4 things I am too intense about

I’ve found myself in an awful lot of places where I have to meet new people recently. This has not happened in awhile. I guess it is happening now because I am in school again, and in a really small program: I see the same thirty-odd people every day, five days a week. At some point, I am probably going to get to know most of them.

I find the whole process so incredibly awkward. This is bad, because I am absolutely an awkward rambler. I wish I could be laconic and cool, I really do, but it just is not gonna happen. I am a full on Seth Cohen.

And like Cohen and his comic books, there are subjects that I can really, really ramble on about. Some of these things are weird. In an effort not to scare people off, I recently polled my friends on what subjects I instantly alienate people with, and maybe love a little too much. Or as I like to think of it, things I should probably not let myself bring up, because I know I’m going to get weird, and really, why make life that much harder?

.4. Russia

I guess I get why people aren’t super into Russia. I mean it’s cold, and they had that whole Cold War thing. More than one person has told me that they don’t care about Russia because they think that Russia is boring.

I think that is crazy talk, because Russia is insanely cool. For one thing, it’s huge! I bet there are so many dinosaurs there that haven’t been dug up. It also has Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest freshwater lake. Something like 20% of the creatures there can’t be found anywhere else in the world. Culturally, Russia is also mindblowing: Russian literature! Russian ballet! Russian tea! Man, I would kill to go to Russia. I wish people would stop telling me I’ll get kidnapped there.

.3. Nuns

Seriously, though, what do nuns do all day? If anybody tells me “pray,” “teach schoolchildren,” or “Go watch Sister Act,” I swear I will freak out. Don’t you think these were the first things I looked into?! I have much bigger questions about nuns. Like, I know nuns are on Facebook, but do they have cell phones? Can they get data plans? Who pays for their cell phones? And for that matter, do nuns pay rent or hydro or electric bills? How? Does the church cut them a paycheck? Do nuns have savings, like if they want to go to the movies or something? How do they file taxes?

I don’t think I’ll ever be totally satisfied until I talk all this out with a nun, but I don’t know how I will, because these are sort of personal questions, and I don’t think I could ever make friends with a nun with the express purpose of getting close enough to feel comfortable asking her questions about her bills and finances.

.2. LOST

Actually, there are a few TV shows that could be subbed into this slot, depending on what I’m cycling through at the moment. Last winter it was Doctor Who. Intermittently through most of my life, it has been Buffy the Vampire Slayer. At least one week a year, it’s The O.C. (who could resist Sandy Cohen’s eyebrows?!) 

Suffice it to say that there is usually a TV show, and I’m usually weird about it. Right now, it happens to be LOST. I am fully aware that I am too goddamned into LOST. I just watched the whole series through, and seriously considering running all the way through it again, because what the hell, I miss Sawyer and Desmond and Sayid. To me, LOST is a televisual masterpiece and always appropriate dinner conversation. Unfortunately, to the rest of the world, it appears to be a vaguely dissatisfying TV show that went off the air two years ago.

Oh well. In the immortal words of John Locke, “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!” 

.1. Britney Spears

Personally, I think that Britney Spears is an international treasure. Isn’t everybody fascinated by this scrappy songstress? I mean, look at how far she has come! Remember when she went to Mars and an astronaut gave her the heart of the ocean? Remember when she was dating Justin Timberlake and they would wear MATCHING DENIM JUMPSUITS and everything was beautiful and nothing hurt? Remember way, way back when, when she was a Mouseketeer? Also, remember when she went crazy and shaved her head and drowned in a vat of cheetos, and nobody believed in her anymore, and then, just like a beautiful phoenix, she rose from the ashes? Remember Circus?

Damn Britney Spears is cool. I think the more important issue here is why the rest of the world isn’t too intense about her. 

Concert Review: The Flaming Lips

Last night the Flaming Lips played a free NXNE concert at Yonge and Dundas square and it was a good, good show. In case you live under a rock or something, the Flaming Lips are a group of psychadelic indie rockers who have been making best of lips since the early ‘90s. Try googling them; I’m sure it will be informative. They are pretty well known for overall eccentricity and quirky gimmicks, so I was expecting a pretty spectacular show.

