"We get the point in the first fifteen minutes and he doesn't have anymore to say." Siskel manages to sum up Tarantino's entire career in one throwaway line. Ebert's not a bad critic, but sometimes the shit that comes out of his mouth is so goddamn stupid you wish Siskel had just busted him in the chops. Ebert's favourite part of Reservoir Dogs is the torture scene because it has lots of "action." You know you've seen too many movies when...

What Am I, Fucking Capone?

I went to the Kwantlen bookstore to get a pack of Werthers. The candy stand is ten feet from the door. I head inside and immediately the obese frizzy-haired lady behind the counter orders me to put my bag down at the front of the store. 

I say something to the effect that I'm just getting some candy, that my actions in the store will occur in plain view of her, and that I'm not putting my backpack down to walk ten feet to get candy.

She repeats the warning at the top of her lungs, then adds in that ineffectually sarcastic Chandler-from-Friends voice, "You know, the backback on your back?"

I grab my candy and place it on the counter and she says "Next time try and obey the sign?"

"Well that's kind of a pissy attitude," I said.

She then huffed and directed her attention at her hands as she dug through her cash drawer for my nickel and two pennies, at which point Your Humble Correspondant exhorted her to pound the change up her ass.

Give some people a modicum of authoritah and they will gladly bury their common sense. I'm sure she's sitting in a TGI Friday's right now telling all her friends how she totally disciplined this one guy who, like, came into the store for a pack of candy? And wouldn't, like, take off his backpack? I mean, what is the world coming to? That's a violation of the Kwantlen Bookstore Regulatory Code section 7 article A.567 amendment thirteen! 

Sometimes I forget that Maynard was on Mr Show. 

No Way To Treat Your Ears

Today I was leafing through a Rolling Stone at the Safeway, looking at an article on the making of the new U2 album. I like to keep up to date on when U2 releases albums, so I can stock up on Jack Daniels and Cheezies for my hibernation. Seriously, if there's one band responsible for the slippery slope from the Beatles and Zeppelin to Nickelback and Fallout Boy, it's U2, for the simple fact that they were the first major band to get really famous without actually knowing how to play their instruments.

 "Well, the drums and bass suck, and the guitar player can only play one note, so we'll throw the whole thing through a bunch of effects channels and label it 'atmospheric'. Can we get that guy with the wig to bleat some more Human-Potential-Movement, war-makes-me-feel-sad, hurray-for-everything, blatantly-obvious-and-trite lyrics? It's a beautiful day! Hello vertigo! Now that, my friends, that is fucking music!" Meanwhile, the idea of a band--playing instruments at the same time--goes out the window.

There are three types of people in the world. People who love U2 so much it hurts, people who only love the first two decades of U2 so much it hurts, and me. 

But anyway, I'm in Safeway looking through Rolling Stone, and I read this sentence by Bono:

"Will.I.Am did a great job of remixing [name of some new U2 song]!"

and just as I read this...

over the store loudspeakers...

that Gwen Stefani song with the guy going "wheeeoooo, yeeeeoooo, wheeeeooo, yeeeeo" comes on.

It was a sign from God that I had displeased him. The only proper penance would be to ram a fistful of plastic drinking straws into each ear.

This Nexus of Suckage created an ear-rending vortex of horror which threatened to swallow up the entire store. Fortunately I was near the exit and threw down the magazine, bolted past the checkout, and made it to the relative safety of the parking lot. Others weren't so lucky.

It's at the point now where store music is really fucking offensive. Mall music used to be soft, mellow, unobtrusive, like the music on channel 2: smooth jazz and elevator music. Terrible, yes, but existing on the edges of the the hearing spectrum, never loud enough or jarring enough to distract.  Kenny G sucks, but he sucks quietly.

Malls play radio music. Radio music is unlistenable. Malls should stop playing music altogether.

I think anyone who listens to Gwen Stefani should flood their house with gas and spark their pilot light. Same with fans of Nickelback, Will.I.Am, Fallout Boy, Britney Spears, Avril Lavigne, Maroon 5, Nelly, Nelly Furtado, Theory of a Deadman, Bon Jovi, Michael Buble, Brian Adams, Black Eyed Peas, Pussycat Dolls, anyone named Keisha or Kreesha, anyone who uses that electronic vocal trill effect that Cher does, Kid Rock, Miley Cyrus and her alter ego, Justin Timberlake and the Jonas Brothers. Seriously, if at this point you haven't realized what your ears are for, please kill yourself. This is not a joke, this is not a rant, I say this with no irony or exaggeration. 

