Okay Zaadz!  Weigh in.  Should I read:

A) Ulysses - James Joyce
B) Преступление и наказание - Фёдор Миха́йлович Достое́вский
C) Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
D) Bleak House - Charles Dickens
E) A Play Of Your Choosing - William Shakespeare
F) A Classic Of Your Choosing - An Author Of Your Choosing

Okay!  Suggestions are welcome.  Don't cite It - Stephen King as a classic, and the russian one is Crime and Punishment to save you a google search.  Don't even cite Richard Matheson or Alduous Huxley or Ray Bradbury as classics.  Arbitrarily, let's say a classic means it was published before 1900.

Lately I've become rather enamored with the National Football League.  I enjoy watching the games, and have been taking in about four per weekend.  In particular, I like to watch the New England Patriots although I usually root against them, as I did in this epic battle.  I suppose after Baltimore, the Patriots undefeated season simply cannot be stopped!  I mean, really, in their next four games they'll be playing the Jets and the Dolphins!  Talk about a bye.  Anyway, I'm hoping the Dolphins pull a no-wins season to be the only team to go both undefeated for a regular season and totally defeated.  It would be interesting.  In the meantime I'll have to watch the Bears and the Redskins face off this evening.

I was directed to Freerice.com by the blog of one of my favorite authors.  So far today I've donated 8500 grains of rice and learned a lot of very helpful words.  This might've been the coolest thing ever, until I read this discussion at the I-I pod.  It seems like the Plumpy could use even more publicity as a better faminine-reducing aid (over rice).  If I was starving, truth be told, I'd rather eat a peanut.

Coalescing patterns generate momentum covertly.  Your life will be over before you know it, and all that stuff, that really important stuff, will have gone unsaid.  Here is a poem I just finished writing, which really seems like it should have come from a girl version of myself operating at around a Junior High era.  Check it out:

Technically Speaking
I could live happily
I didn't have to be angry
Or give in to jealousy

I could run amok
Swear and fuck
I could hurl this meal
Interrupt his talk

I could yell in Church
Move freely
Through this gelled space
I could throw away
What people say
I could throw it away

I could say goodbye
To these dry eyes
I could lose weight
I could say goodbye
To this hiding place

Patterns might mean nothing
I am full
I am done
I am empty
I am dull
I am sharp
I am not where you're looking
Am I?

I could live happily
Couldn't I?

Brianne Davis, 01

I just ran across this Big Idea over at thinkarete.com.  For the past three months I have been relentlessly rehashing all of the most embarrassing moments of my short life so far (and there is a veritable preponderance of them, I can tell you, with no expense spared on the sheer mortifying nature of them all), and you know what?  I can't say it's been particularly valuable.  Someone like me might try to justify a use of their time like that by inventing shiftily-cosmologically rooted 'rationalizations' such as, "By focussing on these events I'm relaxing the searing immediacy of the memory, as well as undoing the nested karma of the terrifyingly-poorly judged affair," but aren't we really just re-watching a terrible movie?  Perhaps a new movie would be more satisfying.

I was tagged by Ron to list out seven oddities about myself.  Technically speaking I should tag a few more folks to keep the proverbial ball rolling, but I think I'll let this particular extension of the multi-tentacled ball roll to a stop at my feet. 

For the sake of a focus, I'll choose bits about my childhood growing up in rural Saskatchewan.

i. My first dog's name was Tuffy.  He brought whole pig heads home from a nearby meat market, pulled me in a sled to the post office in the winter when the roads were frozen over, ran away any chance he got, and eventually ran away for good.

ii. My first cat's name was Inky, a black cat who, near as I recall, followed our family home from the nuisance grounds (garbage dump).  He hung out beneath the deck and was consistently unfriendly.

iii.  In the autumn months bats used to swoop at my brothers and I as we jumped on our trampoline.  Often we would knock them out of the air with broomhandles, getting a 'double-bounce' to enhance our range with the weapon.  Also to do with the 'tramp': I practised front-flipping off of it (as most do) until I landed on my chest and winded myself.  I thought I was dying.

