The Lost Works: Part One

Pretexters
I have a nose for nostalgia so it is not uncommon for me to sift through drafts of writing from my former computer. This evening I present to you, my loyal and ever-so-daffy blog readers, two works: the first being a letter written to Dalers, that I do not recall writing, during the U of T depression of 2005/6. The second work being a vile short story written at age sixteen.

Forgotten work #1: The Letter

Dale,

Toronto is a busy place with many cars, and even more people. We all try to live in inter-racial harmony and we are fairly successful. Occasionally gangsters will shoot-up the streets, but usually this occurs in poorer regions of the city. Fortunately, I live by Bloor, which is a prosperous street, so I don’t typically deal with gangsters. Although, sometimes on my ventures down Younge, I’ll see groups of hoods loitering in front of the adult movie theatre.

The other danger you must be aware of are the homeless. Some are under the influence of extremely dangerous and terrible drugs. [Editors note: this previous sentence is clearly under the influence of a Hunter S. Thompson obsession.] Others are sober but are crazy. Do not go out late at night by yourself, even on Bloor. I’ve had the homeless stalk me demanding cash.

Once you learn some street smarts you may enjoy the city. A great thing is transportation. For the most part, if I have time, I can walk anywhere I may choose to go. If not, I take the subway. I really like the subway for some reason. It’s just great - always a fun ride. And it takes you anywhere in the city.

Now, where in the subway do I go? What is there to do in Toronto? A lot, unfortunately my life’s a little boring but here’s what I’ve discovered:

Much Music – Hilary Duff to Ashlee Simpson, what more could you ask for?

Food – Many restaurants to discover.

*Walking around – this is the most interesting option. Just wandering around up Younge or other streets that may have interesting sights.

Actually, the point is, you have to make your own fun. If you’re with a few friends then whatever you do will be entertaining enough.

So really, I don’t know what’s going on in Toronto, but that doesn’t really matter.

If you’d like to come down with Jim sometime, you really should. You can check out U of T and we can wander around Toronto.

All right, there you have it.

Bryan

Forgetten Work #2: The Short Story

It started like every other night. The weather was constant. The stars beamed down and reflected from my oversized minivan into oncoming traffic. It was not a night to rely on faith at first. The front, left hand side of my Taurus seemingly had no warning when it collided with a classic dark, heavily tinted large automobile and sent me in a 720-degree rotation. My initial reaction was panic, nothing out of the red there. I saw my reflection in the windshield as I spun and my thoughts were somewhat questionable. I saw my sunburn and wondered that if I died would my face still go white? What a horrific last thought to have before death, surely something about love and less sadistic would do. Thankfully before my brain processed more thoughts my joyride spin had reached its conclusion. I was startled yet relieved that I was still alive. I unbuckled my seat belt and sat in a non-deathly silence. A phone was ringing. With unease, I slowly climbed out of my van. The sleek black car had smashed into a hydro poll and had become a part of it. I walked closer, nervously and unsure. The phone kept ringing. Bloodstains were on the pavement now as I inched closer. Fresh human blood, and it was dark red. The wounds must have been deep. I came right up beside the car and the wounds no longer mattered. The driver, a woman, was dead. She had been nearly literally torn apart. I thought I would be sick, and I gagged trying to find some air. Finally, I regained some composure. The phone continued to ring. I wondered who could be calling her. Was it her husband? Maybe her child? I saw a cell phone beside her arm, anxiously waiting for her answer. For a reason that I couldn’t comprehend then or now, I decided to answer the phone. The phone was pale and cold to touch, suiting the female rather nicely. I raised it to my ear. “H-hello.” I stammered. The voice was deep and sounded dark.

“Wha.. Who’s this? Put Mary on the phone.”

“Uh..” Thoughts were pouncing every which way.

“Hey buddy, what you doin’ answerin’ her phone anyway? She didn’t fall asleep did she? I’m gonna kill her if she fell asleep. She has a job to do, once its done she leaves. I don’t care if your lonely you cracker jack. So what was it? You or her buddy?”

Frantically, I fumbled with words. I looked into Mary’s eyes and they were haunting my soul out of me. Her eyes were cold ocean blue, staring hard, as if looking for something. The voice in the phone continued.

“...I’m gonna come get er’ buddy and man, I’m gonna be crawling out of my eyes if I don’t see some satisfaction.”

I tried to make some sense out of this mess that surfaced faster than a U-571, another widowmaker, like maybe I had become.

“Look, it’s really...not what your thinking,..s-somthing has happened. Mary...”

The voice cut in, “ Alright...Mary...so you're at 2 Dudley Street West, that right wise guy?”

I wasn’t sure where he was pulling these addresses. I was on Dudley Street, but I was on the East end.

