myspace pieplace
I cant take a shit on myspace because Im writing a play about it.
22 fév 2008
tonight I played the xylophones.
Humeur actuelle : absorbé
Catégorie : Blogging
I have taken some hefty time off. from everything and nothing and blogging especially. It didnt seem to matter for awhile that I was cutting people off and out of my daily existance or conversation because I was talking to only a couple particular people & that was all I needed. Its a move that is balls deep for sure, especially to the ones that I love & care about despearately, but I dont feel badly because I have experienced this type of behavior from many-a-person many-a-time. It is a matter of necessity and lonliness. Lately my mind has been wrapped around the enigma that is a) Concordia b) le langue français & a lover. I fear that, as a cultural & gender theorist by accident, I will never wrap my skull around why the fuck words are gendered. It is all performative. It is all beyond me. Secondly, my new roommate lorne roberts has taken up a vast amount of conversation time & I have found myself contented in conversation with a real human being over computer screen. Yesterday we discussed why exactly English is so difficult and so shallow in terms of concrete meaning. He explained that it is because all types of different languages take english as a second and add their own vernacular. This is why we have franglais. Makes sense.
Its interesting, because upon my arrival (SIX months have passed! ah!) I was glued to this little green mac like a life raft & now c'est pas ça. I know that I need to spend more loving (& sharing) on the ones ive loved & left behind & I certainly dont want to be a shitty person who forgets about the world because they are getting laid...
I think that the time has come, potentially, to give myself to blogging & hotmail & leave the rest of cyberspace alone (save the gazette & globe & mail & macleans.... Im so canadiana it hurts.) The only thing that is keeping me here is a play with rob vilar, a vast amount of time alone & uninspired, and a couple of people who message me when they break up with their respective lovers and/or want to crash. ha.
Otherwise, you should checkdumonde.blogspot, I think this is where I will run things from here on in. Or. email. larrybethbeeston@hotmail.com that was not a typo. lb the third.
Goodbye Myspace? Hello obscurity and post secondary.
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10 déc 2007
oke how about this...
Catégorie : MySpace
if you are going to add me as a friend, bring a conversation...
i don't like your band.
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04 déc 2007
like the waifs & strays before me...
Humeur actuelle : pensif
Catégorie : Travel and Places
Time and space have a strange way of shaping consciousness. I returned to Winnipeg last week, ready to embrace all that I had missed and longed for over the last four months since my prairie departure, and came back to Montreal feeling unexpectedly more at home and in the correct place. Perhaps this trip has confirmed my plight and I will never really know Winnipeg as home again; this is very bizarre. It would be insincere to claim that, for a fleeting moment, I was not perfectly contented by the familiarity, the big open spaces, the warm embraces of bests & the unwavering enthusiasm for karaoke. I took pleasure in the ceaseless company, the spooning & slow dancing to sam cooke, the impromptu waiting of tables at the Deuce, & getting stoned on Manitoba grass. I like being able to eat three kinds of next-level veggie burgers consecutively in three days (cousins, BI falafel, underground sun burger), listening to people complain about the lack of things to do, and plotting Apparel vandalism with dance party addicts. I enjoyed haunting the old haunts and crunching through the still & ceaseless snow. I am comforted by the feeling that I could return on a whim if I wanted to & it would be as if I had never even left if. There is something special about a pace that never seems to be changing, & yet, despite all the joy and customary action that this trip roused, I could not help but feel detached from it all. Separate. Removed. Aloof. I think that this means I need more.
The notion of establishing a home has been rolling around in my head over the last couple of days and has intensified with the realization that everyone I have made into my mock family is going to leave me orphaned in the next couple of months (my sisters to their lovers & my lover to France) & the real thing is moving to Nunavut, of all places. BUT I do not fear the alterations anymore & instead hotly anticipate what the tailored cuts will do for my figure & form... scope gramsci.
Actuellement j'écoute :
No Shouts No Calls
Par Electrelane
Date de publication : 08 May, 2007
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23 nov 2007
le question. le peur.
Catégorie : Blogging
It's a little bit daunting when people ask to read what you write. (As a person who would legitimately like to create a life out of the written word, I get that I have to OVERCOME this stagefright, but still. She lingers...) Lately, the writing routine has whittled down to a couple attempts at an application letter (ironically about why I want to be a writer), une lettre francaise chaque jour avec mon chat (noir chat blanc) favourite, & keeping a diary that is filled to the brim with nonsense & random thoughts. c'est ça. In short this is why, in the throes of intimacy and conversation ce soir passé, I felt a little weak when asked to lend some writing to an interested audience. I searched my brain & hard drive: I could give them the apparel, in all it's impotent sex reporting glory. I could give them the lyrics to baby beluga translated into french. I could give them the 200 words I wrote about taking a lover. But here's the thing, as soon as you offer up these morcels of recent writing, born with lack of thesis or a project, you find that your audience was expecting something else. Like a profound play or a sweet novella. No one cares that raffi en francais requires a lot of passe compose and word/gender identification, or that I still have nightmares about spandex-clad ceo's masturbating audibly under my bed, or that finding the Encarta World Dictionary's definition of 'easy virtue' made my life complete for a minute yesterday afternoon. In the same breath, it's not like I expected that this would be interesting to anybody anyways, it is just what is done. What I would do regardless. I don't even THINK about these things unless they are called upon, which they were never made to be... ah. ah. ah. I'm going with the lover, I guess.
daunting.
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20 nov 2007
tu me manques.
Humeur actuelle : serein
Catégorie : Blogging
After my roommate & I watched Agrestic burn to the ground & considered what we would do with ourselves if WEEDS didn't do a fourth season* it hit me like a bolt of lightening: perhaps you can only really know love when you miss. This is the ultimate test. (Although I know in my heart that they should just end it here to perfectly complete the chronicle, I am still an addict & hope the writers will continue to figure it out…) Anyways, I think it is going to be interesting to return to Winnipeg, if only because I am getting to do & see what I miss & what I love concurrently: (sans une couple du fammes qui sont les meillures: mon dame et la mer!!) I get a brief but intimate encounter with both sensations... psyched. & finally a conslusion: can you ever really run away from the things you miss? Is escape the easy catalyst of change? Excuse me for echoing a weakerthan in all of this tormented prose; I have love & hate affair with winnipeg, it seems.
*I understand how ridiculous this statement appears; especially to those who knew me to the greatest extent of pop-cultural-tv ignorance.
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this is an example
Humeur actuelle : en éveil
Catégorie : Jobs, Work, Careers
Of what it takes to pen an anecdote from nothingness…
Tonight a great friend of mine gave me the firm accord that he is going to be a writer. This news was obviously greeted with an enthusiastic response on my part & instantly I began to have a capote/harper lee inner-monologue montage fantasy of the both of us in twenty (or thirty) intoxicated years... I was humbled that he asked me what he should write about, because based on his absolutely SUPERB emails I figured he was stock-full of sly criticisms and in-the-know happenings, but I admit that I could not actually render him a proper answer. I suppose I am stumped on account that the potential focuses of writing are endless & everywhere. I suppose that if the desire to write is innate, whether or not you have a topic is moot because everything suddenly becomes your subject: Nothing is sacred & nothing is safe. (And if you are talented enough to become a famous poet you must be prepared to end your own life... right?) But in this same undeserving & slightly haughty breath, I know how he feels having spent many waking moments during my Bach battling an authors greatest antagonist: the (eventually surmountable) Block. Over the last few weeks I have been feeling especially grappled by this force field of critical constipation once again, and although I have all the time & freedoms in the world to pen whatever I want, I have been topic-less and lost. It's a shit feeling (har har) because the yearning to contribute to SOMETHING still lingers, but you are left solely to your own devices in the creation of a voice and an audience. Its a bit staggaring, actually.
As I was trying to find a comfortable position for my bruised tailbone this evening (to no avail), I was thinking that perhaps to find a topic worth writing about you have to always take it wayyy back to the initial questions: what? Why? For whom? And in the name of whom? There is so much to be aware of in picking up a pen & much to be accounted for once the words have structure & become proof upon a page, to be devoured or dejected depending on who happens to glance your way. This transaction is really something. It is everything. Though it has become unintentionally mega reflexive, the initial position of this prose was to prove to my beau correspondent, who I have no doubt will find the beautiful people that he wishes to write about, that anything can become something from nothing, save wanting. & I just writ three hundred words, bitch.
Actuellement j'écoute :
Dreams
Par The Whitest Boy Alive
Date de publication : 19 September, 2006
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19 nov 2007
third thing lost
Humeur actuelle : mal à l’aise
Catégorie : Life
footing.
down a flight of stairs I went. my ass is a menagerie of purple bruises. when I attempt motion at my usual agile pace I wind up wincing & looking like I should be in geriatrics. Sitting, sleeping, walking, jogging, biking = a world of pain. I hope the curse is lifted.
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17 nov 2007
lunettes strike the fear in man
despite contrary belief, nerd glasses create great fear in people. I am making this statement in reaction to the general population and THEIR reaction to my new glasses. As evidenced by extensive people provoking at my place of employment in the last two days, I have come to conclude that (opposed to the likes of clark kent) I throw on these glasses & am transformed. The general opinion of others is that I look like a throwback 80s man eating superdyke that should be both respected and feared. I enjoy this title and its benefits greatly; it keeps those who even have the subtlest inkling to hit on me at least ten paces from my person at all times. Unfortunately this hasn't proven effective for the ninTEEN year old babylala mexican OR the Torontonian engineer in my french class. bleh.