iv.  In 1993 (or so) a misquito infestation had angry black swarms believing they owned the town.  My brother Josh and I spent an afternoon with a red pool noodle (a noodle-like floating device) and several cans of bugspray wading into the swarms spraying and swatting.  We did this for, no exaggeration, five or six hours before returning home.  For every summer thereafter the misquitoes weren't as bad.  Also to do with bug infestations, 'halloween bugs' once saw fit to infest Benson (my home town).  When they did a similar regimen of brutal extermination was enforced, this time with less surprisingly effective results.  The bugs were so thick they often pooled along the edges of our house and our outbuildings a foot deep.  Usually our attacks left our shoes full of the awful orange things.  They made an audible pop and gushed yellow guts when you killed them.  I am still superstitious about them, and fear this blog will bring them back into my life.

v.  Every year since I was old enough to act (my eighth or perhaps seventh year) I auditioned and got a part for a travelling children's theatre (based out of Missoula).  Each year I would get a crush on a girl and a girl would get a crush on me.  Always I would get a crush on a girl who didn't know I existed while the girl who (often very publically) crushed on me would go equally unnoticed by me (for no good reason).  Despite this I always received an enormous amount of compliments for my yearly performances, so I can only assume they were well done.

vi.  Every spring the melted snow would form enormous puddles all over town, having the place looking like a flood-zone, and I would build boats with my dad to float on the puddles.  The most satisfying experiences were when I biult epic-size boats and stacked all my less valuable toys on it, then let it drift along the stream beside the road.

vii.  The principal of our school was a much disliked man.  Once I put nails under his truck's tires, though they weren't big enough to cause any damage.  Another time my older brother Josh walked into his apparently open house (I suppose all our houses were open) and stole a huge jar of coins off the top of his fridge.  He later told me to come with him and we both went in and walked around and looked at the posters in his basement walls before running out.  You'll only see this post on Zaadz, because I can't risk any of my Facebook or MySpace friends to know that story.  Also to do with the principal of our school: we used to order flowers to his door and he would, I assume, have to pay for them.  This was one of the many uses we found for the payphone by the municipal offices.

You know there's a lot more I could say about growing up in Saskatchewan, and it would only be unique or particularly off-kilter to someone who, well, never grew up in Saskatchewan.  Anyhow, that's all for now.

When shopping Amazon be careful what you one-click order...

Badonkadonk Land Cruiser
Fresh Whole Rabbit
Tuscan Whole Milk

and more...  (read the reviews on these items, they're funny)...

I was watching Oprah give away a bunch of free stuff on television today.  I laughed heartily throughout the entire program at the pure excitement of these women who were receiving a few thousand dollars worth of new stuff.  Their expressions were so intense, so overwrought, like someone was handing them a better life than they ever hoped to imagine and not a set of night clothes or a scrabble board.  I thought it would be pretty funny if Oprah brought a horse on stage (not counting Josh Groban) and said, "See how pretty he is?  You're all getting one."  I can see everyone in the audience sort of cheering along, giving each other sideways glances, some of them just standing in frozen anticipation of the moment Oprah reveals it's all a joke, others calculating how big of a ripple a horse in their suburban back yard might cause and how much it would cost to remove the animal.  I can see them starting to ask questions, "Is mine going to be just like that one?" pointing to the black stallion on stage.  Oprah replying, "No, no, we culled a wide variety for you and assigned them randomly."  Everyone wondering if their horse is broke to ride, is a raging terror, has been delivered already.  The most disastrous possible move and half of the crowd would be uncritically elated beyond measure.

 

 

 

 

My dreams aren't as empty as my conscience seems to be...

Joe	Josh	Cycler	Tamara	Dandy
Hammer	Poogles	Farmer	Skip	Meenew
E	Toby	A-Den	B-nonymous

I liked Waitress and Golden Compass but not really I Am Legend.  I liked bits of I Am Legend.

I have a lot of time on my hands.  It's a blessing.  I attempt to use it as best I can, but determining just what's best is the a question often on my mind.  Lately I've been reading and watching full episodes of Charlie Rose* (as he speaks with novelists like Jonathan Franzen, Zadie Smith, David Foster Wallace, Margaret Atwood, Mark Reyner, or with filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese, Julian Schnabel, Joel and Ethan Coen, or with activists like Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt).  I've also, as many of you know, been reading up all kinds of storms. 

