people are strang(ers)

'


"the search for an ideal mate is in reality a quest for alienated facets of the self. we shape an image of our unrealized self and then project it onto another person"


Why is it that we often find ourselves surprised by other peoples' behaviours? After 'knowing' someone for years, whether knowing them in a romantic or a platonic way, they do something that sparks one of the following common phrases: "that is so unlike him/her", "how out of character".

It appears as though we are constantly trying to reach consistency in our lives. Consistent money flow, consistent creativity, consistent spontaneity, consistent relationships, etc. And I think we also seek consistency in others.

Instead of loving a person for everything they are, good and bad, people tend to love only for the good. And worse, you tend to love yourself only for the good and despise yourself when you're not exactly who you want to be.

These particular lyrics in a song by Fleet Foxes always speak to me, " I'm turning myself to a demon / I don't know what I have done / I'm turning myself to a demon." It's true that at times I find that I am very capable of turning into a monster, demonizing others, or demonizing myself. I tend to write a lot about morality, and I find that perhaps it's possible for us to try too hard to be perfect human beings. We should perhaps not be so hard on ourselves when we haven't become exactly who we want to become. And we will probably never become our ideal selves.

Abraham Maslow came up with this theory called the "hierarchy of needs." Essentially, we as humans have certain needs that need to be fulfilled. And the very highest need that we strive for is what he calls self-actualization, or what I like to call the Hollywood Ending. If there was a movie playing of your life, and the assumption is that it will end happily ever after, at the end, you've reached self-actualization - all your dreams have come true, you have found 'the one', your career is where you want it, you are at the peak of your creativity, you hold no prejudices, don't hold back, and are completely content with yourself and the world. And there's an epic soundtrack to boot.

I think Maslow's definitely onto something...I think people do strive for this. But does it exist? And does striving for self-actualization only cause disappointment? What about resentment?

We start to resent others for what they have and we don't. They have a better career. They have a steady relationship. They are more creative. We hold people in such high regard, and then when they disappoint us, when lovers and friends disappoint us, we believe it's their fault. Because we believe in perfection, we set ourselves up for disappointment?

When someone you respect does something bad, it's considered "out of character" But is it? Or is it part of their character? Perhaps it's more realistic to assume that "it", this demon-like behaviour, is part of all of us. That there are probably very few people who claim to feel self-actualized. We are all trying to get there, and that we should begin to see people and ourselves for who they and we are. Flawed. After all, Eve ate the apple, and Adam was dumb enough (or just human enough) to follow suit. Our entire existence in terms of mythology is based upon imperfection and attempting to overcome imperfection. And about one third of us looks up to a guy who was able to walk on water. Talk about high standards.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't strive to be better people, because if we didn't have a vision for something better we wouldn't have hope, and we wouldn't have hope, well, to be frank, we'd be fucked.

I guess the bottom line is, let's believe in ourselves and our friends, but let's also keep our cool if either of us or both of us screw us over.

The Album

The universe will expand forever (if you don't believe me read here).

One of my professors once said that humans have always struggled with the notion that we are finite creates in an infinite universe. Not only is the universe infinite now, but it is infinitely expanding. Mind. Blowing.

In an earlier blog post, "When current pulls you under" I explored the overwhelming feelings that accompany growing up in this information overloaded day and age. As someone who likes to drink life in as passionately and anxiously as a child opening up presents on Christmas, and as someone who should never be taken to all you can eat buffets (because I will feel the need to try absolutely everything), I am especially prone to this anxiety of not getting to all the music in the world before I eventually bite the dust. What great musical treat am I missing out on right now?

Music in relation to my lifetime is essentially as infinite as the universe is in relationship to humankind. If I live for another 60 years I have approximately another 525 948 hours to live. Now - I'm really only awake for 350 000 of those years, and with a 40 hour per week job I only have 115 000 hours of my life left. Assuming an album is about an hour long, I basically can only listen to about 115 000 albums, but that means that I can't repeat a single album, which is next to impossible if I happen to love it. Which already means that I couldn't even listen to all of the albums in the world's largest record collection. Devastating!

When confronted with this reality, I can do one of 2 things: 1. Go absolutely nuts trying to get to as much as I possibly can or 2. Cherish what life brings my way.

With that said, although my lust for life makes me anxiety prone, I do know how to stay faithful to those records (or Nutella) that I love and re-love over and over. I'll go with option 2.

So, for those of you who desperately sit on twitter to hear the latest, newest, hottest track, you can calm down: you will never get to everything anyway.

Enter, THE ALBUM. The beautiful coming together of songs, in harmony or in juxtaposition. The building, climaxing, and falling. The appetizer, main and dessert of a perfect meal in comparison to the mishmash of an all you can eat buffet. The glutton inside me loves the all you can eat buffet, but the connoisseur in me loves a good meal.

Without listing my favourite albums of all time, I will share with you three albums that I have devoted hours of my life to this year.

The Antlers - Hospice

• Beautiful and sad at the same time, a portrait of love post mortem that pulls deep at your heartstrings, even if you've never experienced pain like the narrator describes.

Dennis Wilson - Pacific Ocean Blue

• This album changed the way I listen to music. Listening to it is like discovering the fossils of a dinosaur that we didn't know existed. The creation of a lost soul, and musical hero.
  

Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
* Even though this has just been recently released, I have listened to it over and over, and anticipate that many more hours will be pleasantly wasted to this.

• Almost a subversion of nostalgia; looking back on our childhood reminds us we've become part of the grind, all of our dreams aren't reality.

on killing

I recently visited the Srebenica genocide memorial in Bosnia-Herzegovina. I have no desire to rehash what I felt when I was there, nor do I want to describe the details of massacre. Both are gruesome.

