Archive for the ‘Musings’ Category
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I don’t need tender mercy
“Sometimes it’s good to be a killer.”
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And I say
Absolutely sexy minimalist jazz. Nicolas Jaar ft. Scout Larue and Will Epstein. “And I say.”
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Pretender
Last weekend I needed some coldwave. (Black Marble, opening track from their forthcoming EP Weight Against the Door.) Pretender by Black Marble
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Saint Nothing
Tugging my heartstrings: Daniel Rossen of Grizzly Bear’s new track, “Saint Nothing.” The EP Silent Hour/ Golden Mile is forthcoming from Warp in March.
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Holidays/ New Books/ NeWork
I’m back in Vancouver after a great month-long trip across Canada to visit family, friends, and my partner Curran. It all started off in Edmonton, where I spent a week with Curran and his family, before I flew out to Toronto for a couple of weeks to spend time with family and friends. In Toronto, I not only had the ...
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The Drive
I spent a lot of time on the Drive this week, looking at apartments with Alicia, and heading to the Prophouse for my friend Shiela’s show with the Maladies. Alicia found a really, really lovely place, and now my apartment hunt has zoned in on the area. I shouldn’t get ahead of myself, though. I move next August. There’s work ...
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Rain + The Soft Moon
The rain in Vancouver (also known as one of its two seasons) has created the perfect environment for enjoying the darkness of The Soft Moon blaring. Here’s a taste:
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The monsters in the room were all dancing
This is lovely.
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Sombre Mountains
Strength came from somewhere, from revulsion; there was a crash and a wave of light, and the dead man was crouching in his lair, facing the animal onrush of light. Yet it was hardly dawn. And the strange, piercing keenness of daybreak’s sharp breath was on him. It meant full awakening. – D.H.L.
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My August 29th
I don’t start classes until September 6th. Freedom from work + the majesty of my natural surroundings have left me very inspired. I spent my day getting my wrists acquainted with my new violin, reading about Shary Boyle, and walking through the woods.
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First week in Vancity
I’ve been a resident of Vancouver for a week, and am finally taking a day to rest and relax after seeing as much as I could. The week flew by, with art galleries on top of restaurants, on top of beaches, and settling in with Curran’s help. He flew out on the 19th to visit me, and flew back to ...
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Savage Night at the Opera
Though I am, perhaps, the biggest fan ever of Destroyer’s Rubies, this has easily become the new anthem for my last summer in Toronto, paradoxically, by an artist straight from Vancouver. I move in nine days.
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Master of Arts Degree: Attained
Today, I submitted bound copies of my final major research paper, with all revisions, my signed declaration page, and signatures of approval from my supervisor and second reader to the Department of English at Ryerson University. As I walked back to the MLCRC from our Program Administrator’s office, I felt overwhelmed. For a while, it felt as though it would ...
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We’re Savage High
Sound bites from this afternoon working at the MLCRC… “…love is a deeper season than reason…” “…for the love, comes the burning young from the liver, sweating through your tongue…” “I’m growing like the quickening hues…”
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Toronto Soul
So much has happened in the last two weeks. The Strangers in Paris launch went swimmingly, my brother moved and settled in to his new job as an Associate Creative Director at Mullen, and my sister Trish got engaged! The pace of change in Toronto for this last summer of mine seems to be unprecedented. Or maybe I’m just noticing ...
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Luminato/ iArmy
I’m going to mention Luminato in a moment, so bear with me. I must get this techno-guilt off of my chest: So, I always said I would never get a smartphone. Phone companies are evil (re: my $800 payment to Telus to cancel a ridiculous contract I naively signed), and when I saw all of those drooling teens with bad ...
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Some things last a long time
I’m currently reading Jennifer DeVere Brody’s Punctuation: Art, Politics, and Play for my thesis, and mulling over the dash’s bizarre ability to separate, connect, and propel. The Baroness’ writing is dominated by the dash, as she weaves through her narratives of insanity and woe in an erratic stream of consciousness that branches off in the most bizarre directions. Maybe I’m ...
