The Lunar Disaster Period

The Eagle Has Landed

satellite79@hotmail.com — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:58:09 GMT

Since today is the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing, I thought it would be appropriate to make this the day that I shut this journal down entirely. I'll still log in to read the journals of others, but there will be no more updates from me. Not that there have been many in the last couple of years.

You can find all future words of mine at:

The Blog of Joel: blogofjoel.wordpress.com
Joel's Ticket Stub: joelcrary.wordpress.com

satellite79@hotmail.com — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 05:21:55 GMT

Tickets on sale Tuesday, January 30th!

More info: http://www.capitalsyn.com

Goodness Gracious

satellite79@hotmail.com — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 23:05:55 GMT

My Dad vs Yours
http://www.myspace.com/mydadvsyours

With their first full length, My Dad vs Yours force down post-rock barricades to a state where pop melodies take precedence over orchestral crescendos; where electronic beats, slide guitar and shoegaze co-exist in vibrant harmony; where instrumentals can incite sing-alongs. Recorded over the marrow-chilling months of 2005-06, After Winter Must Come Spring is tulips pushing through a late thaw. It is the sound of intense expectation that focuses not on escape but upon communal re-alignment. Though not a movement, it draws upon the social energies behind one: sometimes sullen, often celebratory, always self-aware and questioning boundaries.

Love Me...Now!
http://ca.geocities.com/decaplaywrights@rogers.com

The surprise hit comedy of the 2006 Ottawa Fringe Festival returns! You have 4 minutes to tell me why I should spend the rest of my life with you! What the Hell?! It's SPEED DATING! The 21st Century solution for love. Watch the sparks fly and fall as a motley cast of crazy, fragile, and often world-weary characters look for love in the fast lane! So love me...NOW!

Last Tracks: Songs to Listen to Before You Die

Spoken Word performances by local writers on the last song they'd ever want to hear. Featuring:

Natalee Blagden
Amanda Earl
David Emery
Peter Gibbon
Ian O. Graham
Marcus McCann
Jess Pembroke
Holly Price
Mark Sokolowski
Esther Splett

Visual Art

Kathryn Jetté
Mike Norton
Andrea Stote

Visit http://www.capitalsyn.com for more details!

satellite79@hotmail.com — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 02:24:33 GMT

I'm helping to organize this show. I've been talking to Rich's managers on a regular basis for the last few weeks. It's going to be the busiest night the Avant-Garde Bar has ever seen. I really, really hope it goes smoothly for Alex.

I'd give you advice on how to ensure you get into the place, but as of right now even I'm not sure. He's also playing a DJ set at the Aloha Room the night before, after he's finished at the NAC. More to come.

satellite79@hotmail.com — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 21:19:31 GMT

And something's spooky in the pit of my heart
And something's turning in the trunk of my car
A nervous itching on the roof of my mouth says,
"Don't go out after dark on Halloween Day."

- Veruca Salt

I've been listening to that band a lot, lately. Formulating a compilation in my head for someone relatively ignorant to their music. I'd kick it off with a live rendition of Louise Post's "A Piece of You," never studio recorded, because it was the song that started the band. Nina Gordon heard a demo of the song over the phone one New Year's Eve and decided she wanted to play music with Louise. I'd put on the version of "Seether" that Louise has been playing live since 2000, after Nina left the band in '98.

When people make me compilations, they're not the same because they aren't mine. I worry that's how other people look at the compilations I make for them. When I make a compilation for someone, I'm effectively holding up a large sign that says, "SEE? SEE?" Ironically, people rarely see what I'm showing them. They can't listen to "Fly" and feel like they're drowning, because it's being shown to them. There's a disconnect when they're listening to "Disconnect." I want people to feel how I feel, and it bothers me when they can't. I suppose all that's left is to try to make them feel new, positive things that I may not understand fully, but can take some pride in administering. Pride because people deserve to feel new, positive things.

