The Sound a Job Makes
I have been under an oppressive regime! Work has filled my days and sometimes my nights, but all of my waking attention. My goals are long forgotten. There is no sense to the messy march of progress. I like to think that in a time of great urgency there will be a visible, tangible landmark to keep one’s bearings, to point at with a finger and say “there it is”, and feel assured. But there is none. Only more work, crashing in from angles each more unpredictable than the last, and a cold deadline, a week or so from today.
There is a point in the working world nowadays that has come to be known as “crunch time”. The assumed wisdom is that the name was earned by the sound made by placing your self-esteem, personal ambition, and dignity in a small paper box, and placing it on the footpath of a thousand hormone-injected elephants all chasing the same grazing female. Those elephants are called the competition, friend, and you’re in their way. Crunch time comes around when opportunity abounds. When you’re riding a personal high, for instance, or when summer is about to start. Long weekends are a great time for a herd of smack-crazed elephants to trample on whatever you’ve got left. Crunch time knows best.
There is shame. Shame comes in many forms. One form, you might say, comes from from a lack of grace in the face of helplessness, or cracking under pressure. Another comes from finding yourself suddenly in the dark because the building’s auto light shutoff timer kicks in after 7 PM, and you’ve got to go to the other side of the office and flick them back on every fifteen minutes or so. That’s shame. A third is knowing you’ve left a stressful day in a cool, air-conditioned office to go home to an apartment that feels like being inside a kiln in East Hades, and seriously contemplating going back. That’s shame, but it’s also discomfort, and remorse, and a host of other dysfunctions, each of them trod upon by a horny mastodon, and making a delicious cracking noise.
But it’s only for a week longer. I am rather sparse at the moment, stealing a few moments here and there to do laundry, send emails, and so on. This should all be over soon, at which point I can reconvene here and not really tell you all about it.
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Spreading my Memetic Blueprint
Since Dick felt it necessary to hit me with the meme au courant, I’ll oblige, but only because you don’t ever want to piss off a Petrolian, especially one who’s had it up to here with big city types and their ugly big city faces.
How many books do I own?
I was never an avid purchaser of books until at least young adulthood, so at most a few hundred, many of them heavy, scattered across various towns and tucked into bookbags from here to the Penetang.
Last book I bought?
Mediated by Thomas de Zengotita, an exploration of the plastic blob of artifice that consumes every fragment of our existence right down to the neurological level, making our emotional and intellectual lives a screaming, superfluous cesspool of despair, depression, angst, anxiety, and existential dread. One where, incidentally, you die alone. So very alone.
Last book I read?
Reflections of a Siamese Twin, John Ralston Saul, where he explores the Canadian anti-mythology throughout history, just in time for the present-day patriots of mimicry to come and take it all away. I am also working on Zeno’s Conscience by Italo Svevo and 1967: The Last Good Year by the late Pierre Berton.
What you really came here for, in no particular order:
- Tropic of Capricorn – Henry Miller
There is not much to say about Henry Miller’s follow-up to his classic Tropic of Cancer, except that it contains page after page of gouging, lucid, neural loggorhea about the mania of a writer becoming a man, and that it affected me even more than did its predecessor, which itself drew daggers from my heart and spat on them. I haven’t the gall to attempt a cogent analysis, as this book affected me almost on a cellular level at times. Loads of smut, also.
- Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs – Abelson, Sussmann, and Sussmann
There’s a saying that goes “computer science is as much about computers as astronomy is about telescopes.” I’ll let you in on a secret about computer science: a lot of it is about changing your focus away from the computer and towards the nature of the problems they are meant to solve. Problem and data: your programs should take both as input, defined in a harmonious or unharmonious way, however they should choose to arrive, in order to be charmed into acquiescence by your nimble code balletry, while preserving their own material essence. Most academic computer science programs nowadays focus on preparing you mind, body, and soul for the computer industry, but for many of us, what we need is a more peaceful relationship with that which we are appointed to solve. I put forth that a careful reading of this CompSci classic, as well as an earnest attempt at the problem set, will teach you almost nothing about computers, but plenty about clarity of thought, elegant design, and how to take the data as it comes. And it’s available for free.
