Rockin' the Log Lathe

Not a song I need to hear more than once, but a great video nonetheless.

The Black Lodge

Last night I was called to a meeting at the Black Lodge, a new restaurant at 630 Kingsway, not far from my home.

For the past two months I have driven past the restaurant's non-descript facade, noting the crowds out front, either smoking or waiting for a table. But on this night I went inside, where I found myself in what felt more like a log cabin outpost than a self-conscious montage of film, literary and visual art references.

As for the patrons, half were calm intelligent-looking het couples in their early-30s, the other half gender clusters, also in their early-30s.

Of the five woman seated at the northwest corner, each sported a distinct hairstyle and clothing preference that belied a deeper bond, as if ten years earlier they were members of the same rowing team.

Of the five men gathered at the corner opposite, while all shared the same preppy logger look (short hair, two-inch beard, cardigan, gingham shirt, skinny jeans and brogues), each tried to out-do the other at the individual level, as if in competition for Most Garrulous Restaurant Laugh.

I enjoyed my time at the Black Lodge. The food and booze is good and cheap. I look forward to going back.

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"Morning of Drunkenness"

O my good! O my beautiful! Atrocious fanfare where I won’t stumble! enchanted rack whereon I am stretched! Hurrah for the amazing work and the marvelous body, for the first time! It began amid the laughter of children, it will end with it. This poison will remain in all our veins even when, as the trumpets turn back, we’ll be restored to the old discord. O let us now, we who are so deserving of these torments! let us fervently gather up that superhuman promise made to our created body and soul: that promise, that madness! Elegance, knowledge, violence! They promised us to bury the tree of good and evil in the shade, to banish tyrannical honesties, so that we might bring forth our very pure love. It began with a certain disgust and ended—since we weren’t able to grasp this eternity all at once—in a panicked rout of perfumes.

Laughter of children, discretion of slaves, austerity of virgins, horror in the faces and objects of today, may you be consecrated by the memory of that wake. It began in all loutishness, now it’s ending among angels of flame and ice.

 Little eve of drunkenness, holy! were it only for the mask with which you gratified us. We affirm you, method! We don’t forget that yesterday you glorified each one of our ages. We have faith in the poison. We know how to give our whole lives every day.

Behold the time of the Assassins.

(click here for translator's notes)

"Morning Morgantown" (1970)

"Ladies in their rainbow fashions/ coloured stop and go lights flashin'/ buildings echo the strangers passin'"

A small room inside a bay window. A single bed, a table and chair, and a sink. I could manage something larger, with more conveniences, but I could never match the view.

The sun is lower now. When it curls around it will touch the north wall and whatever stands before it.

Against the sun is a stainless steel espresso pot. On the wall behind it, their drawing: a grain silo, a cool Prairie morn.

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