It's curtains, folks!

This afternoon, Gabrielle and I paid a visit to the second hand shops on St. Clair West (well, more accurately, the second hand shops within a limited stretch of St. Clair West [there could be countless others tucked away in other corners of the street. There could be scads of them. SCADS!). So, first: Salvation Army Thrift Shop. We were, specifically, looking for a small table for the front porch and curtains for the living room (and possibly some other things). No luck there; although, there was an almost winner in regards to a jacket, which, unfortunately, was too big for Gabrielle. It would probably have looked more appropriate draped across a larger person's frame. Lurch's, for example. What I mean to say is: it was a nice jacket.

After this shop we headed to the Goodwill Store. And success in the form of MAGIC appeared before our very eyes. Hanging amidst the bed linens and tablecloths and valences and material riddled with holes was something almost too marvellous to imagine. A long thin strip of fabric that screamed decadence, aging luxury and possibly a few curse words.

We took the fabric home (as well as Stephen King's Skeleton Crew), but not before stopping off at the Saturday afternoon Green Barn Farmers' Market (on the corner of Wychwood and St. Clair), where we picked up an incredibly tasty baguette. And then we were homeward bound.

We ate a lunch of baguette (that's how we know it's incredibly tasty——we don't just take the seller's word for everything. Caveat emptor and whathaveyou.) and cheese and then got down to business, cranked some good tunes (Ringers, Ampere, This Is My Fist and This Bike Is a Pipe Bomb. In that order. Conveniently, we finished working just before one of my records was to come up in the rotation).

We cut the fabric into three strips and hand sewed into the top a space for the curtain rod that was here when we moved in. And, gosh, they look good!

CLOSED!:




OPEN!:

Shellac attack! or: how to survive auditory surgery

Tuesday night: The Horseshoe Tavern.
Pre-show: rum 'n' cokes at home (commencing, perhaps, somewhat earlier than most would assume a good starting time).
Excitement: high.
Also: I waited for at least 40 hours to post this, just to ensure that things would be a bit dimmer than they should be when one is writing a review of something.

To be honest, I am quite new to Shellac. Only in the past couple years have I heard them, though I had read reviews of albums, shows, long before I knew of Steve Albini as anything other than a producer.
Anticipation was running fairly high as we journeyed to the bar; there may have been an excited whoop from someone in the party, but I cannot be certain of this. Certainly, though, there was enthusiasm.
The opening performer, Chris Brokaw, played some interesting pieces——his chordal choices were interesting, and it was fun to compare the (other) music nerds in the audience to the other folks; the (other) music nerds (and maybe I was doing this, too. But there are no witnesses, and I am, to be fair, an [possibly THE] Unreliable Narrator) bobbing their heads, to the 6/8 tunes, counting in two, whereas those less inclined toward music theory were straining their necks once——actually, twice per triplet, since this head-bobbing phenomenon involves an up and down. And that equals twelve strains to each neck per measure! A little excessive, to be sure. But, let us return to Mr. Brokaw, leaving his audience where we belong. Some poorly-chosen (to my taste) effects marred some of the pieces; for example: flanger. I've never really been able to get behind that for anything but its novelty value (yeah: that's coming from the guy who made a lot of the loud stuff happen in HJT. [please refer again to that whole Unreliable Narrator conceit, please]). However, I enjoyed his voice——it reminded me, at its finer moments, of Elliot Smith on "Needle in the Hay." As a whole, though, it was a passably enjoyable set.
And, like many of the people there, I'm sure, I was mostly looking for Shellac; the opening performance was essentially irrelevant. A time killer. But a better time killer than many others out there. So, of course, once the time was killed, more time had to be killed in waiting for Shellac to set up.
From the moment they started into the first song, Shellac put on a great show. An intense show.
Imagine being tied to a tree and witnessing a herd of seismosaurs charging toward you, chased by an allosaurus or three. And maybe——just maybe (best case scenario)——the seismosaurs rumble on past you, step on your toe, knock the tree over, send up a few clouds of dust. You still have to deal with the one (or three) allosauruses (allosauri?!). And they'll probably devour you whole (much easier than continuing to chase the big guys. I mean, you have a broken toe, probably——you won't be able to run all that well——and, of course, you're still tied to a tree [please note: allosaurs are lazy]).
Now, in case you're wondering about the relevance of the above: I will explain it! (see what I'm doing here? It's a trick referred to as: A TERRIBLE THING TO DO. Never lay out the gameplan like that, guys. A faux pas if ever there was one. Just go: BAM! and hit the reader with the thing the gameplan is made of; don't badger them with the plans.)
Shellac was like that. Inevitable. Devastating. Rending everything in its path. And (like a charging allosaurus [or three] invariably is) awesome.
The show was great. It's as simple as that.
The high point for me came when they played "Squirrel Song." It was the first Shellac song I'd heard, way back in the times of mist. And I'm quite sure it's my favourite (which seems to be the case with some other people, too [not that "Squirrel Song" is their favourite or their first, but that the first Shellac song they hear is their favourite]). Everything was played bang on.
And it was nice to see a bass player who gave a shit about what the drummer was doing. Bob Weston, whenever he moved away from the drums for any reason, could be seen inching back toward them, his eyes glued to the snare and hi-hats. Which leads me to my next point (please refer to the paragraph starting "Now, in case..."): Shellac is tighter than... something which is sealed up as tight as a drum. If you stuck your finger in a vise, and tightened it as tightly as it can be tightened: Shellac would be tighter (and possibly hurt less).
It was the best show I'd seen since the last best show I'd seen (and that doesn't even bring the allosaurs or the seismosaurs into consideration). Also note: the last best show I saw was The Evens at the Haviland Club in Charlottetown. I mean: COME ON! Ian MacKaye in Charlottetown! (and it still wins)

(unfortunately, I missed the last two songs: I was overcome by heat, hunger, thirst, sheer volume, fatigue and the big crowd and had to sit on a bench in the blackly painted basement, gulping in air that wasn't overwhelmed by too many people sucking it in)

(and the way to survive this sort of auditory surgery: wear ear plugs. LOVE YOUR EARS! PLEASE! They're the only ones you'll ever have! Unless you buy some new ones from some enterprising young person somewhere.)

