Mehanata

, to go see so-called 'gypsy swing'  music, I'm thinking django, were you? yes-- to go see it, unexpectedly, at the bar below our house.  taking the puppy out, (yes-- the puppy), we heard the swing in earnest, and realized we wanted it:

we let puppy take his evening nap, went for vodka punches (thank you eastern europe) and cheap(est) beer; astika! the fiddle, the bass, the rhythm guitar, the soloist.  the strings flying in the firefly accompaniment, and us, sitting.  

a man held up a shirt, proud as a parent, he held his prize to see it.  i thought it was golden, but really, it was on fire.  he stomped it on the ground, but still the embers burned cotton, it smelled like october.  he carried it to the bar, indeed, presented it; I spilled my punch, crushed mint all over the bar.

our future friend al jerrari came to wipe up the ice, examine the commotion.  i apologized for the fruit, picked gingerly the mint from the tabletop, throwing remarks about the fire fiasco-- the word seemed to please him, and he wiped the bar with fervour.  

later, we talked with him.  we became friends, maybe; he had a great scarf, and well worn baseball cap.  he is interested in human rights and new media.  standing in the rain for a long time i became gradually saturated. we talked about projection of images.  

(... the light flickering... the dark wood...)

allison and I apologized, referred to our puppy Henry and how we had to let him out.  he expressed reverence for dogs; we promised to let them meet.  he said Henry should come to the bar.  

eventually, standing in the rain, more, Henry unaccustomed to such wet, we talked, and he suggested again sneaking Henry to the second floor-- but we weren't sure; we certainly didn't expect him to let us.  (Al Jerarri, speaking like it would be a crime to turn Henry away.)  

Henry blended into Allison's black shirt.  We sat in a booth upstairs, while the Balkan brass raged beneath.  Al Jerarri brought us beers, napkins to wipe the rain.  Henry licked the cold bottles.

The bartender, gazelle from before, thought I was nuzzling perhaps Allison's midriff and breasts, while really I was covering Henry's ears.  She tried to take away my unfinished beer.  

Way to interrupt a moment, lady---

We left when the brass band stopped.  (Henry again, blending, a part of Allison's body.)

Now the rain on awnings and corrugated metal:

The rain, a first relief; how strange, to hear it on the roof.  Maybe it merely ricochets off the walls that have closed in from our living room.  Never before, rain on brick, rain on construction, rain on thursday night, rain on three beers in, rain reverberating on forty watt sleep, let's go to bed...

........

Snow (Whistler, 2005)

interior, living room, 4am.  winter.

[1000Hzbarsandtone

snowoutsideblackonskygrey

muffleditall

colorbarsourneonfaces

staticskyandconstanttone]

Sydney Crosby in an armchair.  Matching track pants, track jacket.  Feet upon the ottoman, quadriceps clenched, the most unflattering angle of all time.  Michelangelo knew better!  

Clench armrests, talk about self.

(Good night.  Enough is enough.)

Old News: David Lynch Still Psychotic

This blog needs to take a turn for the cryptic.  David Lynch could be an all-too-easy hinge for this move.

(I'm assuming by now it's common knowledge that Lynch is, by a lot of people's standards, pretty wacko; he's taken up transcendental meditation, speaks of bliss in metaphors of water and depth, and wiggles his fingers with eyebrows raised as he refers to it.  I saw him talk at NYU a couple years ago, as many did; though I expected to see Lynch live, I was merely one of many diverted into a smaller auditorium beneath the one he was really speaking in.  We watched a live video feed of his talk, in the room above us.  And he spoke not of film, but of this so-called bliss.)  

Lynch Talks in Berlin

[[MULLHOLLAND DRIVE SPOILER.]] 

Lynch Makes a Crazy Movie

(You'd have to know about the rest of what goes on in the movie for this to effectively 'spoil' anything, and yet...) 

For the record, I still don't like Mullholland Drive.  There.  I said it on the internet.  Other Club Silencio scenes, and this one, are pretty fascinating though.  Theatre of the absurd, amigos, theatre of the absurd.

O'Malley

Peter (my brother) and I were at a family wedding this past summer.  (Our parents were there too; I don't wish to imply they were not.  However, this story doesn't concern them.)

There was a giant fluffy white with black patches dog named O'Malley.  