I was also expecting to get to see it! Call me optimistic, but I saw Iggy and the Stooges play NXNE at Y&D square a couple years ago, and have no problem getting up to the front. I saw Metric at Edge Studios on Monday and managed to at least arrange myself to see Emily Haines’ bobbing head. The Flaming Lips was UNBREACHABLE. My two friends and I went on a total pilgrimage and wound ourselves through about six different routes trying to get headway; we failed. Eventually, we leaned up against some scaffolding across the street like a trio of punks; ironically we had a better view from there than we ever did amongst the hordes.

You can almost see the stage!

Personally, I blame Radiohead. Not the band or the injured or even the stage collapse, because that would be tacky and in kind of bad taste and my heart goes out to those affected by what happened (and wow, it has not been a great year for stages collapsing). But where do you think all those destitute Radiohead fans went when their concert was cancelled? The Flaming Lips of course!

Even across the street, they sounded great. And even from across the street, I could see glimpses of what looked like a show rife with overall eccentricity. Spotted: Glitter cannons, huge oversized balloons, dancing stage cheerleaders, and what looked like some sort of spinning rope of flame? Rock stars are so weird.

Anyway, I know tales of my second hand (third hand?) experiences are charming and all, but you know what would make them even better? LIVE VIDEO COVERAGE.

Luckily, NOW magazine put a couple of videos here. Wayne Coyne crowd surfed inside a giant bubble?!

Music Review: Grass Widow

Right now in Toronto it a truly magical time of year: NXNE. This is the time of year where music nerds and hipsters skip and frolic around downtown and listen to any of like, 600 acts that play over the course of the week. I wouldn't exactly classify myself as a hipster or a music nerd, but I am certainly a nerd who likes music, so I am pretty happy to have the opportunity to frolic with the best of them.

And oh the bands I get to frolic among! Porcelain Raft! The Men! Purity Ring! Grass Widow! Unknown Mortal Orchestra! The Flaming Lips!

Last night I saw Grass Widow at the Garrison. This is a trio of girls rockers from San Fransisco, and as I am awfully fond of them, it was a kick to see them live. Pitchfork calls these ladies minimalist indie pop whose "voices [collide]  in prismatic, off-kilter harmonies." I tweeted last night that they sound like Letters to Cleo if they had decided to go for indie rocker cred instead of being in every girl power movie of the 1990s. The reality is probably somewhere in the middle: Grass Widow rocks hard, shares vocals amongst all three musicians with excellent results, and manages to instill a total "fuck yeah!" attitude in my heart without throwing off any fronts of toughness.

They are also so supremely cute and I can't even talk about my huge girl crush on the adorable guitarist.

The Garrison was, as always, hot as hell, loud as hell, and still one of my favorite venues in the city. I want to say I love The Garrison so much for more than its absurdly convenient proximity to my house, but I'm sure that has at least something to do with it. Location aside, there is just something...I don't know -- intimate? -- about The Garrison that really appeals to me. It's small, but I've never felt crushed at a show there, and a smaller venue really helps me feel like I am inside the music (or some other derivative that doesn't make me sound like a raging pothead).

I was pretty close up, so I was able to take a few shots, but the iPhone 3GS is uh, shall we say lacking in photographic elegance, so they aren't the greatest pics. God I need a legitimate camera.

Guitarist Raven Mahon

Bassist Hannah Lew and drummer Lillian Maring.


Post Grass Widow, I hot footed it to Wrong Bar to see PURITY RING! I was unbelievable excited to see this show, and it was...

Well, actually, I'll never know because by the time I got there it was completely packed (serves me right for ducking home for fifteen minutes to get some work done). I'm still cycling through the stages of grief on this one, but I'm sure it was quite the show. The band took polaroids of people or something? If anyone was there, let me know how it was, you lucky ducks!

