In December 2008 Bob and I met, not even realizing we’d met until the next day. A photo of me enjoying a special moment in my blogography went up from the social media event we were both at and I had people alerting me to it from various directions from the moment I got online. Turned out the person who had caught this moment was Bob and luckily we had met that night, although briefly, we were still introduced. This led to following each other on twitter, reading each others’ blogs, to eventually becoming facebook friends; the regular social media drill.
What originally kept me interested in reading Bob’s blog and following him on Twitter was that I could live vicariously through a lot of his Flickr photos. We both enjoy a lot of the same out door activities but I’m not currently in a position to enjoy them like he is. Bob’s landscape photography always captured me and took me back to good memories from my past, hiking, camping, skiing, made me yearn for those days. Each photo always reminds me how much I miss those sides of myself but reaffirm that they are still there, just tucked away for later.
I learned of Bob’s plans to build his own site, sell his landscape prints and add portrait / headshot photographer onto his resume of services offered. Given that I liked his photos so much I asked if he needed any models for his portfolio, he said yes, I own some nice Betsey Johnson dresses so away we went.
We’d both always wanted to do the whole Vancouver Gastown alley graffiti shoot. We did just that and the set can be viewed here, I wanted to take this post, for the most part to highlight Bob’s work in general and mention about how it meant a lot having him take my photos after having followed his work and growth as a photographer for over two years via the wonders of Flickr.
Bob knew he wanted me in the blue dress but still looking pretty natural which was fine with me, I don’t have a live in hair and make-up artist anymore, so I winged it. The evening itself was super fun, it didn’t take me long to relax, Bob does have a very naturally calming personality, he is very respectful. He wants his shot how he envisions it but he does make sure you are fully comfortable with whatever ideas may pop into his head beyond what is already pictured on the film reel of his brain while planning the shoot.
It was really great getting to help someone start building something towards their passion, it was a pleasure to work with Bob and I would of course recommend him for any of your headshot or portrait session needs! Do check out his site and enjoy the photos I’ve posted here they are a just a few of my personal favourites.
If you like what you see here be sure and join Bob’s new Facebook group for his photography site.
These photos are all property of Bob Lai Photography and have been used with the permission of the photographer.
As far as reading goes, I’ve been having a hard time with books that aren’t complete shit this year, the worst of it is, because of my RULES on having to finish books that I start I’m way behind on my minimum quota, I’m not going to even come close, unless I cheat and read a bunch of super short books. If they are good I guess it doesn’t really matter. Other than The Joy of Living – Unlocking the Secret of Happiness by, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, which I read so my psychiatrist and I could have a sort of book club therapy session on it and it turned out to be fantastic I highly recommend it. But it wasn’t a fun, easy, fancy free read. In most places it was pretty slow and took longer to read than I’d have liked. Learning to meditate and trying to meditate may cause actual meditation slowing down the reading process considerably. This meant I had to read things back over constantly.
I put out a call on Twitter, to the effect of “someone please send me something that doesn’t suck to read, this is getting ridiculous”. Ian from @atomicfez who I have met only once but made an impression and we chat on the Twitter, sent me an eBook copy of a book he’d published called The Terror and the Tortoiseshell, A Benji Spriteman Mystery by John Travis. He basically told me it was something about cats, Ian knows I like cats, an extra piece of thoughtfulness there I thought. I finished the piece of trash I was currently crawling through and with some skepticism set out to read the new book; I’m extremely picky with what I will read when it comes to fiction Mystery novels.
Benji the cat asleep on his owners legs awakens to screams, which turn out to be animals murdering humans, The Terror has started. He suddenly finds himself to be of human size and able to stand on and walk with his back paws. This has happened to the rest of the animals as well, lions, tigers, bears, dogs, with no explanation for what caused The Terror. There is also no explanation for the odd cat or dog found still living as if it were the good old days, unable to talk and just a pet. The animals fill the zoo with the last of the humans found on the streets, most finding themselves cast out of their previous homes. They are now called Humes or Sappies, barely seen for fear of being viciously slain. Even new organizations like The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Humans [SPCH] can’t stop the madness or heinous murders. Benji Spriteman takes on the roll of his old owner Jimmy, this has become commonplace for a lot of animals, if they don’t take over their jobs they still take on many defining characteristics. Benji, now a detective, sets out to solve the hume murders.
When you first start to read The Terror and the Tortoiseshell, the talking animals and their take over will cause anyone who has also read Animal Farm to try and draw comparisons. It doesn’t take long to realize you are reading a better story and one with very few similarities. I found the ninety-five page Animal Farm tedious, it felt like it took me as long to read as the just over three hundred page Travis novel did. It may be hard to imagine that a book with the word terror in the title could be funny, but you’d be wrong, from Rats taking over the newspaper and publishing it with no sentence structure, grammar or spell checking, to a restaurant that serves nothing but human dishes, there are surprises around every corner and just when you think there is nowhere for the story to go other than to be solved but you still have one hundred pages to go, Benji and his buddies will cough up even more hair balls to chase after.
