the summer situation

I realize I haven't been posting much, and it's not for lack of free time. It has more to do with my enthusiasm, my energy; but mostly it's just boredom.

I've been applying for jobs here in Edmonton for several months, and I've come away with a month of employment (starting in July). Perhaps all the cover letter writing, resume adjustments, and scrolling through the job listings has taken its toll on my spirits. I've also been waiting to hear back from my supervisor about my first draft of my thesis for several months now. She hasn't given me much to go on besides empty encouragement. So there you have it. I'm feeling a bit unproductive. Perhaps things would be different if I weren't going back to school in September and didn't need to make a lot of money in a hurry.

That's right. School. More of it. But not on the track I've been heading down for the last few years.

I'm veering off course to work towards a diploma in design and illustration. There are plenty of reasons behind my decision to do this. The first and foremost is that the program (which balances fine arts and digital media) is as close as I can find to the kind of training I want. I'm also looking forward to doing creative work that has more tangible results than reading and writing. The other main reason is also the most pragmatic, as well as the most painful to admit: I need a job. Hopefully a fulfilling one. And where the academic route is riddled with discouraging news about the job market and the usual paranoia over the state of the humanities (and debates over the usefulness of professional degrees in general), design seems like a pretty sure thing; at least, if I do end up getting a PhD, I'll be able to depend on another source of income while I look for a job.

But before I begin my new program in September, I still have a thesis to defend, a job contract to fill, friends to visit, and too many weddings to attend. That's the summer situation, so far.

Language and immersion in French Canada

Sadly, bi-lingualism is one of Canada's least convincing national myths.  Can you really blame me for being cynical, having come to Quebec from Alberta, Canada's bastion of Western interests (replete with it's own weird separatist fantasies)?

French immersion in Quebec is particularly embarrassing for those of us who've been taught French as a second language for the better part of our young lives (I was in French classes from Grade 4 until Grade 11--that's seven years!) and come away without the ability to communicate. One significant problem with the French education I received in elementary/secondary school is that there was no attention given to phonetics; oral communication in general was little more than an afterthought. This makes sense, given the fact that French is rarely spoken outside of Quebec, and, as with all skills, practice is everything.



It's been eight years since I've taken a French class, so not only was I way out of practice when I began this immersion program, I had forgotten almost all of the little vocabulary I was taught in school. In Quebec, I felt like I was actually learning something. There was a lot of review, but review was what I needed, especially because my mindset was completely different this time around. I suppose that's one of the major differences between the immersion experience and the mandatory language classes I remember hating in elementary school. With this new sense of urgency, several things became clear to me.



First, and most obviously, context is crucial. To an Anglophone like me, spoken French seems like its riddled with homonyms. Not only that: French is spoken with incredibly fluidity. It's often hard to know where one word stops and another begins.   This was true for my own comprehension but also in my efforts to communicate. There were many occasions where I put forward what I thought was a clear phrase--grammatically correct, and so on--and it turned out I had said something I hadn't intended.

Second, speech is a bodily practice. You'd think that after taking French through most of elementary/secondary school, I'd at least be able to pronounce things properly, but there are plenty of words and phrases that are next to impossible for native English speakers to say. It also works from the other side: all the French people I met had just as much difficulty with common English words (a hard "H" is next to impossible). While English is riddled with harsh-sounding consonants, with stops and starts, French strings soft vowel sounds together in unworkable combinations. In both cases, it really tires out your mouth; which, of course, has a lot to do with where the tongue is positioned and which muscles have been conditioned by everyday speech. 



There are elementary schools in Western Canada that offer programs in French immersion--and had the option been available to me, I would have been glad for it--but until our public schools treat second language classes like the invaluable resources for life that they are (and this means hiring French teachers who can actually speak French), we'll have to rely on programs like Explore.

For those hot summer nights...