Sometimes I worry that I'm getting too old to ever play music again, that it's been so long since I have that I'm no longer a musician. Why do I worry about things like this? Why do I think about becoming successful, but feel like it's such a burden that I don't actually ever accomplish anything significant? I want to be a writer, but I never write anything and send it off for consideration anywhere. I'm currently in the frame of mind that University makes me too busy to accomplish anything outside of academia. But I'll be through with school soon. Will I finally be able to sit down and write, to play music, to travel, to do things that I believe I can't do now? Or is it just a cop-out? Sometimes I look at my life and think it's so contradictory to the way I want it to be. So why can't I change it? Why can't I start something and finish it?

There is no reason beyond the influence of outside forces. But I'm quite clearly fabricating those.

I've decided to write a poem every day. I have a handful now, which is a handful more than I had before I started. I don't know why I'm writing them. Probably because if I don't, I'm going to feel increasingly as if I've abandoned any and all creative pursuits. I'm really too lazy to be an artist. Give me recognition now; the pretty words are in the mail.

satellite79@hotmail.com — Sun, 30 Oct 2005 07:05:04 GMT

satellite79@hotmail.com — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 23:04:14 GMT

I feel extremely upset and alone.

Thank goodness for pumpkin masks.

Three more days.

satellite79@hotmail.com — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 19:59:28 GMT

After I dropped off the mic stand out on Russell Road, I was waiting for the bus to head back downtown. There was a paper box beside the bus shelter. At the last second I spotted a pumpkin sitting on top of the paper box, just a small one about twice as big as my fist. I put it in my bag and took it home with me.

satellite79@hotmail.com — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 15:25:31 GMT

Out/Words drains me.

In certain societies on Earth, men and women who are respectively fond of the opposite sex start what are known in the English dialect as "relationships." The term "relationship" defines much, so it pays to narrow it down to "romantic relationship" so as not to confuse it with friendship, familial love and the like - an easy way to distinguish is to keep in mind that in the romantic relationship, the man and woman typically enjoy each other's company because it allows them the opportunity to put their mouths on one another's faces (or at the very least, once in awhile, occasionally, their hands in one another's hand).

"Romantic relationship," however, also defines much. It is meant to involve the emotion of "love," again differentiated from that of friendship and the familial - that swirling sound of bells chiming in your belly when the object of your affection smiles is not something your sister induces. While these terms are in place to define, they're more of a general chart of how the romantic relationship actually functions. There is further differentiation across romantic relationships due to the diverse nature of the individual human being. The word the English-speakers have to account for this is "chemistry" - how well we get along with each other, and how well our emotions of "love" live together in the same house (figuratively speaking, in this case).

In certain societies on Earth, men and women who establish great chemistry and end up in romantic relationships come up with further terms to describe one another - "boyfriend" and "girlfriend." They see one another a certain number of times per week, which is the given increment of time that analysis determines how successfully a romantic relationship is operating. The process of seeing one another is referred to in the dialect as "dating." Eventually, they spend more and more time together, with the vision in mind that the most perfect romantic relationship is one in which the boyfriend and girlfriend spend generally every single moment of their lives with one another as a complete, fully-functioning emotional and physical being. This is impossible, of course (sorry, Plato), but the boyfriend and girlfriend deny this impossibility through the romantic act of "marriage," in which the boyfriend and girlfriend morph into the new identities of "husband" and "wife." "Marriage" is a public display of ultimate commitment. The husband and wife stand in front of a bunch of people (usually of the friend and familial persuasion) and tell them that they've decided they won't listen to the bells in their stomachs set off by any other person any longer. The people applaud and ding their glasses with their spoons and give husband and wife gifts for being in the now perfect romantic relationship.

I was initially brought up in one of these societies. After my heart broke for the first time I must have been drugged and put on a rocketship to Quaoar. On Quaoar, boyfriends and girlfriends exist here and there, but most of the women I talk to find it an alien concept. This is the initial difficulty in establishing the romantic relationship on Quaoar. The second is the concept of dating. Women on Quaoar, contrary to the societies on Earth, believe dating to be a ridiculous idea. They don't see the logic in spending time with men. They have the bells in the stomach, but they only listen to them when they want to. It takes a very, very long time to convince a woman on Quaoar that she needs to show you that she cares about you. Quaoar has telephones and email, but no one seems to ever send words of concern or encouragement or even simply flippant, innocent sentences of affection to anyone else. My theory is that when the women of Quaoar leave my sight or the sound of my voice, they cease to exist. There is no realm in which they have experiences that affect their emotional outlooks, no world apart from me that allows them to wish I was around. It's possible that I could be wrong. But my telephone isn't ringing.