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16 nov 2007
losing my shit
Humeur actuelle : réfléchi
Catégorie : Life
both figuratively and literally.
figuratively: I am beyond psyched with anticipation for FRIENDLY MANITOBA The warm embraces, meaningful conversations, the sharing of food and drink, the bad kareoke, the laughter. I. Can't. Wait. Only ten until I am basking in the company of those I love & miss. I await all the familliar places. & the people! All the ones who wandered so seamlessly in and out of my existance a mere three-months ago. The ones I would kill to bump into on these busy streets where I am still a stranger. When it was penned that 'absence makes the heart grow fonder,' the author knew what was up. These six words can hardly sum the effects of time and distance: it will ravage & change a heart - toughen it up some. It is very telling of a friendship, though this is multi faceted. Example: if you are so lucky as to have a friend comfortable enough, the voids are seamless upon a reunion: you can pick up a conversation as if you had just left it hanging in mid-sentence. You can still finish eachothers jokes. You can be brutal as heck or you can find easy contemplation in those moments where it is silent, but you are comfortable. I am lucky to have a couple bests to session this type of friendship with upon my return & this makes me quake with excpectation. --- --- --- --- --- On the other hand, if you leave suddenly sometimes things are just left unspoken & unresolved and you come back not knowing what to expect at all. How is it going to be? Can you ever really predict this? I am the type of person who is most terrible with that first moment: I always teeter dangerously between composure and instinct and cannot fucking find a way to still my hands. I am ill at ease when I have things hanging in the air, ready to fall. Perhaps they will remain undiffused. Perhaps time & space has rendered them indifferent. Time will tell. (I sort of wish that the aforementioned proverb read "stronger" rather than "fonder")---- ---- ---- I hope that at this point in the game the general tone & unwavering authorial voice has suspended the disbelief to a point where I can summon a third hand. SOMETIMES people are flat out abandoned in the wake of time & distance. Sometimes you realize that your life was unexplicably brimming with the 'myspace' variety of friends; people you barely even know or talk to in real life. & it is as easy as ever to just cut them out. trim the fat. it's difficult enough to distribute my correspondences as evenly as I should, never mind the people who provide me turmoil or artifical kinship... but anyways, REGARDLESS what categorized relationship you fall under: If you are reading this & are from wpg, come to monday madness kareoke on november 26th. I figure 8ish at the deuce. 10ish at hooligans. it is going to be a gooood time, IF ONLY because I have been practising my kareoke amongst the drag queens down ste cat..
literally: I am world weary about losing my shit. Last week I lost my wallet (10$ cash, 17$ Subway gift certificate, MB Drivers License, SIN, UW Student card & vintage clutch that gave me a second chance in NYC... ) This week? My cell phone. argh. There is no way that I am upgrading to a fucking blackberry and adding an extra year onto my contract: I would simply rather ride out my last 10 months of the plan paying 25$ on the dot for nothing at all than be that important looking. hah. But seriously, if someone has a working shell of a phone that they could donate to the "laura shouldn't be allowed to have valuables" cause, I would greatly appreciate it. (It would especially make my day if it was of the Zach Morris variety; fuck the razrs or iphones or whatever is happening these days...) Tonight I stood outside the little danny depanneur that lies kiddie corner to my apartment and in the wintery air I talked with my mother, who was wino'd with my dad after a night of celebrating her new job. She warned me that these events always happen in three & to expect to lose something else. I have been tapping on every other wooden object I can get a knuckle to; I hope whatever it is it is small & insignificant... what else is left to lose?
sanity.
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14 nov 2007
sous.
Humeur actuelle : ivre
does this mean drunk in french? who knows? I am. Currently. In the present tense. & I will lay blame for this consequence on the following people (apres moi-meme) :
1) my roommate pascale, who convinced me that "la classe francaise est trop bebe-lala pour moi. je sais passe compose!! pff!! fuck off le classe francaise pour ce soir parese que j'aimerant le bois et je SAIS passe compose."
2) the people at the bar three corners to my west who did the winnipeg chant.
3) faculty of design exhibit opening/open bar at UQAM.
I have been swimming in the midst of UQAM tonight. Students of the arts, of design, Faculty, parents of students, art enthusiasts, hipsters, free beer enthusiasts, & design snobs. All adorning little red squares in solidarity. (How many commas does one need when they are writing sloshed? many. How many students got arrested in the last two days? 106.) There were a bunch of people, all aesthetically pleasing and politically aclimatized. I am fucking in love with Quebec. At one point I could not find anyone familliar, though. So I walked home & now it is ten pm and I am drunk & do not know what to do with myself so I sat down to pen some words about why I am drunk...
I should have been in class though. I am feeling a little bit of guilt. They still have twenty minutes left to learn passe compose & here I am, sloshed & writing a fucking myspace bulletin. It is probably best this way - if only because I am about to make grilled cheese. fin.
10 nov 2007
chester molester confirmed
Humeur actuelle : exalté
Catégorie : Life
ooooh oooooh ooooohh. juicy news.
okay not; perhaps that statement is a tad hyperbolic. In all actuality this 'news' is not real news at all & the only juice is man-juice. It qualifies as slander if I were ever to try to voice it in an established publication, but I got a confirmation beyond a doubt that the dirty-old-man status of ceo DC is legit. Found a model, a friend of a friend, who confessed that he went STRAIGHT into the bathroom to masturbate post photo op after she enthusiastically declined an invitation to join him. It IS a cheesie seventies soft porn regime afterall! I have not a clue why this little ditty gives me the personal satisfation that it does, or why I house such resentment that this man has found the secret to geting blowjobs 'til his golden years. I know that I should be a little more disenheartened an 'ethical' company merely deters its subject of oppression from labourer to woman; and yet, I'm not disenchanted that the gleaming sweatshop free no logo icon has been dulled in lieu of a utilitarian sex empire. I'm desensitized & I expected it; the world is full of bastard sons. I was happy to have this whole thing leave my consciousness and my nerves in shipping its fate off to thesexreporter, but have since found it's not that easy; these things stick to your consciousness.
I was talking to a good friend about advertising last night and he is the first person in the world who has ever accused me of being dark. Usually I am hatcheted by 'miserable lies' et al for being so god damn optimistic, so this comment surprised me. Perhaps I've changed dramatically in nature since I have been here. Or perhaps he doesn't know me at all. Today is my third month anniversary, speaking of time, and I have been unusually reflective. I tend not to 'do' anniversaries. I have nothing of longevity in my life that would warrant this type of consciousness, or fall within the quotation marks of title. The idea of being gone for three months puts a stupid smile to my face; it feels like something. A small victory. I went to a surprise 40th birthdy party recently that has reminded me how important it is to celebrate the passing of time, so I'm gonna. Happy three month to me. Time to keep going...
08 nov 2007
insomnia
Humeur actuelle : ringard
One of the strange bitterness of being sleepless is that no matter how you try to still your racing mind it is always just a step in front of you; teasing you with a backwards glance and a wry smile. A professor told me once that those who have trouble sleeping are usually brilliant, but that this brilliance is often mixed with madness; A cocktail. I have yet to determine if I am foolish or inspired. Perhaps a part of this madness stems from the fact that I would simply love to have someone to talk to. Candidly and fully clothed. How good it would be to get a second opinion about the things that are rolling about in my head. But when a bed is empty and a person is orphaned there is nothing but the pen and the endless hours of night. And so I remain awake. For what? The fufillment of an addiction to language. It is not a question of why but always a question of who. It is always a matter of audience. I wonder what type of person I would become if my clock were set in the inverse. I might adore to be one of those who is asleep by ten to wake up for eight, filling each hour of the day with something productive, meaningful and normal. Pages and pages of unread secrecy are none of these things; It is either brilliance or madness. & I put my money on the latter.
07 nov 2007
By Larry Beth Beeston
Humeur actuelle : en éveil
A friend of mine recently confessed that his Thursday night ritual consists of Jacking-off to amateur tube sock fantasies made possible by the weekly American Apparel advertisements that adorn the back page of The Mirror. The laughter that followed this admission was the type that turned heads in the restaurant, and from here we merrily bitched for hours, the overabundance of debatable AA topics are endless it seems:
Was his freaky conduct simply a natural outcome of good amateur pornography, or was he flirting with under-age perversion? Are the fetish-riddled, obviously un-candid shots of 'real' women (teens?) sexual liberty, or simply a minimalist, 100% cotton version of the standard sex-imagery that is everywhere else in advertising? Is there a reason that the number of Apparel clad 'hipsters' (teens?) walking down St. Cat on a Friday night is about on par with the number of sex clubs featured there? And where the heck is the pluralism of sexuality in the content of AA's advertising, if they are truly the uniform of the neo-sexual revolution as they claim? Are us 'twentysomethings' really innovative for finally stripping away the logo and buying into the 'ethics' of AA production or are we simply still just stripping?
Though the conversation concluded with the raise of a glass to the hipster, each glimpse of a pair of colourful cotton leggings or one of 'those' hoodies that proliferate on the streets of Montreal incite a vain attempt on my part to understand how and why a "vertically integrated' t-shirt company has become the sex du jour of the Myspace generation. I partly blame my hyper-awareness to the American A-porno liaison on having recently moved from a city that can neither boast an Apparel store of its own (yet…) nor the renowned sexual culture unique to la belle province. For the most part, I find the visual media built around the two enterprises predictable, blatant and unambiguous. (Buy sex. Buy socks) & though it is possible to contend for all eternity whether or not these images are trivial, empowering or degrading, a magnitude of online reports, forums and You Tube videos are already dedicated to this so I won't even GO there...
When it comes down to it, it would be a novel change of pace should an entrepreneur somehow find ethical success without utilizing the lowest-common-denominator, sex sells gimmick that becomes an easy pandemic when catering to the masses, but the truth remains that brands are ceaselessly competing with porn, which is the mother of all media categories in terms of profit...
The American Apparel advertisements have specifically seen a bewildering level of acknowledgement for their content, perhaps more than it deserves, considering that flesh STILL sells. Regardless, the sexual and social iconography surrounding youth in these images is a phenomenon greater than merely spandex-on-parade. There is submissive mythology and power negotiation at play here: at the moment, the manifestation of capitalism is masquerading as the aesthetic of the ethical, urban hipster. This image is the center of American Apparel's attention, and perhaps I wouldn't mind so much, if only CEO Dov Charney would quit proclaiming that it is the stuff revolution is made of. Throw enough sex in my face and my curiosity to check out a store (or initiate a Thursday night ritual!!) may get the better of me; but it requires more substance than nipples and legs for me to be convinced that the counter-hegemonic youth revolution is going to be lead by a 40-year-old, 'hyper-capitalist-socialist' CEO with a "Chester Molester" reputation. It is one thing to profit from the self interest of this demagogue and completely another to decree that the Boomer confederacy is about to be usurped by a bunch of kids satisfying their freedom of nasty in the fifty-fifty blend.
Besides, the legitimately progressive, culturally attuned 'twentlysomethings' are all fatigued by what has quickly become little more than an overexposed trend already!
