We arrive at our house and we celebrate: it is our own piece of land and sky. We are worried about debt but we remain hopeful, my wife more than I because she has always been optimistic.
Because the house has many nooks and crannies it takes two weeks to find the previous owner's cat, which we'd hoped had died. This creature, a tabby with glossy fur and no name, is the legal embodiment of debts which we are required to assume. It is easy to love a cat, but one cannot become attached to the physical manifestation of debt, so we feed it but refuse to play with it. It is not allowed to sleep with us.
We acquire knick-knacks and furniture and we are pleased with our purchases, but every night the cat howls at something we can't see. Lack of sleep and the complaints of the neighbours force us to buy a smaller house for the cat. Our lawyer assures us that this is our best option, but he is also the lawyer for the cat, so we don't entirely trust him. We cannot afford a lawyer of our own. Our money goes toward tending the houses and buying a lot of kibble.
The cat is young and could live twenty years, long enough to outlast the university careers of our newly-born children. They are not allowed to visit the cat lest our legal situation become complicated: if the children ever feed it, they are required to share a portion of the debt which the cat represents, saddling them with responsibilities they are too young to handle.
The lawyer had given us a paper which certified the cat was sterile, but when kittens begin urinating on our front porch we realize the uncertainty of chemical sterilization. We are not allowed to touch the kittens without permission, which our lawyer refuses to grant, even after our own children die overseas in the Infant Wars. The kittens become our heirs. We must provide for them and their offspring, and rather than look at them every day we send them to subsequent and much smaller houses that we buy for them in the suburbs.
Our first home, the most beautiful one, we bequeath to the kittens. We move into the smallest home. It smells like urine and its furniture is scratched, and there are scraps of fur everywhere. It is hard to stand up because the rooms are so tiny.
Shortly afterward, and with no explanation, the houses burn down and our tragedy ends. We rent a bachelor apartment because we are too old to start over again. At night we are haunted by small burning kittens and their smoldering toys, which they jangle into and out of our one and only closet.
Showing posts with label twitching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label twitching. Show all posts
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Monday, August 01, 2011
Watch Your Husband!
It's really an advertisement for a cruise (eg. if you notice your husband getting stressed, take him on a cruise), but you'd be excused for seeing something more sinister.
(The New Yorker, November 15, 1930, when everybody was running off to warmer climes, the French and Germans were rumbling about war, and backgammon was the game of choice)
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Time Machine Can Bite
Mac users have a wonderful resource called "Time Machine." It automatically backs up and maintains your files in a series of memory-efficient snapshots, allowing you to quickly resurrect a file or -- as I had to do -- recover from a total hard drive failure. It's an integral part of the operating system and it runs without you ever realizing it, doing its essential work in the background. The only time you need to know about Time Machine is when you need to find an older file.
When Time Machine works, it is an amazingly-engineered godsend. But when it DOESN'T work, it's a freaking NIGHTMARE.
You see, sometimes the external backup drive can become inaccessible -- hard drives aren't perfect and neither are their connections -- but if this happens during a critical period of Time Machine's operation, the drive just...hangs, leaving Time Machine in an endless "Calculating Changes" state. If you try to cancel Time Machine it gets stuck in an even MORE endless "Canceling" loop. You cannot access the disk and you cannot cleanly unmount it. You cannot reboot the computer. The disk just sits there...and Time Machine -- along with its bosom buddy Finder -- just keeps trying to shake it, like a dog who won't let go of something gross no matter how many times you chastise it.
I have tried EVERYTHING to fix this -- troubleshooting steps, killing processes -- and the ONLY thing that works is the one thing you're supposed to never, ever do: forcibly turning the drive off. By doing this you risk corrupting all your data, but there's simply no other solution: it's either that or keep your computer on forever while Time Machine keeps saying "Almost done! One more second!"
This used to happen to me at least once a day, when I had the hard drive daisychained through my Presonus Firestudio Project hardware. After I swapped the order and put the hard drive FIRST in the chain, and also changed my System Preferences so the drive is never sent to sleep, everything's been fine...
...until this morning, after a week or so. Had to turn off the drive and reboot. Just like the old days.
I have no doubt that this STARTS as a drive issue (it's an Elephant Storage device) but I can't help wondering: what sort of operating system can't recover from something like this? I know, I know, operating systems aren't perfect, and Mac OS is otherwise beautifully stable...but this problem has been happening since Leopard (and before, if you believe the forums), and nobody has stepped in with a piece of code that says "If external drive will not respond after X minutes, pop up a message that tells the user there's a problem and request direction. If user chooses to stop waiting for the drive to respond, then shut down Time Machine, forcibly kill any processes that are still trying to access the drive, forcibly unmount the external drive, and tell users to set up their Time Machine again and that a reboot of the drive may be necessary."
Yeah, easier said than done maybe. But there is NO excuse for an endless loop that requires drastic user intervention just to turn the system off, especially not when such users might not be particularly computer-savvy.
Time Machine, I love you, but you're too damn stubborn.
When Time Machine works, it is an amazingly-engineered godsend. But when it DOESN'T work, it's a freaking NIGHTMARE.
You see, sometimes the external backup drive can become inaccessible -- hard drives aren't perfect and neither are their connections -- but if this happens during a critical period of Time Machine's operation, the drive just...hangs, leaving Time Machine in an endless "Calculating Changes" state. If you try to cancel Time Machine it gets stuck in an even MORE endless "Canceling" loop. You cannot access the disk and you cannot cleanly unmount it. You cannot reboot the computer. The disk just sits there...and Time Machine -- along with its bosom buddy Finder -- just keeps trying to shake it, like a dog who won't let go of something gross no matter how many times you chastise it.
I have tried EVERYTHING to fix this -- troubleshooting steps, killing processes -- and the ONLY thing that works is the one thing you're supposed to never, ever do: forcibly turning the drive off. By doing this you risk corrupting all your data, but there's simply no other solution: it's either that or keep your computer on forever while Time Machine keeps saying "Almost done! One more second!"
This used to happen to me at least once a day, when I had the hard drive daisychained through my Presonus Firestudio Project hardware. After I swapped the order and put the hard drive FIRST in the chain, and also changed my System Preferences so the drive is never sent to sleep, everything's been fine...
...until this morning, after a week or so. Had to turn off the drive and reboot. Just like the old days.
I have no doubt that this STARTS as a drive issue (it's an Elephant Storage device) but I can't help wondering: what sort of operating system can't recover from something like this? I know, I know, operating systems aren't perfect, and Mac OS is otherwise beautifully stable...but this problem has been happening since Leopard (and before, if you believe the forums), and nobody has stepped in with a piece of code that says "If external drive will not respond after X minutes, pop up a message that tells the user there's a problem and request direction. If user chooses to stop waiting for the drive to respond, then shut down Time Machine, forcibly kill any processes that are still trying to access the drive, forcibly unmount the external drive, and tell users to set up their Time Machine again and that a reboot of the drive may be necessary."
Yeah, easier said than done maybe. But there is NO excuse for an endless loop that requires drastic user intervention just to turn the system off, especially not when such users might not be particularly computer-savvy.
Time Machine, I love you, but you're too damn stubborn.
Thursday, August 05, 2010
Scrutable Poetry Corner: "It Rolls On" by Morris Bishop
A poem for the uneasy modern, from the November 1, 1930 issue of The New Yorker.
This is the time of wonder, it is written;You can find out more about Morris Bishop and his elf-loathing here.
Man has undone the ultimate mysteries.
(We turn from the Chrysler Tower to watch a kitten,
Turn to a dead fish from Isocrates;
Drinkers on five-day boats are gladly smitten
Unconscious on the subjugated seas;
Einstein is even more dull than Bulwer-Lytton;
You cannot smoke on the Los Angeles.)
Science no longer knows the verb-form "can't,"
Fresh meat will soon be shipped by radio;
Scholars are harnessing the urgent ant
And making monstrous bastard fruits to grow,
Building machines for things I do not want,
Discovering truths I do not care to know.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Recently...
Many things have prevented me from blogging recently, not least my own laziness and ennui. My computer's hard drive totally died after my post about the importance of backups, requiring a trip to the repair shop (and then a total update of everything to Snow Leopard which does kick ass).
This misfortune was immediately followed by a five-day heatwave. Despite my perverse resistance to installing my window air conditioner -- and therefore many nights spent sweating buckets into my sodden bedding -- I learned two things about humans and heat:
Anyway, I'm also living with a cat who is a bit like the Tazmanian Devil, only more hyperactive and noisy. She is a fearless destroyer of bookshelves. She has learned that the best way to send me leaping out of bed in the morning is to sharpen her claws on my mattress, which I imagine her doing with a big grin on her face.
As of this morning, Muffet is forbidden from entering my bedroom. This is difficult because I haven't lived with closed doors for over ten years, and also because I don't think she'll adapt quickly or quietly to this change. Her favourite window is in my bedroom, and so is the sock drawer. I foresee many challenging nights ahead.
Third obstacle: constant pain in my shoulders. Sometimes it's barely there, and other times it feels like my biceps and shoulders are being held together by old rusty rivets made out of bubbling lava.
When I told my family doctor that I was on a three-year waiting list to see a shoulder specialist, he had a fit of furious Irish passion and booked me for a series of examinations. Yesterday a delicate lady held an ultrasound paddle to my shoulders and we viewed the inside of my pathology: wavy lines of bone and fat surrounding ominous black holes of encysted fluid.
Then I crossed the hall to get some X-rays done. It was a much more respectable operation than the last place I went to, though it ALSO had a cupboard which emitted terrifying scrabbling sounds.
Most interesting was the woman who took the X-rays. She was brusque and businesslike, but every time she prepared to take another picture she'd say "Hold your breath!" in an incongruous sing-song way, like the way you'd speak to a mischievous child. I felt weird, standing there in my lead girdle, with this extremely professional lady buzzing around who would suddenly disappear into a booth and sing out -- as though she were offering me a popsicle -- "Hold your breath!"
In other news, I have joined the board for the condo corporation, which is a story I'll tell someday. I also joined the board for the Open Ears festival. I have added "The Toronto G-20" to the list of topics which must not be discussed in friendly company. I walked past my old apartment and saw that the vegetation grew back but the junker cars remain. I read "Babbitt" by Sinclair Lewis, "Day of the Triffids" by John Wyndham, and a beautiful book about undeciphered ancient scripts by Andrew Robinson. If I go on any sort of vacation this year it will hopefully be to Easter Island, because I want to see what their discos are like.