The rest of us have suffered in silence. We've given you the first nine years of the millenium and you have produced tone-deaf, offensive shit. Not offensive in the tee-hee-I'm-a-bad-boy, Guns N Roses way; offensive in the way that paedophiles are offensive. Hanging's too good. "Let's Get Retarded in Here?" "She's Just a Skater Girl?" "Hello Hello Vertigo?" This is the best you people can do? Soulless, ball-less, overproduced jive-ass mafuckas, every last one.

I really understand where that guy in the belltower was coming from.

I will be running for office, and this is my platform. Thank you America, and good night.

Reuters reports that Chrysler has unveiled plans to help underwrite Terminator Salvation.

Chrysler, which has received $4 billion in emergency aid from the U.S. government, has a deal to place its vehicles in cameo roles in the film, scheduled for release on May 22 and starring Christian Bale, executives said on Tuesday.

Financial terms of the sponsorship deal were not disclosed.

"This spring, 'Terminator 4' comes out and we will be one of the sponsors," Chrysler director of media Susan Thomson said in a presentation at the Automotive News World Congress. "We have a following with the 'Terminator' movies and we are going to continue with that."

"Cameo roles," not product placement. Christ, even the Gran Torino in Gran Torino didn't get "cameo role" status. Chrysler: Punching America in the balls with stupidity. "Gee, a mediocre movie with irrelevant product placement--that's never been attempted."  Seriously, why not put your bailout money on a fucking horse? At least the horse has a chance of not being a loser. Although I'm sure a lot of the thirteen year olds who go see Terminator 4 will be impressed. 

From "The Tetris Effect" Wikipedia page

The Tetris effect is the ability of an activity to which people devote sufficient time and attention to begin overshadowing their thoughts, mental images, and dreams. It is named after the video game Tetris. 

People who play Tetris for a long time might find themselves thinking about ways different shapes in the real world can fit together, such as the boxes on a supermarket shelf or the buildings on a street.^[1]In this sense, the Tetris effect is a form of habit.

They might also see images of falling Tetris shapes at the edges of their visual fields or when they close their eyes.^[1] In this sense, the Tetris effect is a form of hallucination.

They might also dream about falling Tetris shapes when drifting off to sleep.^[2] In this sense, the Tetris effect is a form of hypnagogic imagery.

--From the "Tetris Effect" Wikipedia page

I've been playing a bit at tetrisfriends.com , and today I got to level 18. But I've been experiencing this for days. I wonder if the same principle holds for Leisure Suit Larry...

Over at The Writing Threshold we've been having a little argument over PETA. 

This is from the National Post today:

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has launched a marketing campaign to rebrand fish as "sea kittens," a name the organization hopes will increase awareness and make the vertebrates more endearing to those who would eat them.

..."Knowing that the fish sticks in the school cafeteria are really made out of tortured sea kittens makes most kids want to lose their lunch."

I don't think I could've supported my own argument better than that. Now excuse me while I go gnaw some sky panda.

Well, I saw Gran Torino. And it was very good as a movie, but disappointing as a Clint Eastwood movie. Eastwood movies fall into two categories: those that end with a shotout (Dirty Harry, Unforgiven, Good Bad & The Ugly, etc) and those that don't (Space Cowboys, Bridges of Madison County). This is also how they break down on the Good/Bad scale. There are exceptions to this--Million Dollar Baby and Mystic River didn't have shootouts and were both good, and Bloodwork had a shootout with Jeff Daniels that couldn't rescue that putrescent piece of pestilent pablum, but given the scope of theman's work, the rule holds. Fistfights are acceptable, so long as they involve monkeys and Nazi biker gangs. 

While Gran Torino doesn't have the shootout which one expects, it does revive another common theme of Eastwood movies--him singing the theme song. Here is Gran Torino the song: 

And here's a little something that somehow got left out of that Jamie Foxx movie. Enjoy, music lovers!

One of the benefits of registered mail is that you can track important packages...like grad school applications. And the Canada Post website actually lets you check the signature of the acceptee. 

Now look at the signature from "Uvic Mail." Does that instill confidence? Or does that look like the signature of:

A: a toddler;

B: a retarded toddler;

C: the kind of signature a delivery guy would fake if he dumped my application in the Georgia Strait and went on a bender. "uh, yeah, it got delivered, Mr Wiebe. He said his name was Uvic Mail. Damn Eastern Europeans and their crazy names."

UPDATE: Now look at the McMaster signature. Doesn't it look like the same writer? Did one guy just huck all my mail down a swer grate, take the forty bucks in postage I spent and go buy a vat of Bright's Cream Sherry? McMaster is a "Mc," not a "Mac," and I hope this was purposefully upside-down.

Prescience

Who Forgot Canadian Lit? 

According to an article in the Post, "Grant Culture and the seeds of time deserve some blame"

Sort of like an article I wrote a few days ago, mmm?