It could be that perhaps we are all well beyond desensitized by our porn-saturated culture to be shocked anymore. Or perhaps we are too busy with school, making our own art or clothing, creating 'zines, or attending critical mass to be bothered with a brand that's "not a brand." (wink.) Perhaps we recognize that the true faces of our consumer power, individuality, and sexuality - opting to buy local, remain self-styled, and find pluralistic avenues to express our kink as we go - cannot find its summation in a TSHIRT COMPANY.
Actuellement Je regarde :
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Date de publication : 17 November, 1998
2 oct 2007
The Appeal of the Apparel
Humeur actuelle : curieux
Catégorie : News and Politics
Friends and Otherwise,
Let me state -on record- that I am over anybody who attempts to create a romantic relationship with me using the tools of Myspace or Facebook. This includes wanting me to fall in love with your band. Basically, I find these two units of enterprise pretty petty as far as creating meaningful relationships go, and athough I am relatively impressed with the prominant marks the aforementioned have made on our 'socio-sexual-technological' culture, I will never relent the their utility past the tender age of thirty. (I hope?!?) So no, Bachelor No. 1, the wrinkled, salt and pepper dashing "Communications Concordia Graduate," (wink) who asked me what shocker symbol stood for at my printing job, I do not have Facebook. Nor should you. And no, Bachelor No. 2; the 54 year old using Myspace to become Prime Minister, you only have 29 friends including Tom on your space, bro. I was wary of your political sentiments after taking about TWO SECONDS to confirm that all the rest of them were underage & have voluntarily posted compromising photos of themselves as their profile pic... bleh.
Secondly. I have a deadline. And although I would loooooove nothing more than laze about in parc la fontaine in shorts and a tshirt & enjoy the plus 15 weather & write sans entraves, I need to figure out the inexplicable link between sexuality and American Apparel.... So please, if somebody knows shoot me a comment or something....
The rant/rave that is to follow was motivated on two counts:
No. 1 - a close friend of mine recently admitting to have jacked-off to an American Apparel advertisement he found on the back page of The Mirror (I'll never tell) AND I happen to need a topic for this job I am trying to land.
No. 2 - Winnipeg.
Seriously, lets start a revolution. Refuse. Put up a sign. Keep Osborne fucking LOCAL or something? Starbucks was bad enough. It is bitter irony that an actual "indie" (sorry mike b.) night is dead and dancing on its grave like a sonofabitch is a fucking chain STORE who wants to sell its shit to the kids so they can look cool when they dance. I predict that this STORE is going to go the way of Old Navy and American Eagle. Once its en masse it loses its appeal and only the kids from St. James dig it. Winnipeg needs stuff for SURE, but not that stuff. & Now we need a place to fuckin' dance.
------------Anyways, I am forever interested in the exploration of myth, sexual and otherwise. I am sort of intrigued with the idea of the contemporary north american youth generation being summed up in the archetype of the 'hipster'. According to Business Week, Chester Molester AA CEO Dov Charney claims that he is "connecting with an emerging youth movement, an underground network of urban hipsters (!!) from Brooklyn to Berlin. They surf the Internet for gossip and fashion trends and race to get copies of gritty(!!) lifestyle magazines named Vice and Purple. These twentysomething consumers don't mind being marketed to as long as the images look real, unvarnished, and match their own casual attitudes toward sex. (!!!??!) (http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_26/b3939108_mz017.htm)
The underground youth movement? American Apparel? I don't see the connection at all.
Last time I checked, we were all BITCHING how AA is overexposed & how all we ever see is annoying TEENS spending their parents money decked out in an labour ethical AA spandex cotton blend. Oh, but yeah, those 12 year olds model for the company.
& LIKE we're going to wear American Apparel for the revolution!! When we usurp the baby boomers I highly doubt that camo will be replaced with the fifty-fifty blend and golden spandex leggings!! Most of us don't vote, Kyoto is dead, Harper is a puppet and the Americans want our water. Fuck. If the hipster revolution could step up soon I'd really appreciate it.
I guess I am disappointed becase I was expecting something else.
The leggy, breasty, and clearly not 'candid' shots of barely legal women are simply the minimalist, "no-logo," 100% cotton version of the standard, sex-sells imagery that is everywhere else. boring. & definately capitalism's insecure consumer bullshit. Our bodies are still battlegrounds, apparently.
BUT BACK TO THE POINT:
I neeeeeeeeed feedback/insight/popular opinion/rant of the masses for this story I am writing. Basically, if my editors like me they will let me write for real, which gets me so excited that I need to blow into a paper bag.
If you have five seconds, answer me the following:
(I AM NOT A CORPORATION I AM JUST CURIOUS )
- Is it politically important to you that your clothing be sweatshop free? Do you think that AA is innovative for their campaign of resistance against labour inequalities, and is this a conscious factor for you in your purchases of AA merch or otherwise?
- Do you agree that the highly controversial ad campaigne is reflective of our generations 'casual' attitude towards sexuality? Is it even right to claim that contemporary sex is 'casual', considering the AIDS epidemic, soaring teen preggo & sti rates etc etc etc?
-Does it bother you that all the nubile, slightly compromised young men pale in numbers compared to their female counterparts (67:7 for the ladies on the website)? And WHERE are the queers, honestly? Those two Lwords kissing don't count.
- Does it trouble you that you, as a person are out to be branded at all times by one product or another? Is it right that Dov Charney thinks that our generation doesn't mind that we are being marketed to, as long as we look good? Are we REALLY that shallow & lack identity?
And finally, Are we really stripping away the logos or are we still just stripping?
So thats it. Thanks a billion if you took a minute to even read this, honestly. & any thoughts on the subject from anyone who has anything to say about it would be so savvy & appreciate
08 oct 2007
For those of you who know....
Humeur actuelle : je ne tiens pas en place
Catégorie : Blogging
Know that I am quasi pop culturally inept and as such my film repertoire is minimal, at best…
Mais, après gloating about le meteo et le plus vingt six, il pluet.
So. I have done the unthinkable & made friendly with the couch.
Tonight Pascale & I watched loads of French CBC followed by a movie called "Sleeping Dogs Lie". Originally, I chalked this film up as flaky from the get-go. The premise seemed a bit off, but I have to say it really came out strong in the end. I am FULLY going to disclose the epic secret that makes this film so scandalous (then again it's basically written on the back of the box), but the jist of the story is that the protagonist blows off a dog somewhere in her junior year at college and the rumor is confessed (admitted by the protagonist to her boyfriend & overheard by her troubled younger brother & revealed to her family over breakfast. Crazy? Yes.). Aaanyways. The plot basically deals with the age-old adage about being 'totally honest' with your partner about your sexual past & I like this enigma. I felt it explored truthfulness and sexual taboo brilliantly. Should everything be on the table in a sexual relationship? Does love really see through all dirty little secrets?
If the plot doesn't grab you, know that the acting was marvelous (the meth-addicted brother was flawless) & the camera shots were charmingly poignant and always accentuated the dramatic or comedic undercurrents of the design. I am also of the belief that the best movies are the ones that you can envision as having been in the live theatre first. In my amateur opinion this quality is what gives films the most sincerity, which "Sleeping Dogs Lie" has in spades.
In conclusion, Laura Beeston recommends this movie. Two thumbs north.
In other news, the fucking Saxon Genitive can fuck itself. Seriously. French is going to kill me, especially because I am currently teaching myself from an archaic self-instructional livre published in 1938. "Tu" is not "you" in this edition, it is "thy."
I have done five chapters and all exercises from these chapters. Basically they have a section in French that you have to translate to English, followed by a section in English you have to translate into French.
Everything was going fine until I reached Exercise 5b.
Basically this bitch of a self-assignment is about possessives and past tense and I shouldn't have taken it lightly when the beginning of the lesson warned that I "must be continually on your guard in translating it."
Also, the gendering of every word is ridiculous. That is on the record. I'm with Simone de Beauvoir on this one, we need to recreate language, if only so I personally can grab a hold of French syntax & make it stick to my tongue. THOUGH I have to admit I was pleased to discover that beard (la barbe) and la moustache are feminine… the (man)ifesto continues…
What it all comes down to is the difference between le roi qui aime les soldats and le roi qu'aiment les soldats. Fuck me.
I also am keen on the fact that I now know the past tense of love…
this is important.
But back to the books... a bientot!
02 oct 2007
Sheltered Life...
Humeur actuelle : speculative.
Catégorie : speculative. Life
Brave girl replies, "When you come back, I'll be gone."
Read off her rules: When in control I move on.
Thoughtful or sad? No need to ask.
You in her eyes a sister someone
who's been where she's roaming now.
Flashes of home & people there.
Pressured, caught up she feels measured all up & revealed.
I still haven't walked my distance; I'm not ready to return.
I still haven't walked my distance; I'm not ready to return.
Independent
on my way
to become I.
Sunday. No sign. Why did I make you meet me here?
No cause for doubt, but feeling sustains when mix up clears.
Easy and loose, unsure, confused.
It doesn't take much to knock me. I've been living a sheltered life...
Independent
on my way
to become I.
New York City
Humeur actuelle : empreint de gratitude
Catégorie : Travel and Places
So this is what happened:
Initially I could not invest in the sensory overload. Colours, moving & still. Honks of horns, blatant advertisement, constant hustle, lights and sounds. Transfixed by this stimulation sat Janelle & I, bags in hands & jaw upon the floor. Struck with awe & looking up & realizing that we are being dwarfed by the height of the place and stilled by the motion of it. It was a tempo and a world of its very own. New York City, New York. We picked a seat from the fleet of golden cabs & we got to the hostel. Janelle paid the cab fare. I was en reverie. Like a sponge. All the way to the hostel.
We had read online previously that week that Central Park Hostel was located in the Upper West side of NYC, on a Harlem block that also happened to house the Projects. Upon this realization, Janelle & I absolutely seizured with laughter (and fear?) for we have all heard the myth of Harlem, and the gangster reputation it boasts - ditto for project housing. Going into it, I hadn't a clue what to expect because all I knew were these legends & soul, but I am glad we took a cab to get there because I would not have been able to navigate in my state of culture shock at Penn Station.
