sandwich kings, sandwich queens
» Wednesday, June 28, 2006

O long afternoon, O office light, by fiber of file folder and grey grain of ceiling tile, you try us. You try our souls. You try on our souls and walk off with them. But then Schmutzie calls.

...

Schmutzie: How are things working out in the new job?

Palinode: (confidential and dull), but even better than that are the coffee breaks. All the analysts and coordinators go the Sears cafeteria for their breaks.

Schmutzie: Why the Sears cafeteria?

Palinode: Partly because civil servants gravitate towards weak crappy coffee and cafeteria-style restaurants. It satisfies an urge to queue. And because you can get there by a series of second story walkways and thereby avoid the hideous direct sunlight.

Schmutzie: Do they have a plethora of food items?

Palinode: A plethora, of course. But what's really weird is the fact that the ham and cheese sandwiches are the most expensive sandwiches they've got.

Schmutzie: But that makes no sense.

Palinode: Exactly!

Schmutzie: What kinda twisted logic are they working on?

Palinode: I've taken the opportunity to suss it out. Sears cafeteria sandwiches exist in a strict three-tiered heirarchy based on ingredients. Would you like details?

Schmutzie: I would appreciate your cogent sandwich heirarchy analysis.

Palinode: Oh yeah. At the lowest tier, the peasantry of the sandwich world, squat the egg salad and the cheese sandwich, generously gifted with margarine. Note that these are not strictly meat but meat byproducts, attempts by animals to generate and nourish. They are diverted in their attempts by human industry. Condemned by their failure, they cower between slices of bread and endure the squalor that naturally accompanies their lot. You follow me so far?

Schmutzie: I do. Please tell me about the next tier.

Palinode: The second tier of sandwiches represent the merchants, artisans and early sandwich capitalists. Or something. They are distinctly and proudly primary protein. Roast beef, chicken salad, turkey breast. But here's the weird thing.

Schmutzie: Something's different than weird here?

Palinode: On the top tier, the $4 elite of sandwiches, two sandwiches, king and queen, reign both. One is salmon, plutonian lord of long-chain fatty acids. The other is ham and cheese.

Schmutzie: A ham and cheese sandwich cost four bucks. That's ridiculous.

Palinode: Now we see the brute arithmetic of sandwich society. Cheese is at level 1. Ham is at level 2. 1 plus 2 naturally equals 3, therefore ham and cheese is the queen of all sandwiches.

Schmutzie: And salmon is king.

Palinode: Of course. Do you think they'd be ruled by two queens? Sandwich society is pretty conservative.

Labels: conversations, food, work

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i wish my childhood nemeses cheetahs
» Friday, June 23, 2006

As a child, I had plenty of time to worry about things. Chief amongst my worries was Skylab, of course. What if it fell on my house? Or in my yard? We had a big yard. The more space, the more likelihood of having Skylab hit it. What if, on my way to school, a big chunk of flaming space station dropped on my head and crushed my bike? Why did I have so much concern about my bicycle in that scenario and not the rider? Maybe because I had such a cool bike. It was yellow.

It was actually not Skylab that threatened my bicycle so much as a kid named Dwight Corkum. For reasons that were never revealed, Dwight hated my guts, and he would demonstrate his hatred by regularly deflating the tires on my bicycle. He was a strange kid a year or so younger than me, even nerdier and more lost than I was, with thick glasses, buck teeth that rested on a pale lower lip, and straight oily hair that hung evenly from a razor-sharp centre part that his mother probably incised into his head every morning. One day, after a week of having to walk my bicycle home, I came out at recess to find him kneeling at the bike rack, patiently deflating my back tire. I shouted at him and he ran around the corner.

I was confused. Dwight Corkum and I had never hung out together, never talked to each other - I had never actually heard him speak, come to think of it - and I couldn't imagine why he'd embarked on this weird tire deflation campaign. Was he envious of my wicked cool yellow bike? Well duh. Did he get satisfaction at the sight of me walking my wobbly bicycle home day after day? Or was he just an irrational seven year old freak with an instinct for mindless vandalism? Maybe he was addicted to the sound of escaping air and the pressure of the valve pin against his thumb.

I confronted him by the monkey bars at lunch. My friends had psyched me up for some confrontation and possible violence. Maybe some light shoving. "Hey!" I called out. Dwight peered back at me.

