Tornlake

Bloor Subway, St. Patrick's Day

An eight or nine-year-old boy of South Asian descent is sitting with a middle-aged woman, presumed to be his mother. Across the subway car from them sits an elderly man, caucasian, wearing a well-worn Toronto Maple Leaf's cap, and holding a blond wood cane across his lap.

Intercom: This stop is Christie, Christie station.

Boy: (Reading sign on platform wall as it speeds past.) Krissthy. Krissssssssthy. Krisssssthy station. (He looks at his mother.)

Mother: Krisssthy. Right.

The boy adjusts his square-framed glasses. He sits on the edge of his seat as the car pulls away from the station.

Announcer: The next stop is Ossington, Ossington station.

Boy: (Again reading the sign on the platform.) Osssssingthun.

Mother: Osssingthone.

Boy: Osssssssssssingthuun.

Elderly Man: (Smiling) Ozingten.

Boy and Mother: Oooooooohhhhhh.

Happiness Tips

... over at Looking For Space. 'Nuff said.

After the Fall

If you believe the frequently alarmist media, modern society is on its way down -- the economic crisis being just the latest chink in the armour.

A friend of mine tipped me off to the photo essays of Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre. Each essay chronicles the mouldering of once important structures.

One essay depicts the empty buildings of downtown Detroit, many of them once grand and beautiful. The abruptness of their desertion is apocalyptic. These scenes show a city abandoned rather suddenly -- no time to collect the furniture.

Another essay shows abandoned old theatres in the U.S. They were once the focal points of culture -- high and low -- in America. They too were deserted almost fully intact, right down to the ropes. The same is happening in Canada, as Cineplexes stamp out old neighourhood theatres.

What I find extremely interesting is the conversion of many of these theatres to churches. The places where people went to see all manner of debased entertainment -- sex, drugs and violence -- are now the places where people go to renounce. What a coup.

All of the essays show the artifacts of a ravenous and rabidly industrial society -- one that creates and consumes its empires in mere fifty-year spans.

Another Day at the Office

Sunday night, Queen West, across from the vastly more popular Terroni's (pricey if you ask me), I'm being run ragged by a party of 20 at the small Indian restaurant I serve at. They all shout out drink re-fill orders in no particular sequence, yet they want six separate cheques. Six!

None of them have ever been servers. In fact they're all stage actors -- a couple of Jersey Boys, some Guys from Guys and Dolls. A quiet stage manager and his quieter girlfriend look me up and down like they're expecting me to ignore them because they're not as loud as all of their actor friends. I do. But only because they look at me that way.

There's an infinitely understanding foursome at the only other available table in the restaurant. Two older couples in jeans and hand-knit sweaters. One man in a vintage poor-boy cap and arty glasses. The woman who does the ordering smiles at me like I'm her daughter and I consider sitting on her lap for a minute, but instead I go to the bar and start preparing six coconut martinis, with a single single-drink shaker.

The door alarm beeps and I look up from the sink. A 20-something, broad, dark man ambles through the restaurant at a weirdly relaxed pace. He seems to be sauntering, strolling as if through a park, but he doesn't look at anyone he passes.

I come around the front of the bar. 'Can I help you?' I say. He looks through my head at something I can't see, then starts speaking so quickly, and with such antic inflection that I can't make out what he's saying.

It takes a tenth of a second for my hackles to raise -- it's clear from his body language and the vacancy in his eyes that this guy is not looking for take-out. I'm not frightened, but my muscles tense so I can react if necessary. 'Can I help you?' I ask again.

He reaches over the bar and retrieves a pair of scissors. My hand thrusts out to take them from him but he moves his arm from mine -- the only indication he is aware of my presence at all.

He separates the blades by an inch, then raises them towards his lips. I reach my hand towards them again, but he turns from me and begins to speak into them as if they were a walkie-talkie. I relax a little, releived he isn't about to harm himself. The entire restaurant is watching him.

