i think i worked it out

épistolaire.

2009-11-16T05:34:17Z

i'm writing an actual, bound paper journal these days. might reduce my output on here. but maybe not because i wouldn't write about the same things.

i should not have had that brownie. it was too big and not that good!

dude, you have to really fail epically to fuck up brownies. god.

the journal is like, a bunch of unsent letters. or unsendable. addressed to a fake person. it's better than writing "dear diary," at least. gives it structure.

maybe they'll publish it after i die, like sartre's. or all the other famous people whose letters have been published. ok, i doubt it. gotta get famous first. which i won't. i promise! (no i don't.)

god. worst entry ever.

sorry.

i've been working still, sorta. still slacking off a bit too much. but i mean, at least now i'm self-supporting. financially independent. getting paid. bringing home the bacon. putting bread on the table. generating the metaphor. building the simile. blanking the blank.

worst. entry. ever. i'm gonna go now. the habs have been playing like sacks of bricks. i feel ill. i bet bricks slide really well on ice.

leafs fail

2009-10-25T21:01:13Z

i sometimes wonder if i prefer watching the habs win, or the leafs lose. it's been really nice so far this season, anyway, because the maple leafs have lost their eight first games, hahah! that's a new record.

well, ok, yes; i prefer watching the canadiens win. but the more games the leafs lose in this streak, the better i like watching them go! it's getting sort of pathetic, but i don't think it could ever get to the point where i'll start pitying them, could it? maybe i feel bad for their fans. maybe.

yokes and kerfs, wtf?

2009-10-22T18:35:56Z

i actually have work now. should be a permanent kind of thing, too, if i deliver a proper result. so while i'm still dirt poor right now, at least i'm working and the paycheck will be nice when it gets here. also i'm learning all about carpentry! you know i always thought about making my own furniture instead of buying it. i just never really need new furniture. anyway, powertools are cool. but they are a bitch to translate. did you know where was such a thing as an arbor flange? or a cutterhead (and it's definitely not what you think it means)? also, see the title.

with a clear and near-ish end to the money troubles in sight, i'm starting to thing about what to do with all the money. jon would clearly like me to buy myself an xbox, which would mean buying a TV to play it on, and with games and accessories we're looking at a good fifteen hundred bucks. i could take that same amount and have a quite nice trip through eastern europe or asia pacific or the aztec and maya region or something, specially since i'm friends with a travel agent. both are tempting. only one would be enriching, but the other would be more ... permanent. which is not necessarily a good thing, since i already waste enough time on useless bullshit without playing 12 hours of xbox every day.

the third option is beer. also nice. my liver has been having a damn easy time of it lately, and i wouldn't want it to get too comfortable.

on addiction.

2009-09-11T23:15:23Z

man, i am so sick of hearing micheal jackson songs all over the place. i wish he would go away, or die, or something, already.

i don't usually read fantasy books. i mean, apart from lord of the rings. now my father lent me these terry goodkind books. i started reading the first one (out of 7 or 8) out of boredom a while ago, and now i'm totally hooked. so that's what i did this week. read the sword of truth series.

at least i'm not playing world of warcraft like those 3 weeks at my folks'.

bricks

2009-09-01T06:13:44Z

so. i'm back from my little trip. went to the folk's old house to help them pack. yeah. they finally sold it and moved to sorel. spent 3 weeks there, then we drove out, never to return. their cats are still fun and cute. they're having a house built in the same neighbourhood as my aunt and another uncle. the house is gonna look pretty good. they got an apartment in the meantime. kinda shitty, but it's only for two months.

then i spent about a week at my uncle's (the selfsame one that's near the house my parents are building), helping dig up all the work we did 2 years ago so he can extend his garage into a double. there's this walkway we made, me and my cousin, two years ago, along the side of the garage. had to be moved. it's made out of bricks. and you have to dig under it so it's stable and etc. lotta shoveling, moving bricks and stone around... emptying tailing or sand from trailers... grunt work all around. i guess i can't complain. i needed the exercise. my arms feel like they're swollen. like i just finished working out. except it's not fading.

oh yeah, note to self, don't jump in the salt-water pool when you have open blisters on your hands. that sucked.

meaningless.

