Words At Arm’s Length

vivarium/viator/intervigilium

power angelic a choir of shame
architects of the crystal spheres
abhorrent makers of order
ordained by consensus from a dodo flock

together they perforate
the walls of the hollows
infect the cavities
of the silent vigilants

heartless, heartless!
and off they march
to spread the truth
of the glittering tower

the fuel for their fire
is the words of the saints
the calming paradox
of the static binary

united we shake out
the diamond mobile
with howls as wretched
as a screeching kettle

our word against theirs
a sound to fill the gaps
that lie between the
circled orbs

we take our chance to
seize the hilt of the sword
the burning edge that guards
the path to the garden

and we accept the chosen route:
the blood of our own
will feed the twisted roots
of eternal raging blooms

Your awkward story

About your cat’s contagion

Throw up in my mouth

1. Tila Tequila, do not even fucking joke about being responsible for the legalization of gay marriage in California. Your attention-whoring ways are easily the best case AGAINST same-sex marriage I’ve ever seen considering the people who get “A Shot At Love” are practically a step down the evolutionary ladder. Gay rights activists lobbied and protested for decades to get want they wanted. You used your questionable bisexuality to land an MTV reality show. See the difference? Thank you.

2. In the introduction of Sanders and Birk’s reimagining of Dante’s Purgatorio, there’s a quote that irked me, and I imagine it might be overly-sensitive of me, but still:

“A discussion of the Purgatorio is incomplete without some consideration of Beatrice. She was the angel of Dante’s poetric inspiration, and perhaps her greatest gift to humanity was to inspire his Commedia.”

This introduction by Michael F. Meister does acknowledge that Beatrice was in fact a woman, a real live woman, but Meister seems keen on completely dehumanizing her (maybe as much as Dante did). So firstly, she’s worthy of some consideration, and next she’s an angel. I don’t know about y’all, but equating people with angels doesn’t strike me as a “true” way of describing a person. It’s shorthand for a completely superficial examination of a person, and really, if we took into consideration all of the biblical stories about angels, we wouldn’t be so quick to consider it a compliment. And finally, the whole “her greatest gift to humanity was to inspire” nonsense really fries my cheese. To me, it really trivializes her existence and the life she had led as a woman, as a person, for she is nothing more than the muse, the tool of inspiration for the genius (and I’m not denying that he was a genius) of Dante Alighieri. AND, her depiction in Purgatorio is at best a mixed bag, what with her being a merciless harpy when she’s bitching out Dante for his lust and then a nigh-mute, indescribable love goddess when her veil is lifted and her true beauty is revealed. Just…urgh.

3. “Thank you for holding, you’ve been transferred to Paul. I’ll be confirming the activation of your Mastercard today.

May I please have your home telephone number so I can look up your account?

And your name?

And your mailing address with the postal code?

Great! And while I’m activating your card, I’m going to enroll you in our optional credit protector program. What this does is cover you in the event of losing your job through no fault of your own, we’ll cover your minimum monthly payments up to $500 so your credit rating is never at risk. Or, in the event of death or dismemberment of you or your spouse, we’ll pay your full balance for you up to $10,000 so your family isn’t let with any outstanding debt, and all this for just 1.1% of your balance at the time your statement prints. So we’ll just enroll you and activate your card, okay?”

I just typed that shit out as fast as I said it. This is my script for my job. I say this over 100 times a day every day for at least 5 days a week. Do not get a call centre job if you value your sanity.

What’s worse is that depending on race or gender, there’s a pat set of answers that the customers give as well. You almost wish they would yell at you to break up your day a bit. Well, not almost. I’m pretty sure I pushed a guy into verbally abusing me so I could stay awake near the end of my shift, but I could also have failed and been dreaming at the time. Call centre madness, indeed.

4. Lollapalooza is like, 36 days away. I WILL see Gregg Gillis naked. It is my dream and my goal. Also Radiohead.

My face contorts in unripe ecstacy

as I lay slack-jawed

head thrown back

teeth rotted and cast like dice from my mouth

The ceiling speaks to me

in an arcane tongue

It keeps me conscious

when motion fails me.

I am lifted off the bed by strings

Bare visible in the purple light

of the winter window

I am pulled along, performing

like a grotesque puppet

Beckoning you across a league of sheets

though I don’t know you from Adam.

In that moment, suspended

Strings swelling my edges

Making them a sickly blue

I consider the scene

Resigning myself

With grim satisfaction.

