Phoenix Rising... and then flying to Buenos Aires
lit | ha! - gordon sheppard
film | pan's labyrinth - guillermo del toro
music | division day - elliott smith
tv | the wire - david simon
It's back! Well, after months of sheer and utter neglect, I've ressurected my blog. Now it has been an uber-long while since I've shared with all of you, so for those of you out of the loop, here's where I sit in Coles notes.
First and foremost, I'm less than a week away from the very reason I brought this blog back up... my flight to South America Sunday. The plan: my buddy Adrian and I will be flying into Buenos Aires and renting an appartment in Palermo district (of Jorge Borges fame). We will be in and around Argentina for a month and a half, with trips up to the likes of Iguazu Falls and Urguaian beaches across the river. After 6 weeks Adrian heads back, but as for me I'll be pushing onwards for a total of 4 months, focusing most likely in Chile and Peru but by no means limiting myself that way. I have some vague notions about what I'll do, but for the most part I'd just like to drift, read, sightsee, and work on my Spanish for four months.
As for the more real and less surreal part of my life, I'm currently in the midst of making up my mind on schooling for September. Essentially it boils down to 3 options: law at UBC, law at McGill, or graduate studies in media and culture (with a thesis likely on canada and cultural identity, all steming from an analysis of Broken Social Scene's latest album and their label, Arts & Crafts) at Ryerson. And I have no idea what I'll choose (or even if I'll have all 3 choices, though I did get a positive from UBC law a few weeks ago!). I had originally thought I'd make this decision before I left... but alas no. If I come to terms with anything, I will post it here first. Promise.
As before, I still fiercly believe that culture defines our reality, so I will continue to post about the works that're messing with my perception at that time. Over the last little while I've been devouring literature, but most impressive has been this book I'm reading now, a piece called Ha! that describes itself as a 'self-murder mystery' that examines the suicide of Quebecois author Hubert Aquin (one of Canada's great writers, though he'd say he was Quebecois, his book Prochain épisode took down The Life of Pi to win CBC's 2003 Canada Reads competion). Fascinating stuff, done by bringing all sorts of mediums (interviews, fiction, art etc.) together and ends up giving you a sense of his suicide as a work, not to mention the issues of cultural colonization, love, and the virgin mary. I'd thoroughly recommend it and it's definitely more accessible than it's 850 pages would suggest (the font is bigger...). Division Day was a recent discovery thanks to an old KCRW radio session I found of Elliott Smith from a few years back and I love the haunting lyrics about the inevitable seperations we all suffer, but how he then manages to end the whole picture with "beautiful division day" - the beauty of such an intense moment in a relation, even if it is the end. Given my history, I guess there's no suprise I adore it. As for Pan's Labyrinth, I saw a damn many movies this past few months, what with it being Oscar season and all, but this was by far my favourite. A film that dares to have essentially two films within, a horrific war tale and a fantasy tale, with both stylistically infringing and imposing on each other in style, coming to similar moral messages regarding authority, had appropriately enough a double effect on me. And so vivid, I found it dominating me days later... quite simply a must see. Finally, I managed to epically get through all 4 seasons of The Wire and I have to say it is absolutely one of the best social experiment / commentary shows I've ever seen, absolutely worthy of the title of great literature given by the critics. Seriously check it out.
Haha, and to think I promised I'd try and keep things shorter this time round. Well, luckily for you I will have to since I'll only have internet cafe access to computers this time around. Anyways, I wanted to mention that I'm now on facebook (which I may start using for pics, I dunno) and also on last.fm, so you can get ahold of me that way too. My life is permanently on display in cyberspace for everyone to enjoy. As for e-mail, purewest83@hotmail.com and idahlman@gmail.com both work, so take your pick!
I look forward to hearing from everyone as I travel, and be sure to check back for updates, pics etc! ciao.
lit | ha! - gordon sheppard
film | pan's labyrinth - guillermo del toro
music | division day - elliott smith
tv | the wire - david simon
It's back! Well, after months of sheer and utter neglect, I've ressurected my blog. Now it has been an uber-long while since I've shared with all of you, so for those of you out of the loop, here's where I sit in Coles notes.
First and foremost, I'm less than a week away from the very reason I brought this blog back up... my flight to South America Sunday. The plan: my buddy Adrian and I will be flying into Buenos Aires and renting an appartment in Palermo district (of Jorge Borges fame). We will be in and around Argentina for a month and a half, with trips up to the likes of Iguazu Falls and Urguaian beaches across the river. After 6 weeks Adrian heads back, but as for me I'll be pushing onwards for a total of 4 months, focusing most likely in Chile and Peru but by no means limiting myself that way. I have some vague notions about what I'll do, but for the most part I'd just like to drift, read, sightsee, and work on my Spanish for four months.As for the more real and less surreal part of my life, I'm currently in the midst of making up my mind on schooling for September. Essentially it boils down to 3 options: law at UBC, law at McGill, or graduate studies in media and culture (with a thesis likely on canada and cultural identity, all steming from an analysis of Broken Social Scene's latest album and their label, Arts & Crafts) at Ryerson. And I have no idea what I'll choose (or even if I'll have all 3 choices, though I did get a positive from UBC law a few weeks ago!). I had originally thought I'd make this decision before I left... but alas no. If I come to terms with anything, I will post it here first. Promise.
As before, I still fiercly believe that culture defines our reality, so I will continue to post about the works that're messing with my perception at that time. Over the last little while I've been devouring literature, but most impressive has been this book I'm reading now, a piece called Ha! that describes itself as a 'self-murder mystery' that examines the suicide of Quebecois author Hubert Aquin (one of Canada's great writers, though he'd say he was Quebecois, his book Prochain épisode took down The Life of Pi to win CBC's 2003 Canada Reads competion). Fascinating stuff, done by bringing all sorts of mediums (interviews, fiction, art etc.) together and ends up giving you a sense of his suicide as a work, not to mention the issues of cultural colonization, love, and the virgin mary. I'd thoroughly recommend it and it's definitely more accessible than it's 850 pages would suggest (the font is bigger...). Division Day was a recent discovery thanks to an old KCRW radio session I found of Elliott Smith from a few years back and I love the haunting lyrics about the inevitable seperations we all suffer, but how he then manages to end the whole picture with "beautiful division day" - the beauty of such an intense moment in a relation, even if it is the end. Given my history, I guess there's no suprise I adore it. As for Pan's Labyrinth, I saw a damn many movies this past few months, what with it being Oscar season and all, but this was by far my favourite. A film that dares to have essentially two films within, a horrific war tale and a fantasy tale, with both stylistically infringing and imposing on each other in style, coming to similar moral messages regarding authority, had appropriately enough a double effect on me. And so vivid, I found it dominating me days later... quite simply a must see. Finally, I managed to epically get through all 4 seasons of The Wire and I have to say it is absolutely one of the best social experiment / commentary shows I've ever seen, absolutely worthy of the title of great literature given by the critics. Seriously check it out.
Haha, and to think I promised I'd try and keep things shorter this time round. Well, luckily for you I will have to since I'll only have internet cafe access to computers this time around. Anyways, I wanted to mention that I'm now on facebook (which I may start using for pics, I dunno) and also on last.fm, so you can get ahold of me that way too. My life is permanently on display in cyberspace for everyone to enjoy. As for e-mail, purewest83@hotmail.com and idahlman@gmail.com both work, so take your pick!
I look forward to hearing from everyone as I travel, and be sure to check back for updates, pics etc! ciao.
posted by Ian at 1:38 PM
3 comments