2009-07-29T06:59:35Z

man, we're having thunderstorms pretty much every day lately. pretty awesome. one bolt hit really near here. sounded like i
lit a firework in my livingroom. one of those loud popping one. damn.

god i'm poor. i am a poor motherfucker. and it's all my fault. i guess i'm gonna try to find a job or something. damn.

this place is pretty great, but it smells weird. probably that chair i picked up by the side of the road. damn.

for some reason the weather's been really mild and not disgusting so far, almost every day. today? not so. damn.

i started playing dwarf fortress yesterday. damn.

i'm sorry LJ. i got nothing to say. my life is empty and meaningless and i'm wasting it. but at least i told the church i wanted to be off their list! they're giving me the runaround but i'll corner them. i've got nothing better to do. other than playing dwarf fortress i mean.

apparently it's called apostasy.

hey, why are christians so afraid of the "anti-christ" anyway? if he came around, it would mean that everybody was gonna be in heaven real soon. they should be totally psyched at the anti-christ.

ief

2009-07-10T03:30:21Z

i moved, finally. last sunday. only got hooked up to the internet today. my flat is on the fourth floor (top floor of the building), has a partially great view of sunsets, hardwood floors, and is tolerably big. i like it. and the location is great. maybe i'll post pictures some time.

i'm getting old, man. moving and lack of sleep really wiped me out. took me a whole day to recover.

... i miss playing xbox.

i'm mostly all unpacked and settled in by now. only one or two boxes of random junk left. found a bunch of chairs on the street the day after the 1st of july, when everybody in town moves. two of them even match! found this great easy chair too.

rented a truck with discount rentals and it was pretty great. brand new truck with air conditioning, at the best price i've found too.

yeah, i think i'm gonna like it here.

uh oh, english nerds...

2009-06-20T06:15:00Z

looks like i know what i'm doing for the next 12 hours: this.

man, and i had work to do. ah well.

snowy hill.

2009-06-13T22:22:42Z

so! i got that apartment. singing the lease in a half-hour or so. it's not as great as this place, but i guess hardly any place could be, but the location is great. it's actually right nearby. which is why i took it. also it's clean enough and has hardwood floors. i'll be moving there in july. maybe earlier, since the place is empty as of now.

weather's been nice so far. rather cool and/or mild. but that just means it'll be muggy later instead of now... wonder how the new place will be, heat-wise.

spent a week in sorel. my uncle got a boat. i drove it around the 103 islands system the other day. good times.

minutiae

2009-06-04T21:51:24Z

made an omelet with mushrooms that had probably gone bad. got the shits, but no hallucinations. profoundly disappointed.

having trouble working, but at least i've been making some progress since tuesday. seven more pages to do today. or tonight, rather. it's 18 o'clock.

finally went to look at a flat yesterday. kinda crummy; i'd seen places exactly like it before. don't really like it but there aren't a lot left available. might have to take it.

running low on cash due to extended lethargy. i should get a proper job, probably. need someone like a roommate and i'd be fine to pay for my new place.

head sort of hurts. have had this cold for a few days. cleared up after the first day but my nose is runny. i'm making a pot of coffee even though it's getting too hot here.

thinking of going to sorel over the weekend. go out on my uncle's boat. fish. hang out in the jacuzzi. take it easy.

don't think anyone can beat the robots-like redwings. pittburg's team too young. repeat of last year's final. the wings are like terminators with glowy eyes. they'll get the next five cups.

still waiting for val to contact me. are you still there?

festicourt

2009-06-02T19:47:29Z

the festival du text court de sherbrooke was this weekend. it was quite good. really awesome time.
i gave a writing workshop in a classroom on friday. it was a school for adults who were dropouts and who come back to complete highschool. most of them really got into it. it was amazing. then there was the opening night show at le littoral. many cool people. my friend abdel read a poem, it was his first time ever reading in public. he was nervous as hell but he did well. there were all kinds of styles, including eastern-european traditional songs. my friend flavie was one of the singers (there were 3 of them; a soprano, alto and bass). she's a sweetheart. later that evening there was a thing at a sort of hippy tea room. i used to go there when i lived in sherbrooke, cool place. it was an open-mic kind of thing. very fun. i read a ridiculous story i wrote during the workshop while the students were writing theirs. something about a pirate ship manned by root vegetables (captain potato) attacking a merchant vessel crewed by fruit. it ends with the words : "what a salad! it was delicious."