Summer Anthems 2011

I've recently begun a French immersion program in Quebec City, and can actually feel my aptitude for English dwindling as I write this. Processing every word twice can be pretty exhausting, especially for monolingual anglophones from the prairies. That being said, it's only my first week, and I've already fallen in love with the city. It definitely lives up to the hype.

Below, you'll find two gorgeous videos with music to match. At this point in the summer, you can't go wrong with psychedelic chamber-pop.






And, finally, an electro-pop anthem for all the clubbers out there:

Pictureplane - "Real is a Feeling"

Sled Island recap

I've spent the last five days in Calgary listening to live music, complaining about scenesters, and staying up well past my bedtime. The Sled Island music and arts festival boasts over 200 artists hosted by twenty-odd venues scattered throughout downtown Calgary.

As with most large-scale festivals, scheduling conflicts are inevitable, so you've got to choose your venues carefully. I was sad to miss the lo-fi prestige of Thee Oh Sees and Times New Viking, as well as Kurt Vile's nostagia trip through the sixties, and pretty devastated to miss an unadvertised performance by Purity Ring (a little-known group from Edmonton that has only released two songs, each of which are among my favourite tracks of the year).

For every amazing performance there was a band that turned my stomach. For me, the worst of these were Crocodiles (a band I was excited to see) and the Dandy Warhols (a band I stopped caring about ages ago). The same level of self-aware coolness was common to both. Perhaps I saw Crocodiles at the wrong point in the evening, but for a group of musicians so wholly infatuated with themselves, I expected some musical inventiveness or some acknowledgment of the crowd that was lapping up their lacklustre homage to the Jesus and Mary Chain. Pretense is a given at festivals like this, but intoxicated crowds aren't going to let you off the hook for merely producing cool-sounding drivel (then again, I can't see how else anyone can enjoy the Dandy Warhols). 

On a different note, here's a sampling of some of the outstanding artists I got to see perform.

Blonde Redhead were hit and miss. I consider myself a relatively devoted fan, but I can't say I was totally impressed with their show. It was clear from the start that they were seasoned professionals with loads of talent, but their setlist kept losing momentum. Their old material shone but their most recent songs, especially from the unsuccessful Penny Sparkle didn't translate well into a live setting. 
"23"


Wild Flag were one of the festival's most pleasant surprises. Despite being comprised of legendary rock 'n roll babes from the nineties (members of Sleater-Kinney, Helium, and the Minders), they played every show like it was their first: unlike dismally trendy hipster acts (Crocodiles, for instance), the girls in Wild Flag had no sense of entitlement. Every song was a struggle to win over the audience.
"Glass Tambourine"


I wasn't sure what to expect with Twin Shadow, but they managed to transform the disco stylings of their studio album into successful arena rock.
"Castles in the Snow"


Parts & Labor, another great band I came into the festival knowing very little about, put on a noisy, high energy show that I had to cut short. Three songs in, I could see they were just getting started and I was sad to go. Scheduling, dammit!
"Fractured Skies"


Chad Vangaalen, as always, did not disappoint. He seemed characteristically awkward and uncomfortable on stage, which I wasn't expecting since he was playing for a hometown audience. Then again, it's that social anxiety that makes his stage banter so entertaining. His set was made up mostly of new material from the reverb-heavy Diaper Island, and I think the songs actually grew on me as I saw them being performed.
"Freedom for a Policeman"


Of Montreal were as advertised. Kevin Barnes doesn't have the class of David Bowie, but he's probably the closest thing our generation has to the thin white duke. I was thankful for a strong showing of material from Hissing Fauna, are you the Destroyer?, which I still consider their best to date. There were about half a dozen extras on stage during a given song, each one dressed like a flamboyant Mexican wrestler; and they provided the crowd with balloons, streamers, and all the libido they could handle.
"Coquet Coquette"

Behold!

Images of the spray booth I helped build a couple weeks back. This sleek, modern design has been brought to you by Global Finishing Solutions Inc., a massive corporation that's only half as scary as its name suggests. No doubt the Winkler labourers will feel inspired when they roll in to work.

