Hell For Fun-Haters

2007-08-15T15:55:00.000-04:00

Ch-Ch-Changes...

When I talk with people about their plans in life, I sometimes feel a bit anxious for those who seem to have too clear an idea of what they want to do. From my (admittedly) limited experience so far, it seems that the most important life changing moments occur unexpectedly, quickly, and often despite whatever-the-hell else we've got going*.

I think that people want to believe that the path we carve out for ourselves is mostly etched out with hard work and foresight. Maybe we can control some aspects in this way, but there's no accounting for how much luck plays into our various lots in life.

I was speaking with my dad the other day while out fishing. He spoke to me of how when he was in my position (young, searching for a career etc...) that he noticed a big difference between how he (Italian by birth) and his native Canadian peers moved through life. North Americans (according to my dad) are too pre-occupied with the future. The reason he feels that his Italian-migrant brethren did so well in 1950's era Toronto was that while everyone else was busy worrying about the future, he and his fellow countrymen were all much more tuned in to the present moment and making decisions around opportunities that were currently available to them. In his case, for the most part, this meant going straight to work in construction.

Dad chose to turn his back on the big business, multi-million dollar construction companies that many of his Italian friends would eventually build and run. Instead he opted to take his small business up north, building cottages and summer homes for the Italian community that had now become quite wealthy in the city. Having had the good fortune of meeting my mother, they built a nice house in a great area and I had a pretty idyllic youth there. Good on ya dad, good on ya.

One of the great things about the stories and anecdotes that dad tells me is that there is no clear 'lesson' that he drives home. These stories have lessons, no doubt- and important ones at that, but exactly what they are he tends to leave up to his audience. When I was younger I took this as a sign of his naivety...now my perspective is much different. I think there is something to my dad's 'build on what you have in front of you' approach to life that seems so simple when you hear the words, but in reality is so hard to put into practice.

My own life, lately, has seen its fair share of change. New place, new city, new people, new direction. Will it work out? Who's to say. There are certainly elements in this new shuffle of opportunities that I sincerely hope will blossom into something great, but, taking dear old dad's sage advice, I'll do my best to move forward with what does, and relent on what doesn't.

*This is not to say that I am fatalistic, or believe in any kind of pre-destination. I still think the world is essentially random. This is just to say that, upon reflection, the events that we ultimately deem "life altering" come at us in a manner that is different than we typically expect.

2006-07-11T16:36:00.000-04:00

Forces

Existentialists say that when people are confronted with the fact that the world is essentially random, cold, and unfeeling, they invent a narrative to fill that void with mythologies about benevolent forces, Gods, and afterlives to escape dealing with the fact that we are utterly and completely finite and alone. If mystic or spiritual narratives don't cut it for you, then, they argue, there is always commodity fetishism to pick up the slack.

A few days ago I came home to an apartment that had just recently been vacated by my roomate. As I scanned the room (and pondered my new air-conditionner, TV, and set of drinking glasses), I realized that those crazy existentialists were right on the money--literaly.

I may be an agnostic, but I sure seem to have a lot of faith in the sustaining power of commodity.

...to further my sense of alienation, I realized shortly after that my phone and internet connection had been cut, along with our TV. Rob and I had planned for the TV being cut off, but not the other two. Mix in the fact that my exhaust system fell out of my car the day before, and you have one agnostic who has become slightly nervous about the possibility of there actually being some force guiding us, demanding worrship, and smiting those whose hubris dares to question the existence of the one true god.

This involuntary sequestering from the world and from cyberspace did make me realize a few things though. In particular the 'transcendental certitude' of change, and that my initial feeling of isolation grew out of a hyperstimual dependancy (can 'hyperstimual' be a word?) built on years of absent mindedly using the web, the phone, and TV. I walked over to friends to make phone calls and to send out any necessary e-mails (mostly job related stuff). In a strange way I sorta feel like I caught a glimpse of what life may have been like before telephones were around. If I wanted to talk to someone, mostly, I had to be physically proximate. My communicative activities (especially in terms of the mundane communications) all had a phyical marker to locate thier reality in time and space. Of course I was only too happy to get the phone back after a couple of days...and I quickly jacked myself back in.

After re-connecting, I had the distinct feeling that the series of badly timmed inconveniences that I superstitiously turned into some ominous cosmic payback seemed to dissipate. I was surfing again, my car was fixed and life was good. Then, after work the following day I came out to find my car blocked in by two unmannered motorists who left me with about 2 inches of wiggle room at each bumper. Certain at this point that I should really think harder about all of this church stuff, a total stranger made a passing comment about how he has the same car as me and its rusting in the same spots. This in and of itself may not seem intriguing...so let me preface this by saying that I drive a '94 teal-green sunbird. EVERYONE owns this car or its GMC equivalent (the omnipresent Cavelier). This means that I've passed a million people with the same car, and the same rusting rocker pannels, but this dude picks this moment to mention to me something that has been obvious to millions of people for the past 10 years. A bit dumbstruck, I give him some advice about patching a hole in the floor (another common problem) and he helps me Austin Powers my way out of that spot.

...so now I have a choice: do I continue to feel peevish about those irresponsible motorists? or do I instead feel thankful that by some random accident a person decides that he'll tell the owner the 50th rusted sunbird he's seen that day that his car rusts in the same spot? When I think about it, its hard to rationalize any kind of cosmic guiding force, but at that moment it was hard to ignore that perfectly timmed stranger who came and helped restore some sort of 'luck' balance that had been sorely out of whack the week before.

2006-06-22T22:58:00.000-04:00

L'Etranger

Aging is a funny thing. Joking with a friend of mine we established that at 26, my status as a 'young person' is steadilly transitionning to a 'person who is STILL young'. There is a difference. A 'young' person (if he/she has the means) may drift around aimlessly and expect little to no reisstance from the people and forces who will soon bear down on them in an effort to shoehorn them into some niche in society where they will eventually become one of those people and part of the force that organizes future 'still young' people into similarly shoehorned niches--and so on... I grant that there are probably many MANY people out there with more focus and drive than me, so its possible that my ominous casting of the inevitable assimilation of the 'still young' might seem a little melodramatic.

But...

Having no real prospects when you are 'still young' is alot like running a yellow light. 'The Man' won't write you up, but he'll stare you down and let you know that you were seconds and meters away from a smackdown. Thinking about this ('this' being the future and my place in it) brings me down. Expectations from my family (and the ones I impose upon myself) animate the most pronounced fracture in my personality. I've noticed that what I consider to be viable options for my future are substantially influenced by what I think will be acceptable, logical, and understandable by those who take an intrest in my life. In an effort to shift away any personal responsability I might ask myself if I would be more disposed to be less normative if my parents were less normative. But this is a waste of time, I feel. The real question on my mind is what I am going to do next spring if I find myself not being welcomed back into the comfy bosom of academia where I can ignore questions about the future for another 4-5 years....what effing then?

2006-05-09T19:13:00.000-04:00

Plans.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about the blogverse. A site like Post Secret reminds me that a very small number of these pages do indeed have the kind of potentially life altering, perspective providing material I think they do. So many blogs (like this one) are entierly selfish. They are places for people to TELL the world what THEY think. Few blogs foster any sort of interactive conversation. I don't count comments as part of this interaction. Often these are elicited in some way, shape or form. But as much as I seem to be crapping all over 'personal' blogs -- I write one, so I must like something about them.

Beyond the narcisism, I enjoy making some things public. Once its out there, you are accountable for it --I like that. In this spirit I am putting out there something rather outrageous...something that I have never done before. I am telling you out there in cyberspace that I will be writing something creative over the summer months that I will attempt to publish. The time for thinking and hiding is over. Now is the time for pen and page.

I am looking forward to this with great enthusiasm...even in the event that my work is unilaterally rejected. I'll keep you posted.

Peace.

2006-03-19T22:45:00.000-05:00

VET

wow, that was really cool. how did you come up with that. you play so well. your pictures are breathtaking. you've really captured something here. your insights are profound and original. it comes so naturally to you, you sing beautifully. this book is awesome, that song is soooooooooo good, that movie blew me away, that show was moving. I am so inspired. I am so inspired. I am so inspired. I am so inspired. I am so inspired. I am so inspired.

fuck.

2006-03-08T18:54:00.000-05:00

Romanticism

Today was one of the bad days. I hadn't slept much the night before, and in my third period photography class, I made a student cry. Certainly not one of my finer moments. As I was strolling away from work though, somehting great happened while I waited for my train: the TTC maintenance worker collecting grabage was whistling. In print, a dude whistling doesn't seen nearly as magical as it was at that very moment. He was a very good whistler, and the manner in which he was pushing out the notes (along with his garbage cart) conveyed such satisfaction and peace with the world, that one could not exist there in that moment without feeling a little bit better about being alive. I suppose it was fitting that I had closed out the day with a short lecture on Romanticism. People have told me since I was about 12 that I was a Romantic. By the time I learned what this actually meant (21), I found that I did indeed identify greatly with these emotional, impulsive,priveleged,and paradoxical people called 'Romantics'. As I moved into my M.A. year however, the cynic in me took hold. Idealism just seemed too immature. I wanted to grow up. Besides, the 'real world' was knocking at my door, taking me out to dinner, and fondling around in my sub-conscious. Gladly, my love affair with reality didn't completely obscure my ability to find joy and inspiration in the small moments that typically go unnoticed. For that brief time in the TTC, even after the day I had, I not only imagined this whistling wonder to be symbolic of all of the elusive happiness and peace of mind that I have been seeking; but I also imagined (for the briefest moment) that I could find that as well.

2006-02-05T22:41:00.000-05:00

The Day the Music Died

I told my students that if the conservatives won a majority that they would not have to do their homework as I would be quitting to go underground and form a resistance. On Monday February 6th 2005, Stephen Harper will be sworn in as our new Prime Minister --thankfully not with a majority government.

One of my friends made a good point: for the first time since I've been old enough to care, or to really have a concept of the ramifications, the Liberals are not in power at the federal level. What does this mean for Canada? My guess is that this won't mean much for the short term, but the long term consequences could be huge.

I don't think the conservatives will have much wiggle room with such a thin minority, but if Harper plays his cards right it could work to his advantage. Being held in check by the rest of the Liberals and NDP, the Conservatives may not be able to completely destroy what remains of public health care and education. Heck, they may not even be able to keep 'the gays' from getting married this time around...and this is my point. At first I thought this would be great--strong oppositional powers keeping Harper's more sociopathic ideas in check. But then if that works too well, Canadians may get a skewed sense of what the conservatives really stand for. This skew could cause a whole bunch of normally center-left leaning Canadians (who also tend to be swing voters) vote conservative in the next election and GASP! give the conservatives a majority thus unleashing the large throbbing republican spirit that pulses blue in Harper's veins.

4 years of federal conservatism is bad, but 8 years would be much worse. Add four of those years as a majority gov't and the result is bad for Canada in every conceivable way. I'll be the first to admit that Canadian politics are literally and conceptually problematic. We're hardwired into the U.S. economically and ideologically. Our objections to various US policies are facilitated by a position of privilege. We can get away with saying 'we disagree' without compromising our lifestyle. I've often wondered why Canadians don't suffer more backlash than they do for being in such a comfy spot. I suppose that yet another benefit of living nextdoor to the world's superpower. But these problems can't be allowed to silence our voice of dissent. Canadians need to be vocal now more than ever. I'll lead by example: "Hey Canada! Yeah you! Starting tomorrow you need to make it clear to Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper that the only reason his party was elected was everybody was pissed off at the Liberals. The Conservatives represent what happens when we 'settle' rather than 'choose'. "

2006-01-17T22:37:00.000-05:00

The Inevitable

The question, or problem, of happiness is something I've been kicking around quite a bit these days. Working these past few months has disconnected me somewhat from the 'still-student' crowd, and while only some of these dissonances are literal; the effects (both tangible and intangible) have had far reaching consequences on my mental state. But after vetting some of this baggage on some dear student friends of mine, I see that its all essentially the same stuff. I have a new lexicon, now, to articulate my dissatisfaction --that's all that has really changed.

This sounds depressing...but it isn't. (or at least it doesn't have to be)

There is this concept, I feel, that people adopt and internalize when confronting the harsh, unavoidable question that we all face either consciously or unconsciously: "Dear Sir or Madame: How much freedom and autonomy do you actually want?" On a scale from 1-10 where 1 would= a lifetime of servitude (not only to an employer(s) but also to the expectations of your parents, family, spouse, children ect...) and 10 being completely unphased and un-tempted by the safety and security that comes from letting someone else do your thinking for you, I think that most people would want to be somewhere around a 7 or 8. This is that special zone where you are doing something that simultaneously gives you a sense of convincing freedom (real and/or imagined) while at the same time, keeping everyone around you happy (i.e. your family, the government ect...). At the 7-8 mark one can imagine being happy...its sort of the space that advertisers use to sell things like lottery tickets: "just imagine", or most household goods.

Here's the punchline (and its nothing really new): These representations totally misrepresent the idea of happiness. Cultural theorists from Barthes all the way down (or up?) to Zizek, constantly deliver a similar message in various permutations: Our culture creates desire. This desire gets in the way of being happy. As the months and years pass, I internalize this message in different ways. The latest has been as I move through a minor winter depression. I am lonely, I'm not getting enough sex, I don't have enough money, and my friends don't call often enough. Unfortunately I can no longer find happiness in consumption (thank you very much higher education!).

What brought me out of the funk was seeing just how much I still fall victim to the same old trap. I see this place in the future where I have a house, a job I enjoy, family of my own, financial security, a loving wife, and just enough money left over to spoil ourselves once and a while. In short, a space of lasting ease, comfort and security where my happiness is absolute. This place exists only in my mind and is conjured in participation with much of the advertising I see everyday. I don't actually want any of that (well some of it I do, but much of it I don't). At the very least, I don't want to see happiness as something that I can one day obtain. Happiness, like any other emotion, comes and goes. Rather than being a 'state' its a transient 'state of being'. We are happy for moments --that's all. We're miserable for others --that's all. Thinking in these terms liberates me from a lot of the pressure that tends to bring me down. I have family members around my age that are much more successful than I am (married, millionaires, highpowered lawyers ect..). I'm just a dude with an M.A., teaching English to bored teenagers and wondering what I'll do next. When I sit and think about it, none of the reasons I have for feeling unhappy, or like I am failing somehow, seem to belong to me. They all belong to other people. Well fuck you other people.

Hearing many of my 'still-in-school' friends bemoan their workloads really puts things together for me. I thought being back in school would make me happy again, but seeing my friends, I see the person I was last August who couldn't wait to get out. Nothing I do will fill me with a sense of fulfillment and happiness all the time --phew, what a relief.

2005-11-04T22:57:00.000-05:00

White Noise

Now that we are unmistakably moving through November, the fall season will steadily loose its luster for me as we move towards winter. There is however, one pivotal moment that occurs typically in November that seems to almost make up for how crappy a month it tends to be for the other 29 days--the first snowfall.

I remember one time on campus at Scarborough College, I was in a class when we experienced on of the many 'brown-outs' that were common in that part of the city. During this one particular power outage, those of is in class were witness to something very unusual and very special. We heard the building 'powering down'. Once this happened we all realized how much background noise we had been processing out of our minds. We traded what we perceived to be relative silence for the real thing, and as you likely already know...actual silence is deafening. The brilliance of all this was in the symbolic value of the building 'shutting down'. The campus buildings were places we all went to perform tasks. Even when those tasks were things like training yourself to become critically aware of your surroundings, the constructs in which these activities took place: the row seating, the filling in and out like cattle, the repetition of the same routines over and over again, seemed almost to overpower any budding critical awareness. For me, going to class was as automatic as brushing my teeth or scratching my balls. I began to think of myself (and every other student in there) as merely another 'system' in the superstructure of the building. We were much bigger and clunkier particles flowing through the building than, say, dust mites in the ventilation system, but we operated in the same way. But something happened when the power went off. If the dust mites were surprised at all when they unilaterally hit the sheet metal of the lifeless duct system, the deafening thunderclap of actual silence slapped us all awake and out of our automated reveries. For the first time, I felt, in my then still young university career, I felt like I was having a truly interactive conversation in class. All it took was a little quiet.

If I am lucky enough to be outside during the first major snowfall (and I usually make it my business to do so), I sort of feel the same thing on a grander scale. The whole world quiets down and one can't help but be jolted into the moment by the surprisingly obvious quiet (interrupted perhaps by that awesome crunching sound that snow makes under winter boots). It's easy to feel like a robot, or that you're on autopilot through so much of our waking lives. I learn this truth over and over again each time I get up to go to work. But its hard not to feel the vitality in life when the forces of automation all simultaneously fade out from that barely perceptible portion of our hearing that records their various machinations.

The first snowfall will be upon us soon. Don't forget to go have a listen.

2005-11-02T18:55:00.000-05:00

A Thousand Words Worth
I have to admit, that near the end of his career as Prime Minister, I had a kind of appreciation for Jean Chretien. This marvelous bastard took a pie in the face and did he need his security entourage to take care of business for him? Fuck no. He pushed them out of the way and started swinging! Today, when facing a hostile room asking him to answer to the many claims made in Gomery's report does our boy here loose his composure? Fuck No. He lays down a cock & balls joke to lighten the mood! In the Metro this morning I read an excerpt from a question period where Chretien said the following while illustrating the roots of what Chretien claims is Gomery's prejudice towards him (I am not making this up): Chretien: "He didn't like the golfballs I sent him [...] Everybody likes balls." [after a pregnant pause he slyly adds] "...golf balls that is." It takes a certain (and rare) level of testicular fortitude to deal out toilet humor while answering to accusations of defrauding a country of something in the neighborhood of 350 million dollars. It's likely that Chretien is guilty of at least some of these charges as the Gomery report is reputedly quite thorough and damming--and let's face it, its not the first time Chretien or the Liberals have faced charges of missappropriating funds. But say what you will about his corruptions, the dude has charisma. And while everyone should hang for any crimes they may have committed, Chretien is the kind of person that inspires a salute out of me as they walk towards the gallows.

2005-10-16T15:54:00.000-04:00

Glory.

There are very few things in life that truly force me to consider the possibility that our existence is slightly more than some sort of random cosmic accident. One of those things is a long walk either on the beach or around the forest near my parents' house when the leaves are changing. Fall is fast becoming my favorite season. But before I get into how great fall is, perhaps a little context:

During my formative years at home winter was by far my favorite season. I suspect this had (at the time) a lot to do with the now lengendary frigidness of my parents basement where I spent much of my home time growing up. While my friends would sit and enjoy the first stages of hypothermia huddling under whatever blankets they could find, I would proudly recline in my lazy-boy (wearing a t-shirt and jeans typically) and joke about needing to turn on the A/C. The architect of this polar environment was my mother, who, like me evidently, likes *cold* much more than *hot*.

So between the genetics and environmental conditioning, I had a high tolerance for the cold and took to winter sports furiously. x-country skiing being an early favorite that was replaced with snowmobiling once I was a bit older. My favorite time to be out was at night when it as about
-20'C. At that temperature the moisture in the air freezes and you can see things more intensely than at other times. During full moons on nights like that you almost don't need headlights. Anyway, snowmobiles also work much better when it is colder so ridding them was more fun also. I remember busting through huge snowdrifts, speeding down a snow covered road, that feeling of lift-off when you come up off of a jump...all priceless.

But as global warming became more and more of a reality in the area where I grew up, those awesome winter nights became fewer and far between. The winter before I went to University I blew up the motor in my sled and that pretty much put and end to my obsessive lust for the sport. So with spotty winters, a changing lifestyle, and a growing appreciation of the innate beauties of life, I began to see the wonders of fall.

But just like my love of winter, my love of fall started in a basement. I've endured a number of summers in Toronto (and most recently in Hamilton). What I learned there is that I am adapted for cold, not hot--and that summer heat in particular, sucks ass. I begin sweating sometime near the end of May, and (God willing) I stop somewhere around mid-October. But aside from the relief I find in the cooler temperatures, the turning leaves have taken on a special significance for me. At home leaves are at the center of many fall activities: raking leaves, burning the leaves you've just raked, taking pictures of the leaves, and talking about the leaves ad nauseum to the people who travel there from the city to rake, burn, and take pictures of the leaves. But aside from all of that hallmark stuff about walking around in the fall there is something deeper there that gets me whenever I am out and about.

Fall to me is about change. The inevitability and beauty of change. But even more importantly fall is about the simultaneous acting out of those forces that bring about change. Beyond the myriad of colous we get in this part of Ontario, we also can get intense sun, intense cloud, intense rain, intense wind and intense calm all in the space of one day. We have this habit of personifying seasons and attaching some sort of metaphorical significance to them. Fall, then, for me is a good metaphor for any given moment in life. To walk around and gaze at your surroundings is to see a landscape of interrelated forces that while volatile and unpredictable, produce something beautiful, be it in the form of a sunny afternoon tromping through an colourful bed of fallen leaves, or holding fast your jacket while you walk through a mist of drizzle and see the world contrasted against the grey sky. Either way the sheer vastness and complexity of the natural world exposes itself in a way that just doesn't happen any other time. You may say that spring is just as wondrous and revealing...but you'd be wrong. The gradations of change in the spring happen much more slowly and less dramatically. Also, much of the resonant power of spring gets wrapped up in this whole 'new life' business and carries with it too much hope and comfort to be interesting. Fall is about the unknown. Its much more real and much more exciting.

2005-10-02T21:24:00.000-04:00

"I'm a writer...shhh...don't tell anyone."

I am always surprised when a person who identifies themself as a creator of some kind has actually created something that is floating around in the world somewhere. For every self-styled artist actually living on the merits of their craft, there are at least a hundred more who are actually waiters or clerks or whathaveyou. Many of the latter (I have always suspected) like to identify themselves in this way so as to cash in on some cultural capital in certain social situations. Like this one for example:

EXT: Street

PRETTY GIRL MEETS TOTAL DUMBASS

Pretty Girl: "So... what do you do?"

Dumb Ass: "Uh, well actually I'm a writer"

Pretty Girl: [unleashing a smile that could melt the ice caps] "Ooo, that's so interesting. Anything I would know?"

Dumb Ass [visibly shaken] proceeds to deliver some line suggestive of how he is too 'real' for the publishing scene so (really) publishing something would be sort of like selling out, and he's too legit to sell out.

...I'll let you figure out the rest from there...

To this I would also add a third category, in which I number myself. This is the category of people who genuinely think of themselves as capable, but day-in, day-out, do nothing about it. If anyone ever asks me if I am either a filmmaker or a writer (because in conversation I tend to go overboard when talking about either) I get a sort of sheepish look on my face and tell them that I am an enthusiast...not the real deal. This isn't a total lie, but it does leave out part of the truth. Sometimes I think I chose academics because it legitimated my not producing any fiction (on screen or in print) of my own while I was there. Yet, when I think back, I can't think of anything that was more fulfilling than creating something. One or two of the things I've written have also 'gotten out' (if only in small town papers ect...). I can't really describe what its like to see yourself in print...its a strange sort of mix that is at once intensely narcissistic and also desperately embarrassing. But, as I have studied what: 'word', 'image', and 'sound' can all do, I've come to believe that putting art out there in the world is the best thing for (really) any creation. There is a lot of inconsequential art out there; but dammit, its out there...and until I get off my ass and get something out there I bow to those more courageous, or hard-working than I.

2005-09-24T10:47:00.000-04:00

The Value of a Dollar

For the last couple of months, and for the fist time in recorded history (that I am aware of), gas prices have crossed the triple digit threshold here in Ontario...seemingly for good. Bemoaning gas prices has become something of a learned behaviour both locally and nationally for some time, so it seems only too reasonable that when we experience the most recent (and most dramatic) price fluctuations--fluctuations that saw the price-per-liter jump from 1-2$ and then back down to around 1$ in some areas, that people are going to ask questions and demand answers. Premier Dalton McGuinty (does anyone take this guy seriously anymore!?) gave a very eloquent speech about 'Finding Answers' to these crazy trends, signaling that an inquiry from one of the ministry's regulatory boards (some B.S. to do with business ethics...whatever they happen to be) is in order. Thanks big D., now how 'bout an inquiry into those promises you made regarding the gas tax and class sizes in public schools; ass.

But I digress, really what's important about gas prices is not the cost itself, but what this could mean to the way we organize our society. Fossil fuel and marriage represent perhaps two of the most important and foundational institutions in our culture. I won't touch marriage in this entry (or suggest the many ways in which I think these two concepts are related) but the fact of the matter is we are, it seems, on the verge of a transformation in terms of how and what fossil fuel means to us. Gas and oil are more expensive than they've ever been, and neither is going to get cheaper anytime soon. The powers that control how these resources are priced are immeasurably more powerful than any pipsqueak government minister or ministry. The organizational structures that underpin almost every movement a typical north American makes is organized on the principle that gas is available everywhere at a price he/she can afford. Even our patterns of consumption work on this principal. In short, gas prices resonate through almost every corner of our day-to-day lives whether we realize it or not and have informed how we exist and co-exist.

So its natural, when the status quo is under threat, to meet that threat with resistance (especially when the satus quo is the warm gooey womb of overindulgence). But I think that there are other alternative possible here that are being ignored as we throw our collective temper tantrums over the rising price of soft serve. This could be the start of something new, something great, something that environmental lobbyists have been seeking for the last 60 years: A transition away from our dependence on fossil fuel.

If we take a moment to look and listen beyond the angry moans of car drivers across the country, we'll see and hear some interesting things afoot things like:

The TTC making some of the most progressive user friendly policy changes (transferable passes) they've made in years.

Car dealerships offering special considerations to lease holders wishing to switch to hybrid or other new fuel efficient vehicles.

Some long needed attention being paid public transportation zones in desperate need of expanded service. (like train and bus routes to bedroom communities around the GTA)

I have to cut this off here...but more on this later....

2005-09-08T22:30:00.000-04:00

I'm a Concrete Abstract Random...who the fuck are you!?

Aside from the dream jobs that I pretend exist in the real world, I think I can safely say that, in general, jobs tend to have at least one ugly side to them. Today (in the form of our annual staff meeting/"let's have a good year" rally) the ugly showed up and punished me for four (4) hours. (note: a solid 15 mins. of this time was used in the form of rambling statements about how:
a) we'd 'BRIEFLY' go over the material
b) we'd 'JUST GLOSS' over a couple of things
c) we'd 'COVER THIS NEXT SECTION QUICKLY' because we seem to be running overtime) ....I mean really. Jesus.

I suppose I should concede here, that despite my complaints already listed and those soon to follow in this post, that this will really be the only meeting of this kind that I'll have to endure. A BIG shout out to the good people at City Academy for that. Amen.

But on to what really got me thinking about the days proceedings...

We were going through learning strategies for students when we all participated in this survey that would tell us what kind of thinker we were and what kinds of expectations thinkers of each type have of the world. Apparently there are four categories of thinkers consisting of two types of 'random' thinkers and two types of 'Sequential' thinkers. The sub-categories on each side essentially just divide those who show slight affinities towards one way of thinking from those who show dramatic ones. It struck me while I was filling out this form just how problematic this, and almost every 'test' like this one really is. I call to mind the 'Archetype' and 'Colours' tests that I'm sure many of you have encountered while in highschool or whatehaveyou. My complaint is firstly that these things are not implemented in the right spirit, and secondly that; really, when you think about it, they don't offer much new information or insight. An arbitrary category gets assigned to you and with it, a list of very general, vague (and here's the tricky part: universally applicable) character traits. To illustrate, I refer to an episode of the Simpsons. In this episode, a factory worker in a peanut canning factory looks out the window to see a full grown elephant storming towards the open doorway next to him. He remarks as he watches the elephant tear through the place that his horoscope was *exactly* right. He then pulls out the horoscope and it reads: "You will face challenges today". Did I really need to undergo this procedure to be told that I am not a fan of highly structured or regimented learning environments? What burns me the most is that the people who developed these tests most likely profited amply from the patents and distribution rights. It would be like me going up to a person who is shivering violently and saying the them: "Gee, I think you are the type who needs a blanket...that'll be 5 bucks bitch. Where's the blanket you say? You got the wrong guy...you want this guy over here..."

I actually ended up with a description that said I was mostly Concrete-Random, also showing an affinity towards abstract random. Now, the abstract random I can understand, but concrete random is quite the oxymoron. It's supposed to suggest that I an comfortable in both highly structured and unstructured worlds...but really what it boils down to is that its a cop-out category... It's not that this test in particular is a cop-out, its just that I feel like all of these tests can't escape the sort of surface level pop-psychology riff-raff that ignores the larger complexes of human thought. These tests through slick language and comforting categorization strategies make us feel like we can adequately contain all of our quirks into a defineable space and suggest that if we just follow the steps that accompany the test, we can do x, y, and z. My 'Imperial' alert is buzzing. Hasn't that anti-christ Dr. Phill ( a whole other discussion) done enough to make it obvious to people that there are no easy answers when it comes to the ebbs and flows of the human experience?

2005-08-28T23:00:00.000-04:00

mas maris ex machina

A funny thing happened to me the last time I was up north visiting the folks. Something that happens every once and a while...

I was changing the oil on my car when (while under the vehicle) my dad pulls in the driveway. I slowly get out from under the car as he approaches with a sly smile on his face. Looking on with approval at the fact that I managed not to make a mess of his driveway, or get myself pinned under the jacked up car, he says: "So, you still know how to do this stuff, eh?" In man speak a comment like this is tantamount to that music that plays when two gunslingers are about to have it out in some dusty corral. Being that it's my dad, I chuckle and tell him that even though I've been pushing a pencil for the last few years I haven't fallen completely to the dark side. If it were, say, my friend Ed (who is pretty small for a giant) I'd have clocked him right then and there. Not in the face, mind you, but a good solid left hook to that meaty part where your shoulder meets your collar bone. Why would I do this? Because in the manverse you don't take that kind of shit!

Ever since it stopped being ok to be a mamma's boy I've been keenly interested in the machinations of masculinity. And while I feel like I've gained some perspective over the years, and try to be an individual above and beyond my social programming, I still can't resist the call of machismo form time to time. Fixin' cars, chopping wood (hmmm...), doing anything that involves putting small parts together to make bigger ones (construction), or breaking big parts into smaller ones (demolition) leaves me with a throbbing impulse to check in the kitchen for a beautiful, apronned, and suspiciously barefooted woman making me lemonade. Hopefully those who know me will give me the benefit of the doubt here and not interpret this either as: 1) in your face sexism or 2) some lame ass Christian confessionalism. It's neither, I assure you.

I am speaking from a place of curiosity, and I suppose, the assumption that this may be a shared curiosity amongst people in general. For example: am I merely falling into some sort of culturally normative bear trap when my brain sends out feel good vibes over being able to swing an ax really well? Or is there actually something to this desire to engage in gendered activities that works towards my happiness as a complete person? These aren't really new questions by any means, but they are fresh in my head these days. And while I sort of tend to campaign against the constructs of gender and the limitations they impose upon free thinking people, I still like the fact that somewhere inside, I get a kick out of various ways in which men's men get their hands dirty. Hmmm...I think I hear a leaky faucet in the apt. next door...think I'll go take a look...

2005-08-26T01:21:00.000-04:00

Post-Post Crapout

ok, two apologies to get out of the way...one: sorry for not posting more. I hope to develop a regular posting schedule ( I am thinking twice a week) but I am not sure how that will shape up just yet. Two: I had a great post that got lost tonight and no longer have the heart at this late hour to try and re-create it from scratch. I promise some new stuff soon.

2005-08-14T00:10:00.000-04:00

Mixed Messages

Talk of making mixed CD's came up in conversation the other night and it got me thinking about something that ties into blogging and also (though only sort of related) ties into what I think partly makes life worth living.

See; we live in this world of bullshit right? Fake Plastic Trees and all that... At least some of us draw lines in the sand using words like this. Sometimes, however, when I get to feeling a certain way, I think that beyond the *real* or the *fake* what we have are simply moments. These are both real and imagined, and evolve in the anals of our brains as we hash them up time and again to get a laugh at parties or whatever. *Moments* are very special. For me they are locators of those things I tend to think people are talking about when they speak of 'hearts' and 'souls'. Mostly, what makes a moment great between two people is that you see a naked aspect of a person. Naked honesty, naked fear, naked anger, naked joy, its as titilating as that moment of intimacy right before that last stitch of clothing falls to the ground and is equally life affirming.
I'm a junkie for these types of moments. I love people; and I love all of the shit that comes with loving people, I really do. When I think of the sheer magnitude of the chaos any given person has to sift through in a day, sharing a clear moment of truthful vulnerability becomes all the more mystical. This is also why I like mixed CD's so much...a mixed CD shared between friends or lovers captures a moment in ways that a picture just can't. I remember toiling for hours over CD's obsessing that they were just right...why? Because way back before I had the gumption to articulate what I felt about these little Magnum Opuses, I sensed that if I did my job correctly that I could capture something that was beautiful, magical, human, and most of all--fleeting. There's a reason, I feel, that things like sex get conflated with concepts like death. They are both the same in how they remind us of our ultimate, ubiquitous, and undeniable fleeting nature. The greatest moments, both good and bad, occur like a bolt of lightning and surge through the body. Infusing or draining it of what we call life. The objects we consider the most beautiful in life are equally fragile and fleeting. Butterflies, Orchids, Aurora Borealis, youth, ect... I think now of plums and how they taste the best just before they begin to rot. That's life. That's a moment. Feel it, and its gone. That's why I love mixed CD's so much. They are efforts to pay homage to great moments. And Blogs, as I see it, can do something of this nature too...blogs represent an infinite 24 hour space in which a person may record a moment or even (say, through the rather anonymous arena of the blogverse) expose themselves in a rather telling blog entry. This could create the opportunity for readers to connect in that meaningful, beautiful, and fleeting way with bloggers...a kind of human beackon amidst the chaos of the virtual universe.

