Divide and Conquer

A couple of years ago I did a list of my favourite TV shows to accompany my annual music list. That was a great distraction to write up at my old job, but I don't know that I have the same drive to do that now. Instead, I'll just do a list of what I thought was really good this year:

Watchmen (HBO)
Barry (HBO)
Pen15 (Hulu)
The Mandalorian (Disney+)
Dark (Netflix)
Fleabag (Amazon Prime)
The Righteous Gemstones (HBO)
True Detective (HBO)

A few years ago, I presented at an art history conference at the University of British Columbia. While spending the weekend in Vancouver, I grew to intensely dislike one of the other presenters that was around for the whole weekend. He never stopped name-dropping the people he had read and when when you mentioned anything you had worked on, he immediately asked if you had read this or that article on something tangentially related to make himself seem more well-read than you.

Example:

*Teacher from the school is asking me about my research topic. As I explain how I look at Manet, he speeds across the room and interrupts our conversation.*

"Have you read (the name of some article whose title I've forgotten)? It's the best thing I've read on Manet in years."

"Oh, is it related to his critics (my field of study and what we speaking about)."

"Oh, no."

Like, why are you coming over to do that? Fucking rude and shitty bro.

He also spent a lot of time putting down everyone else's work in snide and petty ways. He talked at length about how dumb he thought T.J. Clark was and how biography was an out of date way to look at artists. He would then not listen when I explain that I'm looking exactly at how biography can be problematic.

I was on cloud nine when, after having given a pretty empty talk delivered with sass to make it seem interesting, a woman from the crowd piped up with "I don't think your topic is as revolutionary as you think it is."

This is all to say that while reading an article for one of my classes this week, I realized that homeboy's talk was basically just this article with a couple of minor tweaks and additions.

Next time you want parade around like you're the biggest head in the room and everyone's beneath you, at least put a footnote at the end of the sentence. Fuckin' kiss my ass.

I Remember the Stones on the Beach

In December of 2016, I felt creatively unfulfilled after the end of Beat Noir and decided that I needed to fight that feeling by outlining some writing and music goals on the blog. By writing it down here, it would be more real and some people would know about it. Maybe that would make it more important? I referred to it as "the project" to myself that year.

Jesus Christ, IMU is so navel-gazey. I'll try to not be so nostalgic and talking about past things I've done so much in the future. This is a tendency in myself I don't like and try to work against.

Second note: Each IMU title is usually taken from a song I'm listening to while writing the post. Though I enjoy making references to other things I enjoy, it can sure make it hard to find the specific post I'm trying to reference.

It took a while, but most of those project actually got done. The baseball zine came out later that year and the short stories that I thought were actually good ended up on the wordpress.

By far, the hardest part for me was the songs. For whatever reason, finishing songs has never been in my DNA, which is probably why I functioned much better as Beat Noir's long-term hired gun on bass. I've (mostly) consistently tried to write my own songs since I've played bass and guitar, but I've never been able to get over the hump that comes after the initial burst of ideas that generates something new. Maybe it's because I've never made the jump of working on them with other people. Maybe it's because I am bad at writing songs. Maybe it's because I'm scared of finishing them.

I wanted to get five songs down with the hope of making a demo and eventually I did that. Then I realized that some of those ideas sucked and I moved onto new ones. Then I decided I didn't want to make a 5-song demo.

Ultimately, the songs were the ones that project that petered out the most. It was easy to just put the other stuff out into the internet and have them live there. The songs required a lot more effort and needed me to learn how to do new things, like recording at home, that were a lot of work. I looked into getting some equipment to do that, but then gave up. I downloaded Reaper to get started on some tracks, but then gave up.

I'm still working on them, albeit in the most minimal way possible. I even came up with a name, The Vice (a reference to Northrop Frye, not the website) and had a pretty solid vision of what it would be like that has mostly stuck (all songs in DAEAC#E, emo meets 80's power pop with Tony Molina aesthetic). Three-ish years later, I have 7 songs with lyrics (and two covers that are original enough that they get a mention here) and have moved onto the idea of only doing 2-song digital singles, should I ever do enough work to release them (I probably won't). I got into playing to drum loops for a while and feel like that will stick.

I write all of this because putting it down somewhere makes it feel more real, even if posting it on IMU is, for all intents and purposes, shouting into the void. To me, writing it out here is a way of me affirming to myself that it's real, even when I haven't been giving it much attention.

A tepid and, to be honest, pretty cowardly way of doing that, but a way nonetheless. Maybe one day The Vice will come to life in a more tangible way.

