Drowsy.

These part time friends with their part time jobs are a fulltime headache in my double time world.

Q&A

And I've got this aversion about names and exes. I can't date someone who has the same name of someone I used to date. "What's in a name?" I know, I know. A rose would still smell as sweet if it were not called a rose. Or should I say, a corpse would still smell as pungent if it were not called a corpse.

But still, I can't do it, even though I have thought of the benefits it would bring. Observe:

1) Not calling the wrong name out during sex
2)You would be able to answer "yes" to the question "so are you and (insert same name here) still dating?" And upon hearing the answer you can revel in the dramatic irony.
3)You can regift anything you have which has been engraved with your initials or names.

Alright, that list is exhausted. Anyway, I just don't do it. Any more questions?

Dramatic Irony

It wasn't about the music.

Found poetry (ttc edition)

Spring Forward, Fall Back. Connect.

Be Everywhere.

You are not alone.

>>

Maybe you don't see it in me.

Manson

"Christianity has given us an image of death and sexuality that we have based our culture around. A half-naked dead man hangs in most homes and around our necks, and we have just taken that for granted all our lives. Is it a symbol of hope or hopelessness?"

Sign Language

You are still one of my favourite lyricists.

I appreciate your use of rhetorical devices, now and then.

A short story I wrote. It is still untitled.

1
Laying on the sterile mattress I feel that this is all that is left for me. Walls painted in colours which are supposed to be soothing. Lapis blue, seafoam green, lavender. All I see is blood red oozing from the unsealed cracks of this ceiling. The Woman beside me is gurgling, gurgling, gurgling. I take more pills that scratch their way down my throat. It’s real, tangible, a feeling that I have grown accustomed to. ______ and ______ have stopped visiting. It’s okay. I didn’t like their hands on my shoulder. Weighing me down, down, down, down. If this bed could sink any further I would be in hell already. The last thing I have is my mind but it’s failing me. You fail me. My reference wasn't obscure enough. I’m telling you these things you already know and when you read this you will feel sorry, so sorry. And will you put this book on a dusty shelf where nobody would ever check for it? That’s what everything else is. A book is someone’s dying words. They want to be remembered, they want to live on. We all just want to be remembered for being greater than we ever were.




2
Some days are better than others. Today they changed the artifical tree for a potted plant. It will soon dry up like me. Placed on the edge of my table, I push it over. I want to see it crumble. Like Ghiza and Stonehenge, it is only great because it has survived. They are remarkable for simply existing, still. We all want to be remembered. I can’t remember the book where I read that. I know I read it somewhere. “I read somewhere.” As if that gives you any validation. Talking out of our asses we just want to be remembered. The scholars we read are rolling over in laughter in their graves. Being revered, deifyied, even, for something they became only in death. Get over it.



3
Last day in this pit. They said they would cut the cord if I didn’t come back. I’m back, you know…I never left. I just don’t want to speak anymore. You all failed me, and I would be failing myself if I fought for it. What’s so precious about all this anyway? It’s always raining, or when it’s not raining it rained yesterday, or it’s going to rain tomorrow. What’s so miraculous about it? You come out, scream, don’t know where you are. When you leave it’s the same thing. Come out, scream, don’t know where you are.



4
Where is ____?
Where is ________?
With _______?
They are blanks to me. I don’t want to fill them in. Why must blanks always be filled in? Can’t you just be damned satisfied with not knowing? That’s why you have to read about it. Be your own expert, be your own technocrat. Write your own eulogy. Your death will sell you out.



5
My biggest Fear is not dying on these sheets, but being remembered as something greater than I was. My biggest Fear is not dying on these sheets but dying as someone I never was.

Blast from the Past

I wrote the following editorial in 2007, when I was an editor at McMaster University's arts & entertainment magazine, Andy. It seemed fitting to dig this up and post it...

