Ebb + flow: Lessons from the Routines + Ruts podcast

I’ve been meaning to listen to Ruts + Routines, a podcast about the creative process and life as a creative, for a while. I generally binge through podcasts in one go. Basically the only one I’ve managed to routinely follow is Harry Potter and the Sacred Text. Current event ones I just can’t do very easily.

I am really enjoying hearing about other creatives and how they deal with this weird uncertain lifestyle, with the process of making things, of learning new skills. It’s nice to be able to find people who you have something in common with.

I spend a lot of time thinking about how to manage my time, what there is and isn’t space for in my life and how to make the lists I have into things I’ve made. I’m learning some valuable lessons from this show

• Listen to your body: It has ebbs and flows. You’re not always on. Rest is important. I’m not a morning person so trying not to force

• Gather: In her interview Ingrid Fetell Lee talks about gathering information and how the research she did made her book a lot richer. I’m in the gathering phase of a couple of different projects and it’s reassuring to hear that this is actually helpful and a good idea

• Tiers: Samuel Leighton-Dore talked about using three tiers for his work and I like this system. Though I’m using it in a more long term way that makes my to do lists feel more manageable

• The good old days of blogging: I’ve been missing the days when WordPress was my jam, when I had my Google RSS feed (RIP), when there was more nuance and community than you can build in 280 words. I want to blog more. I want to spend more time making stuff and less time bickering/debating on Twitter. One episode talks about how to visit a blog you have to intentionally decide to do so. With social media there is a serious lack of intention. There’s just scrolling and scrolling and more scrolling. There’s a few sites I really get a lot of value out of and people who are really useful. I want to have these in my life. I want to engage with just that. I want to type in urls. I want to decide that I have a moment for something and make it work. I want to have less time spend scrolling through the trauma that greets me each time I open Twitter. There is valuing in checking out and these days I want to spend far more of my time in long form, depth and going for walks. I want to read a book about how crows share a common ancestor with humans and have a fairly similar sensory system. I want to listen to the sound of waves while salt tickles my nose and I can feel the wind on my face. I want to blog more

Door closing

When I was a teenager I thought a great way to end a movie would be to have a scene where a person walks through a door of a home they're leaving, moving out of, and then closes it. The camera doesn't follow them it just stays focused on that door and that's it. The end. The end of time in that place, that part of their life, the end of the story.

It seems simple and elegant.

I think of that image whenever I move.

Leaving a place, somewhere you have lived, always feels strange and surreal. Sometimes I'm sad to go. Sometimes I have other things on my mind. Always the chaos of moving and packing and trying to decipher which possessions you actually need and want. That feeling like you own all together too many things and they might just eat you. The frustration of knowing that you have something but that it's in one box or another.

I just moved. Something I knew was going to happen, something I should be excited about.

The last several months of my life has been hard and a lot of things have happened to me. I was more than happy to leave where I was living and get a new start. A bold period was the punctuation mark of choice. Over. Done. New start. New home. New part of town. No reminders, no walking by the things telling me how much of a mess my life was.

Then there's the boxes. You have to unpack, make it work for the new space.

It's bigger and I like the furniture better.

I am trying not to fixate on the various ways in which the building and location are probably toxic and killing me. I did it for the last building and I'm sure I'd do it for anywhere else. Part of it's reasonable, part of it's not. I should spend less time thinking about how the world is toxic and killing me. Then again the world should be less toxic and more should be done to stop things from killing me or slowly poisoning me.

It's nice being closer to things, having more to do nearby. It's nice having a bigger room. It's nice to finally have this hard chapter in my life end. For so long all I wanted was for the housing drama and the injuries and health issues to end. For the door to close, for me to be ready to move on.

After getting here, to this new place, that I will slowly feel more and more settled in, I decided to listen to Sun In An Empty Room by the Weakerthans. It's moving related:

“Now that the furniture’s returning to its Goodwill home
With dishes in last week’s papers, rumours and elections, crosswords, an unending war
That blacken our fingers, smear their prints on every door pulled shut.
Now that the last month’s rent is scheming with the damage deposit”

And:

“Know that the things we need to say
Have been said already anyway
By parallelograms of light
On walls that we repainted white

Sun in an empty room

Take eight minutes and divide
By ninety million lonely miles
And watch the shadow cross the floor
We don’t live here anymore”

It fits right?

