. 

Tuesday 12 July 2011

The Reckoning Song- Asaf Avidan





Asaf Avidan, a Jerusalem based singer/songwriter, is currently navigating the channels of my aural soul, and rocking it. He is one of the bravest singers I've encountered in a long time, allowing his voice full reign, creating a world which each crackling word, crackling in the heat of his inner fire. His voice reverberates alongside the twanging of his guitar, creaking and jumping up in ways I didn't know a voice could do. A child dangerously playing with a tight elastic band, close to his eye. But for the greater part of his songs, he sings in a soft, very feminine sounding voice, and only brings out his trapeze-esque sound for the crucial parts of his choruses.  There is however, always a quality of sand in his voice, a graininess, perhaps a reflection of the deserts of his country and the surrounding landscape. 

His lyrics live up to the demands of his emotion sculpting voice. There's a melancholic desire, a melancholic truth to each song. 

"Weak, weak, tell me I'm weak, tell me these promises are not mine to keep"
"I know I said that I was sure, but rich men can't imagine poor. One day, baby, we'll be old, oh baby, we'll be old, and think of all the stories that we could have told"

All the stories that we could have told... what stories would we have told, and to whom? About what? 


I'll never know, but at least Asaf doesn't know either.

Monday 11 July 2011

Lingering Sentiments

"Old friend, why're you so shy/ Ain't like you to hold back/ Or hide from the light" loops over and over in my mind. 

Reminds me of my dog, now deceased. I feel my family and I wore him out with our catatonic lethargy, with our dull anger and soft cynicism. He could taste it in the air, he felt in our bodies as we brushed him, showing him the love we couldn't show each other. Treating him to the same rejections we gave each other, the same faded hopes for a meaningful end. It seems silly somehow- could a dog really see all of this? He never howled in pain or hurt, although the rest of us did. But on second thought, he did. He did make a lot of noise. We all made a lot of noise, but never learned to listen. So we became silent, within and outside of ourselves. This is such a quiet house. A quiet place does not equate peace. I think here it equates pieces, pieces of what was once whole, sticking to whatever they can hold on to, in hopes of one day graphing on. Burnt skin over fresh flesh, though, not the other way around.