March 31, 2009
Douglas Coupland - The Gun Thief
Douglas Coupland
2007
Bethany and Roger begin a bizarre and lovely Staples relationship when Bethany finds that he’s been impersonating her in his journal. Bethany write him back, and thus begins The Gum Thief, Douglas Coupland’s epistolary novel about living a life that didn’t go exactly the way you planned. Bethany is a twentysomething goth, Roger a mid-40s alcoholic divorcee. Roger is working on a novel, Glove Pond and we get excerpts from it interspersed throughout the book, and inside Glove Pond, one of the characters, Kyle, is writing a book set in a Staples. It’s all very self-referential and lovely.
In addition to letters from Bethany and Roger, we also get a few letters by ancillary characters: Bethany’s mom, Roger’s ex-wife, co-workers who witnessed the events at Staples. It allows us to see other people’s perspectives of the same events. The book is really quite subtle and funny. I found the relationship that grew between Bethany and Roger really quite touching, and the book within a book within a book made my head hurt a bit. Unlike jPod and some of his other books, Coupland refrained from pages of three letter scrabble words and those sorts of things. Instead, we get a series of essays about what it’s like to be the slice of bread being buttered.
I flew through this book, and enjoyed it a lot. I think my favourite Coupland book is Hey Nostradamus!, which I haven’t reviewed on this blog yet, but I may make time to do eventually. I bought two more of his books on the weekend and will get to them eventually as well.
Shannon Patterson, filed under Reviews |
March 30, 2009
It was the first year of university. Paradoxical Overtones had broken up, everyone had moved on to different universities, and I was missing the whole band thing. Sitting on my bed on the 7th floor of Laurier Hall, strumming my unplugged guitar, I stared daggers at my room mate’s half of the room. Britney Spears stared back. I knew that it was going to be a long year… somehow, I imagined that Lara wasn’t enjoying my Rancid skull and crossbones poster.
Courtney lived a couple of blocks from the university. We’d known each other for a few years, having been at the same church retreats. We bonded over caffeinated teen antics. I knew she’d played the drums in high school, but I had no idea if she’d want to play with me. After all, I wasn’t very good. Lem always said that I was the dead weight in Paradoxical Overtones, and I know she was right. Over coffee, Courtney and I decided to try and find a couple of other people to make some noise and see if we could make it pretty.
Erin lived an hour away and played the bass, and we know she’d love hanging out with us, since we were cool university students and she was still stuck in high school. She jumped at the chance, and Paul rounded out our band with a second guitar. In my mind, Paul was a guitar god. He took me under his wings and that’s when I really learned how to play. My fingers were so calloused and sore that sometimes I could barely type, but I progressed quickly and caught up to him enough to no longer feel like I was dragging the other three down. To be quite honest, I had a crush on Paul in those early days, but that was before I met Eric. He was a guy in one of my classes, and well, that’s a story for another day…
We practiced for three months before our first gig. It certainly wasn’t glamorous, but to us it was magical. For four people struggling through university and early adulthood, the band allowed us to jump out of our day to day lives and be the party people, one or two nights a week. Erin would come down twice a month, and we’d play cover songs and a few originals at the local bars: Big Dick’s, Spicoli’s, the Pub… the names and places have all sort of blended together at this point. Erin and I took turns singing, and Paul would tell stories between songs. The girls loved Paul…
In the summer after my first year of university, we released our first EP, Leave My Soul Alone. We made 700 copies of it, and sold it at the shows. It had five tracks:
- In a Moment – this was our attempt at a song like Chick Magnet – a bass driven punk song that was, in all honesty, quite catchy. It made it onto our first full-length album.
- Through With You – I think this is the song where we rhymed master with plaster
- Mixed Metaphors – Our attempt at clever lyrics.
- The Pebble – my personal favourite, stolen from church events Erin, Courtney and I had attended.
- Punk Rock Boy – a girlie version of Punk Rock Girl. This song should never be covered, and we never should have recorded it.
Puny Express - Leave My Soul Alone
Anyways, the LMSA EP wasn’t very good, but we soldiered on. I’ve talked with Courtney, and she wants to continue the story over at her blog. Maybe after all this, Paul and Erin will give us their takes of what life was like on the Puny Express. I know it was a ride I’ll never forget, and despite the rocky points that came later, I will always look back on those early days fondly.
Read more of this article »
Shannon Patterson, filed under Internet Discoveries & Bandwagons, Pop Culture |
Last night, my lovely fiance guessed my blog password and made himself an administrator account. I was actually surprised how long it took him to guess my password, he tried probably ten wrong passwords before he got the right one. He wanted to fix a spelling mistake or something like that for me, I don’t quite remember what he was up to, but I encouraged him to try and log in, and now I must live with the consequences of my actions. I will note, however, that I did not encourage the creation of a user account.
In response to his actions, I have changed the password on my administrator account, and made Alan’s account one with lower permission levels. He is free to post here, as long as it’s about how pretty or smart I am, or about how much he loves me, or other nonsense. He does have his own, quite neglected blog, so I don’t think he will be posting here often, and I, of course, reserve the right to edit anything he posts here.