_______________________________________________________________________________________


The internet has changed life as we know it. Everything is so much more accessible than it used to be, from finding new music, to meeting new people, to buying virtually anything you want from anywhere you want.
In a way, the Internet is at the forefront of globalization, as it seems to be making our world smaller and smaller (at least for those who are privileged enough to have it). But apart from how the internet is changing our global context, it is changing the way in which we seek information. In the past few years, blogs have started to consume our souls.
Perhaps most noticeable in the young adult age demographic, it seems like everyone I know has a blog, or at least wants to start one but doesn’t want to be following what has become an online trend. To keep in line with my previous editorials, I usually need to be ranting or complaining about something, so here are some of my favourite reasons to hate your blog. First reason—it makes anyone an expert, and if you have read anything by Theodore Roszak, you will understand why the term “expert” makes me feel completely unsettled. Blogs are entirely unregulated, and just because you claim to be the “King of Vinyl” doesn’t mean you know shit about the value or importance of records.
Even worse are the gossip bloggers, who strangely enough want to be experts about things that have absolutely no relevance to your life. Do you really care if Lindsay Lohan is a lesbian? I hope not, but even if you do, are you really going to trust what someone who has never even met her has to say. I just feel that so many blogs reek of desperation and loneliness.
Second reason that blogs suck is that it is entirely killing off the pen to paper means of writing. Remember when you had a real journal, and not a “live” one? I still own my Barbie diary, fully equipped with a padlock and key, and I only wish I still had the time and care to update a journal where I could physically write down my thoughts. To many people, an online journal is more convienant—especially if you are at a computer quite often, but I think that it is beneficial to take your eyes away from the glowing light of your screen after eight hours of being glued to it. Oh, and just so I cover all my bases, if you’re concerned about the “waste” of paper, then go ahead and buy a journal made of recycled paper.
The next gripe I hold is when people use their blogs as shameless self promotion. Your blog should not be your “company” website, because like I mentioned before, blogs can not be taken as credible sites. It’s one thing if you use your blog for fun or to show your friends something funny, but please stop plugging your URL every chance you get. If you are really writing a blog for yourself, then should you really care how many people are lurking it? It’s bad enough having Facebook and Myspace as personal advertisements of the self you want to portray, so do we really need another site that is doing the exact same thing?
Lastly, blogs suck because I can’t escape them. I hate them because by the default of simply having one too, I am adhering to all the things that I just said I hated. The more people who get them, the more I wonder why we are all so gravitated towards them. Somehow, I feel like everyone wants to be famous for something. Whether or not we admit it, everyone wants people to know their name.
If you strip down everything about a personal blog, then isn’t it just another way of letting people get to know you? Maybe we are all just trying to convince ourselves that we know who we really are.
Sarah El-Hamzawi

Literature Appreciation: Incest in the English Novel

The taboo of incest in the physical, emotional, and moral senses, especially in father-daughter and brother-sister relationships, was a familiar and persistent theme in literature during the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early-twentieth centuries, and consequently has been a popular focus of modern critical discussion. From the inadvertent marriage of a brother and sister in Daniel Defoe's "Moll Flanders," to the sexually charged intrafamilial relationships in Jane Austen's "Mansfield Park", a remarkable number of English novels predicate their plots on the tabooed possibility of incest. The complex human reaction to incest and its prohibition have taken a central position in psychological and sociological scholarship.

Due to its existence in novels, anthropologists and psychologists focused heavily on the study of incest in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Considered a prohibited act by most Victorians, it entered the spotlight when Sigmund Freud spoke of sexual repression, and the subconscious playing a central role in human psychological growth and development. To Freud, our inner, sexual drives were our primary motivations; unsurprisingly, this extends to themes within literature.



While the incest theme dates back to classical literature, there is a lack of agreement among sociologists and anthropologists regarding the incest taboo and its origins. This has led many scholars to believe that the taboo derives not from some inherent moral code, but from our self-imposed need to separate ourselves from the animal world where all sexual activity is indeterminate. The origin of the word “incest,” which means incestum or “unchaste” in Latin, supports this interpretation. Incest has been treated as both a taboo and a special privilege in different eras.



