I can never seem to get it together enough (<--life summed up) to actually put together an entry for this blog and I end up with a disjointed list of stuff.  This entry will continue in that not-so-fine tradition.  

• I recently found these two identical* postcards from Carcross at a rummage sale, and I was actually in Carcross last summer for a couple of hours while waiting to hop a bus to Whitehorse.  I don't know exactly how old this photo is, but I would guess it's from some time in the early 1990s, as the back of the postcard mentions "the old stern-wheeler SS Tutshi" was "recently" destroyed by fire and a quick internet search reveals that the Tutshi burned in 1990.  Of course, for all I know they could still be selling this postcard somewhere in Carcross, though I don't remember seeing it.  But really, why would I?  It's not an especially great photo of the town (trust me, I've been there!), which makes it kinda funny as a postcard photo.  Although none of them would make good postcard photos, I would like to show you some of the photos I took:

On the sandy shore of Bennett Lake

The store across from the train station.  It's on the postcard!  Below is a closer view of the card (see the pink building?):

And see the Caribou Hotel here (the big blue building)?  Here it is today:

This is the side of it.  It is now closed.  Note the doors to nowhere and the boarded-up windows.

• Kinda sad.  But this will be a more upbeat bullet point!  Hi, there.  So, this is something I do often:  buy an album (or request it as a gift and actually receive it) then not listen to it for years.  Yes, I fully acknowledge that I am absolutely terrible.  I also do that with books, but that's a bit of a different situation in which the library plays a major role (ably backed up by two strong supporting players, laziness and the always surprisingly small number of hours in a day).  I KNOW.  Remember my last entry, in which I confessed my Can-illiteracy?  Anyway, all this is a prelude to my making this woefully late proclamation:  Jason Collett's 2005 album Idols of Exile is great.  I just discovered this now, in 2011 (jeez-uz, is it really 2011 already?).  I think I got the album for Xmas the year I saw the film Everything's Gone Green because the song "Hangover Days" was used in it and it really caught my ear so I went home and looked it up and then listened to it a bunch of times on MySpace (remember that shit?).  So that was probably 2006 or 2007.  And I'm sure (because it's kinda my M.O.) that I probably listened to the album once or twice after I got it and was like, "Eh, whatever," then tossed it on the pile of Albums I'll Listen to Later and Will Probably End Up Loving.  And sure enough...  I looked on YouTube for a couple of the songs I really love but didn't get results.  The pickings are kind of slim for anything from this album, actually.  In fact, the official video for the album's first track that is posted on the official Arts & Crafts channel is messed up--the video is really pixelated and the music track skips!  However, I did find this which I don't want to embed but I will tell you that it is stills from the comically awful TV show One Tree Hill.  Weird.  Anyhow, I did find this video for "I'll Bring the Sun," which is pretty cute: 

• And so, listening to Idols of Exile got me thinking about Everything's Gone Green (though perhaps now I will associate it with One Tree Hill?  Oh, that would be sad), which I enjoyed when I saw it lo those many years ago (yeah, it actually played here for a week or so!).  The screenplay was written by Douglas Coupland and it's chock full of Coupland-y themes, and it's also really Vancouver-y.  It's fun to see a movie that's actually set in Vancouver, i.e. the city that has become American City Stand-in on several TV dramas and movies.  I found this scene from the movie on YouTube that was filmed (or, mostly filmed?) in a spot I know well.

Looking toward Sunset Beach (that flag across the inlet is visible in the clip).

Sunset Beach.  When I saw that sculpture, it made me think of this movie and the whale and that the sculpture looks like whale ribs.  The sculpture was installed in this spot a couple of years ago I think--before the movie, and of course there is no correlation except in my mind.

• And speaking of Douglas Coupland, I downloaded the first four of his Massey Lectures before a trip to Vancouver and listened to them on the train there and back.  When I came back home to my computer, I went to retrieve the fifth and final lecture but it never showed up in my iTunes (I subscribed to the series, and the fifth lecture hadn't become available before I left).  But apparently the CBC was being whack about it and possibly never made the fifth one available because there were lots of pissed off comments hinting at this on the IDEAS homepage.  Whatever.  So now I heard 4/5 of a novel being read to me and I am balking at both the idea of paying for a set of podcasts that I already have 4/5 of and at the idea of buying the book because having it read to me by Douglas Coupland was actually way awesome and I want to hear the rest of the book in his voice.  Which...is kind of sexy?  Can I say that??  No, I probably shouldn't.

• I would like to talk a little more about Douglas Coupland in this space in the future.  I am announcing my intentions to do this now because I am hoping that doing so will make me actually do it because I won't want to make a liar out of myself.  I am trying to, you know, actually get stuff done.  And I am also going to add that I will very soon be devoting an entire blog post to Dan Mangan.  You can take that one to the bank.