This misfortune was immediately followed by a five-day heatwave. Despite my perverse resistance to installing my window air conditioner -- and therefore many nights spent sweating buckets into my sodden bedding -- I learned two things about humans and heat:
- When people who live in an extremely HUMID area -- like those of us in Southern Ontario -- complain about 35-degree temperatures that feel like 42-degrees due to the humidity, people who live in DRY areas say -- repeatedly and disdainfully -- "Ha! It's that hot here ALL SUMMER!" To which I can only say: try going out in that heat with a wet towel wrapped around your nose and mouth.
- When people complain about the devastating heat, a subset of other people say "Ha! In the winter you complain about the cold, now you complain about the heat! You just like complaining!" This is like saying "You complained that you were thirsty, so you'd better not complain when I throw you in the pool and drown you!" However illogical it is to complain about the weather -- since nobody you complain to can actually change it -- it is NOT illogical to complain about temperature extremes.
Anyway, I'm also living with a cat who is a bit like the Tazmanian Devil, only more hyperactive and noisy. She is a fearless destroyer of bookshelves. She has learned that the best way to send me leaping out of bed in the morning is to sharpen her claws on my mattress, which I imagine her doing with a big grin on her face.
As of this morning, Muffet is forbidden from entering my bedroom. This is difficult because I haven't lived with closed doors for over ten years, and also because I don't think she'll adapt quickly or quietly to this change. Her favourite window is in my bedroom, and so is the sock drawer. I foresee many challenging nights ahead.
Third obstacle: constant pain in my shoulders. Sometimes it's barely there, and other times it feels like my biceps and shoulders are being held together by old rusty rivets made out of bubbling lava.
When I told my family doctor that I was on a three-year waiting list to see a shoulder specialist, he had a fit of furious Irish passion and booked me for a series of examinations. Yesterday a delicate lady held an ultrasound paddle to my shoulders and we viewed the inside of my pathology: wavy lines of bone and fat surrounding ominous black holes of encysted fluid.
Then I crossed the hall to get some X-rays done. It was a much more respectable operation than the last place I went to, though it ALSO had a cupboard which emitted terrifying scrabbling sounds.
Most interesting was the woman who took the X-rays. She was brusque and businesslike, but every time she prepared to take another picture she'd say "Hold your breath!" in an incongruous sing-song way, like the way you'd speak to a mischievous child. I felt weird, standing there in my lead girdle, with this extremely professional lady buzzing around who would suddenly disappear into a booth and sing out -- as though she were offering me a popsicle -- "Hold your breath!"
In other news, I have joined the board for the condo corporation, which is a story I'll tell someday. I also joined the board for the Open Ears festival. I have added "The Toronto G-20" to the list of topics which must not be discussed in friendly company. I walked past my old apartment and saw that the vegetation grew back but the junker cars remain. I read "Babbitt" by Sinclair Lewis, "Day of the Triffids" by John Wyndham, and a beautiful book about undeciphered ancient scripts by Andrew Robinson. If I go on any sort of vacation this year it will hopefully be to Easter Island, because I want to see what their discos are like.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Make Backups, Folks
After two friends lost all their hard-earned data in two separate incidents back in March, I was frightened enough to buy an external hard drive and start using the Macintosh "Time Machine" feature. Since then it has been making hourly backups of my entire system state, usually done so quietly that I don't even know it's happening.
I didn't think I'd ever need to USE the backups...until my house had a brief and sudden power outage yesterday morning. You know how some outages sound BAD, like they've involved some sort of surge? This one was like that.
Shortly afterward my Mac began to slooooow doooooooooooowwwwwn. Every action took several minutes to complete, and woe to the user who tried to multitask. I spent all afternoon trying to diagnose the problem...I ran hardware diagnostics, I repaired the hard drive. Meanwhile my poor belaboured computer was showing a "broken folder" icon every second time I tried to boot it.
I finally decided that the power outage/surge had scrambled my hard drive. Or something. I set the system to restore itself back to its previous good state, and three hours later here I am, with all my data still intact and a computer that seems healthy enough. If I hadn't had steady backups enabled I would have needed to reinstall EVERYTHING: the operating system (and updates), the hardware drivers for all my gadgets, the software I use constantly...I would have needed to LICENSE all that software again. And all my music, writing, and other essential projects? Gone.
So please let this post frighten you. Spend a bit of money on a hard drive, and if you've got a Mac, simply enable Time Machine. It will save your bacon someday!
I didn't think I'd ever need to USE the backups...until my house had a brief and sudden power outage yesterday morning. You know how some outages sound BAD, like they've involved some sort of surge? This one was like that.
Shortly afterward my Mac began to slooooow doooooooooooowwwwwn. Every action took several minutes to complete, and woe to the user who tried to multitask. I spent all afternoon trying to diagnose the problem...I ran hardware diagnostics, I repaired the hard drive. Meanwhile my poor belaboured computer was showing a "broken folder" icon every second time I tried to boot it.
I finally decided that the power outage/surge had scrambled my hard drive. Or something. I set the system to restore itself back to its previous good state, and three hours later here I am, with all my data still intact and a computer that seems healthy enough. If I hadn't had steady backups enabled I would have needed to reinstall EVERYTHING: the operating system (and updates), the hardware drivers for all my gadgets, the software I use constantly...I would have needed to LICENSE all that software again. And all my music, writing, and other essential projects? Gone.
So please let this post frighten you. Spend a bit of money on a hard drive, and if you've got a Mac, simply enable Time Machine. It will save your bacon someday!
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Ouch, Both Shoulders!
Regular readers of my more whiny and self-indulgent posts will know that I tore the labrum in my right shoulder last year.
Physiotherapists and sports doctors have assumed that this happened entirely as a fluke, because I'm not exactly the most active person in the world. It's a condition normally seen in baseball pitchers, except that MY restrictions -- inability to touch my back or chest around the middle of my torso, among other places -- are the exact OPPOSITE of the usual "pitcher's shoulder."
I've been on the waiting list for surgery and it will presumably take two more years before I even SEE the specialist, but maybe I can jump the line now, because it's happened to the OTHER shoulder too. The LEFT one. Being unable to do so many things with EITHER of my arms might place me in a new medical category.
There's no way this is simply a "fluke." How did I manage to tear the labrum in both shoulders in exactly the same unusual way?
Over the last few weeks I've formed a hypothesis that I think is a damn good one:
This hypothesis occurred to me last week and I've thrown myself into corrective measures. I only carry small books to work, and always on my right shoulder (which is now, paradoxically, the STRONG one). Three times a day I take a break from whatever I'm doing, lie on my back, and do some arm-raising and shoulder-rotating exercises that were approved by my physiotherapist. Then, at my desk, I use six feet of rubber tubing to strengthen my shoulders: I lift, lift, lift, lift.
In addition I've found ways to minimize the little injuries that are caused each day by getting out of bed, putting on clothes, and lifting coffee mugs. On a good day my shoulders don't start aching until noon, and a simple exercise and an ice pack can get them soothed again.
This was going remarkably well until last night's "Pride Prom" show. Here I am just minutes before an endless evening of agony and fear.
Drag shows are not good for my shoulders because they involve quick-changes and lots of flailing around. Still, over the years, I've trained myself to use my left arm for broad gesticulations and to keep my right arm within the range of motion that it's capable.
But this was the first time I'd done a show with my damaged left arm. After packing myself into the dress in the above picture -- which is now uncomfortably tight because of all those exercises I mentioned -- I performed the extremely demonstrative "Love and Truth" by Mother Mother...and halfway through the number I felt my left shoulder actually TEAR.
I've described this sensation before, but it wasn't the PAIN that made me fearful, it was the realization that -- in a few brief seconds -- I'd potentially caused irreversible damage to my shoulder cartilage. I'd taken another step towards serious physical disability. I don't live with anybody, so there is nobody around to do the things that are difficult for me: what happens if I can no longer change a lightbulb? Sweep the stairs? Dress myself?
The beginning of a drag show is not the time to elicit sympathy and understanding from those around you (though I did try). And now I can tell that the damage wasn't as catastrophic as it seemed: ice packs and a good sleep have reduced the pain and I can still do everything I could do before* (except lower a dress zip, for which I now use a length of fishing line).
There is one thing I DO know: I can't perform in any more drag shows until this problem is fixed, which might be never. They have always taken their toll but this toll is excessive. This isn't much of an issue because I don't do them much these days anyway, but it still makes me sad because there are events I love performing at...the Pride Prom is one of them.
* EDIT: Unfortunately that isn't true...my left shoulder is just restricted in a different way, I think. My right shoulder can't twist inwards in a horizontal way, whereas I think my left won't twist upwards. So much for learning semaphore!
Physiotherapists and sports doctors have assumed that this happened entirely as a fluke, because I'm not exactly the most active person in the world. It's a condition normally seen in baseball pitchers, except that MY restrictions -- inability to touch my back or chest around the middle of my torso, among other places -- are the exact OPPOSITE of the usual "pitcher's shoulder."
I've been on the waiting list for surgery and it will presumably take two more years before I even SEE the specialist, but maybe I can jump the line now, because it's happened to the OTHER shoulder too. The LEFT one. Being unable to do so many things with EITHER of my arms might place me in a new medical category.
There's no way this is simply a "fluke." How did I manage to tear the labrum in both shoulders in exactly the same unusual way?
Over the last few weeks I've formed a hypothesis that I think is a damn good one:
- I have weak shoulders in general. Due to my instant ability to build up shoulder muscles, and my desire to look "less male" in slinky gowns, I deliberately AVOID doing anything that would build upper-body mass.
- I localize stress by clenching my shoulders. They are constantly rigid while I'm at work, reducing blood flow through my shoulders and arms.
- The most important part: for twenty years I have carried heavy things around in shoulder bags. For the past TEN years I have walked to and from work every single day, usually with a thick and heavy book in my bag. To keep the strap on my shoulder I unconsciously tense it. Day after day after day.