There's also another song that I can't place or track down that feels like it's by the Maccabees and has a lyric referring to box cutters. I can't figure out what it is but I can picture album art from my high school cd stack and hum a tune.

The beauty of the door closing image is that in a movie, or book, any kind of story really, there's just the end. It keeps going but you don't get to know what happens — blah blah sequels but that's not the point. I really like the ending of Firefly because it's so mundane. They are just doing their thing. No drama, just life.

In reality you don't stay on the other side of the door. You are in a truck or taxi going somewhere else, going to what's next. Tired, wondering. Trying to say goodbye as best you can while dealing with life as it comes at you.

With a little help from my friends

I love the Swiss Miss newsletter. I hate getting email but I always open this one. It brightens my day.

The latest edition included this quote:

“It’s as simple and as complex as that. You’re the only you that’s ever been. Keep showing up despite the chaos. Be humble in the pursuit of your art and ruthless about finding the time to make it. Find friends with whom you can weather the tragic gaps. Give one another loving, honest feedback and teach each other how to make money in weird, sustaining ways. Collaborate and commiserate. Make relationships that are reciprocal, not transactional. Make lives that aren’t easy, but rife with good material. Make art that matters.
”

— Courtney Martin

I am a sucker for a good quote. And this is a good quote.

It's got the simple and complex thing. Because it really is that easy and that hard. You just have to do it. As best as you can. Even though you don't really know how.

The main thing I like about this is the find friends part. Because I have found some friends, a crew of sorts, of the kind I've been longing for since I finished undergrad and the easy friendships that come with close proximity and common existences.

I had no idea when I took that job at that bike store or got involved with the Bike Root what would happen, where it would take me. I had no idea that I was finding my people, a group of fantastic wonderful people. That it would lead me to friendships and love and community and belonging.

Having good friends isn't something you should take for granted. When I was an undergrad I did. I don't anymore. Instead, tonight I am grateful for the friends that I have found because they are pretty fantastic.

Plugged in

I have been decently diligent about charging my phone lately but still it keeps dying.

I'm getting to that sad point where the battery doesn't last and I basically have to have it plugged in at all times.

Yay.

I'm doing a thing

I've been wondering about what to do with all the stuff I've made and put up in different places over the years. My Wordpress writing blog has been getting weird spam follows and I want to take it down so I am planning on migrating the various blogs to here.

I think it'd be really nice to have a home for all my stuff. I'm not totally sure what the value of that is. I guess if someone had a crush on me and wanted to scroll through every page they could do that. If someone thought I was super brilliant and they wanted to read and see all the things they could do that too.

Platforms come and go so I guess I like the idea of all the stuff I've made just having a place that it can live.

That was one of my original goals when I started this blog/website here and picked this platform. Have one place where I can put everything. Get back into blogging. Deal with things.

I say deal with a lot lately. As in I don't feel like dealing with that, or it feels really hard to deal with things, or it's really satisfying to deal with things, or I haven't been dealing with that for a while time to get started.

So I want to deal with this stuff.

I want to deal with the feeling of having no idea what I am doing. Because let's be honest I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't know how to deal with all these things I've made or how to make many of the things I want to make. But the only way to get to the other side of that is to start and fumble through it cluelessly as ever.

Back to blogging

I keep telling myself I should write more, that I need to actually do blog posts. Something something daily goals.

I've had allergies that are kicking my ass and my knee hurts but honestly that feels like progress. Neither of those two things have anything to do with the injuries I've been recovering from. If I am more concerned by them then that feels like a good sign.

I am mostly back to normal, not at full working out again but mostly. So I aspire to blog. More. A lot more. I aspire to share stuff and to use this thing that I once really loved and think I still do.

I have stories to tell and I want to actually bother to tell them. I want to turn to-dos and ideas into things.

So I am going to blog more. I swear.

My bookstore

I have been reading My Bookstore, a collection of writers writing about their favourite bookstore. It is the type of book that is filled with many talented people saying the same thing in different ways.

It makes me think of the bookstores that I have loved, visited and lost (through closure or floods). While others travel they collect shot glasses or flags. I collect bookstores.

Calgary hasn’t really provided me with an independent bookstore I love. There are a few independents that I love to browse but they don’t tug on my heartstrings. I don’t go out of my way to visit them and I don’t long for them when I’m not home.