*Yeah, they're identical.  My scanner is a new addition to my household and we're still trying to work some things out, so it ended up cutting off some of what I was trying to scan.  Whatever, scanner!

BARNEY.

So.  I'd heard that a movie was made of Barney's Version by Mordecai Richler and I thought, damn, I should read more CanLit.  My record in this regard is embarrassingly poor.  I don't even want to admit to how little of Canada's (uh...purportedly...!!) fine literature I've read.  I'm sorry.  Anyway, I decided to begin atoning for my behavior by getting Barney's Version from the library, but when it arrived for me at my local branch, it was nestled on the holds shelf alongside five other books (I both love and hate when this happens).  I started in on it but quickly realized that it seemed fairly awesome, and therefore purchasing it would be a safe bet.  But, being perennially broke and having five other books to read in the meantime, I waited and asked for it for Xmas.  In the interim, I heard an interview with the movie's screenwriter on Q.  He came off as a bit of a cocky twerp, but I guess I was in a charitable mood at the time and though, "Eh, the kid's just got moxie, that's all."  He talked confidently about how he reworked a lot of the narrative to have it make sense as a movie and tweaked certain aspects (such as settings) to make it more commercially appealing in international markets.  I thought, "Hey, this is interesting.  We're learning a bit about the realities of movie-making.  This guy's being quite straightforward, and he's kind of right--a movie with a lot of voiceover explaining everything is pretty universally lame."  Then, I read the book.

I cried throughout the whole last chapter (or the "Afterword"*) and clutched the book to my chest for a good five minutes or so after closing it for the last time.  I love this motherfucking book so much.  I had no idea I would love it this much.  How dare they touch a proverbial hair on this book's proverbial head?  BASTARDS.  Of course, honestly...I might have actually enjoyed the movie if I hadn't read the book.  But...no.  I'm really glad I read the book because I absolutely love it and now it's all up in my brainpan.  And to be perfectly honest here, I am not a "movie person."  I am much, much more of a book person (also, a big-time TV person, and a music person).  I barely like any movies.  I barely see any movies.  I don't actually have the option to see this anyway (well, before it's released on DVD)--it hasn't been released in my town (which is a pretty big, pretty movie-loving market), and since we're already post-Academy Awards announcements and the movie isn't up for anything big, I don't anticipate it being released here.  So, I headed for my computer to see what I was missing.

I felt a bit ill watching the trailer.  The whole thing was like, "What?!?  NO."  Now it's a buddy picture for Barney and his dad?  1950s Paris is now (by the looks of it) 1970s Rome?  Clara is a pretty blonde?  Fucking "Bang A Gong"?  Well, okay, that last one is more of a beef with the trailer itself.  Also, Paul Giamatti is just...no.  I don't like him for this.  I don't want to sound harsh but the thought of looking at and listening to him for the length of an entire movie...bums me out.  I got tired of him just watching the trailer.  He's not Barney.  Barney has a wicked charm, despite his curmudgeonly (at best) and often downright dickish (at worst) ways.  Paul Giamatti is just a schlub, and appears to be once again playing to type.  But, I think I like Minnie Driver as the Second Mrs. Panofsky.  And Mark Addy as Seamus O'Hearne seems like pretty good casting though, weirdly, he doesn't appear in what is billed as the "official" trailer, yet he's all over what's called the "US trailer".  I really don't know about Scott Speedman as Boogie, though having said that I want to like him because, weirdly, just seeing him in the trailer made me weak-kneed.  I know he's been in other stuff--which I haven't seen (not a movie person...)--but he really just makes me flash back to Felicity and even though I haven't seen that show in about a decade (gawd, I feel oooold), I was arguably just as into Ben as Felicity was (see?  total TV person).  Anyway.

Actually, now that I watched three different trailers for this movie four or five times each (and will now be humming "Bang A Gong" for the next three days), I kind of want to see the movie even though I am ideologically opposed to its very existence (oh yeah, I bring the drama).  I am soooo complicated.  If it does ever open here, I will buy an extra-large box of popcorn (or a "Monster Bucket" of popcorn, in the parlance of the movie theater I worked at for two weeks when I was 20) so I can throw handfuls at the screen while jeering and hissing.  God, I am practically live-blogging my change of heart re: this movie because after I typed that last sentence I watched Paul Giamatti's Golden Globe acceptance speech (best actor for his role in Barney's Version).  The man said, "I salute the great nation of Canada," while actually literally saluting.  Okay, Paul.  I like you.  And I like your glasses!  You seem nice.  But...I'm still not sure about you in this movie, and I'm less sure of the movie itself.  Bottom line, the book is just too, too amazing and to mess with it in any way seems hideous and hateful (DRAMZ).  IMO, Richler should have gone full Salinger on this one and made sure no one made it into a movie.


*Read the book to find out why this is in quotes.  Oh, please read it!