*(This in contrast to the days when I once consumed the entire Integral Naked roster.)

The real question, I suppose, is, what form do I desire the dividend of my attention to conform to, and what attentional activities are manifestly salient in the accomplishment of this?  If the ultimate yield of my focus is to be a piece of fiction, historically my best bet is to read fiction, and so I do, and it works.  But what if, as a roundabout means of accomplishing a more informed fiction, I covet the abstract outcome of epistemological expansion?  To what degree is epistemological expansion measurable, and can it be cited as the result of specific uses of time?  Perhaps it's an evident roominess of character I'm after, some detectable clearance of personality wherein the diverse nature of whatever mean erudition I've been complicit in accruing is translated as worldly affability or a profound acceptance of what is.  No, that's all wrong.  I grow when I learn and I learn when I see more angularly or pellucidly what is and both accept it, feel speciesally culpable, and decide there are exquisite (albeit small) ways I can nudge things along.  But surely there is no way to detect whether this type of thing happens with more frequency or poignancy by watching interviews or reading books or baking a chicken?  Or is there?  And daydreams.  How infelicitous an outlook ought I take up on them for all their wildness and frivolity and unconfined (and comically unsupported) optimism?

Perhaps this is simply my way of asking, is it okay, Brian David, if I take some time to watch Charlie Rose?  Is that okay?  Does that fit inside the way you look at yourself?  Will we come out on the other side?

No, there isn't.

Oh, wait.  It wasn't that sort of question, eh?

Here's a few other answers:
God Is Love
I Rule (dismally unclever wordplay or plug for Bronducentrism?)
Jesus Is The Son, If Not Of God Than Of A Pretty Cool Guy Named Joseph
~C4Chaos is CRAZY
Facebook Is Love
Nothing
Facial Hair Is A Gift From A Potentially Non-Deified Jesus

(crossposted on FACEBOOK)

Watch this video.

My first response to this video was that it surely had to be a joke.  There was no doubt in my mind from beginning to end that this was a group of parodic Americans making dutifully subversive propaganda in their basement, calling out individuals who are less extreme by showing them the potential fringe of their creed.  I laughed throughout the video, partly because I always crack up (involuntarily and hugely) at any religious rite (a product, I have no doubt, of so seriously participating in them for so long), and partly because it was so ridiculous.  My laughter, I confess, was suppressed by my conviction that these people were being ironic.  I say, 'I confess' because it's kind of terrible, isn't it?  My first question in response to this video was, "Why am I so disappointed that these folks almost have to be joking?"  In truth, almost everything I see which hints at an exorbitent quantity of vacuousness strikes me as the effort of a very smart person doing something deliberately dumb.  Even on Youtube, this is what goes on in my mind. 

(Youtube is one of those particularly depressing? interesting? arenas where there are people generating strenuously vapid content in response to laboriously cretinous content which will then be commented on by the most convincingly labotomized goof to stand upright and get into debt.  You don't have to look far to run into this.  Sometimes the vehicle these momentarily lapsed? non compos mentis? individuals use is quite entertaining and creative, but its still driven by intellectual bankruptcy.  Or is it?  Even though I ought to know better, I still see view these heartwrenchingly dumb animals as coy, caustic metacritics of the cult of stultified opinion.  What is that?  Projection?  Optimism?  My own contribution to the heaps of smelliness?)


Looking further into the Westboro Baptist Church (as I felt it imperative that I do), I noticed they weren't joking.  Instead of feeling happy and being able to enjoy the videos more, I got a little disappointed.  In fact, I felt almost nothing except a grim literary appreciation (sue my morals) for how offensive Fred Phelps can be (as revealed most in the quotes in the Westboro Church wiki), and a small sadness for all the days he's ruined by obnoxiously pitching his epically offensive agenda

And you?  How did you react to all this?  How do you react to my reactions?

So, I ran into this movie on Google Videos as it was the most watched movie in Canada yesterday.  I decided to watch it as reprieve from Triumph of the Will (more resolutely recommended), and before I knew it I was an hour and twenty minutes into it and hungry for some beans!