The Adam and Eve story, arguably the world's first account of fictional literature, posits incest as the very foundation of humankind and reproduction. Furthermore, the incest taboo is a representation of our most fundamental attempt at social order. According to this theory, the family unit is the most basic representation of social order. Incest represents a serious violation of that order and is therefore disruptive or "animalistic."



What is consistent between life and literature, however, is that the most common incestuous relationship occurs between fathers and daughters. Critics also agree that most literature of incest presents a patriarchal culture, where feminine desire for masculine approval is both cultivated and promoted. With the development of Freudian analysis in the early twentieth-century, discussion of incest and its emotional, moral impetus was brought out in the open. The fundamental components of psychoanalytic literary criticism were in place and all literature could now be analyzed in light of incestuous relationships, real or fictional.

Freud aside, there is no denying of the theme of incest in the English novel. That said, there is certainly a lack of discourse surrounding it. If we push aside our sense of discomfort, there is a rich topic to be explored in terms of power relations, gendered oppression, and basic socialization. After all, an exploration of literature is ultimately a search for a deeper understanding of ourselves.

S.


Suggested Readings:

“The Dumb Virgin” by Aphra Behn
“The Force of Nature” by Eliza Haywood
“Burney Criticism: Family Romance, Psychobiography, and Social History” by Julia Epstein
"The Incest Theme in Literature and Legend:Fundamentals of a Psychology of Literary Creation" by Otto Rank

Lasts.

It is my last night in this apartment. It's interesting how inanimate objects hold such weight, emotion, and experience within their fibres.

I don't know whether I would say it was a good year here, or a bad one. All I can say is that it was eventful. This was my first home living on my own, out of school. Sure, it was humble, but I should be proud that I could do that.

I would never have imagined that in this year alone, I would have been in love, been heart broken, worked a shitty retail job, worked at a private school, strengthened beautiful friendships, cut out toxic ones, survived what I feltto be a quarter life crisis, and ultimately, landed my dream job.

I can literally FEEL the changes happening in my life. I have said this to some people, and not gotten the response I wanted. Perhaps they have never felt this way.

I can feel my pulse quickening when I wonder what changes will happen next year in my lovely new place.

I am happy. I have gained a sense of perspective that I needed, and I am eager to keep becoming wiser and more experienced.

On that note, goodnight.

I need someone to put this weight on.

I'm just saying you can do better. Tell me have you heard that lately?

Affects.

There isn't anything more beautiful in life than having a direct, positive impact on another person's life.

Can't you see the one consistency in my intentions?

It is surprise if you weren't counting on it.

You make me feel good about myself, and I keep trying to add another clause, but let's just leave it at that for now.

Literature Appreciation: Poe and the Gothic Genre

So after trying to find someone willing to have conversations with me about literature (disregarding the care that I look utterly pretentious), I realized...nobody gives a shit.

That said, I realized that I have a blog which I can write whatever the hell I want and nobody can be annoyed by it, and I won't even look (too) much like an anti-social nerd.

I would like to do a series where I can discuss genres, authors, and major literary works that have had an impact on me in some way. As usual, I will generally begin with one idea, but by the end of the post it will take a much broader direction. Here goes my first:


Edgar Allan Poe- I can't even begin to sing my praises to this man as a writer. His talent was beyond belief, and no other writer could never come close to what he has done for Gothic revival. I would like to identify Poe as the one who can perhaps have the best success converting people to the genre.



