Thursday, January 31, 2013

Tuna Casserole and the hard times of being me.

I do remember Lars Farf. Maybe I should hook our resident german-Lars up with da story. I haven't talked the guy in ages. That being said though, I'm currently enjoying this netbook Cyrus gave to me (because god forgive mine was falling apart) but it's cool! I have so much more space and the windows 8 is neat-o.

Other then that, nothing is new. A couple of us when busking d-t Nanaimo and we got like 4 potential gigs in the process. Stupid situation though, the idle no more protest was going on and it was just complicated, people kept telling us, yelling at us to stop playing (even though we had every right tooooooo) and we kept on asking "alright, but can you tell us when we can?" everyone promised they would and then bam! after an hour of waiting,we said fuck it, started playing and then ignored the "you guys were being rude" comments coming out our way. Saw medhi that day too, he's looking good.

That's it for now.
Say an early happy birthday for Sabo from me
<3 nbsp="" p="">

Monday, January 28, 2013

Naming a future son Lars Farf.

The most afraid I have ever been in my life was watching Something Wicked This Way Comes at the age of 7. I know I was younger than 8 because we were still living in the blue house on Fair Road. A house which had since been abused by its new owners, who have painted the trim fire engine red. Point is, I have never been more shitlessly scared than by this movie that I watch at the age of seven, and my parents still fast-forward through sex scenes when I watch movies with them. Why is sex more inappropriate than pure evil? Even if the evil is obviously a fantasy. I know its not just my dad's fault, although he did introduce me to some of the most scarring imagery at relatively young ages (anyone seen Munich?). Hollywood's got this idea that love is more worthy of censorship than hate. Not that things need to be pornographic. Just that I'd rather watch some girl being tenderly poked than a man being ripped to shreds by dogs.
I dunno why this fear thing has suddenly popped into my head. Or this Hollywood movie rant. I forget what the topics have been, but most conversations I've had lately have ended with "America is fucked." Actually had one the other day that ended with "Austria is fucked up," but that's more art related than anything. Now see here.

Also, today I revisited my love for George Saunders. Chez, remember "Lars Fard, Excessively Fearful Father and Husband" ? It's in that Mcswy's compilation for kiddies. The one that ends with J. Safran Foers' "Sixth Burrow." Anyway. I found this other thing he wrote the absolutely needs to be made into a play. Lately I've been picturing written things as stage plays in my head as I read them. This damned house, I tell you.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

This is beginning to feel like the dawn of the loser forever

wanwanwannnn.
Listening to a song by a band called "Adam and Binki." Feel bad for Binki.

Also reading about how Jackson Pollock was the precursor to Happenings because his painting was supposedly more about creating an environment through an action than about actual communication of paint to canvas. Or so said everyone after he died. Little did they know that Pollock painted the way a surgeon operates on the body's most delicate places.

 Today I learned to smile and nod when a Chemistry major tells extensive tales about the chemical components of the chemistry required to develop film, and how it is possible to substitute those components for coffee, concentrated laundry detergent (helps to bake it) and crushed vitamin C tablets.


This here painting is by Andrew Young. I think he may be from Van- have to double check.
This week may be the first in almost a year where I will be showing up to school with a hangover. This depends on how generous LV is feeling in the shot department. Winks.

I'm stuck because she still hasn't sent the e-mail.


Saturday, January 19, 2013

Tu eres una nina.

I've been practicing my Spanish lately. And slowly working on my french. It's a process. But a process none the less. I hope to see it become useful. I read the other day that to be a true citizen of the world, you must know 5 languages (or something like that). I'm still debating my other three languages (to make my life difficult, I'm not counting English) , but I think in a perfect world I'd also want to learn Arabic, Mandarin and some language that's dying. Someone can propose it to me, and I'll just be a pawn keeping it around for another generation.

Maybe you could ask that question to your potential victims "what five languages would you learn?" or at least add it to the list when you run out of all the ones you have.  But all that being said, I would love to start up the Quarterly. I don't know how'd we want to have it focused it on per say  But we could have a meeting or start shooting e-mails back and forth starting whenever your heart desires. 

On a completely unrelated note. I've been learning a  lot more about Lebanon. Cyrus gave me a book during the christmas break called " Lebanon, The Politics of a penetrated Society" By Tom Najem. Tom being his Middle Eastern Politics teacher last semester. I haven't learned too much yet, but I can definitely tell you 3 things:
  1. 1943, Mennonite Christians and Sunni Muslims made the national pact. It was the framework for power sharing/working cooperatively, that would make it possible for many many many and deeply divided sectarian groups to govern collectively.
  2. The French governed from the end of the first world war, up to the second world war (1919- 1946) but the environment and developments during the second world war, set stage for Lebanese independence and prompted major sectarian leaders to prepare for self government. 
  3. And last but certainly not least, fun fact! The president of Lebanon can only be a Mennonite Christian!
I've also been watching some Lebanese-inspired movies. Both I've watched have a light-hearted  feel to them, but I've enjoyed them regardless. They included "Where do we go now" and "Caramel" both directed and I think staring the same person (Nadine Labaki). They definitely have a female vibe, which I think is something desired in a major male dominated society. Both are in Arabic too, so if you by chance want to watch them, they have english subtitles. Expect that.