Within the "serious writers" spectrum, we have the pop culture regurgitators like Douglas Coupland and the neo-Nabokov/Joyce-plot-is-a-four-letter-word, I-don't-believe-in-characterization stalwarts like Atwood. And there's a big swath of unclaimed territory in the middle.

(Adopts a Sam Kinison-esque feral scream)

WRITE SOMETHING FROM YOUR FUCKING HEART!!! 

Try having this stuck in your head while you try to write grad school apps. Damn you, Elfman.

So Fucking Awesome

Shots from the abandoned soundstage of The Wire. Thanks Jess. 

Inner happiness and serviceability do not always agree...If merely "feeling good" could decide, drunkenness would be the supremely valid human experience.

William James, Varieties of Religious Experience.

You mean it ain't?

I love discovering a classic author who turns out to be readable and funny. I avoided William James because his younger brother is Henry 'Never met a comma I didn't like, three page sentence' James. But William is more of a transcendentalist. He has more in common wth Emerson, Whitman and Thoreau than Henry James's pseudo-European American lit. 

-I like to drink wine more than I used to. 

-It's good for you, pop.

-Anyway, I'm drinking more.

Repent, sinner! Seeketh absolution!

The first video on the "Idea of the Writer" website has a great discussion of the ambiguity towards order and authority that artists feel. I won't rehash the reasoning behind it, but the point has been hammered home this weekend, while I scramble to get my grad applications in before the Jan 13th cutoff. I have drafts of my cover letter and research statement that I started months ago, but only today did I print off anything. It looks like I'll have the documents in the mail by Tuesday.

I know two things about my academic career. 

1. That I'm the smartest person who's ever sent in an application to any school ever. That a graduate secretary should kiss my foot for deigning to submit an application. I am the most worthy, most qualified, and most promising grad school candidate, and the only reason I wouldn't be chosen is either political or is a direct reflection of the inferiority of those in power. Last semester I had a 3.94 GPA--it's obvious that I have a floodgate of insight to offer the world and that the rules shouldn't apply to me.

2. That I have no chance to get into grad school. That my toilet paper degree from Kwantlen is meaningless, that my time at SFU was a waste, that only people with Honours Degrees from McGill can possibly be accepted. It's a waste applying to grad school and I should drop out, buy a big bag of dope and admit that I'll live in my parents basement until I'm sixty. If I get rejected it's because I deserve to be rejected, and if I get accepted it's either a fluke or just a particularly weak year.

Only the first one is true, of course, but I whole-heartedly believe both of them. That speaks to a lack of confidence and self-esteem, sure, but also to how frustrating the study of art is made by things extrinsic to art. Grad school application contributes an unhealthy amount of bullshit to the mind.

I do understand why artists (and people in general) take drugs. If you believe that art is as Joyce so beautifully puts it "the eternal affirmation of the spirit of man," and you watch that spirit profaned by paper-pushers, company men and bureaucratic flibbertigibbets, you start to think to yourself, "If this what I'm going to become? Were these people once like me, and did this process just crush the life out of them?"

That's what happened to my music career. I simply couldn't find people to play music with, people who displayed any dedication and integrity, let alone talent or skill. Everyone I met wanted to play battle-of-the-bands or practice once a month or play nothing but Rolling Stones covers. The idea of dedicating oneself to music has been so debased and devalued by marketing and punkrock bullshit ("pop-punk" is a redundancy--there's nothing to that movement BUT popularity). The common belief is, "Hey, anyone can do that. I can do that. I learned Smoke on the Water/Back in Black /Come as you are, so I'm a musician!" Or worse, "I learned Smoke on the Water/Back in Black Come as you are" on Rockband, so I'm a real badass!" Music for me was always a social experience, but also a ritual in a way. You wanted to come prepared, to have something to serve up to the greater good. Whereas writing, my other obsession, is something I'm happy to do by myself, for myself. Yes, like whacking off.  The tangents you find yourself in when you vent.

Anyway, if over the next two months I lack my normal cheerful demeanor and seem preoccupied, or act rude, it's because in my mind I'm being rejected over and over again by a group of imaginary Grad Committee Professors with the collective foresight and charisma of the boss in Office Space. But to everyone who contributed to this website (and lititandquitit.blogspot and gutbucket.tumblr) this year, Jess, Harry, Josh, Shannon, and the many many (three) other, thanks.

Fate, thou hast played a cruel joke on me

The pages of Hemingway's own copy of Joyce's Ulysses, a book he praised to the skies, were cut only a third of the way through, suggesting his enthusiasm flagged early among the run-on sentences and carloads of stream-of-consciousness.

Loren D. Estleman, Writing the Popular Novel.