2005-08-12T23:30:00.000-04:00

Out of nowhere...

I get a lot of time to myself these days on my commutes back and forth to work and I have a love/hate relationship with this time. On good days I can reflect on things in a positive way and maybe give unappreciated moments thier proper due; on bad days I get bogged down in the post-modern (Blech, I hate that fucking word) hall of smoke and mirrors and come home wondering why it is I am not out doing something more "meaningful", whateverthehell that means.

Anyway, I realized on one such trip that a few rather momentus things have been going on that, as they occurred, didn't have me adequately flipping out. One of these momets was finishing my last essay and other work for the final summer course of my degree. I sort of snuck up on that paper and out of what seemed like nowhere, I was done. It sort of just materialized in front of me. I am laways suspicious of papers that write like that because I never think I've done enough to test my thesis or whathaveyou, but the novelty of being done has far outstripped my desire to be a student for about 4 months now, so I was willing to chuck that bad boy on the heap like the grenade it will most certainly be for my transcript. For now I enjoy that blissfull time between marks posting where I can still revel in the possibility of an academic future. Of course, this is a digression from the point though. I am done. I am living the life that I will be living for the next year as I type this. Somehow, through habbit or whatever, I was convinced up until recently that Sept. would bring some kind of change, ot trigger, or starting point to my work-a-day lifestyle...but that has already happened. I'm here. This is it. Wow. Its like that metaphor we talk about to describe really bad sex...where the girl wonders when things are going to get started and the guy is already lighting a cigarette. I was waiting for school to end and work to happen, thinking that there'd be some kind of lead-in, some kind of transitional foreplay to signal to me what was about to happen...yet here I am waking up day after day in a job, feeling like someone spiked the punch.

2005-07-31T22:45:00.000-04:00

Act V Scene III

One of the ways I like to pitch Shakespeare to the kids I teach is to demonstrate how the body of work we call Shakespeare sets up the basic structures of current forms of drama. Thinking in this way also causes me (sometimes) to see my life in this framework. Now, I have to say that this impulse does go against my natural tendancy to try and NOT see my life like a movie or a hallmark card or whathaveyou, but sometimes, dammit, it's just appropriate. Case-in-point: I have begun writing the final essay for my last class of my career as a student. 4000 words stand between me, a graduate degree, and an army of creditors coming for thier pound of flesh. As I pace out this final act, I wonder if I will find myself walking out of a comedy or a tragedy. Either way, Tuesday marks an end to a version of life I've been living for six years now.

I suppose that's at the heart of it (this blog, I mean). In orbit around me are a set of circumstances at play which, in the very near future, will effectively transform my current situation in almost every way. Of course those regular tennants of life will remain the same: friends, family, the various challenges of a love life ect...but the structures around which these aspects of life are dealt with, for me, are in the midts of transformation. I find this both a scary and very exciting time. But it's not necessarily the 'unknown' that I am launching into, but the 'non-descript'. I am no longer 'a student'. It's a precious title that affords one much freedom and space to ignore most of what embittered baby-boomers call 'The Real World'.

I feel as if I must somehow answer to some undefined group or complex of people for my time spent as a student. Like there is this collective voice I hear as I walk out of my apartment that says: "Ok, we did our part..." "Who, or what does this voice belong to?" I ask myself, and then realize that whether internal or external, this voice is there and has dug its heels in. Deep.

As I boldly go where countless have gone before, I hope to answer this voice with poise and courage, to face the non-descript with some integrity of character, to walk out on my balcony and hoist a giant middle finger to all of those forces that pressure us into some definable version of success. I am, afterall, in pursuit of those momentary and lasting hapinesses that make life worth living above and beyond all else, and the only real thing I fear about this next stage is losing sight of that in the desert of the workin' stiff's Real World.

2005-07-17T09:49:00.000-04:00

Well I've finally taken the dive. It's been a debate (I'm not going to lie) but in the end, as it is with so many other things in life, I have caved to the irresistable siren song of: "Everybody else is doing it!"

For a long time I've wanted a blog, but, I've also always had mixed feelings about the practice of blogging. There are times when I think these spaces offer some kind of alternative space for thought and expression that is somehow less influenced by all of the mind-warping crap that hits us every time we walk out the door. Posting can be a kind of 'knowing glance' that you share with readers. It's all the stuff you'd say in a play (or in life ;)) when you're involved in one of those 'aside' moments. But on the other hand I also tend to complain from time to time about how people should just talk to eachother more in person instead of using things like MSN, E-Mail, Blogs, or the phone ect... I would hate for all the good that blogs bring to occur at the cost of some good old fashionned person to person time, since so many things in life conspire against that already.

In any case I guess we'll just have to see which way this plays out...