Oh well. That's it. I've been stressed lately, and day dreaming of tater tots and springrolls.
Hope you guys have a good saturday! -Shark

Thursday, January 17, 2013

All these people, they've got fire in them!

I've started conducting really lazy interviews (ie via email) for the Warren's blog. With people I know, so far two musicians (Joey Chaos and our favourite boy named Jackson) but I'm trying to coerce Kat to join in.
And you know what? I got this weird rush of good humour in editing them. Like holy shit there is nothing I love more in the world than reading people's answers to really generic questions designed to get artists to spill the beans on how they are so damned charming while everyone else is playing in the mud. I actually proved this further on the bus with Brett last Friday. We ran out of things to talk about so I asked him a hundred thousand questions along the lines of "would you rather be a penthouse condo or a yurt?" and "would you rather be sawed in half with a hack saw or freeze to death?" etc. I learned a lot about the guy, which I promptly forgot.
But seriously Shark. If you want to ever revisit this idea of a quarterly I am down for the get down. Maybe forever. Even if it doesn't pay shit. If this kind of giddiness can last forever I want to milk it until it shrivels up and keels over.
Especially if you plan to pursue this whole English degree thing. Because then you could tell me how to properly punctuate, which I apparently do not do when I get on a roll in my writing.

On a completely different side note- these tats actually don't look too bad on this old broad. I'm thinking I should get a massive floral back tattoo too now.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Petition to Start Petitioning


Sorry if I'm being uber annoying with all this. I'm just excited I guess. Not only it's an idea, but I realized that the internet is full of ways spread it. SO me being in this "push-forward" state, I've been just pushing forward, trying to let people know about this idea. Something I think could make a difference and potentially improve the lives of Canadians. Plus, I'm under this assumption that the government is working for us, not the other way around. So if we feel like we have ideas, ways to make living around here a bit better, I think they should be brought up.

That being said, http://goo.gl/Yc14k here's the petition again. It's a pretty straight forward plan. I just want to government to create a webpage which would host open petitions with the promise of a personal reply. The United States is already doing it  https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/ and it's starting to do some good. It creates discussion and connects everyone for a common goal. I also think it's a notable act when politicians and the men/women in parliament come down from their high horses to discuss even the simplest of matters, and this just makes that easier. I'm just getting excited starting to think of things which could happen.

 For example, say the community of Oceanside (15k+) is having some sort of problem. Not enough tourist dollars to create something that would boast it skyward. Trails are degrading. We need a better water system (that's already in the talks; locals here in the community have a strong opinion about it). BUT ANYTHING. If a petition were to get 15 thousand signatures in a month, the deal would be the government would have to notice it, reply to it personally. And hopefully it would get the ball moving faster then it would before.

So hopefully the Canadian community takes notice of it. It's at 9 signatures already (more then I thought I would get.)

Hope you guys are having a good day!
-Shark




Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Fuck that guy in the helmet

I sort of forgot this blog existed for awhile.

My lost backpack has turned up on the other side of town from where it was stolen, at a swimming pool. My  first call of the new year was from a vaguely latino sounding woman calling to give me the good news. May the good lord bless the "in case of loss, please return to" section at the front of moleskin notebooks.

The only arguments that went down in my house this Christmas were about whether or not my grandma was justified in hitting my dad and his brothers when they were growing up. My dad thinks it was justified as his brotherhood got up to all kinds of shenanigans growing up. Apparently my uncle used to forge cheques from my grandmother to be cashed at the grocery store. Now he is a business adviser.

New Years was pretty hilarious. This dude wearing a bike helmet showed up at the part I was at and cornered me, insisting that "it's ok to be turned on by a guy at a party" and that he was just "the idiot in the hard hat"  This made me laugh hysterically and unfortunately he took this as encouragement. Later that night he found possibly the only lesbian at the party, screamed at her that he loved her and proceeded to throw up on the carpet behind the door to the living room. He was blamed for eating the drummer in the band's JBC (Junior Bacon Cheese), of which he left about two bites of a corner before scramming. The drummer literally ran around the party yelling "JBC!" at everyone for about half an hour. The house that we were in was this really old Edwardian boarding house style thing with the creepiest horror movie basement, complete with what is affectionately called the Rape Room. Apparently the hosts were giving a tour of the house sometime before I arrived and opened the door of the RR only to find two people having sex on the orange shag carpet in there. No furniture.

School starts tomorrow. I have two hour and a half classes with the world's crankiest anarchist. Wish me luck. This picture is what you get when you google "world's crankiest anarchist." Stephen Pinker at 15.