“How, how do you know this?” I asked fearfully.

“I think you know who this is. Clarify your location, or I’ll be clarifying your death.”

“We’re on the road...” I began. Interruptions were appearing common now.

“What? Say here buddy, gimme where you are.”

“I’m East on Dudley, side of the road, like I tried..”

“Fine,” The booming voice cut in, “I’ll be there in some minutes. You better have some cash filled explanation and don’t call the cops, Mr. McGregor, or you’ll be going down too.” Click.

At that moment I felt eternally destined for utter ruin. Mary continued to stare at me as if she was trying to communicate from the beyond. I tried to look away from her, maybe climb in my mini and escape. I should of just left, I knew that, but for some reason I was compelled to stay. Mary’s eyes would be too lonely if I left.

At last, a car’s beams lit up Mary and I as if an extra terrestrial force had come to save us from the impending doom. The door blasted open and without any thought I knew it had to be him.

“What the crap is this?” He demanded, storming out of his car. I slowly inched away from the car and the voice, in person now, inched towards the car. “Mary? Mary’s...dead. Why is Mary dead McGregor? And why are you not dead with her?”

Still slowly backing away, I managed to squeak out a light answer, “I...I wasn’t in the car.”

“Why? This is a sick game McGregor.”

“I’m not playing,” I replied while still tentatively backing off.

“Stop,” He commanded, and I did.

“I’m not who you believe I am, I’m not McGregor.” I was becoming delirious and this large dark character in front of me became fixated with the car. He began to walk around Mary’s automobile slowly, looking for...I wasn’t sure but somehow he found something, something that continued the eeriness the night had brought.

“What the...” He was standing near the trunk of the car and sticky, once foreign blood ran off his hands. He pulled open the trunk. “Oh, what has that devil done?”

I knew escape was still a quick option but once again, I was fazed, my head wasn’t operating right. I walked around to the trunk... The trunk had become a small pond of sickly blood. A man, with his hands and feet tied in knots, was in the midst of the puddle. Once more I gagged and figured this must be some sort of hallucinate dream but I was never so lucky. The dark character looked disgusted but it seemed like this wasn’t the first time he’d seen this. He reached into the blood and pulled out a wallet. He flipped cards for an I.D. and he discovered it was no one other than Timothy McGregor. “Holy blazes... that.... that whore double crossed me, that filthly nightwalker.” The man moved towards the front of the car glaring more death into her eyes. He yanked open the door and grasped her arm and threw her limp body to the ground. “You got just as you deserved, just as...” He stumbled, “as you deserve.”

Mary’s eyes told me my time was up. But my watch ticked untimely when the dark man grabbed me by the collar and began beating his fist into my flesh. At first my face stung and throbbed into severe pain, but after I was on the ground with his foot smashing my life away, I lost the feeling of pain. I gained a feeling that cannot be explained. I was lying next to Mary staring into those life filled eyes. She whispered something softly and smiled. Sirens began to fill the air and Mary and I walked away in our own kind of silence.

In Loving Memory...

An excerpt from my posthumous autobiography The Spoken Word, Dead and Still Speaking:

My career took off in a sleepy little deathtoll town on December 13th, 1995; the night of the Psychedelic Spoken Word Battle of the Bands at Uxbridge Secondary School. I warmed up my vocal chords with peppermint herbal tea, looked at my zinc-plated record hanging on the wall, and decided that, yes, tonight is my birth into the spoken world.

I arrived at the school donning a zebra furred coat, a beaver tail scarf, and a Cheshire cat grin. I took the stage and performed my chilling remembrance of endless spheres in the psych-sw anti-hit "Howl". People were moved, but none so much as me. That night I realized my ego was as inflatable as a cannonball.

Following my performance PETA converted me to animalism and I did a spread. I used my minor celebrity to pontificate my views that ice cream dealers should start tapping nursing moms, not cows. The backlash from women across North America hurt the sales of my first LP "Hey Mothers, Leave Those Cows Alone". My ego, rivaling that of Dirk Digger, had difficulty accepting the album's failure.

After being pushed from the spotlight I became a recluse in Thalia. I drove a '52 Chevy pick-up along the dusty roads and began an affair with an older woman named Genevieve. After these nothing years, I picked myself up and prepared for a comeback the size of a Buick. I went back to my roots and re-mixed "Howl" and began preparations to speak it in early 2005.

2005 was a rough year for me. I died. USS offered me the opportunity to play a reunion show and I eagerly accepted. As I sat on the stage and entered my psych-trance, I was divorced eternally from the spoken word by Genevieves husband's two-gauge shooty. Everything catches up to you in the end, but a bullet can make it seem real fast.

Remember.

Does a wish fountain feel like a whore?

