... my hero...

I may have mentioned one or two times before that William Gibson is the closest thing to a god that this agnostic little jew has known.... Seriously, the way that man sees the world, and foresees it, it blows my mind....

And I think I may have just locked into the secret of the whole thing in this interview he did with Amazon.com:

"Amazon.com : We have your original proposal for the book up on our site, and the thing that struck me immediately was that none of the characters you discuss ended up, at least with the specifics that you give them at the time, in the final book. I'm just curious how you progress from one group of characters to another as you're planning the book or writing it.
Gibson: Well, I think the key thing there is that I never really believe in the proposal. 

Loves it....

No one ends up what they start out to be... The key is to not tie yourself too much to what you claimed in the beginning...

By the way, you can read the whole interview here on Gibson's website.... which you should check out anyway, cuz he just kicks all kinds of ass


***** i am adding to this post again... I did it twice already, and now it feels like cheating not to admit i jkeep coming back and adding more stuff... But I forgot how much I love this man... so many things out of his mouth are the ones i wished i had said first (if I had ever done anything worth asking me my opinion on these matters, anyway). This little gem is from his blog

"It’s unlikely that meeting a writer of fiction will get me any closer to the writer’s work, in my experience. The opposite effect is sometimes noted. Writers of fiction, as I understand them, are writers because they can get closer to you *as marks on paper* than they can any other way. They cannot sit and tell you. If they could tell you, then why would they write? They cannot explain. They do not know, that way. They know transiently, at best, in the act of marking paper."

... how much do i want this...

.... this may even force me to break my NO DECALS rule....

especially since my laptop is starting to look like shit....

... blown right away....

.... between a longstanding love for film, a healthy respect for architecture, a nearly fetishistic obsession with design and a newfound respect for the sheer AMOUNT and quality of work this kind of animation requires I must say that Alex Roman's film The Third & The Seventh literally BLEW MY MIND this morning....

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

Seriously, you must go full screen to enjoy this....

... the jukebox conundrum...

last friday I was faced witha jukebox... and I froze... it isn't that I don't love music, know music... but in the moment... I couldn't remember a SINGLE song that I liked... not one... so I ended up picking "A Little Less Conversation" by Elvis Presley... the Oceans 11 remix.... Not that that isn't a fun song... I like it...

But if jukebox choices are to truly represent you... as Nick Hornby says... its what you like, not what you ARE like... than it isn't the song I would choose to communicate my self to the world....

And then I threw my back out... So I spent a lot of time on my back with a heating pad, staring at the ceiling with nothing to do but listen to Classic Rock on 181.fm The Eagle on my internet stereo thingamajig...

so I made a list of SONGS THAT ARE AWESOME... there was 1 rule. I had to hear the song played... If I heard it, and it was awesome... I wrote it down. For those who care to judge me by my musical taste but cannot decipher my upside down scrawl - Here's the list:

Don't Think Twice - Bob Dylan

Can I Get a Witness - Marvin Gaye

Do It Again - Steely Dan

Changes - David Bowie

Keep On Rocking Me Baby - Steve Miller Band

Tiny Dancer - Elton John

In The Air Tonight - Phil Collins

Hit Me With Your Best Shot - Pat Benatar

Sweet Melissa - Allman Bros

Everyday People - Sly and the family Stone

Thunder Road - Bruce Springsteen

Beast Of Burden - Rolling Stones

Any Way You Want it - Journey

Midnight Rambler - Rolling Stones

Comfortably Numb - Pink Floyd

Saturday Night's Alright - Elton John (nearly disqualified for its recent high frequency repetitious presence in my life currently... but it still kinda kicks)

Copperhead Road - Steve Earle

The Break Up Song (They Don't Write 'Em) - Greg Kihn Band

Teenage Wasteland - The Who (Nearly disqualified for its relationship to CSI Miami and my nemesis David Caruso... but it kinda kicks)

Mother - Pink Floyd

Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen

... Number9Dream...