When we did get there we were sort of put out by the shittiness of it, but sort of prepared considering the comments that we had read on hostel dot com and the ridiculously modest price we were paying for a crash mat. (( But we only had to take one look at the kitchenette to decide not to bother with groceries & I am glad** I brought shoes I could wear in the shower, lets leave it at that.)) Although it was horrendously dirty and I woke up every morning to the sound of a pidgeon boning, I was taken by its quirky charms. Example: if you wanted to get into your room you had to have possession NOT ONLY of the proper key, but also of the individual lock/doorknob combination. Room 213 - Turn upper lock left once, turn lower knob right twice & pull towards you until you hear a click & then push & you're in. No big deal. Example two: the most hilarious art sale that I have ever seen. (checkdumonde) Example three: hostel management charisma. Long live "Akon" Andre & "gangster daddy" Carlos from the Bronx, who turned a blind eye to my theft of a travel book and answered all my stupidly naive questions after smoking me up.
Day one ended early in preparation for the following, which we knew would be start early, linger lengthily and include a lot of travel by foot...Armed with a single subway map and library travel material we headed to Ground Zero. It was the sixth year anniversary of September 11th, so we figured something would be happening in the bustle of the Financial District. After a glorious breakfast in NW Broadway at a little grill that was packed to the tits with personality, Janelle & I ventured into the underbelly of the apple for the very first time. Our root was the red line 1234, going south & we made it no problem. Looking back I think the straight-forwardness of this initial subway trip gave us a false sense of security in regards to our combined subway Intelligence Quotient, for the trip to follow took us straight to the ghettos in Brooklyn by our own dumb fault during a heavy downpour of rain… but I'll get to that in a minute…
--------------------------
It has to be said that, despite being as capitalist as it gets in North America, the Financial District of New York City is an architecturally awing and beautiful part of town. Tall buildings full of text and character, suits abounding, and little shops in every cranny. Despite its entire bustle, the haze and drizzle emphasized the melancholy & somber attitude that was expected in this particular place at this particular time. I was taken by the contrast: FDNY, Police & Military members in full uniform, tipping caps & taking thanks, while counter-CNN "Investigate 9/11" types chanted & held signs proclaiming that "this was an inside job". It was appealing to see people heatedly parlaying their politics on the streets amidst the rainfall & the readings of name after name after name… I may not know how I truly feel about this particular 'terrorist' attack, as there seems to be a lack of sufficient and accurate information regarding this contemporary event, but I DO know that New Yorkers are a breed of their own and I admire them. Long live the resilience, the rebirth & the growth of this city & fuck closed door governments & Freedom Towers being built on a mass grave…
--------
After our fair share of business & chaos & suits & culture & noise & traffic & smog & mourning & consciousness, we exodused ourselves to BROOKLYN instead of WILLIAMSBURG by aforementioned mistake. There was definately** a moment of complete panic, while the rain poured hard & we looked like sitting ducks in the ghetto with our cameras & travel maps... but J struck up a conversation with Ryan from New Jersey who ended up basically holding our hands all the way to where we wanted to thrift... If it wasn't for him I don't know what we would have done. Lack of orientation is a total bummer.
Beacons Closet (www.beaconscloset.com) is a phenomenon unto itself. I could have stayed in there for days, gingerly admiring the unique detailing of every vintage dress, trying on oversized sunglasses with skeleton arms or wishing that my monstrous finger-toed pieds could somehow fit into any of the shoes or boots that lined the walls. Janelle shopped 'til she dropped, and I was frugal in the truest sense of the word, having no job & fresh ink reminding me that need trumps want. What's funny is that I had the greatest financial scare of my life in this store, though I only spent 14 of my dollars investing into it. See, I left my wallet on the counter after admiring something or other and walked out the door, only to realize while trying to pay for lunch 10 blocks later that it was missing. I don't know how people lose their wallets for real, because I was going mental: American Travel $$, Visa, ID, Hostel Key, Camera, Passport. All. Gone. I hastily marched the streets of Williamsburg whispering "please" repeatedly under my breath, and when a stranger asked if I was okay I brushed past him & basically spat the word "NO" at his feet. It was very uncool. I was very stressed. When I got to Beacons, they looked around & said that they hadn't found anything that matched its description and I experienced another wave of nausea & panic & craze. I literally turned my famed red luggage bag on its head and sifted through its contents on the floor, not knowing what the fuck I was going to do. I think that the staff sensed my utter anxiety and the oncoming of tears, because they sort of pushed the manager in my general direction & gave me pitied looks. He asked me to describe my wallet again, & when I told him that there wasn't a bow on it but a ruche he laughed & went to a shelf & brought it to me! He thought it was merchandise & put it out for sale!! HA. I actually began crying in gratitude & luck & relief that some rando hadn't found it & realize it was full of prized possessions & stole my identity or something… On the walk back to Janelle, I whispered the word "thank you" repeatedly under my breath, & ended up bumping back into the boy that I was a super-cunt to & got to apologize. It was full circle karma.......
I promptly ordered myself a glass of wine and sat, not speaking to Janelle but putting the wallet between us and staring at it. We didn't even know what to do with ourselves in New York City. We were foreigners. We didn't belong. We had great luck, but it was always married with great misadventure. It was daunting. This city is fast, expansive, exciting, busy, boisterous, and full of personality. But we just didn't exist in it. It is kind of difficult to really explain, but its like you feel so enveloped in something that is striding past you, & so lose track of yourself as your own entity of activity because you are so bewildered & distracted by what is happening all around.
To remedy this motion sickness, we ended up buying ourselves a litre of red wine & going back to the Hostel to lie horizontal & still. I really think it says something that we wanted nothing more than to return to the dirtiest hostel EVER at nine pm instead of venturing into a city that never sleeps…
((I should really mention at this point in the post that New Yorkers are some of the kindest people you will ever come across. I entered this city with the vague notion that everyone hustles wearing blinders & are busily engrossed in the rat race of their consumer driven life, as a result failing to make human connections on a random or daily basis: but this could not be farther from the truth. It is just the opposite, in fact, for I have never* encountered such a plenty of courteous greetings, personalities, anecdotes, helpful suggestions or blatant chaperoning of strangers to thrift stores EVER. The Harlem elderly were even "God Blessing" J & I in the streets!! I heart New Yorkers, for serious, though I dislike most of America greatly.))
---- The third day started in leisure and a luxury gourmet buffet that was totally over the top. Three different kinds of breakfast tofu?! You had me at hello. Our only plan for the day was to go to Conan O'Brian because Janelle had somehow managed to score tickets? So we walked down Broadway / Times Square & ended up at Bryant Park where the Mercedez Benz fashion week was happening. Neither Janelle nor I had anticipated this being there, so when we stumbled upon it we were both a little bummed that we hadn't showered in three days & looked like wrinkled luggage. We ended up grabbing a coffee & sitting & people watching all the fashion whores & paparazzi & good kits that were mulling about the scene, & even though we were haggard as fuck & just bumming around about 10 photographers took our picture ((some while this **really** weird guy wearing camo and string "saved" us with air guitar zeppelin while talking (singing?) to us in tongues about love and beauty... Honestly, he was TOTALLY crazy & Janelle & I just sat there with our mouths hanging, not knowing how to even RESPOND to his utter utopia of madness…)) Anyways, after multiple blogs snapped at us we decided to venture to NBC studios …
Might I just say that NBC studios are something else… Seeing the taping of a show was pretty interesting, just because you got to see how certain aspects of a production of that grandeur go down & what people are like during commercial breaks etc etc etc. I'm glad it was free because I'm honestly not that huge of a celeb whore (or so I thought until Mr. BIG bumped into us in Chelsea!!?!) but we somehow snagged front row & it was sort cool to see the way-too-skinny-&-probably-coked-up Mary Kate Olson in the (meager) flesh & bone a few feet away I guess? & at certain points of the evening I could have ran my fingers through Conan's famed ginger follicles if I felt the undying urge, which is pretty random to be able to say you could have done? I don't know. It was fun & weird & now I have found myself experiencing a sort of kinky sick crush on Lyle Lovett, who was the musical guest & who caught my eye a couple of times during the commercial break & after in the foyer…
((What a daddy complex. Fuuuuuck. ))
Okay woah. This is totally long & dripping with too much information about complexes. It wasn't intentional; I just dislike telling the story over & over again because it bores me and I forget the details. I figured that I should spit it all out & share while the memories are hot in my mind and close to my heart. We did have two more days in NYC after these facts, but they weren't as crazy as the first two, despite being unique & amazing unto themselves. They consisted of wandering around & being engulfed. Of the man made beauty of Central Park. Of good conversations & insight from a Russian, Mexican & Brit. Of stimulation followed by slumber. Of multiple beers on the train ride home & crossing the border with a joint between my breasts. Of a happy return to de Maisonneuve, & rejuvenated love for the family within it. Of soaking feet & stilling mind. Of saying good bye to a best & recognizing wealth in experience…
But I should take my leave, I have a resume to polish….
- - -- - -- -
"J'aime: Essai sur l'expérience d'aimer"
- Yves Saint-Arnaud
Avant de prononcer lets mots j'aime, on doit devenir capable de dire je.
(You cannot be capable of love without understanding the concept of 'I'. )
Quelques aspects:
1. JE VIS: un langage très simple et ce qui guide son development personnel.
2. JE SUIS LIBRE: les diffèrents chemins de l'amour comme autant de chemins de liberation.
(C'est que j'ai appris pour l'instant)
- -- ---
the subject of this antidote does not exist in the proper french language.
--------------------------------------------------------------imadeitupinattemptofexplination.
this is the say of the day:
associations (thoughts, objects, words, gestures, expressions)
are often of the minds own making.
at least once daily I sit listening in an acute pensive posture.
my ears. my eyes. in disconnected understanding.
all you can look at is the body when you are at this specific loss.
a sidelong glance, a tightening of the jaw, awkward attempts to still the hands:
when you don't know the words, the silence is filled with other things.
---------------------------------------------thisiswhatilearnedtoday:
MANQUER - " to miss "
- manquer à : to miss someone
- tu me manques : I miss you
RIRE - " to laugh "
- c'est à mourir de rire : I just died laughing.
NOURITURE - the concept of 'food'
- se nourrir : nourishment.
HISTOIRE - " a story "
OTHER:
"la lotterie du la vie"
- it is the lottery of life. karma. chance. aligned stars. fortune.
- & an interesting note: both lottery (chance) & life are feminine concepts...
also: the greatest of them all: DE MAISONNEUVE - " new house " (my street)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
it is strange for me to be hesitant in speech.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
22 fév 2008
tonight I played the xylophones.