Growing up we enrolled in various activities at Mount Royal College (now a university) on the other side of town. All too often we wound up racing to the south through rush hour traffic for music or dance lessons.

Near MRU there is a large complex of big box stores and strip malls. Nestled amongst them is an Indigo that we visited so often as kids it felt like a second home.

We would go in and rush to the back corner that was home to the kids books. I collected Magic Tree House books and then A Series of Unfortunate Events. My mother never said no when we wanted a book.

Afterwards we would sit in the little café and eat a snack. I invariable purchased a lemon bar. I can still remember how it tastes. Eventually the café was replaced by a Starbucks as Chapters and Indigo became one.

In junior high my tastes turned to political books and non-fiction. We still made our trips to Chapters and I collected books describing the unpleasant things that happen in this world.

I also started reading comic books. One of my good friends in grade seven loved them and converted me. He gave me his lunch money so I could buy Xmen comics for him. I would get off the bus early and go to Another Dimension Comics in Kenzington. I would wander the aisles and pick up the latest request. In exchange for my labours I got to read them after he was done with them. By the end of the year there were so many mutants in my life I could barely keep track of them.

I started buying weekly comic series with very little taste or discrimination. Many were awful but one that sticks out in my mind is Batman City of Lights. It’s dark and brooding like most Batman stories. Using a special chemical the buildings in Gothan were made to glow. Unfortunately, the chemical also made the buildings come to life and eat people Venus flytrap style. I don’t remember how it ended but I assume Batman saved everyone at the last minute in and improbably and heart warming fashion. That’s usually what happened.

What made this collection special was that it centred on a group of artists. One named Rahn was commissioned to paint a portrait of Batman and got embroiled in the whole mess. I may have fallen hear over heels for Rahn with his spiky hair and painted stained clothes. It was junior high.

I still love to wander Another Dimension Comics. It moved two blocks down to a bigger space. The old location was replaced by an art supply store that I also love to wander. Now I’ve graduated to graphic novels that I exclusively get out of the library. Rahn still holds a place in my heart and I try to spend more of my energy on crushes that I have on real boys instead of fictional characters.

In high school much to my mother’s relief I got into fiction. And occasion I even read whatever the AP board was passing off as classic literature.

Me and my friends started going downtown for the first time. It was a mysterious land filled with tall buildings and unfamiliar streets. One that we got to know well was Stephen Avenue, a pedestrianized street one down from the LRT, that even we couldn’t get lost trying to find. There we visited a shiny temple of literary wonders called MacNally and Robinson. The store spanned three floors, with a café on top.

Here we could find everything we wanted. There were books we’d never heard of and those that had been mentioned by English teachers who were much wiser than us. Here I worked my way through George Orwell, John Steinbeck, Nick Hornby and Douglas Coupland. Here I was talked into buying an Allan Ginsberg book that I ended up hating by one of my best friends. We were both strong willed and had very different taste in books. However, we could both agree that Dubliners is sheer magic.

Sadly, MacNally and Robinson closed before we graduated. It was replaced by a Sportcheck I still can’t bring myself to shop at.

Small Japanese objects

Over the winter holidays my mother bought a book called The Hare with the Amber Eyes. The cover didn’t look particularly striking — it is good but not buy me good — so I didn’t really take note of it until she insisted that I read it, and after her good recommendation/pushiness on reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night I thought why not. Why not indeed.

At first the book appears to be about some small Japanese objects that de Waal inherits from his uncle. Then it becomes about so much more. The inheritance is traced back to the roots of de Waal’s family, a group of wealthy Russian Jewish bankers that spread throughout Europe. They enjoy their hay day, then they decline a little, then they are caught in the tragedy of Nazism.

de Waal is a potter by training and clearly has a high appreciation for objects. This is not just about the objects, otherwise it would be about art history, but about his family, and why these particular objects are so important. It is about his ancestors and why people cherish objects.

Reading it reminds me of the feeling I had while in the Scottish highlands, and learning about the clearings and conditions of every day people. Many of them left for the new world because of that and that is my inheritance. I live where I do because events long (or not so long) ago took place. de Waal is keenly aware of how his ancestors have shaped his family history and how different events led them to where they are today.

