s h ! n d ! d

Another bunch of my photos from New Orleans have made it to the latest Noise.net curation, Say Something. Not the best pictures, but I only had a snap and shoot at the time, and the originals are long lost… Sadness, but: “Yay!”

Check it out.

Things I miss about Australia in order of most to least:
1. Meat Pies. A good Four ‘n Twenty or Mrs. Mac’s, please.
2. The Aussie twang in home grown music. Think Missy, think Josh, think Ben.
3. The abundance of pubs, and with them, pub grub.
4. Australian Accents.
5. The proximity of my favourite places to one another. Vancouver spreads it’s love out geographically.
6. Alice and Gertrude on Oxford Street. There is nothing like it in the entire Southern Hemisphere.
7. The Sun.
8. Many Music Festivals.

Found a home, jobs galore, seen some great things, eaten good food, had free/cheap stuff given to me and now my tax return is on the way. Great freakin’ week. Personal life… well that’s personal.

Tomorrow is officially a week since I’ve been in Vancouver. I move into my new place… how bizarre… first house out of home. First share house. Ohhhh…

I’m being cheap and finding freebie furniture online and making people deliver them too.

I start work in the upcoming week.

I’ve cut soft drinks and TV out of my life, for now. Being more productive that way.

I might just have to make some art this year. I think I owe to my new changes.

I’m gonna have some 2 minute noodles now.

Well, after three long nights and four days on a train (non-stop) from Toronto to Vancouver; I arrived in Vancouver yesterday morning. And incredibly, so much of what people have told me turns out to be true.

1. “It’s a lot like Sydney.”
The city’s architecture and multicultural mini cities/burbs are so much like Sydney.
During down times when I lose sight and faith in finidng a place to live and work (I know it’s only been two days, but it feels like an eternity!), I wonder why I’m bothering to move to a city that’s almost exactly like home, without the comforts of home. But then that’s the point innit? Make the most it.

2. “There’s lots of Asians.”
Have to say, Asian is EVERYWHERE! I’m staying at the West End downtown atm, not only is it the gay man’s Vancouver Mecca (complete with hot pink bus shelters and bins), it’s also the unofficial Koreatown! Even further downtown there are lots of pan-asian eateries. I dare say Canadians have a fetish for sushi!
I think they have more Asians than we do in Sydney!

3. “Canada’s cold, and Vancouver rains a lot.”
Yup. I thought I was getting frostbite in my THIGHS last night! The cold itself wouldn’t be so bad if only it weren’t for the icy rain too. Vancouverites have had practice with this though, cos they get to wear big waterproof coats, remarkably dry shoes AND everybody’s pants are at the perfect hem length! True! Nobody but me has wet dragging bits on the bottom of their jeans.

4. “Watch out for all the homeless people.”
Downtown’s pretty bad. I’ve been told by almost every local not to go to certain parts (and there are a lot of them). West Hastings near Chinatown’s pretty scary. I was there catching a bus today, and unfortunately felt very precious. Drugs ruin, kids!
There’s just so many of them in the West!
Toronto is pretty bad too, many are young. I saw a young guy in the morning sleeping above the subway’s ventilation to keep warm. Ingenious.

5. “The city is incredible”
Built near so many bays, parks, wilflife and at the foot of MOUNTAINS! Crazy to look up midcity and there above you are massive rocky mountains with the peaks behind mist and clouds! Surreal.

I checked out many neighbourhoods in the last couple days. Lots of walking.
I really like the South Main area. Mt. Pleasant… cafes and vintage stores! So many! I did some retail therapy today. Spent about $70CAN on a whole new wardrobe – including weatherproof shoes! I would have spent that much JUST on the shoes normally. I want to move there.
Commercial Drive is a bit like SoMa, but little more lefty and green. Yes, hippies. I’d like to take up some African drumming classes there at some point tho.
Kitsiliano – just saw it tonight. Kinda like the nice part of Paddo.

