onfocus

greetings from the floor of Web2000! I can't believe we have a booth. We're situated in the wireless pavilion next to Immersion and Capslock. We're still getting set up...we plan on adding a webcam and some digital pictures to something somewhere today. ;) Ev spoke on a panel this morning about online communities. So much activity, it's fun!

watching people walk by my window today, some have Halloween costumes. Some don't. I can't always tell who is dressing up and who isn't.

This whole daylight savings time thing is throwing me off. I find myself wide awake at 6:30, trying to do math. The groggy internal dialogue goes something like this: now is it really 5:30 or 7:30? should I be more tired than I am? why am I awake if it's really 5:30? it must be 7:30. should I sleep for a while to try to acclimate to this time? should I just get up? Then I lay around, awake. Not being productive at waking life. Not being productive at sleeping. In a hazy purgatory of hours rolling forward and backward.

Here's a timely poem I read this morning by Gary Snyder:

The Politicians

Running around here & there
stirring up trouble and bothering people
a bunch of lushes –
            fern leaves and cloud:
the world was so chilly and dark –

Before long that sort
will up and rot all by themselves
and be washed away by the rain
and afterwards, only green fern.

And when humanity is laid out like coal
somewhere some earnest geologist
will note them in his notebook.

- Gary Snyder from The Back Country

that krazy kat keats was kuoted kwipping: "The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing--to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." I haven't decided if I agree.

it was time for another cat picture here.

What a depressing day. The rain seems to make the traffic more congested, the vehicles louder, and the chemical accidents more dangerous.

the hip show was good. here's the set list from last night's show. one of the highlights for me was hearing the last of the unplucked gems:

When the mystique varies thus
You can send a man to bury us
It's hard to say, it's sad but true
I'm kinda dumb and so are you

There's something great about a room full of people singing that lyric. It reminds me seeing Beck, with everyone singing: I'm a loser, baby, so why don't you kill me. I hadn't heard them sing this one live since that first show. Nautical Disaster was great, as usual. It was another great moment listening to the lyrics while people threw their hands in the air and jumped up and down. He was singing:

One afternoon, four thousand men died in the water, here. And five hundred more were thrashing madly, as parasites might in your blood.

I could imagine the people in the audience as if they were in water. I wish Gord's mike would have been louder so everyone could hear his stream of consciousness words + singing at quiet moments of the song or in between songs. And I think my friends and I were the only non-Canadians there.

test via email.

I'm going to see the tragically hip at the fillmore tonight. The first time I saw them was in Austin, TX at South by Southwest '95 (at the no longer existent, sadly, Liberty Lunch). They were supporting Day for Night. It was one of the most amazing live music experiences. I was instantly a hardcore fan. I've seen them several times since and I've never been disappointed. My friend jake was at that show in Texas, too, and I'm going with him and matt tonight. There's nothing like a poetic rock show.