Happy Earth Day

Spent the hour between 8:30 and 9:30 in thought, with a journal by my side, writing three poems, various ramblings, and a postcard. And watched the cat nearly set her fur on fire with the candle. (What's that smell? Ah yes, singed cat fur.)

A rethink

Once again - and I know this is tiresome for the two or so people that actually visit here - I'm rethinking my relationship to this blog. Not only do I not have many readers (and I have to remind myself that's not necessarily the reason I started this in the first place; it was to serve as a writing exercise, a place where I can gather the jumble of thoughts continually revolving in my brain and attempt to make some sense of them, to give them some coherency; yet, it would be nice to add a few more eyeballs), but I re-read some of these posts and think, "ugh." As I was telling my friend M. today (via e-mail), I think I've become intellectually lazy over the last couple of months. Yes, I'm reading wonderful, thought-provoking books (finished my re-read of Bolano's The Savage Detectives last week; not surprisingly, it was a richer experience, although the ending is still puzzling; on to Anna Karenina!), and my work is still (at times) challenging and intellectually stimulating, but I'm getting complacent outside of it. (Maybe it's stumbling upon this site that is providing the proverbial food for thought. After all, if I'm going to do this, I might as well do it right. She has.)

Thus, a temporary pause while I figure out what the heck it is I'm trying to accomplish here.

In the meantime, a couple of links to read. One on the Kindle, a device I'd love to get my hands on (despite the fact I'm an unabashed fan and supporter of the printed book; but hey, I'm open to conversion), and an older article on the future of the book (via an interview with Umberto Eco, sent to me by M.)

Security

Strange day today. A big chunk of it was doing what I would call grunt work: essentially mindless work that a chimp could do (except it required some knowledge of Spanish; reading Bolano in English translation hasn't helped much). But toward the end of it, despite some uneasy feelings leftover from yesterday when a colleague said "pink slips" (that was not related to job losses), I was told that, despite the continuing economic woes, my job is guaranteed for at least another two years. Two-year tenure - woo hoo! Of course I'm still up for another job, and will continue to follow through on that. (If nothing else, it's always good experience to go through the job interview process.) And who knows, I may still be tempted to leave. But it's nice to have some sense of security. Plans can be made.

Is it fair to be happy?


You and I have memories
Longer than the road that stretches out ahead

Listening to: Let it Be (Naked) - The Beatles

Melancholy

"The Man who is alone and waits is seen in every cafe in Buenos Aires - a symbol of the city's essential melancholia." - Alberto Manguel

Essential melancholia - perfect.

Just five more things

Why do we like lists so much? Is it because most of us like some semblance of order? A way to make sense of our crazed world? Hmm, even though that's hardly philosophical, it seems too much for my tiny brain to ponder this evening. (My head is full of archival theories - like, how does an organization handle electronic records? If only I knew.)

I took a couple of days to ponder the last five albums that changed my life - even though, as I explained below, not all of these were life altering. Some are just kick-ass.

21. Greatest Hits – James Taylor. I used this album to comfort me back in the early 1990s when I struggled to find work. Even when I was feeling down and low (or should I “down and blue,” as James sang in “Something in the Way She Moves”), this CD would always lift my spirits a mite, and made me realize that better days lay ahead. And they did.

22. A Charlie Brown Christmas – Vince Guaraldi Trio. The best holiday recording of all time. I can listen to this in July and it makes me yearn for the holiday season. Has it changed my life? Of course not, but it always brings a smile to my face and warmth in my heart. That should be enough to merit inclusion on this list.

23. Songs for Swinging Lovers – Frank Sinatra. This recording is important for two reasons: it was the first album my parents owned (they bought it for their Blackpool honeymoon 50 years ago) and it was the album that introduced to me Sinatra, who is my favourite singer of all time. Beginning with “You Made Me Feel So Young” and ending with “How About You” (a song that was sort-of a theme song for me and my second serious girlfriend), it's the quintessential romantic Sinatra album. (I knew a relationship was doomed many years ago when the woman I was seeing told me, “I don't like his voice.” Not exactly shared sensibilities.)

