The most horrific newspaper story I have ever read

Oh, sweet Jesus. I mean, good thing she was found, but - this has got to be the most horrific newspaper story ever. Seriously.

Queer Dream

Grr. Having laboured over the last few days on a paper in part on The Crying Game, I have just awakened from a dream in which I was sucking some guy's cock. Lovingly, no less. Go away, gay dream: my life is complex enough at the moment.

Part of the dream also involved a Hungarian movie, which seems to have a bearing on Hugo the Hippo (more on that film soon), but did not survive the trauma of waking up.

Back to the essay...

Stress, stress, stress - plus Engrish t-shirt

Jesus. Was I talking about relief, just the other day? I must have been taking a breather between assignments. I've been wrestling with another essay all day and am presently experiencing all the symptoms of anxiety I can handle - frequent trips to the washroom, a general sense of agitation, a dry mouth, panicky "I can't do it" thoughts. It's going to have to carry over til tomorrow, too - here's hoping that my stress levels don't completely destroy my chances of sleep, because I'm going to need it.

Meantime, there's an unbelievably weird t-shirt posted today on Engrish.com. If I'd seen this while I was in Japan, I probably would've had to buy it for someone (preferably not myself).

Tyrannosaur plays theatrically!

I blogged below about how Paddy Considine's Tyrannosaur is coming out on DVD, but only just now discovered that it's playing at the Fifth Avenue Cinemas!

Relief, respite, relaxation

A sort of relief has set in: even if I have three papers left to write for my classes, I will only have to commute to UBC twice in the month of April, and then only to hand things in; after that, I'm done. No more waking up at 6:30 to shower and catch the West Coast Express, no more blocking out the noise and smell of my perfumed and cologned fellow commuters chattering about their mortgages, no more 8:45AM lineups at Waterfront Station for the 44 B-Line bus... These are good things. I may apply again for the Film Studies MA program in 2013 (depending on where life sees me then), but just in case, I'm allowing myself to enjoy the feeling of freedom that the end of semester (and the beginning of spring) have brought...

...when I'm not hunched over my computer writing essays, that is. Two of them are due this Tuesday. I think I may still take today off - I've been hammering away for the last few days on this United Red Army paper and need to unwind a bit. Here's where a girlfriend would come in handy.

Tyrannosaur on DVD

One of my favourite films from last year, Paddy Considine's Tyrannosaur is now on DVD and Blu-Ray.

Thrashers News

wendythirteen has news on Facebook about recent developments...

Adstock launch party!

...and the winner is Cooking With Poo!

Indeed, the 2011 Diagram Prize for the oddest book title went to Saiyuud Diwong's Cooking with Poo! I'm half-tempted to buy it, but some of the ingredients in Thai food are kind of distasteful and stinky - by which I mean shrimp paste, actually. And I'm not sure there's a lemongrass seller in Maple Ridge...

Damo Suzuki at the Waldorf

Damo Suzuki by Bev Davies, not to be reused without permission

Damo was his magnificent self the other night - though did anyone else think there was a surprising amount of Howlin' Wolf in his growling? I don't recall him ever being quite so bluesy here before. Von Bingen appeared to have songs written for Damo to perform over* - there was even one particularly striking punky/ new wavy number, which strangely made me think of Damo in the light of Peter Murphy (about as unexpected as the Howlin' Wolf comparison); it surely was not an improv** (and here's hoping that a recording was made and will see the light of day). I couldn't stick out the whole show, had to defect to catch a bus back to the 'burbs, but for a short time, I was joyously liberated (and not the only one in the decent-sized crowd who could be seen dancing). The appetizer for the show was also delightful - a screening with friends of Deadlock, which simultaneously brings to mind The Wages of Fear, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly,  and El Topo, and is definitely worth seeking out.

*I'm wrong about this.
**I'm told that the whole thing was indeed improvised. That's pretty impressive - usually you can TELL when a band is improvising, but I couldn't!