"Hey!" I said again. That was about the extent of my ammunition. "Why are you letting the air out of my tires?"

Dwight picked up a big sharp chunk of shale and hucked it at me, spinning his upper torso to get some leverage. It smacked into my forehead and opened up a long gash. Blood started to run into my eyes, down the bridge of my nose. I could look at the ground and watch the drops release from my eyebrows and break on the gravel.

I believe I said Aaaahaaahah. Dwight ran off without speaking a word. Weird little bastard.

But Dwight Corkum and Skylab were not my biggest worries. Mostly I was preoccupied with cheetahs. They were fast. Even though I scored well in the 100 metre dash, I knew I could not outrun a cheetah. Ligers, leopons and pumanards were hybrids and therefore cool (see Napoleon Dynamite for further information). Regular big cats claimed their proper place in the food chain heirarchy and deserved respect. Sabre-toothed tigers? Freaked me out. But their long period of extinction served as reassurance.

But cheetahs were too fast. If a cheetah set his sights on you, that was it. They would chase you down and there was no way you could get to your door fast enough. Despite the vast distances separating me and the nearest veldt, I figured that living so close to a major port city put me at risk. What if a cheetah stowed away aboard a shipper and leapt off in Halifax? It would likely be really hungry. I'd done the math on the situation and I was on the wrong side of the equation.

Today, though, I have great news: Cheetahs are stupid.

Apparently, in their single-minded fixation on their prey, cheetahs will run into objects or gore themselves on branches at 100 klicks per hour. I wish I'd known that back in 1979. I would have kept close to undergrowth, spiky trees, and deceptively solid walls. My strategy would have been to stand stock still, face down the oncoming bullet of hungry cheetah, and jump out of the way at the last minute. Wham.

Better yet, I would have hidden behind Dwight Corkum and let the cheetah smash into him. Stupid weirdo.

Labels: autobio, childhood, injury, skylab, useless

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congruence
» Wednesday, June 21, 2006

According to today's Globe and Mail, "men in police uniforms" abducted and devivified Khamis al-Obeidi, one of Saddam Hussein's lawyers. (link here, probably only good for today)

This isn't the first time I've read news stories about "men in police uniforms" abducting, shoving, shooting and generally terrorizing portions of Baghdad's population. In the news story, the Interior Ministry and its "Shiite death squads," who likely don't call themselves by that name, are blamed.

What I'd like to know is how they got ahold of all these police uniforms. Some may think that they raided a warehouse. My suspicion is that they all joined the police force, started drawing policeman's pay, and as a final plank in their fiendish platform, put on police uniforms. Now men in police uniforms roam the streets of Baghdad, handing out papers that look like parking tickets, conducting activities that correspond to law enforcement, and also carrying out the work of powerful politicians.

I imagine the real police in Baghdad, who don't just dress up as police and work as police but are police, are anxious to clear up the confusion.

Labels: scorn, useless

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the job
» Friday, June 16, 2006

Today the stuff that's been rumour, been half guesswork and hope, been smoke for the last few days, desmoked itself. I have a job! A job-job type job, to quote Somebody from Some Movie, probably Resevoir Dogs, don't know for sure, why am I thinking about it? I've got a job again.

This one places me in an office, 8:30-4:30 weekdays, window in one wall, laptop buzzing on the desk and me secure in a civil service job. Goodbye private sector, with your drive for competition and storied ethic of much work for low pay, your rigged game for old white guys with tiny attache cases. Good morning government, with your sick days and Earned Days Off, your quiet halls, your job security and your bored bitter people who've traded energy and optimism for a steady paycheque.

As of Monday, I am a junior policy analyst for the provincial Department of Culture, Youth and Recreation. I was hired for my expertise in the cultural side of things, since I'm no longer a youth and am not interested in recreating things. What will I do? I will analyze policy. Juniorly.

Some might describe this job change and apartment change (we're moving at month's end) as part of a journey of personal growth and spiritual fulfillment. Some might say that I am walking a path that only I may traverse, and that I have jumped over a chasm, and that, having landed on the other side, I may look back at where I have come from and see it anew. Others might say that it's just a bunch of stuff that's happened and it doesn't mean anything. I say it's a chance to write in my weblog more often, since these kinds of jobs often provide ample time for that kind of thing.

