protège moi

I've noticed that lately, my musical choices have been extremely nostalgic ones. I've been drifting back to bands and songs I listened to in high school, and its like stepping into a time machine, and its all just beautiful images without all the weight and tired trembling.

Its amazing how much emotion and memory music can evoke. The way lilac bushes smelt on a particular damp morning - walking home alone in red heels on a summer morning - the sound of the ocean surging, just as the sky is starting to wake up. I just close my eyes and I'm there, in tiny pictures between the notes of songs. Music is really the best way to climb into the past. Music sort of plants its roots in me most when I'm on a walk, on a mission, alone with my thoughts, so many of my best musical memories concern walking - to something, away from something, smiling, in tears, just walking for the sake of it, walking because I'm too drunk to go home just yet. 

Everything changes, doesn't it? I wonder what my soundtrack for this particular year of my life will be. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

XO

future blues

Too much thinking about the future lately! And I thought living in the past was a scary thing, at least I know what happened and wasn't left chewing my fingernails in anxious speculation. 

Life is changing greatly - people are breaking up, moving away, getting jobs, graduating... its SCARY, thats what it is. I like to think that moving forward and growing up is a positive thing, but when I really think about what that means I break out in cold sweats. Sure, the idea of people moving away and getting houses and jobs and babies and husbands/wives is a sweet little idea, but. Those are the first steps to crazy mortgage debt, divorces, people dying, diseases, old age, etc. I want everybody I know to have a fairytale life, where they live happily ever after and die of old age in their beds, but oh wait - this is real life.

I don't WANT to grow up, can we all just please stay 20 and beautiful and carefree forever? When I think about getting divorced, my hair turning gray, my skin wrinkling, my parents dying... ahhh. Stop it, life. This is why living in the present is a beautiful thing, you can just take it as it comes and worry about things when you get there. I don't want to keep checking a map, I just wanna watch the trees blur past me on the highway until I get there. Can I please? 

I've ripped out my hair enough this post, I think! I know you're all just as scared as me, so I shall let Mr. Waits finish wailing on my behalf. Positive thoughts, people.

XO

and i feel nothing, not brave.

Jenny Lewis, you are the absolute foxiest of all the ginger foxes to ever roam the Earth. Rilo Kiley make me smile. I can't get this song out of my head today, for some reason.

Its a strange time in life. I have exams coming up, and that inevitable sandstorm of due dates that I usually try to shrug off until the last minute. Well, not this semester. I've been studying as though my life depended on it, and I've already started on several of my essays. Its not all bad, I guess. Its all half-interesting stuff which saves my brain. I have to write an essay on the ethics of organ donation. An assignment for anthropology, in which I basically have to spend 5 days watching people go about their daily lives and take in the sights of city, record it in a journal, then write a 1000 page paper on my experiences (drawing on the rules of fieldwork and anthropological concepts, naturally). And an essay on "1984" and its use of propaganda and fear as political tools. All in all, definitely could be worse! Its all pretty fun, really.

Russian History is a looming cloud, I start June 26th. And my textbook is $114? Vomit. I want the postal strike to end so I can order a second-hand copy online.

In light of recent events, I feel pretty blessed for all my friends. They're pretty and fun and silly, and make me laugh ever so much. They make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. And at the end of the day, I get to come home and be safe and warm in a underground little blue cave with the dorkiest peanut butter gorging sweetheart a girl could ever want. I'm a lucky one. I wish people could take the little things in life and just feel grateful. I was reading a quote the other day that said something along the lines of, if you threw all your problems in a pile, then looked at the problem's of others, you'd be snatching yours back in an awful hurry. Which I think is true. Nothing is ever bad as it seems. You just have to look around you at all the beauty of life.

Well, its back to the grind for me. My apartment smells like bread and coffee, its pleasurable. What's your favorite smell, friends?

XO

songs i can't out of my head

Allan Ford, being the darling he is, has pimped out my iPod to epic proportions. I haven't downloaded music is yeons and I was getting pretty tired of everything on it, to the extent that I could pretty much guess which song was going on next when I had it on "shuffle". It was in serious need of an extensive makeover. Now I get to wander the streets to SO much beautiful music - new albums by bands I love (like Fleet Foxes and the Strokes~), and amazing music by artists I've never listened to before (like Coeur de Pirate, and Bedouin Soundclash). Thank you, Allan, for this marvellous gift.
In the spirit of new music, I have many songs I cannot get out of my head. Here are three that have been looping in and out of my brain the last few days.

Especially pleased with Architecture in Helsinki - SUCH FUN SUMMER MUSIC. Although it doesn't feel at all like summer right now, as its been raining pretty much my entire life and its so foggy I don't know where I am half the time. Sigh. Sun, what did we do to offend you? Please come back.



