At long last, I’ve returned to blogging after my week in Edinburgh. And I hope over the next week or so to tell all my remaining readers about it. But really, the most epic part of my voyage was the first part. It’s a story so harrowing, so chilling, so fraught with suspense and danger that it could be fatal to the faint of heart. I am speaking, of course, of having to transfer flights in Heathrow airport.
I arrived just over three hours early for my flight from Toronto airport. I spent those three hours figuring out where the international check-in and terminal was, drinking Starbucks coffee for lunch, writing an outline for my doctoral thesis, and wandering around the duty free shop. After a ludicrously long lineup for boarding, we finally got in the air only twenty minutes late. Because we were travelling five hours into the future, my six and a half hour flight would last almost twelve hours.
One thing I certainly learned about myself going through those long airport terminal corridors was that I can’t get on a moving pedway without starting to sing Feist’s “My Moon My Man,” and sometimes even dance too if it isn’t too crowded.
I noticed that my flight included a large tour group on their way to Israel to visit various Christian shrines. Thankfully, they kept their religiosity to themselves, as I find it very irritating after being awake for long hours. The multimedia entertainment systems in the backs of our seats were quite impressive, though. As well as being able to listen to Bob Dylan’s new album (still nothing as good as Time Out of Mind), they had quite a selection of movies, even a few independent ones. Though I mostly concentrated on trying to sleep, and quieting my digestive tract after ordering the beef dinner, much to my regret.
The major problem with the film selection was what my immediate seat neighbour, an elderly woman who was part of the Christian tour group, had herself selected. The Sandra Bullock / Ryan Reynolds vehicle The Proposal. Even though she had her headphones in and I couldn’t hear any of the atrocious dialogue, I could still watch the moronic set pieces and humiliating performances. This piece of celluloid vomit was like a particularly awful car crash: I couldn’t look away, and the bodies were already beginning to rot, the smell being especially disgusting. By the smell, I mean Bullock and Betty White butchering an Alaskan First Nations tribal dance. Why this happened, I have no idea. Perhaps because their god hates me.
But the real adventure began when I got to Heathrow. I had just less than two hours before my connection took off on the original schedule. The twenty minute delay at Toronto was no help, plus the Captain informed us that “We have a situation on board and some people will be getting on the plane before you get off.” I was concerned and confused at this, until I saw five uniformed London Metropolitan police officers striding down the airplane corridors and disappearing into the back section of the plane. I could only hope that their suspect had an aisle seat so they could grab him quickly. They apparently vanished out a back entrance, because we were given permission to leave just a couple of minutes later. I had ninety minutes to reach my connection.
I followed the signs that said flight connection, and stood in line for an interminable time waiting to go through security, removing my jacket and belt, and taking my computer from my briefcase. After moving through security, I found myself back in an international check-in terminal. Upon asking someone at a rental car stand, I was told that I was still in Terminal Three, and had gone through security unnecessarily, thinking that I was going to Terminal One to connect to my British Midlands (bmi) flight to Edinburgh.
Cursing my confusion, I got permission to duck back through a gate in the Terminal Three security (because you always get permission in an airport if you want things to go smoothly), and was given directions to the bus to Terminal One. I arrived at the bottom of Terminal Three at the bus stop just in time to get on board. The bus itself played a catchy piece of mild British techno reminiscent of a theme from BBC News while it drove us to the domestic terminal. I got off with just under an hour to spare and rushed along to the customs desk.
After many long corridors, I at last reached a long accordion-folded line for UK entry. Thankfully, there weren’t too many people in line, and there were almost a dozen customs officers at the check-in kiosks. However, after standing in line for almost ten minutes, I saw a sign that the ‘UK entry’ sign had obscured as I had approached down the corridor: it was for the line to connecting UK domestic flights. I was standing in the line for people getting off in London.
Ducking back through the polymer ropes, I stood in a much shorter line for foreigners connecting to flights going elsewhere in the UK. However, there were only three kiosks serving this line, so we were moving even more slowly than the larger UK entry line. When I eventually reached the front, I had only a few minutes until my flight to Edinburgh began boarding. I took the kiosk number, 37, as a good omen because of the Clerks reference, but I was to be denied. The flight attendants on my plane from Toronto had neglected to give me a UK customs card, so I had to fill one out on a bench next to the kiosks, nervous from the ticking clock and sleep deprivation.
Thankfully, it allowed me to forget my stomach still rumbling from that awful airplane beef dinner. Unfortunately, it also allowed me to forget the address of my friends Ray and Erin, who I was staying with, and which the customs card demanded I write in all caps. I don’t know why customs agents want us to scream at them on their cards, but I imagine that by the time my generation takes over this bureaucracy, we’ll get rid of that silly rule, as all caps are becoming increasingly rude.
