Archives : all posts by Dan

Zafari - "King Masaru"

At the Science Museum with Frank. He likes the buttons. He and Edmund walk the halls of snow-tracked carpet, and it feels like there's an unsettling kind of presence in the air of things, a sort of spirit in the stuff. It's early on a Sunday, in the hours before Frank has to go back to his mom, and the museum is not well-attended. The dinosaurs with their heads up in the darkness and the ducts, seem to bob and weave like boxers, the palm leaves seem to sway in time. The old trains seem to heat up, and shadow passengers seem to stare and hum and smoke. In the military section, a giant tank suddenly has a taxi sign and a driver in a cloth hat, arm slung out the window. The ring game and the motorbike circle and the gravity machine all seem perilous this Sunday morning, like crooked carnival games where you lose way more than two bucks a try. Miss the balloon, you'll be going home in a sling. Look sideways at an ex-president or the tallest man in history and you'll be wishing you were back in your mommy's arms. Edmund kept his coat on the whole time, and he wondered if Frank cared that they barely spoke.

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(image by superhoop)

Tomboyfriend - "Lovesickness"

Alison is currently smoking. And was smoking. And is also waiting to smoke. Her 9-year-old, Frank, is with Edmund, his father, for the weekend, and when he does that, Alison turns into a chimney. But tonight is particularly bad. Something about Frank leaving, it always feels like a tape is put on pause in her brain, like a Frank-sized hole opens up in the front hall, and it stands there. She kind of can't move, because any movement will be wrong. She opens her mouth like she's popping her ears, moves her jaw around, takes a drag. Tonight she went out to get something to eat, and she couldn't walk into a place. She physically couldn't walk into one of the ten places on her block. Sushi, too sit-down, I'll feel crazy. Pad Thai? Too heavy. Subway, fuck no. Vegan, too healthy, too sad. So she just walked around, in the freezing cold, sometimes she'd just turn on her heel on the sidewalk, go back the other way, see if passing a second time would change something. She was hyperventilating. Softly hyperventilating, trying not to heave, not to show it. Then, it's back to the house, back to the dining room table, the brown china cabinet, the computer and the cigarettes. It's as if her brain just stammers, like "I--I---uh---I--" from Friday at 6 until Sunday at 9, once a month.

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Also, Tomboyfriend is playing tonight at the El Mocambo, releasing their new EP King of the Animals. 5$

Nap Eyes - "Every Game Is A Game Of Stalemate"

Edmund wore 41 like a bicycle helmet on grey hair, like a backpack on a suit jacket, he wore it like sneakers at the bank. He had thick brown hair, in a coif atop his head, he wore the cheap version of men's magazine clothing. He looked like Bobby Fischer, but less haunted. More daunted, unwanted. He let himself in through the back door of his ex-father-in-law's house. From his first marriage; Carolyn, mother of Evelyn. No one is home, he's dropping off a birthday gift in the kitchen. Kevin's kitchen, where so much greatness had been stirred, heated and watched. Kevin and Edmund had remained close after the split and all these years. Kevin was a poet, and the kitchen was proof of that. It was cluttered with warmth, the shelves all stacked to the ceiling, the many shades of wood interlocking with other wood. On the cutting board was a note he'd left for Edmund, a typically risky move from Kevin, anyone could have seen it:

"It seems my daughter's found herself in another mess. A customs officer named Garry with whitened teeth and a scary-looking dog. In love, it seems she's far more interested in the falling than in the getting up."

[PWYC]

The Doozies - "Independence Day"

"Edmund, you're a witch." Tate was a bright 3, his child from Jen, by whom he was divorced the previous year. "A witch?! But witches are women!" He sat on the arm of the armchair, his long belted coat draped like a flag over his shoulders; he couldn't stay long. "I don't care," said Tate, he had a way of not looking at you when he talked to you, which implied an intelligence, a rudeness, and also nothing at at all. "What makes you think I'm a witch?" said Edmund. "You move around really fast." There was only so much reasoning to expect from a 3-year-old, and one did a lot filling in the blanks, often too much. Edmund thought of how he might call and say he's somewhere and then quickly arrive. He thought of himself moving quickly around the house, picking Tate up and spinning him in the air. He thought about the last time he was on a plane, and how he had to piss worse than any other time in his life. He thought about the way traveling shakes the juices out of you. All the chemicals get shaken loose, and you could cry or shove somebody or just look at nothing and feel nothing. He looked at Tate, standing by an empty box, humming. "Hey, Tate?" Tate didn't look over, but Edmund could tell he was listening, as could he tell was Jen, moving silently in the kitchen round the corner, "Call me Dad."