Its funny... whenever i think about what i would do if i ever won the lottery - and chances are slim, i don't buy tickets - I don't think about the usual things first... oh no... no car, or dream vacation or triple a hockey team fill my head... i have always always always started with this fantasy...

From page 210 - Number9Dream by David Mitchell:

"I assume my tour is complete, but notice a slatted cupboard door at the end of the landing. Its knob twizzles uselessly, but it swings open anyway. Its shelves are not shelves, but steep stairs. A knotted rope hangs down to help you haul yourself up. On the third step my head hits the ceiling, which shifts. I push, and a crack of daylight opens as the plyboard trapdoor swings up. I was way wrong. This is better than a hiding place. I emerge into a library/study with the highest book population density i have ever come across. book walls, book towers, book avenues, book side streets. book spillages, book rubble. paperback books, hardback books, atlases, manuals, almanacs. nine lifetimes of books. enough books to build an igloo to hide in. the room is sentient with books. mirrors double and cube the books. A Great Wall of China quantity of books. Enough books to make me wonder if i am a book too. Light comes in through a triangular window. A sort of wickerwork light shade hangs down. Apart from the bookcases and sagging shelves the only item of furniture is an old-fashioned writing bureau with square holes to lose papers and bills in. My grandmother had the same sort. Still does I guess. On the writing bureau are two piles of paper - one white and blank as starched shirts, the other a manuscript laid in a special lacquer tray."

***********

On my FB profile I say that a book becomes one of my favourites when reading it feels like remembering rather than discovering... reading this was exactly what i meant by that... someone else found the words to describe something from my wildest imagination.

good book, worth a read...

You will like this book if you liked: Lost in Translation (sofia coppola); Ransom (jay mcinerney); anything by william gibson; pizzicato five

...hug and roll....

.... if you are of a certain age you have for shizz seen this clip....

It was a not-so-elegant to the age old question "but what about me?" when it comes to sleep and your special someone....

now, I do not have this problem at the moment.... (oh that how to accomodate a guy was my problem... i have enough trouble meeting one I even want to bring home) .... but a twitter exchange with Flashpunk this morning brought the longstanding problem up... and if i am being honest... i have some thoughts on the matter....

Its not that I don't enjoy a good cuddle... I like it as much as the next girl (well, maybe not as much... but i like it just fine, thank you very much). But I reserve it for naps, rainy afternoons or the afterglow (that lasts about 30 minutes tops....)

As far as sleeping goes.... I do it alone... I am the Lone Dreamer.... you can be my Tonto... but you need your own saddle. Maybe its because I move around in my sleep.... Maybe its because on occasion I have been known to unconsciously fart in the night (and no one wants you pressed up against that).... maybe its because on vacations as a kid my sister and I had to share a bed, and that girl is a KICKER!

But whatever the reasons... I don't see why you should go to all that trouble to sleep uncomfortably... because it always is... no matter whether its spooning, the shoulder roll,  the hug'n'roll or the superman... its never as comfortable as whatever position you end up in on your own... known as the pragmatic approach at the end of this video.

I have to say love one you're with... but there is no need to invest in the Love Mattress.... no matter how cool a design idea it may be....

.... Lennon LIVE(s)....

... Of course the legendary spirit of John Lennon, as well as his contribution to music, political and cultural history will never be forgotten.

And lately it has been hard for me to avoid... My new landlord is a Beatlemaniac.... The common area of my new house is covered with Beatles original tour posters in Italian and framed photos of John Lennon. When he told my postal code... it went like this.... McCartney 6 Harrison, 2 Yoko 8.... Its awesome... I can never remember my postal code... now I can't forget it.

And on April 23 there will be one more item to add to the collection. Shout Factory will be releasing a DVD of the concert John Lennon gave with the Plastic Ono Band in 1969.

