Stuff I Like - June 2010

You'll see a woman/hanging upside down/her features covered by her fallen gown

Leonard Cohen - The Future
I really remember this being the first album that I bought, back in grade eight, that transcended the genres I was listening to: punk, grunge, riot grrrl and psychobilly. I also remember my mother being suitably impressed that my music tastes were expanding, which was true - to a point. Though I had secretly enjoyed the country-esque swing of "Closing Time" when it had been a hit on Muchmusic the year earlier, it was in grade eight that Trent Reznor included three of Mr Cohen's tracks (along with my girlhood fave L7) on the Natural Born Killers Soundtrack. This was enough of an endorsement for me at the time, and I'm glad it was, because I still treasure this album (and am in fact listening tonight on this lovely tranquil evening.) The dirty, racy lyrics and Cohen's wistful, raw growling voice turned me on to his poetry and for that I am forever grateful. It has changed me as a writer - and a thinker.

Plus, look at 'im dance!

Look at the good Canuck go!

Yoga tattoo - a gentle reminder to myself to enjoy and contemplate every moment as it happens.

2) Yoga
My friends, my family, my colleagues, my neighbours - I think that everyone in my life is pretty used to (or sick of) me talking incessantly about yoga. Since January 4th I have gone to 4 or 5 classes a week and it has changed my life. Like, for realsies. See, I've always rolled my eyes at hippies, and so when I used to hear people wax rhapsodic about their third eye I would dismiss them as navel-gazing assholes. So how do you think I feel now that I am one of those assholes!?

All kidding aside, yoga has made me a stronger (seriously, these muscles are getting impressive, for l'il ole me) happier (by an immeasurable amount) and healthier person. I feel softer, lighter and more easily filled with joy. Fewer things get me stressed, other people's actions don't affect me as much and I no longer feel compelled to participate in bad vibes or gossip (except about celebs. I mean, c'mon. ) In my yoga practice, I can consistently set goals and achieve them (I recently learned to do headstands with no support - here is my next goal.) Plus - my ass looks great. Seriously.

I have always believed that socially unacceptable men make much better lovers because they are more sensitive. - Candy Darling

3) Candy Darling on Her Deathbed
Candy Darling, one of Andy Warhol's "superstars" was a drag queen, actor and muse. She was perfection - a true sexual renegade in the late sixties when queer culture didn't yet look fondly on transgendered folk. Days before her life was cut tragically short (she was 29) by leukemia in 1974, this haunting portrait, titled "Candy Darling on her deathbed," was shot by Peter Hujar. I have wanted a framed print of this for years and can not find one anywhere! Coincidentally, one of my favourite bands, Antony and the Johnsons, used the image on the cover of their second LP "I Am A Bird Now", so the reasons to love it are layered. I just can't get her frailty, her sensuous acceptance of death and her languid pose out of my mind. RIP Candy, dear.

Bon Temps? Sunnydale? It should all make sense now, thanks to this.

4) Thinking about how Buffy and Sookie are the same character, pretty much
I love both Buffy and True Blood (and I know I'm not the only one to notice this) so this isn't meant to disparage either, but Sook is really starting to remind me of Ms. Summers. "Scooby Gang" of helpful pals, some of whom are kind of magic-y? Check. Love triangle between human girl, altruistic vampire and evil vampire? Check. Pretty blonde who is not quite human and is drawn to said vampires? "Big Bad" main source of evil in each season, fought in the final episode? Check. Hmmm. A little derivative?

And who cares!? Too much of a good thing? Wonderful. Laissez les Bon Temps Roulez!

From a small cafe in Melbourne. Those eggs are a thing of beauty.

