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it's been over a month since i've gotten a comment aside from tilley telling me "dude, your blog is boring!". what a pal. this just amps up the solipsism, though, which is not a problem. i'll devolve into lists of parks, brand names, cities, records. "shards of prose".

i got nothing accomplished today, aside from all sorts of lovely conversation.

my house is becoming overwhelmingly depressing. we need to move. we will, between next wednesday and saturday. supposedly. we've been "about to move" since march.

i live in the most liveable city on the planet. we were demoted to second, once, in favour of zurich, i believe. many thousands of people would like to move to the city that i live in. this is the best city on the continent. this is as good as it gets. i live here.

i have a 1500 word assignment due tomorrow for HIST 339. it's a comparative essay, analysing two articles about the differential experiences of indigenous peoples in new zealand and australia following british colonisation. it's actually quite a fascinating subject, but i can't drum up the energy to write about it.

hopefully, i'll go hiking on saturday. i want to hike all day, up golden ears and back.

theory of pension

todd haynes' safe is a film that i would like to own. julianne moore becomes allergic to the modern world, and retreats further and further from life. the film is ambiguous as to whether her condition is physical, mental, or psychosomatic. the film is also ambiguous, often uncomfortably so, in its treatment of the surrounding cast, from doctors to julianne moore's LA friends to the leaders of the hippie commune she ends up in.

there are five things for which i feel no guilt for consuming.

1. books
   
2. records
   
3. information
   
4. alcohol
   
5. public transit
   

i picked up a new bicycle route map from the library today. i've long wanted them to add little icons indicating where the steep hills are, and they've done just that for the 2006 edition! the only new routes listed are downtown, but i'm happy to have them.

new records, too. i felt depressed, so i bought records. it never fails.

• scott walker, tilt (1995)
  
• scott walker, climate of hunter (1984) - bob stanley from saint etienne wrote the liner notes!
  
• heather duby, come across the river (2003)
  
• the ecstasy of saint theresa, susurrate (1992)
  

some days i just can't make it out of bed. this is only a problem if it begins to negatively impact my life. it does, but my sub-par is apparently enough to get through the day without attracting undesired attention. am i a high-functioning alcoholic, or just a high-functioning individual? the two do not preclude each other, by any means.

today, the newspaper says that junichiro koizumi, prime minister is a mega-elvis fan. he's visiting with george bush, but only after he makes a pilgrimage to graceland.

my camera is back in working order, three years later. the second repair was under warranty.

stadium house

today i read a week's worth of newspapers between 12-4am, slept until 1pm, and spent the rest of the day reading about world war II. if this is really autobiography for me, i should be adding more details.

• i got a phone call from a woman, julie, who'd found my number on a cell phone that she found at granville island. did i know anyone who'd lost a cell phone? no, but i only know one person who has my number and spends time at granville island. rich got his phone back from julie after i called his home and left him her number. he left his phone at granville island because he was distracted by a cute girl. in a few days he'll be going back to california for a wedding. he's going to fort bragg. it's several hours north of san francisco, on the coast.
  
• i've been exchanging e.mails with a good friend all day, and it's reminded me of how rarely i use e.mail for actual communication. when i was in high school, i'd use e.mail to write long letters. my address was 'harder@intergate.bc.ca'. i wrote "fx: the series" fanfiction, and made a lot of friends across the continent on an "fx: the series" bulletin board.
  
• catherine bush's minus time is wonderful. it reminds me a lot of margaret atwood, but more ambiguous, less didactic. i'm really enjoying it.
  
• tomorrow i'll continue reading about world war II and the british empire. this week, i have to do a lot of work on my polisci term paper, due july 11.
  

the stage furniture of fascism

-x men 3 was definitely enjoyable to watch, but i agree with kevin that the political subtext has changed for the worse. all the ambiguity of outright resistance v. tentative cooperation that made the first two so interesting in a political sense was gone. now we have explicitly evil mutants and explicitly good mutants. what this movie had to say about the proper fate of subcultures was disconcerting; the phrases 'collaboration of local elites' and 'native informants' kept popping up for me.

the signifiers for 'good mutants' and 'bad mutants' really bothered me. on one hand, we have the brotherhood of 'bad' mutants, who are dressed up like punks and goths. magneto's team is pierced, tattooed, androgynous, over-sexualised, 'bad-ass'. name an 'alternative' 90's subculture, and their touchstones were gathered to destroy the human race. on the other hand, our heroes are predominantly clean-cut, well-dressed, from middle class suburban backgrounds. the film ended with an extended riff on the jocks beating up the geeks.

