Earlier every evening

Tuesday night on the breakwater.

Flame-y

The dishes, the laundry. I am so messy right now! But tomorrow is deadline day, and there's a prelim for some gross child porn guy, and I feel no desire to do anything but listlessly monitor flame wars on the blogosphere and MotherCorp on the radio.

What makes flame wars flame-y? According to this article in Wired:

"'People often think the tone or emotion in their messages is obvious because they 'hear' the tone they intend in their head as they write,' [random expert] explains.

At the same time, those reading messages unconsciously interpret them based on their current mood, stereotypes and expectations. Despite this, the research subjects [in random study] thought they accurately interpreted the messages nine out of 10 times.

The reason for this is egocentrism, or the difficulty some people have detaching themselves from their own perspective..."

I'll own up to that.

The Sunday report

Elections are dangerous things. So are Jello shooters, theme parties and friends who don't love me enough to cut me off.

Last night I got my drink on, surrounded by political mercenaries, aliens, robots and newspaper editors. I wake this morning to the realization I was One of Those People.

A brief collection of utterances I may live to regret:

To the 20-year-old NDP operative from Winnipeg (or somewhere) - "Dude, I am the true left wing. THE TRUE LEFT WING."

To the indie guy kind enough to play me his music - "Uh, dude, is that ironic?"

To the girl in green makeup and stilettos - "Dude, you're hot. I kinda wanna make out with you."

Also, the Klingon dictionary contains not a single dirty word. Not one. Although you can be very creative with inflection.

What I did today

KATE NOVA INCOMING!!!!!

Loneliest gas station in the world

Rainbow!

Closet, here I come

Ice crunched underfoot yesterday as I left the house, leaving no doubt as to the character of the season.

I've just completed my final look-in at the office: fax? Check. Email? Check. Phone? Check. Nothing doing but to clean the toilet, gather my notes, and lock up for the last time.

Six weeks in a single-person bureau has been a really challenging, engaging professional opportunity. I was very unfamiliar with the region before I arrived, but I think I've learned quite a bit to take back to Baffin.

I've enjoyed having an office and paper to myself. (I've always said I don't play that well with others.) And without anyone to guide me, I think I did alright. I dug up a couple stories that I'm really proud of, had fun with photography, and somehow managed to fill the pages each week.

It was challenging personally as well. This is not an easy town to meet people in. Outside a small handful of kind souls who invited me on the land or to dinner, I spent the majority of my non-professional time by myself. Huge change of speed after my whirlwind month in the south! On the other hand, it feels much less segregated than the capital, and I've not felt discriminated against once. All this was good for the soul.

Because there's much more of an English-Inuktitut mix spoken (like Franglais back home!), I feel like I made some inroads in the language-learning department as well. It's easy to plateau I think, and I needed a kickstart like this.

So, after two and a half months living out of my backpack, I am looking forward to returning home to my friends, the greenhouse, music and a closet where I can hang up my clothes. Not to mention my second winter in the North!

Oh yeah, and Halloween. If falls on a Friday this year. :)

Wind power that wasn't

Wildly wended way

Here is the path a package from well.ca recently took to my post office box via Canada Post. It went all the way to Edmonton and before returning to Ontario. Huh? But I think this means one of my new coworkers picked it up for me in my absence, so thanks! (Either that, or some stranger stole my shampoo.)

2008/08/26 16:08 KITCHENER, ON
2008/08/26 16:14 GUELPH, ON
2008/08/26 22:59 KITCHENER, ON
2008/08/30 00:55 EDMONTON, AB
2008/09/02 10:31 MISSISSAUGA, ON
2008/09/03 11:25 MONTREAL, QC
2008/09/10 04:57 IQALUIT, NU
2008/09/10 12:51 IQALUIT, NU

So many barrels

I don't know why the fascination with decaying metal objects, but I think them beautiful.

There are barrels everywhere in this town, on street sides for garbage pick-up, filled with jet fuel in yards, half-buried under muddy grass, and here, in the old municipal dump.

So much waste, with nowhere to go.

Random view

Friends in far places

An old friend of mine's adventure has now taken him to China. He's a good writer and takes lots of photos wherever he goes. I'm going to be following his adventures here.

Boo.

So I take back everything I said about Greens running in every riding I've lived in. They don't have a candidate here, and they spelled it "Nanuvit" on their website's ridings list.

This makes me cranky.