on saturday they'd scheduled a happening at an outdoor food market. there were supposed to be trees given out to people in exchange for their poems or stories, and an installation and poetry by a great poet and dear friend named Gilles Matte. unfortunately it rained for a couple hours at the start of the afternoon and we had to stay under a tent-like shelter thing. we had a good time anyway, and people got their trees. we wrote a bunch of silly things on coloured paper and folded them into flowers with a pipe cleaner for a stem, so we could give them out to people as advertising for the festival. around the end when everyone was gone, only flavie, myriam, marc-andré, and simon (and me) stayed behind on a picnic table in the sun, who had finally decided to come out, and wrote a ton of those flower-poems. actually that might have been the most pleasant afternoon i'd spent in a long time.
in the evening the regional slam final was held. incredible show. sherbrooke slam people are the shit, man. the team who will represent them at the provincial finals was chosen. same team as least year but for one of them, actually. sophie, david and mathieu are returning, with véronique suzanne instead of j-f. too bad, because j-f is so damn good! well, all four of them are.
then there was another open mic night at the tea room. i was "on the bill," as it were. they have a few special guests each night to warm the room up before the open mics. i did a few of my more dark-humour oriented slams. when the place closed down we went outside and slammed in the street until 2:30 in the morning. so awesome.

on sunday we were supposed to close down the street in front of town hall and have a bunch of stuff there. circus people, poets, food, books, etc. but it rained again so we held the event in a brewpub down the street. it hailed, actually. thundered too. pretty cool. the event was good. frank had his four-month old baby in a sling while reading on stage. i don't even think the kid woke up. hahaha. he's so quiet and well behaved, frank can take him anywhere. but i guess all he really does it sleep at this point. later on there was the closing show at the tremplin. they put on quite a show where five people were all painted up in different colours. the second part was a bunch of guests from other towns did a slam or poem. good evening overall but i was more into the slam finals, obviously.

kinda makes me wish i was still living in sherbrooke so i could be more involved in planning the festival like i used to. well, it's a lot less stressful to just attend, i guess...

i was tired as fuck when i got back, and i think i caught a cold, but damn, i regret nothin.

hey val, are you still reading this? i lost your email. and all our old forums are dead. drop me a line.

oprah sucks.

2009-05-19T20:35:43Z

so apparently oprah is giving jenny mccarthy her own tv show. and she's asking people to tell her what to put on the said show. sounds like a fun show. what a great idea. this is the suggestion i sent them:

"What should Jenny do?"
Jenny should stop spreading misinformation and threatening the lives of our children. The only way for her to make amends for the people she killed through her anti-vaccination campaign would be to use her TV show to promote good science (i.e. actual science) and proven medical treatments. Invite real scientists and doctors on the show. Have them explain to people how autism really works (not her pretend version), and how vaccines have saved billions of lives worldwide.
And that's just the first couple of weeks. Then you can start tackling other myths and urban legends that plague our society, making people afraid for no reason, and allowing charlatans and crooks to rob them blind. I want her to have Phil Plait (the famous astronomer) over to talk about astrology. Have James Randi on to talk about psychics. Invite Dr. Steven Novella to talk about the wonders of the human brain. Invite Tim Minchin so he can sing a few songs--he's a great pianist and humanist. Invite Christofer Hitchens and talk politics (he gets great ratings--so controversial!). And why not go for the gold and ask Richard Dawkins to come talk about religion? And Noam Chomsky to talk about Israel? Do you think your viewers are idiots who don't care about the rest of the world? It sure seems like you do.
Look, get real scientists and experts. Give Jenny the education she never had. This is a show I would watch. But more importantly, this is a show that might save lives.
i wonder if they'll listen.

i can't figure out why this moronic bimbo is famous. for cryin out loud, her biggest accomplishment was posing for playboy. i mean, hell, i like porn as much as the next guy, but it's not exactly a qualification for giving medical advice to people. oh wait, actually, her medical qualification is apparently being a mom.

start wolfing.