Animals behaving like animals but on two paws instead of four towering over humans, feeding on humans because The Terror has happened, turned out to be just as dark as it was fun and hilarious. The writing is witty and intelligent, I was able to lose myself into the absurdity of it all while not feeling like the message of the book was being pushed in my face. I would definitely recommend it and thank my buddy Ian for giving me the eBook copy, about time I read a good book this year.
Before I even started this book I had more than one inquiry into why I was going to read it. I have never had a problem saying how much I DID NOT like The Time Traveler’s Wife. The review was also cross-posted at Estella’s Revenge – A Zine About Books.
I remember a woman I no longer speak with asking me once why I didn’t like the The Time Traveler’s Wife and I said well the time traveling babies for one and she was all, well that made sense to me, and right then, I knew the friendship was over. Ok, I’m not that big of a bitch but are you kidding me? Sure, it may have made sense but it still remains one of the most ridiculous things I had EVER read in my entire life of reading. And before I move on here I feel I should mention that I watched the movie, of course I did, Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams, I love them both. I guess I’m just used to Hollywood destroying great novels and this led to genuine intrigue because with my over the top dislike for this book I had an odd feeling that it wouldn’t make a bad movie and what do you know, I enjoyed it. The parts I had liked from the book where mainly the parts put on screen and although I still chuckled at the time traveling babies I found it easier to accept in movie form.
The thing with Audrey Niffenegger and why I was so ready to read her new book, Her Fearful Symmetry was because she isn’t a bad writer, in fact until I read the new book, I had The Time Traveler’s Wife rated 3 of 5 stars on Goodreads because for a first novel I did find her writing style to have a certain impressive flow to it. But this has now been lowered to 2 stars after rating Her Fearful Symmetry 1 of 5 stars. Her writing skills are over shadowed by statements which read like sentence fragments from a plot that in too many places seems underdeveloped and others needlessly overdeveloped, which I find interesting because it is apparent that she did a lot of research for this book. So much so that the write-up in the back totes her as an employee which I found even more intriguing until realizing it was an extremely unfortunate oversight in the editing as she only volunteered there during research for the book. The write-up is so misleading I allowed myself to become excited thinking she was going to spend a lot of time focusing on the famous Highgate Cemetery in London, which is now on my list of places I plan to spend AT LEAST a full day exploring when I finally make it to London, but not due to any glorious descriptions from her. There are many famous people buried there, Karl Marx for one, she over-mentions him about five times. I get it, Karl Marx is buried at Highgate Cemetery in London. I heard you the first time.
Aside from the cemetery this novel centers on two generations of twins and their family secrets. Ghosts and death are a prominent theme but just like with the time traveling babies I found myself bursting out laughing when after the passing of one of the characters their lover lays on the bed of the deceased and masturbates, then later returns to masturbate again only to have the ghost brush herself against him and apparently he can feel it and she passes her dead cold hands over his body and his penis and IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING AM I REALLY READING THIS?
I don’t understand why Niffenegger felt it necessary to volunteer at the cemetery and to take the guided tours when really we are only taken on ONE tour through the cemetery and even that is rushed in description due to conflicts with the characters. Because of the fascination I hold with cemeteries I did appreciate her writing on some of the history of Highgate but the link that is supposed to be drawn to the character studying it, is so weak it falls way short and is rarely addressed other than in simple yes or no questions asked of the character. This was a novel where the characters I liked faded off into the background and weren’t paid enough attention, and characters I didn’t like and felt offered little or no value at all to the story resulted in highly descriptive wastes of time.
When I compare this book with The Time Traveler’s Wife I have to say what I never thought I would, that I liked it 1 star more. I felt short changed on a book that had a lot of potential. This novel had many things I love to read about, twins, death, cemeteries, ghosts, and yet it failed to develop any of the characters enough for me to care at all what happened to them or they were involved in down right absurd story lines that had nothing to do with Highgate. Overall, a very disappointing read.
I have been in this bizarre place lately where I’m taking comfort and solace in John Denver, my undying devotion and love of Johnny D is well documented on this blog, he hasn’t pulled ahead of Neko Case on my last.fm stats but Tool can’t either. The disparity between Neko Case and Tool all but prove that I listen to songs on repeat which I mention in my Twitter profile. I can’t believe I am going to admit this but it isn’t like you can’t see it on my profile. Since joining last.fm on August 5, 2008, loading all my music in and then being told about Scrobbling by The C.J Hixon. [which he is addicted to like when he comes back this summer I may stage and intervention] Plays for Neko Case my all time favourite artist = 5,482 listens, Tool my all time favourite band = 1,132. Maybe there is more than I originally thought keeping me in therapy for seven years.