- A Pattern Language – Christopher Alexander
This book is not so much a narrative as a methodology, or a system of methodologies to describe, in exhausting and self-validating detail, a field, architecture, which exists at a junction of sciences and arts. A very fuckable concept indeed, this book. You see, there exists the possibility—the probability—that pure wisdom of any imaginable topic can be distilled into a few choice axioms, the kind of which could be rung off in say, a chopped-up sentence or two. My writing style, for example, is an exemplar of the maxims type before thoughts have time to form and treat language like a tray of ill-fitting screws, each of which are corollaries of the umbrella maxim sophisticated jabberwocky overcomes talent dearth. It’s simple and it works, and I could write an email or an encyclopaedia this way, and though it might not end up any good, the task would be nothing if not procedural. What Mr. Alexander and Co. have done is to take the fuzzier edges of architecture—what seems to work, and what doesn’t, down to the finest minutae—and turn it into a sort of dialect, comprising verbs, objects, and clauses, with which one can create the smallest cigar box or the grandest airport. Then, they have cross-referenced and combined and folded all the rules into themselves, and come out with a sort of airtight system of questions and answers, into which you can pour just about anything, and pick up an answer at the other end. I think it is quite brilliant, the idea of remembering, say, Light on Both Sides of the Room, or Sleeping in Public, instead of the refractory properties of light, or a police factsheet on the illicit usage of city park benches. I wonder, sometimes, if other disciplines could benefit greatly from this treatment. Some already have, like computer science, and others exist only in the realm of possibility, like a language to describe the entirety of human behaviour, and used to prove axiomatically, Peano-style, the existence of a perfect system of human society, to give an example off the top of my head. This book made me dream, is all I can say.
- Voltaire’s Bastards – John Ralston Saul
If you’ve ever been suspicious, pissed off, distrustful, irate, despairing, or wary about our distressing tendency to worship false Heroes, the corporatization of all aspects of modern society, the use of economics as a cause rather than as a tool, the erosion of the citizen’s role in public life, the devolution of capitalism into a game of market speculation, the equation of war strategy and bureaucracy, the idolatry of leaders who play roles rather than make decisions, and the tyrrany of the managerial class, don’t bother picking away at the edges at your bookstore’s trendy Cultural Studies section…this relentless book savages one and all.
- Mythologies – Roland Barthes
Roland Barthes at his cheekiest. Whether showing how the ugliest French wrestlers are the most emblematic of the genre, taking aim at the slumbery mystique of “the writer on holiday”, or drawing a line between French oenophilia and its ugly colonial past, Barthes has a keen eye for the driving myths of postwar French media. This punchy collection of short essays, covering every topic ranging from the redness of steak to the lavishness of laundry suds, made me shiver with minutea-ic glee when I read it for a class in university, and I turn to it every time I need a postmodern shot in the arm. The fundamental tome of overanalysis that feels just right.
Favourite Michael Jackson songs:
Blame it on the Boogie, Startin’ Somethin’, Billie Jean, The Girl is Mine, Remember the Time, and oh hell, why not…Bad.
(Since everyone has already been tagged by this meme already, I’ll let it die here, unless you feel impelled to breathe new life into this wet, dying puppy, in which case have at ‘er my friend and reader.)
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Ni l’un ni l’autre la langue d’amour
I had just spread my towel over the soft grass when I noticed her. She was on the other side of the terrace, maybe twenty metres away, by herself. Between us were a couple of bare, leaning trees and a short ridge in the grass. Her hair, as I saw it, was wispy and loosely tied back, but I could not discern its colour from this long distance. As luck, or her deliberate positioning, would have it, she seemed to lie at the base of a pillar of light visibly extending from the circle on the grass where she lay, up to the tops of the trees, over Mont-Royal and straight into the heart of the sun. Looking at her there on that grass, stretched out in order to do nothing, she seemed so wholly pleasant, almost angelic, that I didn’t want to disturb her in the least for fear of sending this perfect image of a beautiful woman under a column of sunlight into disarray. Her feet kicked up every so often, toes pointing at the sky. We made eye contact for a second, and I went about my own business.
She wore a very small bikini, which, in light of the attractive body it served to cover up, I could not help but notice.
Me, I like to look at a fine woman. A park on a hot day is one of the finest places for one to do this, and to boot, it’s a great place to catch up on reading or take an invigorating public nap. On cruel, air-conditioning-less days such as today, there is no choice in the matter anyway. So there I was this morning, atop the famous Montreal mountain, under a tree with book in hand, and my eyes wandered as they cannot help but do.
I kept to my book as much as possible. Every so often I lifted my head to peer over the ridge to check if she was still there. To say I did this merely to ogle might not be the whole story; there were masculine protective instincts, perhaps, or territorial fears over competition. My own plans were to read and enjoy the shade, not to fawn over women, but there she was, and there I was, unable to control myself. Who was I to put on airs of courtship? There was no shared bond between us, no basis for an advance. She was an attractive woman on a nearby beach towel: no more and no less. Still, some primordial urge compelled me to keep an eye on her, and this continued on for some time, until finally I decided that it was silly, rolled over onto my other side, and focused on reading.