This hypothesis occurred to me last week and I've thrown myself into corrective measures. I only carry small books to work, and always on my right shoulder (which is now, paradoxically, the STRONG one). Three times a day I take a break from whatever I'm doing, lie on my back, and do some arm-raising and shoulder-rotating exercises that were approved by my physiotherapist. Then, at my desk, I use six feet of rubber tubing to strengthen my shoulders: I lift, lift, lift, lift.
In addition I've found ways to minimize the little injuries that are caused each day by getting out of bed, putting on clothes, and lifting coffee mugs. On a good day my shoulders don't start aching until noon, and a simple exercise and an ice pack can get them soothed again.
This was going remarkably well until last night's "Pride Prom" show. Here I am just minutes before an endless evening of agony and fear.
Drag shows are not good for my shoulders because they involve quick-changes and lots of flailing around. Still, over the years, I've trained myself to use my left arm for broad gesticulations and to keep my right arm within the range of motion that it's capable.
But this was the first time I'd done a show with my damaged left arm. After packing myself into the dress in the above picture -- which is now uncomfortably tight because of all those exercises I mentioned -- I performed the extremely demonstrative "Love and Truth" by Mother Mother...and halfway through the number I felt my left shoulder actually TEAR.
I've described this sensation before, but it wasn't the PAIN that made me fearful, it was the realization that -- in a few brief seconds -- I'd potentially caused irreversible damage to my shoulder cartilage. I'd taken another step towards serious physical disability. I don't live with anybody, so there is nobody around to do the things that are difficult for me: what happens if I can no longer change a lightbulb? Sweep the stairs? Dress myself?
The beginning of a drag show is not the time to elicit sympathy and understanding from those around you (though I did try). And now I can tell that the damage wasn't as catastrophic as it seemed: ice packs and a good sleep have reduced the pain and I can still do everything I could do before* (except lower a dress zip, for which I now use a length of fishing line).
There is one thing I DO know: I can't perform in any more drag shows until this problem is fixed, which might be never. They have always taken their toll but this toll is excessive. This isn't much of an issue because I don't do them much these days anyway, but it still makes me sad because there are events I love performing at...the Pride Prom is one of them.
* EDIT: Unfortunately that isn't true...my left shoulder is just restricted in a different way, I think. My right shoulder can't twist inwards in a horizontal way, whereas I think my left won't twist upwards. So much for learning semaphore!
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Saturday, May 08, 2010
Muffet
When I wrote my initial post about Muffet I was in the process of dropping into the depths of grief, panic, and depression. That is not a good time to adopt a new pet, particularly not when that pet is in heat.
Fortunately I was able to book an appointment at the vet's the next morning, and while waiting for my saintly parents to drive us there, I finally saw the GOOD side of Muffet.
Previously she'd been a manic, yowling demon...a drunken, sex-crazed lunatic without any pants or underwear to disguise the sight of her insatiable desire, a creature who I was afraid to even touch lest I set her off into another seizure of rolling and screaming and perhaps even spraying. In the morning she was still that, but she took time out to explore, purr, sit on my lap, and demonstrate her considerable intelligence.
To elaborate on Muffet's smarts:
- After two attempts to sharpen her claws on my new chairs, and two gentle removals to her scratch pad, she returned to the scratch pad and has been using it exclusively.
- "That's my litterbox? Okay, I'll poop there."
- I couldn't figure out why she kept climbing around in my laundry basins, until I realized she recognized them as places where water comes from. Carrying her to her water dish has done the trick.
Anyway, I took her to the vet, and after a rigorous checkup (and a rabies shot) I was told that they could keep Muffet overnight and spay her, then I could pick her up on Saturday morning. Buck Animal Hospital, you people are WONDERFUL.
They also said that here's no way Muffet is two years old...more like one year old, which would explain her zest and zeal. Her narrow face, skinny body, and long legs also imply that she's part Siamese, hence her frequent and expressive (and potentially excessive) vocalizations.
I felt bad leaving Muffet with the vet for two days, but I was rapidly turning into a basket case, and for the interim I wept and wept and gradually pulled the pieces of my life back together.
And now, on Saturday, she's home.
First things first: Muffet likes and trusts me. From the moment I picked her up to this very moment now, she has come to me for comfort and affection and play. She purrs and purrs and purrs when I am around. This is wonderful.
Secondly, she's frightened of the environment -- the wind outside, the furnace noises, and footsteps on the stairs in particular -- but every hour she is more confident of this house. She still retreats to the basement whenever things get too hairy for her, but I no longer have to spend any time coaxing her out; I call and she comes (usually with a barrage of meows).
Third, she's still a raging ball of hormones, but not nearly the way she was before. Apparently it will take some time for her sex drive to go into neutral. This, coupled with her extreme reaction to catnip, makes me worry a bit about the state of her incision; I'm trying to distract her whenever she gets too wild, and she actually slept for a while in her fuzzy cat bed.
Finally, my other worry is her food: she isn't eating her Science Diet or the soft food that the vet provided, but in my experience cats don't eat like pigs anyway; I assume that when she's hungry she will eat, and eventually I'll fall back on the super-expensive kibble that the vet gave me (and which she happily ate in her crate when we were driving her home).
Muffet is a wonderful cat. I am returning to a point where I can even be a wonderful owner. She will be a handful: energetic, hungry for affection, and playful in a very kittenish way. She will be impossible to outwit, and she's so active that I'll need to be permanently watchful. In these ways she is nothing like the relaxed and stoic cat that Zsa Zsa was, whose response to adversity was "Oh well, I didn't care about that anyway."
But Muffet is also delightful and pleasant and sociable, and I see some indication that she can entertain herself when necessary. She's a much-need attraction and comfort, right now, when I absolutely need to be kept busy.
Muffet, thank you. You're not Zsa Zsa -- however much I probably wanted you to be a few days ago -- and you're not going to reduce the stress in my everyday life (especially as it relates to the huge wads of money I've spent and will need to continue to spend), but I'm very glad to have you and I'll do my best to be good to you.
Friday, May 07, 2010
It Is Doubly Difficult to Get Out
I am reading William T. Vollmann's second-latest enormous book -- "Imperial" -- and I came across this apt, wonderful, and terrible paragraph which addresses why the New River (in Mexico and California) remains so terribly polluted.
Maybe the New River wasn't anybody's fault, either. People need to defecate, and if they are poor, they cannot afford to process their sewage. People need to eat, and so they work in the maquiladoras--factories owned by foreign polluters. The polluters pollute to save money; then we buy their inexpensive and perhaps well-made tractor parts, fertilizers, pesticides. It is doubly difficult to get out. And it's all ghastly.Sigh.
Thursday, May 06, 2010
Hot on the Feline Heels and Hot to Trot and Anxiety
If I hadn't gone out to find a new cat companion, I would probably be in an agony of depression right now. Instead I'm in an agony of worry, which is really no better or worse I suppose.My mother and I went to the Humane Society after being unable to find a suitable cat at Petcetera. The Humane Society was full of people checking out the cats and climbing into their cages to sit with them, so I was already feeling a sense of urgency.
When I walked past the cage of Muffet, she reached out and gently pawed at the glass, so I asked to sit with her and evaluate her personality.
Muffet was very outgoing, wanting to be rubbed and making lots of vocalizations. At the time she seemed like the right cat, so after ten minutes or so with her I asked for the adoption forms.
But as I was filling them out I began to realize that Muffet's rolling-and-meowing routine wasn't stopping and -- frankly -- was getting a bit annoying. When the Humane Society volunteer returned, I said I was having second thoughts, and she said "Oh, I see what's happening...Muffet's going into heat."
She reassured me that getting her spayed would fix the problem, and also that veterinarians will spay cats in heat. Relieved, I filled out the forms and handed them in...
...but something was in the back of my mind. As I stood waiting for everything to be entered into the computer and processed, I began to wonder if I should adopt a cat who I had only interacted with while she was in heat...what if her personality radically changed afterwards, or what if she continued to be this manic? Something in me was struggling, I wanted to say "Wait, maybe not," but adopters were wandering around the halls pouncing on cats and I was afraid that if I waited I would lose a potentially great companion.
Then, after I paid, the receptionist heard that Muffet was in heat. "Oh, you're adopting a cat in heat? Bless you!" she said, laughing.
Oh shit, I thought. What am I getting myself in for?
The woman at the pet store had equally ominous "cat in heat" stories to tell, and everybody online talks about what a disruptive and annoying experience it is for cat owners. They also say that vets may refuse to spay a cat in heat, so I may be looking at two weeks of this "ominously-described" behaviour.
I say "ominously-described," because Muffet hasn't really done much yet. She's still getting used to my house so -- in between coaxed exploration -- she's hiding in the basement crawl space. No "caterwauling" yet, but when I pet her she begins to rub herself all over me in the "cat in heat" way, and I automatically get anxious...
...and is an anxious pet owner a good pet owner? Am I already souring our relationship? Is Muffet going to do things before I can spay her that will make me dislike her?
I say this as a person who is quite obsessed with my routine, my sleep, and my stretches of "quiet time." A cat in heat sounds, to me, the way that kryptonite probably makes Superman feel.
So I'm WORRIED. Part of this is because this is a new situation and I don't respond to new situations well. It's also that I kick myself for not giving it all more consideration before I took Muffet home (I feel irresponsible), and the knowledge that if somebody had said "Muffet will yowl loudly and constantly for hours on end at all times of day and night," I would not have consented. I didn't know what was involved.
I tell myself that if I can't get her spayed until she's out of heat, and if her heat-behaviour drives me over the edge, I can surrender her back to the Humane Society and accept the lost money (and the additional outlay of the surrender fee), and also accept that this is not fair to her, it's annoying for the Humane Society, and it will probably negatively-impact my chances of adopting another cat.
The thing is, when I'm on the brink of uncertainty I absolutely torture myself with worry and anxiety. As an adolescent I would work myself into full-blown, incapacitating panic attacks, and while I no longer (it seems) react in such an extreme way as an adult I still do put myself into a bad state. This coupled with a crushing grief about Zsa Zsa and the additional anxiety of a Saturday-night drag show and a (next-) Wednesday-night spoken word stint.
I'm writing all this out because I recognize that my anxiety is based on cognitive-reasoning flaws, so when I express everything (as I have here) and see that it isn't half as catastrophic* as I thought it was, I can calm down to a point where I can (hopefully) sleep eventually. You blog readers -- and "you blog" itself -- are at this moment substitutes for a friendly, logical, reassuring voice.
