7.27.2005

lie down and peep

dear friends,

former roomie k8 is in town and we went to see the absolutely charming me and you and everyone we know at cinema du parc. highly recommended. i was the character sylvie growing up. too funny. fabulous sylvie lines:

(upon meeting her new neighbours): we're neighbours
robbie: no we're not
sylvie: yes, you are you and your brother and your white dad live there. i saw you. does your whole family live in that apartment?
robbie: my mom lives somewhere else
sylvie: you should get a hide-a-bed. during the day it is a couch but a night it folds out into a full size bed. do you want to be one of my little birds and get a candy worm. all you have to do is lie down and peep.

great soundtrack as well,
cam

7.26.2005

omigod i am moving- freakout #2: the great shelf dilemma

dear friends,

when i can stare at the stata window no longer and when i have run out of email to check i find myself thinking about furniture. i have decided that i don't really have enough furniture that i am attached to, to warrant renting a large u-haul. let's take stock:

* one wooden futon frame used as bed base. got for free. seems to have found a new home already.

* one thin futon mattress. also got for free, not really crying tears over parting with this. anyone in montreal want to start creating a padded room?

* desk and desk chair= liquidated!

* beautiful filing cabinet. unfortunately i recently managed to break the key off inside the lock. is perma unlocked. this would likely fit in minivan with rest of my worldy goods. would definetly fit in cargo van.

* poang chair and ottoman. excellent re-sell potential but going to see if i can squeeze it in. same with this chair's fuzzy red cousin.

and then there is this shelf:



it is certainly useful. but it is also large. lately i have been weighing the merits of replacing it. the re-sale potential is not great for this one. i don't want to deliver it and the person buying would want to factor delivery into the cost. and it is only a $99 shelf to begin with. however, it is only $59US so i could buy the identical one in the US and not have to worry about it fitting in the van. but somehow this just seems wrong. if i am going to buy a new bookcase not a new version of my old bookcase.

the problem is that apparently my tastes have refined and my two new favourite options are:



the problem is that pottery barn's stinson glass cabinet is a $1000 reproduction

not that the other option is much less than 1/20th of my income (so i know you aren't supposed to spend more than 1/3 of your income on rent but how much are you supposed to spend on say barrister style bookshelves)




i would of course get the above in the dark cherry stain. and it is appealing to be able to buy it one section at a time as my library and (in theory) my annual income improve.

god. i am such a deckbox. tommorow i will post about sofas.
cam

7.25.2005

saturday in a nutshell

dear friends,

here are some things that happened saturday:

*slept in until noon in vain attempt to reclaim hours lost watching constantine
*spent a long time at java u
* had dinner with seventeen year olds from NJ
* went to gay bar
* took ride in illegal cab
* considered spending $25 on after hours club
* considered spending $10 at slightly more suspect after hours club. more guns, less cover.

and now it is monday.
cam

7.21.2005

dear friends,

this weekend i went home and visited my family, including it's newest member, hope and it's oldest member, my grannie. here is a picture of hope playing in my grannie's wild flowers.





and now i must work,
cam

7.18.2005

the pot of gold at the end of my reading rainbow*

dear friends,

i don't know what a meme is, but apparently they are the new "fill in this survey and send it to all your friends email", and since i was a sucker for those... here it goes optimuscrime

number of books that i own: well hard to say since most of them have been packed for their somewhat soon move to jersey. there are currently 4 bankers boxes full. and, there are about 25 books on the shelf that i consider too vital to my daily life to pack yet.

last book bought:
kingdom of children: culture and controversy in the homeschooling movement, mitchell stevens
haven't had a chance to read it yet... but this is the definitive work on homeschooling in the us. i bought his book even before our phone meeting when i learned that he is also nice.

last book read:
villa victoria: the transformation of social capital in a boston barrio, mario luis small
i love reading ethnographies while i travel, and this weekend i brought along villa victoria for the train ride home. i got this gratis when princeton was still foolish enough to think i needed convincing to go there. ha. mario is a prof in the department and will be teaching part of the ethnography sequence that i think could get my cwl project back on track.

five books that mean a lot to you:

making democracy work, robert putnam
you can take the girl out of poli-sci, but you can't take the poli-sci out of the girl. i have read this book in two disciplines and three courses. criticisms duly noted, i am consistently overwhelmed by the scope of the project (20 years of research!) and the novelness of the theory. i believe in political culture, and this is the book that resurrected the legacy of almond and verba. social capital is in here too, although not in the same sense as in bowling alone, another book that means a lot to me. and as i will likely say for the rest of my life because i still find it so exciting. i had dinner with him.

god's peoples: covenant and land in south africa, israel and ulster, donald harmon akenson
i read this book the summer before i took akenson's irish history seminar. i like to do thorough background checks on profs before i take their courses. in akenson's case i was intimidated from the start. winner of the molson prize. writer of non-fiction and fiction. teaches just one half-credit course a year at queen's which is joint graduate and undergraduate. he screens admission. there were 6 of us, 3 grads and 3 undergrads. he wrote us individualized final exam questions. we had 24 hours to answer and return it to his office at the mqup (of which he is editor). one of my classmates got to write a radio play. my question began with the preface. "ms. cam, this is tough question but you're smart" and proceeded to quote william james and ask me which concepts were useful to the study of irish history and which lead to bloomin' buzzin' confusion. the final product is one of my favourite pieces of work. akenson wrote me some letters for grad school and sent me a nice note that said, "you have a brilliant future, i'm looking forward to watching it happen". i should say the same of him, and am looking forward to future masterpieces.