So, all three of my non-Alan readers, welcome Alan to the world of the strangely-normal.com blog! I’m sure he’d appreciate it.
Update: I remember now what it is he did, he fixed the time for me.
Shannon Patterson, filed under Life |
March 29, 2009
MxPx - On The Cover II
March 24, 2009
Tooth & Nail Record
Oh, 80s nostalgia, how I love thee. Cheesiness, in my mind, reached its apex in the form of 1980s pop music. The big hair, the crazy colours, Tiffany, the New Kids on the Block. I was only a child and not really into music in the 80s, so I was really introduced to the 80s pop music through punk covers of some of the best of the best of the cheese. But that was in the mid-to-late-90s.
MxPx released the first installment of On The Cover in 1995 during the punk-pop era, when ska was cool and Green Day was famous for Dookie, which in my books is still orders of magnitude better than American Idiot. That was when music was fun, fast and catchy, and it wasn’t necessarily required that guitarists knew more than three chords. I listened to MxPx, Bad Religion, Green Day, The Offspring, Rancid, and many other bands whose priorities were on loud, fast, catchy music. MxPx has been one of my favourite bands since high school, and I still enjoy their music, especially their early stuff, up to The Ever-Passing Moment. The albums after that have been hit and miss (for those keeping track: Before Everything And After: miss, Panic: hit, Secret Weapon: neutral.
Now Green Day is famous for American Idiot, The Offspring knows more chords, and Less Than Jake just pretends its horn section doesn’t exists. I’m not sure if NOFX and some of the other bands I listened to are still around. I listen to folk music more often than I listen to punk music, and my morning radio of choice is CBC Radio One, especially now that Andy Barry’s back from his extended leave. Times have certainly changed, and I think overall that’s a good thing.
Anyways, back to MxPx. Last week, they released On The Cover II, which I got the chance to listen to for this first time today. The tracks are:
- Punk Rock Girl – Dead Milkmen
- I Will Follow – U2
- Suburban Home – Descendents
- I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) – The Proclaimers
- My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down (Bonzo Goes to Bitburg) – The Ramones
- Vacation – The Go-Go’s
- Heaven Is a Place on Earth – Belinda Carlisle
- Kids in America – Kim Wilde
- Fallen Angel – Poison
- Should I Stay or Should I Go – The Clash
- Linda Linda – The Blue Hearts
- Somebody to Love – Queen
Overall, I feel pretty happy with what they’ve done on this album. However, Punk Rock Girl, and Somebody To Love were perfect they were and never ever need to be covered, and Me First and the Gimme Gimmes covered I Would Walk 500 Miles a lot better. The lead singer of Tsunami Bomb did the female vocals on Heaven is a Place on Earth and I loved her voice and now I need to go find some of her music. The problem I feel with the album is that I don’t like either the first or the last track, so it leaves me underwhelmed due to that fact. I listened to it a second time on shuffle and enjoyed the experience a lot more.
MxPx has been around for a long time, and I’ve enjoyed their music for a long time. This album hasn’t changed my feelings about them, but it hasn’t made me fall in love with them all over again, either. A solid album with some fun songs, with a good mix of 80s nostalgia and covers of classic-era punk music. All in all, I think there’s something in here for everyone.
Shannon Patterson, filed under Reviews |
March 26, 2009
Well, at least one of you loves me. The lovely and talented Courtney tagged me as a creative blogger. The rules? List 7 things I love and then to tag 7 people who will play along. But I’m a rule breaker, mostly because I don’t know seven people who read my blog who also blog.
So I will give you a double shot of things I love. That means fourteen things I love. Here goes:
- Sunrises and sunsets. See yesterday for pretty pictures.
- Fluffly clouds. They totally make me happy. I miss blue skies in the winter months.
- Big open spaces. I miss the expansiveness of country living. I also miss stars. However, I do love the convenience of city living.
- Alan. He’s fun. And so much smarter than me I’m ashamed to admit it.
- Google Reader. It rocks. I’ve mentioned this before
- Music. Right now, I’m still in the Great Music Sort of 2009, but almost done the letter L.
- Sci Fi. What’s not to love? (Other than the rampant sexism of classic-era sci-fi. I don’t love that.)
- My friends and family. They’re pretty great.
- Making stuff that didn’t exist before. I’m not necessarily interested in optimization or security, but I love bringing ideas to fruition. That’s why I have a secret project.
- That I’m mostly winning Shan’s Lenten Challenge. I haven’t done well with the weight training and working out parts this week, but the not eating at restaurants is going quite well, and I’m sure I’ve saved a good chunk of money and I’ve lost about 5 lbs.
- Reading. Maybe I’ll write a post about the people and things I associate books with. I love books.
- I love that I have no idea what The Hills is about. And that I’ve never watched a single minute of American Idol.
- This number. It’s great.
- I’m not sure it’s an “I love…” yet, but I’m really glad that I’m blogging again. I missed it.
So there you are! Fourteen things I love. And possibly one of the most shallow lists I’ve ever produced. Maybe I should have included kittens and bunnies. They’re pretty great as well.
Shannon Patterson, filed under Internet Discoveries & Bandwagons, Life |