I'm telling the internet because people have been emailing my wife to ask her if I have a job yet. Why are people doing this? I don't email someone to ask them about my spouse's employment situation, especially when I could just ask the spouse. Ask me. I'll tell you. Except a couple of people have asked me, and I haven't told them. Sorry, Mathew. Sorry, Maarmie.

Some astute folk may have noticed that I wrote about a job earlier this week. After some thought I turned it down, mostly because I wasn't interested in hustling for my money at this stage of my life. On top of which, the project would have required me to spend lots of time interviewing convicted sex offenders. Which may somebody's idea of a good time, but not mine. Sex offenders are usually emotionally stunted adults who have no insight into their own behaviour and no notion of their victims as real people. Who wouldn't want to hang out with people like that for a few months, following them around with a film crew, accidentally instilling in their empty souls a sense of inflated self-importance and a twisted notion of worth by becoming part of the vast airy spectacle of celebrity?

Labels: autobio, work

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on difference
» Monday, June 12, 2006

All the funny conversations happen in the bathroom. By way of proof, our last conversation happened in the living room. You see? You get where I'm going with this? Okay. Evening time with Schmutzie and Palinode. Bathroom. The rheostat is turned down to a pleasingly warm yellow light.

Schmutzie: Where did you get those jeans?

Palinode: I've always had these jeans. Kind of like, in an Overlook hotel sense.

Schmutzie: I've never seen them before.

Palinode: It's the newly developed hole in the knee that's fooling you. It's because they're different.

Schmutzie: Different from what?

Palinode: Everything that isn't these jeans at this moment.

Schmutzie: Everything's different than your jeans.

Palinode: Except for my jeans. They're the same.

Schmutzie: ...as your jeans.

Palinode: Yeah.

Schmutzie: Yeah.

Palinode: I got nothing here.

Labels: conversations

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properties of availability
» Saturday, June 10, 2006

This one reveals a narrative weakness because it requires backstory. But I trust you'll forgive me this one time, since my weblog is usually so strong on narrative coherence. Oh yes it is. Don't look at me like that.

EARLIER:

Schmutzie: You know, I feel like more coffee.

Palinode: A fine idea.

Schmutzie: I think I'll make some, if it's available.

Palinode: I look forward to a nice cup of available coffee.

SOMEWHAT LATER:

Palinode: I cleaned the kitchen.

Schmutzie: That's awesome. [It certainly is.]

Palinode: So now there is no obstacle to the making of available coffee.

Schmutzie: As soon as I finish putting photographs of flowers on Flickr, I'll go make available coffee.

MUCH LATER:

Schmutzie: It turns out we only have unavailable coffee.

Palinode: Ah, that's a shame.

Schmutzie: It's crunchier than the available stuff.

Palinode: Therefore you would say that smoothness is an essential property of availability?

Schmutzie: Married women are really crunchy, for example.

Palinode: Yet they are smooth for their husbands?

Schmutzie: Absolutely.

Palinode: This is sounding like a really stupid Socratic dialogue.

Schmutzie: HA! [Someday I will tell you about the first time I ever heard the HA! of Schmutzie. It was loud and unexpected and right in my face. We were just a couple of young punks at the time.]

Palinode: First he'd ask a slave about smooth rich availability. ['Richness' is an attendant property of 'smoothness,' so availability is necessarily rich as well as smooth.]

Schmutzie: I think he talked to slaves just because he knew he'd be smarter than them.

Palinode: And then he'd turn to his friend and say, "So, Herakleon, you see that a slave understands how smooth availability is, so you must accept it as well". And Herakleon would say "I sure do, Socrates!"

Schmutzie: Nobody ever argued with Socrates.

Palinode: And then he'd blow their minds by singing "November Rain".

Labels: conversations, november rain, socrates

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assembly
» 

Preamble

A week and a day since last I said something here? Lord. Too long. Too much silence. Folks, I've had zero to say over the last week. I've written quite a bit, but none of it's suitable or of sufficient quality for such a high-high falutin venue such as the weblog. Unless you like reading my pathetic cover letters to various companies that never knew of my existence, and who, to judge from the responses, still don't. Every office in the country, it seems, has a small fire dedicated to my resumes. There's a printer that prints out page after page of my acomplishments with a tray that drops the pages directly into the blaze. The fire powers a little wheel that provides the current to light the supply closet so the work experience student from the local highschool doesn't stub his toe the next time he goes for sticky notes. And that is how I contribute to our economy.