What, ultimately, do I need to recognize in order to calm myself down? The same things that I ALWAYS need to recognize but I so often manage to forget:
- I can deal with the situation.
- The fact that I got into the situation in the first place does not make me a bad or worthless person.
- If I CAN'T deal with the situation, there is a solution.
* Pun!
Sunday, April 04, 2010
My New NEW Digs
I moved here in September when it was a little bit chilly and everybody was retreating indoors. Over the winter I've barely seen anything of my neighbours.
Now, with the obscenely beautiful weather, I'm learning a bit more about them than I'd like to. We all have little patios so we're sort of in each other's faces. Plus I'm living next door to the Brady Bunch, a family whose uncountable children simply cannot be held within in the confines of a two-bedroom house, so they spill out in all directions and are pretty much below every window and inescapable.
I'm a much more relaxed person now than I used to be, so I am better able to view their activities as "healthy play" as opposed to "intrusively noisy." And I can (so far) drown them out when I really need to concentrate by turning on the furnace fan, which provides the added benefit of air circulation and which the previous owners had on pretty much constantly.
Fortunately this community does not seem to host partiers, at least not the type for whom partying is a lifestyle instead of just a diversion. I much prefer the sound of children playing than the sound of thumping music. And even more fortunately, my other neighbours -- the ones I share a wall with -- are so quiet that I occasionally worry about them. This is a far cry from the days of yore: the barking daschund, the wrestling pre-teens on the stairway, the pot-fueled 2:00am guitar parties on a chilly Tuesday morning.
I think this will be good. I don't know how much any of these people will like me...some of them say hello when I'm watering my terminally thirsty shrubbery, while others just walk past.
Other good things: this place is so nice and tidy that it's a pleasure to clean...well, as pleasurable as cleaning can be. Zsa Zsa adores her extended patio time and her tense exchanges with the Stray Badass Cat, who I surreptitiously spray with water when it looks like things are going poorly.
A VERY good thing: just across the expressway from where I live is the beautiful, unspoiled wilderness of Bechtel Park, but to get there I have to take a huge detour around all the fences and across the overpass. I've noticed a little stream that travels UNDER the expressway and into the park, and I've been wondering if I couldn't splash my way over there that way.
So on Friday I started exploring, and holy cow! The stream does indeed travel through a tunnel, and right beside it there is a SECOND tunnel...FOR PEDESTRIANS! It's long and spooky and black -- the kind of thing that city planners don't build anymore for safety reasons -- but thanks to some skillfully-demolished fences it provides convenient access to the park. Not a place to go at night, but a pleasant and adventuresome trip for the noon hour wanderer in search of some peace.
I think I'll need to use it a few times during the warm patio weather.
Now, with the obscenely beautiful weather, I'm learning a bit more about them than I'd like to. We all have little patios so we're sort of in each other's faces. Plus I'm living next door to the Brady Bunch, a family whose uncountable children simply cannot be held within in the confines of a two-bedroom house, so they spill out in all directions and are pretty much below every window and inescapable.
I'm a much more relaxed person now than I used to be, so I am better able to view their activities as "healthy play" as opposed to "intrusively noisy." And I can (so far) drown them out when I really need to concentrate by turning on the furnace fan, which provides the added benefit of air circulation and which the previous owners had on pretty much constantly.
Fortunately this community does not seem to host partiers, at least not the type for whom partying is a lifestyle instead of just a diversion. I much prefer the sound of children playing than the sound of thumping music. And even more fortunately, my other neighbours -- the ones I share a wall with -- are so quiet that I occasionally worry about them. This is a far cry from the days of yore: the barking daschund, the wrestling pre-teens on the stairway, the pot-fueled 2:00am guitar parties on a chilly Tuesday morning.
I think this will be good. I don't know how much any of these people will like me...some of them say hello when I'm watering my terminally thirsty shrubbery, while others just walk past.
Other good things: this place is so nice and tidy that it's a pleasure to clean...well, as pleasurable as cleaning can be. Zsa Zsa adores her extended patio time and her tense exchanges with the Stray Badass Cat, who I surreptitiously spray with water when it looks like things are going poorly.
A VERY good thing: just across the expressway from where I live is the beautiful, unspoiled wilderness of Bechtel Park, but to get there I have to take a huge detour around all the fences and across the overpass. I've noticed a little stream that travels UNDER the expressway and into the park, and I've been wondering if I couldn't splash my way over there that way.
So on Friday I started exploring, and holy cow! The stream does indeed travel through a tunnel, and right beside it there is a SECOND tunnel...FOR PEDESTRIANS! It's long and spooky and black -- the kind of thing that city planners don't build anymore for safety reasons -- but thanks to some skillfully-demolished fences it provides convenient access to the park. Not a place to go at night, but a pleasant and adventuresome trip for the noon hour wanderer in search of some peace.
I think I'll need to use it a few times during the warm patio weather.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
My Shy Date With Modern Dance
On Thursday night I watched the rehearsal for "60 Dances in 60 Minutes," which will be performed at The Registry Theatre on November 4th. I'd hoped to learn what contemporary dance is all about and -- more importantly -- what makes it entertaining, enlightening, or (God forbid) insufferable to the modern layperson audience-member.
Can I explain the secrets of dance after a mere four hours of exposure? I only saw one single company performing one single piece and I didn't even get to see the end. There are many different approaches to dance, and every audience member is an individual, so I can't just say "This is what it's all about" (as much as that would save me some heavy pondering and how-do-I-express-this anxiety).
Seeing the rehearsal -- and enjoying some whispered chats with Jacob Zimmer, the dramaturge -- hasn't left me with many answers and it hasn't turned me into an instant fan. I learned a few more things about my personal hangups and how they relate to my entertainment choices...at the very least it was a good private therapy session.
But I'm not here to tell you about my childhood trauma; that's what the REST of this blog is about. I'm assuming instead that some of my insights may be interesting to you, whether you loathe modern dance or you think it's the absolute cat's meow.
"60 Dances in 60 Minutes" was first performed in February by the five principle dancers of the Dancemakers company. For the show in Kitchener they'd chosen to add five local dancers to the performance, and they thought it would be interesting to have me -- the clueless, curious, neurotic-but-eloquent spectator -- sit in during one of their rehearsals.
I was nervous. As is always the case with events where audience-appreciation is not tied to long-standing rules of etiquette and judgment, my first concern was how much reverence I was expected to have for their work. How serious must I be? Dost I dare to make jokes about thee art, especially being the only person in the audience and surrounded by its performers and creators, all of whom are extremely fit? I can't speak for other shows, but I can say this for sure: if you don't laugh a bit during "60 Dances in 60 Minutes" then you probably have a really crappy sense of humour.
But the question remains: what should the audience get out of this particular performance? The more abstract a piece of entertainment is -- the more distant it is from convention, the fewer obvious cues transmitted by the performers, the more flexible its parameters -- the greater the potential for hostility, boredom, confusion, or feelings of boorish inadequacy. Nobody likes to feel stupid, especially not those of us who consider ourselves open-minded and experienced enough to be able to "get it."
Most forms of contemporary dance do not, in my experience, present themselves in traditional or unambiguous ways. If the audience doesn't "get" the performance, is that a failure of us or the dance company? Is that even a failure at all?
The title "60 Dances in 60 Minutes" gives you an idea of what this performance is about, but here's a more explicit precis: the dancers, singly or in groups, will perform various tasks during a certain time period. How will ten dancers (and the audience) perceive the performance of these tasks in relation to the passage of time?
We have all benefited from (and been victimized by) time's subjectivity. Two hours spent at a good party can feel like ten fleeting minutes, while a ten-minute drive home with a full bladder simply never ends.
"60 Dances in 60 Minutes" is -- in its most obvious interpretation -- about the subjectivity of time. Even if you miss the somewhat hasty and informal explanation at the beginning of the performance, you will eventually notice that the dancers are attempting to synchronize their tasks -- like counting silently in their heads -- but they never finish together despite all their highly-polished dancerly-discipline.
Why can't they sync with each other? Because the passage of time, in the absence of coordinated cues like the a visible clock, is a subjective and ever-changing thing. None of us have quartz crystals in our heads. We rely on metabolism and breathing, stride-length and thought-passage to inform us of how quickly the rest of the world is moving in relation to us. When all the dancers close their eyes simultaneously and start counting silently, and then each of them raises a hand when they have reached the agreed-upon number, the dancer who ate a cheeseburger may finish faster than the one with a painful blister on her heel. This is a bizarre and entertaining way of expressing what we deal with every day: there is no way for people to synchronize with each other without external time cues.
To look at it in one way, "60 Dances in 60 Minutes" is a series of experiments to demonstrate how individual people perceive time. Sometimes the time intervals are short and sometimes they're excruciatingly long, and due to this occasional excruciating nature, the AUDIENCE is ALSO confronted with their individual time-perceptions: three minutes staring at a motionless line of dancers evokes all sorts of feelings, but one of them is how long three minutes can be when not a heck of a lot is going on.
Back to the rehearsal and my impressions of it. Early on I noticed that the director and the performers were using evocative words to describe the sixty different sections of the performance.
One section was called "witnessing," for example, and another was "the how-to's." There were movements called "abbreviations" and "acronyms," and there were also "koala" and "suicide."
These words were a convenient shorthand for the dancers, of course, but I was fascinated by the fact that the audience would never hear those words (unless they looked at the rundown which was provided at the end of the show). When I saw one dancer carrying another, belly-to-belly, in a tight and motionless embrace, my perception of the act changed as soon as I found out -- thanks to my privileged position as silent rehearsal voyeur -- that they referred to this action as "koala." If they'd called it "frog" or "Kali" then I probably would have viewed it differently.
Why do I bring this up? Because our perception of PLOT is just as subjective as our perception of TIME. "Hamlet" would give a very different impression to a 17th century barmaid, a bored highschool student, and a queer theorist respectively. No plot can contain one single, universal impression for everybody. You can say this about books or movies or any other type of public art you can think of.
Contemporary dance rarely telegraphs its narrative as clearly as a Hemmingway novel, and even if it DID there'd be the same issues of interpretation. When we see one woman suspending and holding another woman closely, what does that mean to us? Is it love? Is it trust? Is it fear or hope or disability? Hemmingway would tell us which it was -- and he'd probably wrestle both dancers to the ground as well -- but would we agree with his assertion? And would our perception of the act be richened -- or cheapened -- if we found it was called "koala?"
