A tip from the girl files for guys: at the beginning of any relationship, be it flirtation or more, we will toss up a challenge. It needn't be anything major, nothing like asking you to dive into a burning building or throw down your jacket over a puddle. Just a small test, that's all.
I had the perfect set-up: the phone message date. Theoretically, I could live my entire social life via telecommunications. My two closest friends live in other cities. Of course, having Liane here in Vancouver is infinitely more fun. But, when it comes to dating, nothing is more simple than the phone message. The Deep End, 7:40 showing at Fifth Avenue. Come if you can. Here is the list of things he could have done, in order of best to head-shakingly out of the ballpark:
1. The absolulely coolest thing a guy can do in this situation -- don't show up for the film, but be outside on the sidewalk when the crowd spills out for the walk-home. If it's a fall night like tonight (perfect temperature, stars), bring a scarf.
2. Show up for the film. Walk home is optional at this point, because you've made the effort.
3. Don't show up for the film. Call that night with apologies for (a) not receiving the message in time or (b) having alternate plans. You are allowed to have a life.
4. Don't show up for the film & don't call.
Right now, dear readers, we are hovering between 3 & 4. Okay, okay, he hasn't called, but...alright, you're right. See, this is why I don't date. And trust me, I didn't just make up this "test" thing, it's more old school than Rakim. So I hope at least those of you who are male can learn from his mistake. Remember: be outside when the crowd spills out. Sigh.
It had been months since I'd sat in the Irish Heather with David Caffrey...that night was punctuated with meeting Irish producer extraordinaire Nik Powell, then later by the infamous double-headed Hydra. Ahem.
Caffo has the ability to tell a story that is one part truth, fifteen parts bollocks, but which inevitably unites nations in his delivery. Over here , Liane gets the night bang-on. Grips...what would we do without the grips? In a reverse on Canadian thuggery, just when it looks as though Scots and Micks will come to blows over Rangers vs. Celtics, one calls the other a cunt, and everything washes over with the clinking of pint glasses and mutual disgust for the shite Canadian waitress who had the nerve to interrupt an Irishman mid-joke to settle the tab. Jaysus fookin' chreest!
And today, the gorgeous accents and the gaffer who would be Bill Clinton are off to Ladysmith to shoot a beer commercial, a "hockumentary" (™Geoff Burgess) about mullets. The hair, not the fish, though apparently much fishing is scheduled for the next few days.
On a completely different note, other deep-woods survival skills were called upon this morning. Lecky gets a cookie from the pet store on Sunday mornings, and he struts home proudly, massive biscuit in mouth, his only focus the cookie, his only thought hiding the cookie in his bed at home. As we passed the outdoor pool, now fall-quiet and topped with leaves, a crow dive-bombed the Leck. And again. And again. Leck remained oblivious. The crow and I had words, and I won. For the moment. I'm now afraid to step outside lest some sort of Hitchcockian shredding awaits.
Yesterday was a good day on every level. Well, there could have been less oil on the edamame, okay, there should have been no oil on the edamame, but if this is my greatest complaint of yesterday, then I suppose I'm doing alright. My first Mimi script went to voice record, and the brass were crazy forthcoming with backpats and general feel-goodisms. I ate an english muffin with cream cheese and jam, eased onto the leather couch of the sound studio, and listened to the familiar voices of this show read my words. Broadway, it was not. Still, it was one of those rare "I made that" moments. Oh, and I got paid for the script yesterday as well, which also marked the first time that I've deposited a cheque and had the bank only clear half because they have to verify the deposit due to its amount. How cool is that?
Then there were the celebratory drinks after work. Later, much later, as Rob watched Lone Wolf and Child in the living room, and while I returned Nicky's call on the balcony, Jordan picked a handful of herbs and for me to smell, one by one, thyme and basil and rosemary, his hands fast becoming a bouquet of garden bounty.
I dreamt of housesitting in White Rock, an old stone mansion with butterflies in the atrium, and how everyone was surprised that I had so taken to this house because I'm the master of the bivouac lifestyle, and how much belonging I felt within its walls.
It's that time of the year again. Film Festival time. Only this year, I don't have to schmooze! It's no longer part of my job to press the flesh, drive for the script, flirt when necessary, etc. (I never achieved the LA lifestyle of the D-girl here, thankfully). And so at the opening gala last night at the aquarium, with jetset Liane as the best damn date a girl could ask for, I had fun at a film party for the first time in years. It didn't even occur to me to bring business cards. I feel cleansed and strangely reborn, and any flirting I get in is now refreshingly sincere.