5) Eggs
Probably my favourite single food ingredient, I eat about 2 eggs a day. I love them, and after the strange and gag-inducing ways they often came served in Asia, I really appreciate how wonderful they can be. They come in their own little package, you can prepare them a hundred ways, they are fastfastfast for supper and they are delicious. My favourite? Poached runny, so that even the white are jiggly and the yolk goes everywhere, preferably covered in hollandaise sauce. It's midnight now, and frankly, I am excited for 8am so I can fry me up some of nature's perfect food. Hey Chickens? You're allllllright.

Til' next time
xoxox
V

Stuff I Like - December

Gangster knuckle tattoo, what?

1) My new tattoo

I know, I know. A hand tattoo. That's a pretty big commitment - but I have a few lovely rings that cover it perfectly for job interviews/high society functions/my own wedding type events. The decision came on the heels of another - I have decided to extend my half sleeves down to what are called "sushi sleeves" (3/4 length - names for the fact that sushi chefs usually are fully tattooed underneath their blouse-things) and I figured that one measly knuckle couldn't hurt. I was in LA last Monday and I just marched down to the nearest tattoo parlour and said "let's do this."

I like it. It makes me feel somehow more gangster despite the fact that I am not even gangster in the slightest - I'm like, the exact polar opposite. Well, despite the knuckle tattoo... Oh! And what does the V stand for? (other than Vodka, Vancouver, Violence and erm....) Violet, of course. You should all get one!

2)CocoRosie

Music starts at the 30 second mark. Watch this.

Let me start of by saying that I should, under any normal circumstances, hate CocoRosie. Freak-folk as a genre sounds like exactly the kind of thing that I would run screaming from whilst shoving my tiny fingers in my even tinier ears, but somehow this sister act snuck under my radar and made me a convert. From the moment that my BFF Xstina dragged me into her office and youtubed me to death with their videos I have been smitten with them, a near-romantic obsession. A strange blend of folk, hip hop, opera and children's musical toys, CocoRosie could easily veer into pretension and cliche, but somehow they manage to stay clear of awful and just make me happy instead. Of course, they live in Paris and are huge in Europe and you can sniff out a hipster by merely mentioning their name - but je vous aime. Le Sigh.

A lifelong dream, fulfilled. "I saw the best minds of my generation...."

3) Poetry

After a nearly 5 year hiatus I have been writing poetry like a teenager (let's just hope that it is better and less angsty than when I was a teenager.... eep!) No longer am I filling notebook after notebook - now it is all on m'little laptop, but it feels the same. Two, even three bouts of inspiration bombard my brain each day and I am just frantically trying to keep up and get it all out. Perhaps it was my November visit to San Francisco and the City Lights bookstore that triggered this renaissance of couplet and haiku, the swirling spectres of Ginsberg and Kerouac and Ferlinghetti rushing through my brain and tweaking and pulling at various synapses and making them crave an alternate form of expression. Or maybe I am just depressed and bored to be home....

The really unfortunate thing is that I happen to hate the word: Poetry. I don't think that there is another word out there that can make you seem so up your own ass, so incredibly pretentious and d-baggy than poetry. Shudder. So please don't ever call me a poet unless you want a beret up your keister. I own some. I am ready.

A different kind of Uke.

4) The Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain

I don't really feel that I need to say too much here about how great this is. It kind of speaks for itself. Especially when you watch them perform Lou Reed's 'Satellite of Love.' Bing Bang Bong, indeed.

They don't call me Violent Violet for nothin'.

5) Optimum Wound Comics

I'll admit - I'm not and never have been a super big comic-reading lady (with the exception of all of the Tank Girl and Sandman issues I could get my teenaged mitts on.) I'm not one of those girls who finds comfort while safely ensconced in the basking glow of nerd approval and the geek-points that obscure manga can accrue. I do, however, savour a hard boiled crime caper with film noir styling and that is why I love Jason Thibault's baby Optimum Wound (and it's stepchild Blunt Force Beating, for which I write sometimes.) I will admit that this is kind of a shameless plug for a close friend and his endeavours, but I have been psuedo-promised that this year Violet Dear's image may make a surprise appearance in one of his stories, Battles Without Living Witnesses (but probably as alter-ego, Violent Violet) and wouldn't y'all like to see that?