'Something mumblemumble the holy spirit! The goddamn holy spirit man mumble mumbleshit.'

He turns back to me, replaces the scissors, and asks for a cup of hot water, "by any chance?"

I tell him I can't help him here and to go to the Salvation Army down the road.

"Something mumbleJESUS!"

He turns and strolls out of the restaurant, the same relaxed ambling pace. So casual it makes me feel as if I'm the one in another world, where nothing makes sense most of the time.

I go back to my martinis.

Anon.

What is this thing?

This thing. This THING

What is it

That you have, that I don't

except sometimes,

when I do.

But what is it?

You don't know me

I eat too much lately

my flesh like comfort like a blanket

of snow

You don't know what love is.

But I do

To fall in and then out

maybe you've done it too,

but it wasn't the same love

you fell into

What does it mean -

empowered?

To write out loud.

I don't know what this thing is, what is this thing?

What is THIS thing?

What

is

this

thing

and how do you get it?

I stare at a computer all day and crave the limits of a recipe card so maybe I can bake something unique with the words that will fit on it.

If only I had one

If only I had it

That thing. 

YOU'RE IN CHARGE

I find it way too easy to forget that I am in charge of my life.

That may seem like a weird statement, but think about it for a minute: how many times a day to you complain silently to yourself about your job, or your hair, or your significant other, or the city you live in, or..... I find it frighteningly easy to get stuck in a victim mentality, to start thinking of things as happening to you, rather than you making things happen.

Maybe this is common in your twenties, maybe it's common forever, but I need to remind myself that I'm an adult with autonomy, smarts and free will. If I don't like something about my life -- my job or my home, my daily schedule, my wardrobe -- I can do something about it. I'll go further: I should do something about it.

It's easy to start viewing your life as a series of stages, set out like steps or platforms before you, and at the end is some ill-defined higher state (heaven? enlightenment?). It's easy to look at the way your parents lived their lives and imagine yourself doing the same types of things. But maybe, though more difficult, it might be more rewarding to think about the way you -- you, the person you are right now -- might like to live your life.

The possibilities really are endless. And one of the most freeing things to remember is that you don't have to figure it all out right now -- another easy pit to fall into, I find. I get stuck on trying to figure out the rest of my life. Well screw that, how about the next year or two? Where do I want to be? What do I want to do?

Remember when you were a kid and every day was endless? Remember how you didn't necessarily know what would happen one hour to the next (what game you would play, what you'd have for a snack, what new thing might catch your interest)? Each day was a series of discoveries: a snail in the grass, a math problem, a glimpse of adult interaction that taught you something about how things worked.

It was easy then, I guess, to not worry too much about what would come next, because your parents took care of all your needs. But it is possible to recapture this carefree inquisitiveness, the inclination to be happy rather than sad, the energy to try something new. Alcohol helps, I find. But there are other, more permanent ways, like spending time each day learning something you didn't know before.

You might guess by this post that I've been thinking of lots of big-ish things lately. But really, if you know me by more than this blog, you know I'm thinking all the freakin' time (another pitfall sometimes). Though I may have talked a good game above, I'm much more inclined to think exhaustively, plan far into the future, and obsess over the progression of things -- careers, relationships, thesises -- so injecting a bit of freedom and spontanaeity into my thinking is difficult for me.

I thought it might comfort some of you who are in the same 'life stage' as me to know I suffer some sort of quarter-life-crisis more or less daily. You're welcome.

Vesseled

My sister-in-law, perhaps sensing my inertia with regards to my thesis, and really any creative writing these days, sent me this link to a talk by Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love. I've never read the book, and I don't intend too (I've heard only the Eat part is worth it, really), but I'm very glad I spent twenty minutes of time I was supposed to be working watching it.