I realize that this is all quite ridiculous, that I'm on Earth and that I've been in affectionate, romantic relationships in the past, that most of them took a lot of work on my part in order to get the Earth-woman to wish I was around. But it seems so easy for other people, the people who speak the language. I know I'd probably be bored if it were easy. But at what point do I just get tired of all of this strenuous effort?

Every day feels like a hundred years to me. Would you let a century go to waste? No. You'd pick up the phone and dial Earth long distance. You'd shoot your affection across the galaxy regardless of how long it takes the reply to come back. But that doesn't make the waiting game any less difficult.

Out/Words drains me.

Friends Only in four days.

satellite79@hotmail.com — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 15:42:04 GMT

I can't undo the day
it won't go under the rug
I pull out the stops
   and you pull the plug

These are sober days and I know it can't be
but I'll miss you the way you miss the sea

(Don't look down)
Keep staring like you've never seen the stars
If you need me to remind you who you are
Little blossom, there's the shiniest soul
        just behind those eyes

"No longer my affair"
Well, I can't go there just yet
so I've come to love and trust those friends
  that are holding your net

          Falling off used to mean maybe grazing a knee
          And I'll miss you the way you miss the sea

(Don't look down)
Keep staring like you've never seen the stars
If you need me to remind you who you are
Little blossom, there's the shiniest soul

   just behind those eyes

While I won't second guess what you're thinking of me
I will miss you the way you miss the sea
    ( )

I've been thinking about making a compilation of the songs that are in my head when I wake up in the morning. I'd have to keep track of them for about 20 days or so, but it would be interesting to see how it would turn out.

satellite79@hotmail.com — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 14:49:44 GMT

Out/Words
Thursday, October 27th, 2005
Avant-Garde Bar (135 1/2 Besserer St.)
Doors at 7 PM
Cost: Free
All Ages.

"...noisy, chaotic...and yeah, it was fun. A memorable evening. Worth repeating."
- Amanda Earl, Managing Editor of Bywords

Out/Words features spoken word performances courtesy of contributors to In/Words magazine, as well as an open mic available for anyone willing to share their work with an audience.

Join us at the Avant-Garde Bar for our next event on Thursday, October 27th and support your local writers. We will be celebrating the release of our first issue of the academic year. There is no cover charge. All are welcome to bring their own work for distribution at the event.

Want to be published? Submit your work to inwordsmail@yahoo.com for publication in a future issue.

For more information check us out on the web at http://carleton.ca/inwords.

satellite79@hotmail.com — Mon, 17 Oct 2005 19:40:13 GMT

Over the past few days I've been receiving incredible news. Mindblowingly exciting news. It culminated today with a phonecall.

I feel like I've just won Gonna Meet A Rock Star.

satellite79@hotmail.com — Sun, 16 Oct 2005 02:06:43 GMT

Stolen from Rayanne and Kat:

1. Open a music player.
2. Go to 'all music'/'library'.
3. Hit shuffle.
4. Find photos of the first 10 artists/bands that come up [no repeats and no cheating].
5. Have people guess who the artists/bands are.

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8

#9

#10

Pfft. Too easy.

satellite79@hotmail.com — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 23:06:58 GMT

This Sunday:

Bywords Fall Reading
2:00 pm. Chapters, 47 Rideau Street
Readers from the fall Bywords Quarterly Journal with the music of Jesse Ferguson.

Dusty Owl Reading Series
5:00 pm. Swizzles Bar and Grill, 246-A Queen St.
Featured reader Jennifer Whiteford followed by open set.

I'll be reading my short story The Wendigo Lived Downstairs at the Dusty Owl open mic. If you want to go to either of these, let me know and we'll make plans to hook up.

Last Tuesday I went to see the stage adaptation of Alistair MacLeod's No Great Mischief at the Great Canadian Theatre Company. A talented cast of musicians/actors. I like watching the lights go down on a theatre scene, characters staring off into a real impression of a false distance, the way their eyes hang there in longing and lightly disappear.

