reaching out across the sea

+ as a history student, i need to send out some US presidential ads from the past to complement some more ads from the current cycle.

• nixon now! for you and me! it's a richard nixon song, guys!
  
• two for one! democrats in 1982 these are two generic democrat ads from 1982, slamming reaganomics. it's an elephant in a china shop!
  
• reagan '84! this one is classic. pure symbolism. it's really appropriate that this came out in 1984, too.
  
• johnson '64! this one is the ultimate campaign ad. vote johnson or DIE!
  
• mark kennedy (R-MN) this is mark kennedy again, talking straight about iraq.
  
• amy klobuchar (D-MN) this is the woman running against mark kennedy. she's about 15% ahead right now, and will probably win. it's a lame ad, though.
  
• you can't get answers from a bush this one is cute!
  
• rick santorum (R-PA) he's a wrestler!
  
• anti-harold ford (D-TN) this one has been pulled after bob corker, the republican candidate, publicly criticised it for going too far.
  
• asa hutchinson (R-AR) children!
  
• catfish grabbin' girls yeah, i don't know.
  

mountain standard time

+ i attended the coquitlam hearing of the bc electoral boundaries commission tonight. only about 20 people were in the audience, including two MLAs, two city councillors, two school trustees, one former candidate, and four members of the citizens' assembly. i got some incredible maps, however, showing population density in the tri-cities area and across the province. i'll be attending the vancouver session on saturday as well. i love public consultation. the sign-in sheet, careful hotel ballroom, local pols grandstanding inarticulately, power point, jugs of ice water. what's getting scary is that i recognise lots of people at everything i attend. i meet friends at public consultation meetings. i'm totally going to recognise half the crowd on saturday.

+ avanbarb is your mutual friend! it says this on top of amanda's website, and i hadn't noticed before. how sweet!

+ some things that i listened to today!

• the 5th dimension, the girl's song (1968)
  
• beck, side of the road (2002)
  
• blueboy, popkiss (1992)
  
• judee sill, the pearl (1971)
  
• the melody unit, nutation (1999)
  
• montage, desiree (1969)
  
• stina nordenstam, hopefully yours (1994)
  
• young and sexy, lose control (2003)
  
• weeping tile, ufo rosie (1995)
  
• yo la tengo, cherry chapstick (2003)
  
• the carpenters, rainy days and mondays (1971)
  
• anne murray, talk it over in the morning (1971)
  
• jane siberry, map of the world (part 1) (1984)
  
• morrissey, you have killed me (2006)
  
• joni mitchell, last chance lost (1994)
  
• leonard cohen, the law (1984)
  
• archer prewitt, over the line (2002)
  
• phoenix, north (2006)
  
• scott walker, windows of the world (1968)
  
• p:ano, failure (2003)
  
• joni mitchell, furry sings the blues (1976)
  

+ five people asked me in class if i won, but i don't know yet. i've never waited this long. i enjoyed the iPod today, though. it made me feel very placid. shuffe makes me nervous, however, because i never know if i'll be jarred by a crazy volume differential on the next track.

duality

i was horribly sick all day. it's because we were drinking heavily and consistently from 7pm to 4am. we drank all of the clubhouse's beer. they switched kegs, but we finished that one too. so, we started buying bottles of asahi. they kicked us out after 1am, so we went to rich's townhouse and kept drinking; the group had gone down from approx. 20 people at 11pm to only 6 at rich's place. eating is such a delicate task after puking all day. sometimes i think a hangover is worth it for how lovely everything is when it's gone. this afternoon i was wondering if i would ever feel better. now i do, and everything is wonderful. but i do feel weak. i didn't leave the house at all today.

now i am procrastinating on writing 1000 words on a book that i really enjoy. i know what to say, kinda. i have not read the whole book, which is just silly, because i really like it. it's because i'm lazy and self-destructive. the late penalty is only 2% per day, and i am considering that option - handing it in to the department on friday - to give myself the chance to write a better paper. i think it's worthwhile.

