Chapter 7: Every opportunity is bogus

It's been an interesting week for words.

I've been thinking about how Canadians have a way with words. Some of the best lyricists of our time are Canadian, Chad Kroeger notwithstanding, although maybe I'm biased. We always seem to be striving to reconcile awkwardness with coolness. Sloan, Weakerthans, Joel Plaskett, Tragically Hip, the folks in Metric and Stars all seem to have a way about them to say exactly what they want, in very precise terms. Matthew Good, Tegan and Sara. Sam Roberts. Canadian hip hop is flavoured very distinctly from its American cousin. k-os.

This is not new, per se, nor absolute. While I wouldn't say The Guess Who, the first Canadian rock band to have any significant success on a world level, wasn't known for their lyrical acumen, no, there's a certain level of sophistication to some of their tunes. Then there's Rush, who gets away with saying things in a way no human being would ever communicate just because they're Rush. Then there's Leonard Cohen, who has been known to come up with a nifty line or two. The royalties from Hallelujah alone must be staggering.

We're great at alternative music, maybe because we're an alternative country (maybe we are.) We have that attitude in general. We don't do mainstream well. we do self-satire, self-effacement, anything to avoid boasting about ourselves or insisting ourselves on the rest of the world. Few countries have given the world so much, yet remain so enigmatic. Maybe Japan. Japan's given the world a lot more than we have, but they also export their own culture more obviously than we do.

Just trying to put things in order, get into a headspace before writing a pretty major paper. The problem with life is that it doesn't often leave much time for living. Much less for writing about it.

Monday night - going back to even my last post - something weird happened. Two girls enter the store. Not unusual in and of itself. When I have nothing better to do, I become more or less a professional people-watcher. Tall girl and short girl. Tall girl looks kinda spacey. Short girl is dressed like a gangsta, with appropriate shorts, hoodie, hat. I think for a second maybe she wasn't a girl at all, but her voice was distinctly feminine. So there's mind-body disconnect. Gangsta girl holds up a Marilyn Manson book and says to spacey girl, "Would you like me if I looked like this?" although it may have been "still like me." So now I think some kind of lesbian thing, which is fine, if true, I don't judge. So the spacey girl gets to my till, shows herself as a considerable Twilight fan, then says I look familiar. She correctly guesses my grade school, and I scrunch my brow, because she seriously does not look familiar, and I have a good memory for names and faces. She says which teacher she had in grade 8, which was the same teacher as mine. Now I start to see what's going on, she must've graduated the year after me, but she swears she graduated 2001. Well, people get mixed up sometimes. I did say she was spacey looking.

I ran into my American Lit prof on the subway the other day, which was weird. She's one of the few profs who has ever bothered to learn my name. I take it as a given that I don't get, nor particularly feel the desire for, much face time with profs, so I would say the lack of this isn't something I feel bad about, but I also like it when it happens. Reibetanz knew my name for obvious reasons. Rayter eventually got to know my name, from taking attendance and seeing me in the same spot all the time, and because he had the same first name. Anyway. I waved and nodded politely in her general direction, because it would've been impossible to honestly ignore her. But I didn't talk to her, because I would have felt obligated to talk about class, when I had really nothing to say (I was not much enjoying the then-current book.) The ride also took longer than it ought to have, owing to a stalled train. She was signing some kind of greeting card, I browsed a play I should have already finished reading, kind of as a show that yes, I am sometimes a serious student outside class.

Friday night, I attempted to get a jump on my Music paper by going down to the Moonshine cafe and speaking to the owner, although it felt like I came off as an ambush. He did give me his card, though. It was very chill. I have some ideas what I can write, although how good it'll be for the project I couldn't say.

And now, I am off to continue collecting my thoughts and then try to write this paper. Hmp.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto