The sun has finally come out in Toronto. And I don't mean the fake sun -- where it's -20 outside and whipping wind but it's deceptively beautiful or the snow is so bright it blinds you kind of sun -- no, I mean real honest-to-goodness spring/summer sun. Warm and glowing and receptive, welcoming and uplifting, almost motherly as it watches over you, watches you frolick and bask kind of sun.
I do love winter...I love the way everything gets very quiet. There's no other way to describe it but I've always noticed as october turns into november, once all the leaves are gone, once the air starts to shimmer with the promise of snow, everything gets really - silent. As I walk from home to the bust stop, I hear solitary crows or ravens calling to each other forlornly and my heels echo in the vast corridors of residential, suburban, cookie cutter houses with neatly-trimmed front lawns and three mercedes' in the drive, just for the heck of it.
I really fucking hate markham. It is a hole of no end, a deep abyss where everything goes to die -- or settle and have 2.5 kids on 2.5 acres with 2.5 nannies and 2.5 cars with 2.5 pets. It's not only isolation, it's not only the ridiculous smell of farms mixed with urbanization and domesticity, no, it's the way Markham kills absolutely any creative spirit with the posh prevalence of money. Richmond Hill and Thornhill are worse still. No, it's not that I don't appreciate living in an area where the crime rate is virtually zero and the only problem we have is grow-ops but -- why the manicured-ness? Why does every island traffic divider have to have flowers? What is so "quaint" and "charming" about Main Street anyway? Why is First Markham Place and blood silvercity at the richmond hill BUST STOP and Ten Ren/go for tea/east beaver creek the only ACTUAL place to hang out? And why, why, why, in the name of sweet beavers is it that the only thing you can do in markham is shop -- the alternative to which is eat?
My hatred, this sour taste on my tongue that screws up my face almost unrecognizably, extends (or is slowly extending) to Toronto. Sharp intake of breath! I know! Blasphemous! I know! And then...actually, the country. Egads, she is off her rocker, this is treason! But it's true. Walking down Queen Street last night only made me realize this even more. Toronto's downtown is ridiculously small. But even small areas can have hubbub, excitement. Seems nothing has changed though (besides 187287878.3487 condos going up) Bay St. is still Bay St. Bloor is still bloody Bloor and The World's Biggest Bookstore is still another name for Heather Reisman's indie-bookstore eating mega-chain. If it sounds like I'm crying for some authenticity, I'm not. There are plenty of pretty little boutiques, lovely starter businesses, plenty of competition, vintage clothing stores, comic book emporiums and record stores.
But there's no feeling. Crossing the street at the downtown core (whatever your core is -- Harbourfront, Union, Queen's Quay, Bloor, UofTville) at its most busiest time of day doesn't give you this feeling of metropolitan insomnia, big-city inspiration. Mostly, you marvel at the architecture or the pretty day or the funny people but your heart doesn't linger on the city. I find that sad. And it's like that with the whole damn country. Everything is burgeoning, everything is underdeveloped. It's small-scale and that's fine. I guess some people are content with that, drawn to that. Some people love Montreal's art-fashion-club scene.
Maybe I'm expecting too much, comparing it with cities in my head like London and New York, Bombay and Dubai. Maybe the time-factor is too hard to overcome just right now -- these places have been around forever (with the exception of dubai, lol). Or maybe the charm of Toronto, given it's size is just more subjective -- requires a different eye. Or maybe it takes a different kind of person to love it. And those are all fine. Maybe I've been here so long, I need a fresh pair of eyes to like it again. But I didnt fall in love with it instantaneously so tepid, lukewarm like is the only return I can hope for. Bearing that in mind, I think that the time has come -- or is soon approaching -- where malcontent for Markham, for Toronto and overwhelming love for...the world, really, is going to catapult me to action.
For now, I must make do with the promise of summer and endless evenings, crepes (yum), pandas in lattes (yumm-ier), beaches, and reading.
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Somewhere between reading the critiques of Adorno and the changing landscape of Coconino County with How I Met Your Mother running faithfully in the background, it hit me. It was amusing, yes...but these jokes on Canada...actually sort of bothered me. It's not the first time I'm hearing them, of course. And, okay, so the 80s lasted a little while longer here (judging by when I first arrived here...can anyone say pouffy hair?) but that quip about marriages not being really recognized as such? That was kind of sucky. Like how are money really isn't money.
Which is funny, of course, because Canada and the U.S. are on par. So what's there to get worked up about, they're only jokes. Yes. Yes, they're only jokes and they shouldn't matter and usually I snicker alongside with them. Like an outsider - in a very knowing, superior way. I guess the issue here is not so much the joke but the fact that I was bothered by it - which would, of course, signify some sort of identification.
And then it struck me...I am no more the outsider. Of course, I will never wholly say I am Canadian in the way my little brother will be able to - he was born here, and I was not. I've moved around everywhere and he has not. But after experiencing a smorgasboard of cultures, your mind always drifts back to where your roots are. And true as this might be...I think I have finally been in this place long enough to feel...annoyance when someone cracks a joke at our country. Canada, being that country. Mind you, when I think of Canada, I think of Toronto - and Toronto is pretty effing great. But this whole country is completely unexplored by me. And yes, those history lessons were a PAIN: a few provinces and 3 measly territories, no great history, no great global participation, pacifist, American-kissasses, always harping on the great glory of one thing or another (the russian hockey game or the suez canal crisis or that damned battle on vimy ride - my ears BLED).
But then I really thought about it - no bloodshed on our hands. No cultural hegemony. No massacres. No apathetic uninvolvement until we got hit cuz then it was our problem. No masquerading as the supporter in a war and then trying to take over when the war was won. No furthering of global expansion goals on the account of developing nations. No exploitation of resources when countries are at their most vulnerable. No masking all this under the Puritanical, pre-destined, biblical crap. No spouting of separation between state and religion, democracy and secularism when really it's there. No fallacy and failings of an American Dream.
So okay. We might not have had major cultural movements. Our authors may be a snore because all they want to talk about sometimes are the Maritimes. Okay, so we only have one major national highway. But in a rare act of patriotism for a Western country (which is as close to patriotism for a western country I'll ever feel - besides New York, because that is not patriotism, that is love) I'll ever experience, I just want to say:
Our money is awesome and colourful. Our national anthem is great and not steeped in history. We glorify things that happened ages ago to nurse our wounded pride and keep the spirit alive. We don't get that involved and we like to think of ourselves as peacekeepers - heck, some of us even are. We don't have creative movie studios (we really don't have that many Jews...). And marriages here DO count. Love here IS real. Fall and Winter are separate seasons and we're a chartered plane ride away from the Aurora Borealis and land where the sun never sets.
And we DO NOT pronounce it "ABOOT".
Which is funny, of course, because Canada and the U.S. are on par. So what's there to get worked up about, they're only jokes. Yes. Yes, they're only jokes and they shouldn't matter and usually I snicker alongside with them. Like an outsider - in a very knowing, superior way. I guess the issue here is not so much the joke but the fact that I was bothered by it - which would, of course, signify some sort of identification.
And then it struck me...I am no more the outsider. Of course, I will never wholly say I am Canadian in the way my little brother will be able to - he was born here, and I was not. I've moved around everywhere and he has not. But after experiencing a smorgasboard of cultures, your mind always drifts back to where your roots are. And true as this might be...I think I have finally been in this place long enough to feel...annoyance when someone cracks a joke at our country. Canada, being that country. Mind you, when I think of Canada, I think of Toronto - and Toronto is pretty effing great. But this whole country is completely unexplored by me. And yes, those history lessons were a PAIN: a few provinces and 3 measly territories, no great history, no great global participation, pacifist, American-kissasses, always harping on the great glory of one thing or another (the russian hockey game or the suez canal crisis or that damned battle on vimy ride - my ears BLED).
But then I really thought about it - no bloodshed on our hands. No cultural hegemony. No massacres. No apathetic uninvolvement until we got hit cuz then it was our problem. No masquerading as the supporter in a war and then trying to take over when the war was won. No furthering of global expansion goals on the account of developing nations. No exploitation of resources when countries are at their most vulnerable. No masking all this under the Puritanical, pre-destined, biblical crap. No spouting of separation between state and religion, democracy and secularism when really it's there. No fallacy and failings of an American Dream.
So okay. We might not have had major cultural movements. Our authors may be a snore because all they want to talk about sometimes are the Maritimes. Okay, so we only have one major national highway. But in a rare act of patriotism for a Western country (which is as close to patriotism for a western country I'll ever feel - besides New York, because that is not patriotism, that is love) I'll ever experience, I just want to say:
Our money is awesome and colourful. Our national anthem is great and not steeped in history. We glorify things that happened ages ago to nurse our wounded pride and keep the spirit alive. We don't get that involved and we like to think of ourselves as peacekeepers - heck, some of us even are. We don't have creative movie studios (we really don't have that many Jews...). And marriages here DO count. Love here IS real. Fall and Winter are separate seasons and we're a chartered plane ride away from the Aurora Borealis and land where the sun never sets.