i bought rich's old iPod from him yesterday. i'm a little scared of it, but also strangely tantalised. it's because i am deeply neurotic about my record collection and how i listen to it. 'but it's just a digital audio device.' that's like saying that the skytrain is just a rapid transit system. that my house is just a set of walls and a roof. we all hear the same song, but what we take in is shaped by what we ate for breakfast, for example, or how we slept the night before. or, most frustratingly, the environment in which we hear the song. this is the source of my anxiety. it's been well over a year since i've had a working discman, and i've really enjoyed just listening to the skytrain, to the bus, to walking. but there are the days when i really need to shut it off. i don't have any earbuds anymore, so i guess i'll try tomorrow with big headphones. i'm always so nervous that everyone around can hear my music. i don't want to be obnoxious.

the only history you can tell is autobiography, and when you tell another history, it becomes a part of your own. and that's ok. it makes me dizzy, though.

i bought the sea and cake's oui when it came out in 2000 because the cover was absolutely gorgeous and i was curious. i listened to it a lot over the next year. it's what i hoped my life as an adult would sound like. i'm not even kidding! i'd listen to it on my discman while walking from downtown to commercial drive along keefer and frances.

here at the western world

i could talk about a lot of things, but i'd rather list some of the most intersting u.s. senate ads i've seen lately. i do this; i watch american campaign ads. it's something you never see in canada. we'll get advertising for party brands, but nothing for individual candidates, ever.

• mark kennedy (R-MN): he's going for the same thing that i did with my gin posters.
  
• michael steele (R-MD): jan and i used to joke that the best campaign trick would be to sit at a table in the AQ with a big basket of puppies. it would work! michael steele agrees: he loves puppies. i also really appreciate the fact that he's making puns with his last name.
  
• harold ford jr. (D-TN): this guy's a democrat! he was forced to go to church, and he's better for it.
  
• 3rd party - vote vets: this one is brutal!
  
• jim talent (R-MO): this one's like a pop-up video. i really dislike jim talent, though.
  
• mike bouchard (R-MI): scroll down to "the date" - they're always trying to deconstruct the form. it's all so familliar!
  
• jon tester (D-MT): i'm really rooting for this guy!
  
• rick santorum (R-PA): he's on our side, against gay people and mexicans! the nice thing is that he's consistently polling 10 points behind. this freak is done!
  
• don sherwood (R-PA): he's running for congress, but i had to include this. see, don sherwood, a long-time incumbent in pennsylvania's 10th district, tried to strangle his mistress, and people found out. this is his apology to the world.
  

at this point, nothing means anything anymore.

hands across the galaxy

+ i know why i like IPAs. it's because of the hops. well, obviously, but cascade hops taste like grapefruit, apparently, and it's true. i agree. i like grapefruit a lot, and i like IPAs a lot. the railway club has one of my favourites - hop head from kelowna - on tap; amanda and i had beer there on saturday night, in what was a lovely evening. i finally got to show off the new entrance to granville skytrain station. it finally felt real, to have someone else there. no, it was still surreal. it was more as if amanda had joined me in a dream than if i'd joined her in reality. i forget sometimes how formative the skytrain was on my development.

+ after we left the railway club, i bought more records. my student loan came in, see:

• anjani, blue alert (2006): this is the record by leonard cohen's girlfriend. it's really nice. similar to nu-cohen, with a very confident, restrained woman singing, and even more vaporous arrangements.
  
• gene clark, white light (1971) and
  
• gene clark, no other (1975): these are fantastic records, and i'm really glad to finally have them on disc.
  
• martha and the muffins, metro music (1980): a CD copy to comtemplate my vinyl.
  
• randy newman, sail away (1972): very delightful!
  
• scott walker, scott (1967) and
  
• scott walker, scott 2 (1968): i think that's all the scott walker that i need, now.
  
• neil young and crazy horse, ragged glory (1990)
  

+ this week will mark my future in politics at SFU. this could be it.

+ i'm really enjoying quest of the folk: antimodernism and cultural selection in twentieth century nova scotia, and have an urge to go to queens for a masters, now to study with ian mackay, who wrote it! it's all about... everything.

+ it was a beautiful fall weekend. it will only get better from here.