"It was an insignificant bullet" - Brandon's Klaus Kinski tattoo.

6) Werner Herzog

I have mixed feelings about Wernie's latest offering, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans but that doesn't change the fact that he is a member of my 'trimurti of favourite of living directors' along with "King of Venereal Horror" David Cronenberg (a fellow Canuck!) and the exquisitely surreal David Lynch. Recently, my good friend Brandon got himself a tattoo of Klaus Kinski in Herzog's "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" and I realized that I had never seen it. Once I picked my jaw back up off of the ground, I watched "Fitzcarraldo" and its accompanying documentary "Burden of Dreams." Amazing. I am now hooked. I try to watch a Herzog film (and there are about 100) once a week.

But really, the main reason that Herzog is unbelievably awesome comes from this anecdote here.

exs and ohs
Violet Dear

Stuff I Like - November

Me and two of my BFFs - Jason and Kevin (not my cat - see below)

1) My friends.

OK, OK - I know it's sappy but man, did I ever miss all of my friends.

I traveled for a long time, met a ton of amazing people (here is one of their awesome blogs) and had a lot of late night beer (and in Australia, wine) fueled conversations, and yet here back in my home city I have the funniest, happiest, most intelligent and let's face it - good looking - group of pals any gal could ever ask for. I just wanna hug the hell out of all of them and never leave again.

(See what I just said there about not leaving ever again? We all know that is a lie, but I can pretend. For now.)

Ms. Beatrix Fruitbat. As someone asked me last night "Well, for miss and mizz what is the difference between the S and the Z?"
I deadpanned "Um, the difference is like Zebra versus Sebra. Um, duh?"

2) My cats.

I realized something recently - I never talk to you guys about my cats. And that's weird - because I pretty much talk about them all the time. I am an official crazy cat lady. I have had Mister Kevin (Kevin for short) and Beatrix Fruitbat (Trixie) for 6 years next month and as irritating as it is to clean their litter box and shove angry clawing cats into carriers for their annual vet check up I am smitten. It's gross. I talk to them all high pitch-y and do that thing pet owners do when we ask our animals a series of questions: "What are you doing? Whatcha doin' Mr Muffin Monkey Pants? I love you! You're a lover, arentcha? Are you a lover?" (This is an actual exchange Kevin and I had this morning.) I'll be the first to admit that cats can be kind of shitty pets (they are not 'aloof' and 'intelligent' they just have small brains) but I am happy with my guys. I'm just waiting for them to finally answer all those questions I keep asking....

3) The Rickshaw Theatre

There is always something about the worst, crackiest neighbourhoods in a city that attracts hipsters and artists. My city has the worst skidrow in North America (no, seriously. Yeah, we have socialized medicine and decriminalized marijuana and are all liberal and shit, but we aren't like, Sweden. We have problems.) and it lies smack dab in the middle of the most historic and special area of the city, spilling over into touristy Chinatown and even touristier Gastown - it's not uncommon to see horrified groups of cruise ship passengers shielding their children's eyes from the sight of junkies shooting up next to jib-dancing sex trade workers. Like, at 11am. The buildings are spectacular, the cobble stone streets are charming and the businesses of what was once Vancouver's healthy, bustling shopping district have closed - yet slowly gentrification is setting in. People who look like me want to go to shows and restaurants and dive bars in the "Downtown Eastside" and some shrewd business people have recognized the humongous money making potential of catering to us.

For years my friends and I have ironically slummed it at hip hop nights at the Columbia and Astoria and slammed pints of beer at the comically named Funky Winkerbeans - but I have never seen such an ambitious restoration as the Rickshaw Theatre (took me a while to get here - to the point - but I did.) Formerly a chopsocky kung fu theatre in the seventies, this theatre has been gutted and beautifully restored into a rocknroll venue - a night club with theatre seating rather than tables. Half of the seats have been removed to all for more milling around room, and the gently sloping floor allows for shorty-pantses like me to actually see the stage. I love it. And I love the fact that sometimes all it takes is one revitalized space in an area to kick off a renaissance. Vive le Jank.

