Thursday, March 28, 2013

{delhi 2 dublin}

I woke up with the flu this morning. Not the full-blown kind, yet, but the little ache in your back that says, "HURRY! DO THE DISHES! GET STUFF DONE! YOU'LL BE FLAT ON YOUR BACK IN THREE HOURS!" The little ache is amazingly precise. Because here I am, flat on my back, wishing I had a butler in my employ.

I'm ok with it though. Most of the work I need to do, I can do on the couch with my laptop perched on my belly in between cat naps and episodes of 90's TV shows. For example, I finished up another interview video from the weekend. This one's with a band called Delhi 2 Dublin {who are AMAZING live, by the way. I wasn't sure what to expect when they came out on stage and there was this little blond girl with a fiddle and a hulking asian man wearing a kilt and brandishing an electric sitar, but then it started and it was amazing and I want more}. If I were me, minus the flu, plus a billion dollars, I'd fly to wherever they're playing tonight. I'd do it.

Anyway. Here's the video. If you go to the Rage website, there's a link where you can download free songs but I have to warn you: the songs don't hold a candle to their live show. It's almost like two different bands. You know?

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

{rococode}

I met the gang from Rococode last fall at a bbq party. They were the nicest people and they made fantastic music, and I really like nice people and fantastic music, so we got along pretty good. This past weekend, the Rage team got to sit down with them and interview them, and I made this video about it for the website. We forgot a tripod, so I had crazy sore arms the next day from all the fifteen-minute-interval camera holding, and we were recording in an obnoxiously noisy hotel where a bunch of other interviews were going on, but other then that I think it went alright.

You can watch the "Weapon" video that we talk about in the interview here. It's so great.

A little creepy.

But mostly great.

Monday, March 25, 2013

{back from the T.}

I got back from Toronto on Saturday night, and have pretty much been walking around like a zombie ever since, giving people blank stares and mumbling something about being tired every five minutes instead of attempting real conversation. I feel like I've been gone for weeks and weeks, but it was only three days and I'm a wuss, I guess.

I got up at 3:30am Thursday morning. My flight was leaving in a couple hours and I had an interview scheduled for 12am in Toronto with The Zolas and I wasn't ready for it at all. I wasn't packed, either, because I'm the worst and because the entire week prior was a gong show. Then I almost missed my flight and spent the first hour of it hyperventilating out of relief next to a guy who was sleeping with his mouth wide open.
 photo IMG_4864_zps04e3902d.jpg  photo IMG_4863_zps2e2acc2c.jpg But somehow I made it to the YYZ airport (interview questions scrawled out in a little black notebook), met up with the Rage team, hopped into a limo, grabbed a sandwich, did the interview, and spent the rest of the afternoon running around a very damp and chilly downtown Toronto taking care of picking up media passes and coffees. Good, strong, coffees. (And getting a tiny bit lost, too. Because that's to be expected of me.) We finished off with a quick Said the Whale interview and I happily collapsed on a subway train which took me to my sister-in-law's house where I snuggled some nieces and ate noodles. I was so thankful for those noodles; you have no idea.
 photo IMG_4862_zpsedebd677.jpg  photo IMG_4861_zps528d582d.jpg  photo IMG_4860_zps098f5661.jpg I headed back to the subway around 7:45pm to go out for an evening/night/early morning of music, making a few strange--yet entertaining--friends along the way. At the end of the night, I took a taxi back to Lydia's, happily didn't get killed, collapsed into bed, and received a wake-up call (from a very cute, very excited little niece) at 5:30am Sask time.
 photo IMG_4857_zpsff207326.jpg  photo IMG_4856_zpsd94669e9.jpg Friday was pretty similar to Thursday, aside from the whole flying across the country thing. We had a meeting over brekkie at Cora (I LOVE CORA), some interview prep, three interviews, gelato in and a quick walk through Little Italy, and back to Lydia's for supper before heading out for more music. (Google maps majorly failed me here, and had me wandering around the fashion district all by myself in the dark for about an hour. I was a little mad about it but it was fun at the same time and I'm still alive and pretty happy about not getting mugged.)
 photo IMG_4855_zps70dcc7b1.jpg  photo IMG_4854_zpsd0f7194f.jpg  photo IMG_4853_zps985312fe.jpg  photo IMG_4852_zps4ca24203.jpg  photo IMG_4850_zps9e70d1e8.jpg  photo IMG_4848_zps567b55c4.jpg The night was long but good and the music was fantastic and the company was great. I collapsed into bed that night at some point in the early morning and no sooner had my eyes shut but they were open again and it was day. But a wonderful, lazy, chill with lovely relatives and walk around shopping and get coffees and eat a lot kind of day. I spent the afternoon walking up and down Yonge street with Lydia and having my toenails painted by my niece and it was pretty perfect. I flew home around suppertime, gained a few hours with the time change and spent them on the couch telling Barclay all about the strange people on the subway and the hour I spent lost in the fashion district and all the new bands I'd found to love and how big and hilarious his nieces have gotten.
 photo IMG_4843_zps5ba613dd.jpg And now I'm sitting at my kitchen table, eating dry cereal and guzzling coffee and preparing to type up a million show reviews and interviews and edit some videos. I'll see you in a thousand years or so.