More so than that the book is a fascinating story, first of nineteenth century Paris, then the first world war and the great depression, then the overwhelming sadness of lives ripped apart by the Nazi genocide and the family members who didn’t manage to make it out, the ones who just barely did, then a move to Japan and a beloved ancestor and his collection of objects, which are really a collection of memories and the heritage of a once great Jewish banking family.

de Waal is gifted with words, and could easily give up pottery if he wanted to. This is the best non-fiction I’ve read since Maya Angelou. de Waal makes things simple but yet so meaningful. He carefully chooses words and adjectives. It is objective, but also personal. How could it be any other way?

“Tokyo can be very quiet. I once sat waiting for them to come home, sitting on the low green railing opposite, and in an hour only two old ladies came past and a hopeful yellow taxi.”

It works because the taxi is hopeful. What a perfectly chosen word. He leaves you with a feeling of the simplicity of everyday life, of details, of objects but also with a greater thread of how complex the world can be. There is more than meets the eye. There are broader questions at hand.

This book is sheer magic. I read it in about two days. I was left with no choice but to keep reading.

When I think about Queen I can remember my whole life

I can still name every member of the Clash and there was a time in my life when I lived and breathed that band. They were my religion and the biography I had of the Clash was my cannon. Freddie & me by Michael Dawson is about the same thing but with a different band. He grew up loving Queen and Freddie Mercury and these are his adventures.

He recounts how the band relates to different events in his life and the memories he associates with Queen. Dawson views graphic novels as the perfect medium for autobiography. This is the story of a kid growing up, moving from England to the U.S. and the band he loved (and the bands he didn’t love). What could provide a more fitting narrative frame than a band? Queen relates to getting beaten up and yelled at by the parent of a neighbour after breaking a toy. It was the soundtrack for growing up and Dawson shares that experience in wonderful words and images with the reader.

“This is what I see when I picture that night in my head: I’m in the crowd, looking over at the DJ. I’m not sure if this is from before or after the incident with my tape.”

There are a series of memories that Dawson has which he associates with Queen and various songs. This is like how whenever I hear “New Slang” I think of a particular friend or how “Koka Kola” reminds me of my sister. These are more than songs to us, they are memories. They are experiences new and old. That once were our present reality and now are memories. They are embodied by sounds and in the case of great bands they are tied to the musicians behind them, the pictures we put up on our walls that now live in a box in our closet, that book we just can’t find a way to part with, and a certain time and place.

“I press play and the same music in the same sequence comes out every time. But the thoughts that arise in my mind are what start to differ.”

This is a wonderful graphic novel about a boy, the band he loved, the person he grew up to be, and his memories. You don’t have to love Queen to relate to it. As long as you enjoy story telling, a boy with a particularly large head and may at one point in time have been in love with a band (any band) then you will be in for a treat.

Makes me feel like dancing

You are stopped at a red light. You look over at the car next to you and notice that there is a girl dancing in it. There is a chance that I am that girl and there is only one thing to blame: Belle & Sebastian. I have disc two of Push Barman to Open Old Wounds in the CD player — yes in junior high I bought CDs and occasionally still make use of them. As “Legal Man” or “Slow Graffiti” plays I am left with no choice but to dance. This is the kind of car dance that involves somewhat coordinated arm movements and foot tapping, but with enough focus to keep my foot on the brake and not miss the advanced green. Belle & Sebastian induce a Nathan Barnatt like need to wiggle and dance. That is the beauty of this album.

In its own soft, mellow way Belle & Sebastian are the kind of indie rock that you can put on while your friends who don’t think that Bon Iver are the rockingest car tunes ever are around. They are what clubs should play if they want people to truly sincerely dance. This is the music that lives in your headphones as you dance around in the kitchen while you think no one else is home. This is solid gold.

Now this is how we get to Write About Love all these years later. Belle & Sebastian are slightly older and wiser, and their music is better than ever. “I hate my job, I’m working way too much. Every day I’m stuck in an office. At one o’clock, I take my lunch up on the roof,” they sing. The music is full and the lyrics are good. You head shakes back and forth. That and consistency is the making of indie rock royalty.

Port of meh

A little over a month ago (six days to be exact) Port of Morrow by The Shins dropped. The album was much anticipated and long awaited, and well a little disappointing. This is not The Shins, or more accurately James Mercer — given the fact that the band is his and he is the somewhat benevolent dictator — I wonder if he has considered a gross national happiness indicator — best music.