For Those of you who don't know about the Plastic Ono band, you should start by reading the wikipedia entry. Basically, you know they say Yoko Ono broke up the Beatles... it was basically through the Plastic Ono Band that this was accomplished.

The "band" was formed PBB (Pre Beatles Break-up) to refer to the artists that would collaborate with John Lennon and Yoko Ono on their various musical endeavours. With names like Eric Clapton, Alan White, Klaus Voorman and so many more (including two of the beatles Geaorge and Ringo). And with the musical buffet set before him... the fate of the "rigid" structure imposed by the Beatles was sealed....

Anyway, in 1969, at the very last moment John, Yoko, Clapton, Voorman and White jumped a plane to Toronto to take part in the Toronto Rock'n'Roll Revival, a concert Rolling Stone has called only second in importance to woodstock....

And it all happened at Varsity Arena!!! Let me assure you, the coolest thing I have ever been to at Varsity Arena is a Club Monaco Sample Sale... and it wasn't that great.....

I am gonna have to start to do some digging around about this event... because it combines so many of my favourite things: pop culture, celebrity, music, the 60s and Toronto!

I am definitely gonna start by pre-ordering the Shout Factory DVD and giving it a watch next week.....

...Jane Austen on the art of woo....

...i may be on my way to becoming one of those crazy Austen-ites.... I have never really read any before. I saw Jane Eyre as a play at Shaw Festival once... oh, and i heckled proudly at the TIFF Gala screening of the Jane Austen Book Club (neglecting, of course, to actually read the book for my own book club)...

But I just started Pride and Prejudice, because I have had, of late, one of those cosmic twisters which has put the Jane Austen on my doorstep, (kinda like the Wicked Witch of the East for Dorothy)... my roommate seems to own and love all things Austen, and I trust her literary tastes... It seems to be some sort of Jane Austen-a-thon month on TV, there have been four different Austen flicks on TV in the last week... And as constant as ever is my love for all things Brit....

Anyway, I think I love her for all the same reasons everyone else does... I love the headstrong free will of her protagonists, but the civility and gentility of the society in which they operate... Everyone wants to be an 'individual' but there is something so novel and fun about the thought of being an individual in a society that is not overrun with the MTV credo of being different, yet the same.

Its the same way everyone loves Anne of Green Gables...

Anyway, I knew it was solidified when I read the following:

"I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love," said Darcy

"Of a fine, stout Healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely"

-Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice

It reminds me of a certain something I said about WATT in a recent post... Just with a lot more civility, and a lot fewer references to the actual act of coitus...

Now to get four cats, a really expensive teapot and a lot of new cardigans... this Austenite is BORN!

...i am skeptical because this test seemed to peg me... got it right on the nose....

Look at my results

is it just self aggrandizing? or am i really this way? or is everyone really this way and it just managed to find great language to appeal to everyone?

help, what were your results? take the test, let me know

.... a matter of brine....

.... the politics of food can lead to many a debate.... sharing, ordering, preparing, savouring..... all these can lead to many hours-long discussions (i have had more than one turn into shouting matches).... People are serious about food, and when it comes to matters of taste nothing can be taken lightly.....

.... that said..... one should know the deep-seated (or is it deep-seeded) love I have for pickles.... it's nearly fanatical.... The following is a quote from a fellow pickle enthusiast, which I found on a page dedicated to such discussions. It is highly informative, intelligent and logical....

(and for those of you who don't speak hebrew, or it's english transliteration, tzedakah means charity):


"At a deli, the venerable pickle is cut length-wise either into quarters or eighths. That notwithstanding, the entire pickle should be served as a matter of good graces. The reason for it is known to any proper yiddishkite proprietor- when sitting at a table with other, the pickle is necessarily public property and parts of said pickle shall be eaten by all and sundry. By providing the full pickle, you allow the person who ordered the pickle to perform tzedakah by giving some away while keeping some for his own consumption." -Matt Consky