My Life Coach is Dead

I am lying in the middle of my non-existent Christmas holidays like a corpse on a fruit cake.

I'm havin' a good time, but it doesn't feel like I'm having any time off. My supervisor is a few days away from the start of her 70 weeks long maternity leave and she brought her daughter to the office. Not the one she carries around in her belly, but the one she gave birth to about 10 years ago. They go together like APRILE and THE SON'S ROOM.

There's a book that's keeping me prisoner of its pages these days. It chronicles 50 years of African independence, starting right at the end of colonialism and pretty much embracing all of Africa. It is ambitious. But I am afraid that its 700 or so pages aren't enough. The explanations fly by. Nothing is deepened. It is called THE FATE OF AFRICA and is written by Martin Meredith, a long-time correspondent for the Times of Zambia.



It is so far a sad tale of freedom. The Algerian civil war has just ended, in '62. The French are letting go of their stronghold on l'Afrique Française. The brits have already let Ghana go after the political success of Kwame Nkrumah pretty much forced them to. And Meredith's tale reads like a good fiction story.

Which echoes the recent (2005) capture of a monster named Charles Taylor. And the hanging of Saddam Hussein on Saturday morning. Monsters are caught, monsters are getting rid of, but will it convince monsters in the making to give up on their blood-splashing ways ? History repeats itself, and it's been like this since the beginning of mankind, so I guess it's not about to change.



Which reminds me I didn't write a single word about James Brown's death. He had a rather peculiar physique, and when CD's first started replacing cassettes, my father bought a live album. Don't know why, but I never really went with it. His songs might be highly regarded by the musical community at large, but they ain't doing nothing for me. Which is not to say he wasn't an icon. I liked his dancing. He looked like a sweet guy, even after spending some time in jail for beating the crap out of his wife.

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My friend Michel has been in Dubaï since the end of the summer, and judging by the steady stream of pictures he's sending us by email, he seems to have an awful lot of fun over there. Not a word about his work, ever, but his travel pictures are sure worth a look.



He has recently been in Oman's capital, Muscat. Oman is a country roughly the size of Yémen, sharing borders with Saudi Arabia & the United Arab Emirates, and surrounded by the Arabian Sea on its Eastern coast.



Sinbad is supposed to be originating from Muscat and from Michel's account, it looks like one hell of a port city; the streets are made of marble and the roofs of gold.



Of course, oil revenues is what made the country rich.



The territory is what we call a "sultanate", ruled by sultan Qaboos ibn Said, who has absolute power over every living soul in the country.



35% of the country's budget goes towards the military. The territory covers 309 500 square kilometers and hosts a population of 2 567 000. It was a British protectorate from 1891 to 1971.



The majority is of course muslim, but is culturally more "permissive" that your usual Middle East lair. English was officially adopted as second language and even though the country is mostly a big desert, it looks like a very interesting one. It is a timeless, ancient land with a rich arabic culture and buried secrets. Yours to discover, as they say.

This Native Love

Last time we spoke, I was daydreaming out loud about several amazing discoveries that changed the way the general public sees anthropology. I have since then read about numerous "old-school" wildlife expeditions and came to be progressively fascinated by what we used to call the "gentleman adventurer", an extinct erudite human species who once combined knowledge with muscles and action - and quite often an impressive family fortune to overcome the joys of employment.

I have asked myself if this type of occupation could nowadays be possible. Is there anything left to discover ? These "gentlemen adventurers" always brought, everywhere they went, this very strange and occidental way to see things, and some kind of self-sufficient attitude convincing them that only THEY were competent, hence the renaming of "discovered" territories already inhabited by natives for generations.



General history seems to drastically quiet the role of insurgents. In Leonie Sandercock's MAKING THE INVISIBLE VISIBLE, we are exposed to the superchery of planning history as written, for years, by white male practicians. A history written "from the inside". A history that leaves no place for human heroes such as blacks, latinos, asians, gays, lesbians, children... A history, then, glorificating the all-powerful planning as a discipline that can't be wrong and always is implemented with the community's best interest in mind.



Some research about the Island of Madagascar, a patch of land roughly bigger than France and slightly smaller than Saskatchewan with its 587 040 square kilometers, have lead me to believe that it was THE place to be right now. Its ancient status as a French colony leaves most of its inhabitants now speaking French. Its climate is mediteranean, and it is home to an impressive array of endangered tropical animals species. They have their own plants and their isolation hasn't, so far, lead them to be propagated elsewhere in Africa. Most of the urban planning has yet to be done, since the taux d'urbanisation is 30,10%... and it is one of the world's poorest countries, with a PIB of 830$ US. Are they in need of a saviour ? I would think so.



More seriously, the country's incertitudes is slowing down its development. The most gorgeous diamonds in the world can be dug in its soil. They joined the Africa Union only in 2002. Most travelers expressing the will to explore the jungles & beaches of Madagascar receive a warning : there can be chaos. Some delays might slow you down. And you have to be "young at heart", according to Cortez Travel & Expeditions, a group specialised in bringing americans to the island.



