That's Life/What's good

You know how sometimes you get good at a job... and how getting good at that job, by extension, gives you the impression that you have a handle on how the rest of the world works?

*

I want to get printed bags for the store.

*

Stores have printed bags... you know... with their logo and address, etc.

*

Obviously these cost more than plain bags. Any fool could figure that out.

*

So some stores share the cost by getting other, somewhat interconnected, businesses to also include their logo on the bag.

*

I thought... why not get a Canadian label to co-op advertise with their logo on the bag?

*

I contacted a few... and only one response that hinted at a possible agreement.

*

So I forged ahead and started looking at websites for Canadian companies that do retail bags and printing. They are suprisingly quite poorly represented and even more poorly laid out as far as providing rate information. One was exceptionally well put together... but they had an alarming litany of add ons (plates, underruns, speed of shipping) that made me fearful of getting a last minute gouge.

*

So I e-mailed a few other sources and this seemed to be the bottom line: the bare minimum of bags required to constitute a printable order would take us about 17 years to go through. I usually buy boxes of 500 plain bags... these cost between $25-50 and generally last about 4-5 months (sometimes more)... between encouraging people not to use bags and having a regular customer base that is likely more forward thinking than most stores, ergo generally turning down a plastic bag... I don't use many of them any given day. The smallest number quoted to be for a viable print run? 25 000. Did I say 17 years? Closer to 25.

*

So no bags for me. Not now.

*

Onto what's good for this week.

*

I bought a new magazine to read at the store that I'd never tried before: Tokion. It was an issue based around a series of panels about creativity in the pop arts (i.e. television, internet, film, skateboarding). Some interesting, if overly brief, conversations. It wasn't until I put the magazine down that I realized that it was an issue from January of 2007. One of the more intrieguing panels involved new vs. old technologies in multimedia featuring contributions by the duo Matmos, Christian Marclay and Cory Arcangel. The first two I knew and had been a fan of for some time. Matmos are an experimental electronics group that have made albums entirely out of plastic surgery sound samples and have contributed to Bjork albums; Marclay is know as a turntablist but has also done visual arts projects and sound experiments... such as recording the sound of an amplified electric guitar being dragged around the backroads of the South in response to the racist murder of a black man in a similar fashion. Cory Arcangel I hadn't come across, but checked out some of his projects afterwards... mainly retro-ish internet based miniatures using very, very simple concepts... but fun ones nonetheless. Many are found here at his Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com website (53 o's).

*

My new show to try out for this year is Life on NBC. A cop drama starring Damian Lewis, who I'd only seen before in a little indie film called Keane where he starred as a mentally ill man searching for a missing daughter that may or may not exist. Here he plays a cop who'd spent 12 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit. After exhoneration (and a healthy monetary settlement) he's returned as a detective to the police force, partnered with a female officer who's had drug problems, gone through rehab, but whose job still hangs by a thread as she's tasked by her Lt. to monitor her partner... the Lt. plainly looking for a way to force Lewis' character off the job... perhaps for reasons not entirely pure. Lewis plays it quirky and engaging... trying to catch up with new technology, espousing Zen philosophy embraced in prison to get through constant beatings and mental torture, but with a zeal for some trappings of the material world... including... fresh fruit? Check it out.

*

Well, I'm in the library and my time is almost up. A lady a few computers ahead is on a video chat with a shirtless gentleman who looks like an overweight version of Louis Del Grande (from the old CBC show "Seeing Things.") I wonder if he knows his computer cam is broadcasting him into a public library?

Now that's art.

you cry party if you want to all the time

Occasionally records come into the store that demand contemplation... occasionally raising important instances of inter-connectivity we may have originally overlooked.

This is one:



Now some/most of you are probably familiar with the ditty "It's My Party." It was a fairly big hit when this album came out (in 1963). The songs refrain went (appoximately): It's my party and I'll cry if I want to / cry if I want to / cry if I want to / You would cry to if it happened to you. What I didn't realize until I saw the full length was how chock full of crying songs it was:

Side One

1. It's My Party
2. Cry Me a River
3. Cry
4. Just Let Me Cry
5. Cry and You Cry Alone
6. No More Tears

Side Two

1. Judy's Turn to Cry
2. I Understand
3. I Would
4. Misty
5. What Kind of Fool Am I
6. The Party's Over

This was a seventeen year old in need of mood stabilizing drugs!!!

