Necks.

They’re good to hang gold medals around.

Canadian necks work best.

Best necks in the world, apparently.

 

Canada wins. America is our underwear.

GG.

I am Canadian.

And right now, I’m Goddamn proud of it.

Watch out America, we’re coming for you. In hockey, in gold medal count, and in every single other category.

We’re gonna win the shit out of you.

God, I love the Olympics. 

Settlements of a Drifter – Part 1

It was almost fitting. The whole deal with life. Whatever happened, happened. But Al wasn’t like that. She was more, whatever happened, I could have done something to change it. Al was stuck in the past, looking at the future through a wide, tinted window.

And the seat beneath her was kind of hard, and she could hear the wheel beneath the floor rumble on the worn down and dusty road that the Greyhound bus seemed to travel down endlessly and aimlessly. It’s why she liked it. It’s why she chose the Greyhound bus.

Al rested her head against the tinted window, dancing her eyes back and forth between the vast expanses of wilderness and what she swore was a hitchhiker but didn’t bother to look twice. She just kept her head against the window and her eyes on the wilderness. She saw a coyote with three cubs halt in their tracks and look directly at her. At this point she leaned up from the window and stared back.

She didn’t know why, but she waved. Her fingers wiggled slightly and she even gave a small smile. The coyote’s eyes were wide, but they were lucid. Like they were staring past her, and not at her. Al guessed she did the same a lot of the time, and she didn’t know why either. The bus moved past the coyote family and continued down the stretch of dry road, the reddish-brown flats and eroded towers of rocks in the distance.

She looked to her right. The case rattled and shook with each vibration of the bus, and she felt the rattling match the vibrations of herself too. She had so many stickers on it she lost count years ago, but she still thought it amazing how every time she stared at them it was like she was staring at them for the first time ever. She put one hand on the case’s front, and enjoyed the feeling of it against her palm. Each movement of the bus’ shaking gave a sensation down her arm, one that made her feeling just a bit warmer. It was good, because she was getting cold.

Her feet sat on the edge of her seat and her arms wrapped around her knees close together. Her sweater’s sleeves extended far past her fingertips, but the soft fur inside of them gave her hands the warmth they needed. She stuck a few fingers outside of her sweater’s sleeves to pick at the threads of her jeans that were coming off, stretched against the hole against her knees. She tapped her boots on the side of the bus and the clunking sound made her self-conscious if those sitting around her would hear.

They wouldn’t, because no one was around her. A few heads a dozen seats forward. Some guy with a Mohawk. Another person, about 50, was reading the paper. She leaned into the aisle, against her case, and squinted to try and make out the words. They looked Russian. Al let out a pout and blew her bangs up from over her face, but they gently came down again. She leaned back against the window. No more coyotes. Just flats. Reddish-brown. More of it. More bright sun. More bumps. More rocks.

More life.

Al awoke to the screeching brakes of the bus. Her head rested against the fur of the inside of her sweater, bunched up against the window. She put her hand against it and the coldness of its touch surprised both her senses and her mind. The sudden jolt of energy she got made her arm pull away from the window, and she got up immediately, almost banging her head on the bus’ ceiling.

Now a bit scared for her head, she scavenged the seat below her to look for her knitted white beanie. If her hair could talk, it’d wonder why they never saw the full light of day, since that thing was always on, all the time. It must have slipped off her head when she fell asleep. The feeling of it back on the top of her head made her feel warm again, without the sweater.

She stretched as much and as far as she could, and let out the loudest yawn she had ever let out in a while, and jumped on her feet. The Mohawk man was gone, and so was the Russian newspaper reader. She looked out the opposite side of the bus and saw the platform. It wasn’t as busy as she thought, but there were still people walking back and forth along it and carrying all kinds of items beside and on them. Some had satchels and others had suitcases and others business luggage. As she put on her fur sweater she wondered what each container held and it if was really something worth bringing with them wherever they go.

And then she looked at her own leather satchel and hung it around her shoulders. The added weight felt natural, and needed. She grabbed the handle of her case, the neck of it straight ahead of her, and the body in front of her legs. Wobbling down the narrow aisle, she saw the bus driver with his cap over his eyes and his arms folded together. He seemed to be enjoying himself.

“Thanks for the ride, sir.”

“No problem.” He dragged the No with as thick a Canadian accent as can be.

