Sinister: black black black black car

[Robyn Fadden]

peeps,

and canadians,

and people who want to be canadians,

i can't stop thinking about stuart's muscle car. today i
saw a shiny burgundy charger and got all happy. i even went
and saw "gone in 60 seconds" (which is rotten. except for
the cars, of course. nicholas cage with his so-called
"minimalist" acting. pshaw. okay, i liked face-off, but
still, if he grew his hair back to raising arizona length
and put a panty on his head, we'd all be happier for it.
but you can't bring back the past.) 

but it's about more than just the car. it's about how one's
form of tranportation affects one's life and personality.
will there be road trip and drag racing songs in stuart's
songwriting near-future? the interesting thing is meshing
the car with public transport and bicycling. it's not all
or nothing; it's more complex than that. and we must like
complexity. yeah! ie, i ride a bike. i should hate cars.
but i do not. do i 'act' ironically in a car? oh the
inherent contradictions of the 20+. am i being ironic? i
don't know, i'm not dancing. wait, irony doesn't deserve
this much attention any more. let's all ignore irony from
now on. good. (according to a dictionary of literary terms,
"To be an effective piece of sustained irony, there must be
some sort of audience tip-off, through style, tone, use of
clear exaggeration, or other device." we should ignore this
too. that just makes irony feel all special and cool when
it is cleary, like, *not*.) personally, i'm going to turn
my attentions to synecdoche.

i would definitely like to say wow and thanks to amy
jackson for having such a great quote at the bottom of a
recent post. positively one of the best simpsons moments!
yeah! bees and dogs and dogs with bees in their mouths...
yes.

something vaguely serious for a moment:
the 'thin or not too thin' topic that's been going on
lately (or not so lately. things take me a while) round
these parts is very interesting. i just wanted to pipe up
about media influence though. while perhaps not always
obvious/direct, media definitely plays a role in how
people, in this case mostly women, view their bodies and
form their identities. eating disorders are an extreme, and
of course influenced by more than the media, as so many
things are (the media doesn't make you do something, your
crappy childhood/abandonment issues/heartsick malaise
do...) researchers are still trying to understand just what
role media does play, so just because there isn't much
research available out there doesn't mean something isn't
going on, especially when you're talking about research
into women's health. i'm going on like this b/c i'm a
rambler (no, not the car) and i happen to work in a women's
health research centre *and* we've just published a report
on creating a research agenda on the topic of young women,
eating disorders and the media. and i'm a little obsessed
with all things media. so yeah. i'm not meaning to sound
pedantic, it's just all very interesting stuff.

i saw a band from seattle called Octant a couple weekends
ago. and do you know what they have? nope, not bulimia. a
ROBOT DRUMMER! ooh, it's neat. unfortunately it does not
have dryer-hose-like arms and a metal body, rather it is
made up of two big black boxes drumlike in nature with drum
sticks on them. but it works very well and the band sounds
damn fine. robots. 
also: Arling & Cameron are touring again! go see them, they
are great fun.

a secret about canadians: every time there is a mention of
canada by someone/something outside of canada we feel an
irrepresible glee which becomes something of a guilty glee
which then becomes more of a self-doubting inability to
accept praise. it's in the canadian lineage, sorry. in turn
we (yes, all of us) produce brilliant sketch comedy.
lately, we have produced a late-night talk show, but no one
will fess up to who's fault this is. it really does say
something though about canada when someone as
unentertaining as mike bullard can hold a monopoly on
non-cable late night cdn talk shows. there oughta be a
revolution. 
ha har. 
a subtle revolution.
ah. ha. that's what it says about canada. which also says
that i love canada, as intangible and distanced as that
love might be. sort of like loving dragonfruit and calling
it gragonfruit. yum, canada.

yes, so. i just got back from being in toronto for a week
and it struck me as so much more glam than
fleece-vests-and-eddie-bauer-khakis vancouver. the toronto
mod club night features the phrase "secure scooter parking"
on its ad cards even. and, believe me, this amenity is
taken full advantage of. fab-u-lous. 

what do people think of pop music from the 50s? (yeah,
*all* of it, that's right.) i had a 50s-pop-music-related
experience on the plane back here. i was flipping through
the 4 or so stations on the canada 3000 plane dial and one
was devoted to oldies. and i found myself digging it. the
thing is: 50s/oldies music used to make me nervous and edgy
and in some ways kind of physically ill. (this didn't apply
to elvis, buddy holly and a few other bands though for some
reason.) now i find it great, though i didn't have any
conscious realization about this; it was just suddenly
good. whereas before it was just all, well, icky and laced
with the whole image of perfect 50s living, the image of
new and wonderful things clouding out a harsh reality. and
that's still sort of there, but it doesn't wreck the music
any more. strange. it's like i had an epiphany in my sleep.
what to do, what to do... i'm sure there must be big huge
box sets of 50s pop that i can purchase second hand
somewhere. i don't know what i'm getting myself into with
that though... maybe i should stick with the crate of 60s
soul.

well, i'm glad to have re-emerged from wherever i was that
was making me feel distanced from electronic communication.
as usual, i blame the weather. 

loof,
robyn

"you woke up at 3pm and showered for hours, watched porn
all alone for the evening, it never really got you anywhere
except back in the shower." -aislers set

=====
I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything. ~Steven Wright
~~~
Robyn Fadden    rfadden at yahoo.com    Vancouver, BC

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