My shitlist - 08
An ode to the worst this year had to offer:

"Nagle Speaks"

Arguably the worst linkster name for "Misomusy". Ever since the inauguration of "Nagle Speaks" the traffic on this blog has plummeted. I give you "Emerging Iranian Voice", maybe the greatest linkster name ever created, and this is how you repay me. Congratulations, you've been shit listed.

Kenny vs. Spenny

This show has ruined my life.

Ralph Nader

I had constantly plugged this populist since early June because I believed Nader was capable of organizing a coup d’état against the current administration. He has proved himself to be a hollow Hugo Chavaz.

Leon

You are a piece of shit. I wish you had been stolen alongside Goliath and sold off piece by piece in an alleyway on the outskirts of Harlem. I ask you again Leon, what is your major malfunction?

58,343,671 Americans

This mitten full of intellectual bankruptcy voted for a ticket with the name "Sarah Palin" on it. No one looking through a prism of reason would vote for a category five moron who believes that the Iraq war is a mission from God and that global warming is occurring independent of human activities. Conveniently, this number also covers the Christian Right and its army of flagsuckers who worship the state.

Breakfast at 66 Maddie

Most hyped breakfast in all of Toronto. The residents will tell you that the sleeping conditions are poor but that's okay because they have "the best breakfast in town!" All talk. Dystopian toast burns, an under supply of dairy products, and the realization that you've just been sleeping on the w--- pillow will have you sliding down the grimy fire escape before you can say "liars."

Redeemer

You breed super Zionists and uncultured robots. Could someone please send Redeemer some Canadian assimilation packages? Also, I know I signed up for Liberal Arts but this is getting immoral. I have now dissected a fetal pig, a sheep's heart, and some bovinian's eye. I am now qualified to withstand long periods of unpleasant odours and use a scalpel like Vince Li. You made me say that Redeemer.

Candy

My glucose levels are always in flux. You give me two minutes of a beautiful high and then drop me to the carpet and make me drool and reach for the bag again. I will break my addiction from you. I'm just not sure I can handle the withdrawal. I need supervision. Perhaps Thursday and Friday.

"Canadian Elections

What was this about? Asides from Layton proving that he could run a campaign on the strength of two words “Kitchen table” and “Corporations”. At least we got to see Dion play hockey and now we have some Green party memorabilia."-- Everything said in this goes for me too, especially the part about Green Party because I now run entirely on solar energy.

Hollywood
Perhaps your civil right causes will be taken seriously if you stop turning California's garbage into films.
Goodnight everybody!

A few excerpts:

Hunting For Beauty

I hop out of my ’94 Chrysler and climb a fire escape to the side entrance of an apartment. I pick the lock and, as the door opens, I am engulfed by the noise of a rhinoceros or some other horned mammal devouring a transmission tower. No, not an alarm—something else. Tentatively, I enter the apartment. The place is a pigsty: books, vinyls, and half-finished sketches scattered across the floor, but most conspicuous of all is the lone piece of furniture—a coffee table—because it is fused together with jujubes. My ears are still ringing when my shirt becomes damp—the climate is tropical here! Appearing from this wilderness, also known as 66 Madison Street in Toronto, are its residents, Ferdowsi and Paul, with drumsticks in hand banging on everything in sight. They both have giant grins and speak garrulously but I cannot hear their voices over the clamour. I look confused. Ferdowsi turns to me and I hear the tail end of his speech: “Get flash, get flash! It’s time to rock out!”

Biology Lab

Introduction

For this experiment, we are trying to answer the question of how soil type affects the growth of seeds. This is of interest to us because of our deep curiosity of soils and someday we may wish to grow a vegetable garden. We chose to compare pea and bean seeds. We chose these seeds because they were the freshest and least likely to be duds. We have little experience with soil and growing plant matter in general. Our hypothesis is that the richer and more nutritious the soil, the better the seeds will grow. If our hypothesis proves correct, then seeds will germinate faster and in greater quantity in Promix; then vermiculite and perlite; and the least amount of success will be met in the insalubrious sand and paper towel. Further, we believe that both seed type will germinate with similar success or failure. The null hypothesis is that the soil-type or condition will have no bearing on whether a seed germinates—or that the seeds will have greater germination with fewer nutrients. Therefore, the seeds will germinate faster and in greater quantity in the paper towels and sands and less so in the vermiculite, perlite and Promix.

