Started a few months ago, and I’m pretty sure I’ve racked up a few thousand views in that time.
What a wonderfully understated moment, about stolen love and stolen identities, shot on stolen film.
She does this for a living
It’s a voice that slays us, her tone dark and mysterious, her vibrato delicate and succinct. Yet snide. Flippant, even, cause fuckers, she’s not going anywhere.
This is what pulls our hearts out of our chests.
Filed under
The First Spot
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
The first spot was a curve on her cheek near the corner of her lips. It would only appear when she was smiling a certain way.
I have this picture of her reclining on the chaise with her head thrown back on the pillow in laughter. It’s horribly composed, and I can hear her telling me how weird she thinks she looks in the picture, but it captured the expression perfectly.
The smile wasn’t particularly alluring. It was goofy even. But that’s what I loved about it. She was this angel, this siren, this muse to the world, and I was the only one who could see her like this; cheeks pulled back, giggling uncontrollably, burying her head in the pillow from self-consciousness whenever I pointed out the spot and tried to kiss it. I was the only one for whom she let her guard down, even if only for a passing moment. It was so adorable and intimate at the same time.
Filed under
Magneta Lane and my Cousin Darren
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
There’s been a smattering of good music lately, but this is the song that haunts me; Love and Greed by Magneta Lane. I added it to my collection on the 12th of October, and it’s already in my Top 20 Most Played. By no means is it the best song on the album; it’s just the one that hit me the hardest.
To hear it as a track by itself is a little out of context. It comes as 7 of 10 off Gambling With God, their latest album, and the songs leading up to it charge at a much faster pace. The dramatic change of tone between the verses and the chorus are effective in subtly drawing you in, against lyrics that should be screamed more than anything else.
My favourite part is when Lexi says, “I don’t want recycled love / if I did I’d pour wine in a cup / and get all liquored up / and fucking crawl in front of you” when the guitar and bass stop, and it’s just Nadia doing the bum-ba-da-bum-ba-da-bum-ba-da-bum underneath on her toms.
With the way she says fucking with such saccharine softness, one can’t help but wonder what intense sorrow could have caused this sullen, honeyed voice to spit such profanity.
It’s stuff like this that makes rather plain looking Lexi Valentine so goddam attractive, very much in a Karen O kind of way. I guess you could say I have a fascination with Lexi swearing, because she does it so infrequently.
So…
I gave this song to Darren, and he sent me back this reply:
shit this song is on auto-repeat right now.… ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Darren’s the only person in the world who sees love the way I do. John knows me in every other way — logic, mindset, emotion, personality, habits, taste — but he doesn’t understand my love, which is a big part of me. The only one who understands is Darren1 because we share the same quixotic ideas about it. It’s as if we developed this romantic attitude as a backlash to how our fathers (brothers, who also look the same) raised us with such aloofness. This ideal is how we bond.
One time he told me he can’t wait for the day when we’re at his house with our girlfriends, and we’re playing Cranium, and we’re just…happy.
This is how I know he’s the only person who hears this song the same way too.
- Not even my girlfriends have come close to understanding, aside from Bronwen. [↑]
Filed under
Relationship Advice From Chinese People
My family always ask me if I’m dating anyone right now. They assume I prefer Caucasian girls. I tell them I don’t mind either way (the other side of “either” being Chinese girls). That’s when they warn me about mainland girls. Chinese mainlanders are commonly viewed by Hong Kong people as being low-class, crude, and provincial. It’s said that even if a girl from there is pretty, they lose all attractiveness as soon as she opens her mouth. On top of that, they’re gold-diggers, just looking for a way to get money or a green card.
They tell me I’ll be fine as long as I don’t marry a mainland girl.
My grandma used to tell me to find a Chinese girl, because Chinese girls treat their men better, or to find someone who loves me more than I love them. She’s filled with all sorts of funny aphorisms, like “Women are to be loved, not hit.”
Filed under
Synergy
I’ve been blessed with friends who paint, sculpt, carve, design, sing, and compose, and I’ve been fortunate enough to find a printer and framer who are artists themselves in what they do. Even though they have different mediums and ways of expressing themselves, they’re all driven by a sense of passion. Some can explain where it comes from, some can’t, but you can tell it’s rooted deep within their beings.
Passionate people have always attracted me. When you talk to them, you become filled with ebullient energy. You feed off each other, like a dialogue of ideas and inspiration.
It’s warming. It’s moving.
Together, you become something that’s greater than you are by yourself.
Filed under
The Eyes
The first thing I notice about a girl is her face, but the eyes are what hold my attention.
Especially eyes like this.
Big, round, and pure. They’re the ultimate sign of femininity, because they convey innocence, youth, vitality.
Sometimes, the most intimate and personal thing you can do — from having a conversation to making love — is make eye-contact.
Filed under
All Work And No Play
I’m sitting on my chaise in the dark, Macbook Pro in lap, curtains open to the snow outside. Every now and then, the wind catches a loose patch of snow, and it sounds like sand dragging along the ground outside. If you close your eyes, it’s like you’re sitting on a beach at low-tide under a night sky.
I haven’t done this in a while.
The show is over. There’s supposed to be one more interview next week, but at least I can breathe now. I’ve finally had time to clean the house, which is probably why I feel comfortable enough to write.
There are icons for movies on my desktop, ones I’ve started watching but haven’t finished, because I haven’t been able to emotionally invest in them. I did, however, get a chance to watch Cidade de Deus which is the best movie I’ve seen in months, and Constantine, purely for the Tilda-Swinton-as-angel factor.