Anyway, I handed my customs card in at kiosk 36, and was then asked a series of questions about what the hell I was doing in this country. After giving a very confused summary of my conference paper on the stifling affect orthodoxy has on creativity in academic peer review systems, my passport was stamped and I was told to proceed to biometrics. I stood in another line, waiting to be scanned by a set of small round black cameras, which I thought was some kind of molecular scan like on Torchwood. But after waiting for a further five minutes, I simply had my photo taken by a webcam. The image would then be sent to the security gate for Terminal One, which would be used to verify that I was still me. I was quite underwhelmed, as I was expecting some kind of eight dimensional quantum scanning device. Perhaps in the future.
After standing in another line and removing my belt, jacket, and computer again, I was informed that I may proceed to my gate. I asked one of the security officers how to get to Gate Eight from here, and she told me that I just had to turn left leaving security, and it was just down the hall. I think working at Heathrow eventually skews one’s sense of distance, because what she called ‘just down the hall’ was five hundred metres through a full shopping centre which included two duty free shops, three Starbucks, a clothing store, and three giveaway contest for giant gas guzzling cars that won’t even sell in America anymore.
With barely fifteen minutes to takeoff, I finally reached Gate Eight, but saw that it was subdivided in to gates 8a-e. Fortunately, I saw a small line of people boarding a flight, asked one of them if they were bmi flight 052 to Edinburgh, and when she said yes, I asked if I could cut in line. She acquiesced gladly, and I was on the plane within minutes, ordering £1.60 worth of ginger ale to calm my stomach, which was on the verge of rupture after that terrifying beef dinner on the overseas flight.
Overall, it had taken me 75 minutes to get through Heathrow airport. If I ever have grandchildren, I’m going to tell them this story, and they won’t believe me. When I touched down in Edinburgh airport, I stopped at the duty free shop to ask about what the rules were for scotch purchases, and the first music I heard was one of my favourite Stone Roses songs being played as background music in the shop. I felt like I was in paradise.
Actual Edinburgh stories later this week.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Saturday, October 10, 2009
A Strange Erotic Journey from Milan to Minsk to LA
Walking around my neighbourhood is one of my most productive times to think. A wandering mind on an absent-minded walk is a very fertile field. This is not to be confused with my walks around a supermarket, which raise my blood pressure to the degree that I’ve become convinced that if I ever have a fatal heart attack, it will be while navigating the condiments aisle.
But I actually wanted to describe an idea I had while walking to the bank and the supermarket this afternoon. You may remember a running gag in Seinfeld, continued in Curb Your Enthusiasm: a mediocre art film called Rochelle Rochelle, the story of a young girl’s strange erotic journey from Milan to Minsk (later adapted into a Broadway play starring Bette Midler). It ocurred to me this afternoon that the story of Rochelle Rochelle would be perfect for a respectable pornographic film. The fictional art film apparently has just as much nudity.
Feature-length pornographic films are ideal for these kinds of stories, literal road movies. What little plot there is in most pornographic films exists to link a variety of graphic sex scenes. A feature length porno is a picaresque erotic comedy, a series of emotionally gripping and touchingly funny scenes as a young girl experiences her sexual and social awakening on a strange and occasionally surreal journey from Milan to Minsk. The Rochelle Rochelle plot also offers an oddly ironic layer as well: a repressed innocent in sexy, liberated Italy transforms herself into a supremely confident vixen as she approaches grey, oppressive Belarus.
Here is where my thoughts this afternoon took a turn for the meta. I realized that in order to produce such a film, I’d need to secure the rights to the story, which are controlled and owned by Larry David. So I would need to go to Los Angeles and ask his permission to make Rochelle Rochelle into a feature length pornographic film. I would have to convince him that I and my fellow producers were serious artists aiming to make a modern Last Tango in Paris. It all sounds rather like an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
So I thought, why not make it one? Fly to LA to convince Larry David to give permission to make the feature length pornographic Rochelle Rochelle, then promote the film by building an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm around it. I would play a parodic version of myself, convincing the fictional Larry David to give permission to make the Rochelle Rochelle porno. Throughout the season, David would be periodically roped into the production, feeling uncomfortable yet titillated all the time. The arc would end with the film a huge success, and Larry David and I sharing an AVN Award for the film.
I think this has great artistic, comedic, and financial potential. Mr David? Are you reading this? Contact me if you’re interested.