Gilbert suggests that maybe all us artistes -- musicians, actors, painters, writers, etc. -- would all be much happier, more well-adjusted people if we weren't blaming the inconsistent quality of our work, or our lack of quality work all-together (minus a few brief glimpses of genius) on ourselves. What if we treated creative inspiration as another entity, separate from ourselves? Something that comes from without, rather than within -- something that passes through us, rather than something we generate.

I've spoken before about the feeling of being channeled by my subconscious when the writing is going well. Gilbert takes this idea one step further, suggesting that all we as artists can do is prepare ourselves as best we can for creative inspiration -- a genius or muse, if you will -- to strike or pass through us. And then we have to take advantage of it when it comes. Outside of that, abdicate responsibility. If nothing's coming, just work away as best you can until it does, and don't feel badly about it.

I need to hear this just now, because writing is like pulling teeth these days for me, and it wasn't like this six months ago. I have a feeling this vessel isn't very well-prepared for a muse to channel it. So I'll work a bit at cleaning out the space in my brain where inspiration sometimes chooses to visit, in the hope that it shows up, knowing the place is in good condition.

How do I do this? By finding a bit more quiet in my life. By making sure I'm sleeping and eating well, getting exercise, and taking the steps to alleviate whatever stress I might be under on any particular day. And those stresses I can't relieve? I'm going to try not to worry about them so much.

The 70th Random Post About Me

So far, I've managed to duck the onslaught of "25 Random Things About Me" notes swirling around Facebook these days, save for a few. I haven't deliberately avoided writing a note of my own, but I have thought about whether posting one of these might make me seem slightly self-absorbed and incontrovertibly bored.

Then I realized I write a blog comprised solely of my own musings about mostly mundane, 'random' things. The note would be overkill.

The New York Times ran a column lambasting the note craze as another example of narcissism and the erosion of face-to-face communication, among other things. What does writing one of these notes say about you? Well, it might say:

a) You're bored at work
b) You have a crush on the person who tagged you in their 25 Random Things note, and you desperately want them to know that you're really sentimental and smushy underneath that confident, devil-may-care shell you wear.
c) You want to cultivate mystique.
d) You want to tag the person you have a crush on in your 25 Random Things note, so they know you have a crush on them or at least want to know 25 Random Things about them.
d) Your thesis is going poorly and you're using the note as a writing exercise.
e) You think it would be a shame to deprive your 'friends' of these fascinating facts about you.
f) You're a joiner, and everyone else is doing it.
g) You're feeling introspective.

Let me just say that I've enjoyed many of the 25 Things notes I've come across. I think that means I have interesting 'friends'. But the question of whether it's self-absorbed and weirdly voyeuristic to post or read a 25 note leads into the larger question of what the Internet culture of confession and narcisissm will do to the way we evaluate one another.

A friend of mine once asked me whether I wasn't worried that a guy I'd just met had no interesting photos up on his Facebook page (and by interesting she meant photos of that person in foreign cities, doing extreme sports or attending exclusive concerts/playing rare instruments/climbing mountains). My reply was, do you find me boring? Because my Facebook page has a serious dearth of death-defying photos.

If I don't post a 25 note about myself, will people write me off? Assume I have nothing interesting to say? If I don't get some fabulous pics of myself walking a tight-rope in Trinity-Bellwoods park up on my profile, will potential friends decide I'm not unique? Fun? Interesting?

For better or worse, our Facebook pages brand us, as do our, ahem, blogs (my goal with this one has been to be rabidly eclectic, and hence, impenetrable). Your 25 note brands you too -- it's like a feature length commercial for you. To a certain extent, what we wear, what we listen to, what we work at, what we do for fun, and what kind of food we eat are all extentions of our brand, but until the past few years, relative strangers haven't been forming opinions of us based solely on some drunken photos and our endless status updates. Now, unless you're one of the few people who have only good friends as Facebook friends, strangers and relative strangers are doing just that.

