Archives : all posts by Dan

The Rolling Stones - "Emotional Rescue"

I was walking home, and it was late at night. I was pretending to be on my cell phone, but that still wasn't really working. I didn't feel safe. And then I saw a guy on the road ahead of me. He was walking the same way as me so I followed him. In case something happened, he'd be close enough to see. I guess I trusted him, I'm not sure why. I walked for like twenty minutes this way, and he kept making the same turns as me, but he was ahead of me. I kept following him 'cause it was working out for me, and then when we finally got to my street, and he turned down it too. We walked all the way down it, past the closed bakery and church, and then he turned into my building! I shouted down the hall to him as he unlocked his door, "Hey!" and then I didn't know what to say, "Thanks." He didn't say anything, he just walked into his apartment, he didn't even look at me. I went up the stairs and put on Jolene and ate the last of my fancy salad. I turned it up, loud as I could, even though it was the middle of the night. Nobody complained. That night I felt invisible. I felt like a missed re-incarnation, like a squeezed-off bit of consciousness for someone more exciting, and then whatever being they put in charge of putting minds into bodies was like "Well, no sense wasting it, there's some good stuff in here." I started wishing something terrible would happen so I would know I affected someone. Then I looked at the label on the bottle of OV and started making up a new name for myself. Olivia Violet. Ophelia Vulgaris. Odessa Voss. I went to bed and the room was spinning like my brain was the drain and someone had yanked the plug out. [Buy]

(image of Karuna Khyal)

Long Long Long - "To Be Alone"

When I was 14 my grandfather died. He left me a .zip file. I didn't open it for four years. I was cleaning out my computer before moving away to college and found it again. I opened it; 25,000 jpegs. Screen caps. His Social Wall. From when he joined Social back when he was 14. I was suddenly touched and embarrassed. I didn't appreciate the gift then (my dopey cousins all got four hundred bucks each and I was so jealous cause they all bought xboxes), and guiltily but ravenously spent the summer going through them, projecting them on the side of my parents' house on hot nights, following comments, patterns, and dead links.

Birthdays would swell and shrink depending on the kind of year he had, where he was living. He spent a year in the Kingling Mountains, and he only got about 3 birthday wishes that year (but lots of "hey, long time"s). When he got sick there was lots of attention. Some prayer-ish, some philosophy-ish, some practical wisdom-y. "If it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen, let's go for drinks some time." And this level of casual speech, this constant lapping of soft compliments, small talk, brief nudgings, after a while made me wonder why he had left this for me. At first I was just interested in the way people talked 75 years ago and the kinds of things they cared about, but then I started to think "this is not the way to show me who you were." The people who cared about him most would never post on his Social Wall. They were too close for that. But maybe this is what he was telling me. That, for a man who kept no record of his own life, this was as good a record as any, as valid. He existed something like a monad, my grandfather, visible only through the reflections he made and never present himself, save the odd news story he posted: "Camel on Mars Hoax", or cryptic status update: "I'll never do that again"

[Buy]

(image result for 'Perishable Mountain Cat' (dead lynx) search)

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past: my entry on Parenthetical Girls' "The Pornographer" has been edited to include the new, NSFW video. The ever-compelling Zac Pennington dispels once again any rumours that there is such a thing as fixed sexuality.

Matthew Friedberger - "The Sainte-Barbe Triangle"

It's true that I was once commissioned to perform emergency and controversial surgery on Laureen Harper, Stephen Harper's wife. I've been a cosmetic surgeon since 1998, practicing mostly out of southern Alberta, but recently moved to eastern Canada. In 2001, about 9 weeks after September 11th, I received a page reading "911". Obviously, 9/11 was still fresh in everyone's minds, and so I quickly panicked and returned the call. It was an insensitive use of the emergency page system, and I found out I was needed for, although not what I would consider a life-or-death situation, still a rather urgent and unique request. I was to go to Champlain Mall, wait in front of the New York Fries (again, I thought of firefighters) until exactly 6:20 when I would receive further instruction. The man on the phone informed me he was from the RCMP, so I obliged, despite the fact that the New York Fries closes at 6:00 (the whole Champlain Mall closed at 7:00 for goodness' sake) so I received not a few sideways looks. But at 6:20, as promised, I was approached by a man in a blue windbreaker who escorted me to the parking lot, and I was whisked away in a Ford Explorer. Everyone was very friendly, and they had dried cranberries for the ride, so I was happy. But still I was anxious to know what the hey was going on. On the hour-and-forty-five drive, they explained the situation: Laureen Harper had a "growth" that she needed removed, and I was being hired to remove it.

Well.

Let me tell you, I nearly clobbered these nice officers. "A growth?" I said, "All this for a growth?!" "Well," they said, "it's not an ordinary growth. Mrs. Harper is suffering from a condition whereby a foetus, rather than gestating in the womb as is proper and natural, has grown topically...on the surface." I paused, half-chewed cranberries in my mouth. "Where?" "On her upper arm." Apparently they thought things would resolve themselves on their own, they spent the regular gestation period keeping her out of sight, or at least covered (there was talk that she wore a fake belly in public) and took care of things the best they could. The foetus developed up to a point, but of course, given its situation, half-exposed on her upper arm like some sort of nightmarish three-dimesional tattoo, it couldn't survive. And now it was up to me to remove it.

Well.