The thing(s) I found interesting about this movie:

a) its candid exposure of a psychology (of non-questioning or liberal respect for traditions or widespread marginalization of anything looking less than mainstream) which could plausibly? enable the type of offensive, fringe-based, conspiratorial craziness this movie highlights...

b) its weird contradiction: a group of (fairly obviously) worldcentric (or globally awakened and ethically engaged) individuals speaking against the (in their movie's terms) potential immanence of a world government.  Strange, eh?

c) its call to action: that we recognize our essential oneness! surely this will stop the baddies...

Watching movies like this and An Inconvenient Truth (apologies for the categorical comparison) make me feel small by whisking the domain of human experience onto an uncomfortably large stage.  It's hard to argue that these types of questions (apologies for the ambiguity) aren't important.  And how important compared to the questions a movie like Juno or a book like One Mississippi asks?  One is dealing with foundations, the other surfaces. One calls for transformations, the other translates.  But when foundations are called into question unnecessarily or with a lopsided degree of representation or vehemence, how much less warm or contributive to soceital good is our take-home affect? 

I'm also wondering what the people who both (a) believe the underyling assertion of this movie and (b) see it as the world's saving grace, perceive this introduction of [one world government] after seeing this unrelentlingly pejorative depiction of it's conception and form (that's normal) by evidently post-ethnocentrically concerned people (that's new, but a poor guarantor, I think we can agree, of any sort of soundness). 

As for me, I neither believe anything of the assertions or predictions of the movie, nor do I particularly relish the possibilit(ies).  At least that's my public opinion.  Privately, and in direct alignment with my experience of the footage, I'm totally sold on every point the movie made, and am duly outraged.

A bizarre confluence, indeed.

Luckily the movie was very well paced, very lively and interesting, and so it will be easy for you to watch it and tell me what you think.

Hello and welcome to Christmas Eve Day!  No doubt you arrived here the same way I did, by keeping breath going in and out of your body.  Well, now that we're all here, together in this wild day, what should we do with ourselves?  I've always thought it would be fun to get together, not just one or two of us but every single one of us, and jump up and down and see if the world cracked into two pieces.  Probably not going to happen today...  What about singing?  Always a fun time, and we've all got the day off, or most of us do, so we could head over to a church and bray out some traditional hymns!  Sounds like an enjoyable time to me, really.  Maybe we should buy gifts!  There's one gift that doesn't contribute to the waste epidemic: books.  Books are safe and sound because you never really have to replace them, or get a new one in six months.  Sure they represent a ruthless slaughter of trees, but I think we can all agree its worth it.  Anyway, whether its books, singing, or jumping up and down, I'm going to have a great day, and I am pretty snugly sure that you will too.  Even if you're inclined to be depressed, it'll still take you til January 3rd or so to realize how dramatically lonely you are.  For today, just head out there into the frosty whiteness and smile randomly.  People will like you for it, and you might meet someone.  ;-)

What does it mean??!!  Aside from being the most easily desconstructed advice in the history of trite pointers, when heard from someone who has 'made it' doesn't it intrinsically (or blatantly) connote that there are a whole bunch of people being someone they're not, doing something less than their best, and quitting?  And, even if that is the case, because it seems to ring true for all its dourness, what does it realy mean to be yourself, what does best mean in any context and how do you do it?  Ah well...  I'm still going to follow those three short sentences as well as I possible can!  God Bless Canada, the land of opportunity.

Stare deep into my eyes.  Really deep.  Look past the wispy facial hair, and gaze into those intense orbs until you realize the most profound satori (ever)!  (See this article* for ways in which I've most likely misused the word satori.)  And enjoy yourself today!

*- I just randomly googled satori and took the thing that wasn't a wikipedia entry, so don't think I gleaned anything amazing from this link.  Thanks, and yourself today enjoy!

B's Patented Strategy For People Who Are Jogging Lamely Behind the Belgian Holiday Horses

step 1: download Cher - Do You Believe (In Life After Love)
step 2: blast it
step 3: rock out while imagining the reason why you're enjoying yourself so much is because Santa told you it was okay
step 4: feel the windy whoosh, that's your butt back on the bandwagon.

oh yeeeaaaah!

