Monday, April 24, 2000
the popular public can immediately recognize a 'good song'. it is catchy, uses standard patterns and features, and is seen as fitting somewhere into the midst of a 'norm.' it is nothing you have to think about to understand. it is immediately accessible and offers nothing out of the ordinary. the overall public perceives the song as being good.
Friday, March 10, 2000
Monday, January 24, 2000
Friday, January 21, 2000
Wednesday, January 6, 2000
a thought i formed while looking at advertising billboards downtown:
there is nothing wrong with that. however, it is often the song that offers something new, unusual, or not immediately likeable, that i end up liking. the out-of-the ordinary, the experimental.
though we don't always realize it, people are perceived in much the same way. on advertisements, the faces of models that we perceive as 'beautiful' are really just faces that are easy to look at. they offer no unusual or outstanding features; everything is well arranged into a nice, plain package. there is no acne, big noses, or the like. the eyes are set an average distance apart; not too wide, not too close together. the mouth is an average size. the shape of the face is somewhere in between any extremes that exist in the real world. these people are accessible to the eyes, and often perceived positively by a general audience.
however, once again, it is often the unusual people that offer the most beauty. with time, of course. we have to get used to looking at a big chin or wrinkly brow; like hearing a dissonant chord in a piece of music. in time, we grow accustomed to these features. and the unusual can offer more interest than the plain ever could.
This was by far the scariest night I have ever experienced. It's 1:15 AM and I have just spent the last two hours running for my life.
It started at about 11 PM; Dave and Greg came over with innocent plans to go for a run around campus. We set off, and as we often do on these energetic, slightly rebellious runs, started jumping off benches, yelling obscenities into the night air and generally being the 'Campus Trash' we are. Then Dave proposed that we make the run down to Spanish Banks, a jog of a couple miles down a dark, winding road that eventually ends up on the beach. We were up for it, and feeling feisty, so as cars passed, we would make angry faces, yell madly, and sometimes hide in the bushes beside the road until the car got close, then jump out and scare the hell out of them.
This was fun enough and I think we generally had the impression that we were slightly frightening some old people for a couple seconds, but life would go on. I don't think it ever crossed our minds that people would want revenge.
When we got to the beach, we noticed that one car had passed us going both ways at least three times. We decided just to keep running. At this point, there is a large, open grassy area between the beach and the road. We were naively running through this field, and realized that suddenly four cars had collected in the parking lot. One swung its high beams around and shone them right at us.
At this point we were pretty much scared shitless. All we could think was that we had we had frightened somebody that had a lot of friends with cell phones, and now they all wanted to kick our collecive asses. We made a break for it the other way with the cars still in the parking lot. We followed the grassy path back through the field to the road, and decided that they could easily find us on the beach, in this field, or on the road. The only thing we could think of was to make a dash across the street, where there is a steep uphill incline covered by bush. We figured they wouldn't expect us to make it across the road, and wouldn't bother looking for us in the thick forest. We darted across the street, through the ditch, and right into the dark bushes, and started making our way up the hill. They were dense and prickly, and our hands and bare legs got cut and bloody. About 20 feet up the hill, the prickles became too thick and we couldn't go any farther, so we hid, low to the ground.
This was scary as hell. There were four cars; one took turns parking (lights off) in the lot while the other three made passes up and down the road looking for us. This probably went on for at least half an hour. We were still within ear- and eyeshot of the parking lot, so we couldn't move or talk for fear of making noise or being seen. Every time we saw approaching headlights, we covered our faces and as low as we could get. Sometimes they drove by very slowly. Sometimes they would trick us and wait at least five minutes so we'd think they were gone, then all come back from opposite sides. We were pretty much stuck there. It was starting to get uncomfortable and by this time my teeth were chattering from the cold, but I figured I would wait there all night if I had to. We wondered what kind of psychos would spend this time and effort looking for us. They had to give up sometime.
Then we noticed that a police car had joined them in the lot. We didn't know why. The police car also made several passes up and down the road. Finally all four cars drove up the street, with the police car behind them. We figured they had been asked to leave.