Contemporary dance, to me, seems largely ambiguous. The thematic clues given to the audience in "60 Dances in 60 Minutes" are not presented like they would be in an Agatha Christie novel...
...but the point of "60 Dances" is not to discover whodunnit before the pompous detective does. I suspect that the dance company would agree with me that they do not expect everybody in the audience to absorb the information provided in exactly the same way; in fact, the company might HATE that possibility. I suspect that they -- and perhaps most artists who work in relatively non-traditional ways -- want the audience members to make up their own minds.
But here's the thing: I'm not part of the dance company, I'm an audience member, so how many clues to the narrative should I be given? How much of it should be explained, and how clearly? Should there be identifiable characters in the performance with individual motivations, or are they all just "dancers," lab rats in a time experiment...a time experiment which I may not even understand is going on? While watching the rehearsal I found myself fixating on the words "koala" and "the how-to's" and "witnessing" because I CRAVED a plot. I clung to one reoccurring figure -- a girl in a parka with a subtly funny walk -- because she provided me with a sense of character that I find satisfying and fulfilling.
"What is the narrative of a symphony?" Jacob asked when we talked about this, and he's correct. And keep in mind that I was also watching the rehearsal of a performance that was yet to be completed, and watching it in the artificial environment of a closed theatre, without an audience, under bright lights, with a full bladder.
But I think this comes to the root of my general wariness about contemporary dance. I am not familiar with the concepts and history of the artform so I can't construct even a tenuous narrative like "I don't understand the literal soup cans but at least I understand pop art." I am also not privy to the thoughts of the dramaturge or the director or the performers, because they choose to remain silent or (more likely) because I hate reading the tiny print on theatre brochures.
Without knowing the concepts that the company is trying to express, I can't compare them with my own impressions. I don't know whether they've succeeded in getting their ideas across. And if my impression is the opposite of what they intended to convey, has the performance been a failure? Is there such a thing as failure in contemporary dance? Or in an abstract painting? In a symphony?
PS: I am generally confused by the symphonies as well. Sorry.
Back to the rehearsal. "60 Dances in 60 Minutes" is not just an experiment in subjective time; if it were then it would be best inflicted on a bunch of undergrads in a controlled manner (hopefully with electric shocks), and not performed on a stage.
No, the AESTHETICS of this performance are important as well. It's as though the success of the aforementioned experiment depends partly on whether the experimenter is wearing footwear which compliments the style of the electroencephalogram.
During the rehearsal there were constant negotiations between the artistic director, the associate director, and all ten dancers about the smallest details of the piece. This process was collaborative and everybody offered suggestions, and while some were practical -- dealing with safety, for instance -- and some related to theme, most of them were based on simple aesthetic considerations.
The discussions about the look and feel of the piece were the only extended and difficult ones I witnessed; should the dancers who perform the "knee burn" be hesitating before they slide, or should they dive right in? When two dancers do an impromptu translation from French to English, should they do it cautiously or should they just shout over each other? And how noisy should each of them be when they all count out loud?
A lot of discussion went into what one particular dancer should do during a three-minute segment. When somebody suggested that she should run to the back wall and press herself against it, associate director Bonnie Kim said "That's great. I love the wall." And everybody agreed.
"Loving the wall" has nothing to do with the theme of "60 Dances in 60 Minutes." There is no thematic reason why that dancer, at that time, should do that particular action. It's not a plot thing, it's not a character thing. It just seemed good.
In another one of our whispered conferences, Jacob agreeed that aesthetic decisions are pervasive and important to him, and they provide another aspect of what the audience may take away from the show: does it feel right? Is it well-paced? Is there enough variety?
Some modern works are composed entirely within rigid initial constraints, which is why they may come across as dry, pedantic, and mechanical. There must always be the consideration of how much one should deviate from (or add to) the central conceit in order to appeal to form and feeling, those most subjective of audience impressions. Does it look or sound good? Does it resonate nicely? Does it move so far from the theme that the point is lost and the audience is distracted?
Sometimes yes, if you're as literal-minded as I am. When the dancers jog or slide or tickle each other, a somewhat grumpy part of my brain wants to know "why are they sliding?" because I can't relate those things to my everyday life. When a stranger walks up to me on the street and spends three minutes explaining to me how to bake a Shepherd's pie, I think he's insane and he probably wants to put me IN the pie, which is not pleasing at all. It's kooky.
Jacob whispers to me about furnishing a room: there are basic rules regarding size and clearance, but there are also aesthetic considerations. It's not generally desirable to eliminate either consideration: you end up with a fully rule-based composition (like a boiler room) or one that looks great but your friends avoid, because the couch is too far away from the coffee table, and you can't see the TV properly, and when you touch the wall it collapses.
If modern dance doesn't appeal to the eye, has it failed? Conversely, if it ONLY appeals to the eye, is it nothing more than an awkward Hokey-Pokey that you're not allowed to join?
Why all this speculation? Why didn't I ask Jacob or director Michael Trent what THEY felt the audience would perceive?
I'm not lazy, honest! I wanted to develop my own ideas about the piece, and I also wanted to glean -- non-verbally, instinctively -- what they subconsciously hoped for and expected. What would be a success for them? What would failure be? Did success or failure even matter?
The primary impression I got was that they enjoy what they do, they are intensely interested in their audience, and they are confident that people WILL appreciate and understand it. During the four hours I was there I didn't actually see them debate their methods of communicating their ideas, but those discussions probably happened long ago, during the initial planning stages, before the February shows ever happened.
And me? My original plan was to go to several rehearsals and try to see the process from different angles, but I don't think I would have learned anything more than I already did, and besides I'd need a lot more exposure in order to make this really be about THEM or YOU instead of ME.
All I REALLY know is that, despite all of my kvetching and analyzing and quizzing, I'm impressed with what they're doing and I can't wait to see the show. I'm sure I'll enjoy it. I won't know why, thank goodness. I think I just will.
But I'll have to take all other performances as they come, much as I would a book, or a film...or even a symphony.
Can I explain the secrets of dance after a mere four hours of exposure? I only saw one single company performing one single piece and I didn't even get to see the end. There are many different approaches to dance, and every audience member is an individual, so I can't just say "This is what it's all about" (as much as that would save me some heavy pondering and how-do-I-express-this anxiety).
Seeing the rehearsal -- and enjoying some whispered chats with Jacob Zimmer, the dramaturge -- hasn't left me with many answers and it hasn't turned me into an instant fan. I learned a few more things about my personal hangups and how they relate to my entertainment choices...at the very least it was a good private therapy session.
But I'm not here to tell you about my childhood trauma; that's what the REST of this blog is about. I'm assuming instead that some of my insights may be interesting to you, whether you loathe modern dance or you think it's the absolute cat's meow.
WARMING UP
"60 Dances in 60 Minutes" was first performed in February by the five principle dancers of the Dancemakers company. For the show in Kitchener they'd chosen to add five local dancers to the performance, and they thought it would be interesting to have me -- the clueless, curious, neurotic-but-eloquent spectator -- sit in during one of their rehearsals.
I was nervous. As is always the case with events where audience-appreciation is not tied to long-standing rules of etiquette and judgment, my first concern was how much reverence I was expected to have for their work. How serious must I be? Dost I dare to make jokes about thee art, especially being the only person in the audience and surrounded by its performers and creators, all of whom are extremely fit? I can't speak for other shows, but I can say this for sure: if you don't laugh a bit during "60 Dances in 60 Minutes" then you probably have a really crappy sense of humour.
But the question remains: what should the audience get out of this particular performance? The more abstract a piece of entertainment is -- the more distant it is from convention, the fewer obvious cues transmitted by the performers, the more flexible its parameters -- the greater the potential for hostility, boredom, confusion, or feelings of boorish inadequacy. Nobody likes to feel stupid, especially not those of us who consider ourselves open-minded and experienced enough to be able to "get it."
Most forms of contemporary dance do not, in my experience, present themselves in traditional or unambiguous ways. If the audience doesn't "get" the performance, is that a failure of us or the dance company? Is that even a failure at all?
THE EXPERIMENT
The title "60 Dances in 60 Minutes" gives you an idea of what this performance is about, but here's a more explicit precis: the dancers, singly or in groups, will perform various tasks during a certain time period. How will ten dancers (and the audience) perceive the performance of these tasks in relation to the passage of time?
We have all benefited from (and been victimized by) time's subjectivity. Two hours spent at a good party can feel like ten fleeting minutes, while a ten-minute drive home with a full bladder simply never ends.
"60 Dances in 60 Minutes" is -- in its most obvious interpretation -- about the subjectivity of time. Even if you miss the somewhat hasty and informal explanation at the beginning of the performance, you will eventually notice that the dancers are attempting to synchronize their tasks -- like counting silently in their heads -- but they never finish together despite all their highly-polished dancerly-discipline.
Why can't they sync with each other? Because the passage of time, in the absence of coordinated cues like the a visible clock, is a subjective and ever-changing thing. None of us have quartz crystals in our heads. We rely on metabolism and breathing, stride-length and thought-passage to inform us of how quickly the rest of the world is moving in relation to us. When all the dancers close their eyes simultaneously and start counting silently, and then each of them raises a hand when they have reached the agreed-upon number, the dancer who ate a cheeseburger may finish faster than the one with a painful blister on her heel. This is a bizarre and entertaining way of expressing what we deal with every day: there is no way for people to synchronize with each other without external time cues.
To look at it in one way, "60 Dances in 60 Minutes" is a series of experiments to demonstrate how individual people perceive time. Sometimes the time intervals are short and sometimes they're excruciatingly long, and due to this occasional excruciating nature, the AUDIENCE is ALSO confronted with their individual time-perceptions: three minutes staring at a motionless line of dancers evokes all sorts of feelings, but one of them is how long three minutes can be when not a heck of a lot is going on.
THE AUDIENCE AND THE NARRATIVE.
Back to the rehearsal and my impressions of it. Early on I noticed that the director and the performers were using evocative words to describe the sixty different sections of the performance.
One section was called "witnessing," for example, and another was "the how-to's." There were movements called "abbreviations" and "acronyms," and there were also "koala" and "suicide."