Monday, March 18, 2013

{one very old woman}

I was buying a carton of eggs, two boxes of cereal, a bag of chips, and some nuts. Because I guess that's what you get when you go to the store for eggs when you're feeling snacky. Because everything just looks so dang crunchy all of a sudden. Because you start to walk down every aisle thinking, "We really don't have any crunchy things at home right now." And then you start to pick up every crunchy thing you can get your hands on and it's all you can do not to rip into it all in the middle of the cereal aisle.

Do you ever picture yourself tearing open a bag of guacamole chips and pouring them over your head in the middle of the grocery store? Because I do, sometimes. When I go to the store for eggs and I'm feeling snacky.

Anyway, as soon as I'd reigned in my inner cookie monster and made it successfully to the eggs and back {making only the few necessary stops on the way}, I found myself at the checkout behind a very old woman buying a very small candle. Just a very small candle. In a pink box. With a price tag on it that said $5.00.

The cashier smiled broadly at the old woman and picked up the pink box. She held it in her pudgy hands and examined it. And I examined her, because I saw that she was interesting.

She was maybe forty, maybe thirty-five, maybe sixty-two. She had chin-length straw-like unbrushed hair, the kind that really isn't any colour at all anymore. She was overweight. She looked happy, but a little absent and completely unsure. She wasn't wearing make-up or rings or any other jewelry. But she might have been wearing a watch.

I can't remember.

She looked at the candle, at the price tag on the box. She smiled again at the very old woman. "I don't know?" She pulled the candle out of its box and turned it over in her hands. "I don't know?" she repeated. "There's no bar code or anything?" All of her sentences ended with soft, concerned question marks. I wondered if she ever used staccato exclamation marks or firm periods.

The very old woman smiled back, politely. She didn't seem to understand. "It's five dollars," she said.

"Yes?" asked the cashier, even though it wasn't really a question. "But there's no barcode? See?" She held the box up for the very old woman to inspect. "And it's the last one? Because I know there are none more on the shelf? We only had one?"

A loud sigh erupted from the permed brown hair behind me. I turned, surprised, and saw that a small line-up had formed. The woman with the megahair was holding a bottle of conditioner and a Pepsi and had her hip thrust out so that she could rest her hand on it while impatiently tapping her foot and thus maintain a picture of completely justified sanctimonious angst. "What's the hold-up? We a bit slow?" She directed the question at me, but I could tell she wanted the cashier to hear it too.

The cashier didn't hear it though. At least, she didn't appear to. She was perplexed. She'd been trained to scan the barcodes. What could she do if there was no barcode to scan? She picked up the candle, set it down. Picked up the box, set it down. Looked around the store as though the answer might float by on a butterfly. My heart hurt. Where was her manager? She needed help. She tucked some straw hair behind her ear and looked at the bottom of the box again.

"What? Is she too lazy to go and see if there is another one on the shelf with a bar code?" Megahair said bitingly. "I shouldn't have to stand in line all day just because some cashier doesn't know how to work the register."

A blonde woman further back in the line laughed knowingly. "I know, right? I don't exactly have a million years. I should just shop somewhere else."

I wanted to tell her that she should just shop somewhere else. I wanted to tell Megahair that she was acting like a selfish two year-old, that she hadn't really been waiting all that long, that this woman was doing the best that she could under whatever circumstances there were. Because I could tell that there were circumstances. Couldn't they see that?

They couldn't. They'd been made to wait for almost five minutes. The blonde woman pushed her way to the front of the line and rapped on the counter. Her fingers were full of rings. "Can't you hurry? Isn't there another register or something? What's taking so long? Look how many of us are waiting!"

The cashier didn't even look up. She was intent on the task at hand; singleminded in her determination. She didn't see the line-up, or hear the grumblings, or see my smile, which I meant to be comforting and consoling. She didn't need comfort or consolation. She needed to find the barcode. She needed to help the very old woman. And then, she needed to help whoever was next. One at a time. The crowd didn't matter to her because there never was a crowd. There was only always one person. There was only always one very old woman.

Friday, March 15, 2013

{hailo}

I booked my flights for Toronto yesterday {last minute, I know; it's how I do everything} and spent a good little chunk of the day figuring out logistics. I'm going there as media next week for a big music festival, to write about it and take pictures and interview bands and stuff, so, of course, there was a lot of comparing and filling out and looking into and that. By this morning, everything was mostly figured out...except for one nagging, foreboding, ominous, looming thing: TAXIS.