Al caught his hand going up and giving a stellar thumbs-up while his head remained under his cap. One of the best Al had ever seen. She was glad he drove her to her destination. It made her feel like she belonged on that bus, with the Mohawk Man and Russian Newspaper Reader. They were gone though, and as she hopped off the final bus step, she looked around and could see no wacky hairstyles or Russian-looking newspapers around any arms. Al didn’t really think it mattered, but she knew it would bother her for the majority of her day. She shrugged it off and walked towards a metal pillar, laying her case against it. The stickers reflected sunlight against the half-shrouded platform, the sun peeking through the metal beams of the ceiling.

She extended one hand out of her long sleeve and opened up her satchel. The folded map revealed scribbles and marks in red, blue and black. Roughly drawn circles and doodles of little characters following the lines of rivers and around the dots of towns and villages. Almost as fast she got it out, she whipped it open with a loud crinkle. Her hands were still in their sleeves as she held it in front of her, her brow furrowed and biting the tip of her pen. Thick in concentration, she scanned the enormous map with her eyes.

“Hmmm.”

She looked up at the platform.

Welcome to Beausejour, Manitoba!

“Glad to be here.”

Al folded up the map, again at a blinding speed, and stuffed it back into her satchel. She exited the platform and looked down the dry road that she sped down only a couple of hours earlier. She thought she saw a coyote, but realized it was just wind. Turning around, she decided that Beausejour looked like an interesting enough place to be.

***

To Al, wandering was synonymous with wondering. Each step was savoured, each breeze taken in, and each ray of sunlight or droplet of rain absorbed with a smile or closed, dreaming eyes. To Al, it was the best feeling in the world. The streets of Beausejour, all four of them as it seemed, provided her with enough of it. She looked down at her red Chucks, their soles now brown from wear and tear, her shoelaces flapping with each hasty step.

She started turning corners, not really aware of what she was turning into, or if there was a turn at the end of this turn, or if turning was a good idea at all, but it didn’t matter. Even if she made four lefts and did laps around a block, it was the steps that she cared about. It was the breeze, and the rays of sunlight and drops of rain hitting her face.

But for the sake of exploration, Al didn’t make four lefts. She made three, and then a right, and then another left, and because the street she was now on was incredibly long, at least by Beausejour standards, she decided to reach the end of it.

And at the end of it, there stood the biggest thing she had seen in Beausejour yet: A hockey arena.

Like a child getting ready to go on the swings for the first time, Al practically skipped past the empty parking lot, even jumping over a few of the compact cars that were there, and pressed her nose against the glass door. The lights were on, but they were dim. She imagined zambonis, thick accents, the smell of ice, and the cold temperatures awaiting her.

She slowly put pressure against the door handle, and it creaked open with deceivingly easy effort. To be honest, she expected it to be closed, like the rink thought it wasn’t her time to go enjoy all the civil liberties of hockey and that maybe she had to strap on a pair of skates or at least learn how to wrist-shot before the hockey gods would allow her to venture into their temple.

But maybe not. The door closed silently behind her as she tip-toed into the depths of the rink. The dark-gray floor let her shoes squeak freely. She stopped for a moment and decided to take advantage of the opportunity. One lean forward, a long squeak. Shift weight back, one short squeak. She contemplated and connived about the things that could be done with her Chucks and this perfectly constructed floor and a few squeaks here and there.

Contemplation would have to wait, since she heard a distance rumble from within the confines of the rink. The metal double doors looked heavy duty and unwelcoming, but since when as that discouraged Al. She passed by the metal fence-guarded snack bar and stood in front of the double doors. She leaned her shoulder against it and pushed it open.

The temperature dropped by a few degrees. The air was crisper. Her cheeks got redder. She breathed in, and breathed out. The air in the rink was fresh, it was cold, and it was wonderful. She stretched her arms out from her sides and looked up at the bright, large lights overhead. The protective glass shone against it, and she looked down at the case she was carrying, where the stickers reflected just the same.

Looking ahead, she saw a stretch of wooden benches, painted blue and brown at least ten years ago, chipped and stained as far as she could see, all along the rink and ending back towards her. And in the distance, she could see something crawl out of the crew entrance on the other side of the rink. She put down her case, ran towards the edge, and stuck her nose against the protective glass. Eyes were wide and mouth was open.

The zamboni made its way onto the ice, slowly but surely. The man helming it had a scruffy beard to rival the most hardened of hockey players, at least the ones that Al had seen, though she hadn’t seen many. The low rumble of its innards echoed throughout the rink, and her ears took all of it in. It was a giant white blocky turtle, and that scruffy bearded man was riding it. She kept her nose against the glass her mouth agape. It crossed the blue line and Al followed it with her eyes the entire way.