These words were a convenient shorthand for the dancers, of course, but I was fascinated by the fact that the audience would never hear those words (unless they looked at the rundown which was provided at the end of the show). When I saw one dancer carrying another, belly-to-belly, in a tight and motionless embrace, my perception of the act changed as soon as I found out -- thanks to my privileged position as silent rehearsal voyeur -- that they referred to this action as "koala." If they'd called it "frog" or "Kali" then I probably would have viewed it differently.
Why do I bring this up? Because our perception of PLOT is just as subjective as our perception of TIME. "Hamlet" would give a very different impression to a 17th century barmaid, a bored highschool student, and a queer theorist respectively. No plot can contain one single, universal impression for everybody. You can say this about books or movies or any other type of public art you can think of.
Contemporary dance rarely telegraphs its narrative as clearly as a Hemmingway novel, and even if it DID there'd be the same issues of interpretation. When we see one woman suspending and holding another woman closely, what does that mean to us? Is it love? Is it trust? Is it fear or hope or disability? Hemmingway would tell us which it was -- and he'd probably wrestle both dancers to the ground as well -- but would we agree with his assertion? And would our perception of the act be richened -- or cheapened -- if we found it was called "koala?"
Contemporary dance, to me, seems largely ambiguous. The thematic clues given to the audience in "60 Dances in 60 Minutes" are not presented like they would be in an Agatha Christie novel...
...but the point of "60 Dances" is not to discover whodunnit before the pompous detective does. I suspect that the dance company would agree with me that they do not expect everybody in the audience to absorb the information provided in exactly the same way; in fact, the company might HATE that possibility. I suspect that they -- and perhaps most artists who work in relatively non-traditional ways -- want the audience members to make up their own minds.
But here's the thing: I'm not part of the dance company, I'm an audience member, so how many clues to the narrative should I be given? How much of it should be explained, and how clearly? Should there be identifiable characters in the performance with individual motivations, or are they all just "dancers," lab rats in a time experiment...a time experiment which I may not even understand is going on? While watching the rehearsal I found myself fixating on the words "koala" and "the how-to's" and "witnessing" because I CRAVED a plot. I clung to one reoccurring figure -- a girl in a parka with a subtly funny walk -- because she provided me with a sense of character that I find satisfying and fulfilling.
"What is the narrative of a symphony?" Jacob asked when we talked about this, and he's correct. And keep in mind that I was also watching the rehearsal of a performance that was yet to be completed, and watching it in the artificial environment of a closed theatre, without an audience, under bright lights, with a full bladder.
But I think this comes to the root of my general wariness about contemporary dance. I am not familiar with the concepts and history of the artform so I can't construct even a tenuous narrative like "I don't understand the literal soup cans but at least I understand pop art." I am also not privy to the thoughts of the dramaturge or the director or the performers, because they choose to remain silent or (more likely) because I hate reading the tiny print on theatre brochures.
Without knowing the concepts that the company is trying to express, I can't compare them with my own impressions. I don't know whether they've succeeded in getting their ideas across. And if my impression is the opposite of what they intended to convey, has the performance been a failure? Is there such a thing as failure in contemporary dance? Or in an abstract painting? In a symphony?
PS: I am generally confused by the symphonies as well. Sorry.
AESTHETICS VERSUS THEME
Back to the rehearsal. "60 Dances in 60 Minutes" is not just an experiment in subjective time; if it were then it would be best inflicted on a bunch of undergrads in a controlled manner (hopefully with electric shocks), and not performed on a stage.
No, the AESTHETICS of this performance are important as well. It's as though the success of the aforementioned experiment depends partly on whether the experimenter is wearing footwear which compliments the style of the electroencephalogram.
During the rehearsal there were constant negotiations between the artistic director, the associate director, and all ten dancers about the smallest details of the piece. This process was collaborative and everybody offered suggestions, and while some were practical -- dealing with safety, for instance -- and some related to theme, most of them were based on simple aesthetic considerations.
The discussions about the look and feel of the piece were the only extended and difficult ones I witnessed; should the dancers who perform the "knee burn" be hesitating before they slide, or should they dive right in? When two dancers do an impromptu translation from French to English, should they do it cautiously or should they just shout over each other? And how noisy should each of them be when they all count out loud?
A lot of discussion went into what one particular dancer should do during a three-minute segment. When somebody suggested that she should run to the back wall and press herself against it, associate director Bonnie Kim said "That's great. I love the wall." And everybody agreed.
"Loving the wall" has nothing to do with the theme of "60 Dances in 60 Minutes." There is no thematic reason why that dancer, at that time, should do that particular action. It's not a plot thing, it's not a character thing. It just seemed good.
In another one of our whispered conferences, Jacob agreeed that aesthetic decisions are pervasive and important to him, and they provide another aspect of what the audience may take away from the show: does it feel right? Is it well-paced? Is there enough variety?
Some modern works are composed entirely within rigid initial constraints, which is why they may come across as dry, pedantic, and mechanical. There must always be the consideration of how much one should deviate from (or add to) the central conceit in order to appeal to form and feeling, those most subjective of audience impressions. Does it look or sound good? Does it resonate nicely? Does it move so far from the theme that the point is lost and the audience is distracted?
Sometimes yes, if you're as literal-minded as I am. When the dancers jog or slide or tickle each other, a somewhat grumpy part of my brain wants to know "why are they sliding?" because I can't relate those things to my everyday life. When a stranger walks up to me on the street and spends three minutes explaining to me how to bake a Shepherd's pie, I think he's insane and he probably wants to put me IN the pie, which is not pleasing at all. It's kooky.
Jacob whispers to me about furnishing a room: there are basic rules regarding size and clearance, but there are also aesthetic considerations. It's not generally desirable to eliminate either consideration: you end up with a fully rule-based composition (like a boiler room) or one that looks great but your friends avoid, because the couch is too far away from the coffee table, and you can't see the TV properly, and when you touch the wall it collapses.
If modern dance doesn't appeal to the eye, has it failed? Conversely, if it ONLY appeals to the eye, is it nothing more than an awkward Hokey-Pokey that you're not allowed to join?
THE PERFORMANCE
Why all this speculation? Why didn't I ask Jacob or director Michael Trent what THEY felt the audience would perceive?
I'm not lazy, honest! I wanted to develop my own ideas about the piece, and I also wanted to glean -- non-verbally, instinctively -- what they subconsciously hoped for and expected. What would be a success for them? What would failure be? Did success or failure even matter?
The primary impression I got was that they enjoy what they do, they are intensely interested in their audience, and they are confident that people WILL appreciate and understand it. During the four hours I was there I didn't actually see them debate their methods of communicating their ideas, but those discussions probably happened long ago, during the initial planning stages, before the February shows ever happened.
And me? My original plan was to go to several rehearsals and try to see the process from different angles, but I don't think I would have learned anything more than I already did, and besides I'd need a lot more exposure in order to make this really be about THEM or YOU instead of ME.
All I REALLY know is that, despite all of my kvetching and analyzing and quizzing, I'm impressed with what they're doing and I can't wait to see the show. I'm sure I'll enjoy it. I won't know why, thank goodness. I think I just will.
But I'll have to take all other performances as they come, much as I would a book, or a film...or even a symphony.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
T-Plus One
It took only two hours for seven of us to move everything. I hate making other people deal with my own personal shortcomings -- pack-ratting, high dust-tolerance, unfastidiousness -- but everybody grinned and bore it for the duration, despite a few heart-jabbing jokes about hygiene.
My father drove the big 17' U-Haul truck, and was also in charge of packing everything into the back. The rest of us just carried boxes and boxes and boxes, and -- despite my best-laid plans -- everything got hopelessly muddled. Where's the hammer? Where does this box go? Should I have taken more chairs?
Then the moving in: brazenly parking everybody counter to the condo rules, then my mother -- spade in hand -- turning my ho-hum patio into a beautiful little garden. Vanilla and Jon took me out for lunch and de-stressing, then we returned and I began to put together the brand-new, luxurious computer desk.
Meanwhile my mother got to work on the windows. The previous owners of this townhouse were clean in every way but one: they never touched their windows. My mother was aghast, elbow-deep in black mould, fly sh*t, and "at least forty spiders." I have to console myself that whatever my housekeeping shortcomings I have NEVER left THAT sort of mess. Just other sorts of messes...
...so we went back to the old apartment and did some post-moving cleaning-up. I apologize to future renters that the fridge and stove are somewhat gross. As for the cat smell, I promise that's not my (or Zsa Zsa's) fault: it always smelt like that, depending on the day and humidity.
Bell Telephone arrived to hook me up, and I have to say that despite a few problems with them in the past, this time they were absolutely GOLDEN. Everything's working perfectly and -- what's more -- arranged around my beautiful new desk. My keyboard is in a comfortable spot for the first time in...well, forever. My feet no longer hurt when I sit and type.
My hope was that the single party wall in this townhouse would be totally soundproof. Well, it's not; I seem to be able to hear them when they're close to their walls, but either they're relatively quiet or the effect decreases with distance. In any case, so far it seems adequate.
It was SO nice to put my filthy clothes (remember, I haven't been able to wash them for almost a week) into MY OWN WASHER, and then into MY OWN DRYER, and then gently fold them in my own good time.
It hasn't sunk in that I own this place; currently it seems like "a place that I'm in." This is partly because I slept on my new couch last night, which is nice to sit on but terrible to sleep on, especially with a cat. This afternoon the guys from Sleep Country arrived and put my new bed together in TEN MINUTES. They even wore protective booties.
There is a lot of stuff remaining to be done. My life revolves around easily-performed routines, none of which are established in this new place. 95% of my stuff is still in boxes, and there are a lot of things I still need to buy, and I can't wait to try out the coffee maker that my sister bought me.
But my first real moment of bliss came when I went out back to sit in my yard. I sat on my new patio furniture and read Vladimir Nabokov in the cool morning air. Zsa Zsa explored the shrubbery, and then settled down to watch the neighbours as they passed by my gate. For the first time I really felt the words "My house," and then I thought "Good," and it was like something hard inside me melted just a bit.
My father drove the big 17' U-Haul truck, and was also in charge of packing everything into the back. The rest of us just carried boxes and boxes and boxes, and -- despite my best-laid plans -- everything got hopelessly muddled. Where's the hammer? Where does this box go? Should I have taken more chairs?