24. Check Your Head – The Beastie Boys. P. Introduced me to this fantastic CD while I was visiting him in Japan back in 2001. Not only is it a great album (“Funky boss, funky boss, funky boss, get off my back”), but it will forever remind me of those weeks I spent in the land of the rising sun (that's Japan, right?). (I should also give a shout-out to The Best of Sade, another great CD which accompanied me on many a train ride in Japan.)

25. Let it Die – Feist. While compiling this list, it made me realize how few recent releases were included. I sort-of lost interest in new music a few years ago, largely because I thought the music scene wasn't talking to me anymore. Not that I was unaware of some interesting bands, but I wasn't proactive enough to seek them out. But this remarkable album by Feist, which blew me away on first listen, really got me galvanized to explore some new bands, particularly those coming out of Canada. Now I'm forever seeking out new music (via the Toronto Public Library – it's a fantastic resource for Canadian bands). Thank you, Leslie.

Honourable mentions:

Body and Soul - Joe Jackson (actually, I'm shocked there's no JJ on the list since he's still one of my favourite artists; he'd be in the top five of my all-time favourite musicians, to be sure)
Everybody Digs Bill Evans - Bill Evans
Grace – Jeff Buckley
Fumbling Toward Ecstasy – Sarah McLachlan
The Complete Blue Note Recordings (Vols 1 & 2) – Thelonious Monk. (Because a day without Monk, is like a day without sunshine.)
Selling England by the Pound - Genesis
Charlie Parker's Complete Dial Recordings
Pretty much anything by my one of my favourite composers, Antonio Carlos Jobim

Ah, lists. Tailor-made blog posts. I'm sure there's another one in me, and soon. Mind is obviously pre-occupied right now with other matters.

More 25 things

Awoke this morning with my voice a nice cross between Lauren Bacall and Barry White (everybody is like me and wakes up singing, yes?). Still not 100 per cent, but feeling better tonight (despite the rainy weather outside my window and "losing" an hour because of daylight savings time). It's been something of a lost weekend while I tend to this cold/flu - and my throat is still raw - but it's good and healthy to have the occasional low-key, nesting weekend. I'll be back to the grind tomorrow.

I've been working on my list of the 25 albums that changed my life which my friend P. tagged me on facebook. I've cheated a bit and created a list of what I consider the most significant albums from my life. Some did change my life, others didn't. But they all conjure up a time and place.

I'm still 5 short (and they are more or less in chronological order), largely because I fear I'm missing several important ones - I need a night to sleep on it. But here are the first 20:

1. The Roaring Silence – Manfred Mann. The first album I ever purchased with my own money. My dad picked it up for me from the downtown Montreal Sam the Record Man on St. Catherine's (long since gone). I wanted it because I loved the song “Blinded by the Light.” Naturally, I had no idea at the time it was a Springteen composition. I still have the album (it has a great cover).

2. The Beatles greatest hits (the two volumes with the red and blue bordered covers). I listened to these two albums non-stop when I was around 8 or 9. I particularly loved the son “Lady Madonna,” and would play “air piano” to it. And “Paperback Writer.”

3. YMCA – The Village People. Conjures up memories of both early mornings in the living room in our house in Dollard des Ormeaux, where I'd listen to the VP on headphones, but also roller skating at Caeser's Palace in Pointe Claire. Carefree days indeed when one had to summon up the requisite courage to ask a girl to skate the last song with you...

4. Scoop – Pete Townshend. The Who's Townshend started the Scoop series back in the early 1980s. Basically it was a project that collected his demos for The Who, as well as assorted oddities. I bought this as a cassette on a grade 8 school trip to Quebec City – at the same everybody else was buying the Kinks live tape (there was a cult around the song “Lola,” started by one of the “cool” popular kids at school – and listened to it over and over again on the long overnight bus ride back to Toronto. Started my own obsession with Townshend, particularly with some of his more obscure and creative endeavours. He's since released two more Scoop recordings. (My favourite Townshend album: Empty Glass.)