This was our chance to make a mad dash across the road. We reasoned that we would have to go home along the beach, not the road, because the punks could come back anytime. And they did, pretty much as soon as we got across. We were right on the beach, completely visible from the street, and we quickly dropped behind logs and hid there while the car passed. This happened several times, but eventually we made our way far enough along the beach that the road started to separate from it and climb the hill a bit. We picked up rocks for fear of an encounter. We quietly made our way across the sand, having to stop and duck several times when we saw headlights. Eventually the road climbed so high that we felt safe that they couldn't hear us over the waves. We just had to pick out a trail in the dark to make our way back up to UBC. We got to a beach house and knew there was a trail there, and began the long trek through the woods up to the road. Once we got there, we quickly darted across the street and back onto campus. I noticed that a car was waiting in a driveway with its headlights pointing onto the road, and did I ever run fast. I met up with Dave and Greg back at Gage towers, and cleaned the dirt and blood off my body in the shower.
I'm going to sleep well tonight, dammit.
There are very few pleasures afforded by the modern invention we call the alarm clock. Indeed, it is one of the appliances I hate the most, because it far too often robs me of much-needed sleep. Admittedly, though, one of its rare joys is its ability to wake you up in the middle of a dream, letting you remember what you had just been dreaming. Sleeping in, on the other hand, is glorious, but it has a sense of closure - you tend to drift out of REM sleep into a light slumber before waking - with only vague recollections of any dream. My recent lazy sleep habits have left me without the wonderful idiosyncracies of dreaming. Last night I set my alarm, for a change, and it was great.
It was the upcoming summer; I was on vacation in California with my family. We were staying at a large, traditional bed and breakfast manor on the southern outskirts of L.A., shrouded in trees on the water, down a steep enbankment from the highway. It was pleasantly warm, and just then Kerry phoned me to let me know that he and the rest of the band would be down soon so we could tour. Obviously time is somewhat skewed in dreams, and I set out for a jog on the freeway, in only my sneakers and shorts. The sun was hot like I haven't felt in months, and I enjoyed it beating down on my skin. I ran to a junction where the rest of the band was already waiting in the van, and we set off to rock.
Whereupon I woke up.
After plenty of sleep last night I still woke up exhausted. The snow had all melted from the ground. Today was rife with small traumas, none of which particularly upset me in itself, but cumulatively they opened my eyes to a strange, dark side of time's passage.
Eyes sleepy in the morning, I couldn't shake off thoughts of the boy at Fiona's school who broke his neck snowboarding two days ago, and is now paralyzed from the chest down. Happiness and sadness have long been proven as relative measures; the thought of going from a contented life to something unfathomably terrible and foreign must be depressing beyond belief. After breakfast, I wrote a tuition cheque that had bounced the first time. I took the bus to go pick up my car, and on the way noticed a sporty gray Honda broadsided into a tree on 4th Ave. I paid $820 for a new clutch, debiting nearly all the money from my account. Then I realized that I probably wouldn't have any money in there by Monday, when the tuition cheque would go through. I drove downtown to look at some shoes (that incidentally cost twice as much as the gift certificate I had for them) and I was harassed for money by three people, in the same parking lot, in the space of about five minutes. I had no heart to give change to strangers today and dismissed them rather rudely. Later, on the way to pick up Fiona, I got my first speeding ticket - fined for money I don't have - at the exact location where the gray car had smashed into the tree earlier in the day. We went to see "Magnolia" - a marvelous, long film about the secrets we all hide to protect our faces, and perhaps how only the threat of death can push these secrets out of us. On the way home, Fiona developed a bad headache. We drove by a struck pedestrian lying on #1 Road, and we weren't sure if he was still alive. All I could think of were the flashing lights of the fire trucks. I wish they would turn the lights off once they've arrived; they only augment the sense of panic.
I wonder at how much control we have over our own fates - if we really have any hand in our own security. I wonder at how much damage the world could do to one man in a day. The problems I suffered today look very trivial against some of the things I saw. I am thankful for my health and the peace of mind with which I lay down to sleep each night.
Our CD came out yesterday, and maybe the world became an ever-so-slightly-better place because of it. I'm very proud this time around. It's also really exciting to be receiving orders from far-off places. I've gotten some money orders with names of great, all-American banks like "Andover Bank, Massachussets". I find that fascinating. I hope the record is at least minorly successful. Mark is drifting from the band like a lost paddle; I'm wondering whether I should be concerned or not. I certainly am.