More Grass Widow:

Check out their myspace here
The Pitchfork review I quoted can be found here
Stream some tunes here

Make Way For 2012!

Officially, Finally, predictably, it is a new year! 2012, baby! I don't know about you, but I'm relieved. The days in between Christmas and New Years always feel like this hazy no man's land to me, where technically there is a whole week, but I always am under the belief that nothing is really operational yet. I chalk it up to years of formal education, where that week was traditionally spent in a barely conscious cycle of video games, Christmas candy benders, and awesome daytime TV marathons of stuff like Xena: Warrior Princess or Star Wars. This is also why September always feels like a "fresh start!" kind of month (I bet if you did a study there would be a huge spike of people trying to reinvent themselves in September).

2011 was okay. I sort of feel like I didn't "go" anywhere with my life, although I did literally go to lots of places. If I had to pick an overall theme of my year, I think it would have something to do with travel. It feels like I have barely blinked since I was on a flight to London, but that was over ten months ago, which baffles me. From there, I went on to visit eleven cities in five different countries, which baffles me even further.

With all that and the end of the year in mind, I thought it might be super rad to do a little High Fidelity throwback and take a look at some of the highlights of my wanderings.

This is not ranked in any discernible order. It's so messy (questions arise, feelings get hurt) so I've left the finer points of taste making to the fates and thrown everything into a stew of equal adoration.

Mercedes' Top 5 Cities of 2011

.05. Bath, UK


My fucking hair! I completely forgot how short I cut it right before I left.

Anyway, Bath will probably always hold a special place in my heart because after I first got to London, this was the first spontaneous adventure I went on. I think I had been in the UK for about four days, and I decided to go about a half a day before I actually left. I felt super intrepid, like a character in a video game or a wandering rogue like Dennis Quaid in Dragonheart. Just me, boots, and a map!

Well, and my +65lb suitcase, but why quibble?

And Bath was so freaking delightful. Very rich in history, very picturesque. I've written about Bath in other places, so I won't gush too much here, but oh how I loved that city. I still dream about the Sally Lunn teahouse and my all too brief times there. I was only in Bath for three days, but I have an immediate stream of fond and vivid memories about it. Mostly I remember plopping down anywhere I thought I could get away with it --church pews, the Roman baths, the circus parade, next to the terrifying Jane Austen statue in front of her house-- and writing my little fingers off.

Also, I walked up about a kajillion steps to the top of Bath Abbey for which nobody has ever properly praised me in my opinion, considering I failed gym twice in high school.

.04. Cardiff, Wales

When I think of Cardiff, immediately what I think along with it is "castle castle castle castle CASTLE."

And while it's true, I did spend an inordinate amount of time at Cardiff Castle, I swear I did lots of other things while I was in Cardiff as well. My second day there (all right, as I was leaving the castle), I managed to take a wrong turn in my wheelings and dealings. This is distressingly not uncommon for me. I've gotten much, much better at reading maps, but a lot of my system involves looking up what streets are the WRONG direction so that I will recognize when I've inevitably veered off course.

Sometimes when I fail to correct myself, I will come across something bizarre and awesome, and this happened too many times for me not to be utterly charmed by Cardiff. Turn one corner and I find a park that's just dominated by tiny little stonehenge like structures. Turn another corner. A huge corkboard, seemingly filled with nothing but handwritten poems. Another corner. TRASHCANS WITH DRAGONS ON THEM.

And okay, I know it's their national flag, but it's still adorable. Cardiff felt kind of spunky to me, and I wish I had stayed there longer.

Fun Fact: I was totally there for St. Patrick's Day. I went to bed at like 10PM. I am the worst!

.03. Barcelona, Spain

The second I arrived at my hostel in Barcelona, the astonishingly enthusiastic lad working at the desk leapt up, helped me with my bags, and launched into this impressive and animated speech about how great the city is, how gorgeous and fun it is, how I was going to love it. Then he whipped out a map and marked down every one of his favorite spots along with bus directions and routes. I'm positive it was a spiel, because I saw him give it to a couple groups of backpackers. It should have been totally annoying (like that cruise director from Breaker High or something), but it wasn't. He was just so damn cheerful that he couldn't help being infectious and leave people feeling upbeat.

