4.04.2025 - Weekly Digest

Hallo all. This week's bloggery. Thanks for reading.

3.31.2025

This will be my last night in Le Studio Triste. A few hours ago I was on my back staring at the ceiling willing it to burst into flames or in some other way injure the guy upstairs who was actually moving furniture around at 3:30 AM. It didn't work and I surely would have been a casualty myself if it had. In my calculus at the time that would've been fine. Preferable, even.

As such I feel outwardly skeletal. And yeah I had in the noise cancelling earbuds with a white noise loop cranked to hell so keep your victim blaming to yourself.

As such I feel inwardly testy as well.

Collective office space for transients. I don't know if hobo is offensive when referring to transients. Either way it describes me. Riding invisible electric rails and sometimes iron ones.

The way space and time are related. This neighborhood was unknowable to me a few weeks ago. Now I know that that place over there is on East not West Mont Royal and it's always crowded but the sandwiches are worth the wait and to always order extra sauce. Also that East and West and all other ordinals are relevant only to each other in this city which is one of its many surreal charms, like how the parks feel safe at night.

It's been so long since I sat in a real office I'm not sure what to do with myself. Do I officiate? I should probably find ways to make money. I saw some hats in a shop window. If you put a hat on the floor and dance a little dance folks will throw toonies in there. I saw it over on Rue Duluth. That lady was a pretty talented dancer though and dressed for it.

4.01.2025

Named the upstairs neighbor Mondieu the Noisy, Breaker of Sleep Cycles, Rival of Mastodons. Something about thunder and dumb myths we pretended to believe as kids. Angels don't move furniture you stupid child. Angels are several-eyed wheels of terror with feathers for some reason (look it up).

Scouring the sad studio. Double strength vinegar job. Spots proliferate like photophages under a flashlight. If I have to I will write a piece about that place and call it Heroin Canape. The rust-brown stains all over the sofa definitely look like blood, the kind that leaks or shoots out of arm holes.

Canape means couch. Accent aigu.

I pile everything onto my person: green soft-shelled steamer trunk, backpack, cloth shopping bag, yoga mat slung over it all as an afterthought and I punch the door code and hear the whine and grind of the automated lock, always keeping you guessing: will it complete the cycle, or seal you inside like a mummy's servant or strand you out in the hallway which, aside from the whimsical carnivalish Cirqe du Soleil New Wave framed film posters is decidedly a worse place to be stuck? Well?

The rumble from the steamer's wheels startles pigeons and a blind woman stops on my approach uncertain of the source and if it means her end. My shoulders ache and the yoga mat dangles everywhere except where I want it to like a big blue rolled up gnat buzzing around my head.

In silhouette I am a WW2 soldier humping his pack across the Pyrenees. I proceed downhill toward the Plateau and it's cold and bright and there's a wind to the face to remind you that spring is for the weak.

4.02.2025

A couple walks by me with a wrinkly dog and I can't tell if they're calling it Rambo or Rimbaud but if I ever have a Quebecois pet I'm naming it both. Rambo Rimbaud get off the canape that's where we keep the blood.

Amongst the amenities in my new short term rental is a book of short stories in French. They're trite and geared toward language learners but I understood the first one no probleme. Besides I'm getting a little sick of the Duolingo characters at this point. Why do they think it's funny to make Lin a nosy conspiracy theorist? Tee hee she's watching you and Helen Keller wasn't deaf.

I was communicating with a renter over Craigslist and they said 'Im Rachel', describing the location, and I responded 'Nice to meet you Rachel', and they replied 'No way I'm a guy!', like it's my fault they got their prepositions mixed up with their pronouns.

Frenchly speaking these things happen to everyone. My biggest weakness is knowing the order and occurrence of 'ce' 'cette' 'en' 'de' 'du' not to mention articles like 'le' and 'la' and when I speak I just mumble through those or wipe my hand over my mouth.

The first principle of linguistics and one of the few I remember is 'language is arbitrary'. This is nowhere more true than when you're trying to explain why we get on a plane rather than in one or the subtle differences between to and at and from and don't even come at me with fro or we'll get into some vestigial phrase shit and trust me neither of us wants that.

4.03.2025

Ooh la la just the fact that there's a window. Now I can see trashbags on the sidewalk and bikes whose owners left them chained to the railing all winter like neglected pets.

Have to remember to take a note to remind myself that leaving the house for coffee in the morning is always a good idea. It's splashy and gray but the local Skilling says it's gonna be 60F.

The store doesn't open until 10 so I am in the rain. In the U.S. this place is in a strip mall or somewhere you can't walk so you wait in your car or resign yourself to being half wet under a skimpy overhang, or you point your head into the tempest on your way to that gas station over there where you linger over beef jerky and gummy candies for as long as you can without being noticed. Then you attempt casual conversation with the clerk who has no interest in you or your condition or predicament.

So there's this Guy, right? Cirque de Soleil jacket. Steps out to smoke. A collaborator joins him and I assume they speak of things arcane. I want to ask if they know my old friends the nightmare clowns from Chicago, who I had sushi with and Nik Walenda years before his tightrope walk over the Loop for the one big reason that sometimes a thing must be done just because it's yours to do.

Guest Artist Profile: BK

My friend Brian is a scientist who taught himself to paint. In something like two years he's been through dozens of phases, investigating every artist and learning every technique. It's dangerous, and it delights me.

Find his work here: design_by_bk
https://www.instagram.com/design__by__bk?igsh=cXBpZXpyem9najdh&utm_source=qr

And here's his awesome bio: