think of it this way

List how I, care-wretched, on ice-cold sea,
Weathered the winter, wretched outcast
Deprived of my kinsmen;
Hung with hard ice-flakes, where hail-scur flew,
There I heard naught save the harsh sea
And ice-cold wave, at whiles the swan cries,
Did for my games the gannet's clamour,
Sea-fowls, loudness was for me laughter,
The mews' singing all my mead-drink.
Storms, on the stone-cliffs beaten, fell on the stern
In icy feathers; full oft the eagle screamed
With spray on his pinion.
Not any protector
May make merry man faring needy.

a few reasons i'd like to go to anarctica

1. nacreous clouds.

2. sastrugi.

3. icebergs.

4. southern lights.

spectre bark

-today i think that cashew butter is the Mr. Holland's Opus of nut butters.
-medal=meddle=cashforgold?
-intermittent panic attacks=lobotomy?
-big league chew.
-dolphin blood.
-"The Polar Spirit's fellow-dæmons, the invisible inhabitants of the element, take part in his wrong ; and two of them relate, one to the other, that penance long and heavy for the ancient Mariner hath been accorded to the Polar Spirit, who returneth southward".

that's about all, really.


and, and, and...

sometimes, i hear the strangest things

wash of a cold river in a glacial land

i like morning better than afternoon and night better than both.

at least in the morning i can imagine it will, at some point, get light out. the sun is becoming a very evasive fellow as the approaching winter solstice blots everything out. at least snow is bright and reflective. plus there's the golden (literally) time in the afternoon when the sun kind of skips over one mountain on its way behind another one. I think this happens at about 2. Official sunset is like 3:45 or something. I don't know when the official rise is these days, but it's like 11 am now and while i can see sunbeams in the western hills, i most certainly cannot see the sun itself.

perpetual darkness is not without its awesome benefits though, and is in fact highly conducive to:
-stars
-northern lights
-sneakin'
-seances (maybe?)
-long exposure photography (sometimes)
-ghost ships.....say what?!?!?
Okay, well it might not have as much to do with the levels of light as some of the other things on that list but they did just release pictures of a "ghost ship" on the bottom of Lake Laberge.
i very much enjoy that all ships that have sunk are"ghost ships". That is how it should be. Just like all abandoned houses should be called "haunted houses". Anyway this sweet ghost ship was a golrush-era paddlewheeler that sunk in 1901. Dawson's main man Robert Service even rapped about it. There is a video of the boat's mystical underwater secrets here. Perfect for the darkness. They even found boots! And axes! Land of death indeed.
also plus additionally the ship was called the A.J. Goddard, and even though there's an extra D, i feel 94% certain the boat is in fact the ghost of Jean-Luc, the French-new-waving the shit out of that lake.

That's another one for my list of things improved by darkness-- French films from the 60s.
I have been really enjoying re-visiting all the Godard movies lately. Vivre Sa Vie and Week End are my favourites right now, but really i like them all. Even the shitty 80s ones and the confusing Dziga-Vertov ones. When i was 19 i spent an entire summer, almost every night of the week, at the National Film Theatre (now re-named the BFI Southbank...gay).
They had a Jean-Luc godard season that year (2001 maybe?) and they played all his films as well as work by his influences and contemporaries. Anna Karina even introduced one of them. For realz. It was a formative experience for my film-watching and brain. I think it's probably why i like Marxism so much (that and the awesome powers of Saskatchewan, of course). The first one i saw was A boute de souffle cos this strange guy i worked with asked me. Then it spiralled into a borderline obsessive past-time of cinema-going. It just goes to show you that good things can come from having a crush on an Italian, apparently.


in closing, "a thousand miles from nowhere" is a hella-sweet song.
Also, Dwight Yokam is kind of a babe.

double true.

now it's getting late

harvest moon tonight.
it is too overcast here to see it; damn.

today was also our first snow of the season-- hence the overcast sky.

october is the flagship of halloween. i don't know what to dress as yet.


ideas include:

(arranged largest to smallest)

No Jacket Required
(Not Phil Collins. Big difference.)

SATAN


Mac Tonight

So ya. Not too sure yet.

One thing i am sure about though-- i need to get winter boots, stat. In an effort to force myself to act i threw my old ones out. I might just end up wearing shoes with bread bags on them all winter. And that's 'okay'.

Dear media, shut up about super fruit.

Back in the day, the seminal goth rock band Sisters of Mercy made a t-shirt that said "fuck me and marry me young" on it. it is a lyrics from the song "Driven Like the Snow", which is featured on the fabulous album "Floodlands". i have the record.
i have been trying to find it since the internet was invented. if anyone wants to get me the best b-day present ever, steal that shirt from a skinny goth and mail it to me.

Or if you're looking for a gift idea that is less mysterious to acquire but much much more expensive, i want this painting by Kris Knight (weirdly enough he has a painting called "fuck me and marry me young"...hmmm):

i am worth it.


Norwegian crispbreads, German cheese, and Yukon tomatoes-- here's to living in a first world hell!

one hundred years later

"it is a message without a code"

zzzzine

the walls are fine

want to pay some other girl to just walk up to her and hit her

spatial awareness and other set backs

bananas have gotten cool lately. maybe this is just in the yukon. more likely this has been the case in the rest of the nation for some time and it is only now catching on here. sweet sweet northern bloc. you giveth and you taketh away. mostly taketh. lousy bloc. to get to my original point though i feel as though these socio-culturally aware stickers, some of which even feature jokes, are the banana growers attempting to distract us from the danger of banana extinction:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2664373.stm
i am not distracted, banana people. i might have laughed at your LOL bananas and subsequently purchased them, but i've got my eye on you.

if bananas go extinct, i will just have to eat even more monte cristo sandwiches. even more than i already do. is that even possible? get back to me when bananas are extinct and i will let you know.

I spent a very long while preparing my second radio show of the week, which took place earlier this day. it was not even slightly thematically unified, but i did manage to play tusk by fleetwood mac, which is pretty important i feel. i also discussed gay marriage in relation to utah and the sundance film festival and finished with "i can't believe you actually died" by the microphones. i thought it was one of my better productions, exceptttttt i have a really difficult time talking comfortably on the air when there are people in the station though. i guess maybe that will never go away. lots of people today. ruining my flow. cock-blocking my steez. etc. i would like to adopt the role of a gritty reporter so people are scared to come when i'm there. this is the most natural and best solution by far. by far.

In other avoiding working related "news" i have been trying to take a picture of molly's cat two-face (or toof as i like to call her) in order to complete a portrait for molly's christmas present (she already knows about it, so relax). this picture is by no means successful for my drawing, but it does make toof look like a real lady/ghost cat.

the benefit to this weird cloudy winter is that clouds do good things with the sun and the mountains, and that makes the sun going away almost worthwhile. almost not quite.

i have so many things to do that i can't do any of them. i just want to make buttons all the time.


buttons and monte cristos. why i can't i just make that?

omegahedron

yesterday i got locked outside on the deck at work.
then some other stuff that was stupid happened.
is it really depressing or really awesome if the sweetest part of one's day is talking to (read: having a spiritual experience with) a fox?
i'm going to go ahead and say really awesome.

oh hey there 4 o'clock....bringing some darkness? already? great!

i just got peanut butter under my t key.

this is a picture of god visiting the north end:


this is the river bein' almost frozen:


here is some white light:

i aspergersed you not to say that

when the french have landed, you know it's winter.
also everything is closed and it's snowy.

2 french landed at my house last week though. not the quebec kind, the axis of evil kind.
{dear french people,
i know that you might suck at anglais and thus not pick up the subtle humour in my discussion of your contributions to terror, but try not to be offended. i like france quite a bit.}
anyways these "couch surfers" arrived under the guidance of room "mate" M.P. Dater/Faker/Creeper and it was awkward at best and eye-gouging at worst. i am not a fan of stranger house guests. Call me old fashioned, but i think couches are for buds and bros.

the river is still not frozen but it is trying. it sounds like things breaking and snapping in a slow sinister fashion. i like the sound a lot.


some days the sun is bright and lovely for 2 hours or so but most days it is just white-grey sky with vague distant glow light for 2 hours instead. for some reason this year it seems darker and more overwhelming. i have absolutely no idea why.



i am trying to quel my distaste for the darkness by making ever-growing lists of things i want to do in the cities when i am travelling like a real person in real places.
i have not yet been able to prioritize or schedule them, but some highlights include:

1. eat korean food
2. go to natural history museum
3. go to american folk art museum for henry darger exhibit
4. buy expensive pants
5. make a few scenes
6. embarass a few shitty acquaintances with public intoxication
7. yell profanities at sub-par bands
8. drink labatt 50
9. acquire additional tattoos
10. get a perm
11. create elaborate Home Alone 2 Lost in New York photo series wherein i play the role of Kevin Mcallister at some of the film's most memorable landmarks....

oh i am going to be up WAY past my bedtime with this hair-brained project.

here is the thing about having elaborate travel plans is that it can be so hard to plan them.
at my term break i will have all these wee stops and now i don't know where i will/should go for new year's eve. new year's eve is kind of a sham and a liar so it is challenging to plan around it.
i am kind of mostly thinking i want to be in dawson city, land of the midnight no-sun.

hard to say-- you know how it is. there are just so many people i love in all the places.





you know how it is.




i am working on a stupid art project and a new mixed cd project right now-- neither are going terribly well and both are pissing me off and making me feel inferior.....buttttttttttt i will give the maddest of mad props to my ipod for sticking with me regardless of my ill treatment and poor care of it. You see on Tuesdays and Wednesdays (because i don't work til 4) i walk up the dome to the cemetaries to prevent atrophy and insanity and take a couple wintertime photos, looks for the White Lodge, contemplate the tangibility of existence, etc.
Then i slide back to town all the way down crocus bluff on my butt and laugh hysterically and hope no one is around. These epic wintertime journies require headphones obviously, and on my last slide-venture i took an ill-chosen path and ended up topwise-backwards and covered in snow. My ipod was in the snow, but not just lightly, buried entirely. The headphone jack was all jammed with ice and i thought my dayz were numbered. But nothing happened.
So now i can continue fussing over my shitty mixed cd and lament my inferiority long into 2009.