In addition, I'd like to point out some two-pint observations about the Vancouver Aquarium:
1. What are Belugas made of?
2. It's not fair that all the homely fish have been corralled into one tank in the Rainforest Room, unless this was just the "ugly fish" weekly support group meeting. I say spread the ugliness around some.
3. Touching tanks and drunk people = never a good mix.
4. I hope the little moth who blended so nicely with the seabed-motif painted floor was able to make it out of there alive.
5. Big drag queens are a welcome addition to any occasion.
Small thing (not falling apart): Source pages. Okay, I'll admit to being curious. It began as a place to learn HTML secrets, but then I found that they're also often a rug under which ya'll sweep your in-jokes and secrets. Want to know why Stewart no longer blogs at Sylloge? The answer is right there. Or what Fireland Joshua thinks of us source page snoops? Or what Tremble Todd has in store for us all? That said, I'll now admit to being self-conscious about mentioning the whole source page thing, because my source page, like my closet floor, is a mess of dirty laundry.
This whole Cuba idea now seems to get better and better. Word on the street is airline prices are dropping, and I've heard of travel agents in Toronto selling return tickets for $149 CDN. That's about $12.95 US. I have yet to find this same deal in Vancouver, however, but my inner-miser is pleased with the Toronto news.
Also, I've received good advice from the postings board at the Lonely Planet website. The website itself is just a teaser for their books, but the postings board is truly helpful, and updated with new stuff daily. See for yourself what folks had to say about my line of inquiry (blonde, female, alone = good or bad idea).
Co-worker: So, do you like him or do you 'like him' like him?
Me: I dunno (kicking at the non-existent dirt).
Co-worker: He's been hovering.
Me: No he hasn't. That's not hovering, that's normal.
Co-worker: That's hovering.
Me: Really? Cool.
Chalk one up to HBO logic: who needs a man when you have electronics? Get your mind out of the gutter.
My back feels so much better, thanks. Oh, and in case that doesn't work and you're still in search of a man, check out the latest schlock from Fox. My guess is that the European prince is from the Balkans and looking for easy US citizenship, and that he typed the show synopsis himself ("ypung"? "Eurpoean"?).
This has been a strange weekend, I've been all out of sorts. Friday felt like a dopey dream -- voice record kept screwing up, the machinery was fighting back. Friday night, my aunt died. She'd been fighting cancer for some time. I didn't know her well (she was my uncle Herman's second wife), we didn't have much opportunity to spend time with each other. I was always impressed by her sense of inner peace, and the love she had for my uncle. All of my uncles have been blessed with extraordinary second wives. Saturday morning was spent in frustration with my mother over a loaf of bread. Of course it goes much further than this, but it felt petty to be frustrated with her, and I spent the late morning wandering shoe departments throughout downtown. When a particularly cute sales agent at Brown's praised my Chinatown socks, I got all shy and tried to shrink away. He even showed me his socks in comparison, and where the normal-me would have upped the ante and flirted a little, the Saturday-me blushed and fled.
I'm not partaking in debates or discussions about the Current Situation. I listen, and prompt the conversation. It's not that I don't have any opinions (the orifice adage holds true), I just feel overwhelmed by the possibility of what may still happen, and so I'm watching, and waiting.
Liane has managed to battle her HTML demons and revamp her blog! Hurrah! I will opine that it looks swell.
Above and beyond the regular stuff, a couple of news items that are rather disconcerting:
* "CNN's Nic Robertson was asked to leave Afghanistan by the ruling Taliban, who said they could not guarantee his safety if the United States attacks." I'll admit I was impressed with his resolve to remain in Afghanistan this long, but after the blitzkreig of media coverage over the last week, the possibility of a press blackout from inside Afghanistan seems so wrong.
Tobias and Jared played pool in the lounge next to my office as they have every day since I started here. It's the marker of 3 o'clock. Paperwork has resumed, one of my co-workers still sucks, helicopters are touching down by the harbour outside, and the junkies are still shooting up in the alley below my window. That, unfortunately, will not change for anything; did not pause for a moment over the last week.