5. Tommy – The Who. I tend to do things in reverse, so after discovering Townshend, I began my exploration of The Who. This was the first recording I bought of theirs I bought, which is why it's so special. Began my life-long love of the band. (My favourite album(s): Who's Next and The Who by Numbers.)

6. Synchronicity – The Police. Only on this list because I adored this recording when it first came out. And still do. Finally got to see The Police a couple of years ago.

7. Grace Under Pressure – Rush. If I had to pick a favourite Rush album, it would obviously be Moving Pictures. But GUP means more to me, if only because it was the album I listened to over and over before going to my very first rock concert: Rush at Maple Leaf Gardens, touring in support of GUP. The opening act: Red Rider (before they were Tom Cochran and Red Rider). My seat mate: DG (RIP).

8. Greatest Hits – Simon and Garfunkel. Some of these songs helped me survive the darkest days of high school: “America,” “I Am a Rock,” “Kathy's Song.”

9. A&M Classics – Cat Stevens. A collection of Cat Stevens' greatest hits. On the list less for the music (although there are still songs on this I listen to frequently: “The Wind,” “On the Road to Find Out,” “Oh Very Young”) than for the memories it conjures of the summer of 1988 with my first “serious” girlfriend, S. I don't think there was a night when we fell asleep before 3:00 in the morning. (We also listened often to Bruce Cockburn's greatest hits that summer.)

10, Astral Weeks – Van Morrison. Like many, I discovered Van the Man through the album Moondance. (My dad, for one, loved the song “Into the Mystic.” I'm more partial to “Caravan.”) Astral Weeks was a whim buy at Sam the Record Man after class. I probably should have known more about this recording – particularly since I was in the throes of discovering jazz (and the album has heavy jazz influences) – but I was largely ignorant of this masterwork.

11. 'Round About Midnight – Miles Davis. The very first jazz recording I bought on CD, when I was about 17. I knew about jazz since my dad was a fan, and I began my own exploration via the library (where my friend P. and I would go every week to take out music cassettes), but this was the first jazz album I owned. Naturally I enjoy Davis' Kind of Blue more, but one never forgets their first...

12. The Koln Concert – Keith Jarrett. I bought this album and KJ's Standards Live during a lazy afternoon at a fantastic secondhand store (long since out of business) on Dundas, east of Church. I didn't know much about Jarrett, except by reputation. (And, strangely, he's mentioned in the linear notes on one of Townshend's Scoop albums.) What revelation this album was! I only found out later that the success of this album basically funded ECM Records for about 25 years. It started me on my continuing journey through Jarrett's incredible music. The Standards album is great too (I've only since purchased the CD version).

13. Powaqqatis – Philip Glass. Probably the strangest one on this list. For one, many consider this soundtrack (and the film) far inferior to the first one in the series, Koyaanisqatsi. But I still love the hypnotic repetitiveness of the score. This album would often keep me company during my first and second year of undergrad, especially when I was wandering through the city streets before and after class.

14. The Ninth Symphony – L.V. Beethoven. Can't remember precisely which “album” I first discovered this monumental piece (although I first heard snippets of it in Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange), but this was the first piece of classical music that I absolutely fell in love with, when I was about 21. Naturally there's also an association with a woman: the wonderful red-headed PMC. I wrote her a love letter while listening to the wonderful fourth movement, which still moves me (especially the quieter passages near the beginning).

15. Hot Rocks – The Rolling Stones. I'm not a huge Stones fan (although “Gimme Shelter” is one of the all-time great rock songs), but this makes the list because of a wild, fun weekend (full of quickie one-off romances) with five of my then-closest friends to celebrate the end of our undergrad years. We danced endlessly to this album, while drinking terrible white wine (Black Tower from Germany). The weekend also spawned the classic line while dancing: “Come on, take off your pants!”