Humeur actuelle : absorbé
Catégorie : Blogging
I have taken some hefty time off. from everything and nothing and blogging especially. It didnt seem to matter for awhile that I was cutting people off and out of my daily existance or conversation because I was talking to only a couple particular people & that was all I needed. Its a move that is balls deep for sure, especially to the ones that I love & care about despearately, but I dont feel badly because I have experienced this type of behavior from many-a-person many-a-time. It is a matter of necessity and lonliness. Lately my mind has been wrapped around the enigma that is a) Concordia b) le langue français & a lover. I fear that, as a cultural & gender theorist by accident, I will never wrap my skull around why the fuck words are gendered. It is all performative. It is all beyond me. Secondly, my new roommate lorne roberts has taken up a vast amount of conversation time & I have found myself contented in conversation with a real human being over computer screen. Yesterday we discussed why exactly English is so difficult and so shallow in terms of concrete meaning. He explained that it is because all types of different languages take english as a second and add their own vernacular. This is why we have franglais. Makes sense.
Its interesting, because upon my arrival (SIX months have passed! ah!) I was glued to this little green mac like a life raft & now c'est pas ça. I know that I need to spend more loving (& sharing) on the ones ive loved & left behind & I certainly dont want to be a shitty person who forgets about the world because they are getting laid...
I think that the time has come, potentially, to give myself to blogging & hotmail & leave the rest of cyberspace alone (save the gazette & globe & mail & macleans.... Im so canadiana it hurts.) The only thing that is keeping me here is a play with rob vilar, a vast amount of time alone & uninspired, and a couple of people who message me when they break up with their respective lovers and/or want to crash. ha.
Otherwise, you should checkdumonde.blogspot, I think this is where I will run things from here on in. Or. email. larrybethbeeston@hotmail.com that was not a typo. lb the third.
Goodbye Myspace? Hello obscurity and post secondary.
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10 déc 2007
oke how about this...
Catégorie : MySpace
if you are going to add me as a friend, bring a conversation...
i don't like your band.
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04 déc 2007
like the waifs & strays before me...
Humeur actuelle : pensif
Catégorie : Travel and Places
Time and space have a strange way of shaping consciousness. I returned to Winnipeg last week, ready to embrace all that I had missed and longed for over the last four months since my prairie departure, and came back to Montreal feeling unexpectedly more at home and in the correct place. Perhaps this trip has confirmed my plight and I will never really know Winnipeg as home again; this is very bizarre. It would be insincere to claim that, for a fleeting moment, I was not perfectly contented by the familiarity, the big open spaces, the warm embraces of bests & the unwavering enthusiasm for karaoke. I took pleasure in the ceaseless company, the spooning & slow dancing to sam cooke, the impromptu waiting of tables at the Deuce, & getting stoned on Manitoba grass. I like being able to eat three kinds of next-level veggie burgers consecutively in three days (cousins, BI falafel, underground sun burger), listening to people complain about the lack of things to do, and plotting Apparel vandalism with dance party addicts. I enjoyed haunting the old haunts and crunching through the still & ceaseless snow. I am comforted by the feeling that I could return on a whim if I wanted to & it would be as if I had never even left if. There is something special about a pace that never seems to be changing, & yet, despite all the joy and customary action that this trip roused, I could not help but feel detached from it all. Separate. Removed. Aloof. I think that this means I need more.
The notion of establishing a home has been rolling around in my head over the last couple of days and has intensified with the realization that everyone I have made into my mock family is going to leave me orphaned in the next couple of months (my sisters to their lovers & my lover to France) & the real thing is moving to Nunavut, of all places. BUT I do not fear the alterations anymore & instead hotly anticipate what the tailored cuts will do for my figure & form... scope gramsci.
Actuellement j'écoute :
No Shouts No Calls
Par Electrelane
Date de publication : 08 May, 2007
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23 nov 2007
le question. le peur.
Catégorie : Blogging
It's a little bit daunting when people ask to read what you write. (As a person who would legitimately like to create a life out of the written word, I get that I have to OVERCOME this stagefright, but still. She lingers...) Lately, the writing routine has whittled down to a couple attempts at an application letter (ironically about why I want to be a writer), une lettre francaise chaque jour avec mon chat (noir chat blanc) favourite, & keeping a diary that is filled to the brim with nonsense & random thoughts. c'est ça. In short this is why, in the throes of intimacy and conversation ce soir passé, I felt a little weak when asked to lend some writing to an interested audience. I searched my brain & hard drive: I could give them the apparel, in all it's impotent sex reporting glory. I could give them the lyrics to baby beluga translated into french. I could give them the 200 words I wrote about taking a lover. But here's the thing, as soon as you offer up these morcels of recent writing, born with lack of thesis or a project, you find that your audience was expecting something else. Like a profound play or a sweet novella. No one cares that raffi en francais requires a lot of passe compose and word/gender identification, or that I still have nightmares about spandex-clad ceo's masturbating audibly under my bed, or that finding the Encarta World Dictionary's definition of 'easy virtue' made my life complete for a minute yesterday afternoon. In the same breath, it's not like I expected that this would be interesting to anybody anyways, it is just what is done. What I would do regardless. I don't even THINK about these things unless they are called upon, which they were never made to be... ah. ah. ah. I'm going with the lover, I guess.
daunting.
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20 nov 2007
tu me manques.
Humeur actuelle : serein
Catégorie : Blogging
After my roommate & I watched Agrestic burn to the ground & considered what we would do with ourselves if WEEDS didn't do a fourth season* it hit me like a bolt of lightening: perhaps you can only really know love when you miss. This is the ultimate test. (Although I know in my heart that they should just end it here to perfectly complete the chronicle, I am still an addict & hope the writers will continue to figure it out…) Anyways, I think it is going to be interesting to return to Winnipeg, if only because I am getting to do & see what I miss & what I love concurrently: (sans une couple du fammes qui sont les meillures: mon dame et la mer!!) I get a brief but intimate encounter with both sensations... psyched. & finally a conslusion: can you ever really run away from the things you miss? Is escape the easy catalyst of change? Excuse me for echoing a weakerthan in all of this tormented prose; I have love & hate affair with winnipeg, it seems.
*I understand how ridiculous this statement appears; especially to those who knew me to the greatest extent of pop-cultural-tv ignorance.
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this is an example
Humeur actuelle : en éveil
Catégorie : Jobs, Work, Careers
Of what it takes to pen an anecdote from nothingness…
Tonight a great friend of mine gave me the firm accord that he is going to be a writer. This news was obviously greeted with an enthusiastic response on my part & instantly I began to have a capote/harper lee inner-monologue montage fantasy of the both of us in twenty (or thirty) intoxicated years... I was humbled that he asked me what he should write about, because based on his absolutely SUPERB emails I figured he was stock-full of sly criticisms and in-the-know happenings, but I admit that I could not actually render him a proper answer. I suppose I am stumped on account that the potential focuses of writing are endless & everywhere. I suppose that if the desire to write is innate, whether or not you have a topic is moot because everything suddenly becomes your subject: Nothing is sacred & nothing is safe. (And if you are talented enough to become a famous poet you must be prepared to end your own life... right?) But in this same undeserving & slightly haughty breath, I know how he feels having spent many waking moments during my Bach battling an authors greatest antagonist: the (eventually surmountable) Block. Over the last few weeks I have been feeling especially grappled by this force field of critical constipation once again, and although I have all the time & freedoms in the world to pen whatever I want, I have been topic-less and lost. It's a shit feeling (har har) because the yearning to contribute to SOMETHING still lingers, but you are left solely to your own devices in the creation of a voice and an audience. Its a bit staggaring, actually.
As I was trying to find a comfortable position for my bruised tailbone this evening (to no avail), I was thinking that perhaps to find a topic worth writing about you have to always take it wayyy back to the initial questions: what? Why? For whom? And in the name of whom? There is so much to be aware of in picking up a pen & much to be accounted for once the words have structure & become proof upon a page, to be devoured or dejected depending on who happens to glance your way. This transaction is really something. It is everything. Though it has become unintentionally mega reflexive, the initial position of this prose was to prove to my beau correspondent, who I have no doubt will find the beautiful people that he wishes to write about, that anything can become something from nothing, save wanting. & I just writ three hundred words, bitch.
Actuellement j'écoute :
Dreams
Par The Whitest Boy Alive
Date de publication : 19 September, 2006
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19 nov 2007
third thing lost
Humeur actuelle : mal à l’aise
Catégorie : Life
footing.
down a flight of stairs I went. my ass is a menagerie of purple bruises. when I attempt motion at my usual agile pace I wind up wincing & looking like I should be in geriatrics. Sitting, sleeping, walking, jogging, biking = a world of pain. I hope the curse is lifted.
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17 nov 2007
lunettes strike the fear in man
despite contrary belief, nerd glasses create great fear in people. I am making this statement in reaction to the general population and THEIR reaction to my new glasses. As evidenced by extensive people provoking at my place of employment in the last two days, I have come to conclude that (opposed to the likes of clark kent) I throw on these glasses & am transformed. The general opinion of others is that I look like a throwback 80s man eating superdyke that should be both respected and feared. I enjoy this title and its benefits greatly; it keeps those who even have the subtlest inkling to hit on me at least ten paces from my person at all times. Unfortunately this hasn't proven effective for the ninTEEN year old babylala mexican OR the Torontonian engineer in my french class. bleh.
