I have a phobia that someone's alway near...

It's all catching up to me now. There is no time for anything but study, caffeine, and grindcore, all day, every day (at least until December 14th). Two days ago this meant staying at the library until 3am grappling with a presentation on Marxist ecology (which went well, thank you very much), which meant that the trains had stopped running, which meant an hours walk home. As I turned off onto a darkened street I hadn't walked down before, a car pulled up behind me. Strange, I thought to myself. Why would pull over here? Nothing here but a chain-link fence, and me, alone, walking beside it, and virtually no lighting. Oh.

I pulled my headphones out (which at the time had Reign in Blood, conveniently enough, playing at top volume). I quickened my pace. I looked back and I saw the driver get out and pull something out of the back seat. Oh. I quickened my pace again, and kept looking over my shoulder. He was following me now. Oh.

Then I saw him cross the street. Perhaps he was going to the seniors centre to drop something off, I thought to myself. No sooner had this thought crossed my mind that he broke into an open run directly at me. I sort of sensed that one coming. Backpack full of library books (so much so, it was literally bursting at the seams) I ran as fast as my legs could carry me. I heard shouting over my shoulder - I'm still not sure if it was "where the fuck are you going" or "what the fuck are you doing", but I didn't want to stick around and find out.


Long story short, I smoked his sorry ass. Backpack full of books nonwithstanding, I could run way faster. I suggest that all would-be muggers of Calgary do mroe cardio, because self-preservation lends my legs more speed than greed or malice lends yours.

Support: Storm and Stress - S/T, Grizzly Bear - Veckatimist, Watchmaker - Erased From the Memory of Man, Darkthrone - The Cult is Alive, Kool Keith - Lost in Space, Fyodor Dosteovsky - The Grand Inquisitor and House of the Dead, Boredoms - Soul Discharge '99, David Harvey - Nature, Justice and the Geography of Distance, debates about the merits of academic inquiry, and the Vietnamese subs from the bake chef that have been a staple of my diet for about four years running.

I am the eggman...

I really liked the graffiti in Germany. It always meant something, it was always some sort of invective or witticism that stirred me, even if I only understood 18.2% of the scribblings proclaiming that "Grüner Kapitalismus is Schiesse" or advocacy "für Sozialrevolution jetzt!". Grafitti in Canada seems so boring. So uninspired. Until today.

Leaving the university I saw a tag that said CUNT in big huge letters. Juvenile, I thought to myself. Then I walked a closer and I could make out some script just over the offensive term that I could just barely make out. Walking closer, I could see that it said WALRUS. Someone wrote Walrus Cunt on the Math Sciences building and I still can't stop laughing at the thought of it. Dear lord.

Stuff, stuffed together: Talk Talk - Laughing Stock, Fuck the Facts - Stigmata High Five, Circle Jerks - Group Sex, Immortal - All Shall Fall, Darkthrone - A Blaze in the Northern Sky, John Bellamy Foster - Ecology Against Capitalism, the brown stock simmering in my kitchen

Deep breath before the plunge...

Deadlines are rushing at me like fear-affected suburbanites rushing towards a truck full of H1N1 vaccines. My stomach is in knots almost all waking hours of the day and I am not sleeping. I am so fucking caffeinated that my hands shake, even though I don't really need caffeine to keep me running - adrenaline and a fear of letting other people down usually takes care of the rest.

Happiness?

Yes, happiness.

I just spent five days (five glorious, glorious days) in Vancouver visiting friends and setting up an academic research conference. Man, that place is epic, although 5 straight days of non-stop rain and greyness was a little wearing. I'm pretty grateful for any occasion I have to take five days off to ride bikes, party like a student (because, you know, I'm much more responsible in Calgary), get excited about academia with other young academics, record music, get intimated some of the most opulent real estate in Canada, get intimidated by the worst urban squalor Canada has to offer, have heart-to-hearts, make new friends, and ride bikes. But...

