Summer Reading (and Listening)

English students whine a lot about how they don't have time to read for fun, because their courses have so much required reading. To me, one of the bonuses about my summer job is that I have lots of time to do all the recreational reading I didn't have time to do during school.

Since school ended in April I've almost finished the Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris. They're a guilty pleasure and I just finished the eight book last night. It's the series that spawned HBO's True Blood, and it's dark, sexy and fun. In Harris's world, Vampires have "come out of the coffin", so to speak, and are trying to integrate into human society. She mixes romance, fantasy and mystery really well, though it took me a while to get used to the point of view of a ditsy Southern barmaid with telepathy. Harris was clever in creating a telepathic main character, because it is a good device for combining the first-person, and omniscient points of view. The story is told from Sookie's point of view, but because she knows what people are thinking, the reader has access to everyone else's thoughts too.

I'm almost halfway through Leonard Cohen's experimental novel Beautiful Losers which is very dirty and scattered. At the core it's about a love triangle between the main character, his wife, and his best friend. My introduction to Cohen was through his latest book of poetry, The Book of Longing, which was very good but created this image in my head of Leonard Cohen as a dirty old man. Reading Beautiful Losers I've discovered that Cohen was already a dirty old man in the 60s!

I'm also listening to a lot of music right now, and the album I'm currently working hardest on is Owen Pallett's, whom I declare the Queen of Canadian Indie Music (haha). I want to love his latest album Heartland as much as I loved his last two offerings, but I'm having a hard time of it. Maybe I just need to sit down with the lyrics in front of me so I can focus on what he's singing.

The Broken Social Scene's new album, on the other hand, is very accessible. Sometimes I have trouble with them because, although I like lots of their members' work seperat separately, together they tend to sound more like an orchestra than a band. If Owen Pallett is the Queen, then the Broken Social Scene is the whole rest of the court. That said, I'm finding their new album, Forgiveness Rock Record, far easier to get into. Maybe that's because it's more lyrical, and I'm definitely a lyrics guy. My favourite track so far is "All to All", but why isn't Leslie Feist or Emily Haines all over that one? Seriously...

Jaunt to the Mainland

When you work for eight days in camp and then have six days at home at a time, you want to cram those days with activities to make up for the time you spent away. On my last days home I went on a trip to Vancouver to stay with friends. I have a lot of friends in Vancouver and since I'm only able to visit every couple of months, I try to see as many of them as I can while I'm there.

I left on Saturday night after my grandpa's 80th birthday party in Ladysmith, and stayed all the way until Wednesday afternoon. My friends took me to two raves, one at the W2 Storyeum to see MartyParty perform, and another at the Biltmore to see Mimosa. Both were really great shows. The Storyeum was an interesting venue, once having been an interactive museum with multiple rooms for use, and I think that W2 used it well.

I also got to spend a glorious afternoon at English Bay, sitting in the grass and playing ball in the sun. I was glad to get a taste of the warmer weather; I hope it's a signal that there's more to come! I had a great all-you-can-eat-sushi meal at the Granville St. Shabusen. There Korean BBQ is also excellent and I'd recommend it to anyone who can really gorge themselves on sushi.

I was definitely sad to leave Vancouver and my friends by the end of my stay. I actually hadn't planned to stay so long, but I kept adding extra days onto my visit! I've always sort of thought I'd move to Vancouver when I was finished my education at VIU, but I'm going to be a teacher, and I haven't heard very positive things about the employment opportunities for teachers on the lower mainland. I'm hoping that won't be the case. Maybe all the baby-boomers will be retired by then and the job market will be wide wide open. I don't want Vancouver to always b a city I go to just to visit. Someday I want to make it home...at least for a while.