2009-05-16T11:54:07Z

google is dead, and wikipedia is obsolete, motherfuckers. welcome to the new world, powered by wolfram alpha.

it's on right now. testing over this weekend, until the real launch on monday.

fuck yes.

oh yeah, and platinum grit finally updated. another "fuck yes" situation. the new episode is exactly as good as you would hope after waiting a year for it. perhaps more!

scones

2009-05-15T03:34:01Z

dear motherfucker: start working. if you don't, you'll be a bum within three months. asshole.

(this is about hockey)

2009-04-16T17:29:08Z

so i was watching the news at noon today, on both radio-can and TVA. they spoke of the first day of hostilities in the playoffs, where pittsburg beat philly, new jersey beat the canes, and the canucks beat the blues. the SRC focused on the "rivalry" aspect, featuring pilly vs pittsburg, since the habs will be facing the bruins in the first round and they have a storied and historic rivalry (which has, one could point out, mostly been in favour of montreal, who has won something like 23 out of 31 series). TVA focused on the only canadian team who played yesterday, the canucks.
what i am saying is they both failed to talk about the most important game of the night! the rangers (7th place in the east) beat the caps (2nd place), who were at home! this is a huge upset, all right? they hardly even mentioned it. idiots!

i can't tell whether this is just plain bad journalism or obliviousness or what. maybe they don't know enough about hockey? i just don't unnerstand what they were thinking!

anyway, tonight will be the first game of the montreal-boston series. boston finished first so they have home-ice advantage. i hope the habs are up to it, and can repeat the rangers' upset of last night. there are hints in the press that laraque and gainey have some kind of secret plan to fuck with the bruins' minds. part of it was not playing him last week versus the selfsame bruins. i hope it pans out.
they did the same kind of thing by not telling anyone that schneider was NOT, in fact, out for the season with an injury, and brought him back into the alignment for that last game against the bruins, as a ... special surprise. it worked, i guess, since we got the point we needed from that game.

i am really anxious to see how that first game unfolds.

evincar @ 2009-04-07T20:38:00

2009-04-08T00:48:11Z

went to the hockey game last night. not in a bar, i mean, at the actual place. got a ticket off a scalper outside the box office (where they informed me, ten seconds earlier, that the game was sold out). i was on the second balcony, but you have a nice view from up there. going alone isn't the most fun, but jon didn't have the money, i guess.

i had a good time. the place was full (as advertised) and there was a good ambiance. except the game mostly sucked. both teams played uninspired hockey, and we lost 3-2 because heatly scored twice within a minute in the third period. in the habs' defense, their two best defenders are injured, along with their best scorer and goalie. so... it's not a great time to be fighting for a playoff spot. they have three games left, and they sort of have to win two of them. unfortunately, right now they're down 3-1 at the rangers in the second. after seeing them play last night, my expectations are kinda low.

zombie slam.

2009-04-04T13:10:29Z

so we rented "dead space" this week. it was fine. i mean, it was good. (i'm talking about an xbox game.) it had an interesting twist. the things you had to kill, some sort of alien zombies, you couldn't kill like in regular shooters. you had to shoot them in the legs and arms and dismember them. that was their weak spot. that goes against all my prior training, you know? i'm used to going for the head shot all the time. avoid the limbs. now i had to shoot them off. it took some adjustment. but once i got the hang of it, it went fine. and the story is pretty good. well, it's all right. i mean for a cheap sci-fi video game. the weapons were also interesting. they had to make new types of guns to cut off limbs with. cutters, tools, etc. it was innovative, in general. good game. yea.

went to sherbrooke last tuesday. for a launch of their anthology for last year's festival du text court (short text festival). they published some of my stuff in there. some of it was stuff that i didn't remember writing or giving to them. but that's cool. part of the fun. one (and a half) of my texts they published was in english. that's odd because they're a french organization... i don't know, i didn't think they would publish that stuff. i don't mind, but it's odd.
the launch was held in a micro-brewery, so there was pretty good beer. not great, but all right. fun times.

i tried to go to the english slam night in montreal. nobody showed up. wish they'd publish the new time/dates on their website, but it hasn't updated in a year or so. actually, same thing happened when i tried to go to the french slam open-mic last sunday. what the fuck is going on?