Taxis are stupid. Getting into a car with a gross old stranger and telling him where I live seems like almost the worst idea in the whole world. Walking around in the middle of the night waving a fist full of tens at random yellow cars, also: bad idea.

I grew up on a farm where the closest thing we had to a taxi was a cow. My last experience with a real-life taxi was in Scotland last year: Our train was delayed due to something going wrong {as is usually the case in these matters} and we got to our hotel at midnight to find out that they'd accidentally lost our reservation and someone was in our room and "here are your suitcases, sorry about that" and the cash machine was out of order and we got to the bus stop an hour's walk down the street lugging two weeks' worth of luggage only to find out it'd shut down for the night a half hour earlier and when we called the only taxi service we had a number for, they hung up on us because we couldn't provide them with a home address. {Which was ok, because we only had ten pounds on us anyway and that wasn't enough to get us anywhere near a bed.} By the time we found a house with an address on it not covered in vines or obscured by darkness and tricky shadows, figured out what street we were on, took a sketchy taxi as far as we possibly could for ten pounds, and found our way to a place to sleep, the night was almost over and we were soaked because it'd been raining the whole time. And I really thought the taxi guy was going to kill us. He had a lot of spookiness about him.

Anyway. It was awfully funny, and it was horribly unfunny, and it was fine, because we were together. But by myself? I would probably die.

How do you do it? People on movies do it. They do it effortlessly. They do it all the time. They float out of a high-rise building in a big, bustling city, they gracefully extend one delicate bunch of fingers, a car comes along just at that exact moment, also floating, and slows gently to a complete and perfect stop at the movie star's feet. There is happiness and flashing of teeth, and the cab driver is friendly and clean, and everything is well-lit, and there is maybe a handsome stranger in the back seat for the star to share a cab with, fall in love with, and marry at the end of the movie. Clearly, I don't want or need for there to be a handsome stranger in the back seat; I'd just love to figure out the magical hand motions that will somehow summon a safe sedan to get me home without anything treacherous happening.

For the most part on this trip, I'll be able to rely on the subway. But what happens at 3 in the morning after a show when I find myself in downtown Toronto by myself and need to get home some way, and remember how Liz made me promise not to ride the subway by myself at 3 in the morning? What then? The only conceivable answer: TAXIS.

So you can imagine my complete and total excitement upon discovering a free app for my iPhone that solves every single problem I currently have, besides the ones that don't have anything to do with taxis: HAILO.

You need a taxi? You push the yellow button. Then you stand there and wait. You can wait inside, because HAILO will tell you when your taxi is out front. It will tell you how far away your taxi is and it will tell you how long your taxi will take to get to you and it will tell your taxi driver where you are so you don't even have to know and it will tell you your driver's name and show you his picture so that you can feel as though a friend is coming to pick you up. Then, when you get home, you can pay your fare using the app.
 photo hailo_zps090dd0b5.jpg So. I guess I am ready to go to Toronto now. Have any of you ever used this app, or have any other good travel-type apps I need to download?

Thursday, March 14, 2013

{waiting for barclay to come home}

I am almost sure that I'm dreaming lately. All of the time. I mean, really: how could I tell one way or the other? Because the things that happen in dreams are happening now. And they're happening so matter-of-factly that I almost don't recognize them for what they are, which is a very dream-like quality in and of itself.

But I think that when life feels the most surreal, that's when I stop and realize that even the fact that I'm breathing is a little bit strange. Isn't it though? The biggest, most important thing that you'll ever do is more happening to you than by you. And if it were to stop this instant, you couldn't help it; you would barely even realize it.

Because you'd be dead.

You're incredibly helpless and pathetic, you know that?

Monday, March 11, 2013

{van picnic}

On Saturday, it warmed up to something like -10, so we went on a family van picnic to celebrate Julia's birthday. We ate taco salads and listened to Glenn Miller on the tape deck before bundling up for a walk in the snow.
 photo IMG_4604_zpsaa7938be.jpg  photo IMG_4603_zps4f501092.jpg  photo IMG_4598_zpsd716776f.jpg Those of you in California probably won't understand, so I'll lay it out for you like this: In Canada, sometimes the weather dips far below zero for seven months or so and pipes freeze and cars refuse to start, and the guy on the radio goes on and on about frostbite and unsafe driving conditions. At this point, those of us in Saskatchewan generally like to keep out of the -48 degree windchill, drinking hot stuff and reading a lot of books on our couches in our houses. {Save for a few kooks who "love snow" and "enjoy skiing".}