16. Gordon – Barenaked Ladies. Still fresh today, but back then it was a recording I listened to often when travelling to the Beach to my very first job out of undergrad (at a small publishing house). It was such a novelty to be out of school and making money (it still is, actually), and this album will forever remind me of those heady days.

17. Madman Across the Water – Elton John. Recorded in 1970 when Elton was great (and svelte). I think I listened to this CD every day for six months when I first moved into my very first bachelor apartment on Walmer Rd. It conjures independence, and discovering how I was going to lead the life of an adult.

18. The Beatles (The White Album) – The Beatles. The only band that gets two entries. Along with the above Madman, I listened to this almost everyday for many months, usually when I was making dinner and drinking a beer. I'm still hoping to name a daughter Prudence.

19. Us – Peter Gabriel. The most underrated of PG's recordings. It's also his most personal and emotional album (coming on the heels of the breakdown of his first marriage). Like many on this list, however, it also comes with a vivid personal memory: a five-week sojourn in England. I put this on, and I can't help but reminisce about walking the streets of London in a November light rain. Ah, the light. (Two other recordings which also remind me of that time in England, largely because I bought both of them secondhand in London: Sarah McLachlan's Solace and I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got by Sinead O'Connor.)

20. The United Artists Collection - Gordon Lightfoot. There was a very cold winter when H. and I drank cognac and I listened to this collection almost every night on the headphones. Just listening to the first strains (the acoustic and Lightfoot coming in with "Going to buy me a long white robe, yes lord to help me home." It brings me home too, to my early 20s which, upon reflection, were glorious years (albeit with not very much money!).

More to come...

Happiness is...

... listening to the new Neko Case

... Saturday mornings with the windows open

... luxuriating in Bolano's literary genius

... finding a triple-letter square for my J (the word: "jeer")

... two cups of hot tea (that helps to soothe a still-tender throat)

... catching up on some long-neglected e-mail

... new acoustic guitar strings

... four chatty kids under the age 8 telling me about sleeping near the dinosaurs at the ROM

... listening to the new Neko Case (did I mention that already?)

... a pile of magazines set aside for recycling (signifying a successful day off work, catching up on my periodical reading)

... a clean kitchen

... discovering a jazz musician named Rudresh Mahanthappa

... mechanical pencils with freshly loaded lead

... a thriving plant near the window where I like to write

... knowing I have one more sleep where I don't have to get up for work.

Some things (including the 25 variety)

I'm on the couch this morning, taking a seldom-used sick day to tend to a low-grade cold/flu thing I've been battling for the last couple of days. It's basically a bothersome throat, an annoying cough, and feeling tired and achy. I was in bed last night by 9:30, but woke up this morning still feeling like crap, so I figured my body could use the rest from work. Funny though, I always feel guilty about phoning in sick to work. I blame my father, who I never remember taking a day off work because of illness. Of course it eventually caught up with him: he had to take eight weeks to mend a quadruple bypass in the early 1990s. (Even then, he was afraid to tell his employers that he needed the whole summer off work! I think he viewed being sick as a kind of weakness that could and should be avoided. Probably less-so today, thankfully.)

It's a lovely warm day today, so it's nice to open the windows and allow some fresh air into the apartment. Ah, spring, you will be upon us shortly!

So I've been getting the various "25 things" memes that have infected facebook over the last couple of months. I haven't bothered to answer them via facebook, largely because I consider myself a somewhat private person (this blog notwithstanding... although this is still sort-of a secret blog in that many of my friends are unaware of its existence) and don't want some of my facebook "friends" (ie. acquaintances) knowing more about me than the bare superficialities of what I choose to report on FB. I also don't want my mother (who is an avid Facebooker, largely for the Scrabble app) knowing my business - I love her dearly, don't get me wrong, but I've never been one to share my innermost thoughts with her. I wonder if this reflects poorly on me? But I sort-of like these self-indulgent exercises - in fact, it'll be my first random thing about me! So here we go...