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Grown Ocean
“You would come to me then without answers Lick my wounds and remove my demands, for now.”
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View from the air
Un coup de foudre! (UBC’s Point Grey campus in the foreground, located at the tip of the Burrard peninsula, or Lower Mainland, with downtown Vancouver and Stanley Park stretching out in the distance.) My last major trip (other than shuttling back and forth between NYC and Toronto) was to South America, specifically interior Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. I remember the ...
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The Lake
I officially quit smoking and started long-distance running again. I ran through the Don River wetlands, and south to the lake. It’s a beautiful day to be by the water. I sat there for a while thinking how much I love these sad, polluted beaches. It’s sometimes hard to believe that miles of toxic sludge stretch across the basin, just ...
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The Election
I tried my best to keep my rantings and ravings about Canada’s recent federal election off of my blog, and safely on my twitter and facebook feeds, where my anger and indignation wouldn’t stand out so starkly and sorely among all of my project updates, art, and general happiness. Of course, the election of a Conservative majority government was a ...
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Family
With three months left in Toronto before I move West to start my PhD, I’ve been spending a lot of my time with my family. Each of my siblings will be in a different city this Fall, with my sister Patricia enjoying her recently bought first home in Mississauga, my brother Jeff departing to Boston to work as a Creative ...
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My love is bigger than your love
The symposium was fantastic. Heaslip House was packed, and my fellow panelists spurred a great Q&A session, making my first conference presentation one to remember. I’m hitting the end of my second term, with only four months left before I move to Vancouver! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? I’m currently jumping around with the love of my life to this Mclusky ...
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Death to Everyone
“. . . so strap me on and raise me high ’cause buddy, i’m not afraid to die ’cause life is long and it’s tremendous and we’re glad that you’re here with us and since we know an end will come it makes our living fun . . .”
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wax lyrical
I just can’t help it. In my whole life, I have never been this happy or at peace. Thank Krishna for love.
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Gratitude
End of the year: Taking stock of what’s been done, what’s left to be done, how I got here, and who helped. I have so many beautiful, loving, supportive people in my life, it’s absolutely ridiculous. 2010 has been full of travel, laughter, career achievements, acceleration, and abundant growth. Seven months away from moving out of Toronto, and and the ...
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Productivity and Clara
Clara | Starla Bontecou | 2010 Though this past weekend I visited my sister’s new place, had coffee with old friends, and hung out with my brother, it seems as though all I do is work these days. I finished two PhD applications and both of my term papers this week, and I’m still working on a final foundations assignment ...
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Undying
Undying | Starla Bontecou | 2010 “A light in the moon the only light is on Sunday. What was the sensible decision. The sensible decision was that notwithstanding many declarations and more music, not even withstanding the choice and a torch and a collection, notwithstanding the celebrating hat and a vacation and even more noise than cutting, notwithstanding Europe and ...
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Blonde Redhead @ The Phoenix
Curran and I ventured far (across the street from my apartment) to The Phoenix Concert Theatre to see Blonde Redhead last night, and it was incredible! Kazu was as transfixing as ever, and I came to appreciate their new album as a new direction in their catalogue. Though I initially felt the 23 vibe all over it (hearing its electronic ...
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Life is hard
Life is hard. Life is beautiful. Life is beautiful. Life is beautiful. Life is hard. Life is beautiful. | Starla Bontecou | 2010
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Wahre Liebe
you being in love will tell who softly asks in love, am i separated from your body smile brain hands merely to become the jumping puppets of a dream? oh i mean: entirely having in my careful how careful arms created this at length inexcusable, this inexplicable pleasure-you go from several persons: believe me that strangers arrive when i have ...
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Boots
Finishing up teaching for my second week at Ryerson, quit smoking and started huffing on Budesonide inhalers as per Doctor’s orders, and heading home now to get more sleep. Curran and I went to the Dr. Martens store last week and bought boots. They make me feel powerful. Boots by Rudyard Kipling (1914) We’re foot—slog—slog—slog—sloggin’ over Africa — Foot—foot—foot—foot—sloggin’ over Africa ...
