calisthenics

+ anil's ghost was very good, no need for intimidation. there are obvious connections to don delillo's the names, first in the subject matter - loosely speaking, archeology and murder - but really in the conclusions and questions of truth and history and meaning. delillo's focus on meaning and language uses archeology and the tactile stuff of history as an exercise of sorts, while i think michael ondaatje comes to archeology first, and finds within it the same issues that delillo initially sought to explore. anil's ghost is very much about history, how we record our lives not only intentionally, in script or on tape, but in our bones and paths, even after we die.

i've read several reviews that seem to take it to task for not being more expository, more willing to castigate those responsible for whatever crimes it may discuss. in essence, taking the novel to task for failing to change the world, or more precisely for abandoning its apparent didactic task. honestly, now, in that case why read a novel when we have the news? the novel tells us how to read the news. we have facts, yes, and facts about conflicts, yes, but no sense of the truths and histories informing the situation from any angle.

and to suggest that anil's ghost fails in its didactic destiny, to say nothing of intent, is to have completely missed the little jabs that the novel itself takes at liberal internationalism.

+ don delillo mentions a moment where he realised that language was not just a tool, but also a subject in his work. americana predates this moment, i believe. there is a category of delillo's novels that i find stands apart - americana, cosmopolis, and players. i'm more nervous for than intimidated by his other 1970s novels.

later, in time

+ since 2001 i've been archiving mix CDs and tapes that i've made on a website made specifically for such a purpose. i forgot about it at some point, 2005? i found it again and put everything up at once and then i got a warning. only three new mixes per 24hr period or i'd be banned. sorry!

so, now i post a few every once in a while, all tidily up to date. i've got over 40 mixes posted now, which just kinda happened over the last 8 years.

i get comments from people i don't know and will never meet. "very cool. a lot of good stuff on here." says tubesock. "this looks like a great listen from top to bottom" says doowad. "I like the look of that Drop Nineteens and La's pairing." says arktical. hey, thanks man, so do i!

it's nice to track the moment where i realised that what mattered was not whether a song came out in a certain year, but whether i heard it first in that year. it's autobiography, not a chart.

+ not an unexamined life but an unrecorded life, i guess.

time is gonna wipe us out

+ only one draft post from the past two months, mostly about boris johnston, who is kind of incredible. i do feel, still, that part of the 'lol boris' vote is akin to the 'golly, sam!' vote. sam lost the nomination today to peter ladner. it's great, because he was a shitty mayor.

i was genuinely happy to see sam sullivan win last time, over christy clark. i thought that he'd be the harder candidate in the fall, but that at least it made sense for him to run. christy clark was from port moody, wherever that is. they don't even have a skytrain, see. then sam won, and he turned out to be a boring, petty, really shitty mayor. i'm genuinely happy to see ladner win, mostly because i think he'll be better than sam. kinda like clinton rooting for dole to win the republican nomination in 1996. "if anything happens to my campaign," he said, "i'd rather have dole moving in here than any of those other guys. at least he could do the job." and this point was noted well by someone today - it doesn't matter that ladner and sam have had effectively equal voting records because the vote wasn't about his positions, but rather about his capacity to act in an executive role. ladner would be decidedly better, i think, and regardless of his voting record that makes me prefer him to sam. i'm glad we'll have a new mayor, either way.

+ everything's different now, and i'm reading a lot more. interestingly, i've adopted a new habit of keeping several books active at once. i've been trying to buy less books and to read more, so that i don;t keep piling up books that i have no time to read, but what if i miss a book? if the book i'm looking for was there and i walked past? no, they won't expire, it's ok, just difficult to decide on what to read next. i can easily pull out 15-20 books that i want to read next. that's in addition to the 5 books i have bookmarks in right now.

caroline adderson's a history of forgetting was really very good. the first 3rd was the strongest section, a strangely fascinating and debilitating
the resolution was worthy, nicely open after some awkward combinations through the middle. a wonderful book. it was especially refreshing to read after bring disappointed by eden robinson's blood sports, which was kinda gratuitous and obnoxious all together. both were set in vancouver, in places that i know. a history of forgetting felt natural, unforced, while blood sports was awkward and made me uncomfortable to know the streets so well.

i have three more bill gaston books waiting, too: midnight hockey, sex is red, and the cameraman. also three big intimidating books: sharon butala, the garden of eden; michael ondaatje, anil's ghost; and guy vanderhaeghe, the last crossing. scary books that i am saving for a camping trip or something special.