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16 nov 2007
losing my shit
Humeur actuelle : réfléchi
Catégorie : Life
both figuratively and literally.
figuratively: I am beyond psyched with anticipation for FRIENDLY MANITOBA The warm embraces, meaningful conversations, the sharing of food and drink, the bad kareoke, the laughter. I. Can't. Wait. Only ten until I am basking in the company of those I love & miss. I await all the familliar places. & the people! All the ones who wandered so seamlessly in and out of my existance a mere three-months ago. The ones I would kill to bump into on these busy streets where I am still a stranger. When it was penned that 'absence makes the heart grow fonder,' the author knew what was up. These six words can hardly sum the effects of time and distance: it will ravage & change a heart - toughen it up some. It is very telling of a friendship, though this is multi faceted. Example: if you are so lucky as to have a friend comfortable enough, the voids are seamless upon a reunion: you can pick up a conversation as if you had just left it hanging in mid-sentence. You can still finish eachothers jokes. You can be brutal as heck or you can find easy contemplation in those moments where it is silent, but you are comfortable. I am lucky to have a couple bests to session this type of friendship with upon my return & this makes me quake with excpectation. --- --- --- --- --- On the other hand, if you leave suddenly sometimes things are just left unspoken & unresolved and you come back not knowing what to expect at all. How is it going to be? Can you ever really predict this? I am the type of person who is most terrible with that first moment: I always teeter dangerously between composure and instinct and cannot fucking find a way to still my hands. I am ill at ease when I have things hanging in the air, ready to fall. Perhaps they will remain undiffused. Perhaps time & space has rendered them indifferent. Time will tell. (I sort of wish that the aforementioned proverb read "stronger" rather than "fonder")---- ---- ---- I hope that at this point in the game the general tone & unwavering authorial voice has suspended the disbelief to a point where I can summon a third hand. SOMETIMES people are flat out abandoned in the wake of time & distance. Sometimes you realize that your life was unexplicably brimming with the 'myspace' variety of friends; people you barely even know or talk to in real life. & it is as easy as ever to just cut them out. trim the fat. it's difficult enough to distribute my correspondences as evenly as I should, never mind the people who provide me turmoil or artifical kinship... but anyways, REGARDLESS what categorized relationship you fall under: If you are reading this & are from wpg, come to monday madness kareoke on november 26th. I figure 8ish at the deuce. 10ish at hooligans. it is going to be a gooood time, IF ONLY because I have been practising my kareoke amongst the drag queens down ste cat..
literally: I am world weary about losing my shit. Last week I lost my wallet (10$ cash, 17$ Subway gift certificate, MB Drivers License, SIN, UW Student card & vintage clutch that gave me a second chance in NYC... ) This week? My cell phone. argh. There is no way that I am upgrading to a fucking blackberry and adding an extra year onto my contract: I would simply rather ride out my last 10 months of the plan paying 25$ on the dot for nothing at all than be that important looking. hah. But seriously, if someone has a working shell of a phone that they could donate to the "laura shouldn't be allowed to have valuables" cause, I would greatly appreciate it. (It would especially make my day if it was of the Zach Morris variety; fuck the razrs or iphones or whatever is happening these days...) Tonight I stood outside the little danny depanneur that lies kiddie corner to my apartment and in the wintery air I talked with my mother, who was wino'd with my dad after a night of celebrating her new job. She warned me that these events always happen in three & to expect to lose something else. I have been tapping on every other wooden object I can get a knuckle to; I hope whatever it is it is small & insignificant... what else is left to lose?
sanity.
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14 nov 2007
sous.
Humeur actuelle : ivre
does this mean drunk in french? who knows? I am. Currently. In the present tense. & I will lay blame for this consequence on the following people (apres moi-meme) :
1) my roommate pascale, who convinced me that "la classe francaise est trop bebe-lala pour moi. je sais passe compose!! pff!! fuck off le classe francaise pour ce soir parese que j'aimerant le bois et je SAIS passe compose."
2) the people at the bar three corners to my west who did the winnipeg chant.
3) faculty of design exhibit opening/open bar at UQAM.
I have been swimming in the midst of UQAM tonight. Students of the arts, of design, Faculty, parents of students, art enthusiasts, hipsters, free beer enthusiasts, & design snobs. All adorning little red squares in solidarity. (How many commas does one need when they are writing sloshed? many. How many students got arrested in the last two days? 106.) There were a bunch of people, all aesthetically pleasing and politically aclimatized. I am fucking in love with Quebec. At one point I could not find anyone familliar, though. So I walked home & now it is ten pm and I am drunk & do not know what to do with myself so I sat down to pen some words about why I am drunk...
I should have been in class though. I am feeling a little bit of guilt. They still have twenty minutes left to learn passe compose & here I am, sloshed & writing a fucking myspace bulletin. It is probably best this way - if only because I am about to make grilled cheese. fin.
10 nov 2007
chester molester confirmed
Humeur actuelle : exalté
Catégorie : Life
ooooh oooooh ooooohh. juicy news.
okay not; perhaps that statement is a tad hyperbolic. In all actuality this 'news' is not real news at all & the only juice is man-juice. It qualifies as slander if I were ever to try to voice it in an established publication, but I got a confirmation beyond a doubt that the dirty-old-man status of ceo DC is legit. Found a model, a friend of a friend, who confessed that he went STRAIGHT into the bathroom to masturbate post photo op after she enthusiastically declined an invitation to join him. It IS a cheesie seventies soft porn regime afterall! I have not a clue why this little ditty gives me the personal satisfation that it does, or why I house such resentment that this man has found the secret to geting blowjobs 'til his golden years. I know that I should be a little more disenheartened an 'ethical' company merely deters its subject of oppression from labourer to woman; and yet, I'm not disenchanted that the gleaming sweatshop free no logo icon has been dulled in lieu of a utilitarian sex empire. I'm desensitized & I expected it; the world is full of bastard sons. I was happy to have this whole thing leave my consciousness and my nerves in shipping its fate off to thesexreporter, but have since found it's not that easy; these things stick to your consciousness.
I was talking to a good friend about advertising last night and he is the first person in the world who has ever accused me of being dark. Usually I am hatcheted by 'miserable lies' et al for being so god damn optimistic, so this comment surprised me. Perhaps I've changed dramatically in nature since I have been here. Or perhaps he doesn't know me at all. Today is my third month anniversary, speaking of time, and I have been unusually reflective. I tend not to 'do' anniversaries. I have nothing of longevity in my life that would warrant this type of consciousness, or fall within the quotation marks of title. The idea of being gone for three months puts a stupid smile to my face; it feels like something. A small victory. I went to a surprise 40th birthdy party recently that has reminded me how important it is to celebrate the passing of time, so I'm gonna. Happy three month to me. Time to keep going...
08 nov 2007
insomnia
Humeur actuelle : ringard
One of the strange bitterness of being sleepless is that no matter how you try to still your racing mind it is always just a step in front of you; teasing you with a backwards glance and a wry smile. A professor told me once that those who have trouble sleeping are usually brilliant, but that this brilliance is often mixed with madness; A cocktail. I have yet to determine if I am foolish or inspired. Perhaps a part of this madness stems from the fact that I would simply love to have someone to talk to. Candidly and fully clothed. How good it would be to get a second opinion about the things that are rolling about in my head. But when a bed is empty and a person is orphaned there is nothing but the pen and the endless hours of night. And so I remain awake. For what? The fufillment of an addiction to language. It is not a question of why but always a question of who. It is always a matter of audience. I wonder what type of person I would become if my clock were set in the inverse. I might adore to be one of those who is asleep by ten to wake up for eight, filling each hour of the day with something productive, meaningful and normal. Pages and pages of unread secrecy are none of these things; It is either brilliance or madness. & I put my money on the latter.
07 nov 2007
By Larry Beth Beeston
Humeur actuelle : en éveil
A friend of mine recently confessed that his Thursday night ritual consists of Jacking-off to amateur tube sock fantasies made possible by the weekly American Apparel advertisements that adorn the back page of The Mirror. The laughter that followed this admission was the type that turned heads in the restaurant, and from here we merrily bitched for hours, the overabundance of debatable AA topics are endless it seems:
Was his freaky conduct simply a natural outcome of good amateur pornography, or was he flirting with under-age perversion? Are the fetish-riddled, obviously un-candid shots of 'real' women (teens?) sexual liberty, or simply a minimalist, 100% cotton version of the standard sex-imagery that is everywhere else in advertising? Is there a reason that the number of Apparel clad 'hipsters' (teens?) walking down St. Cat on a Friday night is about on par with the number of sex clubs featured there? And where the heck is the pluralism of sexuality in the content of AA's advertising, if they are truly the uniform of the neo-sexual revolution as they claim? Are us 'twentysomethings' really innovative for finally stripping away the logo and buying into the 'ethics' of AA production or are we simply still just stripping?
Though the conversation concluded with the raise of a glass to the hipster, each glimpse of a pair of colourful cotton leggings or one of 'those' hoodies that proliferate on the streets of Montreal incite a vain attempt on my part to understand how and why a "vertically integrated' t-shirt company has become the sex du jour of the Myspace generation. I partly blame my hyper-awareness to the American A-porno liaison on having recently moved from a city that can neither boast an Apparel store of its own (yet…) nor the renowned sexual culture unique to la belle province. For the most part, I find the visual media built around the two enterprises predictable, blatant and unambiguous. (Buy sex. Buy socks) & though it is possible to contend for all eternity whether or not these images are trivial, empowering or degrading, a magnitude of online reports, forums and You Tube videos are already dedicated to this so I won't even GO there...
When it comes down to it, it would be a novel change of pace should an entrepreneur somehow find ethical success without utilizing the lowest-common-denominator, sex sells gimmick that becomes an easy pandemic when catering to the masses, but the truth remains that brands are ceaselessly competing with porn, which is the mother of all media categories in terms of profit...
The American Apparel advertisements have specifically seen a bewildering level of acknowledgement for their content, perhaps more than it deserves, considering that flesh STILL sells. Regardless, the sexual and social iconography surrounding youth in these images is a phenomenon greater than merely spandex-on-parade. There is submissive mythology and power negotiation at play here: at the moment, the manifestation of capitalism is masquerading as the aesthetic of the ethical, urban hipster. This image is the center of American Apparel's attention, and perhaps I wouldn't mind so much, if only CEO Dov Charney would quit proclaiming that it is the stuff revolution is made of. Throw enough sex in my face and my curiosity to check out a store (or initiate a Thursday night ritual!!) may get the better of me; but it requires more substance than nipples and legs for me to be convinced that the counter-hegemonic youth revolution is going to be lead by a 40-year-old, 'hyper-capitalist-socialist' CEO with a "Chester Molester" reputation. It is one thing to profit from the self interest of this demagogue and completely another to decree that the Boomer confederacy is about to be usurped by a bunch of kids satisfying their freedom of nasty in the fifty-fifty blend.
Besides, the legitimately progressive, culturally attuned 'twentlysomethings' are all fatigued by what has quickly become little more than an overexposed trend already!
