now i'm lost in oblivion

I witnessed the most peculiar thing yesterday afternoon walking home from work. Nearing my apartment in Saint-Henri, I began to notice a lot of crows flying around. This was at about 5:00pm, maybe an hour before dusk. When I reached the corner of Saint-Antoine and du Collège, which is pretty much right where I live, the sky had become nearly blackened by circling crows, their collective calls almost deafening. They sat on every inch of tree branch, every roof top, and every lamp post in a five block radius. There must’ve been at least a few thousand of them. The whole scene was slightly unnerving, partly because of the mythology associated with the animal: I mean, crows are generally creepy. It was a strange sight to see a variety of the neighbourhood’s residents gawking at the skies and rooftops, everyone looking up at the curiosity unfolding before them. It’s also funny that in a situation like this, people seem to lose their inhibitions about talking to other people they cross on the streets. People were gathering to discuss what they were seeing and trading theories as to what it could all mean. The stoner clerk from the seedy corner store seemed convinced that the flock (murder?) of crows was an ill-omen. ‘Les animaux le savent quand quelque chose de fucké s’en vient.’ Sure. There was this one woman who preferred to try and attach some religious connotation to the slew of swirling birds, it being Ash Wednesday and all. While I’m a sucker for a good supernatural story, my sceptical side usually trumps whatever impulse I might have to let my imagination run wild. A bit of research has revealed that crows have been known to flock to communal roosts at dusk in the fall and winter. What I (and the other residents of my ‘hood) witnessed last night was the gathering of crows at (what the article I read referred to as) ‘staging areas.’ These are usually located near the roost, and allow the birds to gather en masse before dusk. This pre-gathering appears to have some sort of socializing function among the birds, yet there exists no particular behavioural explanation for it, nor is it known how the social population dynamics function within the event. That’s all well and good, but the timeframe from the explanation doesn’t quite line up with late February (if the winter theory were to be believed, I would’ve seen this happen more frequently over the last few months, yet this has been an isolated occurrence.) I’m curious to see whether or not similar avian shenanigans will be afoot tonight.

Speaking of public gatherings and strange Wednesdays, I encountered a similar situation last week at pretty much the exact same spot. It was lightly snowing that evening and as I was coming home a bit after sundown, I could see that a crowd had gathered on the corner of Saint-Antoine. A fire was raging a few blocks down the street and the sight of it affected me in a rather strange way. Maybe it was an odd combination of the residual dusk light, the slight snowfall, my emotionally fragile state of mind (last Wednesday was a bad day) and the particularly potent blaze, but the whole scene was particularly surreal in quality. It’ rare that something will make me stop in my tracks (and I was in quite the rush to get home) and just affect me on that alien emotional level. To be honest, I don’t think I’d ever seen a fire like that right in front of me. I’d seen smoky buildings before and so on, but here there was an entire structure completely consumed by fire, flames licking wildly at the sky. It just looked downright dangerous, yet also carried this air of untamed elemental beauty (cheesy, but fuck, it was impressive.) Again, it’s odd that it’s been two weeks in a row that particularly odd phenomena have occurred right in the same spot, on the same day and at the same time. Whatever, there’s no need to read too much into this.

I’m pretty excited for tomorrow. I’m taking the day off from work to drive down to Atlanta, Georgia. A couple of friends and I are going to be attending the Scion Rock Fest on Saturday, which has pretty much the greatest line-up ever if you’re into the groovier, stonier end of the Metal spectrum. The full line-up includes about 30 acts, but I’m particularly excited to see Mastodon, Neurosis, High on Fire, Boris, Converge, Torche and Baroness. I don’t listen to that much ‘metal’ anymore, but all of those bands are near the top of my favourite lists for any genre. I mean, fucking Neurosis! Come on! Needless to say, I am beyond stoked. I’d been itching for a good road trip for a while, so to be sharing a car with my band mates for nearly 40 hours over three days should be more than satisfactory. It’ll be like touring, minus the playing shows bit.

Oh and on a semi-related note, for those who might be interested, City of a Hundred Spires will be playing with Malajube in Ottawa at Babylon on March 13th. The show is 15$. Malajube’s new album is pretty good, so we’re pretty excited to be sharing the stage with them.

Ok that’s quite enough. I need to get a bit of work done. Hugs.

the space between words

I think this might be the longest I’ve ever gone without writing a blog post, and we all know that I am certainly not a beacon of regularity when it comes to such things… or anything for that matter.

My exile from the internet world has been paralleled by a general exile from most other things in my life. Back in October, having recently graduated from University, I quit my then government job and tried my hand at aimless wandering/traveling. I quickly came to realize that I wasn’t in the right mindset to undertake something like that by myself and I shortly found refuge back home. I spent a few disillusioned/depressed weeks on the couch playing my new playstation (the result of a depression-fuelled compulsive purchasing spree), eventually (partly) coming to my senses and getting a new apartment in Montreal’s St-Henri neighbourhood. Things since then have been neither good nor bad, though I can’t say I’ve been working on removing myself from whatever quarter-life crisis hole I dug myself into. I’d very much like to pull myself together, yet I’m quite aware that there exists no miracle cure for such things, just small steps. This is a small step.

Over the last few months I’ve isolated myself from a great deal of people and burnt an inordinate number of bridges. I’ve lost touch with many good friends and strained many of my most important relationships. I am difficult, inconsistent and often impenetrable. This is an admittedly limited attempt at opening up (as well as a chance to write more, and I certainly need to write more.)

I am still working a (semi-)miserable civil servant job, but I suppose the lax work environment will allow me to write on a more regular basis. I’m doing this until I come across something more suitable to my tastes and aspirations, as a journalism degree definitely DOES NOT guarantee a journalism job.

I’ll also try to update this page with a weekly picture, seeing as writing isn’t the only one of my hobbies that I’ve been neglecting on my path to mediocrity. I just picked up Tom Ang’s newish book Fundamentals of Photography last week, and I’ve been enjoying it quite a bit. I would recommend it to anyone with a passing interest in photography. The book’s approach is particularly interesting in that it attempts to reconcile film and digital photography. It examines methods of blending both mediums for the most effective and artistic practice. The book’s layout is also particularly lovely.

I came across this Adbusters article today that I found fairly interesting. It expressed a lot of the observations I've come to make over the years about so-called 'hipster' culture, yet goes further to posit that "The hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture so detached and disconnected that it has stopped giving birth to anything new. " The writer's primary argument centers around the assertion that 'hipster' is a counterculture stripped of its subversive element, devoid of radical agenda and therefore wholly unoriginal, self-indulgent and self-perpetuating. I'd argue that 'hipster' was never intended to be a counterculture, and that since its inception it has been merely one of the many subcultures jutting out from the mainstream consumer infrastructure. It operates and thrives on product. It is a peculiar permutation of the same consumerism that drives the upper middle-class; and what's more, it is wholly conscious of this reality. 'Hipster' is not borne from a reactionary spark, it does not operate against an established structure, it is merely a hyper-modern, youth targetting stem of mass-market culture that is actualized by its own sense of self-awareness. To label it a counterculture is to give it too much credit. 'Hipster' culture is not subversive and it never claimed to be. Really, I suppose a similar point is made in that article, but the writer's rhetoric is just jumbled and pointless. Its melodrama and overimportant rambling are actually characteristic of the subculture it attempts to lampoon. But I suppose that might be exactly the type of pretentious post-modern statement the writers at Adbusters are attempting to make. Whatever.

I guess I'm done here for now. Evenin'.