New Mission of Burma song on Pitchfork

Mission of Burma is a band I revere, and their album Vs. is one of those top-10 desert island discs for me, an utter masterpiece of rock that towers above the recorded output of both their peers and devotees. I might even place it above Zen Arcade and Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of Heat on the cultural-treasures-of-punk list; from the catalogues of Wire and the Gang of Four to Sonic Youth and Nomeansno, there are a lot of great albums on the artful and intense end of the rock spectrum, but none live up to the brilliance of Vs, in terms of individual songs or breadth of vision. I mean, click here, here, here and here, if you're not sure what I mean. I am very, very happy that the band have reactivated and are recording and touring; I am looking forward to buying their new album, Unsound, as soon as it hits the shelves this summer; I count it as a great privilege that I have seen them twice now, and hope I have the good fortune to see them a third time. Or a fourth. The only thing that would make me happier than to see Mission of Burma again rockwise would be if the Volcano Suns opened for them (or if Rocket From the Tombs came back to town and brought Cheetah Chrome - presently attempting to retire from touring - with them).

That said, to be somewhat painfully honest, I haven't loved any of MoB's new LPs. All have great moments, and I've listened to each on several occasions, hoping they will grow on me, but on each album there are songs that seem to just not quite work, or not work equally well all the way through; there will be PARTS that are great, but then parts that AREN'T so great, that sort of throw me for a loop as I try to figure out whether I'm just listening wrong.  Even the best songs don't seem to quite rank with "The Ballad of Johnny Burma" - there's an absence of ferocity, you know? And maybe a fear of simplicity - the new songs have an ambitiousness to them that would be great if it didn't result in songs that tend to elude me, leave me scratchin' my head wondering "why the hell did they do THAT?" I'm about as willing to be challenged as a rock listener can get, and fully admit that it's possible that I just haven't "gotten" their new stuff yet but it seems like if the band in their initial incarnation consistently scored ten out of ten for songwriting, the new Mission of Burma (sorry, guys!) - perhaps with the exception of Peter Prescott's excellent "The Enthusiast" - mostly seems to settle in around 8.5.

That said, there's something sexy and tough and catchy about the new tune, "Dust Devil," that might actually get it almost up to 9 (except I'm not wild about the chorus, the mere repetition of "dust devil" - it's just not as GREAT as the rest of it, y'know? That's the sorta thing I'm talkin' about, here). Still, check this stuff out - and note: the Pitchfork player cranks this out LOUD, so be prepared to adjust the volume on your computer...

RIP Earl Scruggs, Harry Crews

(Sonic Youth side-project named for Harry Crews)

Bluegrass musicians Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs made an early impact on me, back when my world of music was my parents' record collection - maybe a couple of dozen country albums, including Tom T. Hall, Charley Pride, Johnny Horton, and one Flatt and Scruggs album, still buried deep down there in my memories. Check out "The Story of Bonnie and Clyde," off that album. There's not much I remember from age eight, but I do recall snatches of lyrics to this song.

Also departed: Southern US novelist Harry Crews. I have owned several of his books over the years, and never have finished any of them. A Feast of Snakes and The Gospel Singer remain on my shelf, right next to Flannery O'Connor. Considering his stature it is striking to note how many of his novels remain out of print - one of them, This Thing Don't Lead to Heaven, was only ever published in a hardcover first edition, back in 1970, and has never been reprinted, to my knowledge; the cheapest copies for sale online are $125). Check out the Lydia Lunch - Kim Gordon - Sadie Mae project named for Harry Crews on Youtube...

Henry Rollins shoots and scores

As I've said, my fondness for Rollins has had its peaks and valleys over the years, but I definitely get a kick out of the way he handles himself in this video. Pretty good stuff here, too, interviewed by Ms. Tabata...

A dream you don't want to read about

...So in the dream I'm part of some cult who are instructed, for whatever reason, to emasculate a member who has betrayed the cause (this likely relates to the essay I'm writing comparing Koji Wakamatsu's United Red Army to the notorious Kichiku Dai Enkai). I stand watching as the rest of the group set to work, attacking this man's genitals. For whatever reason, I rebel - I can remember thinking "I draw the line at cutting someone's testicles off"- but then decide to take a kitchen knife to my own testicles, holding the knife in my right hand and slicing across from the bottom. It is not particularly painful, almost tickles, so I'm unsure if the cut is successful, but then see that my boxers are soaked with blood. The image of blood dripping from my wounded scrotum is the last part of the dream I remember.