It could be that perhaps we are all well beyond desensitized by our porn-saturated culture to be shocked anymore. Or perhaps we are too busy with school, making our own art or clothing, creating 'zines, or attending critical mass to be bothered with a brand that's "not a brand." (wink.) Perhaps we recognize that the true faces of our consumer power, individuality, and sexuality - opting to buy local, remain self-styled, and find pluralistic avenues to express our kink as we go - cannot find its summation in a TSHIRT COMPANY.
Actuellement Je regarde :
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Date de publication : 17 November, 1998
2 oct 2007
The Appeal of the Apparel
Humeur actuelle : curieux
Catégorie : News and Politics
Friends and Otherwise,
Let me state -on record- that I am over anybody who attempts to create a romantic relationship with me using the tools of Myspace or Facebook. This includes wanting me to fall in love with your band. Basically, I find these two units of enterprise pretty petty as far as creating meaningful relationships go, and athough I am relatively impressed with the prominant marks the aforementioned have made on our 'socio-sexual-technological' culture, I will never relent the their utility past the tender age of thirty. (I hope?!?) So no, Bachelor No. 1, the wrinkled, salt and pepper dashing "Communications Concordia Graduate," (wink) who asked me what shocker symbol stood for at my printing job, I do not have Facebook. Nor should you. And no, Bachelor No. 2; the 54 year old using Myspace to become Prime Minister, you only have 29 friends including Tom on your space, bro. I was wary of your political sentiments after taking about TWO SECONDS to confirm that all the rest of them were underage & have voluntarily posted compromising photos of themselves as their profile pic... bleh.
Secondly. I have a deadline. And although I would loooooove nothing more than laze about in parc la fontaine in shorts and a tshirt & enjoy the plus 15 weather & write sans entraves, I need to figure out the inexplicable link between sexuality and American Apparel.... So please, if somebody knows shoot me a comment or something....
The rant/rave that is to follow was motivated on two counts:
No. 1 - a close friend of mine recently admitting to have jacked-off to an American Apparel advertisement he found on the back page of The Mirror (I'll never tell) AND I happen to need a topic for this job I am trying to land.
No. 2 - Winnipeg.
Seriously, lets start a revolution. Refuse. Put up a sign. Keep Osborne fucking LOCAL or something? Starbucks was bad enough. It is bitter irony that an actual "indie" (sorry mike b.) night is dead and dancing on its grave like a sonofabitch is a fucking chain STORE who wants to sell its shit to the kids so they can look cool when they dance. I predict that this STORE is going to go the way of Old Navy and American Eagle. Once its en masse it loses its appeal and only the kids from St. James dig it. Winnipeg needs stuff for SURE, but not that stuff. & Now we need a place to fuckin' dance.
------------Anyways, I am forever interested in the exploration of myth, sexual and otherwise. I am sort of intrigued with the idea of the contemporary north american youth generation being summed up in the archetype of the 'hipster'. According to Business Week, Chester Molester AA CEO Dov Charney claims that he is "connecting with an emerging youth movement, an underground network of urban hipsters (!!) from Brooklyn to Berlin. They surf the Internet for gossip and fashion trends and race to get copies of gritty(!!) lifestyle magazines named Vice and Purple. These twentysomething consumers don't mind being marketed to as long as the images look real, unvarnished, and match their own casual attitudes toward sex. (!!!??!) (http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_26/b3939108_mz017.htm)
The underground youth movement? American Apparel? I don't see the connection at all.
Last time I checked, we were all BITCHING how AA is overexposed & how all we ever see is annoying TEENS spending their parents money decked out in an labour ethical AA spandex cotton blend. Oh, but yeah, those 12 year olds model for the company.
& LIKE we're going to wear American Apparel for the revolution!! When we usurp the baby boomers I highly doubt that camo will be replaced with the fifty-fifty blend and golden spandex leggings!! Most of us don't vote, Kyoto is dead, Harper is a puppet and the Americans want our water. Fuck. If the hipster revolution could step up soon I'd really appreciate it.
I guess I am disappointed becase I was expecting something else.
The leggy, breasty, and clearly not 'candid' shots of barely legal women are simply the minimalist, "no-logo," 100% cotton version of the standard, sex-sells imagery that is everywhere else. boring. & definately capitalism's insecure consumer bullshit. Our bodies are still battlegrounds, apparently.
BUT BACK TO THE POINT:
I neeeeeeeeed feedback/insight/popular opinion/rant of the masses for this story I am writing. Basically, if my editors like me they will let me write for real, which gets me so excited that I need to blow into a paper bag.
If you have five seconds, answer me the following:
(I AM NOT A CORPORATION I AM JUST CURIOUS )
- Is it politically important to you that your clothing be sweatshop free? Do you think that AA is innovative for their campaign of resistance against labour inequalities, and is this a conscious factor for you in your purchases of AA merch or otherwise?
- Do you agree that the highly controversial ad campaigne is reflective of our generations 'casual' attitude towards sexuality? Is it even right to claim that contemporary sex is 'casual', considering the AIDS epidemic, soaring teen preggo & sti rates etc etc etc?
-Does it bother you that all the nubile, slightly compromised young men pale in numbers compared to their female counterparts (67:7 for the ladies on the website)? And WHERE are the queers, honestly? Those two Lwords kissing don't count.
- Does it trouble you that you, as a person are out to be branded at all times by one product or another? Is it right that Dov Charney thinks that our generation doesn't mind that we are being marketed to, as long as we look good? Are we REALLY that shallow & lack identity?
And finally, Are we really stripping away the logos or are we still just stripping?
So thats it. Thanks a billion if you took a minute to even read this, honestly. & any thoughts on the subject from anyone who has anything to say about it would be so savvy & appreciate
08 oct 2007
For those of you who know....
Humeur actuelle : je ne tiens pas en place
Catégorie : Blogging
Know that I am quasi pop culturally inept and as such my film repertoire is minimal, at best…
Mais, après gloating about le meteo et le plus vingt six, il pluet.
So. I have done the unthinkable & made friendly with the couch.
Tonight Pascale & I watched loads of French CBC followed by a movie called "Sleeping Dogs Lie". Originally, I chalked this film up as flaky from the get-go. The premise seemed a bit off, but I have to say it really came out strong in the end. I am FULLY going to disclose the epic secret that makes this film so scandalous (then again it's basically written on the back of the box), but the jist of the story is that the protagonist blows off a dog somewhere in her junior year at college and the rumor is confessed (admitted by the protagonist to her boyfriend & overheard by her troubled younger brother & revealed to her family over breakfast. Crazy? Yes.). Aaanyways. The plot basically deals with the age-old adage about being 'totally honest' with your partner about your sexual past & I like this enigma. I felt it explored truthfulness and sexual taboo brilliantly. Should everything be on the table in a sexual relationship? Does love really see through all dirty little secrets?
If the plot doesn't grab you, know that the acting was marvelous (the meth-addicted brother was flawless) & the camera shots were charmingly poignant and always accentuated the dramatic or comedic undercurrents of the design. I am also of the belief that the best movies are the ones that you can envision as having been in the live theatre first. In my amateur opinion this quality is what gives films the most sincerity, which "Sleeping Dogs Lie" has in spades.
In conclusion, Laura Beeston recommends this movie. Two thumbs north.
In other news, the fucking Saxon Genitive can fuck itself. Seriously. French is going to kill me, especially because I am currently teaching myself from an archaic self-instructional livre published in 1938. "Tu" is not "you" in this edition, it is "thy."
I have done five chapters and all exercises from these chapters. Basically they have a section in French that you have to translate to English, followed by a section in English you have to translate into French.
Everything was going fine until I reached Exercise 5b.
Basically this bitch of a self-assignment is about possessives and past tense and I shouldn't have taken it lightly when the beginning of the lesson warned that I "must be continually on your guard in translating it."
Also, the gendering of every word is ridiculous. That is on the record. I'm with Simone de Beauvoir on this one, we need to recreate language, if only so I personally can grab a hold of French syntax & make it stick to my tongue. THOUGH I have to admit I was pleased to discover that beard (la barbe) and la moustache are feminine… the (man)ifesto continues…
What it all comes down to is the difference between le roi qui aime les soldats and le roi qu'aiment les soldats. Fuck me.
I also am keen on the fact that I now know the past tense of love…
this is important.
But back to the books... a bientot!
02 oct 2007
Sheltered Life...
Humeur actuelle : speculative.
Catégorie : speculative. Life
Brave girl replies, "When you come back, I'll be gone."
Read off her rules: When in control I move on.
Thoughtful or sad? No need to ask.
You in her eyes a sister someone
who's been where she's roaming now.
Flashes of home & people there.
Pressured, caught up she feels measured all up & revealed.
I still haven't walked my distance; I'm not ready to return.
I still haven't walked my distance; I'm not ready to return.
Independent
on my way
to become I.
Sunday. No sign. Why did I make you meet me here?
No cause for doubt, but feeling sustains when mix up clears.
Easy and loose, unsure, confused.
It doesn't take much to knock me. I've been living a sheltered life...
Independent
on my way
to become I.
New York City
Humeur actuelle : empreint de gratitude
Catégorie : Travel and Places
So this is what happened:
Initially I could not invest in the sensory overload. Colours, moving & still. Honks of horns, blatant advertisement, constant hustle, lights and sounds. Transfixed by this stimulation sat Janelle & I, bags in hands & jaw upon the floor. Struck with awe & looking up & realizing that we are being dwarfed by the height of the place and stilled by the motion of it. It was a tempo and a world of its very own. New York City, New York. We picked a seat from the fleet of golden cabs & we got to the hostel. Janelle paid the cab fare. I was en reverie. Like a sponge. All the way to the hostel.
We had read online previously that week that Central Park Hostel was located in the Upper West side of NYC, on a Harlem block that also happened to house the Projects. Upon this realization, Janelle & I absolutely seizured with laughter (and fear?) for we have all heard the myth of Harlem, and the gangster reputation it boasts - ditto for project housing. Going into it, I hadn't a clue what to expect because all I knew were these legends & soul, but I am glad we took a cab to get there because I would not have been able to navigate in my state of culture shock at Penn Station.