A small Canadian flag was stuck on the side of the zamboni, and Al looked back at her case sitting in the middle of the gateway in front of the double doors, on the floor between the two rows of old wooden benches. Off-center, partially covered by stickers from everywhere, was a red maple leaf, starting to lose its colour and its edges beginning to peel off.

Al went over to her case and picked it up, making her way to the second row of old wooden benches and walked along them. One foot in front of the other, she noticed a very big colour contrast between the faded red of her shoes and the almost indiscernible bluish-brown of the benches she stepped on. The concrete on which these benches sat faired no better, but Al decided to examine it closer anyways, and noticed crevices and graffiti scattered all over.

“Four assists, three goals. Sixty-seven.”

Al’s head twisted to the side to try and read all of it written in black Sharpie beneath the bench she stood over. Interesting way to keep score, she thought. She jumped down and stomped her feet on the cold concrete and sat on her sleeve-covered hands which touched the bench. It felt like worn, smooth wood, corrugated, but sanded down, just like she imagined it would feel.

The zamboni was starting its second lap.

Al turned towards her case that lay still beside her. She got up and knelt in front of it, barely fitting in the row. She undid the metal clasps holding the case together, and flipped it open. The inside cover of the case had even more stickers on it, along with countless scribbles and spontaneous stories and diary entries, plus taped-on photographs and pieces of paper with signatures from across the country, and buttons that had no way of attaching themselves except by duct tape. And some of that duct tape had words on it too, some of it nonsensical, and some of it making just enough sense of Al to understand exactly what it meant.

She let out a nostalgic sigh and brushed her fingers over all the memories that lay inside the cover of her case. And then she brushed her fingers across the neck, the tuning pegs, in between the thick, taut strings, and onto the smooth surface of the guitar. The varnish never seemed to fade; it always amazed her. She took it out and sat beside the open case. She shifted around in her seat and put her hand over the guitar body as limply as she could.

She took her left hand out of her sleeve, and put it on the neck. Ran her fingers up and down it, getting a feel. She stopped on a fret, and got her finger placement down. And then she closed her eyes. The fingers on her right hand rested against three strings. As soon as she hit that first chord, she closed her eyes, and tapped her foot.

The rumble of the zamboni, buzz of the rink, and echo of Al’s melody played a chorus exactly like the rhythmic chants and chaotic chatter of a busy game, and the silence of nothing. She didn’t know what she was playing, but she liked it. She kept tapping her foot, and plucking the strings. She shifted her left hand when she thought she should, and changed plucking patterns when it sounded best. Her eyes were closed, but she could tell when the zamboni driver was approaching her side of the rink, and as it the rumble of it got louder, her hearing and feel and sound got better.

She played. The rink was empty, save for the zamboni, the wooden benches, Scruffy Bearded Zamboni Driver, her guitar, and the memories.

The Walk.

Originally written for York University’s Department of Film (Screenwriting) Supplementary Application Form. Too long to submit. Shame, really.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Anthony peered out the window of his dimly lit classroom. His head rested on a fist and his other hand held a pen, tapping against the wooden desk. He stared down at the paper in front of him for a brief moment, and looked once again out the bright, white window.

He could see flakes of snow melt on contact and the blanket of white covering the pavement and cars parked along the grassy field beyond. He followed streaks of water race down the windowpane until they reached the edge. Some droplets would meld together and fall slowly down until he could see more snow piling upon the bottom of the frame. He pressed his hand against the window, and could feel the cold, crisp sensation run up his arm.

His trance was broken by a piercing, rhythmic bell. The ambience of classmates talking and jostling movements of those around him came back into focus. He could now hear chairs scraping behind him and footsteps begin to fill the hallways outside his classroom. One final look out the window revealed cars piling into the school driveway, windshield wipers scratching off snow, or tops of cars blanketed with white, much like the pavement outside.

Anthony followed his classmates out of the room and into the crowded, busy hallway. Thick jackets and wool hats bobbed up and down as he pushed his way towards the main atrium, and up the stairs. The first three tries to open his locker were unsuccessful, but the fourth allowed him to breathe a sigh of relief. He put on his own wool scarf, soft and warm over his neck, and slipped his hands into wool gloves, instantly providing a sensation opposite to touching a hand upon a cold, crisp window, but feeling all the same.