I am actually blushing right now.

4) Neil Diamond

It just is. Lately I can't stop myself from repeatedly pressing play on the sweet sounds of the Jewish Elvis. I actually have seen Neil in concert (as well as Nearly Neil once) and I could hardly keep myself from throwing panties at the stage, although I was with my Grandma at the time, and trust me - I was too busy holding her back to have time to do so...

There is something so amazingly innocuously sexy about seventies Neil -well here, snuggle up with this. You'll be glad you did.

No, seriously. Go see it.

5) Precious

You know how some years there is a movie that everyone is like "Oh, yes - you simply must see and if you don't you are a cretin and I don't even want to know you?"
Well, this time they are right..... I emerged from the theatre after seeing this film feeling raw and gutted, my face red and my eyes puffy. I was afraid to speak words to my friend Alexis for fear that I would do that sputtering thing and just lose it right there in the lobby. Precious doesn't go for obvious tear jerking - it is fresh and original and really, really disturbing.
"I feel like I have been to war" I remarked to my friends when I could finally speak. And I'll put this here on the record: if Mo'Nique does not win the Best Supporting Actress Oscar I will never watch them again. And I like, LOVE the Oscars.... Serious. Go see this movie.


(PS - I am aware that this is being posted in December - won't happen again. Pinkie swear.)

Stuff I Like - October

Holy %#@%ing crap! It's Melbourne! (These guys are in the CBD)

1) Melbourne
Last night I landed in Australia after a grueling 8 hours trapped in a cylinder with people incapable of parenting their children. I must admit, although I am sad - even kind of gutted - about leaving Asia, arriving in the calm and clean oasis of Melbourne is nice. I wasn't expecting the sub Arctic (well, 11 degrees C) temperatures but the fresh rainy air reminds me of home and I ate the best veggie burger ever - so I am feeling happy. Today my friend Lindsay (whom I am staying with) showed me the CBD (which, I am informed, is never called 'downtown') and we bummed around her place in St Kilda. Tomorrow? Sydney for four days. Any suggestions on things I should do?

Heres is a link to the original poster for the film - hilariously inappropriate. Did the ad men watch the movie? This movie?

2) Harold and Maude
I half-assedly watched Harold and Maude when I was about 14 – it came on Bravo or somesuch channel and I think I was on the phone for most of it. I went the last half of my life claiming to have seen it, thinking I had seen it – but when I watched it on my flight from Kuala Lumpur and Melbourne (on my laptop peeps, Air Asia has not gotten into cult classics or anything) I realized that I hadn't. I have been missing out All. These. Years. It is the ultimate Violet Dear film – featuring the strangely eccentric rich ( I do love my Grey Gardens), a skinny weird boy (meet S, ladies and gentlemen) and macabre scenes of faux violence (I've never met a zombie film I didn't like). Plus, Ruth Gordon's Maude reminds me of my wacky Grandma – and even looks a wee bit like her.

I can't help but think that perhaps if I had been paying more attention so long ago my current crush on Bud Cort (at the age he was when playing Harold) would be more age appropriate. But then again, I hear he likes older women....

I bit blurry, but you get the picture. Ha! Pun!

3)Shoes
So I like shoes, right? I bought two pairs in Manila and I love both. Yay! Yay Shoes!

4)Louis CK
Because his standup has finally made me feel okay with and hell, even proud of my lifelong hobby of choosing someone who is standing in a line with me and thinking of irrational reasons to hate them, y'know, just to pass the time.