Then the moving in: brazenly parking everybody counter to the condo rules, then my mother -- spade in hand -- turning my ho-hum patio into a beautiful little garden. Vanilla and Jon took me out for lunch and de-stressing, then we returned and I began to put together the brand-new, luxurious computer desk.
Meanwhile my mother got to work on the windows. The previous owners of this townhouse were clean in every way but one: they never touched their windows. My mother was aghast, elbow-deep in black mould, fly sh*t, and "at least forty spiders." I have to console myself that whatever my housekeeping shortcomings I have NEVER left THAT sort of mess. Just other sorts of messes...
...so we went back to the old apartment and did some post-moving cleaning-up. I apologize to future renters that the fridge and stove are somewhat gross. As for the cat smell, I promise that's not my (or Zsa Zsa's) fault: it always smelt like that, depending on the day and humidity.
Bell Telephone arrived to hook me up, and I have to say that despite a few problems with them in the past, this time they were absolutely GOLDEN. Everything's working perfectly and -- what's more -- arranged around my beautiful new desk. My keyboard is in a comfortable spot for the first time in...well, forever. My feet no longer hurt when I sit and type.
My hope was that the single party wall in this townhouse would be totally soundproof. Well, it's not; I seem to be able to hear them when they're close to their walls, but either they're relatively quiet or the effect decreases with distance. In any case, so far it seems adequate.
It was SO nice to put my filthy clothes (remember, I haven't been able to wash them for almost a week) into MY OWN WASHER, and then into MY OWN DRYER, and then gently fold them in my own good time.
It hasn't sunk in that I own this place; currently it seems like "a place that I'm in." This is partly because I slept on my new couch last night, which is nice to sit on but terrible to sleep on, especially with a cat. This afternoon the guys from Sleep Country arrived and put my new bed together in TEN MINUTES. They even wore protective booties.
There is a lot of stuff remaining to be done. My life revolves around easily-performed routines, none of which are established in this new place. 95% of my stuff is still in boxes, and there are a lot of things I still need to buy, and I can't wait to try out the coffee maker that my sister bought me.
But my first real moment of bliss came when I went out back to sit in my yard. I sat on my new patio furniture and read Vladimir Nabokov in the cool morning air. Zsa Zsa explored the shrubbery, and then settled down to watch the neighbours as they passed by my gate. For the first time I really felt the words "My house," and then I thought "Good," and it was like something hard inside me melted just a bit.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Barth vs. Nabokov
Not long ago I read every single John Barth book in chronological order, and I didn't like what I discovered. My basic conclusion was that, after a certain point, he started using the same characters, style, and list of obsessions in every single book.
The worst aspects started happening with the publication of "Chimera" in 1972, which introduced the characters he'd beat to death over the next thirty years: a man and a woman, highly sexed and of above-average intelligence and education, engaging in cute and explicit discussions about their sex lives. These discussions are always goofy, alliterative, and full of puns. What's more, the Barth narrative style post-Chimera is almost exclusively expository, and usually the narrator is also the author.
These are perfectly good storytelling techniques in themselves, but my beef is that John Barth used them almost without exception. I found this SO distasteful that I've vowed never to buy another of his books.
This week I decided to re-read Vladimir Nabokov's "Ada or Ardor." I've only read it once before -- about fifteen years ago -- and I remember being totally in love with it...but it's driving me BONKERS.
Why? Because IT CONTAINS THOSE JOHN BARTH CHARACTERS! It is (among other things) the story of the relationship between Van and Ada, two highly-intelligent and highly-sexed individuals who talk endlessly about their sexual relationship in a cute, alliterative, pun-filled way. And it's written in an expository style in which the authors are...Van and Ada themselves.
Seriously, reading "Ada or Ardor" is like reading a long-lost John Barth novel, right down to the fact that the main characters say "et cetera" and "tant pis" (which Barth's characters also do, constantly, pointlessly, in every book).
I said at the beginning of this post that Barth started writing this way in 1972, with the publication of "Chimera." You won't be shocked to learn that "Ada or Ardor" was published three years previously...and that Barth is an acknowledged Nabakov fan.
Now, I don't have PROOF that John Barth enjoyed "Ada or Ardor" so much that he basically spent the rest of his life re-writing it...but it sure as hell seems that way. And do you know what the real shame is? That bastard has ruined this book for me. Every time I read a sentence like this--
The worst aspects started happening with the publication of "Chimera" in 1972, which introduced the characters he'd beat to death over the next thirty years: a man and a woman, highly sexed and of above-average intelligence and education, engaging in cute and explicit discussions about their sex lives. These discussions are always goofy, alliterative, and full of puns. What's more, the Barth narrative style post-Chimera is almost exclusively expository, and usually the narrator is also the author.
These are perfectly good storytelling techniques in themselves, but my beef is that John Barth used them almost without exception. I found this SO distasteful that I've vowed never to buy another of his books.
This week I decided to re-read Vladimir Nabokov's "Ada or Ardor." I've only read it once before -- about fifteen years ago -- and I remember being totally in love with it...but it's driving me BONKERS.
Why? Because IT CONTAINS THOSE JOHN BARTH CHARACTERS! It is (among other things) the story of the relationship between Van and Ada, two highly-intelligent and highly-sexed individuals who talk endlessly about their sexual relationship in a cute, alliterative, pun-filled way. And it's written in an expository style in which the authors are...Van and Ada themselves.
Seriously, reading "Ada or Ardor" is like reading a long-lost John Barth novel, right down to the fact that the main characters say "et cetera" and "tant pis" (which Barth's characters also do, constantly, pointlessly, in every book).
I said at the beginning of this post that Barth started writing this way in 1972, with the publication of "Chimera." You won't be shocked to learn that "Ada or Ardor" was published three years previously...and that Barth is an acknowledged Nabakov fan.
Now, I don't have PROOF that John Barth enjoyed "Ada or Ardor" so much that he basically spent the rest of his life re-writing it...but it sure as hell seems that way. And do you know what the real shame is? That bastard has ruined this book for me. Every time I read a sentence like this--
Could he find the right words: not to hurt Ada, while making her bed-filly know he despised her for kindling a child, so dark-haired and pale, coal and coral, leggy and limp, whimpering at the melting peak?--I want to scream and write a hateful letter to Nabakov, even though he did it FIRST. And he's dead.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
T-Minus Seven
We set the closing date for my condo to be really far in the future, because one of my RRSPs was stuck like Pooh in Piglet's door. That was cleared up surprisingly quickly, so I've just been waiting...and waiting...and waiting.
But oh thank goodness, next Saturday is the moving day! I have a truck rented, and friends who will help, and I've been stockpiling alcohol of various kinds because I think they all drink different things.
I've packed almost everything and it's strange living in an almost-empty house. Most of the musical equipment is still hooked up -- just in case I need an outlet -- and my clothes and bedding still need packing, and other than that it's just the odds and ends; pots, pans, lights, remotes, extension cords, and all the stuff that's too big for me to carry.
I'm having waves of panic, apprehension, excitement, and outright glee. People are wandering through my apartment, anxious to rent it for themselves. Zsa Zsa is adjusting surprisingly well to all her hiding spots being packed up and sent to the basement, but that's probably because the basement now has new hiding spots: rows of boxes, shelving units, and the milk crates I fortunately kept for all these years.
The vacuum is ready. The broom and feather duster are seeing heavy action. I am interrupting the long subterranean war between spiders and sowbugs in the basement; do you know how sticky a spider's egg-cocoon is?
PS: I finished reading The Young People's Library of Entertainment and Amusement, and I have to say that the Spanish-American warmongering was partly countered by statements from other anti-colonial politicians, and that Victorians really knew how to spend an evening indoors.
PPS: Then I re-read William T. Vollmann's "Whores for Gloria." It's amazing how different his prose is these days. I'd forgotten how "stream-of-consciousness" he could be. Anyway, it's an ugly book about an ugly subject, and its final statement seems to be "Don't go looking for happiness, because somebody will always find a way to make your happy times turn sour."
PPPS: So now I'm re-reading Vladimir Nabokov's "Ada or Ardor," which I remember loving many, many years ago. I'm hoping it will get me through to the end of the week.
But oh thank goodness, next Saturday is the moving day! I have a truck rented, and friends who will help, and I've been stockpiling alcohol of various kinds because I think they all drink different things.
I've packed almost everything and it's strange living in an almost-empty house. Most of the musical equipment is still hooked up -- just in case I need an outlet -- and my clothes and bedding still need packing, and other than that it's just the odds and ends; pots, pans, lights, remotes, extension cords, and all the stuff that's too big for me to carry.
I'm having waves of panic, apprehension, excitement, and outright glee. People are wandering through my apartment, anxious to rent it for themselves. Zsa Zsa is adjusting surprisingly well to all her hiding spots being packed up and sent to the basement, but that's probably because the basement now has new hiding spots: rows of boxes, shelving units, and the milk crates I fortunately kept for all these years.
The vacuum is ready. The broom and feather duster are seeing heavy action. I am interrupting the long subterranean war between spiders and sowbugs in the basement; do you know how sticky a spider's egg-cocoon is?
PS: I finished reading The Young People's Library of Entertainment and Amusement, and I have to say that the Spanish-American warmongering was partly countered by statements from other anti-colonial politicians, and that Victorians really knew how to spend an evening indoors.
PPS: Then I re-read William T. Vollmann's "Whores for Gloria." It's amazing how different his prose is these days. I'd forgotten how "stream-of-consciousness" he could be. Anyway, it's an ugly book about an ugly subject, and its final statement seems to be "Don't go looking for happiness, because somebody will always find a way to make your happy times turn sour."
PPPS: So now I'm re-reading Vladimir Nabokov's "Ada or Ardor," which I remember loving many, many years ago. I'm hoping it will get me through to the end of the week.
Monday, September 07, 2009
Random Observations About the Young People's Library of Entertainment and Amusement
I am now firmly mired in the "Patriotism and War" section of "The Young People's Library of Entertainment and Amusement." I previously mentioned some general impressions of this 1903 child-indoctrination book. Here are more specific examples.
First, if I never read another "baby talk" poem, it will be too soon. Here's the first stanza from "Lulu's Complaint," by an uncredited author.
The modern reader will probably enjoy B. Taylor's "Grandpa's Aversion To Slang." Here are some choice lines.
The "Humorous and Dialectic" section taught me the following lessons.