Which destination will win, between the extremely remote Easter Island, the mysterious and mind-numbing Madagascar, or a southern enigma at the extreme tip of Argentina, Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego ? Cast your votes.

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I have to admit that the movies I watch aren't always picked with the highest level of carefulness. Many psychological reasons could be invoked, as well as pressure from the outside (that would be Miss Bijoux' impossible-to-fulfill appetite for cheap 80's slashers) and some errant thoughts from my part when the time comes to make the final choice.

It was at Boîte Noire then, once again, that I picked up a rather strange DVD : RETURN TO HORROR HIGH.



An IMDb user sums it up quite nicely : "Never heard of this. After seeing it I know why !". Sounds like the kind of tagline a communications agency could come up with, but it's basically what I thought too.

The story revolves around a group of filmmakers who, in 1987, rent out a school where some gruesome murders once took place, and shoot a movie about the incidents on the very same ground on which they took place. Of course, they start dying pretty fast. So there's... a film within a film, as the incidents are told after they happened, by one of the survivors. Different time & reality levels are mixed up, and this structural incertainty can keep you hooked for a bit but... it gets tiring.



There's almost no gore or nudity, and you KNOW that it is a requirement when shooting a slasher. Most of the actors try an over-the-top approach that doesn't quite prevent us from seeing it as lame. George Clooney is onscreen for a few minutes before getting hacked off. And the final surprise is so laughable and improbable that it puts the final nail in the coffin : that's it turd, you'll never be able to enter any DVD player, ever again.



Bill Froehlich, the director, didn't develop an impressive carreer after that. He wrote and co-produced some forgettable junk, and directed some of the FREDDY'S NIGHTMARES episodes in 1988.

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Just as I swore to myself that I wouldn't watch a Full Moon crapfest in a few years, after seeing two in a month, there I was, pushing the VHS tape of THE DEAD HAVE THE LIVING ! into my VCR and slapping my own ass at the same time.



Is it a coincidence or is it just faith ? This movie deals with the same basic idea that RETURN TO HORROR HIGH : a group of filmmakers, isolated in a disaffected hospital, and shooting - guess what - a horror movie, suddenly find out that they soon are going to be horror movie characters themselves. And once again, an IMDb comment comes in handy to describe the final result : "The living hate this movie".

So it goes like this : the director & his crew find some kind of coffin with a dead body inside. The brightest idea they can come up with is to include the body in their movie, "to make it look more authentic". Of course they end up resurrecting the poor fellow - who's a Rob Zombie lookalike - as well as opening a door to another dimension. Some zombies start hunting them... and boredom ensues.



There are a couple of interesting references here and there - at one point, the main actor is told that he could easily be "the next David Warbeck" and nobody else than the director and his special effects right-hand man seems to know who the hell that is - and the ending is a direct reference to Lucio Fulci's THE BEYOND, but other than that, it's sloppy amateur film-making at its best. There's a sexy script girl played by Jamie Donahue, and it's too bad she had such a short carreer, but the redeeming factors stop right there.



This one was given to me by my ex roommate at one point, and I don't remember what he told me about it while actually handing out the tape my way, but when I recently told him that I had watched it, he grimaced.

Overlapping Dream Circuitry

I had the most frightening dream last night. I was trying to enter UQAM by one of the underground passages but I was in the western part of town, and I didn't know exactly where the "Underground City" began. I took a chance and entered a dark tunnel that seemed to go east. There was a whole world waiting for me underneath the noisy surface of Montreal streets, a world filled with homeless zombies bumping into me by accident, and of friends I had to kill to get outta there. That was weird, and when I woke up, I half expected the dream to continue, and its horros to creep out of the surface of my subconscious.

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I bought it some time ago, but I only started reading it at the beginning of December, and I have to say that Jared Diamond's COLLAPSE is quite the brain twister. Diamond, an historian, is interested in the way civilisations are formed and why they succeed, something he explored in his previous book GUNS, GERMS & STEEL. It was only logic that he'd study, next, the way some societies, consciously or not, completely vanish from the surface of the earth. A perspective that is once, I have to say, abysmally thought-provoking and frightening.



The reason why I unearthed his book from my busy and overstuffed shelves is that, for my URBANISATION, POPULATION & DÉVELOPPEMENT course at UQAM - drawing to an end, don't worry - I had to study a population movement anywhere in the world and its history, so I chose Easter Island's tragic decrease in inhabitants, a case that is particularly well documented in Jared's book.



Now, you know you'll hear from it soon enough, as I'll give you an overview of my conclusions as soon as my paper is done, but there are no words that can translate how gripping this book is. To hold in your hand a cold-blooded, minutious and detailed account of how several societies failed to survive and make it through to see today's developments is downright frightening, and might have a part to play in my recuring nightmares. I am not the kind of guy who's afraid of many things, but let's just say that global catastrophes and massive deaths are some of the things that make me cringe.