And so it is that when March and -10 rolls around, we emerge from our blanket caves, squinting against the glaring  sun flashing off the white snow, covering our white skin with all of the pretty knitted things we were given for Christmas and remarking, "It's so nice outside! You could go to the beach on a day like this!"
 photo IMG_4599_zpsec4152c7.jpg  photo IMG_4597_zpsdc75c08d.jpg  photo IMG_4568_zps52d250e3.jpg
You couldn't, really, though. Not in a swimsuit. We're just trying to be optimistic. We are revelling in the fact that we can walk around for ten whole minutes with most of our faces exposed and not get frostbite.
 photo IMG_4570_zpsabac834f.jpg  photo IMG_4519_zps4d1cb1ea.jpg  photo IMG_4518_zpsbad04f7a.jpg Saturday's only downfall {and I'm talking pretty literally here} was that the snow was not a completely reliable place to put your feet 100% of the time. And the people at the front of the pack often quite suddenly ended up in the snow up to their thighs instead of on top of it. Light thoughts, small steps!
 photo IMG_4593_zps826d395e.jpg  photo IMG_4521_zpsa429a3ab.jpg  photo IMG_4585_zps4a48dcf5.jpg  photo IMG_4586_zps4e303d8c.jpg By the time we got back to the van, my shoes were full of snow and my cheeks were bright red. But it was good. Because warming up is always the best part of getting cold. Hot chocolate and dry socks and losing layers and blasting the hot air and Pennsylvania 65000.  photo IMG_4523_zps0bbfae10.jpg  photo IMG_4582_zpsebac0acd.jpg  photo IMG_4524_zpsae9b7b5e.jpg  photo IMG_4581_zps785a9cbe.jpg  photo IMG_4580_zps10ea8759.jpg  photo IMG_4514_zpsfb8c9a24.jpg  photo IMG_4579_zpsc108157f.jpg  photo IMG_4577_zps21124a6e.jpg {Happy Birthday, Jewelia!}

Friday, March 08, 2013

{listening to coffee and drinking music}

It's hard to put this coffee down and leave my spot beside the window this morning. But it's important, probably, to not sit in one place all day. Anyway, I should go. I need to be somewhere in 34 minutes and I look more like a What than a Who. But I just needed to tell you first about the metallic robot deer I saw yesterday, which had eyes with lightbulbs inside and a head which made an eerie whirring noise as it swivelled. Who thinks of these things? But the point is not that. The point is here's a playlist for you and I to listen to while we get ready for the day. Cheers, everyone. March 8, 2013 by suzy krause on Grooveshark

Tuesday, March 05, 2013

{monday, monday, monday}

If Cyndi Lauper were twin sisters born in 1980, she and herself would've written and performed Heartthrob exactly as is. But Cyndi Lauper was born in 1953 and wrote a bunch of other stuff, so Tegan and Sara had to do it instead. And I'm glad about it, by the way, because I think Tegan and Sara are tops. Even more tops than Cyndi Lauper.
 photo IMG_4458_zps5c6dc453.jpg  photo IMG_4462_zps0a815d96.jpg  photo IMG_4472_zps9ef1d91e.jpg  photo IMG_4470_zpsabc7fa07.jpg If you were to take my iPhone {but don't, please} and put the music on shuffle, I can almost guarantee that you'd hear one Tegan and Sara song for every three you listen to. They hooked me a long time ago with So Jealous and have since provided the soundtrack for a lot of sweet and sour moments in my wee history. Road trips and hang-outs and lazy mornings and late nights and early work commutes and laying-on-the-floor-cryings and all that. We're like best friends who know everything about each other and who have been there for each other through thick and thin but really, actually, we're also, like, complete strangers. Which is ok, I guess.
 photo IMG_4468_zps87b81a14.jpg  photo IMG_4469_zpsf804d06f.jpg Anyway. All that to say that when the amazing and fantastic and wonderful and best Ashley Kelly called me last Friday and told me she'd bought tickets for me and her for Monday, Monday, Monday to see T&S in concert, I was beside myself. Like a twin sister.
 photo IMG_4464_zps24894141.jpg  photo IMG_4456_zps6cb8d465.jpg  photo IMG_4450_zpsfb5e8b46.jpg  photo IMG_4471_zps4dec83e0.jpg  photo IMG_4473_zps4a95370a.jpg On the very, very sad side, however, Hannah got storm-stayed in Moose Jaw with her ticket and a broken heartthrob and couldn't make it. So, Hannah, these are for you. I wish you could've been there. Next time, I will calm the storm and grow wings and fly to you and pluck you from your couch and take you to the show. The show was brilliant, by the way. After seeing them live, I became even more convinced that we'll all three be best friends one day. And Tegan will be all, "Suzy! Come to my birthday party!" and I'll be all, "Oh rats, I already promised Sara I'd go to her birthday party!" and they'll fight over me and name a CD after me.  photo DSCN0289_zpse4df6a9c.jpg  photo IMG_4457_zps0cae85ee.jpg