You reach for me and entangle us both.

—

What it meant, when I was

and where you were, and what

it wrought

We wished for peace,

so we forgot.

—

Sunflower

Rooted in a hiss

Hums at the stem

Uncurls within the flow

Unfurls with what we were

—

Tonight, the moon is renegade.

It dove off a cliff before the sun could set

Screaming curses all the while.

The stars, too, have left their seats

Crippling the constellations.

What happens to a hunter’s sense

When the bear mother

Steals her cub away?

A dyslexic weather vane

Spins wildly in a windless evening

And in the darkness a map

Is merely kindling.

What sense is there without sense?

When the heart beats out of time,

When the scents intermingle,

When the words on the page

read as rambling blasphemies,

what meaning do we ascribe

to the empty dark?

—

You, so stubbornly self-assured

Are generally aware and beautifully naïve and you think of things in terms of the good and take on the competition and convince me of your wisdom and are taken in by love and are uncovered by love

I, well-meaning in my logic

Am startled from within and certain of the feeling and storming about and burning through what I’ve taken and smitten by your jawline and affirming simple truths and put upon by heartache

We, face-to-face

Are full of confessions and conscious of boundaries and polite in our yearning and touching in secret and totally done talking

—

my heart glissando
not a melody
my heart vibrato
accent to the key
shapes the cadenced phrases
of a battered symphony

a ritardando reeling fingers
slowed against the ebbing
da capo al fine, my good sir
repeat it on my bedding

repeat in piano
soften your grace notes
my heart crescendos
right into my throat

you peddle your pressures
to pressure my pedals
I dismantle the measures
to string out your metal

my heart glissando
starved of melody
my heart vibrato
shouting out of key

I was clearly reaching for ideas.

In reverse order:

#10. “Broken Homes” by the Sleeping Years

I’m surprised this isn’t higher on the list. It’s a gorgeous, melancholy folk song. Dale Grundle’s bizarre-yet-beautiful vocals almost sounds like they’re struggling against the swell of the music, while the cryptic lyrics about loss, collapse and restraint simply beg to be heard. I wouldn’t be surprised if this album (We Are Becoming Islands One By One) made it into my top 5 at the end of the year.

#9. “Little Bit” by Lykke Li

A simple, almost Asian-inspired synth beat combined with Lykke Li’s Swedish purr, with coy lyrics and a hook to die for copped straight from the Pixies (“but only if you’re a little bit in la-la-la-la-love with me”). Great chill-out song, with a dash a romantic longing.

#8. “Gold Digger” by Kanye West

A hold-over from before I went to see Kanye live. Once I start listening to this song again, it’s hard to stop. Amazing flow, trademark Kanye humour and a Ray Charles sample combine for a move-bustin’ good time. I don’t think anything on his new album quite matches the catchiness and fun of this song, but then, the new albm is better as a whole.

#7. “That’s Not My Name” by the Tings Tings

I’ll agree with Pitchfork on one thing: this album blows. I barely got through an entire listen. I have an 80G iPod full of good shit, and if I want pop pastiche there’s many a better band I could go to for it. However, “That’s Not My Name”, I just can’t get enough of. Handclaps and a jump-rope chant slowly merge with a monotone male vocal and swelling pop rock instrumentation. Definitely guilty pleasure material, but highly danceable and a great singalong.

#6. “I Love You All the Time” by Oh No! Oh My!

This one reminds me of Chad VanGaalen’s “Clinically Dead” in that it’s the one mostly-electronic track on a primarily folk album. However, unlike Infiniheart, the rest of Oh No! Oh My!’s self-titled album doesn’t bore me to death. “I Love You All The Time” starts off with a synth riff and a skittering electronic beat that suddenly switches over to frantic guitars and dramatic confessional vocals (“I love you all the time/except when you are mine”), then suddenly switches back to the synth/beat combo. A surprising album highlight.

#5. “Still Alive” by GlaDOS

I admittedly got into this song because of Rock Band, since I haven’t played Portal yet. This song plays at the end of Portal when you beat the final boss, GlaDOS. It’s a sweet pop song with some twisted-ass lyrics about being set on fire and the importance of scientific progress. Glorious fun to sing to.

#4. “XXZXCUZX ME” by Crystal Castles

Can’t seem to let this one go for one reason or another. It’s a 2-minute clusterfuck of Atari (the video game system, not the awful band) samples, thumping beats and Alice Glass’s trademark screaming vocals. I adore when she takes it down for a few lines in the middle of the song (to talk about ROBOTS of all things! soooo good) only to get all worked up again and take it home (“Just because we don’t feel flesh, doesn’t mean we don’t fear death!”) Love.