My first thought was that if I did not love it that might be because there was so much anticipation and expectation around Port of Morrow. “It’s The Shins it has to be good,” I thought but then had to edge off. The higher our expectations are for something the better it has to be to match them and we can just create disappointment where an otherwise good album is. For example I love the movie Stranger Than Fiction and often tell friends it is incredible and that it will change their life. After watching it they are often disappointed and don’t think it lives up to my endless excitable buildup. Now I tell people that it is okay and get much better reactions.

Second, albums usually get better with time. I like Port of Morrow much more now than I did a month ago. The songs are comfortable and familiar. There are some I really like and some I think the music world would be no worse off without. “Simple Song” is not very exceptional and was a poor choice for a first single. Which raises the question do The Shins need to be exceptional? This is not James Mercer at his best but is James Mercer at his worst or on an okay day still good enough? On the one hand what made The Shins good was their consistency and excellence. They were not your average indie band and their songs were worthy or endless play. That’s how they got from Garden State to having a much anticipated release. Port of Morrow may not be their best but it still is better than a lot of the other music out there. On NME‘s scale I would give it a six (better than average), where a seven is really good. A six is still worth listening to. It will probably not get as much play time as any of The Shins other albums and it does not have a “New Slang” or “Phantom Limb”. However, when one of these songs comes up on shuffle I will not frantically hit next. I will listen and likely enjoy it.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead: Thoughts on Alberta’s election

Today was election day in the province of Alberta (Canada) where I live. It was supposed to be a historic election in which the Progressive Conservatives (PC), who have formed the government of Alberta for the past forty years would be defeated by the Wildrose Party (more conservative).

This did not happen and this is probably because of some extremely bad Wildrose PR during the last week of the campaign. A campaign that was originally tight and on message became a campaign that alienated PC voters and turned throngs of left-wing and moderate voters towards strategic voting. One candidate said that gays will burn in hell and another said that being white would give him an electoral advantage — an especially bad move in the city that elected Naheed Nenshi with no discussion of his ethnic background or religion. The Wildrose Party went from possible alternative to making the PCs look moderate. Strategic voting became the name of the game for many. A Shit Harper Did style video called “I Never Thought I’d Vote Conservative” circulated Facebook. There is nothing like being branded homophobes and racists to sabotage a formerly viable change centered campaign. Hint to future politicians: make sure your candidates stay on message during the home stretch. If at all possible avoid being associated with causes that alienated moderates and saying things that will only result in massive backfire.

While this did not mark a historic shift it feels as though it did in some ways. Perhaps this is just the optimistic in me but voter turnout was high and for a change people went from seeing Alberta politics as Thing 1 (PCs) and Thing 2 (Wildrose). Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. The PCs and Wildrose could not be more different in the eyes of many voters. The PCs are now a center right party of sorts. Allison Redford is the equivalent of a republican in a democratic state, whereas Wildrose leader Danielle Smith is more of the Tea Party flavour of conservatism.Allison Redford may be from the same party that has lead the province for thirty years but she does have some new ideas and a new take. Danielle Smith on the other hand proposed giving Albertans money back, which could not show less vision and leadership — besides Albertans already got their Ralph bucks, do we really need to go back there.

Alberta now has a new opposition party in the Wildrose, who got around 20 seats to the PCs 60. This will keep the PCs in check and it’s not a bad thing to have some kind of opposition party in your legislature — previously the NDP and Liberal parties combined for few enough seats to be little more than background noise.

This also raises the question of the future of Alberta’s left. For some reason there are two left wing parties (the Liberals and NDP) despite the fact that together they might be able to combine to be a real political force. Apart the Liberals and NDP each got about nine or ten per cent of the vote, which would be around twenty per cent together — this despite the strategic voting that was going on. Vote splitting costs the left seats, and frankly there are that many votes to split to begin with. Calgarians elected a left-wing mayor, and were repulsed by racism and homophobia. There is the potential for new policies and a new mentality to come out of this and not the same old, same old.

Change doesn’t always have to be dramatic and a forty-year dynasty doesn’t have to fall for history to be made. Change can be as simple as people caring about politics and taking the time to go to the polls, or leaving the potential to open new doors come four years from now.

On another note Allison Redford is now Alberta’s first elected female Premier and the leader of the official opposition is female. Girl power.