First, if I never read another "baby talk" poem, it will be too soon. Here's the first stanza from "Lulu's Complaint," by an uncredited author.
I'se a poor 'ittle sorrowful baby,Also included in the "Little Folks' Speaker" section is "The Spanish War Alphabet" by A. C. Needham. Here are some of the letters taught to little folks:
For B'idget is 'way down 'tairs:
My titten has scratched my fin'er,
And Dolly won't say her p'ayers.
C is for Cuba, a tight little isle;William Hearst would have been pleased!
To get which we may have to fight quite a while.
F is for Freedom, which means a great deal
When your neck has been under a vile Spanish heel.
G is for Germany, whose rude employees
Should learn better manners; be taught to say please.
I's for Insurgents, who holler for aid;
Then eat up the rations and loaf in the shade.
J is for Jones, Davy Jones, if you will,
Whose lockers we've twice had occasion to fill.
The modern reader will probably enjoy B. Taylor's "Grandpa's Aversion To Slang." Here are some choice lines.
It wasn't so long when I was young--The "pathetic selections" are real gems and guaranteed to make your children hate the world. There are the child-death sagas of "Poor Little Jim," "Limpy Tim," "The Dying Boy," "Nobody's Child," and "In the Bottom Drawer," in which abused children get taken away by angels and the narrator feels really bad. Then there are the wife-death epics of "To Mary in Heaven," "The Singer's Climax," and "The Gambler's Wife." If you're really lucky, for extra pathos, these stories are told by people who -- at the last line -- suddenly jump into the air and then die. That's just how it was in 1903! And also God's way of culling bad poets.
We used plain language then;
We didn't speak of "them galoots,"
Meanin' boys or men.
When speaking of the nice hand-write
Of Joe, or Tom, or Bill,
We did it plain--we didn't say,
"He slings a nasty quill."
An' when we saw a girl we liked,
Who never failed to please,
We called her pretty, neat and good,
But not "about the cheese."
Well, when we met a good old friend
We hadn't lately seen,
We greeted him, but didn't say,
"Hello, you old sardine!"
The "Humorous and Dialectic" section taught me the following lessons.
- Black people use long words, but always incorrectly. They are lazy except when they're playing games. They are always, always, ALWAYS stealing "watermillion."
- German people are hard-working, but they're far too rigid in their behaviour. They complain a lot about petty problems.
- Irish people are delightful and stupid and they know their place. Then they get in a fight.
Say, Aguinaldo,Even considering all the dead child and watermillion poems, this is by far the most disturbing thing in the book. So far.
You little measly
Malay moke,
What's the matter with you?
...
What you need, Aggie,
Is civilizing.
And goldarn
Your yaller percoon-skin,
We'll civilize you
Dead or alive.
You'd better
Fall in to the
Procession of Progress
And go marching on to glory,
Before you fall
Into a hole in the ground.
Understand?
That's us--
U. S.
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
YouTube Jumpcuts
Almost all the amateur YouTube videos you see -- especially the "I'm just talkin' about stuff" ones -- are edited together with frequent, clumsy jumpcuts.
It's obvious that most of the footage has been chopped out in post production, leaving little "islands" of content all spliced together.
I'm tempted to think that this is because most of what was filmed was bad: the person just blathered away with no rehearsal, then cut out all the mistakes, dead ends, and boring stuff.
But now I see it so frequently that I wonder...is it done on purpose?
I wonder: did this start as an aspect of crappy performance and editing, then become a "technique?" Or does this happen on TV nowadays, and are these people imitating that style? Is it some kind of cool hyperactive thing, a way of keeping your attention, a removal of every single pause?
It's obvious that most of the footage has been chopped out in post production, leaving little "islands" of content all spliced together.
I'm tempted to think that this is because most of what was filmed was bad: the person just blathered away with no rehearsal, then cut out all the mistakes, dead ends, and boring stuff.
But now I see it so frequently that I wonder...is it done on purpose?
I wonder: did this start as an aspect of crappy performance and editing, then become a "technique?" Or does this happen on TV nowadays, and are these people imitating that style? Is it some kind of cool hyperactive thing, a way of keeping your attention, a removal of every single pause?
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Frustrating Ataxx Obsession
For the past month I've been trying to master Ataxx. The concept is a simple one -- combined with some wonderfully evil graphics and music in the arcade version -- but the damn Mushman (the foe of only "average" skill) beats me almost every time.
The more I play the game, the more I appreciate its complexity. You should be able to learn the best moves by simply watching the computer opponent, but he (or in the case of the busty Gorgon, she) keeps outsmarting me. This might be because I'm not an offensive player.
If anybody out there comes up with a list of hard-and-fast rules -- which must exist, because the computer follows some sort of algorithm -- please pass them along. The only ones I can find are written in poorly-translated French.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
What's Going On:
Here's a quick and impromptu recap of the last few weeks!
If you've ever bought a home, you know what I've been doing: planning, coordinating, waiting, worrying, and spending. I've been dealing with official-type people such as mortgage brokers, lawyers, insurance agents, and bankers. I've also been counting my pennies and trying my best to make sure my finances stay in good shape, while still keeping myself happy and amused.
Purchasing this townhouse condo has been an all-consuming process. Every day I email, telephone, and fax the people who need to coordinate their efforts to make this happen. I've suffered through a drastically "stuck" hedge fund which threatened to leave me $18,000 short of the required down payment...fortunately this appears to be resolved today. I have gone from a total fax newbie to a virtual fax repairperson in the space of a month: scanning, dialing, confirming, crossing items off the checklist, moving to the next one...
I'm AWFUL at this stuff. I hate bureaucracy and have managed to avoid it for most of my life. Now I suddenly find myself competent, able to learn the ropes and harass the foot-draggers. These skills alone are worthwhile results of this whole ordeal.
I followed a house inspector as he poked into every nook and cranny of my upcoming home, and I was thrilled to hear that it's in tip-top condition (considering it's exactly as old as I am). Meanwhile, every day I look at the real estate listings, dreading the moment when The Perfect Home becomes available, and I'm happy to say that nothing even CLOSE has appeared. Everything else is too expensive, too far away, or too crappy...often all three.
I've started packing, which is silly because I still have a month to go. People are giving me cardboard boxes. My basement is FULL of boxes, each one waiting to be filled with my life's irreplaceable trivia.
When I told my landlords that I was moving, I initially felt a bit guilty: they've been conscious of my needs and we've always had a pretty good relationship, and ten years is an awful long time. But then -- after chopping down the precious greenery under my living room window -- one of the tenants next door got permission to park his "for sale" junker car on my front lawn. And -- totally by accident -- I discovered that this building has been on the market since the week before I said I was leaving...at least *I* had the decency to tell them we were through!
Meanwhile, in consideration of prospective buyers and tenants, I've been monitoring Zsa Zsa's catty smell, the result of a kidney condition which causes her to pee about eight times a day. Any odour in this apartment instantly spreads through the entire building -- and my unit has always smelled a bit like cat-spray, since before I even moved in -- but I still want to make things as painless for others as possible.
Last weekend I spent five hours with my mother, aunt, and grandmother looking for new living room furniture. I am determined to leave as much of my ramshackle and mismatched furniture behind, and five hours of comparative shopping -- and sitting in about six hundred chairs -- was more than worth it. I'm looking forward to planting some shrubs, and having my own washer/dryer, and not sharing ventilation with anybody except those who I invite. I want a coffee maker. I want my own home.
I am hopeful and happy and busy. This is probably the most significant thing I have ever done. That might seem silly to those of you with spouses and children, but for me it's a big deal...and wonderful!
If you've ever bought a home, you know what I've been doing: planning, coordinating, waiting, worrying, and spending. I've been dealing with official-type people such as mortgage brokers, lawyers, insurance agents, and bankers. I've also been counting my pennies and trying my best to make sure my finances stay in good shape, while still keeping myself happy and amused.
Purchasing this townhouse condo has been an all-consuming process. Every day I email, telephone, and fax the people who need to coordinate their efforts to make this happen. I've suffered through a drastically "stuck" hedge fund which threatened to leave me $18,000 short of the required down payment...fortunately this appears to be resolved today. I have gone from a total fax newbie to a virtual fax repairperson in the space of a month: scanning, dialing, confirming, crossing items off the checklist, moving to the next one...
I'm AWFUL at this stuff. I hate bureaucracy and have managed to avoid it for most of my life. Now I suddenly find myself competent, able to learn the ropes and harass the foot-draggers. These skills alone are worthwhile results of this whole ordeal.
I followed a house inspector as he poked into every nook and cranny of my upcoming home, and I was thrilled to hear that it's in tip-top condition (considering it's exactly as old as I am). Meanwhile, every day I look at the real estate listings, dreading the moment when The Perfect Home becomes available, and I'm happy to say that nothing even CLOSE has appeared. Everything else is too expensive, too far away, or too crappy...often all three.
I've started packing, which is silly because I still have a month to go. People are giving me cardboard boxes. My basement is FULL of boxes, each one waiting to be filled with my life's irreplaceable trivia.
When I told my landlords that I was moving, I initially felt a bit guilty: they've been conscious of my needs and we've always had a pretty good relationship, and ten years is an awful long time. But then -- after chopping down the precious greenery under my living room window -- one of the tenants next door got permission to park his "for sale" junker car on my front lawn. And -- totally by accident -- I discovered that this building has been on the market since the week before I said I was leaving...at least *I* had the decency to tell them we were through!
Meanwhile, in consideration of prospective buyers and tenants, I've been monitoring Zsa Zsa's catty smell, the result of a kidney condition which causes her to pee about eight times a day. Any odour in this apartment instantly spreads through the entire building -- and my unit has always smelled a bit like cat-spray, since before I even moved in -- but I still want to make things as painless for others as possible.
Last weekend I spent five hours with my mother, aunt, and grandmother looking for new living room furniture. I am determined to leave as much of my ramshackle and mismatched furniture behind, and five hours of comparative shopping -- and sitting in about six hundred chairs -- was more than worth it. I'm looking forward to planting some shrubs, and having my own washer/dryer, and not sharing ventilation with anybody except those who I invite. I want a coffee maker. I want my own home.
I am hopeful and happy and busy. This is probably the most significant thing I have ever done. That might seem silly to those of you with spouses and children, but for me it's a big deal...and wonderful!
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