As I sit here on the eve of Boxing Day, having slept in until 11 this morning and not even remotely considering the option of going anywhere selling anything, I realize that the key to entrenching holidays in popular consciousness is to make sure someone can profit from it. The pre-Christmas push for sales followed by the post-Christmas blitz drains the pockets of all, which makes the retailers, tax collectors, and credit card companies very happy, all of which makes the government happy.
    What the other major (heck, the minor ones too) religions need to do is invent stories of excessive gift-giving to go along with their major holidays. You don’t need to re-write history, just add on; after all Santa Claus never gave so much as a lump of coal to baby Jesus. Instead of giving oranges that represent gold at Chinese New Year, why not give real gold? And of course once we popularize it as “Non-Denominational Lunar New Year” and get everyone in on it, the jewelers everywhere will be ecstatic. The same strategy could be employed with any number of holidays and big-ticket items.
    It is one thing if people within a supposedly multicultural society want to move away from the Christian monopoly of statutory holidays, and quite another if it means big business can improve their profit margins because of it. Grass roots lobbying only gets you so far, get the deep pockets on your side. Long live the plutocracy.

    Anyway, I hope you all had lovely Christmases; I spent my day finishing gifts then delivering them, never escaping a house without being plied with Holiday goodies. Dinner was at my father’s aunt’s where we spent the time immersed in apple cider and too much food, and we forced my 15-year-old musically gifted second cousin to accompany us on piano through a round of carols. The dude’s recorded with the VSO and we’re marching him through “The Twelve Days of Christmas”. But what is Christmas for if not ritualistic humiliation at the hands of our relatives. I got a mug that says “Photographers keep things in focus”, so I’m happy.

09.12.06
    This might be odd, but I like good lyrics in my music. Perhaps it’s from my lack of knowledge about the actual music part. Six years of piano did nothing so much as make me hate anything and everything related to music theory and practice. Writing, however, I can relate to.
    Perhaps this explains my lean towards esoteric singer-songwriters with complex orchestration. Music as art or protest I can understand. Music as environment or dance background doesn’t interest me. Music as a tool of mass-market pabulum makes me want to break things.
    Anyway, this is tangential to our experience at The Dears’ concert last week. It was a small venue, as is not unusual, but one that hosts numerous bands on a regular basis. Why then do so many places crank up the volume of the instruments so loud as to completely drown out the voices? If you’re the songwriter and have spent time and effort coming up with intelligent lyrics, as The Dears have done, wouldn’t you want them to be heard?
    Aside from my pet peeve, the concert was pretty good; although I wish they’d just end a song and let it go, instead of treating the audience to endless wavering tuneless feedback loops of white noise serving as a painful dénouement. You can get away with it once, but any more and it just gets annoying. Still, on their website (www.thedears.org) you can find videos of “Ticket to Immortality” and the upbeat-but-with-a-darker-message wonder “Whites Only Party”. If you look around the web (I forget where), there’s a free download of my song of the moment “You and I are a Gang of Losers”, which I liked at the concert, even though I could make out about three words of the lyrics; those words being “You and I”. Sound technicians everywhere take note.

    Alright, I’m pressed for time, in the interest of making things easier for everyone I’m posting a list of possible Christmas gifts for me with the usual disclaimers. Namely: you don’t have to buy me anything, I’m fine with re-gifting, materialism is bad, spirit of the season, world peace (yadda yadda yadda).

The List:
        {deleted}

Things I have enough of (but if you’ve already bought these, don’t worry about it):
        Sketchbooks/journals
        Art supplies
        Page-a-day calendars
        Field guides
        A Cabinet of Natural Curiosities – Albertus Seba (got it for myself)
        The west Wing - Season Six (got it for myself)
        The Avalanche - Sufjan Stevens (got it for myself)

    Now do your part, make a list for yourself and post it somewhere I can find it. Please!

    (26.12.06 And no one did post their lists, making me a greedy bastard and also making me scramble for gifts to give them... a good point was that no one knew if the gifts on my list were already taken. The "things not to buy" may be useful in the future.)

    We had a new pronunciation this week: “Digitalization”, from one of the tour guides.

03.12.06
    Wow, Stéphane Dion cares about the environment. Light at the end of the tunnel? And really, the Conservatives don't have any credibility in being critical of anyone else's environmental legislation. I'd cite precedent in the case of pot vs. kettle, if the pot were stuffed full of oil money.

