Another blog, will put some effort to make this last.

So yes, a new blog. What's new? I'm 34, a dude who somewhat works as a scientist, and am currently floating around in a small forest town due to quarantine. Sometimes I get lonely and go on omegle to chat and am bewildered by the fleeting, uncaring nature of anonymous digital conversation. I have good friends and a great partner but I am another one of the modern, millenial, alienated people. I always wonder, how do others find relief? What do they hope for? Do they find their lives meaningful? Maybe its time for me to have kids.

No, no time for that. So I've said this before, but I miss the old style of blogs. Xanga, etc. I miss the personal, consistent element of them and how we all used to develop semi-meaningful to meaningful relationships and friendships. It really served a purpose. I don't identify strongly with my current social media self, which I try to keep minimal. I don't find they give me much relief and adds more to anxiety and stress. Long form, sincerity, expressing, and reading the inner thoughts of yourself and others is what I thought was cool about the blogging platform. I wonder, has this change in technology changed our inner worlds? Do people still have long, tender, emotional thoughts? Yes, of course they do. I wonder though, what has changed and where will it end up? Am I just a fossil? No, I don't plan to be. My friends and I talked a lot on Discord about hermetic stuff and Mario said "the inner world must be built. You need to put effort into it." I agree now. I'd like to create art, like Phillip K Dick said, so I can make my own worlds come to life.

I will still carve out this tiny corner of the internet. Here are some pictures of my nostalgic teenage TV viewing:





Let me talk about all three for a second while I still have the patience and discipline to write in paragraph form. These three shows/channels have a few things in common. All of them were local (Torontonian or at least Canadian) and had this very certain 90s, downtown Toronto urban aesthetic that was a little gritty, a little wacky, maybe not as aggressive as other places, but I don't know, very fucking cool too. The anti-gravity room was focused on comics, games, and sci fi fantasy nerdy stuff, and had a very DIY aesthetic. I think I'm so persistently nostalgic about these things is because 1) they introduced me to the larger world from my little living room in Brampton and 2) because they were deeply comforting and still are a sense of reality and sense and normality in a world I sometimes find strange, shiny, and surreal. COVID climate change identity politics. I find these things difficult even when I can handle them.

Anyhow, SHOWCASE introduced me to weird movies, which I used to watch for their sex scenes. This is how art and culture and weird shit was introduced into my life. I will always remember a Ewen McGregor with chinese characters on his body, shivering naked then committing suicide. Sex in these movies was not pornographic, but real, sometimes jarring, sometimes tender and had a very different effect on me than I anticipated. Dwarves and elephants and women. Sadness and pain. Quietness. Prostitution and drugs. Tenderness. It was not just that, it was the camera work and story and music, it all goes in you. And for once, I am glad I was exposed to that stuff, lured by sex, and subliminally taught art. There is great value in art and people promoting art. I truly believe its a sign of vitality and health and progress in a society.

And lastly, the Wedge, hosted by Sook Yin Lee, showed me indie music like Pavement, Weezer, thrush hermit, husking bee (not really), and a bunch of other bands. The lyrics, sounds and sincerity gave me a lot of comfort and maturity and I don't know brain and heart food for a time when I didn't feel like I had much around. Just youth, hope, and wonder, and time. Time, time, time.

I hope this doesn't become a nostalia blog but here's one more for the road.