4th box

2009-03-20T22:21:56Z

dude! we already received our new xbox in the mail. what the hell? a year ago it took 42 days, and this time it only took 4. madness. i think i'm gonna go rent left 4 dead again...

quoting penn jillette

2009-03-19T21:00:48Z

"The fact that the president of the United States admits to drug use, and is happy he didn't go to prison for that, we assume, [makes it pretty clear that] it's about time to stop the drug war."
there you go penn. totally got quoted from your youtubing. (just in case it never happened until now.)
he was talking about obama, not bush. bush apparently never admitted to using drugs, although, well, who's he kidding, you know? (and you can quote me on that.)

meh... i had written a whole thing about a part of j-p sartre's novel "la mort dans l'âme" (that title is really hard to translate and i'm too lazy to look it up), and i was going to post it, but it's just a philosophical literary criticism piece which i'm not sure anyone's interested in, and on top of that, i wrote in french.

wait, what? I am interested. i'm totally interested. so who cares about the potentially absent "audience?" this is a journal! personal journal only sort-of open to an imaginary public.

La mort dans l’âme : l’anormal chez Sartre
</td>

La mort dans l’âme est un roman de Jean-Paul Sartre, centré sur les événement de juin 1940 en France.
Sartre nous donne un court épisode, quelques heures passés à la loupe. La guerre est finie, les Fritz sont entrés dans Paris, « rentrés comme dans du beurre ». Ce qui reste de l’armée française, fractionnée, cantonnée un peu partout dans la campagne, est en déroute. Mais pas vraiement. Ils attendent, c’est tout. On ne sait trop quoi. Un ordre, un événement. Il attendent que les Allemands viennent les cueillir, les mettre en cage.
Des rumeurs volent, « ils vont nous châtrer », « ils tuent tous les juifs ». Personne ne sait en vrai, les simples soldats ne reçoivent pas ces renseignements-là. C’est à peine si on a daigné leur apprendre que la guerre était perdue.
Puis les officiers qui s’en vont. En secret dans la nuit, ils fuient. Les soldats les regardent partir, trop hébétés même pour leur faire savoir qu’ils les voient, qu’ils entendent leurs voitures. On les laisse en plan, dans les villages qu’on dirait hantés parce que tous les habitants se terrent chez eux.
Avant la défaite, on accueillait les soldats comme des héros, on en était fiers. Maintenant, on ne leur adresse plus la parole. On les voit comme des vaincus; ils n’ont pas su repousser l’ennemi, même pas su sauver Paris. Paris! Paris qui tombe. Les soldats de Sartre n’ont rien à y voir. Ils n’ont jamais aperçu un seul Allemand. Ils poireautaient, en réserve; ils attendaient les ordres.

La vie s’arrête, rien ne semble avoir de sens. Les militaires désoeuvrés se saoulent, tentent de lire malgré leur myopie. Vaulabelle. Pourquoi lui justement ? Un livre d’histoire des deux Restaurations, la guerre d’indépendance grecque. L’inverse de cette guerre-ci. Les Turcs ! Les Turcs faisaient de bien meilleurs ennemis que les Allemands. Eux, on peut les battre, d’abord. Et puis c’était les Lumières, la philosophie… Aujourd’hui, qu’en reste-t-il ? Le nazisme représente un ennemi nouveau, anormal, qu’on ne connaît pas et qu’on ne peut combattre, semble-t-il.
Que voit Sartre dans ce portrait ? Pourquoi s’atarde-t-il à ces soldats dépassés par les événements, restes d’une armée qui ne s’était pas modernisée assez vite, tombée devant la machine nazie, assise sur son histoire, ridicule devant la puissance industrielle des États-Unis, l’aviation Britannique ?
Ils sont normaux, tous. Des gens ordinaires. Des bouchers, des instituteurs, devenus soldats. C’est les événements qui sont anormaux. Ils n’ont plus de repères, la vie est derrière, ils se laissent entraîner par un flux incompréhensible. Sont-ils normaux ? Y a-t-il même quelqu’un de normal au monde ?
L’angoisse existentielle de Sartre, c’est cette question. Qui sommes-nous pour nous penser normaux, envers et contre tous ? Peut-être que la guerre est normale, n’est-ce pas que des bouleversements pareils, ça arrive tout le temps ? C’est peut-être le calme, la vie tranquille qui sont anormaux.

no idea why that extra "/td" bit is there under the title. it's showing up in preview mode. i didn't put it there. it's not here in the text i'm entering. at all. is it still there? lj coding is screwy. man, fuck that, i'm gonna white it out. i can be sneaky too, lj!.

