27. May. 2000

Words of the month: hiatus, rapport

Bands: Soulwax, Rheostatics, Liz Phair, Lou Reed, Radiohead, REM, XTC, Carter USM, Wilco, Billy Bragg covering Bob Dylan at the 1996 Day of Action, Gomez, Zita Swoon, PJ Harvey, Cornershop, Daniel Lanois, Neil Young, Elastica, Stone Roses, St Etienne, Eliot Smith, Pulp, David Bowie, Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel before he started singing about talking pigs, early Spirit of the West, Elvis Costello when he was doing that string quartet thing, Big Sugar, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Cowboy Junkies, Bob Wiseman, and Emmylou Harris

Things to do more of: swimming, Sunday afternoon queer cafes reading The Observer, travel to Germany, movies on London Mondays and at the NFT

Beverages: Vernor's, weizen, Spanish Rioja, Moesel white, ginger beer, Caffé Nero café mocha, steamed milk with hazelnut shots, anything on The Steps at Church and Wellesley, Lithuanian red beer

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I didn't understand what friends in Berlin were talking about. After we left the stock market bar in Mitte, Nils said that there was a persistent feeling that you could not see everything, that you were missing out on things every week in Berlin. That there was too much film, too much theatre going on. Then, I wished for his problems. Now, after 7 months in London, I understand Nils all too well. Thursday, I went to a hiphop/kungfu night with Kat and Holger. Last night, former colleague bar chat. Today, the Museum of London and England v Brazil in footie. Tomorrow, hopefully a charity basketball tourney, a chat with Kat, and planning discussions with the local Green Party. Monday is a nationwide music broadcast by the BBC, Tue is hopefully an interactive ecological art exhibition, and Wed is a tossup between drum/bass electronica or a cheap film. On top of this, my 9-5 job is to make real-time summaries from the BBC and private news channels. Throw in my increased caffeine intake, and I have new lightening quick reflexes. I catch coffee cups as they fall off tables. I dodge and weave killer black cabs as I walk/run through the streets of London, a 165 cm dynamo of blurring feet. I have marathon sex sessions like Jeff Goldblum in The Fly. But feeling used to this compression, this uber-Mensch pace of life, I could probably handle more. It just isn't enough. There is this sense of release when I go for weekend quick strikes to Geneve or Canada. And a feeling of reinsertion when I am touching down again at Heathrow or Luton.

I had the same feeling when I was younger. My family would go on 3 week camping vacations in rural Ontario. We pulled a hardtop tent-trailer behind our Ford Fairmont. We immersed ourselves in a rural sense of time, for 3 hrs worth of gas and $14 per night for an electrical campsite. Beside a quiet park lane, a few minutes walk from canoeing or the beach, we would barbecue and play cribbage. And when we returned, we would approach Toronto from the east. 4 lanes would become 8. The cars would become quicker, the smog more noticeable. The highway would finally branch out to 16 lanes of 100kph traffic, the highway filled with everyone returning from the weekend, and our lives would speed up to match our car.