gold plated body cast

irana douer

in holy rattlesnakes

oh, dear matty cipov:

how i enjoy the way you capture the ambivalence with which i sometimes address my existence and the few times i strike my own eyes blank and mask mask mask all of the emotive hints and glances

yep.

is a frog's ass water tight?

well, yah, for all youse without your tits up in the rhubarb

you're the kindling, still

"michigan afternoon"


amy arntson colours water with watercolours and certain mastery. let's live by the sea for at least for a little bit. in one of those cabins.

dealing with this, that and the other

i've just spent two nights in a cabin on the shores of the bay of fundy with several incredible people, one stray cat, one old cat dealing with a coyote responsible eye infection, two huskie puppies and one sweet dog that was rescued from a wrongful drug bust. everything i've seen and done feels like a story i'm about to write, but i wanted to wait to make something of anything.

neither my sweet friend kuey-bird (as her maritiming relatives fondly refer to her) nor myself own one of those fancy digital cameras, so we've come equipped with two disposables we picked up for $2.99 at the hardware store by our place in montreal and one role of film in my old nikon fg. disposables require the perfect combo of care less/full ness, so i sort of think that each photo will really be full of words, and i want to have at least those developed before i try to do much writing.

here's a list to aid my memory with any later expansion and development

- caleb's beat up trumpet and all blues mash-up that i listened to in an empty balcony, staring down at all the balding heads in paddy's pub
- and with that, aaron's approach to compliments/friend making, as well as the crochet hat resting on his ears to cover the head he shaved because of the lice his kids got hold of
- the speed with which the rumors flew that we were being invited to sing at the deep roots festival in september
- deb and fred's incredible spirit and stamina and sensibility and smiles and style and smoking and simple lives
- rohen's three year old vocabulary
- melted rocks in the bay
- wet air
- east coast idioms
- the times these idioms work better than the bumbling words we try to fill with relevant content


can i live in one of these cabins by the sea? warmed by a wood stove, with no locks on the doors?

don't deconstruct

it's 7 59 am (i think my blog might think it's on the west coast?) on friday; this is the time i look forward to all week.

i seem to be a regular at places run by introverts, so my conversations with people who are not students are limited (we smile a lot and they know how i take my coffee, though). students are difficult because they want to talk about school and that stresses the part of me that's always thinking about writing my thesis. there are days that go by where i don't speak to anyone until one of my roommates comes home at 8. and that doesn't mean that i wasn't out all day too. winter in montreal is hard; it's so cold, a lot of peoples mouths are covered by scarves.

on fridays i work in the computer room at a women's day shelter called chez doris. and it's my favourite time of the week. i have the best conversations and feel like i'm doing something at least minorly useful. either no one comes in and i sit at a desk for three hours and read, and have to do that because i have to stay there for three hours and why not read. or people come in. and usually it's the same people. and some of them come in at that time because they know i'll be there; i have skill-sharing arrangements with two women in particular. i need to work on my french in a serious way - marie-claude is trying to sort out the internet (she was really curious about this facebook business last week) and hala needs to learn powerpoint to do a presentation for the preschool she works at. and i know how to work the internet AND microsoft office, and they both prefer to speak en francais, and so we help each other! and it feels so good to interact with people who don't know all my stories, don't expect certain moods from me. i really really enjoy it. i look forward to it all week. when 12 00 comes, i never want to leave. the people who run this place are incredible - they provide such an incredible service and the staff and all the women who come in are so kind and appreciative to one another.

hala has a ph.d and has been trying to get official immigrant status for eleven years. mc is from france and didn't know what "caps lock" meant two weeks ago. emily has a lot of love needing to be spread outside of her 5 closest friends.

also. i'm heading to nova scotia this evening. 44 hours on the train, 4 days in a small town, 2 in the maritimes' biggest. i can't wait to see the ocean.

my curiously apathetic peers

has anyone noticed how there seem to be a lot of young trendy people sort of carelessly wearing animal fur this winter?