I Wish I Could Hear What They Say

Since I started university for the third time, something that's been at the forefront of discussions around the school has been "impostor syndrome". Impostor syndrome is the name given to the constant feelings of inadequacy that you feel when you enter a new situation in your life, like you somehow managed to weasel your way into something you feel you aren't qualified for. It's exceptionally pervasive in graduate students, as everyone thinks they aren't as smart as those around them and that the university made a mistake in accepting them.

There's been many times in my life that I've succumbed to impostor syndrome and I had it especially bad during my master's. It sucks, because it can really destroy your work habits and it makes it easy for anxiety to take a shit on your abilities, which are what you got you to where you are in the first place. Since starting my PhD, I've gotten better at trusting my instincts and skills and I haven't really had a problem with impostor syndrome this year.

This may be unique to me, but when things got hard in school, I could kind of lean on IS as a way to explain why it was so tough. Of course this is hard and overwhelming, you don't even deserve to be here you idiot!

Now, what's funny is things getting difficult when I'm confident that I do deserve to be here. I know that I was accepted to the program for a reason, but also know that I'm a little out of my depth with the courses I'm taking. How the fell will I think about what to write about? How do I write capably about a subject I'm relatively new to? How can I get these short, dark, wet, and cold days to fuck off forever?

In some ways, I guess that this is just IS with a new jacket on. Kind of stupid that I can look it square in the face and recognize it, but not do shit about it, right?

I think I'm deep into the part of winter when I can say it's officially gotten to me. Everything is so cold and wet. The sky is an even grey for the entire day and I can't tell where the sun is. I caught a reflection of myself in a car window the other day and I looked so pale and sickly. Everything about the outside is so overbearing and overwhelming and it makes me so sad. People always make light of how much I hate the winter, but it really does shake me to my core and profoundly effect how happy I can be.

I can't tell if it's worse in Montreal than it was in Toronto. People say it's colder and there's more snow, but I'm so miserable that I can't really tell the difference. Was Brandon Drury better than Richard Ureña? Why quibble over two bad things?

Editor's note: I saw Dicky Beisbol walk off the Orioles on pedestrian groundball after Biagini threw 8 innings. He is better.

I'm playing Steel Pulse and The Harder They Come soundtrack to help fight off the gloom, but it's hard. I really need some sun and weather that doesn't wear me down as soon as I'm in it. Everything feels a little off, like I'm a meal that's being prepared in a pan that's too big. 

Try to Walk Through Walls

A post about how January is a time of transition and change.

I hate this and find these sorts of statements corny as they usually accompany something about how you're going to make a giant change or commitment. Why talk about that or make that effort now, but not the rest of the year? I don't value you saying you're going to do it. I value you doing it. Talk is cheap, you know?

I guess that I've always hated huge public statements about what you're doing or planning for yourself. Though I think that's a good thing, as I enjoy the fact that I don't have a bank of unfulfilled public declarations in my social media archive and instead, they exist only in my mind and notebooks. And here too. Hypocrisy, thy name is Chandler.

It's also a drawback of mine. I'm a terrible self-promoter and that is something that, though it sucks, is incredibly important to being in a band, which is probably why Beat Noir never really took off, and also to my current profession. To some degree, being an academic depends on the public perception of your skills and research. I should better and telling people what I do right?

I guess so.

Originally, I thought that this post would be a collection of small ideas, but it really didn't turn out that way. My brain is a real foggy mess lately and the things I can normally articulate clearly aren't coming out the way I hope they do. It feels like there's a blockage in my lungs that's holding my thoughts down.

Montreal is starting to feel like home. While Becks and I were back in Ontario over Christmas, it felt amazing to see my family and I started to miss them the second we left on Christmas night. Part of me wanted to turn around and stay longer, but another part of me couldn't wait to get back to our apartment in Hochelaga. I'm starting to identify with the area and being proud that I live in the east end, even though I have no claim to that whatsoever. More so than I ever felt about the Annex.* People are weirded out that we don't like in the Plateau and I like that. If people are weirded out by anything you do, that's a good sign. Unless it's directly affecting other people negatively. Then it's a very bad sign.

But damn, would it kill you to get a decent barbershop Hochelaga? Fuck sakes.

*One time some old loser tried to lecture Becks and I on the fact that since we lived on the south side of Bloor, we technically lived in Harbord Village and not in his precious Annex. Fuck outta here bro.

To return to the first sentence, though I hate that sort of phrase, it's undeniably true. School just started again and I already feel so at home being back at Concordia. It's nice. I didn't have any classes today, but I'm back here trying to get over the hump of bumming around the apartment and watching TV turning into schoolwork. Not quite there, but it will come.

This was all over the place and I don't have an ending, but these sorts of posts are necessary. It's winter cleaning time here at IMU folks, and you'll all have to endure it.