5)Travel Cutlery
Some people need carabiners to secure their mountain climbing gear or for other similarly strenuous athletic endeavors. Not me! The only one I own holds all m' forks and spoons together. It's quite fitting really – I have specific travel accessories that ensure that no matter where, no matter when – I'm good to eat. Need something sliced? Have you been presented with soup? Got some pasta to twirl? I'm at the ready, like some gluttonous version of James Bond or Inspector Gadget.…..because while you are trekking up Everest or repelling down a cliff face somewhere I'll be in the cafeteria eating my fucking face off. Priorities, people.

....And 1, 2, 3 - collective "awwwwww!"

6) S, my amazing partner
When I woke up yesterday morning in my room at the Tune hotel next to the LCCT terminal in Kuala Lumpur I leisurely stretched out on the big comfy bed, checked the fast and affordable wifi and then had a hot shower with the best pressure in all of Asia. Oh wait, this isn't about my love for Tune hotels? It's about S? Oh, right..... After having the lovely shower and then blowing my hair straight with the amazing hair dryer (sorry, I'm getting there) I rummaged around in my bag and found a tiny memento that S had slipped into my backpack in Manila without me noticing. We bought some similar ones as gifts in Ubud - that means that he has been toting these around for over 2 months. Swoon. It makes me even sadder that I won't see him for a month...

Stuff I like - September

It's Zombie Me! Like Thriller, but without all the touching!

1) Zombie portraits

Even if Mr Christopher Williams was not one of my dearest and oldest friends, even if my cute l'il mug had not been his first zombie portrait, even if these were like five hundred bones instead of just one hundred – yes, even then I would post this. With “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” burning up the New York Times Bestseller lists and zombie movies a hot Hollywood commodity right now is exactly the right time for this idea.

See, Willie, as I call 'im, is a pretty great artist and he has set up this little etsy.com site where you send him a photo and within 3 weeks-ish he hand draws (no computer graphics – no cheating of any kind!) you a perfect likeness of yourself.... yourself as one of the flesh-eating, brain-hungry walking dead, that is. Christmas is right around the corner, and this is what everyone on my list is getting is getting. I hope my mum likes it.....

2) “Heavy Cross” by the Gossip

Every now and then you get a song – like really get it in that totally clichéd way like you're a teenager again and you want to listen to it all the time and you just know that when you have rose-coloured memories of this time years from now you will hear this song as the soundtrack. Vice versa is true as well – when you hear this song played on some Muchmusic retro special ten years from now you will be hit in the chest with nostalgia and all of the stuff that is happening to you right now will happen to you all over again.

That's how I feel about “Heavy Cross” by the Gossip. Even if you don't normally listen to radio-friendly bluesy lesbian punk you should definitely download this song – it is really really good, and in about three months when the Gossip are the most famous rock band on the planet you can tell your friends that you knew about them before they did. Bragging rights are fun.

He has the face of a writer.

3) Finding old Stephen King books

I was a voracious reader as a kid, and I had exercised all of my options in the “Young Adult” section in my local library by the time I was ten. (They allowed people to take out a maximum of 26 books a week. I did.) It was at that age that I abandoned 'teenager' books for adult material and for about two years I read almost exclusively adult trash like Stephen King, VC Andrews and Dean Koontz (even as an 11 year old I knew that the last two were not any good.) When I was 12 my Auntie Sharon gave me a copy of Margaret Atwood's “Cat's Eye” and that ended my King phase. I plunged into esoterica, the Beats and feminism, abandoning all drugstore novels as unworthy of my haughty intellect.

....But lately I have been thinking about just how much Mr. King influenced me, both with his writing and with his sheer amount of creativity. Over the years I have kept an eye on his books and even read a few of the new releases (borrowed from Willie,) shamefully hiding them behind some Beckett or Burroughs while riding the bus. Reading them is the mental equivalent of candy – flooding my brain with endorphins and really easy to digest calories.

