Goodbye, Mr. Layton

I voted NDP in a riding where it didn't make sense to do so at all. I don't know what I was thinking, other than that I really liked what Jack Layton has to say.

I visited his Twitter @jacklayton. It evokes the same emotion as looking back on video reels of old speeches, shaky home videos and, in this day and age, the inactive Facebook of one who has passed on. What do we do with these Internet relics?

Perhaps looking on these mediums of communication, be it controlled by a PR agent or not, gives us some sort of view into that which is no longer here (excuse the cheesy writing here). It remains, long after the one we admired has left us.

The Good Winter

Bon Iver at Toronto's Sound Academy on August 8. (blogTO)

The first time I had heard of Bon Iver, I was sitting at my dorm room desk. There were Calculus 112 notes scattered everywhere (I was not looking at them), and a friend and I were chatting on MSN Messenger (remember that!) about new bands. I sent her some useless twee band. She sent me Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago.

She told me that he seemed a bit too mellow for her taste, that she'd probably end up dropping the band. At the time, I had to agree. Justin Vernon makes the type of music where you have to actively sit and contemplate, be it on a foggy drive through the woods or when you're lamenting a love long gone.

Vernon's story is a tale as old as time (at least for Gen Y). As it is typically told, he found himself facing some troubling issues in his life - the dissolution of a band (DeYarmond Edison), a breakup with a girlfriend (presumably Emma) and a bout of mononucleosis - and sequestered himself to his father's cabin in backwoods Wisconsin for three months. This was Vernon's version of "soul-searching," a term typically associated with a year partying it up in Europe and unwittingly contracting several STIs. No, what came about here was the most beautiful, the most devastating of albums to come in a long time: For Emma, Forever Ago.

 He likes cats!

It was my passive soundtrack to last summer. It would come up on my iTunes Shuffle here and there. I had never listened to it sequentially before, so all I heard were little snapshots. Images of black crows and shattered veneer. The sad crooning of what I assumed to be a bearded man (I assumed correctly). The album sat in my iPod for a long time before I really paid any attention to it.

This seems to be the case with Bon Iver. He had been gaining momentum on the indie scene, but never before has his repertoire been like it is these days. Justin Vernon has built up the name Bon Iver with such notable items as a collaboration with Kanye West on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and appearances on Letterman and Jules Holland.

The new album Bon Iver, Bon Iver.

With the new release of Bon Iver's self-titled album, we can see that he is definitely a grower and not a show-er. This was a superficial joke my friends made about him, but it has much truth to it. Vernon doesn't seem to want to do anything to show off. In fact, his sweeping musical arrangements (like on "Perth") have nothing to do with showing off as much as they have to do with expressing what he feels - that was he feels is big and will envelop the listener as much as it envelops the one enduring that emotion.

(blogTO)

I went to his show at the Sound Academy in Toronto this past Monday. I won't able to do his performance justice. See, when I remember what happened at that show, I'll think about what it was like to stand in a still and heavy crowd, a place where it isn't so atypical to be less than ten inches away from a stranger's cheek. Vernon commented that they had "really packed us in there." And it's true. We were like that everywhere - on the bus from the subway, in line, and now engrossed in an audience who couldn't help but be mesmerized by a simple singer. It's this closeness that really identifies what Bon Iver is about. Justin Vernon has written about his darkest and most troubling times. In fact, the low-fi sound of For Emma is a key aspect that, yes, you could have this sung to you in a cabin in the backwoods of Wisconsin. Or through your headphones in the predawn light of a lonely bedroom. It's a sound that could be so easily lost in the cavernous venue that is the Sound Academy - a terrible choice for this kind of show. But Bon Iver, with the solo effort of "Flume" or the 4:10 all-out success "that's kinda about Canada", made it work. He really did.

To say the least, Bon Iver was the most-affecting and well-played show I've ever had the pleasure of attending. This was probably do in part to how I blatantly love him (can you tell?) but really, we should focus on the practical aspects. Formerly a single man on a stage with an acoustic guitar (an oft-seen sight for anyone who's frequented college open mics), Bon Iver has expanded to a nine-piece band. There was Justin Vernon alternating between an acoustic guitar, electric guitar, synthesizer and piano. He also had two mics in front of him, choosing one or the other depending on what vocal effect was needed. Along with him were the eight other musicians - guitars, violins, two (!) drum sets, clarinets, saxophones, trombone, trumpet - even a French horn for god's sake. This was a crappy venue, but the marvelous instrumentals and tight playing certainly made up for it.