Five days off has crippled my academic process. Or at the very least hobbled it, in a similar way to how Russian peasant used to pay people to break their ankles so they couldn't get conscripted to fight on the front lines in World War I. Or maybe in the way Duane Allman (and probably quite a few others) shot himself in the foot so he could keep playing music and not get drafted for Vietnam. People with foot fetishes might not make good draft dodgers based on these experiences. I don't know. Maybe?

The gerbil racing around powering the wheel in my noggin is going at Mach speed. I like all of this, actually. I like being wired on grindcore and coffee and new knowledge, and I think that a little forlornity and confusion and heartache makes those end-points so much more satisfying. I like sitting down and writing something like this, a letter to the void, with no preparation, just sincerity that stream of consciousness writing provides. This might not make sense now, but in a few months, it will.

Currently enjoying: Lock Up - Hate Breeds Suffering, Art Brut - Bang Bang Rock and Roll, Patton Oswalt - My Weakness is Strong, Various Artists - This Comp Kills Fascists, Vol. 1, Femme Fatale - Fire Baptism, Venetian Snares - Filth, Thomas Pynchon - Inherent Vice, and my ongoing successes with French cuisine.

Food and Jedis

A couple days ago I promised some friends I would give them a recipe that I used to cook for them the other week. This seems like a good space for that sort of thing, so I will probably use this in future to upload some of my favourite recipes, because the only thing I like more than cooking (and eating) is sharing knowledge.

Anyway, there is just one problem: I don't really measure when I cook. Measuring is really more for baking than cooking, and I think that an important part of cooking is learning how to get a feel for your ingredients, kind of like Luke Skywalker learning how to deflect laser bolts with his lightsabre with that helmet on in the first Star Wars. That's right, I cook like a goddamn Jedi.



So here is a recipe that is quick, easy, and a good way to maximize the use of a cheap cut of beef. Pomegranate juice is super fucking expensive, and I am assuming this recipe would probably work with blueberry juice (good concentration, lots of antioxidants) or maybe cranberry juice in a pinch (lots of antioxidants, similar tartness, but concentration is a little lower). If you are going for cranberry juice, I would probably recommend springing for the good stuff (read: anything but that gross, sugary Ocean Spray cran-cocktail stuff).

Without further ado...

Striploin With Pomegranate Reduction

You'll need the following:

Two medium-sized striploins
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
Rosemary
Pomegranate juice
Brown Sugar
Arugula
Black pepper (or a peppercorn melange, if you can get it)
Good salt (kosher salt or better)

1. Chop a couple sprigs of rosemary. Coat the striploins with the rosemary, salt and pepper (and when I say coat, I mean really rub that stuff in there).

2. Heat olive oil (a tablespoon or so) in a frying pan to a medium-high temperature. When the oil starts to lose its viscosity and smoke a little bit, it's talking to you: throw the steaks in. Remember, you want to sear both sides to get a nice crisp texture. For medium-rare, it will be about three minutes or so per side.

3. Remove steaks from pan, set aside. Add 2 cups of pomegranate juice, 4 cups of brown sugar and 2 and a half tablespoons of balsamic to the pan. DO NOT throw out the juices from the steaks - that stuff is like liquid gold. Bring content of pan to a boil and then simmer until reduced to desired thickness (approximately 5 minutes or so). Keep your eye on the pan - if you let it reduce for too long it basically caramelizes.

4. In a seperate bowl, toss arugala with olive oil and balsamic (a tablespoon and a half of each, perhaps, pending on how many servings you are preparing). Add salt and paper.

5. Slice steaks into strips and drizzle reduction overtop. Plate with argula mixture and a big chunk of bread.

Reccomended pairing: a good New Zealand Pinot Noir will make this one sing. An entry-level Villa Maria pinot, for example, should have the right balance of acidity, herbaceousness, tannin and fruitniness to make this dish work out.

Enjoy with two friends, depending how big your appetites are.