#3. “You Want That Picture” by Bonnie “Prince” Billy

The best song on an amazing album. Anyone who knows my musical taste knows I’m a sucker for boy/girl vocal exchanges, and this pretty much sums up why. Ashley Webber and Will Oldham both ponder each other’s reactions after Oldham’s character breaks up with Webber’s in a letter (ouch, cold), and in doing so, both find comfort in the same realization about life’s impermanence (“I knew some day I’d die, and that everything would be alright”). The vocal performances are both incredible and the guitar that punctuates the midpoint of the song is absolutely stunning. Go download/buy Remain In Light right the hell now.

#2. “Good Arms vs. Bad Arms” by Frightened Rabbit

More folk-y lovin’, this time from across the Atlantic. This is the song I got the title of my blog from (“Leave the rest at arm’s length, keep your naked flesh under your favourite dress”). The chorus of this song makes me want to grab a partner and dance. The lyrics are hardly romantic, but the delivery is astounding, and the harmonies combined with that catchy guitar makes for some great tune-age. This song is beautifully dense, and I notice new things about it every time I hear it. Midnight Organ Fight is also a highly recommended download/buy and should be listened to if you ever want me to take you seriously as a music lover. Go. Now.

#1. “This Charming Man” by the Smiths

Ah Morrissey. To think I used to despise you for those awful things you said about David Bowie (BOWIE of all people). But, like many people, I just can’t stay mad at you, no matter how much of a fucking prick you are. And sometimes that translates into me listening to “This Charming Man” over and over and over again. What’s to be said about this song that hasn’t already been said? The guitar riff is catchy (love you too, Johnny Marr) and fun to set off Morrissey’s typically beautiful, morose vocals. That the song is about being unable to relate to mainstream gay culture is just icing on the cake really. The lyrics kind of destroy me: “I would go out tonight, but I haven’t got a stitch to wear / This man says it’s gruesome that someone so handsome should care.” And then that ending, oh my, when it all comes together and Morrissey finishes with “He knows so much about these things!” Gosh. Gives me chills every time.

Startling how a single day at a theme park can totally refresh you for the coming week while simultaneously making you wish you never had to go back to where you came from. Needless to say, Wonderland was incredibly rad, even if the weather was at times spotty. Line-ups were short, the Behemoth was amazing, and the funnel cake was glorious (though the obtaining of it wasn’t so much fun). I just loved being outside for a whole day so I could reconnect with my friends and have some fun, fer fuck’s sake. The 4pm-11pm shift, while seemingly ideal for the typical high school student/downtown crackhead that my work tends to employ, does not suit me well at all, in spite of my nocturnal inclinations. I seem to have trouble getting motivated to do anything in the morning knowing I have to go to work at 4pm, and most of my nearest and dearest work regular-people shifts. And also, I like the cinema. Summer is movie season, damn it all, and I’ll be damned myself if I have to work every Friday and Saturday until 11pm and miss out on every opening weekend. I often rail against Hollywood “blockbusters” (I hate that fucking term, as if any of these cliche-fests shatter anything set in stone), but damn if I don’t love sitting in that theatre, chowing down on obscene amounts of popcorn while making snide remarks. My work prevents this, and thus it can go vigourously fuck itself, thankyaverymuch.

I had a bit of a moment on the way back home from Wonderland, though, thinking about what’s to come after this summer. As I spoke to my dear friend Becky, I felt myself anticipating my loneliness this coming fall, when my friends return to school and I continue to work to save up for Asia. My stomach sank worse than it did when I was on those rollercoasters, as if I had forgotten to bind myself to the car and didn’t realize it until the first drop began (pardon the melodramatic simile). As I prepare myself for Asia, physically, mentally, etc., I find myself fearing the thing I’ve wanted for so long. How can I resist leaving my comfort zone so much when it’s brought me so much unhappiness of late? Why do we cling so fiercely to what’s familiar, even though it pains us so? I’ve been reading Dante again, and it got me wondering if the inhabitants of the Inferno would leave if they could. After an eternity swirling in the vortex or writhing in the mouth of the Beast himself, could they leave? Or would they stay, fearing how much worse it could get?

Abandon all hope, ye who enter, ’cause it’s all downhill from here.