It occurred to me this morning, as I sifted through Sunday's pile of clean clothes that, despite my attempts to be an adult I still have an aversion to hangers, and moreover that I had selected an odd shirt from the pile to wear today. This isn't a great shirt, not one of those purchases that you thank yourself for years after the fact. It was more like this: my mom and I crossed the border to Bellingham, and we were there, and there was nothing I felt like buying, yet we had made the effort, and so I bought this shirt. It's a sleeveless black number, airbrushed with the skyline of NYC. The old skyline.
I laid the shirt out on my bed and phoned my mom as a touchstone of good taste. No answer. I tried her cellphone. Nope. I decided to wear the shirt, and a sweater, and I've rarely taken the sweater off all day even though my office is sweltering with all the new folks crammed into here.
This is not at all what I intended to write about. What I wanted to say was this:
After lunch, I was walking back to the office with Alia, our bellies full of Pho and overly-sweet lemonade. There's this little shopfront on Main, just this side of the warzone, across from the law courts. I've passed this building hundreds of times, and had always assumed it was a make-shift apartment because the window display of an origami mobile and chinese lantern were along the lines of the window displays created by the filmmakers and artists who dare to live in the old shops in this neighbourhood. Like Katherine at the Red Door with the "School of Hypnosis" sign in her storefront window, or Eric at the foot of Main.
Today, though, the chinese lantern was on, and a white sandwich board reading "OPEN" in scrawled letters posed outside the door, which was solid wood and snugly shut, and which I had to jog with my hip to get it to open. Inside: a menagerie of origami mobiles made of old magazines -- rabbit heads and white cranes, tiny paper boxes and flowers cut from children's picture books. I'm not doing this justice. The mobiles hung low from the ceiling, and in every conceivable square inch of space overhead, there was a paper rabbit's head, or lotus flower, or slow-spinning pinwheels dimly lit by a few chinese lanterns burning in remote corners.
There are moments that are overwhelmingly sad, and then there are simple moments that make you grateful to be alive.
* Angus is safe and accounted for. This much I knew already as there had been rumours of him enjoying drinks at the Toronto Film Festival. What I didn't know until receiving his email this afternoon was that, on the morning of the 11th, he witnessed the second plane hit from his rooftop.
* I am now one degree of separation from Ayaz in Texas.
* Our entire company converged on the lounge for communal pizza lunch to celebrate the return of 4 co-workers who were staying by Madison Square on Tuesday morning.
* Non-sequitor: this blog is a bit schizophrenic, no? I mean, the url references "underwire"; the blog is called "things fall apart", and my email address is pop3tart. Should I consolidate? Or is the mishmash okay?
* I've been told I can take a week off in October. A week. This is not enough time to undertake much in the way of long-distance travel. (Terrorists be damned, if I want to fly, I'll fly.) I'm thinking Cuba. Or Montreal (the old standard). Then, just as I was settling on thoughts of Cuba, I get word that it may all be a pipedream because I'm needed in the office. Huh? This both warms my heart and makes me chuckle with confusion.
An indication of the hours I've spent watching the coverage:
Conversations overheard at the Fringe lounge this evening:
Guy #1: I'll have a pint of bin Laden and a taliban and soda, please.
Girl #1: Wow, did you see the size of his jihad?
Girl #2: I know, such a shame because his girlfriend is a real fatwa.
Ballad of the Concert "T"
(not remotely related to anything of importance, but in reference to the fact that I haven't gone the way of the concert "t" for almost a decade)
A concert "t" at the age of 32
It was a brilliant musical show
Singing lines in a hall that was too well known
Singing lines with a friend from Montreal
She took in the Belle & Sebastian show
But the hipsters all sat down
When the back row shouted loud
And she grinned and tapped the beat
Out of synch, much-needed break from t.v.
She saw this band at the age of 32
It was a brilliant ticket purchase
Getting paycheques to finance her concert merch
Sigur Ros next month at St. Andrews Church
She wears the clothes of a British band
But her co-worker has the same
So they’re planning out the game
Who will wear the "t" which day
Josh’s t-shirt day was today.
He bought that "t" at the age of 31
He sat five rows back to the left
Disgruntled girlfriend unhappy with their seats
Pulling the stance, refusing to dance, it's no wonder that
He was tired at work today
But wearing that concert "t"
With mid-finger profanity
The logo you could barely see
And you can tell by the way she looks she is happy and less glum
For her t-shirt size is youth medium.