And we DO NOT pronounce it "ABOOT".
Sunday, February 1, 2009
(Au)Oral 808s
One of the reasons that I love lofts is their ability for excessive echo. To me, nothing is more sexier than an expensive set of best-that-money-can-buy speakers filling an entire space - every nook and cranny, every converging corner of a space - with beats. With music. Those 808s, the lovesounds, the aural manifesto.
It don't matter whether I'm bleeding Jazz or seeping Soul, if I'm in the mood to dance to pseudo-rave or dance to house. Sometimes it is undefinable and guilty of genre tripping. Every gram of music that hits me, I fall in love with. I would be absolutely no where without it. This is one love affair that will possibly never end - I'm in too deep.
Music puts me in a whole other world; it is an alternate universe where everything is logical and flows so well all at the same time. Some people use music to set a mood. I say allow it to respond to your mood. When everything is quiet in my mind, like a gas within a test tube, my mind fills with an orchestra of my most cherished sounds. I crave better headphones to be able to track and feel every single twist and turn, every shot of instrument. It flows in my veins and fills even my breath with a beat. It challenges my pulse, sedates me and prods me at the same time. I've never met such a flighty temptress as music, nor ever had the pleasure to play second fiddle to a more commanding mistress.
My awareness of music started at a very young age, on the merits of the 90s and a very strange relationship with my father. The double advantage of having two mother tongues, two identities made me open my eyes, to a quality of music that transcended mere words or regions. It began in Bahrain, every Wednesday night Hollywood musicals and Bollywood singsong. It manifested into a fondness that solidfied in Queens, New York. It returned to London, just off of Kilburn and trickled through the streets of Hounslow and Southhall in a garishly obvious manner. Then, it was silent for quite a while, awakening every year in the summer of Manhattan. I do not know when music became about textures, flowing in ribbon-like rivers; when it became about a defining stance, or when it transformed into a heady drug.
When I arrvived in Canada, I became very self-conscious about my music. I began to brand and classify. I began to hide it all away from others. I didn't expect many to understand. At first, I didn't understand the true spectrum of the essential listening. There was so much standard music that I hadn't even heard of.
Aural tradition and I slowly picked up the pieces. I understood the great fashioners of rock, the Kurt Cobain, the Stairways, the Doors. My curiosity piqued at trips to the then-Soho with The Ramones playing out of lofts and that's when I knew. It didn't matter if I was listening to A.R. Rehman or AC/DC. It was all just one in the same language, utterly beautiful in its creation.
I'm very close to my music. I love my iPod not because of its quality or its feature (well maybe a little because of that) but just its sheer ability to set my scene anywhere I go. For me, it is like a piece of me. That sounds conceited but when I lost my first iPod to the wiles of this world, I grieved like I would grieve for a friend. I was so lost without it. I had to have my music. It was my only comfort in a world so forgone. I still believe that the thread of music spells out my life.
So where did this all come from? Well, I was sitting on the bus one too-early morning and amidst all the mediocre music I had put on for the sake of it and out of the blue came 3 by 5. I don't know how, but a day that was doomed spun and turned on its head. And I partially attribute that to music for its strength (though Don Miguel Ruiz may have had something to do with the other part).
Because music is so important to me, like anything that loves too deeply, I let it blind me. I couldn't stay open to music because I had such a severe definition of what music should be and do. I became an elitist and expected music to have and be and do something for me other than just being itself. Without even realizing it, I cast out music that I didn't understand (like Rap) and my extreme dislike for the obvious slaying this genre of music was doing to the very definition of music turned into a gavel for my judgement.
But eventually I realized. Music frees all borders. It brings you closer. It's beauty is that it can fit in a genre and then yet completely not conform. It is malleable and undefinable in its definity and possibly the only definite thing about any sort of music one listens to is that it is all subjective. What I like is a direct reflection of me. What someone else likes is a direct reflection of them. It is a characteristic, a consequence but it should not be used as a judgement.
Today, I absolutely revel in its undefinity. Every track that I have, that I have the privilege of being able to to listen to, is a spiritual journey for me. Sometimes it's sad, sometimes healing, sometimes funky. But always it is music.