Pirate jokes

satellite79@hotmail.com — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 21:50:46 GMT

I.

How does a pirate travel on land?
By cARRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

How does a pirate travel in the sky?
By ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRplane.

How does a pirate travel on the sea?
By ship. ARRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

II.

A boy with a speech impediment dresses up as a pirate for Halloween. He knocks on a door and a woman answers. The boy says, "I'm a birate. This is my barrot. Can I have some bandy?" The woman says, "Aren't you cute! A pirate! But where are your buccaneers?" The boy looks at the woman angrily and says, "On the sides of my buckin' head, you buckin' idiot."

satellite79@hotmail.com — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 16:56:51 GMT

What's wrong with me, seriously? What happened? Why am I doomed to be left? Doomed to be rejected? I need answers.

High Fidelity is a strange movie. It always makes me feel incredibly secure, because it's about this guy who is emotional and melodramatic and grumpy and overthinks everything when it comes to women; he has the same hangups and insecurities and problems that I seem to sport every now and again; he handles them in outrageous ways because he just doesn't get it and therefore sees himself as blameless (until the end, and even then his mind still wanders once he gets what he wants); and yet, and yet it all comes down to a matter of him growing older and dealing with the fact that romance and dating and being in love is absolutely fucking ridiculous for awhile if you're a certain type of person. I guess it makes me feel secure because if a guy like that can ultimately be loved and taken seriously and accompanied by someone in a mine field where he takes it upon himself to practice his dance steps, maybe it isn't as hopeless as all that.

I've had the house to myself for the past couple of days, so I've been rocking out and shouting and peeing with the door open and such. Editing stuff for the magazine.

I finished reading Settlers of the Marsh, and I've come to the conclusion that there was something seriously wrong with Frederick Philip Grove. The pain that he captures in people is so intense and real, lasting for such a long period of time that it's almost masochistic. It's about a man who has a vision of establishing his own homestead and marrying his neighbour, but when the time comes to ask her, he finds out that she'll never marry or so much as touch anyone because of the relationship her parents had. So he despondently seeks out another woman, loses his virginity and feels obligated to marry her even though he doesn't love her. They're married for years and drive each other crazy and it eventually becomes a story of her trying to get revenge on him for pretty much keeping her prisoner. Every time I read a book like this I feel like I'm being warned about my emotions. And I have to read The Mountain and the fucking Valley next. I should just find a hill to freeze to death on and get it over with. Or I would if it weren't one of my favorite books of all time.

Speaking of books, for some divine reason Chapters got in The Road to Oz and The Emerald City of Oz hardcovers, books 5 and 6, as BARGAIN BOOKS. I picked up both for a mere $20.

Oh, by the way.

On November 1st, as an early birthday present to myself, I'll be cleaning up my friends list and making this journal friends only. There will probably be a reminder to this effect before then, but let me know if you want to stick around.

satellite79@hotmail.com — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 03:55:45 GMT

Livejournal. Such a wonderful procrastination tool.

I'm in the midst of working on a seminar that I have to deliver tomorrow on John Steffler's The Afterlife of George Cartwright. It involves a lot of study into dreams. And study into finishing it at the last possible minute, apparently.

Music: in the fall I like to listen to Eels material exclusively. With my iPod I can throw all of their albums together and shuffle the songs. It's a fantastic experience that I suggest you try, if you have the means. Their music is definitely conducive to falling leaves.

I decided to take next year off rather than immediately continue school with my Master's degree. I've been thinking lately about heading out to Newfoundland next summer so that I can finish a story I started that is set in the province. Maybe stay at a bed and breakfast for a week or so relatively close to Cape Spear. Maybe I'll stay in Newfoundland for the summer and work on the shore. I have no idea how I'd even start going about looking into that, or if I'll want to when the time comes, though I think it would be good for me. I have not done nearly enough aimless wandering in my life.

The Thieves of Flight

satellite79@hotmail.com — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 02:28:37 GMT

In the baked dirt,
An injured bird breaks its final note.

I have heard the sounds of airborne creatures dying.
The pitiful whippoorwill disappearing in the brush at the edge of the valley,
The tendons under its primaries snapped in a cat fight,
Now foundering on the forest floor,
Gradual.

     This is the past. It is an unforseen feeding.

I patch the wing;
The creature’s buried eye beholds my fumbling hands
And takes its trouble calmly. Not a peep.
Standing, scouring for a safer respite for the trembling, feathered charge,
The bird balks at my clumsy boot
Conscientiously placed upon the base of its spine.

A memory shrieks. For a moment, all is still,
The swirl of the glen-ridden bird sending my careless step into history.

So it is written.

     We are the thieves of flight. Broken
     backs hit the ground in our wake.
     The air rises, the look in the bird’s eye devours. We are caught
     within the folds of its wings.

satellite79@hotmail.com — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 05:54:00 GMT

Indelible image: her hands fixed around a candle in the center of the table. My hand with her hands, touching lightly, shadows joined in the flickering flame.

There is a sense of magic here that I never thought I'd encounter with anyone. A reclaiming of innocence that had been slowly swirling out of reach, like a balloon set free from a child's grasp at a county fair.

satellite79@hotmail.com — Sun, 02 Oct 2005 16:02:16 GMT

Out/Words went pretty well. Slam poetry, mad religious fanatics, writers in exile, and pirate talk. Next show: October 27th. The insanity has only started.

Last night's Zombiethon setlist:

Zombie (Fulci)
Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror (only one freaking night, from what I could count)
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Such a good time. Lots of folks showed up. Got quite intoxicated. Rough morning this morning.

I might show up at Mod night after Ted Leo, if I can finish my schoolwork and kick this hangover.

Today is my brother's birthday. There are no longer any teenagers in my family.

satellite79@hotmail.com — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 05:06:04 GMT

Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.
-Rainer Maria Rilke

Yesterday the cover of the Ottawa Citizen announced that the new Governor General's mission is to put an end to the established two solitudes of the French/English Canadian divide, uniting them in harmony at long last. The concept was established by Hugh MacLennan half a century ago, his observation that in Canada there exists a divide created by religion, economy and the rights of population and dimension as put forward by colonization, resulting in two sides existing in a shared loneliness that unites while paradoxically separating at the same time. It is true in the individual. It is true in me.

I'm a writer. I should be putting words down in a private journal on women as we speak, scribbling away into the late night hour regardless of the fact that I have to get up early and go to class and prolong the wonderful business of attending University classes and finding out more about myself and how I'm going to see the world, a viewpoint which changes little by little everyday. But University isn't entirely responsible.

I liked a girl one time. One night I stayed up until 2:30 in the morning waiting for even the remotest chance that she would get off a bus and come to my house after she left work. I watched the buses run by my house every 20 minutes, pushing the chance even further into obscurity. She never showed. I went to sleep and got up early for an exam the next morning, an exam that I didn't finish because I was tired and drained and uncomfortable. And this is the way it will always be for me. I will always stay up late, literally or figuratively speaking, waiting for a girl to show up, because I know that eventually she will.

This past summer someone asked me the age old question: do you love yourself? I probably think about that question more than I should. The question irritates me, and then I worry that it irritates me because I don't, in fact, love myself. But I don't think a lot of people really understand what posing a question like that to themselves really means. They have ideas, they ask the question of others because it's supposed to solve all emotional problems. Once you love yourself, you're ready to love someone else. But all it really means is that you don't need to love someone else. If you love yourself you won't care about love any longer.

But maybe that's a pessimistic view. I'll tell you, and myself, once and for all, why I love myself, and I will never wonder about the question again.

I want to love someone. I want to understand someone, I want to hear every single fact about someone that I admire and respect, I want to know about their weaknesses, their passions, their secrets and guilt and sins. But this is not for fact of not being able to love myself. I love myself because I'm always 100% confident that there is another person that will want the same things where I'm concerned. That there's someone who will care about all of those things with regard to me, that I am worth recognition and respect and love in return. All of this is true. All of it will come true. And in many ways it already has with the people I've chosen as lovers and friends. It will continue to do so.