It was warm, and it was reassuring. It was the reward for another day completed. He wondered when he would begin counting the days, much like he counted the minutes before the end of each period. As he exited the school doors, the first few flakes of snow fell upon his face, and he smiled lightly.

He didn’t know why, but he enjoyed it. The endless historical dates, math equations, and scientific terminology to remember seemed to exit his head, if only temporarily. It was replaced by the snow sitting on his nose and fingers, and the cold breeze going over his cheek. His scarf waved slightly at his waist. And he began walking down the road.

His walk home was simple. Down the street. One left. Towards the cul-de-sac. Another left. Second house, on the left. It was routine. It was a habit. It was etched in his brain, like the water droplets he remembered that drooped down the window.

Each step he took; each crunch he heard beneath his feet of snow or gravel compressing under the soles of his shoes was a rhythm he always followed. Sometimes he would listen to music, other times he would think. Most of the time he did the two together; the beat of each song matching the steps he took, like a metronome that kept the tempo of his mind, freeing it and guiding it as he made his way back home.

What he thought about wasn’t clear, nor was it always the same. But it was vivid, and it was true. Walking home was a chance, an adventure, a peace. Walking home was a method of freedom, one which he savoured every single day. Despite the fact that he might have failed a test, stumbled during a presentation, or received a bad final. Between the footprints he left in the snow, the flakes falling onto his dark, thick hair, or the cold breeze that blew past him, it was an opportunity to not care.

It was an opportunity to think. Think about what lay in between the bare trees, fallen or taller than the highest houses, what went on inside the homes he would always pass by, and just how many steps it took to get where he was going. He thought about things that couldn’t matter to anybody but himself, and people who he couldn’t possibly matter to. He saw birds fly above him and pondered about their destination, or saw an elderly couple walking up the hill, and wondered how beautiful their experiences must have been.

Most importantly, he thought about stories. The ways in which people told them, imagined them and changed them. How stories can end, but leave beginnings to be opened just as quickly. He thought about his story, and how he didn’t know what chapter it was on, or who was narrating, or what kind of story it would be.

Anthony kept smiling as he walked down that road towards home, and he figured out why he was. Walking home wasn’t just a habit, or a chore, or a routine.

It was a ritual; of mind and spirit, imagination and knowledge, wonder and discovery. It wasn’t a choice. Walking home was a way of life.

Photo of the Week | 2 – Playground

Taken February 12th, 2010. Canon XSi, 18-55mm. Playground beside school.

The focus of my shoot here was to find interesting perspectives and play more with the focusing features of my camera. I’m still inexperienced with it, and really tried to get the gist of the technical features, as well as the effects it had on photos when taken. In this photograph, I experimented with auto-focus features of the XSi, as well as different focal points and white balance settings.

I found the most interesting part of taking this photograph was both visual and conceptual contrast. Visually, the bright yellows, which I tried to heighten in Photoshop, contrasted greatly with the rusted grays and blacks that come off of the horse. That in turn contrasts with the bright metallic reflection of the handle, which becomes a central focus point in the photograph.

Conceptually, there is a contrast between setting and atmosphere. Taken on a playground, I wished to provoke an interesting thought process in the viewer through choosing such an angle and focal point. Especially, the horses head having a slightly darker tone adds to this ominous, almost eerie atmosphere. Given the context of the photograph, it adds great conceptual interest through comparing these elements together.

Stay with me.

Let's just breathe.

Yeah, that’s right.

This is Canada’s house. Feel the wrath of year-round snowfall and peaceful coexistence, bitches.

Especially you, Dale. You traitor. You dirty, dirty traitor.

Canada for Gold. Do you believe?

You better.

I’m already bleeding maple syrup. Fuck yeah, it feels good to be Canadian.

In Soviet YouTube, type graphs you!

Kinetic typography is one of those cool things people who are skilled in video and graphic design and whip out in a couple of hours, and flaunt them all over the internet to create new, unique tweests on our favourite scenes from our favourite movies, or quotes that have lived in in our cultural history, or some other stuff worth typing out and adding a cool temporal design to.

I’ve seen a lot of kinetic typography, and you probably have to. Scenes from Fight Club, Pulp Fiction, V For Vendetta, and a personal favourite of mine from Wedding Crashers have gained relatively large YouTube fame, and hopefully have pushed a lot of other wannabe graphic designers to test their luck and skill on After Effects, the program responsible for creating such cool designs.