Indulgences: Guided By Voices - Human Amusements at Hourly Rates, Jay Reatard - Matador Singles 06-07, Cannibal Ox - The Cold Vein, Aphex Twin - Hangable Auto Bulb and Windowlicker, Grand Belial's Key - Judeobeast Assassination, Thomas Pynchon - Vineland (finally finished this one!), Manuel Castells - The City and the Grassroots

Cargo Cults

There are two Tim Hortons right beside each other in Mac Hall. As in, less than 20 feet away from each other. Apparently one of them is owned by the Student's Union and one is owned by the University. These two Tim Hortons are competing with each other, and both establishments are totally lined up at all times. This is the sort of coke or pepsi "choice" that is slowly driving me insane.

I have never bought a coffee from either of these places, and I never will. For an extra 20 cents or so I can buy fair trade coffee from a locally owned business. Sure, my 20 cents isn't changing the fucking world, but if it can help me feed my caffeine addiction without completely selling myself out to the system I hate, then that should be enough.



Also, I've written a ton of songs lately. Like six or so. What the hell? I haven't been writing for months, and all of a sudden I've had a weird rush of creativity. What new thing or person in my life is causing all this creativity? Some days not only do I not know the answer, but I don't think I really know the questions either.


Support: Lightning Bolt - Earthly Delights, Daughters - Hell Songs, David Byrne and Brian Eno - Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, David Harvey - The Right to the City, HEALTH - Get Color, Horse the Band - Desperate Living and the 1987 Ridge Monte Bello Cab that made last night so fun for me (and is making this morning excruciating).

A Question of Degree

Everything I know how to do well, I know from my experience drinking wine. That's where I learned how to deconstruct things around me and reconstruct them in way that makes sense to me. It's where I learned how to practice restraint when necessary, but also how I learned that when appropriate, to always tend towards indulgence.

Indulgences - No Age - Nouns, J Dilla - The Shining, American Music Club - The Golden Age, We Are Wolves - Total Magique, Fugazi - Repeater, and wine, good lord, wine. Villa Maria 2006 Cellar Selection Pinot Noir tickles my fancy right now.

Going Off the Rails on a Swayze Train

I will seriously never understand our culture's obssession with celebrity death (as a quick side bar: for anyone reading this who has already picked up on the self-defeating irony of this first sentence, please respect my right to contradict myself every once in a while. After all, it's necessary to breach this subject anyways). I suppose that if we celebrate the life of a celebrity it is only logical that we pay them their respects after death, but Christ on a bike, the amount of attention that film/TV/music stars recieve upon death is disproportionate bordering on farcical, even worse so than the attention they recieve during life. The fact that Michael Jackson was nothing less than lionized immediately following his death (which of course was tied into a massive marketing campaign for Jacko paraphenalia) is a little revealing about a cultural response we seem to be conditioned into, wherein we seem to be justifying to ourselves that these figures are worth paying so much attention to in the first place.

So, Patrick Swayze. The fact that man dies of cancer may indeed by tragic, but it is perhaps more tragic that this death is like to grab front pages across the world, while buried on page A26 lies unread news about issues that should be of real concern to us. The death of celebrities is painted more often as the death of an ideal rather than the death of a person, and it is shameful that we should have our ideals about issues such as social justice or environmental stewardship so tightly wrapped up in people who often unqualified to address these same issues. Perhaps this is the result of culture that has become acutely delocalized and can no longer fix its gaze and attach its ideals to community leaders, but rather to a large and grandoise body of jet-setting celebrities upon, whom we can collectively imprint our values.

Here I turn to sarcasm, to ridicule. Certainly we are worthy of healthy amounts of it. So please, when I crack a joke about Patrick Swayze over the next week, don't look at me like I'm some kind of monster - after all, why should a man who lived most of his life as a wealthy playboy capture our gaze when there are far more needy people still living that require our attention? I'm just holding up the mirror so we can see how stupid we look.

The goods: Encounters at the End of the World, DJ Shadow - Endtroducing..., Madvillain - Madvillainy, Deep Wound - Deep Wound 7", Siege - Drop Dead, Liars - They Were Wrong So We Drowned, Charles Bukowski - Ham on Rye, John Coltrane - Coltrane, Fugazi - In on the Killtaker, Sun Ra - The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra Vol. 1