That was kind of what Barcelona was like all the time. It was persistently stunning, with medieval corners, unfailingly bright weather, candy blue skies, that quirky sprinkling of Gaudi architecture. Barcelona was also where I learned the absolute value of taking a walking tour first thing when you drop into a new city: Almost every town has some cheap variant, and I really did come away feeling much more familiar with the city. I don't think I was ever lost less than I was in Barcelona.

.02. San Francisco, USA

If you ask anybody who has spoken to me in the last week they can confirm this: I am inescapably smitten with San Francisco. So smitten that I rearranged my entire coastal trip so that I could spend an extra day and a half there.

Is it the plentiful seafood? The cheerful hills and brightly painted houses? My gigantic crush on the entire beat generation? The fact that Charmed was set there?

It's a combination of it all, certainly. There is some other, less verbally tangible quality to San Francisco as well, though. I think some places I just landed in while I was in the right mindset. Bath was like that, and so was San Francisco. While I was there, stomping up hills and blasting Britney Spears' "Femme Fatale" album on continuous loop, I just felt this great sense of freedom and elation. I love that feeling. It makes me want to explore.

.01. Montpellier, France

I was in Montpellier for two full months, and I met a lot of people I liked a lot around town and in my classes, but I was feeling very solitary last summer, so I kept to myself a lot. Since my classes were pretty much just in the mornings, I had a ton of free time to just amble about and entertain myself. I downloaded an extraordinary amount of music that summer, and whenever I think back on Montpellier, it is almost always tinged by whatever album I was listening to constantly at the time. When I remember combing through the endless gardens in le Jardin Botanique, it's accompanied by the opening chords of Sleigh Bells' album "Treats". There's stumbling to class to Mother Mother's "Eureka", lying on the plaza underneath the Arc de Triomphe and staring at the sky listening to Starfucker's "Reptilians," eating pistachio ice cream to "Fantasies" by Metric. One of the few nights I actually did go out, I got embarrassingly lost as I was stumbling home just before midnight and probably would still be walking in circles by the university if a friendly lady of the evening hadn't noticed my aimless and tearful state and given me directions. That night will always be a hopeless montage to Best Coast's "Crazy For You" in my memory.

That was a meandering anecdote, but the point of it is that I was really happy in Montpellier, and being able to just walk around looking at beautiful things and listen to music most afternoons was a big part of the reason why. I also got completely addicted to almond croissants and pistachio ice cream while I was there. I like to think it was an anthropological study in taste, but I probably ate my way through 90% of the patesseries of Montpellier in my quest for the perfect almond croissant.

Alcatraz is Shaped Like a Turtle

Yesterday I took the ferry out to Alcatraz, aka "The Rock," aka "Devil's Island," aka "Isla de Muerta."

Wait, no, that last one is the island from Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl.

Alcatraz has a very long and storied history. I am embarrassed to say that 48 hours ago I knew none of it. I mean, I knew it was a prison and that JJ Abrams is making a TV series about it (what is with that guy and islands, anyway?) but that was pretty much it. But did you know that before it was a high security prison for captured gangsters, it was a fort built to defend the San Francisco bay during the gold rush? Or that in the 1960s a group of Native Americans inspired by the free love hippie movement tried to occupy Alcatraz as a piece of tribal land? Or that after it fell into disrepair in the 1970s, there was a petition to turn it into a nudist metropolis?

Well, maybe you did. But I sure didn't!

And before it was a super high security prison, Alcatraz was a federal prison. You can still see a lot of the buildings from those days, although they are little more than ruins. This is also where I started off.