She was the one who was rooted in quartz

Birthed from a Gorgon with a marble sheen

Her patterns were tempered iron brocade

Her face as smooth as a chessboard queen

When she burst into the world of her fathers

She found their methods cold, antique

And placed herself where she couldn’t be bothered

A wax figure posed in bondage chic

The world of the fathers beckoned her forward

Tempted her gently with a golden throne

She was taught the ways of the smiling vessel

The utter shame of a woman alone

She is the “grande dame” composite woman

Authentically forged by the words in her head

The prophecies screamed at the base of her altar

The pine box furor of the shimmering dead

—

(A rough one, for the road.)

Okay, so I’m at work today, and the dialer keeps crashing on us, which means we get to sit there and do nothing instead of take calls. That’s pretty cool. I can dig getting money for chatting with my co-workers. However, in the sexually charged workplace that is Intelliservices, awkward situations come up as a result of such loose fraternization. For example, when my co-worker and I are standing around chatting and the inevitable happens:

“So, which girls do you like in this place?”

Blargh. Yeah, I know this shouldn’t be a big deal and I shouldn’t really care about the fallout one way or another, but in a place like Intelliservices I wanted to stay pretty low-key. Is it a form of shame? I dunno. It feels like survival instinct to me. I was just watching an episode of Six Feet Under last night that very graphically portrayed the curb-stomping of a young gay man my age for showing affection to his boyfriend, and it turns my stomach to think that that kind of mindless violence could potentially occur. I’m happy to report that my research found that queer-related hate crimes are few and far between in Canada (though the ghost of Matthew Shepard still lingers, even ten years after his death [search for the protest of The Laramie Project threatened by the WBC at Brock if you doubt, I won't link their propaganda here]), BUT, one must take one’s chances.

However, one can say that revealing anything oneself is potential ammo for the other, but choosing to look at it that way is completely self-defeatist, and for those of you who know me, you know I have a tendency to overshare. I’ve been thinking about why I do this so readily, and really I think it’s because I need to make connections with people. Another survival instinct, perhaps. I won’t see the things I tell people as potential ammo. They’re lifelines. I choose to see my openness a means of building my relationships. I’m dipping into some touchy-feely cliches here, but really, our differences connect us as much as our commonalities. Having things in common with someone is one thing, and it can create a strong bond, but I don’t keep my friends around just because they love Joanna Newsom and share a common guilty pleasure (coughBonJovicough). The things that keep my friends interesting to me are the things that I learn from them, admire about them, even the things about them I envy or fear. Human relationships are not as simple as “ME LIKE THIS ME NO LIKE THIS” and if they were, life would either be incredibly lonely or a big fuckin’ love-in, neither of which appeals to me a great deal.

So anyway, after a brief moment of hesitation, I made the choice:

“Um, I’m not into girls man. I’m gay.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yup.”

“For real?”

“Uh-huh?”

“…….

So, which boys do you like in this place?”

*/headdesk*

P.S. I just noticed that the actor they hired to play the dead gay guy in Six Feet Under looks remarkarbly similar to Matthew Shepard. Obviously intentional, but still creepy.

Yes, I write poetry. Yes, I do feel the need to inflict it on the people who might stumble in here. Those of you who don’t have the stomach for such things should probably click away.

You’ve been warned.

—

You questioned my symmetry

and so, splitting me in two

measured my vital parts

accounted for error

(debris, variables

weight, molar mass)

to determine how much damage I could do

if each one of my cells

screamed out and

broke apart into

fire and light

And now you know what’s there

I grow new cells every day

Groaning with immeasurable energy

They push against the element

You looked at me and saw

imperfection, faulty structure

And I’m telling you that

Everything is moments from collapse

—

In fallow fields I hung my head

One among the living dead

When flesh was thrown to feed the throng

I chewed upon my tongue instead

—

Ice-bound here forever

In the endless endless endless winter

slip between

The gentle snow:

Vacant, listless waking

And the storming:

Frenzy of the hunt for sleep

Bones forget the ice age

In a future glacier-clear

Premature burial

In the endless white

—

You high-falutin’

You sleepy fox

You shit-shootin’

You empty box

You country grammar

You rattled head

You Thor’s hammer

You leave instead

You famous lover

You lonely bird

You hidden other

You written word

You out of focus

You starting slow

You yuppie lotus

You far to go

—

After attending the National/Modest Mouse/REM show this past Sunday, I’ve realized I have a love/hate relationship with older bands, especially ones like REM who are still making music in spite of having had their major commercial success over a decade ago. The major problem I have with these shows is that they can rarely ever exceed my expectations or surprise me in any way. There are a few exceptions to the rule (Bjork, Bowie and Nine Inch Nails; I don’t count the Pixies because they will [hopefully] never make a new album together), but generally the shows proceed as follows, from best to worst:

1. Band meets expectations: limited newer material, good mix of radio hits and old album favourites

2. Band plays satisfying set: most, if not all, radio singles played, one or two more obscure album tracks, the rest new material

3. Bands plays mediocre set: major radio singles and new material only

4. REM

I’ve never seen a band with so much pop appeal mixed with alternative cred get so upstaged by their openers. The National played a solid, Boxer-heavy set that impressed me, as usual, and warmed over some of the crowd. Modest Mouse got some people dancing, and it was clear that the younger set at the show was there to see them, for the most part, and for good reason. This was the second time I had seen them live and they were amazing. REM was lucky to have both bands, really, ’cause Michael Stipe and his band certainly weren’t worth the price of admission.

Granted, REM played very well. They’re all technically skilled and Michael Stipe is an active and charismatic frontman. But please, spare me the new album. Everyone bloody well knows it’s middle-of-the-road at best and they played pretty much the WHOLE DAMN THING. It was Smashing Pumpkins at V-Fest all over again, but with a Hurricane Katrina protest song instead of an sped-up version of “Bullet With Butterfly Wings”. I really think that older artists can put out amazing albums after they’ve hit big in the past. The only ones I can think of right now are female solo artists (Loretta Lynn’s Van Lear Rose, Robyn’s self-titled, Vashti Bunyan’s Lookaftering) and a rock legend who lucked out with an amazing take on “Cactus” (David Bowie’s Heathen), but REM have been pumping out gar-bahj adult-contempo since Up and the new album is just more of the same. And, to make matters worse, they only played 4 of their major hits:”The One I Love” and “Orange Crush”, which are almost the same song, “Losing My Religion” and “Man on the Moon”. That’s right folks, no “It’s The End of the World as We Know It”, no “The Great Beyond”, no “Shiny Happy People” and the real kicker: no “Everybody Hurts”. I don’t condone the idea that an artist should have to to sacrifice their vision for whatever reason, especially for mass appeal, but if you’re putting out a mediocre album to fulfill a contractual obligation the least you can do is not bore your audience by promoting it in concert. We’ve already bought the tickets, now give us our damn hits. The attempt to distract us with wacky visual tricks on the big screen behind you never really fools anyone (and all these fucking bands try it like we’ll be fucking impressed. Wanna impress your fans? Learn to build a goddamn setlist. The Arcade Fire can do it with 50% garbage material and make it into one of the best shows I’ve ever seen, why can’t REM?)

On a completely tangential English major geek note, the tornado warnings and thunderstorms during the concert followed by a rather vivid rainbow and the desire to get the hell out of the Amphitheatre during the REM show made me think of The Wizard of Oz, and stories of that ilk, and the strange gender politics that operate in such narratives. You know the story: precocious child is whisked off to another world one way or another, makes friends, fights evil, and then it somehow it ends. It dawned on me that the outcome of the story is generally predetermined based on the gender of the child in question.

Usually, the boys become rulers, warrior kings who, if they do ending up returning back to their home world, overcome their chlidhood bully or major fear because of the grand journey they took. When it comes to the girls, however, we get heroines who realize “there’s no place like home” and decide to stick close to the homestead. There is also this weird disparity between the psychological effects upon either gender: the boys tend to accept and internalize their adventure and use it as a stepping stone for personal, real-life development. The girls tend to speak of their journey more openly, only to be more openly scrutinized, told it was mere fantasy. Then, usually, as with Dorothy in Return to Oz, they have trouble letting go and the parent figures go as far as to question the girl’s sanity. I think the only real exception to this rule that I’ve seen is was Youko from The Twelve Kingdoms series, but the fact that she remains in her alternate world might imply a complete disassociation from reality. If these narratives really are about a child’s regression into fantasy to gain acceptance or control over their surroundings, doesn’t remaining in that realm mean they’ve failed to learn anything from their role-playing and fantasy? If that’s the case, then the fact that the Oz series has so many chapters is disconcerting to say the least, what with Dorothy slipping back into her fantasy world so completely and so often, disassociating completely only to return to her disapproving but probably just protective adoptive parents. I hope Auntie Em has a good drug plan.