People weren't supposed to bring their dogs cause at a prairie wedding, I guess that would have been everyone.  O'Malley was certainly a guest of honour, then.

Peter and I drank lots of beer and lots of scotch (respectively) which were purchased in an exchange of pre-purchased 50/50 style raffle-ticket style buy-in-the-dollar-store style drink tickets, which were sold in strips of 5s 10s and 20s, one ticket a drink.  Made the whole escapade of drinking rather game-like.  Play money, play drink.  Investment and return.  (And more drunk, the greater the appreciation in value seemed to be.  Amazing system.)

We soon got bored of the trampled grass dance floor situation and so spent much of the evening on the move.  Like in the popular science fiction series Dune, the strategy for navigating this family event was similar to that of avoiding sandworms.  Irregular, yet constant movement.  Minimal awkardness.  (Or according to the Dune simile, not dying.)

O'Malley the dog had the same strategy, and fortune favoured our journeys that evening; our paths crossed many times, affording me the increasingly enjoyable opportunity to shout,

"OHHHHHHHH, 

MALLEY?!"

into the night.

---

I saw the northern lights for the first time that weekend. 

Sustained psychosis.

PS- How was I unaware that David Lynch directed the Dune movie?  It is purportedly awful.  Are we thinking of the same things, here?  (Possibly not.  Like the 'Battles'/'The Battles' mixup of early-april psychosis related songs, and other instances of me being culturally confused.)  

Oh well, continuing in the vein of psychotic people, David Lynch is an appropriate candidate. Media to follow.

Fitted Twin Sheet

The summer was hot, so of course I'd been sleeping only with a sheet as a blanket, as I enjoy being covered by something even when it is very very hot as the summer's  been.  

One night, in a state of half-sleep, I slid into a fitted twin sheet, and the psychosis set in all night.  Although I was very comfortable, I awoke every hour or so, restless from guilt and anxiety of a project I had not finished.  

Every time I emerged to semi-consciousness though, I was soothed by the gentle embrace of the elastic of the sheet curled around me, and the space of air that remained the perfect temperature between my body and the loose dome of the sheet.  

With every waking, I deliriously smiled to myself, so pleased with this arrangement.  I have repeated the experience since, and find the repeated action like a return to the psychosis itself.  

If you have your own fitted twin sheet, you too can try this.  Now that the equinox is only a day away, its technically no longer summer, and I for one have already pulled my heavy blanket back to bed.  

Friday night psycho video party!!!

I'm gonna have a music video party now.  Here are some crazy songs/videos!!!!

The Knife - Heartbeats 

Originally thought this video was kind of silly/dull upon first viewing many moons ago, but I have decided I am kind of enamoured of it now.  Plus, the first and last shots are awesome, which is something to fall in love with I'm quite sure.  

Plus, ITS KRAZZZYYYYY!!!!!

Cibo Matto - Black Hole Sun

I just found out about this tonight!!! BETTER THAN THE ORIGINAL!!  [I am posting this for audio mostly, but the video is sort of appealing... surreal.] The original version of the song has a pretty psychotic viddddeeeeoooooo too, so well done Chris Cornell for being a part of that, I guess, even if its sort of dated now.  (Very dated.)  

Russian Futurists - Sentiments vs Syllables

This is not a video at all but I decided to stick with youtube.  Enjoy the picture of the album cover.  

This is a song from an early moment of internal psychosis: high school, one April, drinking soft liquor in Marcus's basement, sinking into an old rocking armchair, watching Most Haunted (...) or videos on MuchMusic (if I had my way... OH PERRRRFECT, I have remembered something about a related psychosis moment which was shared by a number of my friends and I haven't related to anyone for quite some time.  I will add it as an exciting bonus that I did not expect or think to include in this selection of videos.)  

Oh, 70's tweed couches! Oh, dark April!  Oh, Katey on the treadmill with a beer in hand!  Oh, that shelf of boardgames, cardboard boxes all breaking! Oh, that time we watched the Lion King and it was freezing 'cause that fireplace is only ornamental!  I fell asleep on the floor!

So, this particular time I played that Russian Futurists song, we actually watched some videos on MuchMusic after, but drunk, were all alarmed and confused and deeply impressed by what we saw:

BONUS!BONUS!BONUS!XTRAPSYCHOSIS!!!!!!

Turn it uppppppp.