Once upon a time this was the social hall for soldiers and their families. There was a general store, games rooms, bowling, and even a soda fountain! Actually, it sounds really elaborate and old timey, and someone on Pier 39 needs to make a killing by recreating this place and calling it "Alcatraz Alley" and selling overpriced root beer floats or something. At Christmas, there would be a formal dance for all the teenagers that sounds a little bit like the Alcatraz version of prom: The boys wore tuxedos and brought corsages, and the girls spent six hours on their hair and idealized the crap out of it from way too early an age.

It's kind of hard to picture this now, because the social hall doesn't exactly have a floor anymore, but I used my imagination.

Look how much fun they're having!

Today, Alcatraz is a popular tourist destination, but it is also a bird sanctuary! All over the islands there were spots highlighted for their excellent bird watching zones. Here is a grassy area known for it's large population of the beautiful bison:

Er...maybe they are camera shy.

Around the corner from all this, there was a guard house, which was supposedly the worst job you could be assigned on Alcatraz. It's not hard to see why: It's high up, windy, freezing cold, isolated, and essentially fruitless, since Alcatraz's claim to fame was largely based around it being inescapable. In fact, one guard is said to have shouted to a prisoner who was contemplating escape, "Go ahead, swim!" because even if a prisoner could make the water, their chances of survival in the rough currents and freezing temperatures were basically nil.

We weren't allowed up there for safety reasons, but I improvised a little:

And don't you forget it!

The real draw of Alcatraz is, of course, the cell block tour. I mean, birds and old buildings? We came here to see where gangsters got locked up! So that's where I headed next. And you can tell it was the real draw of the island: It was about six times more crowded, and there was an audio tour, and two gift shops.

(Although I would like to point out that if anyone DOES visit Alcatraz, please don't just head for the cell block tour. A lot of people do this, and they are really missing out. I mean, yes, it is cool to see all the old jail cells, and the audio tour was very entertaining --although I totally got lost like, thrice-- but the rest of the island is just so gorgeous that it would be stupid to miss out on it. Honestly, the cell block tour probably ranks below any time I was actually outdoors on Alcatraz, which was the real highlight for me)

All right, so I panicked. But you would too, if you thought they were going to lock you up here! One of the most famous rules in Alcatraz was that prisoners had a right to "Food, shelter, clothing, and medical attention. Anything else is a privilege." There was no incentive for good behaviour, only punishment for misbehaviour, and cells were solitary and measured about 9x9x7. 

 Can you imagine? Because I sure can't, and that is after having both seen and spent time in one of these cells. I think I would lose it after about a week. And I usually love dark, enclosed places! (Yes, I was that weird kid who hung out in closets and under her bed and stuff).

Oh well. At least there was a library.

Oh no! Some prisoner left his copy of The Hunger Games behind! I guess he'll just have to see the movie when it comes out in March.

But for a prisoner, the worst part of Alcatraz was the skyline. Let that sink in. Not the utilitarian guidelines. Not the fact that people were routinely stabbed at dinner. Not that prisoners weren't actually assigned a sentence, but were just kept until they were no longer considered aggressive or destructive to society. THE SKYLINE. This was because it was (and still is) a stunning view of San Francisco, and to be imprisoned on Alcatraz but still be able to see this beautiful, shining city, less than a mile away but totally out of reach, was incredibly painful.

Of course for me, this was a treat, because I got to go back at the end of the day.

A final fun fact about Alcatraz: The only women on the rock were the wives and daughters of prison staff. No female prisoners were ever sentenced there, because in order to qualify for imprisonment on Alcatraz, a person had to be deemed "incorrigible". Legally, no women would be labeled as incorrigible until the late 1960s. 

This made me laugh, because I regularly am called incorrigible. I had no idea it was a legal term, though! I just thought it was something that Bugs Bunny said a lot.

SANTA Francisco

My hostel had a visitor tonight!

Although frankly, I'm a little surprised that he has the time to travel at this time of year.

On The Road Again!

Yes, it's all true: I've hit the open road again. I went to Long Beach on Wednesday to support my friend, the lovely and talented Jamie Ludovise, as she screened her first animated short (and it was amazing. Wish I could show it here, but I'd be unaccountably scolded). And since I have a previously arranged engagement in Vancouver (read: Christmas with my family), I'm traveling as only a real bohemian sponge can: By wheeling my way up the coast!

