bright land

+ i've been reading all weekend, and am just at the end of brian fawcett's virtual clearcut. it's a memoir, essentially, built on one fact: the bowron river clearcut, just southeast of prince george, his hometown, can be seen from space. it's a good book, especially so for its basis in one simple fact. it's something i want to delve into.

+ facts:

• vancouver is the 3rd most livable city in the world.
  
• "the west wants in" / "the west is in now"
  
• dubai exists.
  

+ it's a book about prince george, but it's really a book about british columbia. well, really, about british columbia in the world. it's also about men, and friendships.

+ i went shopping for books today, at pulpfiction on main and broadway. i found two more sharon butala books that i don't have yet - coyote's morning cry and wild stone heart. i may have more sharon butala than any other single canlit author now. wait, no. i have 10 atwood. only 8 butala. i like sharon butala more, though. it's strange, though; her themes don't generally resonate with me, and she can be quite awkward with her construction at times, as with the end of the forth archangel. but it's the pantheism and naturalism, especially as connected to western canada as a concept that really affect me, again, especially in contrast with predominant portrayals of the canadian west.i wrote an essay once, in which i contrasted sharon butala's west with that of george melnyk. melnyk has also contrasted the canadian west with the american west, suggesting that canada's is sociological while the US' is ecological. i want to know more about this. i want to know where i live.

+ and i am delving into canada, again. part of it is knowing that i'll be leaving the country this summer for two weeks. i need to know where i am from before i can understand being somewhere else. part of it is watching so much hockey. talking about hockey. meeting people in bars and talking hockey. going to hockey games with friends. going to hockey games with my dad. watching the vancouver giants play against the prince george cougars. i am also taking a canadian history course this summer. i'm getting resettled. tomorrow i will go to buy my textbooks.

the music lovers

+ the only douglas coupland books i really enjoy are generation x and life after god, especially the latter. i have microserfs as well, but it doesn't really have that much to say. i'm reading delillo's the names right now. it's my very favourite book by my very favourite author. it's making me dizzy. when i read delillo i start to think like he writes. i end up sitting in class, marvelling at the words we use. transnational. terrorism. when we talk about dubai i kinda lose my shit. dubai. there's a deep patience that i find in reading delillo. i have so much else that i want to read, but i'm very tempted to reread mao II or underworld after this.

+ i'm spending the weekend reading and listening to records. and by records i mean my itunes library... 27.3 days worth of songs. i'm making a concerted effort to listen to songs that i have not listened to since this time last year, and marvelling at how long it has been since i have heard a lot of what i once considered to be favourite songs.

+ there was a day about a year ago when amanda took me out to maple ridge. we went to the civic centre and saw the high school kids gathering for the monthly dance at the rec centre. we bought hip flasks. mine leaked, but i haven't been back to maple ridge since and haven't been able to return it as a result. amanda filled hers with fireball whiskey for our camping trip to the sunshine coast at the end of the month. i borrowed that flask in december and have yet to return it. it's full of bourbon now. wild turkey.

+ i'll be taking my last history course this summer. the history of british columbia. i'm excited but also apprehensive. this is my history. the history of where i live, where i've always lived.

+ the tri-cities are richland-pasco-kennewick, in that order.

+ we went to whistler two weekends ago. it was in the middle of my second presidential campaign. kinda like a retreat to camp david. me and sean and ben sat in a hot tub drinking lots of beer while it rained and rained. we went up and back in ben's mother's hybrid sport utility vehicle with a live GPS map.

+ some of my very favourite albums, as is the case with anyone, i guess, are those that i listened to a lot in high school. for me, they include all of joni mitchell's albums from blue (1971) to don juan's reckless daughter (1978). there's not really much more to say about that.