XO

princess leslie feist of canada

 

Daniel Tobin & I have too much fun together. Our friendship is like crack - we can't get enough of it and when we're away from each other for more than a day at a time we go through some serious withdrawal. Last night we got together for an adventure of mass proportions, that included so much food I'm amazed I can stand up today (pork chops, mashed potatoes, cheesecake, popsicles, popcorn, followed by a spontaneous second supper and drinks at Jungle Jim's). During our time together, he introduced me to a beautifully magnificent documentary that I am making everybody watch, as a requirement for maintaining my friendship.

The documentary is titled "Look at What the Light Did Now", which is about the beautiful Ms. Leslie Feist and the process she went through in creating the album and the tour for her album "The Reminder". And may I just say, it made me both ashamed and sad that I have not seen her live yet. She worked with an artist to create this intense shadow imagery for her live shows that just took my breathe away, and the scenes of Feist in her GORGEOUS home recording her album were so very delightful. You should see her house! Its like she lives in a fairytale. She seems like the sweetest person alive, and I want to be her best friend.

WATCH IT OMFG.

XO

the three c's: cookies, coffee, chemistry

I woke up this morning with a little bit of a headache, after a night of hilariously vivid dreams, the kind of dreams you want to paint cartoonishly because thats exactly what they feel like. Dave's sister was getting married, and I was freaking out trying to find a dress, and Dave was late for the wedding because he was playing basketball in what looked like Harlem or something with Lora Pope (who was like a million months pregnant). Combine that with my dad turning our house in Stephenville into a hotel of sorts, and there being a washer and dryer so large that I had to stand on stacks of things on my toes to reach them in my bedroom. My brain is a weird, weird contraption.

Today I had a mini-quiz in chemistry, which wasn't worth any marks, just a wee thing to see how well our naming compounds, etc was going (which is like, the heart of the course). I was the only person in the class  that got all of them right! Considering my grossness at chemistry before, you can imagine how pleased I was with this.

I am still thinking of ideas for this blog, and others. I'm thinking of actually starting a second blog strictly for poetry business. Taking submissions from people, posting my own poetry, doing features on famous poets old and new, and maybe posting stuff about poetry events, etc in Canada. Lots of guest articles and fun stuff, I think it might be pretty nice. I just have to do it! I will probably run it by my poetastic friends from days of old first, because I definitely want them on board.

Who else thinks MUNLife is ridunkulously slow? *raises hand*

I leave you with a merry little tune to brighten your day! Belle & Sebastian is such summer music for me, reminds of swimming and walking around in Stephenville, and the smell of lilac trees. The harmonica in this song is KILLER. And since the leaves are starting to wake up and summer is upon us, theres no earlier time to get into the mood.

Love you all!

XO

the origin of love

Last night me and my lovely friend Allan went for dinner and a show. We headed downtown for delicious food at Jungle Jim's (and multiple delicious cocktails that tasted like yummy tropical juice), and then headed to the Rock House for HEDWIG & THE ANGRY INCH. This was a really special night; Allan and I have been in love with the movie almost since we first became friends. I didn't know what to expect at all, really; I knew the play would obviously be very different from the movie.

It was incredible; the actor who played Hedwig was perfect. He looked the part entirely, and he was such a diva. I'd imagine its an incredibly difficult part to play; basically putting off a concert while in character, as a female, and he didn't break character once. He was sexy, hilarious, perfect really. It was essentially a one-man show, just Hedwig and her band, the Angry Inch. They even added a bunch of jokes about St. John's into the opening of it; it was basically supposed to be a concert, with Hedwig telling her story. The music was sensational, the acting was astonishing, and I loved how interactive it was.

If you've never seen the movie, I'd get on that. If you like musicals, its definitely a treat. A very sad story, sassy, hilarious. So many things. Hedwig had a sex change operation performed so as to able to leave communist East Germany and get married (a marriage which collapses rather quickly), but the operation was botched, leaving Hedwig with a mound of flesh that leaves her neither male nor female (her "angry inch"). Its a story about finding love and finding yourself. Super smart and funny. And the music is so goddamn catchy. 

My favorite part of the movie, and one of my favorite songs, is when Hedwig is telling a story that his mother told him, which is actually Aristophanes' speech from Plato's Symposium. Its about how humans used to be beings with 2 faces, 4 arms, 4 legs, and how the Gods were angered with them and cut them in half. Now we spend our lives trying to find our other half, and sex is how we try to put ourselves back together again. Its a beautiful story, both the song and its original philosophical manifestation.

Thats enough gushing for now (I could write a lot more, trust me). Now I'm going to go listen to music and read about the Athabasca oil sands (for academic reasons). I hope everyone is having an amazing weekend.


XO