It’s inspired me, but not enough to spend time fretting and raging over the intricate workings and fallacies of another Adobe Creative Suite program. I have enough of those.

I’m straying from the point. The fact is that some of these designs really do make you go, ‘Holy crap, how is that possible?’ This is one of them, and it’s not even a movie clip. It’s an entire song (a good one too, albeit highly nostalgic T__T)

Reminds me of my first iPod and original MSN Messenger. Goodbye, late 90’s.

Photo of the Week | 1 - Uprooted

Weekly assignment for Computer Photography class; post a photo every week.

Taken Febuary 10th, 2010. Canon XTi, 18-55mm. The creek behind school.

I enjoy looking at nature and believe in the beauty you can find in any place, at any time, if you know where to look. The tree that belongs to these roots was tall and bare, and the snow covered most of its base, except for this section that stuck up out of the ground and revealed a large hole, filled with snow and ice. The roots extended down towards the base of the creek, which was a steep drop and allowed for interesting perspectives to experiment with.

The roots going down gave a natural direction for eye movement and the distinct texture of the tree's base caught my eye. I took the photo with line in mind, and attempted to focus as best I could at the root going down onto the creek. Other branches and and piles of leaves surrounding the main one emphasized the colour, but I believe the whites of the snow to contrast the browns enough to provide the effectiveness of the browns and the textures.

Happy Time-Leaping Valentine’s Pre-Celebration?

Well, maybe on io9’s clock.

But yet again, I get my news from the newsfeed from other news sites directly posted on my blog. That’s how Dad did it, that’s how America does it, and its worked out pretty well so far (I don’t know what this ‘plagiarism’ is that you speak of).

But a festive atmosphere is once again upon us, so before you buy some Belgian heart-shaped chocolates, propose, or bring your girlfriend to Wonderland (Yay!), take a minute to check out io9’s article about the top 10 love stories in sci-fi film and television. Geeks need love too.

But more specifically, I like how io9 doesn’t discriminate against animated films, and includes one of my favourite animes of all time. Tokikake as it’s known in the Japanese world is probably one of the longest running sci-fi fiction franchises in Japan, and as I’ve said in my review of the film and probably multiple other times, it deserves every bit of its recognition.

But I digress, pairings in like EVE and WALL-E, Leia and Han, and lots of other sci-fi icons will make your heart mushy too much for your own good. Happy Valentine’s, everyone?

Go kiss and canoodle, or something.

This is Me

Your canvas can be coloured or contoured or carved.
Your paint can be watered down or thick like sap.
Your vision can be in seven different shades and
Have seven different ways of painting it or sculpting it or making it.

But I have one.
I have one canvas, one paintbrush.
One vision, in one shade. One way of creating something.
It’s not gray or black or white.
There is no mixing or stroking or splattering of paint.
There is only flow.

Each stroke is miniscule, each streak of ink part of a greater whole.
My paintbrush can be in seven different elements,
But they make one.
One idea, one message, one picture.
One story or one setting. One world or one reality.
My mind is my canvas. My imagination is my palette.
Characters are my colours. Emotion is my texture.

I create with words, with prose, with passion.
Give me a pen, and I will paint a picture
Of the greatest worlds or the bitterest of feelings.
Dotting and stemming, flowing and freeing,
My process work is my idea; my artist statement is my very existence.

This is what I call art.
This is the reason I am here.
This is my explanation.

What’s yours?

People who link to cool people are, in turn, cool themselves...

...and deserve recognition.

A writer with a heart, a head, and a mean sense of cultural awareness.

And yeah, she’s pretty cool too.

Zombies! Animated! Axes! Crowbars! AHHHHHHH!

Picked up from io9. The full article can be seen on the news feed under Geek News.

But damn, this animation style blew me away. I haven’t watched 9, but it reminds of that movie's trailer, and it also reminds me zombie comic books like The Walking Dead. Saying that, I absolutely love this style of animation, and it’s done so flawlessly it literally takes my breath away.

And replaces it with zombie killing awesomeness. It really is a teaser.

Give me more! I hear it will be a feature film someday; here’s to hoping.

They call this cool ‘impossible’.

Because normal people can’t recreate it. These are legends.

My friend once said ‘I am Historical Significance.’ I hope he was joking, and I think he was.

But these people; they are truly historical significance. One of the best blogs I’ve encountered.

http://theimpossiblecool.tumblr.com/

Enjoy.