pop culture whore (and i like lists!)

kochira ga kusuriya des. akayueki no tonari ni arimas. kyo no ban des.

i picked up the fallen baton from some guy on a journey. i added the book section, and deleted the movie portion of today's exam.

five songs i listen to a lot or that mean a lot to me (in no particular order)
1. "sweeter" - julie doiron and the wooden stars. i love this song because it is super mellow and makes me feel like everytime i want to encounter people i havent seen in a long time, or have to encounter people i dont want to see.

2. "monarch" - feist. this song always goes on mix tapes. and if it didnt occur, its because i put "secret heart" on there instead. the first time i heard this song was the summer of 1999. my two best friends had just died and i was riding around in my mum's van, as i did a lot that summer, and there was no tape-deck, and bad radio in terrace, so the radio was glued to cbc radio 1. and they just played "monarch" straight on the radio. i remember pulling into the driveway halfway through the song and sitting in the van, idling, just absorbing every bit of sound that it put out. i immediately went inside, wrote down the name, and bought the cd pretty quick after that.

3. "lodestar" - sarah harmer. the entire "you were here" album is one of my most favourite albums ever. but, i single out "lodestar" because not only does it hover around five minutes in length, it starts as this soft lullaby and ends with insane harmonies and sarah rocking out. and, well, it makes me think of jeff. as if i needed another excuse.

4. "dunas, ontario" - manitoba, er, caribou. this song is my entering japan song. it will forever link me with the highway stretch from narita into tokyo. all of my nervousness, excitment, stress. and the butterflies in my stomach. this song will always feel like starting anew. being a different person. and finally getting what i want.

5. "roam" - the b-52s. when i was about ten, im not sure if it was before or after my parents split up. but it would be near the end of summer, and my sister and i would pile into my dad's crappy old red nissan truck, and hit the highway to kitimat (destination mt. layton hotsprings). bugs would fly in the open windows, but we'd barely stop to shriek because we were singing along to "roam" so loud! this song will always put me in the place of warm skin from being in the sun all day, the slippery tile floors of the hotsprings, and the killer plate of nachos that we would have after our three hour, half-price wednesday, swimming session.

five books that always litter my brain
1."beautiful losers" - leonard cohen. i first picked this book up at the terrace public library just from browsing the stacks. or someone older than me, who i thought was sooo cool told me to read it. (i think i was 12?) it was in trade. my favourite book format. and i devoured it. i cant remember how fast i read it, but scenes still stick in my mind. the part with f. and edith in mexico just having sex all day and night and using this german vibrator and the vibrator takes on a life of its own and it scuttles across the floor and mounts edith and it doesnt stop. f. has to rip it off of her and throw it out the window where it scuttles across the beach in search of more people fuck senselessly. the book is just so raw and fantastic. my introduction to the fluidity of sexual orientation. my introduction to leonard cohen. my introduction to post-modernist canadian fiction. the reason i want to be a writer. the reason i want to have sex all the time.

2."sybil" - flora rheta schreiber. i too picked this book up from cruising the tpl stacks. im not sure if i read beautiful losers first or what, but this book struck such a chord with me in regards to my ideas of child abuse and mental illness. i remember telling my mom to read it, and just recently she told me she couldnt finish it because it was just too gruesome, and the shit that sybil's mom inflicted upon her was just too horrible to read about. i think that this book also strengthened my feminism.

3. "all watched over by machines of loving grace" - richard brautigan. i have not actually read the entire collection that this poem derives from. and really, its just the poem that gets me. brings me back to the turbulance of the end of grade twelve. musty book rooms. bomb threats at school. teacher strike. sewing. eating canned salmon and hummus with brie (not the cheese, but the friend). the smell of wet dog. fairies. hot hot june days. ferry island. bug bites. whips on my legs from underbrush. our smooth talking english teacher who accepted our eagerness for beat poetry and beading. this poem completes me and inspires everything around me. and honestly, the person i meet who recites this poem to me without me ever having mentioned something to them is my soulmate. and i dont believe in soulmates.

4. "millicent and the wind" - robert munsch. yes, its a children's book. the only copy ive ever seen was the pocket copy my mum used to carry around in her purse. we used to live on a farm, and i always thought of myself as a loner, different, strange, not included, etc. while i was growing up. i really identified with poor millicent when i was growing up. who knew that all you had to do was to tell the wind you were lonely and then the wind would blow down to some american city and scoop up some cute black boy just to play with you on your mountain.

5. "miss wyoming" - douglas coupland. it is very difficult to pick just one coupland book. "miss wyoming" isnt my favourite coupland book, but its picked because its my first coupland book. my first introduction into a plot that moves incredibly fast and characters that are so vivid and deep that you think you know them. that they are your children. that they are your highschool sweetheart. my imtroduction to a writing style that is so fresh you feel like you actually fucking wrote the novel. everything is believable in a coupland world. im just along for the ride.

five tv shows i never miss (that is when i have a television and understand the primary language)
1.what not to wear. stacy and clinton are my idols. i would always postpone my friday night plans just to stay in and watch these two super hip, super stylish, super snobby new yorkers (with hearts of gold!) make over america one horribly dressed person at a time. everytime i put clothes on or am shopping i think about what would happen if i ran into stacy on the street. would she write about my horrible clothes in her "loser" diary back at her loft. with her ridiculously overpriced, but so beautiful, shoes? or would she run up to me, hug me, and say, "damn, your clothes fit! lets go get us some martini's. have you been in to coach yet? ive got an extra grand in my clutch. you sooooo deserve that bag!"

2.the o.c.. i didnt watch the first half of the first season. such a shame. hopelessly addicted to the second half i am waiting with baited breath to partake in season 2. (dont tell me! i must watch it all at once and be suckered into it all!!) there's nothing like tragically beautiful people with problems. and well, gallagher is hot. and the soundtrack. oh the soundtrack.

3.the late night with conan obrien. not only does he shamelessly, and not in a creepy way, say that his guests are hot, but the "flip-flopper" sketches all summer 2004, and the walker texas ranger lever thing he would pull for the obligatory walker texas ranger clip, and the in the year 2000 with jim carrey. modest mouse was on conan. tegan and sara were on conan. i want to be on conan!

4.sex and the city. this is a given. i know. i really got into sex and the city when i had heard a lot of buzz about it in the media and rented seasons 1-3 from the video store. (i still havent seen season 4!) and then saw season 5 and 6 on showcase. when the show ended i cried. probably more so because our weekly saturday sex and the city nights with rika, sam, and tim (usually just the four of us) would eat food and talk about how hot chris noth was. tim would flirt with rika. and sam and i would talk about crafts and just stuff our faces with food. we would trade crafting magazines and gush during the show. and we cried at the same times. we argued over who was cuter (aidan or big..steve always prevailed), who was better for carrie (big or aidan), and who our favourite girl was (all i remember was tim's was charlotte).

5. >play . jian ghomeshi rocks my socks. and for those moments that vancouver doesnt feel cool or hip enough, you can tune in on thursday nights for the canadian arts show with the hippest cutest guy in the country (i swear! justin trudeau, ghomeshi, and george stroumboulopoulos jankened for the top spot!) in a bar in toronto (which is not so cool, but they sure make it seem cool...). this show was probably the one i was saddest about if i missed. and can you believe it? they went and cancelled it. in that the same people are still kicking around they're just bringing magic to the stage in new and mysterious ways. and well, they're helping out over at the hour. george and jian together at last.