The Saga of Monday:
Part I
    Getting out of bed was grim business pre-dawn on Monday morning. Freezing temperatures, snow and ice, transit chaos, and a long commute awaited me. I watched the morning news for the weather and notices of school closures. They mentioned the closure of SFU and various school districts, but nothing about UBC. My parents were about to leave at 7AM and offered me a ride to the station. I took them up on their offer instead of going online to see if I had any news or emails about the snow.
    Everything seemed normal on transit all the way to UBC. Arriving on campus, however, revealed far fewer people than usual. I left the bus loop to encounter a guy who asked me if the buses were running. Then I noticed the abundance of dark buildings on campus, the words “blackout” were floating in the air. Then I ran into a girl who asked me if classes were on, as Buchanan was locked. I pleaded ignorance, and went to the museum.
    We have glass doors, locked electronically I guess, and usually one is left open outside of public hours to let staff in. There was a large splinter of wood wedged between the handles on the inside; old-school “bar the gates” kind of thing. Emergency lights were on and I couldn’t see security or anything. One lone set of footprints other than my own approached the entrance, so I took it as a pretty good sign nothing was happening that day.
    I trudged through the snow and pulled out my phone to discover I was running out of both minutes and battery power. I managed to place a call to Jen which revealed that indeed, campus was closed. I was getting pretty cold at this point, so I headed over to BioSci and let myself in (what do mean “return” the keys?). Emergency lights were on and extension cables snaked in and out of doors, powering vital equipment and stuff that was likely keeping the frozen animal carcasses from thawing too quickly (dead serious here). In the nice, warm, but deserted lab I used the phone to find out if anyone else was on campus. It turned out no one else was quite so stupid, so I prepared to head back into the cold.
    The bus loop was full of people, and no buses. I knew University Blvd. was closed due to fallen trees and downed wires (still may be actually), so no trolleys were running into campus. Eventually a single 99 showed up and everyone flocked to the stop. The bus waited at the far end of the bus loop, taunting us. Eventually it approached and we all clambered on board gratefully. I was trying to get news through my MP3 player, which only receives FM stations. This was an utterly futile quest, as all I got was bad ‘90s music and far too many ads. I also received a voice mail, placed at 6:50AM by Jen, telling me campus was closed. Thoughtful, yes, but for everyone’s future reference, we’re all up by 6ish here, call the house.
    A long, slow, detoured ride brought me home, where I checked my email, revealing no messages from work, and the answering machine, which had a call from my dentist and nothing else. The UBC main website had a notice posted at 6:34AM, which didn’t make the news by the time I left the house. It wasn’t until the middle of the afternoon that I got an email from work, sent at 6:30AM, but not received until 2:30PM, telling me campus was closed.
    The first snow day at UBC in six years of going there and I still manage to show up needlessly. Go me.

Part II
    The sound of near-hysterical crying was audible from the escalator. When I got up to the train platform, the source was revealed to be a young woman (around my age I guess) sitting on the bench, her head pressed to her knees. Of course, I was the only person on this side. From across the tracks a few Monday afternoon commuters eyed the scene warily.
    What the hell are you supposed to do in this situation?
    If I go up to her am I the concerned citizen or the creepy guy who approaches vulnerable young women on public transit? And if I do go up to her, what am I going to do? “Are you okay?” seems like the most obvious, but least helpful question. “No, I’m fine, I always bawl in public.” Is grief treated like one of those other bodily functions best done in private? If I wanted to be left alone I might not sit in the middle of a waiting area. Is this a cry for help? If I don’t do anything will it lead to bad emo poetry about how the world is a cold and unfeeling vacuum of lost souls?
    I remembered I was carrying tissues, so I figured I could at least offer her something. I took one tentative step when she raised her head to reveal that she was actually crying into her cell phone.
    Well this changed everything. It was no longer a case of private grief, now it would be like interrupting a very personal conversation, even if the other participant was not on the premises. I was also saved from further quagmires by the arrival of more people on the platform, who stood around and looked uncomfortable along with me. Shortly a train arrived and we all fled into the impersonal silence of the interior, secure in our comfortable roles as total strangers.

Part III
    Monday night was scheduled to be The Dears’ concert at Richards on Richards. I chose to transit down before rush hour instead of driving through the snowy streets of the suburbs. Of course the weather also meant that other people weren’t heading out, so there was ample free parking all over the place and the downtown streets were fine. I, however, wandered in the cold before meeting up with Ce for dinner, then heading over to the venue. In a far-too-familiar repeat of Monday morning, the place looked dark as we approached. Other people joined us as we read a postponement notice stuck to the door. The show was moved to Wednesday, and we were left with a cold walk to transit and the ride home; thus ended the day of futility.

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