Usually, there’s a grace period between when I stop working and when I start getting crazy ideas about what I’m going to do next. The turnover time has shrunk considerably, let me tell you. It’s been less than a week, and as a direct result of a trip to Costco, I’ve decided to re-learn French and move to Paris.
Allow me to explain (inasmuch as any of my thought processes CAN be explained): the season 2 DVD of Pushing Daisies came out on Tuesday. No, wait, I must go back further. When I was in high school, I worked at a Boston Pizza. That fact has shaped a surprising amount of my life; both of the guys who I can legitimately claim to have had strong, passionate feelings for in the past were coworkers there. Anyway, a good friend who I’d lost touch with over the past four years or so was back working there after a stint as a teacher on a Native Reserve. Seeing as I have a degree in drama, you can safely assume I know my share of strange characters; Chris is one of the oddest and most entertaining people I know.
Chris owns two kayaks, so since I’m now at loose ends, we made a date to go kayaking on Monday. It was entertaining on several levels. I’m not what you’d call an outdoors girl, and Chris can’t swim. We had planned the excursion very poorly, and had to surmount the following obstacles: outdoor urination, shallow waters, tree trunks, wildlife, one lifejacket and one kayak skirt between us, and the most rudimentary of kayaking skills. Depending on whether I was paddling happily through open waters or clambering over a tree trunk (while pushing the kayak beneath it), I declared the trip to be either the “best kayaking trip ever,” or “WORST kayaking trip, EVER!”
After the joys of chasing down beavers and being laughed at by fishers palled, we went back to Boston Pizza for dinner and to reminisce about old times and discuss our rudderless futures. Naturally, this meant I was late getting Mother’s car back to her, and missed my bus from my hometown back to Toronto. Usually, I can’t sleep in the suburbs, but a weekend of late nights caught up with me, and I slept like a baby. When I rolled out of bed, mid-morning, Mother pitched the idea of heading out on a shopping trip before I went back home–if I hung around for a few hours, I could catch a ride with Father and Broski when they headed downtown in the afternoon. So we went to Costco so I could buy season two of Pushing Daisies. While there, I picked up a three disk compilation of Parisian bistro music, and casually talked Mother into buying it.
I object fairly strongly to my brother’s taste in music, and so I demanded that we pop in one of the CDs on the way home. And, staring out the window at the depressing suburbs, listening to the kind of music that makes you want to drink red wine while wearing a beret, I decided that I should probably live in Paris for a year or two.
Now I have a book on tuning up your French sitting on my shelf, and I’ve been listening to far too much Edith Piaf.
In case you were worried, the plan is kick-boxing in Thailand first, THEN moving to Paris.
July 26, 2009 at 2:01 pm
If you move to Paris, you must learn more than just the language. You will need to adapt the condecending tone that goes along with it.
A Frenchman/Frenchwoman speaks of food and wine with the same superiority that an American speaks of power and military might.
You may be able to combine the two by being a kickboxer in France instead of Thailand.
Speaking of French food I will go see the Julie and Julia movie. Julia Child rocks!
July 27, 2009 at 4:55 am
What does the brother listen to?
(yes yes, well done seizing onto the important part of the story Ian)
July 27, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Parisians may be snobs, Klaatu, but there is just something about that city….
Haha, ohh Ian. I expected no less from you. The particular song in question was a cover of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’ (or whatever the actual title of that song is), which was apparently featured on So You Think You Can Dance, or something similar. As to my general objections to his taste in music, let’s just say it runs the gamut between top 40 stuff and crappy bands that think they rock harder than they do. I don’t THINK he ACTUALLY enjoys Nickelback’s entire “oeuvre”, but I suspect strongly that he has at least a song or two of theirs on his iPod.
My current music obessions, to stave off your next question, are Little Joy, Zee Avi, and I just cannot stop listening to Wires by Coconut Records. Oh, and When U Love Somebody by Fruit Bats, despite the fact that I hate it when people use “U” instead of “You.” Staples in my playlists include the Libertines, the Beatles, the Bicycles, the Strokes, and Hawksley Workman. What say you to that, oh Music God?
July 28, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Well, the actual Journey version of “Don’t Stop Believin’” is an imperishable classic (much as I hate Steve Perry), but it sounds like I wouldn’t enjoy much of what your brother listens to.
As for you, well, those first four you mention I have mostly never heard (although a friend insisted I listen to Coconut Records on her iPod and I enjoyed it) although I’ve heard of most of them, Zee Avi aside. At some point in the last five years I turned into a guy that, to quote one of my writer friends is “drawn to bleak claustrophobic records in minor keys (Low, Burial, The Knife, Joy Division, etc.),” not that I can’t enjoy other kinds of music (have you heard the new Matt & Kim record? You should hear the new Matt & Kim record) but that tends to be what I gravitate towards on my own. In fact, the only act in your staples I tend to listen to on a quasi-regular basis is the Strokes (especially “What Ever Happened,” that is totally my jam), no disrespect to the Beatles (but I only need to hear them every so often, and by ‘them’ I almost invariably mean ‘Sgt. Peppers’). As for the other three, the Libertines were a great idea of a band and have some great songs but I just never got into them, Hawksley Workman I respect but have never really enjoyed (the ‘hit’ singles aside) and I’ve never heard of the Bicycles.
What I think is interesting about hearing about other people’s taste in music, though, is how generally you can sort of assemble an idea of what they’re looking for from (broadly construed) rock music based on what they like (these are always hard to articulate though). Most friends of mine and I are looking for different things from music, which is why you’re probably listening to the Beatles or something and I’m listening to a song called “Caustic Roe” by a band called Astral Social Club (the record is called Octuplex). It sounds a bit like a more tuneful, sedate Aphex Twin having a seizure. I promise I am not making any of that up.
I also promise I don’t listen to this stuff on a LOOK AT ME I’M SO OBSCURE kind of way. I think critics do often gravitate to some weird stuff after a while just because we get bored – if you’re a movie critic watching everything Hollywood is putting out, of COURSE a foreign art film with a totally different set of priorities is going to strike you in a more pleasing way than the guy who goes to the movies once a month for some ’splosions. There’s nothing wrong with that guy, and there’s nothing wrong with the critic either, but both of them will be happier if they understand and accept that what you like in art (and in music, certainly) is larger a product of a. what you’re exposed to b. how much of it you’re exposed to. Not that our choices don’t play a role, but of course our choices are shaped by what we already know, etc etc.
And that’s why you don’t ask music critics with philosophy degrees leading questions, but the Cliff Notes version is that what I think is you have good taste in music. It’s just not my taste in music, which is good, because there’s nothing interesting in hearing about someone else with my taste in music. But now I’m curious as to what else you’d enjoy…
July 28, 2009 at 6:32 pm
Also, because I have nowhere else to comment on your Twitter, I have months of practice of dinkin’ around on unemployment and I can confirm that is what it is for. Especially right now, when it’s so hard to find/get a good job (and if said job is kickboxing in Thailand, I can only imagine it’s even worse…).