it's those damn hats. you know, the ones with the flaps that hang down over the ears and the one snapping up above the forehead. they're cute. and MADE OF ANIMAL SKIN! what sorts of animals? no idea. rabbit, maybe? fox? squirrel?

i feel like it's sort of passé to be any sort of activist with regards to fur. it's maybe sort of passé to be any sort of activist at all, but i think that's okay. weeds out a little insincerity.

weird how i know so so so many 'vegetarians' though. i want one of those hats, oh do i want one. but i won't get one. because i don't think it's right to breed rodents in order to kill them and steal their warm coats. especially when they're being bred for that purpose and living 12 to a 2 ft x 2 ft cage for their entire lives, with most of their matter being thrown in garbage cans behind suburban warehouses.

and you know what. i needed a winter coat this year and decided to go full out and buy one brand new from the bay's 70% off whoops-it's-already-snowing sale and i was seriously seriously limited by wanting a jacket with a hood sans-animal.

seems like most people aren't really thinking about fur-wearing these days. that concerns me.

sunny february

"let's try a little harder 1" - Christa Dalien


+ 1 very positive experience
- 1/2 stressful situation
+ productive work
+ settling in my unsettledness
+ changing back to listener from talker
- bitter attitude towards my work
+ excitement now
+ excitement for tomorrow
+ still excited about my yesterdays

= emily the contented


i have been feeling really good lately!

shh

i don't have much to say this morning. i like julie morstad. her tone is dark though its weight is light, and there's something cynically sweet about each of her drawings. i have no idea how to talk about art. also, a lot of my words are somewhere else today.

more paper, this time with glue

"get out there from behind you part two" by mike swaney

floating snow can disguise big puddles

today was beautiful until it all of sudden fell overcast, rained and the ground froze over.

i secretly love navigating the streets up town to my house in the winter. i like having to remember to be agile and on guard for all the obstacles threatening to take my balance away. when jumping over the giant puddles helps us pedestrians find camaraderie in the task of crossing certain intersections.

there always people walking in Montreal. that's nice about this city.

anyone lived in a pretty how town
e.e. cummings
anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did

Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain

that means no where i come from

"Broken bottle," some guy said. I stepped off the last step outside the skeeziest bar on St. Laurent.
Duh.
Then I slipped on the hard pack.


"Just the person I've been looking for," I was in the bathroom looking in the mirror. It's funny when someone you're thinking about shows up in your own eyes.

Most nights, I sleep alone in a four bedroom apartment.

and if my hands stop working

do you know what it is like to feel the weather in your fingers?
this most wintery winter is stuck in my joints.

my hands have been aching cold for weeks.
it sort of feels like my sense of touch needs glasses or something. when i start thinking about it too much i get worried about the strength of my heart. why can't it get the blood to my fingers?

i saw my friend chesley sing at the scrivener fundraiser last night with someone who i think might've been named chris. her voice is like spun gold. whatever that means.

brief detraction

i want sweet distraction
and laughs

i wasn't cynical for a moment. it was refreshing. it doesn't do good things for the wrinkles between my eyebrows. i'm tired of this house. i'm tired of this place. i'm going to lie under my bed against the door to the porch and beside the heater. you can find me there in the morning. maybe. maybe i'll be out on the porch.

small satisfactions

so i'm almost almost almost done a b.a. at mcgill and i'm having a very difficult time keeping on track with school. the inspiring and perhaps a little extreme motivation i once moved forth with has deserted me for some happy cabin in the boreal forest where sweet friends and oh-so-many crafts abound. it turns out it wasn't such a wise idea to just take three classes so that i could 'concentrate' on my thesis. i spend a lot of time drinking coffee in cafes, browsing through articles on IQ policy in Nunavut while skimming Aristotle's Metaphysics and recalling the effect of transportation on the urban form while Visconti was making Senso.

i.e. unfocused to the max.

so it occurred to me that it might be to my advantage to use this venue to write about things i'm thinking about...

or rather to encourage me to think about things by creating a venue for me to present any ideas i manage to come up with.