Suspense, darkness, winding staircases, diseases of the mind, small spaces...gothic literature has such a strict formula, that compared to other genres, has stayed remarkably intact. I think it is the balance of horror and romance. Gothic literature focuses on emotions we can all identify with, and hooks us with this sense of relatability. Once we become invested, that is where the author can have fun with the setting, theme, and motifs. There is less of a focus on the character, and more of a focus on the atmosphere, and the realization that darkness does exist, not only within our society, but within ourselves. Gothic depictions of churches were perhaps the first real creative criticms of the horror of Catholicism, and there was an emergence of the key characters of monks, nuns, and the devil himself. Writers capitalized on our fears of the unknown, and the spiritual nature of the post Enlightenment era. People were tired of rationalization and logic, and just wanted to hear stories that would get their hearts racing, if only a little. Most popular of the Gothic authors was arguably Poe; however, I would also like to make mention of the female Gothic with my personal favourites being Ann Radcliffe and Emily Bronte, who had a focus on women losing what little sensibilities they had, which was of course a social fear held by both men and women

In more modern times, we can see elements of the Gothic genre quite easily. Horror films are one of the most safe bets for a filmmaker to guarantee a core audience, and we still see the same use of pathetic fallacy, the supernatural, and even the unmistakable architecture with pointed towers, thin windows, and dark, grey exteriors. I think gothic fiction today has a slight element of cheesiness to it, perhaps because the genre is unwilling to bend.

Horror films today are remarkably similar to horror films made over 50 years ago, if we really analyze them in terms of the elements of fiction (with the exception of the post-modern and torture porn horror genres). Horror plots are still centred around the intrusion of an evil, unexplainable force, commonly of the supernatural origin. Gothic themes or elements often prevalent in typical horror films include ghosts, mental torture, ancient curses, satanism, and haunted houses.





When I look back at the texts that have left a strong visual impact on me, they all have elements of the gothic genre. From favourite novels like Mary Shelley'sFrankenstein or Bram Stoker's Dracula, to 90's movies like The Crow and The Craft, I have a seamless connection between gothic fiction and horror.





The Gothic genre is truly love or hate. Perhaps you will see its relevance and purpose, or perhaps you will think it is simply a result of an over-active imagination. Regardless, I think it is important that we inform ourselves about the art and culture that surrounds us.

If you have interest in the genre, or would like to get into it, here are a couple of starting points:

Selected Short Stories by Edgar Allan Poe

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

The Monk by Matthew Lewis

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

Without you,

I could not do this.

You never get frustrated with me.

You simply tell me I will make it out of here with all limbs intact.

Perspective.

Hey cheekbones and eyes,

I've been gone three weeks
now I'm a mess
my stomach's on strike
and it's been three weeks
since my last breath

well I don't know why I'm here
cause I'm not in need of attention
and I'm not seventeen
and I don't believe
in that which I can't see

well I swear
if I make it home with my mind and some skin on my bones
I'll be the first one to throw up
these car keys and this cell phone
so I can't leave or talk to anyone
and this stupid wristwatch
so I'm unaware of the time that I've lost


I'm trying to be that which I'm not

Take Care of Yourself

Don't take what I say to bed with you
and don't get used to that which I do, or you'll only feel used in the end.
Don't weigh your heavy head with those words that I haven't said.
Don't confuse that which I don't do with what will be done in time.

You've gotta wise up, for Christ's sake take care of yourself.
Cause a dirty boy don't make clean breaks.
Oh Sarah, if there's something that you want from me,
just ask, you might receive.

I'm gonna take some time to sift through this conflicted time
and figure out why I can't sleep.
Oh my greed and my guilt have surely gotten the best of me.

You've gotta wise up, get out of this mess while you can,
cause a dirty boy like me don't fight clean.

Oh Sarah, if there's something that you want to do with me,
just ask, cause I'm up for anything.

Cool Hunters: Series Piece: Part I

"Cool" is a self-conscious post-modern phenomenon. To be it, you must be aware of it, yet at the same time, in a perpetual state of denial. The word itself is arbitrary, with no meaning besides a constant appropriation, and an existence without stagnation. You cannot capture it and own it, but rather, keep up with it at a jogging pace. Those who sprint, burn out...which leads to being dubbed a drop-out, a sell-out, a failure of cool. Or worse, cool itself may collapse, and move from subversiveness to mainstream. This of course, is inevitable. All counter-cultures will eventually be enveloped by popular culture, allowing their deaths to look like suicide.