anne of green gables, l.m montgomery
i have a reproduction of the lady of shalot because i love this book so much. it is one of the first books i read as a child and i immediately identified with anne-with-an-e. i am not an orphan, i did not live with an elderly brother and sister, i do not have red hair the leads to ridicule. but i do want gilbert blythe to love me.

meaning and moral order: explorations in cultural analysis, robert wuthnow
social theory is trecherous terrain. contemporary theory is often garbage (yep, that's a shout out to you po-mos). but this book represents exactly what theory should be- pragmatic, challenging, instructive and not circular. the chair is really there. people really do participate in rituals. and i really can study them. this is also the work that sets bob apart. he may be one of america's foremost sociologists of religion, but this work in particular is extremely important to all disciplines and subdisiplines that work with the study of culture. and he's my supervisor.

the seven storey mountain, thomas merton
i discovered "the four walls of my new freedom" in the vast catholic studies section of the university of notre dame book store, which is quite possibly one of the largest bookstores i have ever been in [picture lots of books on saints, lots of go irish! football gear, and plenty of copies of rudy]. i often refer to it as a book that changed the course of a summer, but it really did more than that. i have recommended it to friends, one of whom must have liked it so much that it has not been returned. i am sure we will meet up years from now and i will get my book back and we will both talk about how much the book still epitomizes that thing about catholicism that is so hard to explain to non-believers.

anyway, i think it is high time i return to the comforts of data cleaning. unfortunately i only know four web-diaryists not originally tagged in this fun little game. so whatcha gonna do: ms. p, ms. d, ms. thn and mr. l (and ms. s and ms. i i want to spend my time at work reading yours too)

hope you find a pot of gold at the end of your reading rainbow**,
cam

* i am not serious about this title and hereby acknowledge its lameness. but it's turkey tuesday.
** and again

7.12.2005

omigod i am moving- freakout #1

dear friends,

this is a freakout of the rad persuasion. i have just realized that short of the magnolia electric company show in early august (ms. p are you in?) i have no montreal shows planned. this has rarely happened in my time here, as it seems i always had something lined up, even if it was a month or so in advance. i realized today however that i have relatively concrete concert plans in nyc. my social life has arrived before the rest of my bags, but i am giddy with excitement over the following:

(a) sufjan stevens at bowery ballroom. note that i and the rest of the sufjan steven's moving plan posse will be staying here, as it is close to the venue.

(b) arcade fire in central park. put some kizzash on the ol' cc today, for the express purpose of charge-by-phone.

(c) the decemberists are also coming, but it may be during the school week, which apparently does not really bother me in the case of (b).

this almost makes jersey sound like a great place to live huh?
cam

7.09.2005

just a sweet sweet fantasy baby

dear friends,

is it possible that i have been only waiting two months to see final fantasy (aka owen pallet) play a cover of "fantasy"? i have an 11 second clip of this happening at a toronto show in my itunes and it is one my most played songs. if any one has the full version to send to me, i'll say a little prayer of thanks for you.

the show was undeniably awesome. i can only describe dandi wind mathematically:

like (mia- the is her dad a tamil tiger) + (peaches- the crotch grabbing) + (nadia komenich- the perfect tens) + that guy from silver chair + jay (-silent bob) on keyboards + your grade one art project as her skirt.

in spite of all the minuses in that equation, dandi wind comes out as a plus. and ever a plus is gentleman reg. he could sing about boyfriends and fantasies to me all day long, direct from my pocket. final fantasy did not disappoint either, adding elliot smith and mariah carey covers to all the other "has a good home" goodness. members of arcade fire playing waste basket drums on fantasy was absolute splenda (even better than sugar!).

and that's just a sweet sweet fantasy baby,
cam

7.05.2005

waiting for the illinoise




dear friends,

i learned today, the day i thought was the release date of sufjan steven's latest effort in his 50 states project "come on feel the illinoise" that i will now have to wait until aug. 2nd because of a dispute with a comic book company over some graphics.

my tv boyfriend seth cohen may love comics, but today they and those that love them are my mortal enemies. and if any of you lucky bastards already have a copy pretty please hook a sista up. in the interim i will console myself by: a) listening to michigan b) thinking about how rad it will be seeing him at the bowery ballroom and c) imagining how is next project will be "new jersey: songs about cam"...

you can read a synopsis of the sitch and find an mp3 here.

even the grumpy young farts at pitchfork had some nice things to say.

previous gushing here and here

y'all are invited to the wedding,

cam

7.03.2005

the ghosts of canada day weekend past

dear friends,

i have been asked several times over the course of this weekend what i did for canada day. and, i feel a little guilty when i say "stayed in and watched the notebook on digital cable". but, in fairness i did go out in some fashion or another everyday last week since both dave and carla were in town. it was a party like january 2004. this is not to say that i haven't celebrated canada day properly in the past....

exhibit a: canada day 2004



canada day 2004 was actually spent at auschwitz which is certainly a unique way to appreciate your own place in history and place in nation. also that weekend i went riverboating on the border between poland and slovakia. got email from old friend indicating dramatic life change (a la walk in the snow), 365 days later still one of life's great mysteries.


exhibit b: canada day 2002


canada day 2002... road trip to america, specifically watertown, new york to shop at target and eat dinner at ponderosa. return to little yellow house for various illicit pursuits.

exhibit c: canada day 1998


canada day 1998 (7 years ago) was spent in ottawa, the first of a couple canada days i would spend there, but the only one spent there as a conclusion to an epic road trip called manhunt. manhunt may now be known as the urban game of hide and seek, but in 1998 it was a plot by five bored small-town girls to escape trenton and find some cute boys on a 8 city road trip, telling their parents they were touring ontario universities.

things in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003 are a bit fuzzy... maybe one of you can help me remember?

cam