And in the wake of it all, I can't stop thinking about my friend Ayaz, who is brown and Muslim and sensitive and living in (gulp) Texas. I have a desperate need to track him down and make sure he's okay, make sure that people are still being kind to him. Make sure he's not having the same sort of experience as Jish. Be kind.
Finally, the tears came while I was watching footage of a church service in Nunavut, where Amazing Grace was sung in Inuit, and the following clip of a choir singing John Lennon. "Imagine all the people..." and I can't.
I've only been to New York once. I was in a complicated relationship (things were falling apart) and hopped a bus to New York to clear my head. I wandered Manhattan like a sufi for three days, never speaking a word to anyone. I know I walked past the World Trade Center, but have little recollection of the buildings, other than "there they are". Something to be ticked off on a check-list of sorts. I wish I had taken the time to have a conversation, any conversation, with anyone.
You, yes you, can share in the thrill of making a film -- power vac your casting couch and get out your cravats. My pal David Frank Gomes has written a tremendous screenplay called aWake and he's planning on November 12 as the first day of principal photography. If you've ever tried to make a film in Canada, then you know that it has to be shot inside Pierre Burton's colon before it's considered "Canadian enough" for the funding agencies to get involved.
aWake transcends these confines. David is selling fifty $1000 shares to raise the financing to shoot the film on DV, and would be more than willing to send the script and production info to any interested parties. A limited company (Samadhi Productions Inc.) has been set up for the feature. David's entertainment lawyer Kim Roberts will handle issuing shares to all who participate along with a shareholders agreement.
Are you an interested party? You can contact David at frankfilms@telus.net
Puttin' Chimo to shame: On the front of culinary comfort, may I strongly recommend Nagez. You'll find it on the formerly seedy & recently gentrified end of Granville Street, still conveniently tucked between a sex shop specializing in flavoured lubes and a rocker t-shirt shop specializing in black t's with rubber "alien" worms non-convincingly bursting from the wearer's chest. For under ten bucks, you'll eat like a Polish king and be served by a nicer version of Anna Kournikova who has a soft spot for gimpy dogs and equally tiny skirts. Six perogies turn out to be the perfect counter to the absinthe hangover.
Last night was my first experience with the green fairy (not as bitter tasting as expected) and I'll admit that things got messy. Not while I was awake and on Granville Island: I was fully aware of the fact that there were rats running underfoot and that I briefly made out with Mark at the request of others who couldn't believe we'd never kissed before. Fine, fine.
It was when I fell asleep...oh, the dreams. All that sticks with me now after having walked around the block was that I was in a large arena with plush seats. I have no idea what the spectacle was on the stage, but I ended up sitting with this group of Japanese girls because one grabbed my shirt sleeve as I passed and asked me to sit. She then demanded in a passive-aggressive way that we be friends, and continued with the explanation that she was in the Donny Osmond Fan Club. I asked if she was in it for kitsch value or in all sincerity, and all the girls whipped out pencils and paper and asked me how to spell this "kitsch" and what did it mean. Being the useless ESL teacher that I am, I couldn't find a simple way of explaining kitsch.
And let's not forget the dream about the rat that peed in my mouth. Ah, absinthe. When I awoke, I wanted nothing more than to fall back asleep in the hammock in the yard, but I don't have a hammock in the yard. This is the plan for the day, then: investigate installing a hammock.
Hmmm..I feel sorta guilty that, while some folks are getting stuck to by The Man, I'm getting the great "we'd like it if you stayed on" proposition. On the one hand, I'm thrilled.
On the other hand, I really need some time off. Picture this: Montreal for a couple of days to stabilize the smoked meat content in my system; then to New York to hook up with Liane where we'll rent a beater and drive to Vegas to join in the debauchery as our miscellaneous department pal Oz ties the knot.
Does yesterday's entry seem okay to you? Then you must be on Explorer. It seemed fine last night when I was at home, and looks purdy right now on the edit page, but for some reason, Netscape wants to breed the image with the text. Imagine the pomo beast born of that coupling?!?! If anyone has any suggestions as to the error in my coding so I might dismantle that garbage, I'd appreciate the help. Otherwise, I'm going to have to put the garden hose on those two.
(Isn't it great that pomo and porno look so much alike in print?)