When we did get there we were sort of put out by the shittiness of it, but sort of prepared considering the comments that we had read on hostel dot com and the ridiculously modest price we were paying for a crash mat. (( But we only had to take one look at the kitchenette to decide not to bother with groceries & I am glad** I brought shoes I could wear in the shower, lets leave it at that.)) Although it was horrendously dirty and I woke up every morning to the sound of a pidgeon boning, I was taken by its quirky charms. Example: if you wanted to get into your room you had to have possession NOT ONLY of the proper key, but also of the individual lock/doorknob combination. Room 213 - Turn upper lock left once, turn lower knob right twice & pull towards you until you hear a click & then push & you're in. No big deal. Example two: the most hilarious art sale that I have ever seen. (checkdumonde) Example three: hostel management charisma. Long live "Akon" Andre & "gangster daddy" Carlos from the Bronx, who turned a blind eye to my theft of a travel book and answered all my stupidly naive questions after smoking me up.
Day one ended early in preparation for the following, which we knew would be start early, linger lengthily and include a lot of travel by foot...Armed with a single subway map and library travel material we headed to Ground Zero. It was the sixth year anniversary of September 11th, so we figured something would be happening in the bustle of the Financial District. After a glorious breakfast in NW Broadway at a little grill that was packed to the tits with personality, Janelle & I ventured into the underbelly of the apple for the very first time. Our root was the red line 1234, going south & we made it no problem. Looking back I think the straight-forwardness of this initial subway trip gave us a false sense of security in regards to our combined subway Intelligence Quotient, for the trip to follow took us straight to the ghettos in Brooklyn by our own dumb fault during a heavy downpour of rain… but I'll get to that in a minute…
--------------------------
It has to be said that, despite being as capitalist as it gets in North America, the Financial District of New York City is an architecturally awing and beautiful part of town. Tall buildings full of text and character, suits abounding, and little shops in every cranny. Despite its entire bustle, the haze and drizzle emphasized the melancholy & somber attitude that was expected in this particular place at this particular time. I was taken by the contrast: FDNY, Police & Military members in full uniform, tipping caps & taking thanks, while counter-CNN "Investigate 9/11" types chanted & held signs proclaiming that "this was an inside job". It was appealing to see people heatedly parlaying their politics on the streets amidst the rainfall & the readings of name after name after name… I may not know how I truly feel about this particular 'terrorist' attack, as there seems to be a lack of sufficient and accurate information regarding this contemporary event, but I DO know that New Yorkers are a breed of their own and I admire them. Long live the resilience, the rebirth & the growth of this city & fuck closed door governments & Freedom Towers being built on a mass grave…
--------
After our fair share of business & chaos & suits & culture & noise & traffic & smog & mourning & consciousness, we exodused ourselves to BROOKLYN instead of WILLIAMSBURG by aforementioned mistake. There was definately** a moment of complete panic, while the rain poured hard & we looked like sitting ducks in the ghetto with our cameras & travel maps... but J struck up a conversation with Ryan from New Jersey who ended up basically holding our hands all the way to where we wanted to thrift... If it wasn't for him I don't know what we would have done. Lack of orientation is a total bummer.
Beacons Closet (www.beaconscloset.com) is a phenomenon unto itself. I could have stayed in there for days, gingerly admiring the unique detailing of every vintage dress, trying on oversized sunglasses with skeleton arms or wishing that my monstrous finger-toed pieds could somehow fit into any of the shoes or boots that lined the walls. Janelle shopped 'til she dropped, and I was frugal in the truest sense of the word, having no job & fresh ink reminding me that need trumps want. What's funny is that I had the greatest financial scare of my life in this store, though I only spent 14 of my dollars investing into it. See, I left my wallet on the counter after admiring something or other and walked out the door, only to realize while trying to pay for lunch 10 blocks later that it was missing. I don't know how people lose their wallets for real, because I was going mental: American Travel $$, Visa, ID, Hostel Key, Camera, Passport. All. Gone. I hastily marched the streets of Williamsburg whispering "please" repeatedly under my breath, and when a stranger asked if I was okay I brushed past him & basically spat the word "NO" at his feet. It was very uncool. I was very stressed. When I got to Beacons, they looked around & said that they hadn't found anything that matched its description and I experienced another wave of nausea & panic & craze. I literally turned my famed red luggage bag on its head and sifted through its contents on the floor, not knowing what the fuck I was going to do. I think that the staff sensed my utter anxiety and the oncoming of tears, because they sort of pushed the manager in my general direction & gave me pitied looks. He asked me to describe my wallet again, & when I told him that there wasn't a bow on it but a ruche he laughed & went to a shelf & brought it to me! He thought it was merchandise & put it out for sale!! HA. I actually began crying in gratitude & luck & relief that some rando hadn't found it & realize it was full of prized possessions & stole my identity or something… On the walk back to Janelle, I whispered the word "thank you" repeatedly under my breath, & ended up bumping back into the boy that I was a super-cunt to & got to apologize. It was full circle karma.......
I promptly ordered myself a glass of wine and sat, not speaking to Janelle but putting the wallet between us and staring at it. We didn't even know what to do with ourselves in New York City. We were foreigners. We didn't belong. We had great luck, but it was always married with great misadventure. It was daunting. This city is fast, expansive, exciting, busy, boisterous, and full of personality. But we just didn't exist in it. It is kind of difficult to really explain, but its like you feel so enveloped in something that is striding past you, & so lose track of yourself as your own entity of activity because you are so bewildered & distracted by what is happening all around.
To remedy this motion sickness, we ended up buying ourselves a litre of red wine & going back to the Hostel to lie horizontal & still. I really think it says something that we wanted nothing more than to return to the dirtiest hostel EVER at nine pm instead of venturing into a city that never sleeps…
((I should really mention at this point in the post that New Yorkers are some of the kindest people you will ever come across. I entered this city with the vague notion that everyone hustles wearing blinders & are busily engrossed in the rat race of their consumer driven life, as a result failing to make human connections on a random or daily basis: but this could not be farther from the truth. It is just the opposite, in fact, for I have never* encountered such a plenty of courteous greetings, personalities, anecdotes, helpful suggestions or blatant chaperoning of strangers to thrift stores EVER. The Harlem elderly were even "God Blessing" J & I in the streets!! I heart New Yorkers, for serious, though I dislike most of America greatly.))
---- The third day started in leisure and a luxury gourmet buffet that was totally over the top. Three different kinds of breakfast tofu?! You had me at hello. Our only plan for the day was to go to Conan O'Brian because Janelle had somehow managed to score tickets? So we walked down Broadway / Times Square & ended up at Bryant Park where the Mercedez Benz fashion week was happening. Neither Janelle nor I had anticipated this being there, so when we stumbled upon it we were both a little bummed that we hadn't showered in three days & looked like wrinkled luggage. We ended up grabbing a coffee & sitting & people watching all the fashion whores & paparazzi & good kits that were mulling about the scene, & even though we were haggard as fuck & just bumming around about 10 photographers took our picture ((some while this **really** weird guy wearing camo and string "saved" us with air guitar zeppelin while talking (singing?) to us in tongues about love and beauty... Honestly, he was TOTALLY crazy & Janelle & I just sat there with our mouths hanging, not knowing how to even RESPOND to his utter utopia of madness…)) Anyways, after multiple blogs snapped at us we decided to venture to NBC studios …
Might I just say that NBC studios are something else… Seeing the taping of a show was pretty interesting, just because you got to see how certain aspects of a production of that grandeur go down & what people are like during commercial breaks etc etc etc. I'm glad it was free because I'm honestly not that huge of a celeb whore (or so I thought until Mr. BIG bumped into us in Chelsea!!?!) but we somehow snagged front row & it was sort cool to see the way-too-skinny-&-probably-coked-up Mary Kate Olson in the (meager) flesh & bone a few feet away I guess? & at certain points of the evening I could have ran my fingers through Conan's famed ginger follicles if I felt the undying urge, which is pretty random to be able to say you could have done? I don't know. It was fun & weird & now I have found myself experiencing a sort of kinky sick crush on Lyle Lovett, who was the musical guest & who caught my eye a couple of times during the commercial break & after in the foyer…
((What a daddy complex. Fuuuuuck. ))
Okay woah. This is totally long & dripping with too much information about complexes. It wasn't intentional; I just dislike telling the story over & over again because it bores me and I forget the details. I figured that I should spit it all out & share while the memories are hot in my mind and close to my heart. We did have two more days in NYC after these facts, but they weren't as crazy as the first two, despite being unique & amazing unto themselves. They consisted of wandering around & being engulfed. Of the man made beauty of Central Park. Of good conversations & insight from a Russian, Mexican & Brit. Of stimulation followed by slumber. Of multiple beers on the train ride home & crossing the border with a joint between my breasts. Of a happy return to de Maisonneuve, & rejuvenated love for the family within it. Of soaking feet & stilling mind. Of saying good bye to a best & recognizing wealth in experience…
But I should take my leave, I have a resume to polish….
- - -- - -- -
"J'aime: Essai sur l'expérience d'aimer"
- Yves Saint-Arnaud
Avant de prononcer lets mots j'aime, on doit devenir capable de dire je.
(You cannot be capable of love without understanding the concept of 'I'. )
Quelques aspects:
1. JE VIS: un langage très simple et ce qui guide son development personnel.
2. JE SUIS LIBRE: les diffèrents chemins de l'amour comme autant de chemins de liberation.
(C'est que j'ai appris pour l'instant)
- -- ---
the subject of this antidote does not exist in the proper french language.
--------------------------------------------------------------imadeitupinattemptofexplination.
this is the say of the day:
associations (thoughts, objects, words, gestures, expressions)
are often of the minds own making.
at least once daily I sit listening in an acute pensive posture.
my ears. my eyes. in disconnected understanding.
all you can look at is the body when you are at this specific loss.
a sidelong glance, a tightening of the jaw, awkward attempts to still the hands:
when you don't know the words, the silence is filled with other things.
---------------------------------------------thisiswhatilearnedtoday:
MANQUER - " to miss "
- manquer à : to miss someone
- tu me manques : I miss you
RIRE - " to laugh "
- c'est à mourir de rire : I just died laughing.
NOURITURE - the concept of 'food'
- se nourrir : nourishment.
HISTOIRE - " a story "
OTHER:
"la lotterie du la vie"
- it is the lottery of life. karma. chance. aligned stars. fortune.
- & an interesting note: both lottery (chance) & life are feminine concepts...
also: the greatest of them all: DE MAISONNEUVE - " new house " (my street)
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it is strange for me to be hesitant in speech.
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posted by Loco at
2:10 AM
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