Job

Why am I saying such things? I don't know, especially since I've been offered work again, which I am a little leery of pursuing but excited about at the same time. Leery, because I will be a full producer, which means that my paycheque comes directly from the funding that I raise (more or less), and excited for the same reason. At my former place o' employment I was shielded or compartmentalized from the grubby business of squeezing the fickle teats of government and broadcasters for money, but now I must squeeze without shielding of any kind. Naked I squeeze teats for broadcast bucks! I can't wait to see the Google referrers for that line. The offer is for a documentary on sex offenders, which repulses and intrigues me at the same time, but it's a chance to do something relevant and interesting. I'll likely be doing the interviews, serving as field producer and writing the damn thing as well. Come visit me in hospital when the show's finished.

Health & Parousia

Last Monday I capped off a wretched persistent cold by throwing my back out. How it happened I'm not sure, but I do know that people in a coffee shop will stare at you strangely when you get up from your chair and make a series of horrible wheezing noises while your lower back spasms and tries to throw you to the floor. It's true like geometry or the presence of rocks is true. Which reminds me: my friend Graham has a younger brother Cameron who named his stuffed rabbit The Presence Of Jesus as a kid. Imagine taking The Presence Of Jesus to bed with you every night, or crying as The Presence Of Jesus slowly gets rattier with every year, button eyes loosening and fake fur matting up. What would you think when, as an adult, you found The Presence of Jesus at the bottom of a trunk along with some old blankets and maybe a pair of Spidey Underoos?

Memorable

The most memorable phrase from a comic book cover ever is "Superman's stymied by the Purple Piledriver!!" Or something like that. I don't remember. What's important is that a google search for the Purple Piledriver turns up, along with the sorts of things you'd expect with a search string like that, the site fucksouthdakota.com. The site author makes a powerful argument for some South Dakota fucking, but I need no appeal to reason to endorse the fucking of South Dakota. Preferably with a good old purple piledriver, or something that will level it all, except for that really good Mexican restaurant in Rapid City.

Eyes

Eyes are good for seeing things. I've been using my eyes over the last week to see a whole bunch of movies. My eyes were put to the test by the devilishly clever and cool high school noir Brick. I'm not sure if the director decided that lighting was just a convention, or if the movie theatre was running with an exceptionally weak bulb inside the projector, but I found myself straining to make out what was going on throughout. Brick is modelled on classic noir, though, so it barely matters whether you can see the screen; plot is opaque, characters appear and disappear, and the language is late-stage decadent noir, so heavy with gangster slang and verbal embroiderings (eg. "you've been hovering around like a vampire bat looking for a nick on a horse's ear to suck the blood from" or words to that effect) that there's no point in trying to follow along. Just watch highschool students behave like characters out of The Big Sleep for two hours. It's gorgeous that way.

Eyes that are mine have also seen X-Men TheLastStandMovieDotNet. How did the studio manage to assemble an array of potentially fascinating stories and characters and then proceed to kill off or quash everything interesting about the X-Men? Is the Jean Grey/Phoenix story worth your time? Not if the character does nothing but stand around in the woods for half an hour staring at the trees. Magneto, queeny aesthete of mutantdom? He's a sloganeering terrorist with a big hideout in the forest. He should be assembling a giant metal Art Deco fortress/ziggurat of death beneath the ocean, but instead he's got some tents and a makeshift stage to shout from. What a loser. As for Mystique, the last two X-Men movies have founded a filmmaking principle: if you paint a naked Rebecca Romjin in blue and let her kick people to death, you will automatically have a quality film on your hands. If, however, you take a valuable asset like a naked blue kicking Rebecca Romjin and write her out of the story within thirty minutes, you are a fool. Also, the line "Way to go, furball" is an inappropriate way to end a movie. It didn't work for Casablanca, and it doesn't work here.

When are my eyes going to pack it in? Not yet. I watched Woody Allen's Match Point on Monday evening, and all I can say is - Woody Allen, I forgive you. I forgive you for Small Time Crooks, Shadows and Fog, Celebrity, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, and all those other middling movies of the last decade.

I believe I also watched Underworld: Evolution. Whatever.

More

Not right now. It's my fifth wedding anniversary, and I have things to attend to.

Labels: autobio, film, scorn

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