A while later, I looked over to see if she was still there, for curiosity’s sake, and this time she caught my glance, but did not hold it. A few hard gusts of wind blew my pages around, and as I tried to flatten the book I reflexively poked my head up to take another look. This time, she was turning her book over and laying it face down, and standing up. I held a brief fantasy that she was going to walk over to me and crawl into my lap. Fantasies like this enter my mind both as my body’s natural tendency, on a hot Montreal morning, towards daydreaming, and also to prepare myself mentally for what could be. After all, luck is the crossroad where preparation and opportunity meet, as they say. She put on shorts and slid her feet into a pair of wooden-heeled sandals, delicately, and packed up her things.
In a few seconds my juvenile fantasies suddenly entered the realm of possibility. She began walking in my direction, but this was also the direction of the footpath, so I did not take seriously the idea that she could be walking over to introduce herself to me. I am not the kind of guy who draws women over with my gaze. Insomuch as there exists a kind of guy can ply his lothario trade in a city park and make women drop what they’re doing to come over and be woo’d, I am not him. That much I know. For starters, I am baffled when it comes to reading basic signals of flirtation, and even more baffled by the dark rituals and incantations required in turning chit-chat with strange women into sultry seduction. Whenever I see a friend march over to an arbitrary woman and start a conversation with her that lasts for hours, or lure her over to him with his finger or his stare, I wonder what secrets, what deeper truths about women he has gleaned, and how his gaze seems to find its way into her soul in a way I can’t decode, unlocking it like a key.
Besides, I am quite sure that I looked at her for a lot longer than she looked at me. Our eye contact was infinitesimal and not charged with any lingering sexuality. She kept walking, her trim hips swaying from side to side. As she got closer I began instinctively to smile, and I sat up a little, to adjust my body to a more inviting position on the towel. My smile was met with hers. There could be no question, now, that she was walking directly and intently towards my little encampment. I thought she would walk right through me, and in my mind I begged that she would. The trees gave a little rustle as if they were crowding around to watch the show.
Finally she stopped, both feet planted side by side, right in front of my nose. I looked up, and could now see that her hair was a gorgeous shade of light brown. The mental conception of her beauty I had formed from that great distance had turned out to be exactly accurate. What should I say? Do the great seducers of history start each of their conquests with a simple “Hello?” Well, I cannot imagine whispering a sweet nothing right off the bat, and canned compliments to random strangers reek of sales-force insincerity, so it’s going to have to be Hello. Hello, stranger.
It was then that we spoke, in unison.
“He…”
“Bonjour!”
“…llo!”
Well, shit. We looked confusedly at each other for a second while I cursed this wretched Anglophone pedigree. Her disposition changed. The language barrier has an infuriating tendency to toss an extinguishing bucket of sand on the flames of romance. I know of a few Montrealers who have no problem navigating the inevitable Anglo-backlash. However, their tactics are questionable at best. Saying you’re visiting from out of town, or saying you’re American (which supposedly is more reliable than saying you’re an English Canadian), is a piece of sophistry I’m unwilling to attempt; being incredibly good-looking, not an option here.
A conversation that begins this way, bilingually, must first wind its way through an established gauntlet of awkwardnesses. First, a common language must be decided upon. Since I’d rather not underscore my Englishness any more than is necessary, I opted for the broken French instead. Second, a familiarity with the chosen language much be demonstrated by both parties for the conversation to continue. My French, while not atrocious, is far from natural, and while I am good at impersonating a native speaker, this does not work well for conversations more complicated than basic directions. And me seducing a Québecois woman in Ontario-taught, Government of Canada-approved Français Internationale? Oh ho ho.
Anyway, after the conversational misstep, she asked me for directions back to downtown from here. I want to believe that she wanted more, and I might even be right. But there I was, telling her in Anglo-French that I wasn’t really sure what direction to go in, vraiement, because I’d spent a good hour wandering the park randomly, and hadn’t a clue where I was, and what did you think about that? I even tried to throw in a hint of Joual accent to make her forget that I’m from the tail end of Highway 20. She smiled, in the way that a social worker might smile to her class of special-needs children. Trying to keep the smalltalk ball in play, I asked her a little more about where she was going, and about this and that. The cracks in my French started to show, and I was met with progressively shorter replies. I was fucked. She flashed me a last friendly smile, and slinked away uncerimoniously, down the path I suggested she take to get to Centre-ville.
I hope the bitch got lost.
I don’t know when it happened (though I have a pretty good idea) that the resentment between young French and English Canadians became a one-way street. I would gladly give my heart to a French woman, as would anyone else with any good sense. Something has clearly gone wrong here. Politics has no place in affairs of the heart, and for that matter, neither does language, and I am forever envious of those who are able to bypass both and speak directly into body and soul.
And that is the reason I’m sitting here in my apartment listening to downloaded Rockapella covers, instead of passionately, adeptly, mellifluously, and gloriously waxing that ass.
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