I won't describe the process to you, I've been asked many times by those (often in their cups) curious to know, but I've never told a soul. I think of it much the same way I suppose veterans must think about war. I'd rather not put you through it, and besides, it would require some re-living so if you don't mind I'd rather just avoid it. But I will say this, as I worked away for hours, under flickering flourescent lights, trying to finish in time for a morning press conference, where Stephen was supposed to announce his candidacy for Prime-Minister, I heard him moaning in what seemed like a kind of zombie-like half-sleep. I was questioning the motives of how rushed this operation was, how secret it was, when I heard him moan, quietly to himself, "It was the only time. It was the only time we..." and then a drag of his Player's Light. I looked down, at my work, at my disgusting, devilish work, and soldiered on.

[subscriptions to Solos are sold out. But you can hope to find Meet Me in Miramas at stores like Phonopolis in Montreal]

[previous Stephen Harper fan fiction]

The Kills - "Pots and Pans"

When I pull your hair, make sure to grab my hand, make sure to move with me, otherwise it's really gonna hurt. When I trip you, make sure you fall, otherwise you're really gonna fall. When I give you an uppercut, throw your chin up and thump your chest, it'll make it look good. When I slap you, don't anticipate it, it'll look fake. When I'm driving, grab the wheel, 'cause I'll let go at some point. When we're walking, walk ahead of me, and don't look back, I promise I'll be there, looking down. When we're in there, don't say my name, at least don't say my real name. When you make the call, make sure to use details, like the name of the contact you last called in your cell phone, that'll make it sound real. When you're out there, when you're waiting for them to show up, make sure to struggle, your wrists need to be chafed, otherwise they'll know. When you're riding back in the car, make sure you don't say a fuckin word. They don't wanna help you, they don't wanna get things right, they want to break us up, and that's it. They are not on your side, no one is on your side. Except me. Move with me. Otherwise this'll really hurt. [Pre-Order for free track]

(image of the (possibly boring?) super moon by n negovanlis)

Sean Nicholas Savage - "Can't Get My Mind Off You"

In a room with light pink carpeted floors and walls, plush and thick with swirls of cream. Bare white socks dance silently, web-cammed and wide-lensed. Pastel cuffs, wrists fleshy, pink and spurting long fingers. Palm leaves burst from the corners of the ceiling, bright green and dewy. Soft white shadows, bright white underwearings. Pants that dance so quiet, with eyes to the light. And white mic cord to the MegaBass, gold and pastel teeth, chipped with stretched lips. The blond curls of an adult newborn, blinded by LEDs, cooing sweetness and consensual silence.

Sean Nicholas Savage is from another world, one that received only AM-band-MJ and Tiger Beat as earth history. [Buy (or DL by donation) from Arbutus Records]

ABX - "Kaputting it Up (Raekwon vs. Destroyer)"

Security is lazy and sad. Anyone could get away with anything these days. Bouncers are checking their phones, cops are bummed right out, border guards are googling themselves. Airport security is hugging a mug, nursing a cold, the secret service is taking a "couch day". Bodyguards have diet depression, Brinks drivers are picking the sticker off a pear, putting it back on, and picking it off again. The door is unlatched, the locks are swinging open, wave your hand in front of their eyes, they won't notice, go on in, take whatever you see. [free]

(images by Frohawk Two-Feathers)

Parenthetical Girls - "The Pornographer"

A body like a walled castle; sturdy with a one-way quality. Semi-permeable. Membranous. Valved. Clutching, fanged, a dripping snug. Orificially strictured. In short, a trap.

Parenthetical Girls - "YOUNG THROATS"

Do not invoke the stars in fiction. Do not invoke the stars in poetry. Do not invoke the stars in writing, words cannot represent the stars. The stars can only be seen, naked of everything, cameras, scopes, treetops, the backs of necks. Naked even of eyes.

[Privilege Pt. I featured last year]

[Order Privilege Pt. II]

[Pre-order Privilege Pt. III a 5-part vinyl release from PG, so far incredible and so special. And yes, literally numbered in the blood of a band member]

Au - "Here's To Forgetting (Parenthetical Girls)"

Messenger bees! Send out the messenger bees! Set them off! Don't hold the trigger, pull you bastard! Send the messenger bees!

[click] [silence] [rush] [buzz] [wind] [rain] [the drums of war continue]

"The Weather War will be fought on all sides like plump children devouring a pizza", so goes the saying. I suppose we all know this will lead to nothing, we'll eat our pizza and one lucky child will be left with a dough ball and a little plastic table, a rather worthless prize, but still that is how it is shaping up."

"In the throes of the Weather War, opinion will be key, approval will rattle in the wind like all ratted and torn flags, and it is imperative that we hold on to opinion, that we steer it through these storms like a sound ship. Our greatest enemy, of course, the messenger bees. At this point, it seems they will be unstoppable. It will be the solving of the messenger bee problem that will be the crux of the Weather War, the lynchpin, the foothold, the grounding wire, the deciding factor. I leave it to a smarter man than myself to solve this problem. One of democracy's greatest, to be sure."

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Parenthetical Girls, one of the most underrated bands in the world, have released an album of covers. Covers of Sparks, Tori Amos, Daniel Johnston, plus a bunch of other bands covering Parenthetical Girls songs, of which "Here's To Forgetting" is one, covered by the magnificent Au. Buy this record, it is wonderful.

And, more Parenthetical Girls to come very soon.