Summer at a glance

At the end of the winter semester, I was treacherously close to returning to my old summer job: that perilous occupation known as treeplanting. My summer schedule was looking rather irregular and, with all the commuting I knew I'd be doing--back and forth between Manitoba and Alberta--I realized it would be hard to find a job for the summer. Instead of treeplanting, I've spent the last two weeks working at a construction-type job in my hometown. It wasn't hell, but given the fact that I had little to no down-time, it was incredibly draining. Even with the holiday this past week, I ended up at over a hundred hours. Waking up at 6am and driving home after 10pm was pretty typical. My longest day was 15 hours, but there were occasional lulls in which we stood around and ate peanuts (we didn't actually take breaks--although I got a half hour for lunch at 3pm). Our project consisted of building a massive steel booth to be used for painting farming machinery. It was the perfect job for my wild summer schedule (short!), it gave me a taste of the sort of manual labour I'd been dreaming about throughout last semester, and it provided me a chance to redeem myself (my last construction job didn't go so well); not only that, I have now made an exceptional contribution to Winkler's booming economy. Let's just say, Winkler's industrial sector makes for a pretty awkward bike ride.

I'll be spending the rest of the summer months working on my French (off to Laval in Quebec City for July), doing research preparation for my thesis (I'm visiting the Newberry Library in Chicago, which is home to a fantastic John Milton collection), and attending weddings (it seems that I'm running out of single friends).

Originally, I wanted to time my trip to Chicago so that it would coincide with the Pitchfork Music Festival. Although this didn't work out, there are so many festivals in the city over the summer, I should be able to make one of them work. For a $5.00 donation, I can attend the Green Music Fest in late June and see Yo La Tengo, the Thermals, and Les Savy Fav.

I've also assembled a list of preliminary readings that should get me in the right headspace for the next school year. Most of them offer accounts of political and religious turmoil in England during the latter half of the of seventeenth century. In particular, I'm interested in the work of the celebrated (but highly contested) Marxist historian, Christopher Hill. Part of my task for the summer is to position Milton's writing not only in relation to the political philosophies of his time (namely, those of Hobbes and Locke), but in relation to emerging groups of religious radicals and the consolidation of an English middle-class.

a soundtrack for the summer

I'd be lying if I said I had a great summer. There were certainly some great moments, but my departure from Winnipeg cast a large shadow over much of it. So, here I am in a new city with a new vocation and a familiar climate. I'm still working my way through some difficult transitions, but what I've been dreading most is now behind me. And the stage has been set for a whole new kind of anxiety.

Here, in typically cryptic fashion, is my summer narrated through seven noteworthy tracks that I've been listening to over past few months. The list could have been much longer, but you know how it goes.

1. The theme song for every cool guy who struts his stuff on a street where nobody notices:
Panda Bear - Slow Motion, from Tomboy 7" (Paw Tracks)

2. When you're so chill that the intense heat is the least of your worries, and the beach remains nothing more than a refreshing idea:
Gorillaz - Rhinestone Eyes, from Plastic Beach (EMI)

3. For the inevitable return to suburbia and all the strange feelings (nostalgia, self-consciousness, anxiety, and isolation) that follow:
Arcade Fire - Rococco, from The Suburbs (Merge)

4. A lackadaisical, nostalgic embrace of that which is out of your control:
Wild Nothing - Chinatown, from Gemini (Captured Tracks)

5. More of the same via surf-rock; this time with a pseudo-romantic twist :
Best Coast - Boyfriend, from Crazy for You (Mexican Summer)

6. Here, finally, is some motivation; that boost you thought you needed is really an invitation to get over yourself:
The Roots - Right On (ft. Joanna Newsom, STS), from How I Got Over (Mercury)

7. Through the confusion, the false stops and starts, and all the static of interfering frequencies, something emerges -- not quite what you expected but the beauty is there if you let yourself see it:
Baths - Hall, from Cerulean (Anticon)