Hello.
I’m just writing a quick to note to see if you’re reading Fashionable People, Questionable Things. The Pineapples and the Avacados (sp intended) have become halifamous with this site - upwards of 2000 hits a day! - so you should get on the bandwagon if you haven’t already.
This is a meme. It has been years since I played along with a meme. In fact, the last time I played a meme, I got so angry with the internet that it led me to rethink my relationship with it, and i walked away from blogging for almost three years.
But this meme was brought to me by ange ella, whose respect i’m always trying to earn, even if from afar. ange ella subtly pushes people to think about the moment they’re living in terms that extend well beyond the time of day and whether things are good or not good. for that, i owe it to her (and myself) to play along.
some one asked ange ella several questions, and she answered them. I decided to play along, so she asked me several questions. if you want to play along, then contact me and I’ll get back to you with your own set.
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1. If heaven exists, what do you want it to be like?
This isn’t a loaded question but it is burdened so much by the Big, Heavy Things. Notwithstanding the weight of faith and religion bearing down on this question, it demands that we consider the entire notion of an afterlife - what its purpose is, what it looks like (as opposed to what it’s likely like), what it does, and if it is even a good thing. Since I over-think questions like this (note my blithering up to now), I try to avoid broaching the topic altogether. But for Ange Ella, I’m willing to give it a go.
<hesitation…>
The more I think about this, the more I realize I haven’t actually considered the question before. We don’t really have a choice to decide what heaven is like if heaven exists. If we’ve decided that heaven exists, then we’ve more or less decided to ascribe to a faith that explains to us what heaven is. Our understanding of heaven, that is, is often dictated to us by certain facets of a much larger belief system.
But what if we could decide that heaven actually exists and also determine what it will be? Ange Ella’s question is brokering close to After Life in some respects, so I’m both real happy and grieved that she asked me this.) I don’t know if I could figure out what my otherworldy paradise should be like, let alone describe it to others. I can’t really describe scenes so well, so a particular setting is out of the question. But if we might allow heaven to be compared to a moment, to a feeling or a set of feelings one has had, then I may be willing to venture a guess.
Like any good former English major, my mind is drawn to the sublime on this question. What’s so great about the sublime is not the acceptance or recognition of the shock and awe, but the actual confrontation when one is overcome by the terror, the fright, the beauty or the majesty. It is a moment of sheer incomprehension, when the senses are overcome by that which has been perceived. We can perceive the sublime, and we are cognisant that it is occurring, but we can’t comprehend it. Instead we stand there, wondrous and wondering in the shadow of something so much bigger than us.
That moment, when we are overloaded by what we have sensed and can’t comprehend anything except for an awareness of its existence alongside ours - I think that would be a “heaven” for me. (Putting it in those terms shows us why the Romantics were both feared and hailed by the religious. An encounter with the sublime is so close to an encounter with the Almighty that romanticism stood the chance to either describe God or replace religion altogether.)
2: Pertaining to question one - what place on earth have you found to be closest to this, if any?
As I mentioned before, I don’t do well at describing places and settings. Rather, feelings and memories are attuned to moments for me. I think I’ve encountered the sublime a couple times in my life. A moment forever dear to my heart would be a long drive home down the QEW one late night or early morning. Helen and I had finished moving out of our place, and we had a U-Haul truck of Stuff to return to our respective parents. Somewhere past Hamilton, we turned on the radio, and in the midst of an awful rain did we hear Elton John sing Rocket Man to us. We started singing back, and the chorus reverberated loudly in the cab. I especially remember the line “I think it’s going to be a long, long time / Before touchdown brings me ‘round again for them to find…” We both knew, as the pellets of cold December rainshower hit the cab, that it would be a long time before we’d have such fun together again, and that our homes, where our parents were, had not been our homes for quite some time but only spaces to store stuff. And to store ourselves. Soon, the song ended and Helen passed out, and I was left to drive this U-Haul further down the road. The drive was a silent and beautiful coda of sorts, but nonetheless the weight of the world bore down on me like nothing I’d felt in a long while.