As par ~C-man's question: I say Blogging Is A Nude Beach.  And then you were all like, "What the fuck are you talking about, man??"  And then I'm like, "Well, Constant Reader, it's a really Freudian perspective that I'm getting at.  Everyone thinks they're walking around cyberspace with a nice tailored suit, but they're really buck naked, and the most they can hope for is clean private parts."  And then you're like...

Mischa Barton was stopped by sheriff's deputies early on Thursday

Actress Mischa Barton has been arrested on suspicion of drink-driving, police in Los Angeles County have said.

The ex-star of The OC was pulled over after police allegedly saw her car straddling two lanes of traffic and failing to signal when making a turn.

The 21-year-old was also held on suspicion of possessing cannabis and driving without a licence.

Barton spent about seven hours in custody in West Hollywood before bail of $10,000 (£5,005) was paid.

"During Ms Barton's detention, it was determined that she was an unlicensed driver and was driving while under the influence of an alcoholic beverage," the official police report said.

A court hearing has been scheduled for 28 February.

Barton played Marissa Cooper on teen drama The OC from 2003 to 2006, when her character died in a car crash.

The London-born actress has also appeared in several movies, including The Sixth Sense, the current St Trinian's film and Sir Richard Attenborough's latest offering, Closing the Ring.

Read Jonathan Franzen's book of essays: How To Be Alone
Read Jonathan Franzen's new novel: The Discomfort Zone
Read David Foster Wallace's short story for the New Yorker: Good People

Oh my God.  Did you know it's possible for Roger Federer to win all four majors and a gold medal in 2008?  Can you even imagine how absolutely stellar that would be?  In one year he would become unequivocally the best tennis player ever.

Here's how my sports hopes are shaping up for 2008.

- A Super-Bowl win from the New England Patriots.

- A World Series triumph from the Boston Red Sox, again(!)

- A Grey Cup nab, repeat performance from the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

- A Stanley Cup victory from the Calgary Flames.

- A Golden Slam for Roger Federer.

- A Triple Crown winner from trainer Bobby Frankel, or as a consolation prize, any Triple Crown winner.

- Olympic Gold Medals for Karen and David O'Connor in their Three Day Eventing course.

-Any sort of victory for Ian Miller, the Canadian show jumper, particularly if it came at Spruce Meadows where I can watch in person.

----

So.. something you might have noticed from the list I've compiled here.  Each one of these names, except maybe Ian Miller, are already heavily favored or well tenured contenders in their respective races.  So why do I hope for winners?  Well, it's an okay question I suppose.  Let me go through my rationalization for each favorite.

----

New England Patriots - okay, so I just got into NFL, heavily, this year.  So, yes, I admit it's a pretty bandwagon-hopping move on my part to go with the team which is so unbelievably strong, but I'll tell you why I did it.

a) because I am a sucker for record-setting
b) because Stephen King would probably be cheering for them
c) because as long as I can show some regional support, in congruence with my support for Boston Red Sox, I'm happy

Boston Red Sox - I started cheering for Boston heavily in 2004 when they won their first World Series.  Again, look at that, I come along just in time to watch my team rise to their first World Series in a whole slough of years.  How did it happen?

a) I raised myself, for better or worse, on Stephen King novels.  My introduction to baseball was irrevocably tainted (or flavored, to put it positively), by this garguantuan narrative of the BoSox and their inability to clinch a World Series.  Hell it didn't get more epic than this, even Roland from the Dark Tower was involuntarily invoked and invited to visit a higher echelon of his selfhood by the story of the Boston Red Sox.  The swimming sexiness of that.
b) as I became acquainted with the Red Sox I began to realize I preferred their approach, which seems jocular and brotherly when paired against the Yankees, or personal and inviting when paired against the cold BlueJays.  The division they compete in is one of the most interesting, to me, in baseball, and they are the legitimately cool kids on campus.
c) before I even started watching the BoSox, I dedicted at least ten or fifteen hours to reading books about them, doing homework, getting acquainted with what it takes to put a winning season together to more fully appreciate October.  So did this Canadian earn his membership to Red Sox nation?  Well, no, but I intend to stick it out from now on, and time will test and prove me.