His books crop up on book trade shelves more often than anyone else's and by gum, I am sick of hiding it! I like to read Stephen King books. (Embarrassed....) I think he is a good writer. (Deep breath.) I like his bizarre, interconnected tales. (Cheeks burning.) I like spooky stuff. (....well, that one is no secret.) So when I find your old copy of “Misery” in Manila or your dog-eared Skeleton Crew paperback on Flores, I am gonna read them. Both for old time's sake and because I want to. Stick that in your ear, haughty intellect.

Get on the %$@ing barbie.

4) Going to Australia

Back in Laos (so that musta been early April?) S and I booked a one way ticket to Melbourne on (you guessed it) Air Asia when they were having a crazy sale. We got our tickets from Kuala Lumpur (as a major SE Asian hub we always end up there anyway – 4 times so far for me) to Melbourne for 100 CAD per person, taxes included. Too cheap to pass up!

We had the notion that maybe we would do the working holiday thing for 6 months or so, but as the clock ticks steadily forward and I realize that I am edging toward thirty (ok, in a few years, but still – yipes!) we abandoned that idea of going to Australia at all in favour of school (me) and career (S.) But I still have that ticket to Melbourne burning a hole in my inbox.....

So when S goes back to North America to start work, I'm gonna use that ticket – just for a week or ten days or so with a possible sidetrip to Sydney. Being a completionist, I had to get over my idea that if I didn't see all of Australia it wasn't worth seeing any of it. And as much as I want to do the East Coast and Uluru and the Great Barrier Reef and Alice Springs (where Priscilla was filmed) I also love big cities. A lot. So here I come, culture and food and farmer's markets and beaches and shrimps and that accent! See you in mid-October. Anyone want to take me for drinks?

5) The Ultimate Question:

If you could have lunch with any person, living or dead, who would it be?

I say Leigh Bowery. S says Jim Henson (he changed it from Darth Vader when I gave him a withering look.) You?

Things I like right now.....

In the massage chair. This is where I am at my happiest.

1) Strangers touching my feet for money.

My love of massage is well documented. I especially love foot massages, but tonight is the first time that I have tried the "foot scrub" that is advertised on every sandwich board across Asia. My esthetician applied some kind of (probably toxic) chemical to my rough backpacker feet and 10 minutes later delighted in showing me the HORRIFYING amount of dead skin he had scraped off of my dogs. It was like tablespoons of sludgy dead skin. "Eeeewww!" I half giggled/half gagged.
"There. Now like baby's bum." He said.
It's true. They are.

2) Going to Brunei:

Seriously - who goes to Brunei? Tomorrow night I land in Bandar Seri Begawan, and let's be honest: two years ago I didn't even know that that was a place. It sounds like a religious text, and Bandar is the Hindi word for monkey so I just keep picturing monkeys and sultans and oil. Which, if Lonely Planet is correct, will not be too far off of the mark. Let's see if I can ditch S and bag me a sultan....

Nikki Sixx in all his metal god glory.

3) My embarrassingly long lasting crush on Nikki Sixx:

When will this end? My childhood crush on Nikki is probably the reason I like girly boys, preferably with a wee bit of make-up on (do not call it guyliner. You sound like a douche.) I was reminded of him today and I sighed. Sigh.

Beth Ditto - Rock God

4) Beth Ditto's fat girl fashion line:

I am not a big enough girl to wear these, but I kind of want to indulge in a few more poutines and Chang beers so that I can.... I love Beth Ditto, I love The Gossip and I love these clothes. (To be fair, I think I would love any clothing that was not functional, quick drying and conservative right now....)

I will never be a cute Asian flight attendant, and that hurts me.

5) Air Asia.com

I know we are in an era where we are supposed to be reducing our air travel, but c'mon. I flew to Myanmar from Bangkok for 70 bucks CAD roundtrip! I am about to pay similar to fly roundtrip to Colombo, Sri Lanka from KL. This is ridiculous. I don't know whether to scold their recklessness or get down on my knees and give thanks. Ahh, to hell with it. Thanks it is! Here is my credit card!