Swift vengance on whatever has attacked my computer

A quick update to my loyal readers. Those of you already in the know have heard of the untimely strike of my trusty ibook. I am now without a computer for an indefinte time period and as such bloging will be sparse if at all. This post comes to you live from the computer labs at Mcmaster but I just can't feel creative on this oppresive, black, ominous looking Dell. Fear not though for there is much to read in this world other than my blog.

The books section on the side should now have links to two of the most influential books I have read. First there is a link to Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man And The Sea." If you have not had the pleasure to read Hemingway stop what you are doing, go to the library and take out this book. Not only will those around you be impressed with your choice for personal reading but you will get to understand the simplistic beauty that is the Hemingway's elegant prose. I myself have just purchased a copy of "The Sun Also Rises" (another Hemingway) and I am very excited to blow off my dry school readings and get lost in some literary genius. There is also a link to "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac. This is hands down my favorite book, I read it twice just this past summer. It is the passion of Kerouac that makes me want to be a writer and thus the impetus to start this blog. Also if you have ever wondered about some of the slang in the blog (mainly my use of square and dig) it is all from the beatnik generation and Kerouac was king of the beats.

So there it is, go, read, expand your mind and enjoy.


P.S. I am begining to realise just how much I love to blog, just how much it sucks to not have my computer and how imensely connected my daily life and computer use are. I feel that until I get my laptop back I will be going through serious techno withdrawl. It's kinda mesed up when you realise how much every activity in your daily routine somehow involves modern technology and how upsetting it feels to no longer have a computer, something which by all accounts of practicality I do not need. I think most of us do not have an appropriate respect for the marvels of modern technology nor do we fully understand how intergrated it is with our lives.

P.P.S. New and interesting posts will come soon...I might even dig out some of my unposted drafts for your reading enjoyment.

I'm going to be dreaming of a lighthouse

It's the time of night, well morning, well actually it's the time that starts you thinking. 4:48 am that pecuiliar time of the day when your brain starts to think different. It starts with the first question: "do I think it's extremely late in the night?" or "Do I think it's extremely early in morning?" Once I have gotten past this (I usually decide it is just beyond late in the night time) I start realising how I feel and what I am thinking.

4:48 am feels like 8 hours of anime, it felt like utter shock when encountering others still up and bumping into the night. For a brief moment it gave me a weird sense of peace, tranquility and a fleeting glimpses of a clear mind. The joy of open space even out in the street. I really started to dig the night when it felt like rebellion, breaking the daytime convention and blazing a new trail lit by the gentle glow of the moon. Bathed in pale light on an empty street I can feel alive, I can dance as much as I fucking want and not get strange looks. I hate the squares who can't losen up enough to fully enjoy their music. Don't be afraid to rock out with your music; if you like it so much dance, groove and be into it. I'd rather get lost in something I love than listen to the white noise of the city. If your music doesn't make you want to dance then you're listening to the wrong song.

4:48 am can also feel like being alone, it felt bitterly cold even with a hood on and the temperature barely reaching fall levels. For some agonizingly long minutes it can offer only the dull throb of heart ache, followed by the sudden surge of panic and the nagging voice of sleep. It makes you question your life, your intentions and how it is that you found yourself on the corner of your street looking for the moon hidden in the clouds. Last night I was also up at 4:48 am and I promised I wouldn't be again and here I am now promising tommorrow will be different.

My bed calls to me but my fingers are dying to dance the keys, swaying to the music of my thoughts. I wanted to create on a piano keyboard but found my songs sounded better on the computer keys. My melodies of music paled in comparison to the rythm of my thoughts. Click-a-ty Clak-a-ty the keys go. Blow as deep as you want, words are like notes...scatter them...pause them, do a furiously paced ever climbing tediouly intense string of words that climb into the obscurities of metaphor and come rushing back to the page like a wave crashing the shore. Wait as the wave swells...builds up for the penultimate crash the point where you realise you can't keep up this pace you begin to ease off as your waves die down...you got through the big crash. You let the words go free. Step back from the microphone, that solo is done.


Sleep is the antithesis of my inspiration. I was there tongiht, I felt alive. I had thoughts flowing and ideas building. I was diggin life, watching sexy thoughts cut by my mind's eye.