But I actually wanted to describe an idea I had while walking to the bank and the supermarket this afternoon. You may remember a running gag in Seinfeld, continued in Curb Your Enthusiasm: a mediocre art film called Rochelle Rochelle, the story of a young girl’s strange erotic journey from Milan to Minsk (later adapted into a Broadway play starring Bette Midler). It ocurred to me this afternoon that the story of Rochelle Rochelle would be perfect for a respectable pornographic film. The fictional art film apparently has just as much nudity.
Feature-length pornographic films are ideal for these kinds of stories, literal road movies. What little plot there is in most pornographic films exists to link a variety of graphic sex scenes. A feature length porno is a picaresque erotic comedy, a series of emotionally gripping and touchingly funny scenes as a young girl experiences her sexual and social awakening on a strange and occasionally surreal journey from Milan to Minsk. The Rochelle Rochelle plot also offers an oddly ironic layer as well: a repressed innocent in sexy, liberated Italy transforms herself into a supremely confident vixen as she approaches grey, oppressive Belarus.
Here is where my thoughts this afternoon took a turn for the meta. I realized that in order to produce such a film, I’d need to secure the rights to the story, which are controlled and owned by Larry David. So I would need to go to Los Angeles and ask his permission to make Rochelle Rochelle into a feature length pornographic film. I would have to convince him that I and my fellow producers were serious artists aiming to make a modern Last Tango in Paris. It all sounds rather like an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
So I thought, why not make it one? Fly to LA to convince Larry David to give permission to make the feature length pornographic Rochelle Rochelle, then promote the film by building an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm around it. I would play a parodic version of myself, convincing the fictional Larry David to give permission to make the Rochelle Rochelle porno. Throughout the season, David would be periodically roped into the production, feeling uncomfortable yet titillated all the time. The arc would end with the film a huge success, and Larry David and I sharing an AVN Award for the film.
I think this has great artistic, comedic, and financial potential. Mr David? Are you reading this? Contact me if you’re interested.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
And Sitting on a Flatbed Truck Was a Giant Black NO
Saturday night was the most impulsive trip to Toronto I’ve ever made, where I found myself wandering among a downtown peppered with esoteric art and flooded with people out to gaze at it all. I was suddenly invited to Nuit Blanche Saturday night by my friend Justine to meet her and Mallorie (who I had met the previous night at a drunken haze at Gallagher’s on Augusta. I was actually paying more attention to the end of Beetlejuice playing on the bar’s lcd tv. She said Saturday that she understood perfectly.) at the GO station down the street. Whether you see me walking up Bay street in Toronto flanked by two beautiful women, an uncomfortable third wheel on a platonic girl-date, or on a simple night-trip with two friends will depend on how sexually insecure you are.
I think I was most disappointed by the vodka pool, though I’m not sure what else they could have done with it. It was just a large artificial puddle of vodka, an irregularly shaped black container roughly ten square metres in area and maybe an inch deep, sitting in the lobby of a bank’s office building. All we could really do was stare at the pool. So we did. Leaving the lobby, I discovered the title card explaining the concept behind the vodka pool, an insufferably pretentious commentary about a critique of black market capitalism through its more frequently used currency, alcohol. The tone of the paragraph was what I could call mid-rectum Marxism. I laughed myself inappropriately sick.
On our way to several other installations, after having passed a stand selling fresh corn cobs, we discovered a flatbed truck sitting on the side of a street with two fifteen foot high letters sitting on it spelling NO. This basically encapsulates Justine’s personality. It was the simplest piece of art we saw all night, and the easiest piece to understand in that what it was, was clear to you: a giant word NO. How you took it was entirely up to you.
Later, we saw a performance art piece of Toronto celebrities playing Monopoly with real money in a locked glass room. By the time we got there, it was approaching the end of one shift, and K-OS was flaunting his winnings over Maggie Casella and the other playing, throwing money in the air and, I hope, calling them out from Park Avenue.
One installation we definitely wanted to see was set up in the hallway of an artfully designed shopping centre in Liberty Village: a network of loudspeakers suspended from the ceiling playing recordings of hundreds of different kinds of crying. At the end of the hallway was a separate installation, which consisted of about thirty people dressed in knee-length paper bags covering their faces who would apologize to you while you walked through. I was slightly freaked and amused at first, but just as I was about to leave the crowd of the besacked, five of them stood around me in a circle, and sent me surround-sound “I’m sorry”s. After that, I was actually kind of disturbed.