Ok, net place closing. G’nite.

How cute, Yoko Ono has a myspace. I had a dream about Sean Lennon the other night.

I’ve been remembering lots of my dreams of late.

My jaw clicks every time I try to chew. It’s irritating, but not painful.

Considering taking this year out to make “art”. Is that wasteful?

My feet are still trying to thaw from the icy wetness that is the beginning of Vancouver’s cold season. That was written the other night, my feet are now the warmest tosies in Vancouver thanks to cheap op shop shoes! Bliss!

I love music at Internet Cafes – Tina Turner is on now. Such an eclectic mix of yesteryear’s hits.

Does anyone still use MySpace? I fear not.

Doing the job search thing and falling into the same pressures I always do; go with salary in FT job or bounce a couple of PT jobs and do my own thing in between? Cash or Fun? So many arts bodies in Vancouver… argh… so much! Too much pressure!

Got bored one day and started to get agitated by everything in the city. This is the creative, coffee and cold-filled result (needs more editing) – hideously inspired by slam poetry:

Is this Emo?
(aka Toronto and other Cities)

Lines tangle my vision of the night sky.
They are the veins of cable cars and city trams.
They breathe life to the mechanical worms and make them fly-by.
They’re silver veins pulsating with sparks, acting as electric webs ready to taze incase I reach my mark…

Above I see:
The moon and the stars; God’s monocle and age spots twinkling back down at me.
Beyond the tangle,
I still cannot lift my heart -
“Lift my heart up to the Lord”.
Metal trees and glass sculptures rise higher and higher,
Futuristic tetris blocks close in to dwarf,
Dizzy spells awash and my attempts to gaze the night… retire.
I try another tactic to return to my creators;
I put my ear to the ground for tremours of Mother Earth’s breath.
Instead, I’m met with eratic vibrations of deafening drills excavating her flesh,
and rickety subway systems boaring her to death…

Wait!

I feel her exhale,
She gently blows warm steam at my face – no.
That’s steam from the underground…
and I can feel the mutating microbes engineering new civilizations in my pores.

I turn to break free,
Thinking I’ll run into my saviours;
The eyes I do see,
Could have been mine some twenty years earlier.
He jingle-jangles his dirty black cap at me,
and I’m ashamed of my own behaviour…
I look away and just say… “No”.

My Mother, your Mother – has no more tears to cry.
We made sure of that,
The rivers and lakes of her face have nearly all dried up,
Revealing dusty wrinkles that show her untimely age.

Yet we keep on pounding, pumping and sucking at her black blooded arteries,
Does she mind if we are so unkind?
Unloving? Unforgiving?

Or does she taste revenge everytime we spill our own red blood in squimish sibling rivalries?
——-

Not to be taken too seriously, I guess. Just needed to get something out. Same day I created a comic series on my Freudian ego and id. That, shall never see the light of day.

I’m staying underground. I was gonna take some nighttime photos of Quebec, but between the lousy weather and my 7:50AM train tomorrow I don’t think it’s likely.

Just going to search for shared accommodation in Vancouver and read to music later.

There are lots of theatres in Canada – possibly more so than cinemas. I’m afraid to pay money (it’s expensive here – dinner was $20 yesterday!), and shows are probably in French.

I’d like a fire place right about now. From my knees down I’m cold. And I think I’m a little emo at the moment. I’m trying really hard to be anti-social atm; it’s silent time. Speak only when spoken to and if necessary.  Hard though when you are the only person on a free guided tour… Yes, I went on one that the hostel provides, a young German girl showed me the city. Very nice town. Imagine the Rocks in Sydney, and then multiply it to the size of Sydney’s CBD. People are getting drunk behind me. The computer is in the bar, and net is cheapest in the hostel more than any other place I’ve been in North America.

I have no idea what to say to people who advertise rooms in Vancouver. Apparently East Van is the place to be (for cheap) .