La Nouvelle Vague

An auteur, or author, takes complete creative ownership over the filmmaking process, and makes a series of films with a distinct, recognizable style that is original to the auteur. Jean-Luc Godard claims that “there are no works, there are only auteurs” (Bordwell 487). The auteur develops a string of works that could be called a “body of criticism”—works that are not identical but clearly express the author’s voice coherently and continuously from film to film (Staples 4).
David Lynch is an example of a contemporary North American filmmaker who is considered an auteur. Lynch has created a body of works expressing similar themes and executing a similar and uniquely Lynchian technique. Films that are distinctly Lynchian are noted for their unique and chilling use of ambient sound, the use of symbolism in the mise en scene (everything seen on the screen), the use of parallel universes or extended dream sequences, and the sense of a prevailing dark force that governs an industrial and desolate world.
Lynch took inspiration from Truffaut who further developed and pushed the auteur movement in a 1954 Cahiers du Cinema article “Les Politiques de Auteurs,” which has subsequently been hailed as a call to arms against the cinema of quality (Staples 1). Truffaut demanded filmmakers exercise a distinct creative vision with personalized trademarks that carry over from film to film (Staples 1). Andre Bazin, co-founder of Cahiers du Cinema, expanded on auteur theory claiming that traditonional cinema of quality films have an auteur also—but more importantly traditional films have a subject which defines a piece of work (Staples 3). Truffaut’s auteur theory, Bazin argued, removed the subject entirely by defining the work as the auteur. Eliminating the subject might create a cult of personality of the auteur, and this is a necessary risk because the goal of auteur theory is to create a personalized art piece where the “distinction between author and director loses all meaning. The auteur writes with the camera as a writer writes with a pen” (Marie 32-33) Therefore, everything in a scene, the mise en scene, including the voice of the actor, is essentially the voice of the auteur. Moreover, the auteur’s voice should speak to the audience. Films should connect the audience with the auteur, as if the two were experiencing an intimate conversation (Monaco 8). This is requiring more from the viewer, asking them to participate in the filmmaking process. Auteur theory worked against the norm of the cinema of quality, where the studio would override the authority of the director—and the filmmaking process was not truly unique to the filmmaker. Truffaut did not “believe in the peaceful co-existence of the Tradition [cinema] of Quality and a cinema of auteurs ” (Staples 2). Eventually, the critics had the opportunity to put auteur theory to the test and compete with the cinema of quality.

The Conservative Blues

Bursting with mock-solicitude, the re-elected Prime Minister waves his cold-blooded hand from a balcony. Below, the partisans, cold and hard, chant "Harper! Harper!" Blue balloons, shaped as missiles, are waved patriotically.

Meanwhile, an aging Anna Karina dines at The Truffaut Cafe with her latest lover. "Proportional representation is the only thing that could of saved them, Doug."
The haggard gentlemen shifts uncomfortably in a stone chair, taking a thoughtful toke, "It's a beautiful country: the mountains, the ocean, the rivers..."
Anna, scrunching her nose, "I don't want them to get stuffed"
"...The glaciers, the forests, the-"
"Doug."
"Sorry; I've always had a nose for nostalgia."

Around this time a girl paints restively in a prison in Ontario, pulling her hair in despair. The adolescent, 14 years old ,will remain here for 25 years. During this time the Antarctic shelf will drop. The greatest catastrophe second only to nuclear war will begin. Illegal environmental refugees will soon mope in the girl's cell as well. The prisoners sit parched as the Great Lakes are privatized.

Water, 100 bucks a liter. You can't do that. Why not, we need to profit because gasoline is expensive and I need to fuel my Jaguar. The day of the corporation. The government asks for a cut for the people but that goes against the ideology: laissez-faire. Everyone for themselves. Why not conserve us, cry the citizens.

Some time before this, a girl in extreme poverty collapses and dies and 30, 000 follow suit each and every day, dying quietly in remote villages far from the Western conscience. The cries are muffled by Christian-sponsored bombs.

Somewhere a broken man philosophizes: it's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die.

Turn the tape off howler.

The drug man lifts his nose to the drifting haze of marijuana and aggressively pitches Mobsies: his unwritten screenplay revolving around a mob and zombies and debris in a post-apocalyptic setting. Chemicals in his narcotics-friendly mind suddenly shift to:
"Einstein's Theory of Relativity: that's something. That's..."
An impregnated pause--broken with a spasmodic shrill: "Time actually moves slower on different planets in the universe. Literally, clocks--clocks would move more slowly."
"Ginsberg should of been an astronaut."
"Endless spheres."

Unreflected

Dreams burn down. A Winter Semester in a less odious province is highly unlikely. Multiple obstacles have proven immovable. This is a rotten First World deal.

My sister is now an adherent to Oprah-sponsored New Ageism--"The Secret." Its theory is based on the pseudo-science of attraction.

But things are not all rotten.

Ralph Nader is coming to town on August 11th. I will soon be empowered to fight White-Collar crime.

And

Radiohead is soon to arrive in heaven-sponsored glory.

And

I have launched an additional blog.