You can probably figure out the basics of my philosophy of art through these examples, but I’m going to tell you anyway. This has its foundations in some of my rants as a much younger, pre-blogging man, about the futility of overly complicated gestures of protest, so complicated that the political issue in question and how the symbolism articulates it has to be explained to you before you can actually understand the symbolism. Patton Oswalt has a routine about moronic hippies knitting the world’s smallest pair of pants, putting them on a mouse, and setting it loose in WTO headquarters.
Art makes itself laughable with long, pretentious explanations of symbology, and representations so abstract and obtuse as to become ludicrous. That’s why I laughed so hard at the idiotic pseudo-Marxism explaining what the vodka pool “meant.” Art (and philosophy, and literature) is effective when it is ambiguous and clear. That is, it should not require esoteric theory to understand, and it should be open to many different kinds of understanding. Art must provoke thought, and the only way to do that is to open a space within people for them to develop their own thinking and exercise their own creative powers.
•••
One thing Pitchfork’s countdown of the best albums of the 2000s did was remind me of how awesome J Dilla is. I found his best beats to alter your perception of sound just by listening to them, an awesome power (awesome in the sense of inspiring great awe). That list also taught me how to listen to the Donuts album properly. Because the first track is the completion of the single song that is the last, then first, track, Donuts is essentially not an album with a beginning and an end. It's a continuous loop. So I listen to Donuts by putting the album on repeat, beginning at a random track, and listening until I decide to change albums.
Call it the eternal return of the Dilla.
I think I was most disappointed by the vodka pool, though I’m not sure what else they could have done with it. It was just a large artificial puddle of vodka, an irregularly shaped black container roughly ten square metres in area and maybe an inch deep, sitting in the lobby of a bank’s office building. All we could really do was stare at the pool. So we did. Leaving the lobby, I discovered the title card explaining the concept behind the vodka pool, an insufferably pretentious commentary about a critique of black market capitalism through its more frequently used currency, alcohol. The tone of the paragraph was what I could call mid-rectum Marxism. I laughed myself inappropriately sick.
On our way to several other installations, after having passed a stand selling fresh corn cobs, we discovered a flatbed truck sitting on the side of a street with two fifteen foot high letters sitting on it spelling NO. This basically encapsulates Justine’s personality. It was the simplest piece of art we saw all night, and the easiest piece to understand in that what it was, was clear to you: a giant word NO. How you took it was entirely up to you.
Later, we saw a performance art piece of Toronto celebrities playing Monopoly with real money in a locked glass room. By the time we got there, it was approaching the end of one shift, and K-OS was flaunting his winnings over Maggie Casella and the other playing, throwing money in the air and, I hope, calling them out from Park Avenue.
One installation we definitely wanted to see was set up in the hallway of an artfully designed shopping centre in Liberty Village: a network of loudspeakers suspended from the ceiling playing recordings of hundreds of different kinds of crying. At the end of the hallway was a separate installation, which consisted of about thirty people dressed in knee-length paper bags covering their faces who would apologize to you while you walked through. I was slightly freaked and amused at first, but just as I was about to leave the crowd of the besacked, five of them stood around me in a circle, and sent me surround-sound “I’m sorry”s. After that, I was actually kind of disturbed.
You can probably figure out the basics of my philosophy of art through these examples, but I’m going to tell you anyway. This has its foundations in some of my rants as a much younger, pre-blogging man, about the futility of overly complicated gestures of protest, so complicated that the political issue in question and how the symbolism articulates it has to be explained to you before you can actually understand the symbolism. Patton Oswalt has a routine about moronic hippies knitting the world’s smallest pair of pants, putting them on a mouse, and setting it loose in WTO headquarters.
Art makes itself laughable with long, pretentious explanations of symbology, and representations so abstract and obtuse as to become ludicrous. That’s why I laughed so hard at the idiotic pseudo-Marxism explaining what the vodka pool “meant.” Art (and philosophy, and literature) is effective when it is ambiguous and clear. That is, it should not require esoteric theory to understand, and it should be open to many different kinds of understanding. Art must provoke thought, and the only way to do that is to open a space within people for them to develop their own thinking and exercise their own creative powers.
•••
One thing Pitchfork’s countdown of the best albums of the 2000s did was remind me of how awesome J Dilla is. I found his best beats to alter your perception of sound just by listening to them, an awesome power (awesome in the sense of inspiring great awe). That list also taught me how to listen to the Donuts album properly. Because the first track is the completion of the single song that is the last, then first, track, Donuts is essentially not an album with a beginning and an end. It's a continuous loop. So I listen to Donuts by putting the album on repeat, beginning at a random track, and listening until I decide to change albums.
Call it the eternal return of the Dilla.
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