Craning my neck the entire time (he wasn't kidding when he said it was packed), I caught glimpses of the entire thing. I didn't care. At shows for the musicians I've loved, I've always had the urge to dance and clap and generally make an asshat of myself. At Bon Iver I simply stood and listened, occasionally swaying with the surrounding people. I only needed to think, just as I do each time I listen to his music.

Sad Dogs are Sad

This is what I found today.

It’s from a site called Sad Etsy Dogs. Think Regretsy, but with…dogs.

I’ve noticed that there are more small breeds featured on this site than large ones. This leads me to believe what I suspected has been true all along: that people who own small dogs are, more often than not, crazy. I don’t know if it’s the person all along, or if the dog somehow made them that way with its incessant barking and unnaturally long dog life. In any case, I’ll continue with my dream of owning a large and cuddly Samoyed.

Oh, and there are cats on the site too, which just makes my heart glow.

Brb, sewing things together for my cat.

And from that site, I did a Google search on “dog collar bow ties” and found this:

I want it. I want it. I want it. (The bow tie. Also, the dog.)

I just realized that I dedicated an entire post to animals dressing up. Um.

In Hipstamatic

I am a child of the Blackberry, whether or not RIM is going under. Still, I can't help but take notice of this Hipstamatic photo essay called "The War in Hipstamatic" published by Foreign Policy. It's a compelling look at the war in Afghanistan (and its aftermath) through the lens of the world's most prolific smartphone in recent years. Suddenly, the iPhone's Hipstamatic app is not just a superficial tool to use at weekend parties. It's our looking glass into one of the most defining events of our time.

The Youth Electric

Now that I've finally gotten my shit together and started a Google Reader account, I've noticed an abundance of young people on this here the Internet. I know that I am technically one of them, and that complaining about this might be a tad hypocritical but please bear with me here.

I don't understand.

I keep up with a few fashion blogs and casually peruse a few of those Mormon housewife blogs. The latter are rather young, which would explain how they can keep up with their little children, bake a batch of gourmet cupcakes and somehow be aware of where to trawl for fabulous vintage clothing. I just, I don't... Okay. Whatever.

Some of those fashion blogs are run by high-schoolers or students who have just begun their post-secondary career. More than a few bloggers are hardly older than I am, and somehow they have found success on the Internet as they post their outfits that have been "thrown together" from the depths of their inherent fashion sense. They also attend fun-looking parties and manage to look effortlessly gorgeous all the effing time. Again: I just, I don't... Okay. Whatever.

To prevent this from becoming another generic rant-blog (those of which are most of the reason I stopped appeasing my Tumblr [i.e. cocaine] addiction), I shall post a story.

It was the 2000 Olympics, taking place in Sydney. It was a summer of watching the most athletic of the athletic race in oceanic water while discovering that summer sports were more diverse than I had ever previously considered.

One of the scariest realizations of my young life came when I was watching those gymnasts and their impossibly difficult routines. Most of the athletes were in their teens, not much older than I was at the time. Those cheesy pre-performance reels that talked about their humble beginnings and intense training careers? Yeah, those made me feel like shit as I sat on my living room couch stuffing another handful of Doritos into my mouth.

I bet she's not even allowed to have Doritos.

Even as a youngin', contrary to that prior image, I was relatively ambitious. I always raised my hand first, did extra projects, and basically did all that I could to be recognized by my superiors - the adults (this was before I realized that they too were flawed). At the same time, I always felt slightly inadequate. But isn't that what life is? Always feeling slightly dissatisfied with who you are or what you do?

I remember writing an entire (!) entry in my journal about the Olympics, about how I was a failure at 12 because I had not been awarded a gold medal at an overrated and somewhat-archaic international event. I thought that I needed to be so much more than just a kid. My thinking was always this: if you aren't the best, there's no use in existing. Cynicism doesn't get through to you when you're so young. Sometimes it's a bad thing.

I've kept remnants of that thinking as I've grown up. It's not the same anymore, though. My ambition has somehow evolved in that I don't have to be the best at the random things (like gymnastics) but I do have to be the best in what I'm doing.

Perhaps even my definition of "the best" has changed. Maybe I want success, but I want it to be recognized as exemplary. I want to be outstanding.

This is why I become so intimidated by these youth - the athletes, the fashion bloggers, the media moguls, the musicians and actors. I am not like them and I know that their success is beyond anything I can ever dream of.

Plus, it's pretty pathetic that I'm having an existential/quarter-life crisis about a bunch of people who might be slightly dissatisfied with their lives too.

When I Googled "quarter-life crisis," this is what I found.