... what the fuck? it whited out my whole text. it ate up the "/font" part, i guess? it worked fine in the preview pane. ok, well, pretend it's part of the title.

icon madness

2009-03-17T16:49:23Z

(because don quixote was mad, get it?)

i was about to post something to the effect of "what the FUCK is up with that last entry of mine? did i just turn 12?" but then i finished reading Dharma Bums, and i found out kerouac shared my love of jello. so i guess it's okay. if it's kerouac-approved, i don't mind looking silly. i can't really get behind the odd narrative of the second part, tho. i don't think i was drunk at the time...

i made this new icon because the latest xkcd was too freaking awesome. that last panel (which i made my icon out of) is just amazing. there was never a single shred of doubt or hesitation that this needed to be made into an icon. (incidentally, isn't that the oddest response to a piece of art ever? "omg this is great, must shrink+crop it and affix it to my posts!" the internet is so fucked up, man.)

this means that all my icons are now from webcomics, apart from the two hockey ones. which are pretty comicky anyway. ah well, i'm a product of my environment.

raspberry

2009-03-16T03:54:09Z

i made jello.

it's red.

red and delicious.

red, delicious, and jiggly.

nat's cousin, ron, who's in the military, came to visit us this weekend. on friday we took him out for sushi at a fancy japanese place called mikado. they make the best sushi in town. it was great. yesterday we went to the irish pub nearby to watch the hockey game. the habs were playing the devils, and they lost, but we had fun and good beer/food. ron had brought his own xbox so we could play (ours is dead. i think i mentionned that already.) gears2 while he was here. we thought we'd get all get to play at the same time with 3 controllers, but it turns out you can't. what the hell man? should have rented left 4 dead. valve always has the best-made games. we played it last weekend, when the xbox died, and it was awesome.

Post of Good Things

2009-03-12T17:51:06Z

- thinking my life is bad or hard is moronic. i'm the end product of the culture with the highest standard of living and material comfort in history. i have it better than the super-duper-rich-and-powerful of a hundred years ago.

- the fact that i'm even alive, that i ever came to exist to enjoy things in the first place, is a cosmic event of such an infinitely small probability that it may as well be miraculous.

- i'm not sick, in fact i am never sick, and i have no injuries/mutilations/deformities (apart from this tiny annoying cut on my finger that didn't even bleed when i got it this morning).

- people around me are generally cool, family is loving and i see them often enough.

- i have no reason to feel sorry for myself. i just need to keep shit in perspective.

i don't know, this stuff i take for granted is failing at raising my spirit. i need a list of good things that just happened or whatever. which there are none i can think of. condescendingly reminding myself that i'm a petulant ingrate does not help things very much. i guess i'm not really depressed in the first place but this moving business is a bummer. i wanna stay here!

i'm gonna go. later.

arg.

2009-03-11T18:18:11Z

stuff is mostly bad:

- i have to find a new apartment. roommates don't wanna live here anymore because it's expensive and they want to be left alone (they're a couple you know), which i understand but i hate to leave this place. it's so awesome, neighbourhood is nice, and there's no way i'll ever find a place half as good as this. specially on my own and with my small budget. the only way would be to find a new roommate to move in here but strangers are a gamble...

- habs fired their coach because the team was playing badly. or rather, because they were hardly playing at all.

- still not writing much.

- 3rd xbox is dead. 3/4-ring red death of sorrow. gotta be fucking kidding me.

- sleep schedule is moronic. i'm on a 36-hour schedule, more or less.

- wasted 100 bucks on a stupid thing that was dumb.

- winter is ending. i hate spring. i hate summer more. it's already too hot for my liking.