I'm glad Al Gore created this internet thing because without it I wouldn't have been introduced to the below work by Miranda Lichtenstein by Caterina of caterina.net, who had given me props on the three-day novel (further below) and in doing so, introduced my work to someone else, namely Miranda. I'm dizzy with it all. So, Miranda's art is about feral children -- her Sanctuary for a Wild Child is currently at the Whitney. Not only is the appendix to my three-day novel a faux study of a wolf child named Arlou, but I also dropped reference to the painter Lichtenstein. Mere coincidence or kismet?
Props! And many thanks in return. Everyone should write a three-day novel, or make a 48-hour film, or run a marathon at least once in their lives. One down...
Families: the great crapshoot into which we are born.
Sometimes an opal, more often an albatross. Always an axis of sorts. Some are not seen often enough, like my cousin Ronnie who runs the farm in Leroy, fixed my car window in a cloud of mosquitoes and gave me a hard time about my strange friends Golda and Dylan and the fact that they had never touched a red barn before. Others, who share DNA and blood type but little else.
Today is my niece's birthday. Happy birthday Ashleigh.
There are other family situations playing out in the background like a Rockwell painting gone horribly wrong.
Ah, towards the end of Day Three: I'm pretty much done. Wow. Didn't get the page count I was hoping for, but then I got all the elements in that needed to go in. I can't concentrate...I lie there. I was able to concentrate fully on the pattern of the carpet in the arrivals area of the airport when I went to pick up my mother two hours ago. I shouldn't have been driving. I'll continue adding bits and pieces until midnight, just because I can and I'll regret not doing so at 9 am tomorrow when I open my file to print the manuscript off.
What I wanted was to write like my old crush Jonathan Goldstein -- here's a small excerpt from "Lenny Bruce is Dead": Everyone runs around trying to find a place where they still serve breakfast because breakfast, even if it's five o'clock in the afternoon, is a sign that the day has just begun and good things can still happen. Having lunch is like throwing in the towel.
I have a sudden craving for scrambled eggs.
(Note: I had the crush on him.)
Top of Day Three: 11:00 am. Slacker. But like a three-day fast, the third day is always the easiest because you know it's the last. You start envisioning the things you will eat tomorrow, salivating for the foodstuffs you have denied yourself in favour of oxo cubes and jello. Tomorrow I will not think about wolf children, Vygotsky's theories on private speech, St. Mark's Square junkies or green grocers. I think I'll buy a handful of Double Bubbles and giggle with glee at the Pud cartoons inside.
Confidence level: I'm worried that I've constructed a highway with off-ramps that jut out into mid-air. Mind the gap.
Toaster strudels are ready (*ding*). Back to work.
Addendum: I don't think I was quite forthcoming about my procrastination level on Saturday night. For a period of twenty-minutes, I watched the "Eddie and the Cruisers II: Eddie Lives!" on Showcase in an attempt to identify whether or not the guitarist in Eddie's band was the lead singer from Platinum Blonde. Turns out that beyond giving us such hits as It Doesn't Really Matter and Standing in the Dark, the man with the greatest 80s hair this side of the Thompson Twins was also a thespian of note, having worked with the Monty Python lads and all.
End of Day Two: Just lost two paragraphs. Two paragraphs. #$*# Everything froze and I guess it's my own fault for having my laptop run for 14 consecutive hours. Damn, does every Nelly song sound the same to you? And does Shaggy drink a litre of milk before he records? Trying to get to page 50 before I get to sleep, hopefully my computer won't lock me out again. We had the big cable shift around in Vancouver today and I'd like to point out that the Hedgehog, Ron Jeremy, is on CKVU13 at this very moment discussing maintaining wood. I may never get back to this novel with the new programming available on my very own red-light TV set. (cue the bass).
Best line since the green grocer: "The caravan romance of a chiromancer and a student of Caliban thought." Again, this makes no sense but it sounds great, don't you think?
The dog has begun pacing. It's a bit distracting. I've been very good about not procrastinating. The confidence is neither here nor there, my brain is muddled with what I've done and what's left to do. The cop's perspective, the girl with the Pippi Longstocking braids, the crackhead coming down off the hotel roof. Physical pain: nothing in comparison to the "penis puppetry" that's on the new CKVU right now. I'm quite serious.