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love or prison
I’ve been working to Penny Sparkle all day. Despite the terrible reviews, I still think it’s beautiful. Mend | Starla Bontecou | 2010 Love or Prison? | Starla Bontecou | 2010
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Unsweetened
Late nights with good company and so many of these tiny juice boxes. 5:45 AM: April 30th 2010 | Starla Bontecou | 2010
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Hungry, Restless, Wicked, and Wild
Sitting on the curb outside the pizza place, hair frizzy from the mist off the falls, your headphones on my ears, New Kind of Love blaring. Slow conversation. Laughter. A bus ride home with knees against the seat, summer air on our palms out the window, swapping songs, shoulder to shoulder. Bon Iver, our realization of the dark starlit voyage: ...
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Bramble
I’m a lucky girl.
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CMW: The Bonfire Ball & Fucked Up
Canadian Music Week, compared to NXNE, may not have as many bands I’d really like to see, and may push headliners that alienate people who really like music, but who can really complain about a handful of badass acts playing venues all over Toronto? Plus, with a media pass through Steel Bananas, I can avoid the shitty headliners blow off ...
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Come see the duck!
5:08am | just finished my gay male lit essay | feeling wired and free | come see the duck!
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Profound Clarity
I had an epiphany while standing on the corner of Parliament and Carlton today with Curran. We just left Jet Fuel after a particularly fruitful attack on my thesis when I was hit with a profound change of mood and a completely new vision. The world literally looks and feels different to me. I’ve been struggling with a thesis-block for ...
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Southern Souls
Up late watching Mitch Fillon’s Southern Souls videos from southern Ontario musicians. Best thing to happen since my beloved Blogotheque. Gravity Wave‘s is particularly good. Beautiful music is everywhere.
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simone lueck
During today’s ritual e-digging I came across simone lueck from L.A. – a woman whose small portfolio of photographs, mostly of glamorous older women, really clubbed me over the head. “Making pictures in LA is good” she writes on her main page, “It’s like sifting through an old trunk filled with worn out fan letters and a bright blonde lock ...
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my mom writes poetry / come up to my room @ the gladstone
Today has been great: I’m nearly done the first chapter of my thesis, I already handed off my intro for scrutiny, and I had a great meeting with Esscain, who tossed me a bunch of books he edited under the implosion imprint with Insomniac Press. Very fucking cool. I’m feeling really focused and on top of things, which is always ...
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Michael Comeau
I really should be working on my thesis – honing my first chapter to toss under Esscain’s scrutiny tomorrow – but I’ve hit a hump and am entirely side-tracked looking at art by Michael Comeau. A friend of mine recently acquired an amazingly rare (and huge) mixed-media piece from this wicked local artist, and I have been completely obsessed with ...
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fucked with the wrong broad
Change: I’ll believe it when I see it. Leeches are gross. Law is lovely. Paul Chan (b. 1973) Untitled Video on Lynne Stewart and Her Conviction, The Law, and Poetry (2006) From Ubuweb: On February 10, 2005, Lynne Stewart was convicted of providing material support for a terrorist conspiracy. She is the first lawyer to be convicted of aiding terrorism ...
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HUNTED BY A FREAK
Finishing up my last grad school application, rolling around in Mogwai and Polvo, eating St. Jorge cheese with ciabatta. It’s Saturday morning. I’m dreaming of the month or two I’ll hopefully be able to spend living and performing in France this year. Dream and do. I might just forsake my apartment in Toronto to stay longer (I’m opting out of ...
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Yum: Arshile Gorky
Ugh, I’m so sick AGAIN this winter, sitting around sniffling with Bijou, looking at French pin-ups, Terry Richardson boob shots and paintings by Arshile Gorky. The retrospective of his work is just winding down at the Philadelphia Museum of Art – I wish I could go! Alas, I’m sick here and stacked with schoolwork, so I’m going to have to ...