After the initial belly-filling chuckles wore off I started examining this album in connection with another more recent one-track-minded artist's statement:


Andrew W.K. - I Get Wet (Island 2002)

1. It's Time to Party
2. Party Hard
3. Girls Own Love
4. Ready to Die
5. Take it Off
6. I Love NYC
7. She is Beautiful
8. Party 'Til You Puke
9. Fun Night
10. Got to Do it
11. I Get Wet
12. Don't Stop Living in the Red

At the time folks made a big deal over his preoccupation with partying, which appears in the titles of 3 of the 12 songs. But compared to Miss Gore's singleminded weepiness his focus is kaleidoscopic. Still the similarities are difficult to ignore. Especially given their common bond of "The Party."

So what I propose is a party summit... between the now "amazing 61 year old Lesley Gore" and "unremarkably 28 year old Andrew W.K."



It will, unavoidably, be titled: "It's My Party and I'll Puke if I Want to."

What's Good.

Here are a few things making this week easier to get through:



THE RETURN OF THE 99cent ARIZONA GREEN TEA CAN!!!

Regular readers may remember that I listed this giant among drinks as a minor obsession a while back... only to be later crushed when it was taken off the market for some sort of recall (lead paint?). The funny but troublesome way I found out it was being recalled was when I stopped in at Mazzuca's on York to grab a can. I got up to the counter and John said, "Yeah, they're recalling these... something wrong with the tops or pull tabs or something.... Anyway that's $1.13."

GOOD MAGAZINE.

Most of my normal magazine purchases have some musical connection, no matter how tenuous. But today I was feeling like I wanted to read about something else, so perusing the rack I came across the above eye-catching design. I flipped through it and saw articles about Buckminster Fuller, Chrisine Hefner, Mormons.... It essentially is a magazine about conservation and environment, but viewed from a design perspective. So they want to make the world better, but prettier too. I've only skimmed through it and read the first small sections... but one thing that also stood out was the subscription leaflet that flittered to the floor advertising the usual percentage savings available... but also that your full subscription fee would be donated to a charity organization of your choice (from their list that includes WWF, Unicef, Oceana and others). Pretty cool.



Mohawk Lodge - Wildfires (White Whale Records)

From Black Mountain to Ladyhawk to Chet to Lightning Dust... I've been impressed with the wealth of cool bands coming out of the Vancouver area over the last couple of years. White Whale doesn't (yet) have the high indie profile of a Scratch or a Mint records... but they sport a solid roster of dark folkie rock artists. This is Mohawk Lodge's second release and while the other had some sparkling moments this one is out and out gorgeous... with many invited guests on a chamber orchestra's worth of instruments... it stands up against the best recent albums by Magnolia Electric Co., Okkervil River or Micah P. Hinson. You can listen to tracks here.



Pjusk - Sart (12k)

More pretty (if a little ominous) Norwegian minimal electronics. Listen for yourself (sound samples from 12k):

Rim

Anelse

----

How I Spent My Summer Holiday

To offset the fact that I'd have to work back to back 6 day weeks starting on September 10th (due to an impromptu Eric's Trip reunion tour... ah the sacrifices I've made to rock...) I decided I would take a week off leading up. I started thinking about the last time I had a whole week off... and other than the stretches in May I take to cover the FIMAV for Exclaim!, I think it was actually the summer of 1991.

You know what that does to you?

In the weeks leading up to this miraculous stretch of off-workness I marvelled over the possibilities: I could go up to Ottawa and visit Marc L.; I could find out if there's a show I want to see anywhere on the East Coast; I could take a few days and hang around Percé and go out on boats and read and....

But.

I had to visit my folks at some point during the week. I hadn't made it up all summer and only seen them briefly in Quebec City (see previous entry).

The problem arises that, since I usually travel by bus everywhere, getting to and from Matapedia kills a day each way... Acadian Lines leaves F'ton at 11:30 and gets there at 5pm and vice versa. So now we're down to four useable days. I can still go down the coast to Percé though.

But.

I have upcoming Surge! shows on the 14th and 21st of September that needed posters, press, promotion, plus a raft of other previously backburnered tasks that it wouldn't do to leave undone before leaving... so that takes two days. And that leaves two days. In Matepedia. I can still go to Pointe-a-la-Garde one afternoon and walk on the beach and peek around all the my old childhood haunts.

But.

There are thunderstorms forecast for that day.

So... there's still a refrigerator full of food and court tv... and I did walk around the river that runs behind my folks' apartment.




It's incredibly low due to hot weather and very little rainfall. This is a salmon river, remember... one that usually draws wealthy tourists from all around the world.




Normally this point would be under about 8-10 feet of water. This isn't a structurally or aesthetically normal inukshuk... but my back hurts, so I can't stay bent over very long.


Back at homebase their's is a marvellously messed up kitty to torture... and my mom's slippers in the background, there.

So... the moral is... take vacations regularly, 'cos once you stop you completely lose the knack.