I thought they were just waiting, you know, to be coy. But nope. No one. They're giving the same answers they gave months ago: "There is someone considering it seriously, but it is not official yet. Sorry, I can't say anything else. No, we do not know when we will know. Please just check back on our website... Oh... Well, how should it be spelled?"

Did Ms. May just sort of forget about us? You know, the Arctic is only one of the hottest button issues in the news right now, and other parties are taking serious (if misguided) notice. But don't worry, you can abandon us in favour of more important things, Lizzie, like squishing Mr. MacKay. Yeah, just hit him with one of his borrowed rubber boots.

Listen, seriously Lizzie, I come from Central Nova. It's too far gone. Don't waste your energy there.

You know, I'd rather rot in hell than vote Conservative. I can't vote Liberal in this election either, although for more complicated reasons. I also think Jack Layton has run the NDP into the ground, and there is no one more bitter than a reformed NDPer. And I am reformed. Like, so reformed.

I will now be forced to vote for whatever cockamamie fringe party there is, like the Marijuana Party.

Wait, I think that guy's in jail. Shit. I don't know what to do. I can't even vote for some weird throwaway in the name of democracy.

Ugh. I was so excited about the election. Now I just want to drink. And think about the simpler times.

Oh, wait. Reporters aren't supposed to have opinions on anything. I don't care! Screw you Harper!

I landed on the moon today

Video diary

More good tunes

This is another interesting artist I recently stumbled upon and wanted to share.

Andrea Menard is a Métis actor/singer/playright/songwriter, who wrote a one-act play called Velvet Devil that was later turned into a made-for-TV movie.

From Saskatoon, Sask., her stuff ranges from jazz to traditional to blues, you name it. The soundtrack to Velvet Devil gave me insane shivers the first time I heard it. Its story follows a young Métis singer who flees her past and identity as she finds success in the music business, before eventually returning home.

Anyway, you can listen to her stuff here. It includes three from Velvet Devil.

I think she'd be an amazing addition to a festival like Alianait!

My life, a little more complete

I just stumbled across a collaboration called "Keewatin Arctic," a song by John K Samson, Inuit throatsinger Nikki Komaksiutiksak and an electro guy called Curtis Walker.

Basically she throatsings and Samson name-drops a bunch of Nunavut communities over the same guitar sound you'd expect in anything done by the Weakerthans.

He actually sings in Inuktitut in unison with her on sections.

The song came out of a Winnipeg-based weekly recording session called The Record of the Week Club.

Listen to it here. (I just did, like, 50 times.)

I think it was only recorded last month.

I'm in heaven.

Arguably alright

Rankin hasn't been the easiest stint for me, but I'm having a moment of okay so thought I'd blog about it.

Today was a day which began as a mountain but whittled down to an exceptionally large hill. This is okay. Some questions were answered, some photographs filed. The Army of Darkness delivery boys are much more manageable here.

I spent an hour hanging with a throat singing club for a soft story, and nothing can compare to the cuteness of a gaggle of eight-year-olds doing the gull song.

Then yoga.

And now, listening to the Weakerthans' Reconstruction Site, which draws both the highest and lowest points of my life over the last three years into simultaneous focus. Kills me every time it shuffles up. Reminds me of lightning storms on concrete and sad, late nights on the hardwood floor. Heartbreak and heart mend. Highway driving at the top of my lungs in summer and empty patios in winter.

The perfect man would be equal parts of John K. Samson, Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits, with some humility thrown in to temper the jerkness sure to accompany such genius. This man surely could not exist, because my universe would cease to exist, as I would follow him to the ends of the earth.

Three of the most romantic things ever: Leonard Cohen's "This is for you," Tom Waits's "The Briar and the Rose," and The Weakerthans' "My Favourite Chords."

Lord preserve me

I didn't think it was possible for municipal council meetings to be any more dysfunctional than those in our fine capital.

Not true.

(Sigh.)

Tank farm

This old house

And the winner is...

If our federal leaders were pitted in a death match against Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Elizabeth May would hold out the longest!

May won this enlightening poll with 10 votes to Harper's seven, Layton's four and Dion's two. (Poor Dion, and one of those votes was mine).

Here's the breakdown with percentages, out of 23 total votes:

May - 10 (43 per cent)
Harper - 7 (30 per cent)
Layton - 4 (17 per cent)
Dion - 2 (8 per cent)

I am not sure how people came to their decisions. Was it based on brawn, brains or simply comedic factor? I will likely never know, but thank you all for voting in this very important poll.

Their campaign people would be wise to take note.

In conclusion, thank you to Joel Schwartz for pointing out this frightening little number.