-when i was a teenager, there were all sorts of viable pizza delivery options. the big ones that i recall were little caesar's, domino's, pizza hut, and panagopolous. when i was much younger, godfather's pizza was a viable option, but more so for eating out. i remember the restaurants as very dark, ominous, tinted glass, dark booths, low hanging tiffany lamps with low-wattage bulbs. pizza only came with mushrooms, green peppers, and pepperoni. i remember the gimmicks in the mid-1990's. pizza hut put cheese in the crust: the 'stuffed crust'. domino's made square pizzas, just because. did little caesar's come with 'crazy bread? crazy bread meant twisted breadsticks with garlic and parmesan cheese. it might have been domino's. in toronto, i knew things were different because of pizza pizza, which i had never seen before. panagopolous had a cartoon rock band, called 'the panaplettes', loosely modeled after the california raisins. my parents still have a 'panaplettes world tour '92' button up in the kitchen. at some point in the last five/ten years, panagopolous shortened their name to panago and became the automatic pizza delivery option in vancouver. in every context in which i have ordered pizza in the past four years, i have either had local independent pizza or panago. panago is canadian, and is based in abbotsford; i do not know how far across the country they extend now, but i do not believe they have crossed the prairies. i wonder how they gained total market saturation in such a short time. i get domino's flyers on occasion, but it would never occur to me to order from them. i have not seen a little caesar's in years. the godfather's concept seems utterly anachronistic now, but my memories are very vivid.

-white spot has over 60 locations, almost entirely in BC. several outlets have opened in alberta, and several have opened in hong kong. there is a second cup franchise in dubai. there is a tim horton's franchise in kandahar. i don't even know what kandahar is. maybe if canada wins the war, the new afghanistan will give us a square mile of their country to call our own, like the french did after world war II. one square mile of vimy ridge is officially canadian territory. i believe that it is our only exclave.

-in related news, i recently found out that my 16 year old cousin plays drums in a punk/jam band called vimy ridge.

-i'd like a job that would send me to dubai on business, but i think that i would end up dizzy from the sheer post-modernity of it all.

things that are terrible

listening to scott walker's tilt now. after eight glacial minutes of 'bouncer see bouncer', 'manhattan' absolutely explodes. i've been reading acres of text about how difficult and obtuse this album is. i love it; it's surprisingly accessible, but then i guess anything would be given the hype. 'the most difficult album that is worth working at'. yeah, it's worth it. this album matters! i will buy climate of hunter next. i regret not picking it up when i was downtown this afternoon. scratch has a copy! no one has copies of tilt or the drift. what do i put on after tilt? ah, randomly, saint etienne, 'he's on the phone'. i love everything.

i've decided to go back to canlit after second foundation is done. with luck, i'll be able to finish it tomorrow. next up is minus time, by catherine bush. it is about family alienation in the 1990s, made concrete by the mother's career as an astronaut going for a space endurance record, literally disconnected from earth. i picked it up on a whim, and am eager for it to be good. i worry that it will be sub-par instant zeitgeist pastiche. i hope that it will say something to me about my life. i also got my fifth sharon butala book, and the first in her loose trilogy, before luna and the fourth archangel. both novels are flawed, i feel, but i enjoy reading them. gates of the sun will be up after minus time. i am saving delillo's libra for the semester break.

there are days that i just want to curl up with art, any art. records and books. not even a consistent novel, but snippets and shards. bits of prose.

i picked up photos today for the first time since 2003, when we lived on dundas. my camera is back with vancam, but i shoiuld be able to pick it up again in 10 days with a repaired light meter. the photos i took without it are good, but consistently over-exposed. some are very, very nice, though.