This process of cultural appropriation kills the subculture and reduces it to merely a representation of the real. A Black Flag shirt found at Hot Topic, a CBGBs shirt sold at West 49--when this happens, a subculture dissipates, then is reborn again, as its members adopt new styles that appear alien to mainstream society.

Cool Hunters: Series Piece: Prologue

Homer: So, I realized that being with my family is more important
than being cool.
Bart: Dad, what you just said was powerfully uncool.
Homer: You know what the song says: "It's hip to be square."
Lisa: That song is so lame.
Homer: So lame that it's... cool?
Bart+Lisa: No.
Marge: Am I cool, kids?
Bart+Lisa: No.
Marge: Good. I'm glad. And that's what makes me cool, not caring,
right?
Bart+Lisa: No.
Marge: Well, how the hell do you be cool? I feel like we've tried
everything here.
Homer: Wait, Marge. Maybe if you're truly cool, you don't need to
be told you're cool.
Bart: Well, sure you do.
Lisa: How else would you know?

Deceit.

A rat robed in a king's clothing, is still just a rat.

Local anesthetic

It's remarkable.
Turning back the clock while you are still physically aging.
Lost the charm, but regaining the reputation.

Defying rationale, and devoid of attachment. I was like that too. I have changed more than my surroundings have, and I barely recognize my hometown when I pull in.


It's happening in me. I am scared, but letting it happen. I look at those years, and those faces and it is like a work of fiction I have longed to read. I have started documenting it, but how can you record pastiche?

My paradigm is one that left some scars, but they have all formed a trail that I would be willing to show. I would uncover it. I would open my chest like a book and let you go through it, asking questions as you go.

I don't need a support. I want a person who will fly (and fall out of the sky) with me.

But will it hurt

if you see it happen?

Pretty Girls

She tells me she will die young.

I tell her all beautiful women have the same premonition. Brevity is the stamp of beauty, sealing it in the mouths of men.


All the men who see her want to live their wrecked lives forever.

Scramble for Africa.

Cartier, Thomson, and Columbus are all iconified for being founding fathers; however, the idea of discovery has always been problematic for me.

If discovery means finding, why is it that they get the credit for places that have already been inhabitated, or rather, civilized. Now, there's the discrepency. What do we define as civilized? The word's multiple meanings gives way to the discussion I would like to have. Is one only civilized if they are white, Christian men? History would say yes. Reason would say no.

But we credit the wrong people for nearly every discovery. Even if we become educated later, there is still a Columbus day...not a Native American Day (note: I realize that the politically correct term is Aboriginal...at least the last time I was told).

But why is something only discovered once the white man has found it?

Even applying it to modern society, things are only discovered by popular culture once they are appropriated by white, rich men. Whether it be music, fashion, food, or other aspects of culture, we give little accredation to origin, and instead give praise to a diluted, less authentic version of the real. It is the simulacrum. A representation or version of something real. It is an illusion that we maintain.


In a way, I am jealous of men like David Livingstone. Celebrated and cherished for convincing the world that his way of living was the only of living, discovering something that already existed, and having no self-actualization up until death.

In a place where we only say goodbye.

Love is watching someone die.


So who's going to watch you die?

Man and Wife, The Latter (Damaged Goods)

I'm growing out my hair, like it was when I was single
It was longer than I have known you
I had no money then, I had no worries then at all
With such a high standard of living I just feel like I am dying
I would start an argument but you can barely even talk

There is always good reason for your silence
You had to take care of some business
So I fix your plate and I stay out of the way

Will you stay like that forever right in front of your computer?
You'll look up one day but you won't recognize me

So you want to change, you read a letter from a lawyer
Want to take me out to dinner
You want to bury me under a mound of shopping bags
Like it would really make a difference, or make up for your disinterest
I'm a bill you pay, I'm a contract you can't break.

And it's like I'm underwater, or on an endless escalator
I just go up and up, but I don't ever reach the top.
And it reads just like the Bible
Twenty centuries of scandal
It all depends on how you interpret it.