I will continue to stay up late gazing out windows. I will continue to feel crushed when I lose a connection because I'm not afraid to live my life, and not stupid enough to think that if I don't put any effort into love it will somehow show up on my doorstep. A girl gets onto an elevator with you and that's an amazing, wonderful coincidence. But what do you do after that? You make sure that the first time you kiss, you kiss on an elevator. You make sure you ask her a bunch of seemingly meaningless questions so that you can pick out a book in a bookstore, write something significant on a page and send it to her in the mail. You make sure that every compilation you make for her has a story that gives just a little, important part of yourself away, and you make sure she knows it. And when she tells you about the things that affect her at the core, beneath the surface appearances that mask who we truly are with a veil of constant propriety and enthusiastic optimism, you embrace those things as if they're afterlife revelations. I live my life that way because I love myself, and because I want to share the love I'm capable of feeling with someone else.

Connection. Two solitudes protecting and touching and greeting each other.

satellite79@hotmail.com — Wed, 28 Sep 2005 20:53:36 GMT

RIP Jim's single life: 1978 - 2005

More pictures...

satellite79@hotmail.com — Wed, 28 Sep 2005 01:28:17 GMT

Out/Words
Thursday, September 29th, 2005
Avant-Garde Bar (135 1/2 Besserer St.)
Doors at 7 PM
Cost: Free
All Ages.

Description:

Out/Words will feature spoken word performances courtesy of contributors to the magazine. Tailored to the event, our first publication of the year will see its release as a hard copy companion to those brave enough to share their work verbally. An open mic will follow the scheduled sets in order to open the stage to all those willing to be heard. All are welcome to bring their own work for distribution at the event.

Featuring spoken and written word by:

Dave Bennett
Lisa Xing
Jennifer MacLatchy
Jesse Ferguson
Melissa Upfold
Shawn Tavenier
Shawn Gray
Meghan Casey
Dominique Alexander
Jessica Hum-Antonopoulos
David Emery
Esther Splett

...and more.

satellite79@hotmail.com — Sun, 25 Sep 2005 22:40:28 GMT

Does anyone want to go on a Haunted Walk next weekend?

satellite79@hotmail.com — Sat, 24 Sep 2005 00:16:44 GMT

It's been a strange day. Yesterday was insanely busy and I stayed up quite late, a bad idea when you have to work at 7:15 the next morning. The English Department was putting on a seminar at the school involving the details surrounding graduate scholarships during my shift, so I pondered waking up early and calling in sick... only to actually sleep through my alarm and awaken to a call from my manager wondering where I was. So of course I felt bad and decided to go to work, where I stress about missing the seminar... at around 10:30 I was an inch away from just walking out without warning, but I decided to tell my manager about my predicament. She let me go, I went to the seminar, and then back to the store to work for a few more hours. I'm fucking tired.

And I still haven't decided what I'm DOING next year. If I want to go to McGill, I'll want to apply for a CGS, so I'll have to have a proposal for the direction of my studies written and submitted by November 11. But I still haven't figured out if I definitely want to stick around for another year. Some people have told me to travel and teach English overseas, but I don't think I'd enjoy the experience that much. Others have suggested I go out to Alberta and work at a resort. Or maybe work a labour position on the east coast.

But I have to decide. I'd like to stay in Ottawa, write, work on In/Words and organize shows, but I can't picture working full time at Chapters for income over the course of another two years. I get really itchy in customer service jobs, to the point where I just get grumpy and irritable about employment in general. So far the job has been okay (today is my one year anniversary of the day I started), but lately I've been catching myself acting like an asshole to customers, as if helping them out is an immensely annoying inconvenience. Should I just tough it out, or should I hightail it immediately to Montreal? Or should I do my MA at Carleton, who would more than likely offer me a TA position, but not provide me with the noted experience of attending a different institution in my first year of grad studies?

November 11.

Tomorrow I'll be reading my ass off before Kat's party; Tuesday is my first meeting with Brian and we have to chat it up over Wacousta. I'm taking the Out/Words chapbook in to be printed.

I got some books in the mail today. One of them marked the first literary addition to my Oz collection: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, 100th Anniversary Edition. It has gold-gilded pages and looks amazing. I can't wait to add some others from the series.