escape to witch mountain

at the same time, i'm relishing scott walker's monolithic the drift and anne murray's talk it over in the morning. it's all one long song. today i bought the new paul simon and phoenix albums. i looked for the drift but nobody has it. my auto-genre-selector calls scott walker avant-garde.

some of my very favourite songs:

• veda hille, noah's ark (1998)
  
• scott walker, it's raining today (1969)
  
• spanky and our gang, leopard skin phones (1968)
  
• phoenix, napoleon says (2006)
  
• mojave 3, the mutineer (2006)
  
• swing out sister, you on my mind (1989)
  
• underworld, pearl's girl (1996)
  
• rickie lee jones, coolsville (1979)
  
• joe jackson, the verdict (1984)
  
• steely dan, doctor wu (1975)
  

i tried to make it through the day without diphenhydramine. i was sneezing consistently and squinting a lot, but the itchy eyes finally drove me to the little pink pills at 6 pm, before i took out the dog. i was promptly knocked out. at 10.30 pm, with a fair amount of reading left to do, i decided to turn the situation around; i made myself a cup of coffee. now i am awake and going strong at 3.40am, thursday morning. the last two nights i have been in bed by 11.00, but awake between 1.30-3.00 am, unable to sleep. i then sleep in until 11.30 am. the next day. i wanted to go to the sustainability shindig tomorrow, but i know that i will not be functional until the early afternoon.

my iTunes: 6853 songs; 26.5 GB; 19 days, 12 hours, 13 minutes and 34 seconds; 695 albums; 299 artists.
the current top 10 most played:

1. paul simon, rhythm of the saints
   
2. dusty springfield, in the land of make believe
   
3. mojave 3, the mutineer
   
4. the new pornographers, sing me spanish techno
   
5. phoenix, consolation prizes
   
6. scott walker, we came through
   
7. a girl called eddy, tears all over town
   
8. cher, gypsies, tramps, and thieves
   
9. dillard and clark, the radio song
   
10. donald fagen, what i do
    

see, #s 7-10 are all at 6 plays each, along with the next 17 songs on the all-time list. it's ranked alphabetically.

birds are singing and the sky is beginning to lighten. i am awake! things i need in life? a vacation. time in another city/country/region/climate. i'll be seeing my dad this sunday, and i am really looking forward to talking to him about records. there actually isn't anyone else that i can talk about records with, except rich, except i never see him either. i just hate talking about music. but i LOVE it. i've been thinking of ways to lead off a review of the drift for the peak. "any discussion of latter-day scott walker inevitably dissolves into a question of high-art vs. low art, authenticity of creation and of appreciation..." i like it, but why?

tomorrow i will undoubtedly be a wreck, but i'm not terribly concerned about it. by tomorrow i mean later today. tomorrow afternoon i will go downtown to pick up two rolls worth of photos. one has been sitting on my bookshelf for about two years; i have no idea what is on it.

satellites as cultural death stars

- the liberal leadership race is a gong show. volpe is a crook. kennedy is a slave to ethnic ward bosses. ignatieff is a grouchy old man. brison is an impetuous snot. rae is a dud. fry is just loopy. bevilacqua is an unrepentant free-trader. bennett is a patrician. dion was pied! dryden is just really fucking dull. i admire hall-findlay, and would happily vote for her, were i under duress. her rejoinder to brison re. his vote to stay in afghanistan for several more years was on point: he suggested that avoiding an unfavourable headline in the new york times was of key importance, and she hit the obvious comeback. i saved a poster from SFU advertising an upcoming appearance of hers in coquitlam; rather than showcase her own photo, the sheet had a headshot of wilfred laurier.

- i got through the day without any diphenhydramine; i can only hope that the season is subsiding.

- today i got through the battle for north africa and most of the eastern front. on wednesday i will read about the home front and news reporting/propaganda. i am approx. two (2) weeks behind in my british empire readings. i hope to work on those on wednesday and thursday. possibly tomorrow as well.