Another moment that would be sublime (or I suppose “heavenly” for the sake of this conversation) would be a late, late winter night about ten years ago. The details are few but they are inconsequential to the moment as it occurred. I was living, studying, and working in Toronto. It was a hard life of sorts, but I was getting close to living the pauper-student lifestyle I had longed for, so I didn’t always notice the sadness I surrounded myself in in order to live and eat. At any rate, I lived close to the school, and worked close to the waterfront, which was about a forty minute walk away. One February evening, in the midst of a week that took in more hours at work than hours at in the library, I decided to take in one too many drinks after the shift ended. Soon, the bar closed and my cohorts and I realized we would have to walk home since the transit system had shut down. We all went our merry ways - some east, and some west - and I trudged north through the financial district. It was a beautiful night bereft of wind chills or blizzards. Instead, my walk home was complemented by a slow and subtle snowfall. Looking up to watch the white snowflakes come down against the dark sky and tall buildings was magical to my imbibed state. I don’t know exactly when or where it happened, and I don’t think I could find it now since the location I believe it may have occurred has since transformed from a parking lot to a condo, but at one point on my walk toward Queen St did I fall to the ground to make snow angels. I laid on my back and damned any cold that might come in order to make two snow angels in the fluffy matter that hit the earth. Looking straight up at the snow that fell down on me from the office towers took a lot out of me. I knew I had several drinks in my gullet and that I was tired after a long day of school and work, but I wanted nothing more than to stay in that precise spot for a long, long time. The moment felt like forever. I know it wasn’t since I only made two snow angels, but time still slowed down to a near-stop for me there. There was nothing but me, reinforced concrete, and sparkly snowflakes and lights far away to give the scene a mood. I’d give a lot to get that moment back.
3: What invention do you wish could have been yours?
I’m somewhat arrogant, somewhat pompous, and somewhat pretentious. But I don’t think I’m possessive or resentful (anymore). I’m not sure how to answer this because wanting an invention to be “mine” feels like wanting fame or notoriety. I suppose that a certain satisfaction must have warmed Louis Pasteur when he finally perfected the pasteurization process, or that Alexander Graham Bell was happy to figure out telephony when he did on the shares of the Bras d’Or. And I guess that Marconi was more than happy when he finally got the wireless signal from Ireland to touch base with Nova Scotia, so maybe I am being presumptuous and putting too much weight on the fame/fortune bit on this one.
Nonetheless, things aren’t coming to mind right now. I don’t think I appreciate the inventive process (?) enough to answer this. There are things around me, and I use them and appreciate them. But I don’t really recall what life was like before them.
Maybe, if anything, I wish I could have invented the aluminum, fibreglass, and composite hockey stick shafts. Then I would patent all the designs and processes, and then I would never, ever sell them. I miss the lightweight wooden hockey stick for its simplicity and durability. Also, I really believe that “Modern Technology” is making “Canada’s National Pastime” too expensive for the “Children of Tomorrow”. (That was rather contrite, I know.)
4: What song do you want playing at your funeral?
You’re asking me to pare down the multi-volume Soundtrack of my Life to just one song? Yikes. For a long time, I might have answered with a live boot of Air’s “We Are Electronic Performers”, which often sums up my postmodern feelings about life, technology, duplication, and existence (‘we are the synchronizers’). I’m a little more zen now, though, and so I think it would be one of two songs by Morrissey. If not “We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful”, then it would be “Suedehead”.
“We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful” is beautiful and uplifting, in spite of the nature of its title. The song has Morrissey, resentful that so many people around him are doing so much better at everything than he can. He’s insecure about his ability to write and sing - and therefore he’s insecure and unsure of his artistry and his way of life. This is not just a simple question of aesthetics and metaphysics, but also about finding a way to keep food on the table and the rent paid on time. But then the middle of the song comes around, where he realizes, “Oh you’ve got loads of songs, so many songs, more songs than they can stand . . . just listen:” and then he finds his sing and laugh again. When I’m sad and I feel I’m not living up to the apparent expectations of those around me (which is really just an maligned, interiorized understanding of the expectations I set for myself), I play this song and I feel better.
As for “Suedehead”, well, listen to that and tell me that you don’t know why this person sings only pop music. Morrissey has a beautiful voice that catches our moments of disarray and regret but hinges them on nostalgia and remembrances rather than guilt and decay. And the song is so ambiguous that even Wilde would approve.
(I think I might have to add one more to the list - I know, this was supposed to be only one song - but I need to bring New Order’s “Temptation” into the conversation. I’ve written about this song before so I won’t say much more except that “Oh you’ve got green eyes, oh you’ve got blue eyes, oh you’ve got grey eyes / and i’ve never seen anyone quite like you before”)
5: If you could only wear one outfit every day for the rest of time (you can have more than one of each piece, but they have to be identical), what would it be?
A finely cut white linen suit (mod, please), a greek sailor’s cap, and maybe a rolled cigarette or two. If you could add sunshine and the mediterranean to the outfit, then I might find solace in the scene.
(are you asking me to describe heaven again in this question?)
- Everything’s the same!
- everything is the same, yes.
- What could this mean?
- nothing. it means nothing.
- What does that mean?
- nothing.