2008 will be a big year for me, as I'll be getting a monthly subscrip to mlb.com and watching every or every other Red Sox game from the comfort of my room.  I'll be watching from Spring Training, analyzing the trades, being a critic of the GM, and all that jazz.  Wish them luck!

Saskatchewan Roughriders - Most of you likely aren't acquainted with the CFL.  It's the Canadian Football League and it's a lot of fun.  There is a Calgary team, and that is my home city, but I was raised in Saskatchewan and the football tradition in that province is much richer than in Calgary, where football is a sterilized afterthought, or so it seems to me.  So, ultimately, got to go with my upbringing, and got to go with a group of fans who provoke me to care about the game.  Still, I'll never be an avid CFL fan.

Calgary Flames - This one's a no-brainer.  I live in Calgary.  When the Flames win in the playoffs everyone goes crazy, ten thousand people (seriously) congregate in the streets.  Chicks flash their tits and get drunk and easy to fuck.  The city flashes its tits and gets drunk and easy to fuck.  Everyone wakes up in the morning tasting like meal and bile and their weak vision is weakened further by a lust for the next game.

Roger Federer - I'm proud to cheer for this guy, and I make no apologies for my affiliation with him.  I started cheering for Roger for the same reasons I'm cheering for the Pats, because he was a record-setter, but now I'm way beyond that, as I'm beyond that with the Pats, who I've come to love for their personality (except for Bellichuck).  I've read a lot of articles on Roger Federer, watched a lot of his matches, watch all the Charlie Rose episodes featuring Federer, which is a few hours itself, and can now appreciate all facets of the man (or something like that, in a somewhat shallow sense).  I also started cheering for him a few years ago, so you can file the johnny-come-lately charges and accept that I am one of the most consummate Federer fans out there and am deeply hoping for a Golden Slam in 2008.

Bobby Frankel - So who is Bobby Frankel?  He's a cool horse trainer who has enjoyed success in an industry on which polemics need to be written daily.  The silliness of racing horses at two and three years old is on par with the silliness of rescinding Roe v Wade or ignoring global warming, albeit on a much smaller scale.  Anyhow, in a real prestigious industry, Frankel pursues humane methods with an open mind, tracking down natural solutions to the problems his horses face on a day to day basis.  He's exciting, if for this reason only.

David and Karen - ah, I'll keep this short, same as Frankel in an industry which isn't as bad, except for all the accidents

Ian Miller - Canadian?  Stately?  I met him?  I liked his book?  Nothing further need be said.

So, finally, which sports do I care most about?  Here's a list in order from most care to least care.

Tennis
Baseball
Football
Horse Racing
Hockey
Canadian Football
Show Jumping
Olympic Eventing

----

A strange list, I'll allow, for a Canadian who lives next to premier venues for hockey and show (horse) jumping.

Alanis Morissette said the most common element of unseen and unclaimed self (or shadow) occurring in Canadians is arrogance, but in my experience the most common shadow occurring in Canadians is the tendency to take whatever shadow they are personally experiencing as pivotal or primary in their own life and project it onto the Canadian citizenry at large.  A bizarre shadowplay in which the shadow of the individual is easily shifted to being the shadow of the entire nation.  Voila: the burden is shared, a maneuver which potentially owes its ease to the chameleonic nature of Canadian culture.  Of course, all of this could just be me projecting my tendency to project my personal shadow onto the whole of Canada as the whole of Canada's shadow of projecting their personal shadow on the whole of Canada.  It's tough to call.  What is clear, of course, is that Canada is awesome.

Tagged by Ryan here.

Allow me to present the only 5 Buddhist books I own:

1.  no death, no fear - Thich Naht Hahn
2.  May Ways to Nirvana - Dalai Lama
3.  The Tibetan Book of the Dead - ???
4.  The American Book of the Dead - E.G. Gold
5.  One Taste - Ken Wilber

One Taste makes the list because it made ~C's list.  Other spritual teacher's I like to read include:

Marc Gafni
Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
Joseph Telushkin
Frances Vaughan
Lama Surya Das
Deepak Chopra
Eckhart Tolle

and others...