it seems more and more obvious as i grow older that (oh, my floundering ego) i am totally dependent on the satisfaction that comes with the recognition of the work i've done in order to facilitate any sort of motivation to keep working. and though i'm fairly certain there are at most three people reading what i write here (hyperbole?), this is probably the perfect place to write about stupid ideas that my friends are tired hearing about (they don't care - not because they're not the greatest friends, but because what i am saying is almost always completely irrelevant with regards to our relationship and their own fulfilling lives, and more about mememe [ick]), because at least i get to do so thinking that there's maybe one person skimming it.

i thought i would start with Aristotle since it's the last philosophy class i have to take and it's so much better than I expected, but i'm being a terrible non-contributive student and not spending anytime actually thinking about the things that i've been reading. i'll probably think via flying-finger-frenzy on here

but not right now because i just wrote an exam in the Canadian City, which didn't go well but i don't care! what a relief to not care. it's a second year class and the last one i have to take for my degree, so i'm just trying to make it through. anyways, blahblah small satisfactions, we had to write some definitions for which i was under-prepared. one was for "Cosmic city" (? no idea. i should Google it right now). i wrote

"Cosmic cities are incredible examples of well-planned urban environments constructed by terrestrial beings that may be viewed via the telescope available for public use at the National Museum of Astronomy in Quito, Ecuador. They have served as examples for the revitalization of the downtown cores of such great Canadian cities as St John's, Nfld. and London, Ontario."

my hand cramped, i smiled a secret smile, chewed on my pen and looked at the teacher who made eye contact with me and told me i could go even though he'd just made an announcement about having to stay for the last 15 minutes of the exam if you finished at any point from here on in. what a nice guy. i'm a fool. just two more months of school.

even the swans were bankrupt and blue

though in one low period i may have turned to a base for a little support, never have i felt the need to investigate what crack is really all about nor do i know what Xanax is even for besides quick exits, and thanks to David Berman i think i have some inclination as to how it might feel to go that far without having to ever go that far. really though. American Water. what an album! nothing like a little Send in the Clouds...it's such a fine substitute for elbowing wooden doors and breaking plates for those of us belonging to the expressive-yet-lazy variety of dramatic humans.

a couple years ago when i dove into Silver Jews non-directionally (and really just because i read that incredible interview in Fader [summer...2004?]) i went full out and even bought actual air which i (whoops) haven't really gotten around to reading very much of still, but i really really like what i have read. i feel like a lot of his incredible lyrics kind of get lost in the awkward unfamiliar phrasing and a purposefully accentuated drawl of all the Silver Jews songs. not to mention when they are punched with a little Malkmus back-up. it can be very distracting.


here's a poem (is this illegal?):

Snow
David Berman

Walking through a field with my little brother Seth

I pointed to a place where kids had made angels in the snow.
For some reason, I told him that a troop of angels
had been shot and dissolved when they hit the ground.

He asked who had shot them and I said a farmer.




Then we were on the roof of the lake,
The ice looked like a photograph of water.

Why he asked. Why did he shoot them.


I didn't know where I was going with this.


The were on his property, I said.




When it's snowing, the outdoors seem like a room.

Today I traded hellos with my neighbor.
Our voices hung close in the new acoustics.
A room with the walls blasted to shreds and falling.


We returned to our shoveling, working side by side in silence.




But why were they on his property, he asked.


- from actual air, 1999

irrational love

my romantic cynical emotional love gets spread around to nonsensical things/people who can't respond, thus minimizing the chance i will experience heart ache/break. not talking about loving things. talking about intense emotional attachment that mirrors real live loving.

i was sitting in a truck with 5 very serious Slovenian men, 4 Swedish heavy metal dudes, my dad, my brother and two guys who somehow scored jobs that allow them to ski backcountry powder all day, in the furthest corner of the vehicle smelling man sweat and secretly listening to Sandro Perri in one ear and i started to compile all the places i spend my love.


here is a rudimentary list:

- Francie from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
- Lost Lake
- hay
- Nietzsche
- Winnipeg
- apples
- Lars von Trier

this doesn't make any sense. what a terrible list. what am i doing.