I’ve always all but needed music in my life to function. I have memories of being grounded as a kid and grounded for me meant the only thing I was allowed to do was read. This may or may not be why I love reading. Could have gone either way on that one, I think. The first records I remember loving were my Sesame Street ones, when left unattended I can see myself jumping around on my bed and rocking out hard, getting to listen to John Denver and the Muppets could turn into some boisterous bed jumping extravaganzas as well. If I got in trouble for jumping on my bed to different variations of Jim Henson creations I’ve blocked it out and all that is left is seeing myself in slow motion feeling it, loving it. So when I’d get grounded I have these memories of lying on the floor with the volume as low as it would go, just to hear that damn rubber ducky song ONE MORE TIME. I had that record player a long time, it of course saw the purchase of my first REAL record, Thriller. My first tape was Madonna, True Blue. Some of my first real jobs where in very low level roles selling music and ordering music for retail stores.
Recently Adam and I wear talking about music videos, I told him something I had never told him before, it wasn’t major just something I used to do so I could hear my songs that I didn’t want to buy tapes for. I was in love with Much Music and used to watch the station for hours with a tape in the VCR and my hand on the record button so that when a song came on I could instantly record it, even though I couldn’t get the same kind of volume out of the TV as I could from my [by this time] tape player. It was awesome to me because all my favourite songs and videos where at my finger tips which also made it so much easier for impromptu dance routines. And back then artists and bands cared more about what they were putting out there in regards to videos, now a lot of people get all caught up in the production and forget about the song.
I was originally going to post five videos, but when I started to think about the videos I have picked for this post It didn’t go in the direction I had intended it to, which was basically new videos that reminded me of old videos or what I want to see in music videos something that at least feels like it was made for me, the listener, and not a sales pitch.
Right, let’s get to it, shall we?
Bat for Lashes – What’s a Girl to Do? (2007)
I started listening to Bat for Lashes last year, I’m late to the table on a lot of good music these days, there is simply so much shit out there and I get lost in my folk music and every now and then pull my head out of my ass long enough to discover new to me talent. Given that I spent a good portion of my youth taping videos onto meticulously labeled VHS tapes, I feel I know a good music video when I see one.
This video struck me for many reasons, first of all I adore the song, I don’t remember how I came upon it but I know the first time I watched it, I watched it in awe, didn’t take my eyes off the screen. I don’t go so far as to wiki this shit, I was obsessed as a teen because getting ahold of music was so different back then, especially in the North. I don’t know anything about this video except what I think of it. Having worked in T.V. though, I can not even imagine how hard that two minutes and fifty eight seconds was to film, I am going to go with NOT EASY. The timing is impeccable, originality used with such deceiving simplicity, even the sweater she is wearing, I love it. There was a time when I also hung out with various boys in the Vancouver courier scene who were all about tricks and impressing girls, receptionists from the city centre, myself being one of them, they’d take me for rides on their handlebars, that is of course until till the next cute receptionist came along..
Peter Bjorn And John – Young Folks (2006)
The only thing separating us from hipsters is about fifty grand. I heard Adam playing this song one day before I ever saw the video and the whistling caught my ear because Adam can’t whistle so I wasn’t sure why he was torturing himself with this until I peaked over and found a suitably ironic video unfolding before me, not really an original idea but there was still something that made me want to watch it, over and over again. This video is detailed, the drummer’s Hulk t-shirt, polyester, timeless behavior by good ol’ young folks, we were even discussing the other day how when you are young it feels like everyone is in a band. Catchy tune, fantastic video, allows me many an opportunity to whistle in Adam’s ears, it sticks out to me, seems really thought through; drawing it was probably full of shits and giggles, maybe some safety meetings.
R.E.M. – Everybody Hurts (1993)
This video was on a lot of my VHS tapes. This has always been a go to song and video for me when I need to cry and can’t. Sometimes I’ll watch the video when I want to kill myself, I’ll have a good cry and call it a day. Message received. This video and I have been through a lot together. This song was there when it wasn’t enough and there I was in the hospital for over a week, stomach pumped, leaving my body somewhere separate from my wondering mind that wanted nothing to do with what I had done, what I was, the pain, and the fallout. Everybody Hurts. This song took on even more meaning for me after losing my buddy to the big S. I used to think you could know someone, even if you couldn’t read their minds, another reason I have always loved the message that I perceive from this video, from a symbolic place of relating to the thoughts offered up by the personalities brought to the video. Suffering from depression and feeling forced into silence for so long I wanted a car door to open for me. And now, this video epitomizes my feelings, learned the hard way, my personal feelings, that you can never ever truly know anyone, we can only truly ever know ourselves. And how many people can even honestly say that they really know themselves?
