I have been working non stop on the zine for about 15 hours a day the last couple, which has been exhausting. just ridiculously so. but you know, i make it harder for myself by focusing on making each different, and each a piece of art; though I do think that this is really important that each copy be different and interesting so i'm willing to wear myself thin. Only once a month.

The course of the next few months for Variations has pretty much been planned out as of a business meeting with my new pr guy. Thank god there is someone who is willing to talk to people for me. I"ve been a bit of a recluse lately. I suppose it's just that I'm so busy, but that's more for the psychiatrist to deal with.

The next issue of the zine will focus on the concepts of Utopia/Dystopia. It will deal with the question posed in Plato's republic: what would utopia be like if it could exist. Could it even exist? Does it exist now, or will the otherside win? Hmm. ponder people.

This issue will coincide with a showing of the film Loose Change [look into it if you haven't heard of it.] It's a film that discusses the events surrounding 9/11. It's a very thorough look into what everyone's had on their mind since it happened: that the united states government orchestrated it themselves. They don't try to answer all the reasons why, rather they show how the evidence provided by the government of these attacks makes no sense. They consult a lot of primary source documentation and included is a major discussion on the engineering of the two towers, the planes themselves and the events at the Pentagon. It's quite interesting. [look into it, i say this again.] This will be sponsored by San Ria Press and the money made from the showing will be donated to the Press and the people who made the film. Pamplets will be made, so look forward to a pdf version in the future. So this occurs all on August 30th, at 7pm at Sarnia Library Auditoriam for all that can come.

Also we will be having a literary contest which will open in September (the details haven't all been ironed out yet.) The winner will be announced in mid december and the winner will receive a handmade chapbook, probably of about 100 copies worth or so. The award is unamed as of yet, but as I said, details.

here are a few things that have influenced me as of late;


Jethro Tull: Thick as a Brick

here's an excerpt:


Really dont mind if you sit this one out.
My words but a whisper -- your deafness a shout.
I may make you feel but I cant make you think.
Your sperms in the gutter -- your loves in the sink.
So you ride yourselves over the fields and
You make all your animal deals and
Your wise men dont know how it feels to be thick as a brick.
And the sand-castle virtues are all swept away in
The tidal destruction
The moral melee.
The elastic retreat rings the close of play as the last wave uncovers
The newfangled way.
But your new shoes are worn at the heels and
Your suntan does rapidly peel and
Your wise men dont know how it feels to be thick as a brick.

And the love that I feel is so far away:
Im a bad dream that I just had today -- and you
Shake your head and
Say its a shame.


ahhh a breath of fresh air in music: the decemberists.




"Clementine"

You slept in your overalls
After the wrecking ball
Bereft you of house and home
And left you with sweet fuck-all
So we got in your car
With our kickabout hearts
And we hollared out 'sweet clementine'

Tell your mom to marry us
A candle to carry us
With cans on our bicycle fenders
So sweet and hilarious
And we'll find us a home
Built of packaging foam
That will be there 'til after we die

And, I'll play the clarinet
Use clamshells for castinets
We play with our bags on our shoulders
My sweet lady lioness
And I watch as you sleep
So indelibly deep
An I hum to you sweet clementine


los angeles, i'm yours

There is a city by the sea
A gentle company
I don’t suppose you want to
And as it tells its sorry tale
In harrowing detail
Its hollowness will haunt you
Its streets and boulevards
Orphans and oligarchs it hears
A plaintive melody
Truncated symphony
An ocean’s garbled vomit on the shore,
Los Angeles, I’m yours

Oh ladies, pleasant and demure
Sallow-cheeked and sure
I can see your undies
And all the boys you drag about
An empty fallow fount
From Saturdays to Mondays
You hill and valley crowd
Hanging your trousers down at heel
This is the realest thing
As ancient choirs sing
A dozen blushing cherubs wheel above
Los Angeles my love

Oh what a rush of ripe élan
Languor on divans
Dalliant and dainty
But oh, the smell of burnt cocaine
The dolor and decay
It only makes me cranky
Oh great calamity,
Ditch of iniquity and tears
How I abhor this place
Its sweet and bitter taste
Has left me wretched, retching on all fours
Los Angeles, I’m yours


and then:

Jefferson Airplane: White Rabbit

One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all
Go ask Alice
When she's ten feet tall

And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you're going to fall
Tell'em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call
Call Alice
When she was just small

When men on the chessboard
get up and tell you where to go
And you've just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving low
Go ask Alice
I think she'll know

When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen's off with her head
Remember what the Dormouse said:
"Feed your Head
Feed your Head!"


I've also been affected a lot recently by construction paper, and I possibly have been high off of spray paint because of all the stenciling.

I'm working on some graphic design work for a friend as well and am getting some more tomorrow. So work. yay.

also, the sci fi show the 4400. oh it's wicked. I hate television but I rented the first season as I did boring mundane zine work.

anyways. i haven't had much time to read, sleep, eat. you know the regular things. so if you have anything interesting to send me, please do.

wrote these a couple weeks ago:

a requiem


at nights I sing to myself:

his eyes tasted of oceans
and the warmest dark soil in Ontario.

he
would wait to say something explicit to scare,

but I was never afraid. no, I always knew.
I held on to the Cheshire cat for dear life.


at nights I look at the sky
remember how he would worship
every star from a distance,
and learned soon,
he would love me only
in the same way


overhanging on the edge,

only a short building,
two stories,, she giggles at the thought
of falling on a fat man below us.

my heart panicking, running
statistical data through my head.
what is the likelihood.

she’s striking poses,

her legs dangle over the wall.

while mine are affixed to the roof,
close to the ground.


poetry is layering.


typewriters move like kicking girls legs,

if you hit them quick enough and to beats,
they make songs,
rhymes.

I want my fingers to know what words to write.
my mind shut off and numb.
there is no delete.

my hands too shaky for white out.

I concentrate on the keys,
hit them perfectly

but my fingers fall between
consonants and vowels,
scraping

constant rewrites over letters.



out for now.
should I salute?
if I could salute you all
oh boy I would