[5$]

The Last Names - "One Black Feather"

43-year-old teenager. After a shower, May lay steaming on the bed. The bed with the long-empty passenger seat, covers heaped in a twisted pile. She tapped through pictures of friends' families, their time magnets, their love wells. She read insincerity on the smiles of some, honesty on the goofy mugs of others. A goofy face was an honest face, if a tragic kind of twisted honesty. Like when you catch your face in two mirrors and it looks all lopsided.

She waited for Edmund and thought about what she would say if he arrived early and she was still naked. She thought about playing it up as some erotic joke, she fantasized briefly about just fucking him right there on the floor as soon as he walked in. She thought about the wry and smirking sexual talk she could give, I want you to-- and You make me so--. It would require that he say just the right things in return, though. Better to just get dressed.

[Preview Wilderness] [Cover-a-Week Project]

The Bats Pajamas - "Go Bowie Go"

Sex that felt like getting out of jail. Like a Nicolas Roeg scene. Pushing and lifting and brushing and breasts. Tits and teeth and smiles and foreheads pressed. Edmund ran after. He just ran. Past the car and down the street and past a dour-looking doorman and a broken pharmacy sign: "Hoppers Rug Art". Eventually he walked chilly back to the car, his open coat gathering the cold air like a parachute, but he felt like he worked, like he functioned, like he could make something else function. Like his car.

"Computer. Turn on heat."

"The heat is on."

"Then turn it up."

[Free]

of Montreal - "Wintered Debts"

Edmund skipped up the steps and slipped his mitten round the ornate brass door handle. The smell of expensive coffee, specially vented towards his senses, designed to make him desire a fair trade roast, instead just made him feel like taking a shit. He smiled in advance, in case she saw him first.

Evelyn, the daughter from his first marriage, now 17. Her long, straight hair, an aberration from girls her age, gave her a confidence and a classical air that made him proud. But today, she was crying in a Starbucks.

"He's just such a fucking asshole!" She swore around him as a kind of challenge, a sort of maturity game, would he react to form or content? "Evelyn," he said gravely, an attempt to react to both at once. "What are you going to do now?" Edmund felt his keys in his pocket, cold from the car. "I wanna die," said Evelyn, her misty eyes the same colour as the stripes in her sweater. "You talk like that, you're gonna get committed," and he reached across the table and sipped her coffee. Two could play at the maturity game. It seemed to genuinely scare her, as she talked only about how she would finish senior year and go traveling from then on.

"You need a ride somewhere?"

RED In the car, they rode, unspeaking, to whale sounds. Edmund had downloaded it as a relaxation technique, and he was still trying to find a single relaxing quality about it. PROTECTED LEFT He just imagined their titanic bodies, far too large to fit in his car or his bedroom, YELLOW and their primal clicking and moaning. It was anything but relaxing. BLACK

Black? crash.

A pair of cars in front of them. T-bone. Edmund and Evelyn unharmed.

If the victims had been asked to empty their heads like they would their wallets, just what they had on them: "I was just at swimming. Beat my time." "My kids believe in magic." "Are these all coupons?" "Thirty comes fast." "A dog is only as good as its terrible owner." "I can't wait to see that."

[Pre-Order]

(carving by Guy Laramee)

Jackson C. Frank - "You Never Wanted Me"

When Edmund told his first wife that he loved her they were driving through a wooded highway, the trees like thin sentinels, still and stoic, on guard. Shoes were off, and the hood of her sweatshirt hid all but the most important parts of her face. She was squished into the corner between the seat and the door, and making up a story about what actually happened to Kurt Cobain, and then he said it.

When Edmund told his second wife that he loved her she'd been crying. It was her father's death that had brought them together, and it was on the third day that they knew each other. She smiled and said I thought so.

When Edmund told his third wife that he loved her it was dark and she gasped.

And now Edmund looked down at his phone, that third marriage over and gone, at a text saying: "I'd really like to see you tonight," and he thought in rapid succession about his first car, the way an IV feels in your hand, and the kind of elevator nausea you get from anything important. [buy]

(painting by Michaël Borremans)