- when i finish isaac asimov's second foundation i will either read the orange r or delillo's players.
it is also possible that i will read some star trek novels. TOS #39 - bloodthirst!

an almost indescribable sense of terror and doom

i've written this over four days. at the moment, i am at once highly concerned about the effects of Benadryl (diphenhydramine) on my life and curious about taking significantly higher doses in a controlled environment. several of its side effects correspond to symptoms i have recognised in myself this summer: dry nose and throat, increased sensitivity to light, blurred vision, short term memory loss, and several central nervous system effects associated with delerium. most excitingly/terrifyingly, diphenhydramine is distinguished from common psychedelics due to a unique difficulty in differentiating hallucinations from reality. i.e. really fucked up.

clearly, the lesson is to stop taking diphenhydramine. at least, not on a daily basis. i hope that my seeming inability to retain information from my recent WWII course readings is due to my drug habits, as opposed to a sudden decline in my inherent capacity to synthesize information. the problem is that diphenhydramine stops my hayfever symptoms. the itchy eyes and runny nose are infinitely more obtrusive in my daily life than the side effects i currently experience. nothing else works.

diphenhydramine is an anticholinergic agent. i.e. it acts as an inhibitor to acetylcholine receptors. 'magic mushrooms' act as antagonists for the same receptors, making the effects of Benadryl diametrically opposite to the effects of mushrooms.

working as a copy editor has made me hyper-attuned to hyphen use in daily life, as well as the production features of major daily newspapers.

don delillo is apparently a leading figure in the 'hysterical realism' genre. its key is the 'extravagant treatment of everyday events'. sometimes, i love don delillo more than life itself.

all the rest was written earlier. i figure i might as well post it. this is a highly mediated form of constant autobiography.

my own fucking ten!

1. damon and naomi!
   
2. scott walker's the drift!
   
3. three new pairs of pants, four new shirts, and a sweater vest!
   
4. buying records!
   
5. swing out sister's kaleidoscope world!
   
6. joe jackson!
   
7. the music taste of a 40 year old man!
   
8. baseball!
   
9. gin and tonic!
   
10. maybe, possibly, hopefully settling into a new house in less than 30 days after roughly 240 days (8 mo.) of various states of moving.
    

american politics astound me. most interestingly, there is no defined leader of either party. is the repub. leader bush? hastert? frist? harder still, who is the dem leader? dean? pelosi? reid? democrats who could run for president: bayh, warner, clinton, edwards, feingold. gore and kerry too. 435 congress seats are up in november. i'd love to run for congress. nevada's 2nd. california's 43rd. illinois' 8th. georgia's 5th. some states have only one congressional district. vermont is an example. for 12(?) years, it has been represented by bernie sanders, an independent socialist. now, jim jeffords is retiring from his senate seat and sanders is running to replace him. the democrats will leave him uncontested, so he is sure to win.

see, everyone is expecting the democrats to do very well this november. they could take the senate. they need a net gain of 6 seats: pennsylvania, ohio, montana, missouri, rhode island, tennessee. imagine: 435 seats, open every 2 years. plus 33 senate seats. wild.

the last president to be elected from congress was john f. kennedy, in 1960. kerry came the closest; 100,000 votes difference in ohio would have swung the election.

action and anticipation

i am learning a lot this summer! i have two more maps to add to my growing collection now, of washington state. i'd like to see a lot more of it, esp. mt st helens again, hanford nuclear facility, grand coulee dam, and the olympic peninsula.

india pale ales that i've had:

• phillips IPA, from esquimalt
  
• tree 'hop head' IPA, from kelowna
  
• nelson 'paddywhack' IPA, from nelson
  
• pyramid 'thunderhead' IPA, from washington state
  
• bridgeport IPA, from portland
  

it's my favourite beer. i need to take time before drinking another beer, because everything else tastes like budweiser
i had a lot of bad beer last may. i would stay 1-2 hours after everyone else some days on the kingsway campaign to get data entered, and all we had in the office was budweiser. my favourite gin is plymouth. i also like bombay sapphire, but i do not like tanqueray.

i'm listening to a lot. my itunes is keeping me up at light, because it just keeps on going. there's no natural stop, and all of my favourite albums are instantly accessible.