The word is love, the word is loss, the words are damaged goods
That's what I am. A lifetime gets chalked up to an experience
Coincidence, we are chained to the events, that's it.

In case you didn't know.

I rarely write narratives anymore. I take on a character who I will forever identify with, but she is not me.

No more sad songs.

Life is far to short to fill it with resentment. I am so thankful for every privilege I have, and I don't deny the ones I have been given. Things are so much clearer when you move the curtain.

Project.

"Industry and utility are the angels of death who, with fiery swords, prevent man's return to Paradise. . . . And in all parts of the world, it is the right to idleness that distinguishes the superior from the inferior classes. It is the intrinsic principle of aristocracy."


The flaneur's tendency to observe is what sets him apart. Being juxtaposed between distance and involvement. He is a part of it, although he steps aside to critique. He loathes, he loves, he is not sure whether he is aroused or disgusted by the sites around him. Today, the flaneur is not a cosmopolitan man from Paris. He is the blogger, the photographer, the graphic designer, advertiser, the DJ, the promoter, the musician, the guy on Twitter in the coffee shop. He is an armed version of the solitary walker reconnoitering, stalking, sampling the city. He is the voyeuristic stroller who discovers the city as a landscape of extremes. Despite the destruction around him, he chooses to view urbanity as picturesque.

We don't identify with what we don't know, but we are this. At least, this is what I am. I embrace self exaltation. I don't know what I am doing with it, but I know that I am doing it.

That's why I started this, after all.

Repeat.

Monday, December 29, 2008
Jupiter.

And as I sit here with an open suitcase in front of me I think about the things I choose to keep with me. The memories don't ever leave me. They haunt me like a skeleton in my closet that I push aside everytime I go in. I still have that bottle of red wine that we finished. Our lips were stained crimson, and we felt so warm. We would watch movies and liken the people we knew to the fictional characters. Nobody was ever real to us, just hearts and blood. I made you smoke your cigarettes in my shower because I didn't want the basement to smell like nicotine and tar. I'm sorry.

I remember so many parking lots and you never knew how beautiful you truly were. You never listened to me.

I don't know if they cared about you. I still get angry when I think about all those nights and that day.

So many faces I knew. I knew they didn't know. I knew they didn't feel anything inside. Their tears were not for the right reasons. He stood at the back so your mom wouldn't see him.

I wish I could have saved your heart.

Free right.

"Say it. Really, just get those words to come out of your mouth. My eyes are burning, my throat is dry,my lips are chapped, and I am done with wasting my thoughts on you."

"Fine."

"Go on...just get it over with"

"Forever is such an unpleasant word."

"Good. Now was that so damn hard? You remember that. Don't use those profanities around me again."

With my intentions at my best

Minutes > Me.

Like John Cusack and pop punk.

When life gives ya lemons

Fingers crossed.

I just want to show what I know.

Dead man, were you ever alive?

And I believe there is something here that was worth the weight. But I cannot love you. No, I cannot love you...no mistakes.

Admiration and Inspiration

"For the record, I have a very attractive girlfriend. She has a strong set of morals, she is well educated, and she thinks on a higher level than Halloween slut enablers could ever aspire to. Even if she were obese and monstrously deformed, I’d still choose someone like her over one of these girls."

Allusion

We love what you love. We take what you need. I have never allowed myself to think about what I want, but my lungs always know the right time to breathe.

I look at my body and feel like a voyeur. This is a place for me too, right? My skin is surprisingly unmarked by these years, and I wonder when it will show? I have more to give, I have more to take.


I would drink the poison for you. Now tell me, would you stab yourself in the heart before even checking my pulse?

Verbatim.

"They say people can't change, but I want you to prove them wrong everyday."

Amputate.

It does not hurt too much to have your arms broken off. Watch me fly and cut this string.

The silence of my bedroom is what I will come home to after I live each day for myself.

I have revolutionary thoughts but no speaker. I have an audience but no podium. I have a heart but no arteries. These ideals stay idle.
These idols stay idle.

Kiss her goodbye and stab her in the back when she turns away.