- Oh no.
- Oh, yes.
- What are you waiting for?
- Nuthin.
- Then what are you doing?
- Waiting.
- For what?
- Nuthin.
i am going through a bout of nightmares about my unfinished MA thesis and am losing a lot of sleep because of it. It’s like the ghost of Old Hamlet is now speaking directly to me instead of his son: “Remember me…”
(poor crackpot-theory alert. read at my peril and yours.)
I’ve just come back from a trip. I’ve been away. I was gone. I left my existence in one space and ventured forward into another for nine days.
Then I returned.
I think the manner in which we describe ourselves - often through the verb “to be” - is incredibly fascinating. We don’t think about it too often (and nor should we, frankly), but when we do, I think it’s easy to see how the manner in which we use this verb can throw our understanding of ourselves for a loop. For instance, ”I am sick” connotes a momentary case of illness, or better yet, plays on a sense of “sickness” that adjusts the statement into an outright personification of A H1N1 and our acclamation thereof.
But to say “I’ve been away” or “I was away” drives home for me the temporal and unfixed nature of being. Our understanding of ourselves - all of our moments when we introspectively identify as x or y - are like a string of pearls on a necklace: each are separate and distinct moments. To say “I was away” suggests that I left or was away from the person I am/was on the east coast of Canada for a time and became some one else in the intervening days. Perhaps it would be better to say “I am returned” as opposed to “I have returned”, then, in order to reinforce how the experience of the journey makes my life as it is today, May 10, 2009, distinct from my life as it was before I handed a flight attended a boarding pass on May 1, 2009.
All this faux-theory draws me toward the nature of memory and experience. (It doesn’t help that I was reading a book that questioned the nature of remembrances in a world without time, but it is nonetheless a topic I’ve studied in the past.) We have memories of people, places, things, moments, and experiences. We remember the party we last attended or the dread of an spiked utility bill or of that pleasant picnic with Jack and Diane. We commonly hold these memories as remembrances of the world and of our experience in it. But when it comes down to brass tacks, these memories are interpretations, made in this present moment, of how we want to remember ourselves vis-a-vis that previous experience. I can try to look back into the past, but all I’ll discover is the memory-outcomes of the previously experienced moments as I want to perceive them in the here-and-now. Therefore, how I was then, before I was away and before I was returned, are particular identities and states of existence, but they are identities and states of existence we can’t ever return to because they have been co-opted by the needs of the immediate-present self. Even our understanding of these states is nothing more than a sorry attempt to fool ourselves into believing we can understand the present and the future from a past that is constantly consumed and regurgitated by the here and now..
(If you’re curious, my trip was fairly uneventful.)
The Short Story: Always check arrival times before picking up friends at the airport.
The Long Story: (a rambling narrative for the locals) I woke up at 4am this morning to pick up some friends at the airport. They were due to arrive at 4:20, and we figured they would clear customs around 5am. So I was out the door and driving to the airport at 430, which is perfect timing to get to Godforsaken International Airport. As I made my way closer to the airport, however, I noticed that traffic didn’t build up as it should have. Even at this awful hour, and especially for international/US travel, one is bound to encounter traffic by the time you hit the airport. But I didn’t think anymore about it beyond that. It was so early it was still dark. I was trying to keep my eye on the road and my car on the right side of the yellow line - anything more than that would be gravy.
I went to park the car at the metered parking, but learned (after circling once) that the metered parking has finally be removed since the construction and “grand opening” of the new parking lot. So i parked in the hourly section of the parking lot and went to the arrivals section to find my friends. That’s when I saw that their flight had been delayed, from 420am to 712am. I stood there for five minutes and stared at the screen. it was early and i was damn tired so it didn’t really matter who might watch me watch this rectangle on a wall any longer than I should have. I couldn’t process what this yellow “712am” meant. all I could tell that I was early, too early. finally, my mind made itself up to want to turn back home, s I turned away and walked to the door back to the garage. but it couldn’t be that easy. before crossing that threshold that marked the end of the airport and the beginning of the pedway to the garage, I stopped, turned around, and walked back to the rectangle - i had to be sure that this actually said 712am. and so it did. i stared at it some more. it was only now - probably fifteen minutes since i arrived, than I finally became annoyed with myself - i really should have checked the airport website before leaving, and now i was stuck ina freakish temporal and spatial limbo at 5am in the middle of rural nova scotia. but realy now, who’s flight is going to be delayed by three hours at 420am?! yes, now we know the answer.
i walked back to the parking lot. i decided not to go home. i decided i’d go hang out at the enfield bigstop instead. despite not have any pennies in my life to spare right now, i figured i’d sit down and eat a big stop breaky of two eggs (OE), bacon (rare-ish), and white toast. I don’t believe in brown toast, especially when eating egg and bacon. that fibrous whole wheat can’t save the day you’ve just wasted on the yummy bacon’s sodium levels. white is will do just fine, thank you for asking.
So I made the drive to enfield, which is only 5km or so from the airport, and pulled into wondrous, beautiful, magnificent and humble Irving Mainway and BigStop. And the lights were off in the restaurant! Dude! The Irving’s restaurant was closed! What kind of world are we living in when the BigStop is closed? Clearly the economy must be in recess since I can’t score an allday breakfast at any hour of the night in Enfield, Nova Scotia anymore. some breaks cannot be caught, it seems.
My two-egg meal could not be cooked until 6am, when the restaurant that was formerly open all night would finally open to greet the day. but 6am was another 30mins away. so i bought two newspapers from the gas station attendant and waited out the hour in the car, drinking the coffee i brewed for my friends in two travel mugs. this supplemented the cup i had at home before hitting the road an hour ago. that totaled 7 measured cups of the Mexican Morning by Just!Us before 6am. I felt like some kind of rock star or golden god. I also felt shaky, weak, and light-headed. Then I just felt like a nerd.
eventually i made it in to the restaurant (and also to their blessed washrooms) and had my eggs. I was surrounded by truckers, which is always nice, and also customs agents. it seems that enfield is populated by truckers and customs agents, and maybe some regular airport personnel, too. so i sat there and ate my eggs and bacon and toast and read the sports section and tried to make it look like i cared more about the score of the game as opposed to the designs of the hockey sweaters. i also realized that professional sports writing is way better than professional sports. i also accepted the fact that although i’m proud to be a union man, i’ll never look like one.
So I eventually drove back to the airport waited for my friends to come through the frosted doors, which wouldn’t finally happen until after 8am. first I had to bear witness to a parade of hard-looking nova scotians wearing ill-fitted jeans and sombreros or Island-Nation-print dresses and cheap sunglasses. I don’t like judging, but really now, I saw a lot of really big hairdos and stone-wash jeans while waiting for Her Majesty’s Border Guards to clear my friends’ luggage, and it felt like they were on Flight 1986 or something. The only thing missing was Don Johnston and perhaps Corey Hart or Honeymoon Suite.
Take a lesson from this pair and practise Airport Style (CC)
A couple years ago, the Pineapples and I promised ourselves to always dress up for flights because comfort is only a state of mind when you’re in coach or economy or standard or whatever you want to call the place in the cabin where most of have to sit with barely any legroom and a stinky, farty old man in front and a baby behind. Rule No.1: Be stylish. Aside from a passport, It’s the only thing you have going for yourself at an airport. And even the passport is questionable nowadays. This parade of potential What Not To Wear guests confirmed this cardinal rule of flight - be stylish, always - lest ye be judged by snarky arrogant critics like myself in the arrivals corridor.
my creative output has been stagnant as of late. it has been for quite some time. i realized some time over christmas that my best private moments of inspiration and production were tied to my academic output. i could declare this a gutteral rejection of the rigours of academia, but it was likely a little more about creating or finding a balance between the analytical and the.. well… and the “less-so.” that which i call creative was (and is) still largely “non-fiction”. it certainly isn’t (and wasn’t) fiction, but was (and is) more like non-fiction with a flair. there is embellishment, a lot of embellishment. i’m not great with plot (and aristotle would have my head for it), but i am good at describing a scene.
anyway, the shift away from academe has seen my writing output drop in ways i never imagined. this is odd, and it makes me a little insecure because i’m surrounded by writers of all sorts - which is the real reason for this post this morning. look at just a smattering of you!:
JG - Always a journalist in all our hearts of hearts. We love you and your pen, and we’re right pissed off that the paycheque and the pen have been separated in your life. but we’re confident you’ll one day write a massive tome and make it all better. “Nobody told me there were going to be monkeys here! I’m not so sure about the monkeys.” Glorious, JG, glorious.
caile - who picked up the journalist’s pen around the same time that it was taken from from JG’s hand. you may have moved far away, but you’re still in our thoughts.
a certain cat - who introduced me to nanowrimo. perserverance, determination, and a damn-the-torpedos attitude about writing that everyone should be party to.
some one in london - who went so far as to create her own magazine. WTF? Why aren’t you my mentor? I need more of our coffee dates in my life.
the pineapples - who always has a pen in hand. the pineapples writes fiction, non-fiction, memoirs, journals, notes, poems, recipes, and graffiti. there are no rules and no borders. there is only ink.