My week has been rather uneventful.  

I'll probably do something psychotic this weekend though, so I'll have to try not to be so self-conscious about the psychosis and just let it reveal itself.

A visual metaphor for the psychosis:  animated, yellow eyes lurking in the  darkness beyond a clearing in some Looney Tunes forest.  Maybe this occurs in Snow White too.  What else.  OH YEAH, the scary wolf creature lurking in The Neverending Story movie.  That's actually a little more alarming; quite frightening.  (Great piece of work, incidentally.)  I wonder if The Neverending Story's "The Nothing" is worth exploring in terms of some greater metaphor for psychosis and perception of daily life?  Probably.  I'll get on that.  

Writing About Mallo Al Mar

(photo by tergiversation on flickr)

I had one of the best dreams in recent memory a couple weeks ago.  

It was set in this seaside town that had been deserted, called Mallo Al Mar (so said signs in my dream.)  There were run-down boardwalks with old tile-decorated lamp posts and peeling paint storefronts around the perimeter, but the whole place had recently fallen into the hands of some company that wished to turn a profit on historical tours and such.  (Yes?) 

My dream self walked toward the end of the boardwalk, before it seemed to turn a corner. I leaned on a dirty, but ornate metal railing, watching the water burn.  There were craggy rock formations in the shallows, and at high tide, a toxic algae seaweed substance would become snared in the rocks, then catch fire until the water was clean again.  The sky was heavy grey.

I watched this happen, until the glow stopped and the water was dark and quiet.  

Then, I was on an open-air trolley winding up a cartoon-y mountain;  (perfectly conical, all evenly green... like Switzerland, or the Smurfs.) There was a scary old lady (similar to the tyrranical Hilary Matts, former teacher and head of IB at West Vancouver Secondary School) narrating historical facts about the mountain.  I wasn't paying attention.  Instead, I looked over at the branch of land that I could see beyond a river that snaked around the mountain base, silver and unmoving in the afternoon light.  There was a beautiful cathedral perched on the very waterfront of the other bank.  

Allison was sitting beside me, both our hands folded on this roller coaster-like tour.  I said, "Hey, do you see that cathedral?"  Because suddenly, it was only visible through some giant buildings and cloud structures.  (Upon googling, it looked similar to this one, which I haven't been to, but I've seen some like... this image really did it though.)

Back at the bottom of the mountain, we wandered into a beach souvenir shop which was dimly lit by grey fluorescence.  The shop had inflated waterwings and tubes hanging from all wall surfaces.  We shouldered our way through the place, and I looked at goggles while Allison talked to the surly shopkeeper; an old man in a wifebeater stretched over a tanned hairy belly.  She was trying to negotiate employment for her boyfriend, who had inquired about working in this shop earlier.  The shopkeeper insisted he did not actually need anybody else, but Allison didn't believe him and was upset on her boyfriend's behalf.

We left angrily without making any purchases, and emerged onto a path leading to a small beach under a tall bridge.  The beach was bound by the cement foundation for the first major pylon, and on the other side, dense blackberry bushes.  There was a birthday party on the sand, and somebody had a bouncy castle set up.  I swam, watched it from the water.  

We retreated abruptly, crossing the bridge to get back to Mallo and by the time we made it, I was dry.  Allison wasn't there anymore.

It was twilight again, and I was up to my waist in the ocean.  I was being chased, and it was supposed to be a game, but I was afraid.  I was in the shallows, with the rough rock formations, but here was a sort of underwater arcade of naturally formed columns, evenly arranged for the surface area of maybe a basketball court.  The waves frothed against all of them when they came to shore, and gasped as they pulled back through them.   I moved erratically, hiding now and then underwater.

I waded in and out, avoiding my pursuer, and eventually made it ashore before the seaweed caught fire again and fizzled out by the rocks just behind me.  A crowd watched from the boardwalk, their expressions all equally unconcerned.  I don't know what happened to the person chasing me.

----

I am trying to figure out where I got these images.  The obsession with so called Mallo Al Mar:

Mallo means husk in Italian.  Al Mar means to the sea in Spanish.  I am also told that Mallomars are a popular snack in the States.  I had never heard of them, but I've eaten them under a different name.  I'm not sure how they are related though.  Ha.  