- my ex keeps calling and talking to me. i know we're supposed to "still be friends" but this is ridiculous.

i'll try to make a Post of Good Things. if i can think of any. fat chance.

here's a dirty book worth reading ( - Ezra Pound)

2009-02-18T22:52:27Z

When I reflect that the task which the artist implicitly sets himself is to overthrow existing values, to make of the chaos that is about him an order which is his own, to sow strife and ferment so that by the emotional release those who are dead may be restored to life, then it is that I run with joy to the great and imperfect ones, their confusion nourishes me, their stuttering is like divine music to my ears.

Henry Miller wrote that. he also wrote:

To sing you must first open your mouth. You must have a pair of lungs and a little knowledge of music. It is not necessary to have an accordion, or a guitar. The essential thing is that I want to sing. Then this is a song, I'm singing.

i find i agree with much of what he used to say. does that mean i agree with everything he says? i don't know, and i don't think that's a relevant question. he wrote in another time. there is no agreeing or disagreeing with him, in that sense, when he's talking about the world and our place in it. that world is gone, and so is he. they say the world never changes, but i think it does. much in the way that your body contains not a single molecule that composed it when you were a child, the world renews itself with every generation, and is fundamentally different with every half-century or so.

on art, he's still current. that much i know.

take my wife! please?

2009-02-02T02:09:55Z

holey snowstormey, you guys. there's been like 4 snow storms in the last week and a half, i guess? the people who pick it up haven't even had time to clear the snow from 2 storms ago and they're all overworked as fuck right now. it's pretty sweet. i hope people get the message and don't use their cars so much. kinda hard to imagine montreal without the smog. or any city this size, i guess.

erm, i'm still poor, so that's fun. the habs are on a losing streak, 5 losses out of their last 6 games... good times...

hey, i wrote a short story. i'm not sure if it's finished yet, seems like it's missing something to make it different or original. i'm sure i've heard this basic story line before. maybe tell me what you think?

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After work I walked home by a different route. I noticed a new café had opened on a street near my house, where a boutique used to be. I stepped inside and found a man standing behind a counter, smiling. In front of him, on one side of the counter, was a small cup and saucer, and on the other side, a candy bar. The room was not very large, but seemed so because it was empty.

“Hi,” I said, walking up to the counter.

“Hello sir,” answered the clerk. “What can I do for you today?”

“What is this place?” I asked.

“A café and dépanneur, sir,” he answered.

I could see now that the cup was full of what must have been coffee.

“Your selection is rather limited,” I remarked.

“Well, yes,” he conceded, “but our goods are of the highest quality. Also, as long as we serve coffee and sell candy, we fit the description for café and dépanneur.”

“How can you even say you’re a coffee shop if there's nowhere to sit and enjoy a cup of coffee? Or the cup, as it were.”

He pointed to a space behind me and upon inspection I noticed a chair, and a small table. They were in the shop window, behind a blurry part on the bottom. That explained how I could miss them before.

“How much for the lot?” I asked.

The price was exorbitant, even considering his claim they were fine in quality. But by that time my curiosity had been piqued. I purchased the candy bar and the coffee. It would have been enough money for a fancy meal anywhere else. I walked to the chair, feeling the clerk's eyes on my back. I sat, feeling ridiculous.

I decided to make the most of it, since I had spent so much. I did not bite the candy bar straight out of the wrapper as you normally would. I opened the wrapper without damaging it, using that folded flap of paper on the back to tear it in a straight line, and spread it out like a napkin, the naked bar in the middle.

It was, I now could see, not what you would call candy. It looked rather like a fancy bar of dark chocolate, consisting of only four medium-sized squares. I picked it up gingerly, with my pinkie sticking out. I took an exaggeratedly small nibble, the way I imagined prim Victorian ladies would bite a scone.

The taste caught me by surprise, and I suddenly lost all feeling in my entire body but my mouth. I could not see, I could not hear. Pure ecstasy traversed my spine from top to bottom in an electrical jolt. I lost sense of time and space. When I came to, it took me a few seconds to remember where I was. I think I must have been moaning. I looked at the clerk, still standing behind his counter. He was smiling at me, like he knew what was going on.