The most disturbing part of the dream is that it wasn't very disturbing, was in fact quite matter-of-fact and "normal"-feeling. I'd been reading about animal castration in Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma prior to falling asleep. Perhaps that influenced it...

Some sunsets

Max Cavalera returns to Vancouver: Soulfly plays the Rickshaw April 1st

...for those of you not going to Damo Suzuki, my old Max Cavalera interview, and photos of Femke's of Soulfly's previous Vancouver gig, can be found here!

Damo!

Another odd dream

Another odd dream, in which I am a writer, and I've been asked to investigate the disappearance of another writer, one Brian Hoagland, who was staying in a hotel where he was working on a project, but never returned home. His family and friends are worried that he may have killed himself (apparently another reference to the recent suicide of my friend Thomas, who took his life in a hotel room). I phone Hoagland's number and reach an unusually long answering machine recording that seems to indicate he is in good spirits and hard at work. I'm reporting to someone - my superiors? - that it seems unlikely Hoagland killed himself, when somehow the news reaches us (over the radio?) that in fact, Hoagland's body had been discovered: he was struck by lightning while going for a swim! My theory is vindicated. Then my cellphone alarm goes off, waking me for another day at school...

Just in case my dream knows something I don't, as I wrote the above, I did a Google search to find out if there is any significant Brian Hoagland out there that my subconscious might be referencing. There isn't. Where did it come up with such a specific name, I wonder?

Record Store Day special releases announced

Record Store Day is coming up on April 21st and I'm positively relieved that there's nothing I really covet on the list of releases.

Dreams of Leaping to the Defence of a Persecuted Student, plus my own bad news

Dreamed last night that I was sitting in a classroom which looked suspiciously like one of the classrooms in my old high school. The professor, an African American, was punishing another young African American man in front of the class. There is some chance that the blackness of the two (especially the teacher) was somehow attributable to my recent acquaintance with the song "Mr. M'Bow-Wow" in the delightful animated film Hugo the Hippo which recently screened at the Cinematheque (see below). The young black man being humiliated was, it happens, named Miles Davis, though he bore no particular physical resemblance to the trumptet player of that name. Perhaps this is just due to the lazy incompetence of my dreaming brain at getting visual details right - it often provides only vague sketches as a sort of shorthand, knowing that I will accept incorrect images for the sake of continuing to dream - a sort of suspension of disbelief; but then again, I seem to recall that the teacher was also named Miles Davis, as well. Can't really say why. I mentioned Miles Davis, whom I rarely listen to these days, in my post about a friend's suicide a few weeks ago, which may be why the name was floating around my subconscious. In any event, eventually, I found myself enraged by the arrogance of the teacher, who was so clearly in the wrong in what he was saying about this young man that I could no longer hold my tongue, and I began shouting, from my seat to the rear of the class, that he had no right to humiliate this young man this way. Didn't he realize who this young man was? How dare he? Some dim part of my mind realized as I raged that I was probably fucking myself up for good in the class by behaving thus, but - as happens when I lose my temper - I simply could not contain myself.

I suspect that this dream may be obliquely speaking to my recent experiences at UBC, where, it transpires, I have not been selected for the UBC Film Studies MA program. I made a shortlist but not the final cut, and it is highly unlikely that enough students ahead of me will drop out such that there will be a space for me. This renders my last two terms there an entertaining but rather expensive waste of time, forces me to consider what my Plan B is to be (all fog and insecurity at present), and makes it rather a challenge to care about my final assignments, due over the next few weeks. Fucksake, I didn't even ASK how my application was going - couldn't they have waited to tell me until after the term was over, so as not to completely demoralize me re: the four essays I now have to write? If I'm not getting in, it's not likely I'm going to be able to justify continuing to entertain thoughts of doing a Masters somewhere else: it's back to the workforce with me, likely taking whatever shitty jobs are to be had in Maple Ridge, so who will ever care what my grades were?

Gah. Anyhow, I'll slouch my way through the final hoops regardless, what the fuck.