Also, there is a town called St. Malo in France, which I once wrote  a brief report about, but have never been to.  This picture looks remarkably like one of the sweeping aerial views of the town in my dream.)

This dream was very beautiful, and I thought about it a lot.  It is responsible for a more quiet psychosis, not so much the usual laughing madness.  I think I will include all dream material as legitimate psychotic content for the purposes of this blog, as dreams are often strange, illgoical, and warrant fixation the day(s) after.  And fixation often leads to a strange sort of delirium.  

I'm sure the surrealists would be in favour of this move.  Maybe I really will write about something remotely academic/not myself!  Coming up next, my favourite psychotic artists?!

Psycho-Throwbacks!

Boomp3.com

This pre-dates the official Psychosis period, but played a major role in its early development.  (c. April 2006)

Thanks to Allison for possessing this file, and accidentally leaving it on repeat one time.  (Or did we do that intentionally?  Who knows.)  

To imitate the psychosis, allow this to loop, allow yourself to get distracted, and observe the effects after you become aware of it once again.

(Special thanks to Philip Glass, whose psychosis is probably greater than mine, if some of his work is any indication...)

Scatter Patterns

One day in August, I didn't leave the apartment until about midnight.  (It was my own fault; the result of procrastination and dictated  by a deadline.)  

On such days, I find the desire to eat when one hasn't really moved to be the greatest source of disorientation.  The brain needs something to get going, but the body certainly doesn't.  I decided to indulge in some Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, or Kraft Dinner (KD), in Canadian parlance.  

After boiling water, I dumped the noodles into the pot, didn't stir, hurried back to the computer.  Within minutes, they had over-cooked themselves into a gluey mass, and burned to the bottom of the pot.  Having never known anyone incompetent enough to burn pasta, this was a new and unpleasant experience for me...

... And it presented the concern of imbalance- one pack of instant cheese, no pasta.  

My solution inspired a bout of the psychosis.  I still cannot rationalize it, and I have indeed tried; and yet, there is something hilarious about the incident to me.  (pictured.)  Something about the way the noodles fell from the strainer, scattered, and the angle of the holes, and the white kitchen, the plastic, the seashell of ash on the stove struck me as hilarious, and drove me to document.  Not soon after the initial hilarity, the act of documenting, too, inflamed the psychosis; the awareness of the absurdity always serves to enhance, not undermine it.  

In the end, I lost time on the project in attempt to clean the pot, aerate the apartment of the burnt stench, and make new noodles.  There is probably a lesson in this somewhere...  (Spend as much time as you want making meals, even if you should be doing something else?)

A Long Time Ago In A Galaxy Far Far Away...

The psychosis began with the flowers.  

Allison and I were not the intended recipients, but the plant came into our care anyway.  It was getting lonely on top of the mailboxes of our building, unclaimed for a few days.  

We assumed it was something normal; an apology, a get well, an 'I don't love you anymore' plant cause who would actually send a plant like that to someone they loved, and so we decided it would be appropriate for us to claim it.

After a few Pimm's Cups and Sidecars from an assortment of bars in our neighbourhood, our courage was screwed to the sticking place and we knew that this plant's time had come to be given a home.

Upon unwrapping the cellophane, we were faced with a strange and exciting surprise:  the flowers were shaped like a creature.  It looked like a demented puppy, with googly eyes and strange ribbons spewing in place of ears.  The card inside the neon tissue was addressed to two men, and referred to some business project.  Every Word Of The Message Was Capitalized, For Some Exciting Reason That Really Made Me Love The Gift More. 

The plant creature was responsible for many personal breakdowns in the days that followed.  Merely calling its addled expression to mind had the effect of instant madness on me.  Like an inside joke, an inside breakdown occurs in public and its reason is unknown to those who witness the event.  This in itself is always hilarious, and adds to the illusion of madness.  In hindsight, this was the beginning of what I now term 'the psychosis'.  

This blog will attempt to document the subsequent events of a psychotic nature, and any that ensue hereafter.

PS:  Seriously.  Imagine picking up that creature in an intoxicated state, going to sleep, then waking up to it sitting in your living room the next day.  I hear sometimes drunken people do this, but bring a person home- not a plant.  I hear this situation often results in embarrassment or regret the next morning.  I, of course, was just faced with the constant and eager plant-creature's expression, and who could regret such hilarity?  Beautiful. Psychosis.