Right now, I am in San Francisco. Aside from a brief outing when I was an awesome teenager going to Buffy the Vampire Slayer conventions, I have never had the pleasure before, but I hopefully made up for lost time today (I walked EVERYWHERE).

My first foray of the day was to City Lights Books, because let's face it: I am an English nerd. I've long yearned to do that thing where you read a bunch of books in the cities they were written in, but somehow never really managed to get it together (I lived in London for five months and all I read was classic American literature and the Song of Ice and Fire books). City Lights Books isn't a book about San Francisco, but it IS an important part of San Francisco's book history, especially the beat generation (Kerouac used to hang out there).

But before I could geek out, I had to get there. Now, it's pretty common knowledge that San Francisco is very hilly. You know what is less spread about? THAT IT IS SOMEHOW ALL UPHILL. Physically, I know that this doesn't make sense, but the hills of San Francisco laugh at physical laws and logic. That is why they are awesome.

Seriously man, forget France. The women of San Francisco's legs must be FANTASTIC.

Hills aside, it was a very pretty walk (and to be perfectly honest, the hills were kind of a kick, too. I can't believe how much I climbed! I felt like such a badass). I really like walking around new cities because since I am looking around so much, I catch a lot of cool details that I would never see if I were, say, stumbling home from The Lakeview in Toronto. Here are a couple of my finds:

I almost stole this teddy bear, but then I realized that a) It might be on an adventure of personal growth, and b) It could theoretically totally make a small child's day, so I left it alone.

(Written on the side of what looked like an abandoned strip club).

And after much walking, persevering, exploration, and, let's face it, heavy panting, because I am totally out of shape, I made it. City Light Books! Hipster Shangri-La! The even cooler, buffer older brother of Pages (which, if you are not in the know, is this killer independent bookstore that used to dominate my heart in downtown Toronto. It shut down a few years ago, and I am still both stunned and outraged).

And about the books, well, what can I say? I spent an embarrassing about of money. There was a whole section for books on anarchy, as well as an entire floor dedicated to poetry and beat literature. What I did buy honestly deserves its own post, so I might do that (although Christmas shopping was involved, so maybe it is best kept under wraps* after all)

Since I can't spent all day floating through a bookstore (can I?!), I eventually left and meandered by way to the waterfront and decided to pretend I was fancy and go to one of the luxe looking cafes on the pier. In retrospect, my boyfriend jeans and torn Modern Lovers T-shirt was probably not the most responsible fashion choice for  a place like that, but the waitresses were nice and the food was good, so perhaps the universe loves me after all.

That is a crab sandwich with mixed greens (seafood on the pier of San Francisco? Had to, bro!)

I spent the afternoon wandering around the waterfront. I visited Pier 39, which was very touristy, but very fun. It had a sort of Disneyland atmosphere (there were churros EVERYWHERE), with an arcade, a carousel, cotton candy, magic shows, and endless novelty stores, including...A LEFTORUM!

As a lefty, I was pretty pumped up about this, although I didn't buy anything. The other highlight of pier 39 for me was the candy store, because they had root beer barrels (as well as about a hundred barrels of saltwater taffy). I am nuts for root beer barrels, but I can never find them anywhere in Canada. And these were the really good ones, too, the kind that are super sticky and inevitably glue your teeth together. I've eaten about a million just writing this post, and my jaw is locked SHUT.

Without candy, the waterfront was pretty great. With candy, it was spectacular. Here is a picture of the bay from the end of pier 39:

And here is a picture of me amongst some boats:

Is it just me, or have my thighs effectively lost their thunder? Thanks, San Francisco hills!

I really do love it here, and it makes me sad that I will have to leave. Thank god I have a whole day to adore SF still tomorrow!

*Haaaaa get it? Christmas presents? Under wraps? God, I'm hilarious.