Then I remembered about the coffee. How could a cup of coffee, probably tepid from sitting on a counter so long, be good enough to compare to that chocolate? There was no packet of sugar, no tiny milk portion to flavour it with. That was fine, since I liked it black, but he could not have known that. I picked up the cup, no longer bothering with silly affectations. It felt hot, like it was freshly poured. I took a tentative sip.

The rich and textured flavour hit me like a slap in both cheeks. My teeth, along with my whole face, were numb and tingling. I could feel a chill running across my scalp, and my toes involuntarily curl. The drink was piping hot, perfect in bitter taste and rich enough that it could very well dilute into a whole gallon of water and still make acceptable coffee.

I opened my eyes--they had closed at some point, though I could not tell you when. I looked around at the empty room, the counter, the still-smirking clerk. I turned again to the items resting on my table. Could it have been a mistake? Some kind of trick? I took another, unequivocal, bite of the chocolate. As before, I spaced out while enjoying every moment until I swallowed. I took another sip of coffee. It was as hot as before, and just as perfect.

I could not believe my luck at finding this place, and of getting here before anyone else so I could have this perfect food. I ate slowly, deliberately, taking care not to lose a speck of chocolate in the wrapper or a drop of coffee on the bottom of the cup. Never before had I been so satisfied from a mere snack, or, indeed, from a full meal.

I stood, and addressed the clerk.

“Thank you for … this. You weren’t lying about the quality.”

I reflected there was hardly a need to tell him how good his own stock was. I shook his hand and left a handsome tip. I told him I would be back tomorrow, although I wondered to myself how I could afford this luxury every day. I had to, anyhow. I would go without any other food if it became necessary. I walked out into the cold of the street, the aroma and warmth of the coffee staying with me all the way home.

The next day I hurried out of the office, almost running down the sidewalks to get to my new favourite café. When I arrived at the proper block, I could not find it. A boutique selling clothes had replaced it; indeed, the same boutique that had been there for years, which I figured had been closed when I saw the café in its stead. I looked around in a panic. Maybe I remembered the wrong address? The wrong side of the street? That coffee could have had that effect on me, after all. It was no use. I paced frantically around ten city blocks, but found nothing.

I was miserable. How had this café suddenly blinked in and then out of existence, only selling one cup of coffee and one single chocolate bar? I remembered the funny look the clerk had given me when I said I would be back the next day. Not quite mockery, but jest nonetheless. That treacherous villain! He had known all along, of course. Had he even been real? Had I dreamed up the entire experience?

I plunged my hand into my coat pocket, where I had saved the chocolate's wrapper, in case I ever found that brand anywhere else. There it was, proof that I had not dreamed it up myself. At least, if the café had vanished, I would still be able to find some more of that chocolate. I ran home.

I figured there would be some mention of the chocolate makers on the internet, and ran a search for the name on the wrapper. The search engine found various mentions and deformed versions of the name, but none of them referred to a chocolate maker. I looked at the wrapper for more information. An address, a "Made in ..." country name, anything. No such information was printed. I was truly lost.

Many years have passed since I lost my café. I often stalk the streets of the city, hoping to find the plain display and the empty room, my heart jumping when I pass a new store still empty of goods, waiting to open. Coffee and chocolate taste so bland to me, no matter how strong, and I can barely bring myself to have any. Sometimes I curse the day I found that blasted café, but I would rather have tasted ambrosia once, never to find it again, than have remained oblivious such a thing could exist.

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i don't know, i think maybe it's sort of boring? no title yet, and needs a new angle. really i was planning on writing this as a play, i think it would work better, and i could explore the interaction between the customer and the clerk more deeply. i felt that was where the interesting stuff would be. just dump the whole "disappearing café" thing and explore the surrealist angle of having a place with only a single cup of joe and a single candy bar.

oh, and "dépanneur" means convenience store. you know, one of those small shops on street corners that have a limited selection of groceries, and also candy, cigarettes and booze (in quebec they're allowed to sell booze). seems like every region has a different name for this type of establishment.

going back to sherbrooke next thursday, for the slam thing. i didn't end up going to the anglo montreal one. i forget why. next month i'll make an effort.

do you guys know Tim Minchin? he's pretty cool. look him up~