humans seek shelter elsewhere

i didn't even realize, but we as people are completely excluded from that space regardless of whether we are being pursued by fiery beings - that space in the stairwell is reserved for fire refuge only (quick! in here fast! before that snake throws up on you, i think it's poisonous it already made hot betty and burnin' juan disappear! merciless!)

and don't even think about stopping here for a smoke

so if you're seeking asylum from any sort of pursuers without fire, find somewhere else to hide, okay?

paper magic

i sort of stumbled into Montreal's Musée des Beaux Arts exhibit of private collections last week. a breakfast date with my friend fiona kept me from spending any sort of reasonable amount of time looking at everything but one piece (lie: there were two other things i saw that made me go a little wild - 1) a wood-laminate chair by Frank Gehry and 2) a painting by Quebec artist Marcelle Ferron) by Ed Pien really struck me, it was this incredibly HUGE and intricate paper-cut sculpture probably a part of the same series as the one he's shown making in that link.

so that's cool, butttt even more exciting in the world of paper and knives is what Mia Pearlman (thanks design*sponge) is doing (that's "Whorl" in the photo). wow.

12000 ft above sea level in a loud tin truck

what is going on, exactly?

she wondered. out of context, none of these actions seemed to move in the right direction.

sweet clarification

conclusion: i am a romantic!! oh man am i a romantic.

also a cynic, imaginative and meaning-full individual, which is why this sincere affirmation of my romanticism is probably some sort of necessary leap forward towards self-security, lalala etc.

cynical romantics often form awkwardly romantic and emotional attachments to things and people who will respond limitlessly in the appropriate way, i.e. as far as the imagination of the romantic herself can conceive. this romantic has several awkward and perhaps unwarranted emotional attachments to members of the kingdom: plantae. case 1 - the apple. don't know where it started. actually now that i've written that, i have an idea.

my birthday is October 14. every few years this falls upon (Canadian) thanksgiving. imaginative cynics expect extraordinarily wonderful things to happen on their birthday, they never do and these cynics spend their birthdays in a heightened emotional state often reduced to tears at least one time during the day.

thanksgivings spent in a heightened emotional state when no one seems to understand how essential it is to simultaneously ignore and continuously acknowledge the momentous day of your birth when combined with family trips on the holiday Monday to an apple orchard just ten minutes from your house, provide a tremendous opportunity for self-absorbed and excitable little girls to run away from their family and hide amongst the Empire apples where no one dares to gently touch your shoulder or try to make you smile while you indulge in your annual Birthday Breakdown.

what a sentence! Empires are a notoriously understanding apple, and southwestern Ontario produces quite an outstanding crop in mid-to-late October. intent and certain concentration on apple-consumption during the drive home from the orchard was entirely necessary in order to avoid catching the eyes of my father in the rear-view mirror, because NOTHING would make me more furious then if he dared to make me laugh while i was busy being upset about how he and my mom were steadfastly ignoring me, the birthday girl. several years of perfecting this technique resulted in not only a beautiful relationship between me and these apples, but also a practical, efficient and careful method of apple-ingestion.

though it would be too much to describe this technique right now and i think it really requires pictorial representation, i'm faaiirrly certain it has to be the best way to eat an apple, for both the consumer and the apple itself.

i'm slowly centimetering towards the point of all that i've gone on about. and that is: the blossom bite. though a bite i have been committed to for years, i have only recently given it a name. not that it's mine to name. oh i don't know if i'm going to be able to finish this. this has been much too long and indulgent already. this is probably the way i'll continue to write though. oh ugh. oh but don't i need to be doing this anyways. the BB is the second to last bite i will take of the apple. the end without the stem, where the lovely and oh-so-important reproductive organs of the sweet apple blossom once performed may be bitten just to where that tough little shell around the apple seeds begins. and OH!! isn't it good! probably the best bite of the apple. certainly the best bite of any apples i eat. the blossom bite!

please, don't be scared. give it a try. you won't regret it.

blossom bites need bees. let's keep bees and save produce.

introduction: my name is emily and i've started an indulgent blog.