I realized that I like girls who look like boys. I hope this doesn’t mean I’m gay.
On a sticky, I seem to have written “a small pair of skis”. I don’t remember doing this, or what for. There’s also a phone number there with no name. I want to call the number to find out who it is, but I’d just hang up if someone answered and that’d be rude.
I should call Dan. I should reorganize my photos for appropriate backup. I should be practicing Tai Chi. I should be having more fun. I should be filling out my thought record worksheets.
But right now, I should really be in bed.
Filed under
Romanced by the Fall
[kml_flashembed movie=”/videos/swing.swf” width=“480” height=“375” wmode=“transparent”/]
The leaves start to turn before they drop.
It’s finally cool enough to sleep with the window open again. I wake up refreshed, a little chilly even, with my blankets wrapped to my face.
Maybe I’ve been single for too long, maybe I’m being romanced by the fall yet again, but there seem to be cute girls everywhere lately.
Filed under
i love you but i don’t know you
i felt disconnected all day. distant. disjointed. another bee in the hive. i don’t know why.
when i stepped outside getting off work, it was grey, breezy, devoid of sunshine.
the bass in my ears moved me. driving the beat of my heart. walking my feet.
the sun slowly came out, mixed bittersweet with the clouds.
and then you showed up. black and white across the street.
i kept my head down as you walked by, careful not to ruin that perfect image in my head. it was enough to keep me going. to make me smile when the most i could feel all day was neutral.
i love you but i don’t know you.
Filed under
An Intimate Morality
“Jeff?”
A voice calls me into the back from the waiting room.
As I get up, I notice that her eyes are dark against her fair skin, almost black. They’re piercing, but gentle, never intimidating. Her face is kind and welcoming, full of youth, like the younger sister of your girlfriend.
I follow. Her hair is pulled back in a neat, braided ponytail. Wrapped around the curves of her body is her dental gown, and she looks like a small, sterile package of energy. She asks the usual questions, speaking with unrivaled confidence. It’d be intimidating as well, if it wasn’t for the control in her voice.
Even after I’m seated in the chair and the ultrasonic scaler starts to whirr, I’m surprisingly calm. The unique buzzing, spinning, squirting, sucking sounds begin their symphony.
She rests her forearm on my chest for leverage as she works on the posteriors.
With her breasts pressed tightly against my head, she stays like this, comfortable in this position, as she cleans.
I start to wonder how appropriate it is, if anyone has ever spoken out. Or have they not had the heart, like me?
I feel objectified.
As she works, she makes one-sided small-talk, saying every word with conviction. With her tools in my mouth, I answer only in mumbled positives and negatives. She goes along the arch systematically, molar to molar, lingual to buccal.
I want to see her eyes again, to take a closer look at what struck me first. To avoid making an obvious, darting glance, I preemptively look where her eyes will be soon as she follows her predictable path, and wait.
Her eyes arrive, and I look away. It’s too uncomfortable. I’m peering into the world of another who’s distracted, not returning my gaze.
Her physical intimacy was innocent, I assume.
Mine may have been less so.
Filed under
Thrice = Love: The Rush
I want to take the bullet,
The one aimed straight for your heart.
I want to meet the wolves halfway
And let them tear me apart,
But that’s not the way they do it here.I want to lay on the tracks,
Feel hot steel screaming at me.
Expose the bones on my back,
Let me show you what I mean.Yeah, it’s a different kind of love.
I want to climb barbed wire fences
And warm our hands in blood.And this is my gift
Asking you to fix my ruined hands.
And it’s a gift that keeps on giving,
And right now it’s all I have to give.I want to write the perfect song,
And play it just for you,
While you are tangled up in sleep.
I need you more than I’ll ever know.
Until I stop breathing,
My lungs will take you for granted.
—Thrice, In Years To Come
I remember a time in my life when I was scared about love. A set of rather adolescent experiences in high school, of which I only now find myself comfortable speaking frankly, had caused me to cling to an unattainable ideal. In Lolita, Humbert Humbert well describes such a happenstance that similarly “made of it a permanent obstacle to any further romance throughout the cold years of my youth. The spiritual and the physical had been blended in us with a perfection that must remain incomprehensible to the matter-of-fact, crude, standard-brained youngsters of today”.
Eventually, I had given up my ideal, but still felt forever tainted, regretfully breaking more than enough hearts in the process.
It only took an ardent, extremely brief summer romance to free me, and a journey of 12500 kilometres to realize it.
And as fleeting as the entire experience was, it still enough to galvanize, to make me want to take that bullet, or let the wolves tear me apart. Being tangled up in that mad love, the love that goes against reason or better judgement, softened the stone in my chest, and it felt like I was finally alive.
Gimmie a girl who can make me feel this way.
The Thrice = Love Series
Filed under
Thrice = Love: Rock It
Entertain the hope that somehow you’ll escape me
Weld the bolts and close the iron gate
Drink deeply the illusion of your safety
My how wishful thoughts inebriate
Masquerade and revel in your opulence
Writhe unfettered by your stabs at ignorance
Swim through hues and whispered tones of heresy
A dozen strokes to run your blood cold enough to believe
Remember me
You look so surprised to see me here
Hells black wings did I over perch these walls
For stony limits cannot hold me out
And now you all die
—Thrice, The Red Death
And now again the music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe to and fro more merrily than ever
—Edgar Allen Poe, The Masque Of The Red Death
It’s simple.
Gimmie a girl who isn’t afraid to ROCK THE FUCK OUT to this song.
The Thrice = Love Series
Filed under