Will - finishing the PhD. That was once a life for me, and to a certain degree (har har) it still is.
Audra - ever the activist, pr specialiast, campaigner and politico. no holds barred here.
Goh - who is The Master. I turn to you for advice that I accept but rarely use, which is no fault by my own. I may not jive on a lot of your genre fiction, but I do love your non-fiction essays as well as the sheer understanding of the writer’s craft, which you’ve explored, nurtured and refined all these years.
Two people not yet listed have made a particular mark on me these past few months, though. they are Ella2, who restrains her creative force in public but is clearly bursting at the seams once she walks away, and Jane, who speaks from the heart about the stuff going down around her without falling to pieces. Ella2’s going a method and a plan of attack, which I’ve returned to a couple times in the past few weeks. And Jane’s got a prose style that is brutally honest and inspirational without being sappy. When i think about all the creative things i should be recording right now, i turn my thoughts to these two people and write vicariously through them.
my first hockey sweater was a montreal canadiens sweater. well, no. it was actually a CCM polyester knit that was completely free of any NHL team or corporate logo. I was five years of age and it was the early 1980s, so i probably didn’t care if the big CH was on the front or not.
my first hockey game, in the garden city kiwanis hockey league, was on a team called The Eagles (ou, Les Aigles). That sweater was white with baby blue numbers and a green shoulder yoke. i can’t exactly remember what my number was, but I think it was 16. What i do remember was that the number certainly wasn’t my first choice. i think because i was five, and i still couldn’t skate, that i was a low priority when the numbers were being handed down. It take more than ten years before I’d finally get my choice of numbers.
(underneath that hockey sweater and the hockey gear was a yellow Pittsburgh Steelers shirt. If you squint hard enough right now, you’ll be able to see the endearing smiles on my parents’ faces from 26 years ago.)
my first encounter with a hockey celebrity was with Don Cherry. Cherry took a liking to me, probably because I couldn’t skate. To me, he was just an old man in a Santa Claus outfit whose identity we all had to guess at Christmas. To him, I’m sure I was the future of our great nation. If only he’d see me now.
Several months ago, i had to take part in an icebreaking session. we were given small slips paper, and were told to give our name to introduce ourselves, and then say a few words about whatever was written on the slip.
There were fifty or so of us, and it took a while before it would be my turn to speak up. as i sat there, listening to people give their names - names i’d quickly forget until i’d have the chance to properly get to know them - i noticed that some people said “I am Jane Doe” while others said “My name is John Hancock.” And i laughed.
And then when it was my turn to speak. I said something ridiculous that was funny to me but bland to everyone else. I can’t remember it now, but it was a small little quip about how names and identities are distinct. Most of the time, the chasm that exists between the two matters little to us. I think for most people, the chasm doesn’t even exist - it was bridged long ago and though the structure may be false, that’s okay.
I got stuck on the actual words being spoken by my friends when they were identifying themselves. Some said, “My name is,” while others said, “I am.” Those who said “I am Jeff” or “I am Jennifer” had made a clear link between their understanding of their self and the utterance that followed. Their existence is marked by the sound, “Jeff,” or “Jennifer.” Those who said “My name is Mark,” or “My name is Mandy,” on the other hand, had made the distinction that the utterance which follows is only an appellation. It is not necessarily an adjective, but still, all it does is describe the person.
I’m no linguist, so I can’t explain this as well as I’d like to. But the difference can be better understood by comparing how we describe ourselves in English to how it’s done in French. We don’t normally give a second thought to saying “My name is so-and-so,” but what if we were to think about how it’s done in a foreign language? In French, we introduce ourselves to people by saying “Je m’appelle mitchellirons.com”. In our first French classes, we don’t learn that “Je m’appelle” is a reflexive construction of the verb “appeller,” which means “to call” as in “to describe.” Instead, we’re told that “Je m’appelle” means, “My name is.” And idiomaticlly, it does: it’s the phrase used in the same situations as “my name is” used in English. But take that construction apart, and the difference between “I am so-and-so” and “My name is so-and-so” becomes as clear as day. When we say, “Je m’appelle,” we are saying something akin to “I am called by,” or “The descriptor I use to describe myself is…” My person or my self, that is, is not necessarily the utterance I am about to use to identify “me” with.
I like this negotiation of identity that goes on every time I say “My name is.” Perhaps that’s why I so willingly changed my name in the past, and so willingly have constructed another identity (if not several identities) on the internet. An identity is nothing more than a public facet of our self. And a name is imposed on us. Marshall Mathers gets this, and I do, too.
Anyway. I may have written about this before. it’s all derivative at this point in my life (no pun intended).