As a sort-of aspiring writer (there've been serious second thoughts since this whole thesis adventure began), I have to admit that I want people to read what I write. If I knew no one was ever going to read my stories, I probably wouldn't write them. I don't do it for my mental health. I want to communicate with people. I want to share thoughts and ideas. I want to entertain. Perhaps what is happening on the Internet these days, with personal blogs like this one and Facebook and MySpace and these 25 Random Things notes, is that everyone is discovering how much fun it is to be a writer.

What do you think? I normally don't beg for comments on here but I'm really interested in your opinions on the NYT article and all of the above.

Winter in High Park

I heard cardinals singing in High Park on my run this week. It felt like forever since I had heard a bird sing, and it put a smile on my face instantly. 

High Park is full of dogs at any time of the day, any day of the week. I overheard one owner point to her golden retriever, who was rough-housing energetically with a considerably smaller wheaten terrier, and say 'they're like lovers -- can't keep their paws off each other'. Snow is just something to roll around in if you're a dog. A useful thing to remember when you're cursing the salt-stains on your jeans. 

 It's amazing how striking a colour like the watery brown of dried beech leaves can be against the winter pallet. When I compare the colours Canadians favour in clothes (black, brown, navy, grey, white) to the colours you see in hot countries like Brazil or India or Spain, I can't help but link them to landscapes. Winter is muted, and so is our wardrobe.

Super Sized Bowl (of Indigestion)

In the States, Super Bowl Sunday is as big as Thanksgiving in many households, but without so much of the stress. No relatives you don't like but feel obligated to invite, no uncomfortable religious overtones that don't jive with the current economic and political situation (you're pigging out and thanking God for it while half the world goes on starving), no turkey to over-cook, no nice clothes to hamper your ability to pack away as much food as possible.

Even here in Canada, the Super Bowl is an excuse to get people all together, and it's a great antidote to the blah days of January. No one expects a fantastic party or particularly good food -- just pizza, chips and beer, some comfy couches, and a stretchy pair of sweats -- but seeing your friends and cocooning on a cold Sunday night puts everyone in a good, if bloated, mood.

As I watched the pomp and circumstance in Tampa, I couldn't help but think how very, very American it all was. And by American I really mean not Canadian. We can't hold a candle to the sheer BIGness of the the celebration that goes on down there. The air-force jet fly-by, the excessive fireworks, the legions of cheerleaders in go-go boots and the general beer and hot-dog-fueled mania over guys running around in tights ricocheting off each other like colliding cars on the DVP --- these things are about as alien to Canadian sports events as strong beer is to American sports events. We just aren't quite as loud, or loudly dressed.

I like watching the Super Bowl, even though I don't follow NFL football (I make a bigger effort with the CFL on principle, but I've been pretty dismal at keeping up with that in the past couple years too), mostly because of the cultural intrigue. For example: Jennifer Hudson singing The Star Spangled Banner [Stacey, you are an idiot for originally saying it was America the Beautiful --ed.] was moving, but somehow ironic. I might get some hate-comments for this, but I wonder if she still believes the lyrics of that song. Her own family has fallen victim to the violence that plagues big American cities, and that is directly linked to gangs, poverty and income disparity, marginalization, and educational and social programs that just don't go far enough towards addressing these ills. In one American family, there's a classic zero to hero story in Hudson acheiving fame on American Idol and beyond, and a tragedy that repeats itself over and over in other families accross the country.

In the sheer excess of the Super Bowl itself is a certain irony: yes there is a huge injection of hope into much of the American populus thanks to the inauguration of President Barack Obama (I do like writing that), but the country is waist deep in a debilitating recession, with no certain end in sight. How much money (not to mention carbon emissions) does it cost to fly airforce jets over the stadium? How many millions of dollars in salaries are paid to the players displaying admittedly impressive athletic prowess on the field?

In a culture of consumerism and excess in everything (I continue to experience the effects of the excess food), will we ever come around to simply scaling things back? I guess you could argue that at least companies didn't spend exhorbitant amounts of money on their commercials this year. They were so underwhelming...