Day Two: I'm nowhere near 30 pages a day. Who am I trying to kid? There isn't possibly 30 pages worth of anything that I can write about today. Then what about tomorrow? It's only 1:30 though, and I did most of yesterday's writing from 5 pm until midnight. The wolf children angle is working nicely, thanks, and may even account for today's 30 pages, thus saving me from rambling elsewhere. I need new CDs. Sigur Ros has rotated so many times that when I could stand in for the singer when they play St. Andrew's cathedral next month and pull off fluent Icelandic. A Silver Mt. Zion is about to replace Godspeed on the heavy rotation slot: same shit, different pile.
Best line thus far (I should point out this is now an indication of how messy my head is): "If the hermits were doing nothing but thinking or existing purely on private speech, it naturally leads that their being, their sense of self, would be greater than, say, a being who did no thinking at all." WTF?
Procrastination level: InStyle is just plain wrong to say J-Lo is the sexiest single chick in the world. (a) she's not single and (b) obviously they've never seen the stunning number who rides the equally stunning low-rider with the handcuffs attached to the back bar of the banana seat and who works on the third floor. And Ben Affleck as sexiest single guy? I smell a payola (or is that just scotch?). Sorry, low blow. See above category for vindication.
Confidence level: I'm never going to get everything in that needs to get in. This is no longer a game of ker-plunk, it's become a spirograph and I'm worried that I'm linking corners to the point where the middle is just black with pen. What am I doing blogging then, you ask? See above category.
Lecky: hates me. Endless heavy sighs from where he's trying to sleep next to the patio doors. We're all suffering, dammit! And eat yer damn ostrich already. At least you get to sleep whenever you want. See category #2.
New * Category: Physical pain: I'm acquiring second degree burn on my thighs from my laptop. I can't feel my legs. My vertebrate are fusing into one ginormous back-bone. Not bad so far.
At the end of Day One: Hmm..surprisingly close to cranking out 30 pages today. A fascinating study of the murky depths of my subconscious thus far in comparison to the novel that was my thesis which was meticulously planned out for the first year before I began writing. I got on this riff this evening about Descartes and the evil demon that tied back to something on the first page, and also added a convenient spin to the protagonist. We'll see if this bricolage continues tomorrow, or if the ker-plunk pin is about to be pulled.
Best line remains as before. It makes sense in context.
Rather than coffee, I think I need to address the number of mini carrots and string cheese packages I've consumed thus far. Also, note to the yogurt manufacturer: you forgot to add either maple or vanilla to your maple vanilla yogurt. The spoonful that I ate was more like a serving of tooth plaque, and quickly found it's way into my dog's serving of ostrich meat. (Lecky's pissed-off meter is at about 80% seeing as how the ostrich meat is not a hit, definitely not a hit).
Procrastination level: Lessening the more I realize how much ground I have left to cover in the next two days. I can either procrastinate, or get a proper night's sleep.
Confidence level: Hurrah to Descartes. Cogito ergo sum!
Tomorrow's major topic: Forget the dancing horses, bring on the feral children.(Potential Ker-plunk)
Midway through Day One: I think I'm in desperate need a schedule like "I must do 30 pages a day."
Best line thus far: A green grocer! Bloody hell.
Cups of coffee: I think I'm almost to the point where I'm peeing straight coffee.
Procrastination level: Um, obviously high if I'm doing a mid-day update. Also, I was thrilled when Chris dropped by to see how I'm doing and I stretched out his visit by playing CDs for him. Wait, you must listen to American Analog Set one more time!
Day one: fine, thanks. I have no strict schedule, nothing like "I must do 30 pages a day". Egads. May I take the opportunity to point out that toaster strudels are really quite tasty and full of SUGAR. (twitch, twitch)
Best line written thus far: Tubes of cerulean blue paint down the drain, robin’s egg blue, royal blue; she pulled an entire primary colour from her life and everything fell into shades of umber and tawn.
Lecky's pissed-off meter: -10% (just gave him a big chewy bone)
Cups of coffee: 1/2 (still working on the cold cup from last night)
Hours of sleep: shamefully too many
High rotation: Sigur Ros, Molasses, Godspeed You Black Emporer, International Airport, Radiohead
Confidence level: eh.
What I missed last night: Neko Case at Richard's on Richards; hanging out with Jordan at Shine
What I caught last night: Luke Perry on Oz! How can this show manage to get away with such cheesiness as incarcerating Chinese refugees in maximum security prisons? This makes the situation in Esquimalt last summer seem like a weekend in Muskoka.
What I'll miss tonight: New Pornographers at the Commodore; sleep.