Now that I'm back in Toronto, where G20 protests are considered violent, and a small earthquake that leaves no damage is considered excitement, most of the horror that I felt while I was in Bosnia has been buried underneath the guise of the common twenty-something emotional facade. The negative emotions that I've been taught to feel in this society are stress, sadness, and dissatisfaction. I suppose you could say that everything is relative. We can justify our emotions by comparing our experiences with what is considered normal in our society. We can justify using the words 'starving' or 'exhausted' after a long (?) and tiring 9 hour shift at work, because well - to us lucky ones, we really do feel starving or exhausted. But are emotions actually relative? Or is this logic another way of us Westerners to help us carry on with our existence as happily as possible, because attempting to understand the horror that other people on this planet face every day is simply too disrupting for our lives?

MIA released a video for her new song "Born Free", which can be watched on her website. The video was banned and discussed ad nauseam. Once you watch the video, if you haven't seen it yet, you may decide that it is unnecessarily violent, or that its metaphorical nature makes it too vague, and therefore not relevant to us. Because after all, why would any society, especially a society that looks so much like ours round up people with red hair and murder them? That makes no sense. But perhaps it's this insistence on sense that gets us in trouble sometimes. We try to use logic to understand killing. We use race and culture or religion to understand evil.

Yes, undeniably these things play significant roles in atrocities. But looking past these man-made definitions is much more frightening. Because then we see that underneath all of these apparent divides we are all human. And we are all capable of killing one another.

And this is why I think the "Born Free" video is indeed worth discussing. To me, the video illuminates the irrationality behind killing. The pointlessness of killing someone else just because their hair colour is different. The monsters that we can become. And to me, attempting to understand wars or murders or genocides based on race or religion seems to me an attempt to avoid facing what is essentially human or, human perverted by society - whichever explanation you prefer.

At Srebenica I kept asking myself, "how?" How is it possible for humans to do these things to one another? I cannot, and will not ever comprehend this, but I think sometimes it's important for us to at least try to understand it on a level that makes us uncomfortable.

Perhaps if we keep looking at wars and genocides in other countries as wars between others, rather than wars with one another we will continue to overlook a component of humanity that we all possess, whether it is natural or not. I am not sure whether I would agree that killing is an innate human flaw, with society playing no role in this act, yet I do question our continual attempt to understand killing in societal terms.

Expo 86

Get excited for June 29.

Sample songs here.

meet megan

Photograph by Matthew Tammaro.

Grandparents, poetry, Bob Dylan and country air are some of the influences that Megan Bonnell cites as we sit cross-legged under a four poster bed in an Annex century home talking about her music. It's not the first time that Megan and I have sat together talking, especially not under that four poster bed that happens to be my sister's. This is because we're best friends and roommates. I was going to write this post leaving my relationship with her out. Write a more professional piece about her. But then I realized it would be doing Megan and the reader an injustice. And that's because I know that along with Bob Dylan, her friendships with her sisters (not necessarily biological) influence her too. Megan is part of a solid group of five girl friends, who grew up together in the country, and I'm one of them. So embrace my biased perspective, because I'm lucky enough to know more about Megan than most. (And I also wanted to make sure everrrrryone knows that I know her because that will make me seem really cool).

As we sit here talking about what makes Megan want to make music she says, "music has to do with the soul, and if you can touch people's souls that's what makes it worth it." I think what's really magical about Megan's music is its ability to kindle feelings. Her songs will make you sing along, and feel along. She truly pours her heart into her music. Her lyrics are both personal and universal. And this expression of feelings is a major characteristic of poetry, which Megan also cites as influencing her writing. She says her grandfather used to recite poetry on a whim, and she would read poetry before bed. She says when she writes she's not thinking of something specific "but rather a feeling I have that just comes out while I'm playing the piano."

Megan has never had piano lessons. She taught herself by imitating songs her sister would play, which is how she learned to play the guitar as well. Later this spring, she is recording her EP and currently is writing the instrumentation to accompany her piano and vocals. And by writing I mean teaching herself instruments in order to write the accompaniment. This ad hoc approach to songwriting will ensure that for this EP the piano will remain as the "backbone that holds her songs together" while the instruments serve to "develop the sound more." Currently, her 'drum set' consists of an old suitcase and anything else she can bang in her room. Look forward to the sound of household objects, banjos, guitars and organs on her forthcoming EP, and of course the beautiful vocals.

Megan's super special, but if you don't believe me, see and hear for yourself. Check out all the goodies below.

MEGAN BONNELL - Apple Trees from Mitch Fillion on Vimeo.

Via Southern Souls.

MEGAN BONNELL - Moonshiner from Mitch Fillion on Vimeo.

MEGAN BONNELL - Anaheim from Mitch Fillion on Vimeo.

Filmed at The Musebox house party that our house hosted. It was a magical night of music, for more footage, including footage of Language Arts and Hellsongs, check out this video.

and I just love these music videos

There are moments when music and cinematography come together outside of the movie domain. Behold, the music video. When music and art are paired together just for the sake of music and art, not for the sake of advancing or embellishing a plot. Here's a few that amaze me.





To really get a full appreciation of the second video, you should read the making of the video here. All you artists and designers and filmmakers, check this out.

moments

I want to start an online collection of all the greatest music moments in movie history. So keep your eyes and ears ready for clips like these to pop up on my blog more often in the future. I want to kick-start this collection now with just a few fairly epic clips (in my humble opinion). And for those of you wondering what the hell my vague 'epic clips' description even means, I've created my own definition, " 'epic clips' " adjective: a scene from a movie that contains the perfect song for the moment, at the perfect time." So here's the small little bundle of clips that I came up with just now. But consider this more of a housewarming gift. There will be many more to come.