1. Despite evidence to the contrary, I tend to enjoy these self-indulgent, narcissistic exercises - sometimes I even learn a thing or three about myself.
2. I often wish I was about 2 or 3 inches taller (although, oddly, I don't really consider myself short).
3. I wish I could sustain a weight that's about 10 pounds less than my current weight (I tend to carry more in the winter because I don't run near as much).
4. Despite evidence to the contrary, I don't dwell on my physical attributes.
5. I was an early and avid blogger - my first blog was called "Letters to Harry" way back in 1999 - and my "classic" blog from 2004, which documented a break-up and my forays back into the dating world, had a very devoted and loyal readership.
6. My current blog is not very well read (because even the people that know about it don't visit it often - or maybe it's just not very good).
7. I consider myself a crush-aholic.
8. Although I haven't lived there for many, many years (but grew up there), I still consider myself a Montrealer at heart.
9. Toronto feels like home.
10. While I treasure my CD collection, I've pretty much made the transition to buying my music digitally.
11. I once did a list like this when I was doing the online dating thing.
12. While I consider myself an excellent ice skater, I always seem to be slipping and falling on icy sidewalks.
13. I have fond memories of every woman I've been in a relationship with, even with the ones that ended badly.
14. Regrets, I have but many.
15. Every time I go see a live event (concert, theatre, the opera), I almost-always say to myself, "Why don't I go see more live events?"
16. Money, and the lack thereof, is a constant source of concern (even though I'm not living near the poverty line, which I have to remind myself).
17. If someone said to me "Name your ideal occupation," I'd answer, "Staff writer at the New Yorker magazine."
18. I long obsessed about my imperfect teeth (which is why I'm wearing braces - thankfully near the finish line!)
19. I rarely have problems falling asleep at night (sleeping through the whole night is another matter).
20. I sometimes shake my head in amazement at the quality of people who consider me a friend (I don't think I have many friends, but the ones I have are wonderful and special).
21. I've only ever really been in love twice.
22. I'd go out to more social events, particularly on my own, if I wasn't so shy.
23. I hate street festivals.
24. Although my friend H. insists there's no such thing, I like closure.
25. When I discover a new song that I like, I can listen to it over and over and again.

Hmm, pretty bland list. Oh well. To come: 25 Albums that changed my life!

General thoughts on reading

My apologies to my reader(s?) for not updating the blog in a while. It's been a bit of a crazy couple of weeks, largely with writing a cover letter (yes, it takes me that long, particularly since I used the intelligence of many different people to help me craft something appropriate and that will stand out amongst many, many letters) and updating my CV (an exercise I haven't done for three years) for a new job. Cross your fingers and wish me well.

In my spare time, I turned the last page on Robert Bolano's 2666. There's always a sense of accomplishment, finishing a neary 900-page tome. It's quite a wonderful work - in fact, upon completion, I was tempted to pick up the first book (I bought the three-volume paperback, figuring it would be easier on my back when carrying it in my bag) and start it all over again. It will be a book I'll reread, I'm sure of it. In fact, it did inspire me to pick up Bolano's The Savage Detectives, which I read during my 2006 xmas holidays. I'm actually not one to revisit a book when I'm done, my reasoning being that there are so many other great books to gorge on, why waste my time reading something I've finished? Yet, I'm still attuned to the Bolano sensibility right now, I don't feel ready to leave him yet. And while I can pick up one I haven't yet read (Amulet is an obvious choice), there was something drawing me back to The Savage Detectives. Maybe it was my friend M., who recently finished it and was effusive in his praise. Also, now that I'm in tune with Bolano, it would allow me to pick up some things I missed on the first go-around with the novel, when I was totally new to the author. Anyway I'm 100 pages in and very happy I picked it out of the book shelf.

I wish I had the energy to write about why I prefer the novel to short stories, but I'm feeling a mite wiped from the day's activities. Watch this space (hopefully tomorrow) for a post about shorter works, John Cheever, and more on Bolano. I really just wanted to get something on here, for fear that my reader(s?) will no longer visit here.