David Foster Wallace

Eli Horowitz told me to name one of my wiimotes after him. It was before I had read Infinite Jest. After reading it, I decided to do just that. It's an amazing triumph over words.

Taylor just sent me this link from metafilter. Which also led me here. I'm sort of shaking right now.

Also, to commemorate writers' night here at The Morass, I'm posting some stuff at my "literature" blog. First posts.

I'm telling you stories. Trust me.

That pair of sentences appears no fewer than four times in The Passion by Jeanette Winterson. A book which happens to be able to call itself my favourite. I've read it no fewer than eight times. It resonates with me. I feel it in my gut, head and heart (in order of intensity, lowest to highest). It's also one of the very few books in which I see, in my mind's eye, when I drape flesh over the characters, one of the main characters as me (another one being Clive Barker's Imajica, which might be a story for another day). Henri, in case you were wondering.
The motif of storytelling is one which Jeanette Winterson tackles more than once in her œuvre and is also something which I've been working into Jürgen; or trying to, at least (though from what I hope is at least a slightly different angle). The very idea of storytelling, the importance of it fascinates me. Its encapsulation of elements of culture, of history, of the interpretation of these(this last being, at times, the most important element from my perspective). I guess that's what being a (quasi)storyteller does, huh?
Another common motif of Winterson's is time. She is a master of manipulation in this regard; time is almost always twistable, bendable, corruptible in her works. It is not what you expect; it exists beyond any set of laws.
But, yes, back to The Passion. It is the story of Henri. He worked for Napoleon. In his kitchens in the field. (I'm not very good at talking about books——even worse than I am at talking about music, it seems. I'm not really sure why, but I can never seem to find the words. Especially with a narrative as breath-taking as this one. Maybe it's because I know I will never write anything half as powerful, half as evocative, half as invested with meaning.)
It is the story of Villanelle. She is a Venetian who has lost her heart. It is the story of Henri and Villanelle, twined together, spiralling into a tight mesh of their two voices.
Winterson's prose is incredible; simple, compact, emotive; and, at times, as near as any writer could come to perfect. It never stumbles; every word rings out on the proper note.
Without Jeanette Winterson, I don't think I would ever have decided to really try my hand as a writer (and, if she were to know this and to ever read anything I write [I'm allowed to dream, all right?], I hope she would not find the idea too repulsive, too insulting). No other writer has made me——through the same sentences (found in her essays in Art Objects)——so desire to write always and to never write another word, so inspired me and made me so contemn my own words.




(An update on my writing: Jürgen has, since I last posted about it, swelled by about five thousand words. The last section I finished, however, made me need a break——I was sort of overwhelmed by it, which is a good thing; I hope it'll have the same effect on others who may (eventually) come to read it.
Also, I've been organising some of my poetry in the hopes of completing a manuscript in time for submission season [January to March or April for most publishers I've checked out]. Not that it's likely at all to find a publisher. But it certainly won't if it just sits in my computer, gathering digi-dust and world wide cobwebs [yeah, I know: I groaned, too].
And, of course, I'm always working on shorter things, too. And, when each piece——if I think it good enough——is completed, I will submit them singly to publishers of short fiction anthologies and the like.)




But back to Winterson, for a moment, if I may.
Jeanette Winterson is my favourite writer. She writes things which resonate deeply in me, which inspire me, which swallow me whole.
Please read her. Please lose yourself in her words. Please jump, with abandon, into her worlds. You'll thank yourself, I'm sure.
Let me close with words from Jeanette Winterson, words from Art Objects: Essays on Ecstasy and Effrontery (an extract of which can be found here.):

In the West, we avoid painful encounters with art by trivialising it, or by familiarising it. Our present obsession with the past has the double advantage of making new work seem raw and rough compared to the cosy patina of tradition, whilst refusing tradition its vital connection to what is happening now. By making islands of separation out of the unbreakable chain of human creativity, we are able to set up false comparisons, false expectations, all the while lamenting that the music, poetry, painting, prose, performance art of Now, fails to live up to the art of Then, which is why, we say, it does not affect us. In fact, we are no more moved by a past we are busy inventing, than by a present we are busy denying. If you love a Cézanne, you can love a Hockney, can love a Boyd, can love a Rao. If you love a Cézanne rather than lip-service it.

S'more Spore?

All right, so I don't actually have Spore (nor have I played it), but I've been, off and on, since around 2(ish), watching Gabrielle play it. Peeking over her shoulder, straining from the completely stretched-out length of my headphones' cord, leaning back in my computer chair. And now I want to play it. It looks like a good time. Also: an incredibly difficult time, from the sounds of things.
But, I have had the trial version of the Creature Creator for about a month or so. It doesn't have all the parts and whatnot, but it's still pretty wicked. Being able to build messed up looking little fellas from the ground up is a pretty swell time. So, I added a widget to this blog. Yeah, I know, I know. I just like showing off my little guys.
Maybe some day I'll actually play the game, too. Who knows these things?

(Also: check out my SQUIPONY!!! [oh, combatwoundedveteran])