Other people fall out of love as they grow older. It becomes a collection of the greatest hits or current UK Top 40s for them. It is a trend. Their lives take over. I don't feel that happen yet, with me. Music matters to much for me not to want to explore and hear more than the Singles chart. I wouldn't have it any other way.
May the era of Aural 808s live on.
It don't matter whether I'm bleeding Jazz or seeping Soul, if I'm in the mood to dance to pseudo-rave or dance to house. Sometimes it is undefinable and guilty of genre tripping. Every gram of music that hits me, I fall in love with. I would be absolutely no where without it. This is one love affair that will possibly never end - I'm in too deep.
Music puts me in a whole other world; it is an alternate universe where everything is logical and flows so well all at the same time. Some people use music to set a mood. I say allow it to respond to your mood. When everything is quiet in my mind, like a gas within a test tube, my mind fills with an orchestra of my most cherished sounds. I crave better headphones to be able to track and feel every single twist and turn, every shot of instrument. It flows in my veins and fills even my breath with a beat. It challenges my pulse, sedates me and prods me at the same time. I've never met such a flighty temptress as music, nor ever had the pleasure to play second fiddle to a more commanding mistress.
My awareness of music started at a very young age, on the merits of the 90s and a very strange relationship with my father. The double advantage of having two mother tongues, two identities made me open my eyes, to a quality of music that transcended mere words or regions. It began in Bahrain, every Wednesday night Hollywood musicals and Bollywood singsong. It manifested into a fondness that solidfied in Queens, New York. It returned to London, just off of Kilburn and trickled through the streets of Hounslow and Southhall in a garishly obvious manner. Then, it was silent for quite a while, awakening every year in the summer of Manhattan. I do not know when music became about textures, flowing in ribbon-like rivers; when it became about a defining stance, or when it transformed into a heady drug.
When I arrvived in Canada, I became very self-conscious about my music. I began to brand and classify. I began to hide it all away from others. I didn't expect many to understand. At first, I didn't understand the true spectrum of the essential listening. There was so much standard music that I hadn't even heard of.
Aural tradition and I slowly picked up the pieces. I understood the great fashioners of rock, the Kurt Cobain, the Stairways, the Doors. My curiosity piqued at trips to the then-Soho with The Ramones playing out of lofts and that's when I knew. It didn't matter if I was listening to A.R. Rehman or AC/DC. It was all just one in the same language, utterly beautiful in its creation.
I'm very close to my music. I love my iPod not because of its quality or its feature (well maybe a little because of that) but just its sheer ability to set my scene anywhere I go. For me, it is like a piece of me. That sounds conceited but when I lost my first iPod to the wiles of this world, I grieved like I would grieve for a friend. I was so lost without it. I had to have my music. It was my only comfort in a world so forgone. I still believe that the thread of music spells out my life.
So where did this all come from? Well, I was sitting on the bus one too-early morning and amidst all the mediocre music I had put on for the sake of it and out of the blue came 3 by 5. I don't know how, but a day that was doomed spun and turned on its head. And I partially attribute that to music for its strength (though Don Miguel Ruiz may have had something to do with the other part).
Because music is so important to me, like anything that loves too deeply, I let it blind me. I couldn't stay open to music because I had such a severe definition of what music should be and do. I became an elitist and expected music to have and be and do something for me other than just being itself. Without even realizing it, I cast out music that I didn't understand (like Rap) and my extreme dislike for the obvious slaying this genre of music was doing to the very definition of music turned into a gavel for my judgement.
But eventually I realized. Music frees all borders. It brings you closer. It's beauty is that it can fit in a genre and then yet completely not conform. It is malleable and undefinable in its definity and possibly the only definite thing about any sort of music one listens to is that it is all subjective. What I like is a direct reflection of me. What someone else likes is a direct reflection of them. It is a characteristic, a consequence but it should not be used as a judgement.
Today, I absolutely revel in its undefinity. Every track that I have, that I have the privilege of being able to to listen to, is a spiritual journey for me. Sometimes it's sad, sometimes healing, sometimes funky. But always it is music.
Other people fall out of love as they grow older. It becomes a collection of the greatest hits or current UK Top 40s for them. It is a trend. Their lives take over. I don't feel that happen yet, with me. Music matters to much for me not to want to explore and hear more than the Singles chart. I wouldn't have it any other way.
May the era of Aural 808s live on.
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