5:48 am is the fog of sleep...so many things I want to say. I'm going to be dreaming of a light house, a way to keep my thoughts from crashing into the shoreline of sleep.

It is one hour later and I am collapsed in the act of just being here.

Goodnight moon, please light up the shore for me next time.

At the end of a night.

At the end of the night the ideas that haunt me eased themselves out of emotional extremes. I crave crucial moments, powerful ones where our emotions and inner nature boil and rush to the surface. I like things raw. My brain starts to race and I can sense a deep need to understand what is happening. I knew that in tonight there was inspiration to be had...I had just been trying to figure out what it was. I thought I had landed at my intellectual promised land earlier and took the pen to the paper with such fever, but it was (tragically) to no avail. I had merely at that point become conscious of the impending state that would appear before me in a more unexpected time. Not, the understanding itself, just the anticipation of the coming storm.

Fun, is fun; and sometimes what doesn't seem like fun ends up making the difference in our heads between a night that happened or a night when SOMETHING happened. I feel overwhemingly happy at this time in my life. I fear I am too jaded sometimes and weak to apathy. The world can take me down very easily. The more I learn about what happens in and around my life the sadder I feel. "Time is short, life is bad." I learned that from class, from critical theory. It's Plato, possibly Socrates I can't remember right now. Sometimes I belive this to be true, sometimes I like to shut my door and listen to sad music, sometimes I forget if I am listening to sad music because I am sad, or because the music is making me sad...Misery loves company right? Despite these sometimes, I always try and remain optimistic.

My light bulb came to me during a very dark hour of the night, during an hour commonly reserved for those who rise at a freakishly early hour in the morning. Tonight was about all the good things in life, in the people we know and keep around us, but unfortunately had to be twisted out of us forcefully to be understood. I believe in the good of life. I believe in the comfort of sleep. I will sleep well now, exhausted physically and content emotionally.


09/17/05


What a night.

SUNDAY THOUGHT BOMB REVEALS HEADLINE WRITER BEST JOB EVER !!

I just aborted a lenghty blog post when I realised that the whole post was complete fluff. The epitomy of useless rambling and the only thing I truly enjoyed about the peice was the title (and I can't even take credit for it cause I lifted it from a song.) Furthermore it is through this I realized My goal in life. To become a headline writer. I have always loved some of my blog post titles and titles in other's blogs much more than the posts themselves. I have drafts of posts that don't get published untill I find the right title. I know ireferanced a future post about the wacky world of semi-frozen trendy coffee drinks as my next post but honestly I just liked the title better than the rest of the post.

Tonight's aborted post was going to be called "I make you thnk I'm delicious with the stuff that I say" as both my nodding referance to the fantastic "I am the slime" song by Frank Zappa and my seguay into a rant about my need for more stimulating entertainment. I had a lengthy, alienated "po-mo" kinda rant about how we are becoming numb from media saturation and as a result demand more stimualtion and excitememnt to hold our interest for even a brief period of time.

Then I got over myself and realized that wasn't the sunday night epiphony I was hoping it would be remembered as.

Think of the power you have as a headline writer or possibly slogan writer. It's like being the most sucinct writer possible. How can you condense all the ideas into a short, attention grabbing sentance. Slogan politics are wuickly adopted because they appeal to so many quasi-intellectuals who won't have to know the whole issue if they memorize some key lines. Anyone who wated to align themselves with the left when the war in Iraq began meerely had to yell "No blood for oil ! " and BAM you just made yourself an anti-war lefty. When we rush through or consider our time too important we look for the Coles notes, the plot summary or spoilers for something. We just need the FEEL of a topic before we feel entitled to wax philosophical.

Thus I now seek to land myself a job as a headline/slogan writer where I will use the power of media to spread subversive message in a quick, easy to digest format. Gradualy the influence will grow as the headlines I pen reach larger and larger distribution formats until the whole world has fallen under the power of my slogans.

Probobly not. Atleast now I have an interesting response when people ask me what kind of job I plan to get when I finish my cultural studies degree.

Stay tuned for the next post which will either be titled "global rule handed over to brilliantly succinct writer" or "Your parent's basement: the cheapest post-graduation option while you find a REAL job"