Archives : all posts by Dan

White+ - "Red+"

"She dumped him because of his synthetic stomach." "That's fucked." "I know, it's not cool, I'm not saying it's cool. But.. the way she explained it to me, it kinda made sense. I mean, first of all, apparently he's always bragging about it. He says it's 'his favourite part of his body' which is weird and gross and kinda sad." "Well that's--" "And he can't even eat natural foods, well he can, but he's actually supposed to take these pill supplements that are better for him, so they never have dinner together. And he said he likes it so much he's gonna get synthetic lungs and he wants to be tested for a synthetic heart, which would mean he'd be in a wheelchair." "A wheelchair?!" "Yeah, cause synthetic hearts are huge, they require that you're confined to a wheelchair with like, an hour of movement a day to keep your muscles from atrophy." "Woah..." "But you live for a really long time 'cause it doesn't give out." "Like how long?" "Like, another sixty years he says." "That's crazy." "I know, right?" "I mean, like, why would you want to live longer if you have to live in a wheelchair?" "I know, right?" "Yeah, I guess he is kinda weird." The conversation stops there, when the air is ripped open by the thunderous tearing of a plane overhead. In the reflections of windows and car doors and sunglasses, summer unfolds like a Dear John letter, where nothing can be but the end.

[only site I could find. If anyone has a buy link, I can update]

Blackout Beach - "Deserter's Song"

As much as nothing is perfect, so must be everything. I found her initials in a penny. D.G. Regina. We were lovers for a time, we'd hold hands and make the shape of a hull. Fingers interlaced like the sides of a shipbottom. At the place we lived, old tenants received unchecked magazine subscriptions, piles of magazines, unread, a monster collage of ricocheted interests, Perrier & Gun. On the coffee table orphaned ants would wander and stray, over old buns, not a collar in sight. We put up posters "FOUND ANTS" but received no responses to aretheseyourants@gmail.com. I would pretend to leave the house, yell "Bye!" and shut the door, then stand in the foyer, sometimes for an hour, waiting. D.G. Regina would sing to herself, a voice like the breeze, played a rotted ghost guitar. I'd skip meals, flattened behind the winter coats, listening to her sing, I wanted the truth and not the trust-me face. I'd get so hungry. Swarms of hunger, great brick-walled hunger, satellite hunger. [Buy]

Lonnie in the Garden - "Said"

A forest is a cult, made up of impressionable trees. Soft wood, able to be swayed. A perfect cult, no telling who's the leader. [free]

(image of Frank & Louie, a 12-year-old Massachusetts cat with 2 faces)

Cat Power - "Manhattan" (Removed at label request.)

Breakfast of leftover stars, saran-wrapped. Walk on spindly legs in spindly shadows. Harsh sun makes noise on the pavement, like a pap-pap-pap. The world seems to spin on hunger. Hunger is like gravity, a force, when stars are all there is to eat. We will run out of these soon. Don't look at the moon tonight. [Pre-Order]

Blonde Elvis - "Gli Spiriti Dei Morti"

A lamplighter walking, teetering on ice flows. On a cliffside, pebbles crack beneath the skirting foot of a Noble, the fog at his face like a living mask. Forests and velvet and horses and black, a winding tightrope dirge. [1$]

Blonde Elvis play their first show at Parts & Labour in Toronto this Wed Aug 1, opening for Mac DeMarco. See you there.

--

MDFF, or Medium Density Fiberboard Films, is a Toronto film company, made up of hard-working young filmmakers. Up to now, they've made shorts, but now they've finished their first feature, Tower, and they are trying to fund their trip to the Locarno Film Festival, where they will be able to watch their film being screened, as well pay for subtitling and print management. Their films are rare and hard to see, but if you explore them a little bit, and like what you see, consider supporting them here

Kenny Rogers - "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town"

"Do you want some water?" comes from behind the door, and he knows exactly what's happened. She's gone to the kitchen, gotten a glass of water for herself, and now feels guilty, holding her selfish water, offering her glass. Which, if accepted, she will relinquish and get another. "No thanks," he says, in the warm stale bedroom apartment air, she continues on her way to the couch. He imagines the dishes in the sink, the way she would have ignored them to fill her glass, the way her feet peel off the hardwood when she walks. Every day is a whole newspaper in this place, so much happens, if you look at it a certain way, too much to take in in a sitting. If you look at it a certain way, you can split every moment into a thousand shards of meaning, and each of those can be rearranged to fit your mood. And today his mood is sour, no way around that. Today, it's the receipts that cause the most distress. Crumpled, strewn, fallen, bank balances and weird charges. Not even the cell phone, that endless pit of hopelessness, is as distressing as the receipts. The cell phone is just guessing, he'd never look, but the receipts, that's glimpses of proof. The neighbours are stomping around, doubtless fighting. Fighting. Might be an idea. "What are they doing?" she calls from the couch. He gets up, stands at the door frame, looking out. "Marching band practice," he says, with an unknowing look. She laughs, for the first time in weeks. But instead of being a relief, it's a condemnation. A smile from her these days is like a porno, he can only ever watch.

Just thought about the way you smile. xx He presses 'send' like launching skeet. Up in the air, see if she's ready. Been conversing with her ghost all night, next to him on the chair, the size of a thick credit card. All his life he's been left and lovelorn and lost, but she's the first one he's chased like a maniac. Something so special about her froggy eyes, her oversized feet, the way love emanates from her like a dying bird. I see her brighten when we're together, a rare journal-keeper in the world of constant public memoirs. The first time they made love was drunk after a screening of Buena Vista Social Club, and they had port and it was all tits and teeth and they seemed to be literally spinning in the bed. That stayed with him almost every day, he thought about that at cold bus stops and in bank lines. Other times he checked his balance and it was dwindling and that meant he loved her.

[Buy]

Aimee Mann - "Charmer"

Is it bad to think about other things during sex? Sometimes it's a one-way street, sometimes I feel all the good that's coming into me, but can't think about what's leaving. Sometimes I think he looks like an animal or fat or like a stranger. I bite my fist and turn my head to the side, I can't help that. But when it's new or when it's regular, sometimes I'll think about how I ended up there, or about shooting victims, or about the way you get pulled along in your life, like when he pulls me to the bottom of the bed. The bed's like an ice flow, and I control every inch of it. He doesn't always know it, but he's doing what I want, and I don't even have to want it. When he goes to throw the condom in the bathroom garbage I check my phone, I check the news, and kind of think about nothing, or feel scared or good. [out sept]

The droplets fall in perfect order, each leaving the cloud at their appointed time. And the cloud position exactly, the wind kissing them into place. On the shore, the trees exhale their breath in synchronous motion, the grass blades cut the ground in rhythmic time. And cars on roads kick dust, exhausted, play tunes at necessary moments, metered out as planned. Old and young die and bear, just on cue, eyes open and close like levers. Books, alike, open, are started, finished and close, voices start just as mouths begin to gape, and stop just before they're shut. Chemicals surge at moments assigned, currents rise and rivers meet, and that is called contentment. Playing an instrument is easy, the hard part is being excellent, because only harmony exists, there simply are no mistakes.

Madvillain - "Curls" / "All Caps"

The beat and the rhymes are like two brothers, making one name for themselves in the world. They need each other, complete each other, but they have their independent minds. They move without each other, around each other, because of each other. They wear different clothes, one glasses the other a patch, they talk differently, one downbeat mumbles the other boisterous and teeth. But apart, they make no sense, only the chaos of their clashing feels right. Their friction is the flow.

[Buy]