A few days before the show, I found out that Krista and Shane were playing a small venue in town. Usually I make it a point to see an artist just once in my life, but last time was different; I was expecting Lederhosen Lucil, but was treated to an entirely different and unfamiliar sound. This time, it was my chance to see Krista and Shane perform after becoming familiar with the songs. Turns out the venue was in un petit salon des arts. This place boasted a mixture of different artforms; music, metal sculptures, photographs, paintings, and graphic poems.

I didn’t really feel like going out that night, but I forced myself to go, reminding myself that I could say the same thing any other night and I’d never get anywhere.

When I arrived, the Salon was to capacity. I couldn’t even get in the entrance; there were people physically blocking the door. My chance to get in came after a few had made room by leaving, then I saw a path up the stairs and took it.

Enter six degrees of separation.

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Eric, who used to work with me, introduced me to Brant Bjork, and stoner rock in general, about two years ago. It’s a genre that explores delightful repetition, where variations are subtle, but powerfully psychedelic.

[I]t is certainly accepted that the effects of marijuana and the often low or psychedelic riffs of stoner rock complement each other.

—Wikipedia, Stoner rock

I liken the idea to Plastikman’s debut album, Sheet One. Though of a different genre — trance — it features a perforated album cover, an homage to acid tab art, for which the LSD enhances the details of every single minimalistic beat (so I’m told).

While I’ve enjoyed Queens of the Stone Age, who are considered to be influenced by the stoner rock movement (indeed, Josh Homme and Brant Bjork formed pioneering band Kyuss while in high school), the sound is a little more commercial, less droning.

After I heard a few songs by Brant Bjork, I was hooked. I never associated it with a memory, which is what I do with almost all my songs, but it was good enough that I didn’t have to.

At Thanksgiving, during one of my trips through the mall with Andrew and Alex, I resumed my search for Brant Bjork’s solo album by the name of Jalamanta. It was a bigger city, a bigger place…maybe I’d have a better luck. Unfortunately, every music store gave me the same answer; it was an album they didn’t keep regularly in stock.

Alex asked me what I was looking for, the name of the album and artist, and I didn’t think anything of it.

Yesterday, I found a package in the mail. Fragile — CD, it said. Inside was the Brant Bjork CD I’ve been looking for, which they found at an independent music store. Along with the CD was a card made from my Pollen Junkie photo (which was taken in their garden), with a message written on the back.

And as great as it is to finally hear the songs I’ve been missing, as nice as it is to have an original release, it’s nothing compared to the thoughtfulness, the effort they made to find me exactly what I was looking for.

 

 

 

 

 

Since he’s never been bowling before, we decided to go for Trolley’s 30th.

Rock ‘N Bowl is an interesting phenemonen. Aaron thinks it’s for the 14-year-olds to get all hooched up and feel like they’re going clubbing. Didn’t stop us — Trolley included — from getting carded at our table when pitchers.

Five-pin is harder than I remember. Maybe because I was trying to spin everything, so it would either hit the left pins, or completely gutter on the right when I tried to adjust. For our two teams, it was a pretty close match through the night.

For the photographs, I tried to play around with light settings. 2nd-curtain-sync wouldn’t work for me, and I didn’t realize that there’s a setting for it on the 580EX flash which overrides camera settings. As a result, the pictures are mostly flash-less to capture the mood of the wildly swinging light.

The next day, I discovered that I somehow pulled my left glute and right groin muscles. A gentle reminder on Trolley’s birthday that we’re all getting older.

It hasn’t stopped pouring since I woke up. I’m traveling through the city in my favourite hoodie. Thinking about you and your delicate wrists. The photos I took of you smiling, always looking away. Wondering what it must be like in your world. Wondering if we’ll ever meet again. Wondering what you meant when you told me it’s hard to be alone when you’re told you’re growing old.

I write this so I won’t have to write about you again.

Perhaps in a simpler world things would have worked out differently, and you would have given me a second thought.

But I have no tears in me.

The sky weeps instead.

I was on my way to work one day, walking down a hill, when I noticed that there was a rather large snail on the ground. He was about an inch and a half long, his shell a delightful contrast of pink and pastel hues to dark brown banding. I wanted to take a picture, but I didn’t have something to carry him to work (where I have an infinity board and white box), so I decided I’d just grab my camera on break and bring him there.

Of course, my break was in a couple hours, and I was praying that he’d still be there when I went outside. I grabbed the camera and tripod and ran up the hill, looking for a small shell casting a shadow on the concrete.

I found him crushed, splayed out in strands of mucus, most likely stepped on by some careless person. Snails can’t live without their shells, as the calcium carbonate structures hold their internal organs. I took a few pictures of the tragic scene anyway.

When I got home that night, I happened to look at the snaps in quick succession and noticed that parts of him were still moving.

I took a few frames and overlayed them to make this Flash animation, where you can see his foot wriggling, as well as some indistinguishable entrails that remind me of liver. It’s so sad to think that he was left out to die a slow death with his innards exposed.

I would have named him Shelly.