Picture my surprise, then, when I read about Thor Heyerdahl's gutsy expedition, started in 1947 on this raft :



This Norwegian adventurer traveled from South America to Polynesia, stopping on its way on Easter Island to study the possible reasons for its population's decline, and noting his observations in his trip's written account, KON-TIKI, a book published in 1948. The book would, of course, go on to become a best seller and make kids and adults alike dream about traveling the world and exploring lost tribes and remote areas.



Easter Island is the most remote of all Polynesian islands, located at 3 600 KM west of coastal Chile, and 2 075 KM est of Pitcairn Island. To say it's far from everything would be an understatement. Thor, je te lève mon chapeau !



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Imagine living in a house like this on the Hollywood Hills...



Thank you, Richard Neutra.

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When the time comes to sing you "happy birthday", I might as well stuff a shish kebab stick down your throat. That's how bad I sing overplayed festivity songs such as Christmas carols or other unbearable hymns. And that's what one guy is served for dinner in J. Lee Thompson's 1981 flick HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME.



Part of my current slasher frenzy, this Canada / USA co-production was viewed with delight, as the sleeve has forever haunted my youth and the movie always evaded me. This is the type of flick whose box you look at and say : "Maybe some other time", as if there was a possibility that the title might stay there, at your disposal, forever. But no, unfortunately, with the massive VHS clean-up that occured at the end of the nineties, we were doomed, and fucked. Lube-free.

It is perhaps worthy of noting that Mr. Thompson wrote the cript for Cirio H. Santiago's FUTURE HUNTERS (1986), a cheapo futuristic thriller set in post-apocalyptic times.

The movie starts off rather hysterically, with a pub scene followed by a car race. Some excited - and drunk - teens hop over a drawbridge as it's unfolding, a blue Trans-Am (with Quebec license plates !) nearly not making it - and losing some parts of its hood in the process. A frightened girl runs away, and as the plot thickens we'll learn more and more about her, as she is the main character, coming back to a high end college after years off due to a brain surgery.

The main interest of this rather enjoyable slasher is the gruesome murder scenes, and the multiplicity of possible suspects. As the movie draws to an end, the killer is identified, but not its motives. And the conclusion is even more confusing, not solving anything. This is mainly due to the fact that while shooting, the crew had NO IDEA how it all would finish. They had to improvise an ending, and let me tell you they barely make sense.

It doesn't ruin anything, however; the brutality of every death scene, the lovely ladies posing as victims and the high end houses and cars all contribute to making this an extremely pleasant experience. Like swallowing coagulated blood through a straw.

Fast paced volte-face

As this once famous band once sang, "Life is life". But life can be pretty hectic for a speed freak that doesn't need the pill to have his life go through in front of his eyes at full speed. When your cherished mornings in bed are shortened every day, when every single second of your week is tightly planned, and when you feel that exterior sources are controling your every move, I think it's safe to say that being "busy" is an understatement.

I moved on Tuesday night, after my shift at the office, and on Wednesday morning I had a presentation in one of my courses. The only problem being that one of our "teammates" never cared to show up. And there's so much stuff I have to set up in our new place that I feel like a puppet in a minefield. While throwing stuff out I stumbled upon some long-forgotten boxes filled to the brim with what I call "grosses pochettes" - gigantic old VHS boxes - and I was startled with how good the sleeves looked back then. You'd give your soul to see one of those movies on a day like this, but magically, shortly after inserting the tape in your VCR, the interest would probably die off. Back in the good old days, marketing was the shit, bro.



Emptying my enormous Ikea bookshelf has allowed me to realise how much crap I have accumulated over the years. Magazines of all kinds, books I am never going to read, vinyl I'll never, ever play in a set. The time has come to clean, my friends. If any of you is interested in getting a hand on some of my magazines (namely lots of issues of Le Monde 2 and Le Nouvel Observateur), just drop me a line and we'll try to arrange a pick up or delivery meeting.

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I feel you'll like this confession. Once upon a time, I saw a Sokourov movie I absolutely enjoyed, at Ex-Centris : MOLOCH. So naturally, when TAURUS was screened during a New Cinema & New Media festival, a few years ago, I went. And when I saw that THE SUN would play at the Cinémathèque, I went. While I didn't enjoy THE SUN as much as the two previous entries of Sokourov's trilogy about power, I have to admit I was impressed every time with the cinematography, the atmosphere, the dialogues and the liberties he took with these true, larger-than-life tales. When I rented his "classic" MOTHER & SON, though, after learning that it was the first movie that got him noticed by the general public, I quickly started yawning. It maybe was the context or how I felt that day, but I fast-forwarded through most of it. How ironic, given that I have suffered countless american and european b-craps ! Bad mouths will find it highly unrealistic, since I am a big fan of Jess Franco's oeuvre, that I would have trouble going through a Sokourov.



And I must admit that it was pretty much the first time the "fast-forward fever" ever happened to me - not considering the disastrous INN OF THE DAMNED. But it would not be the last. Because I recently attempted to watch something called THE NAILGUN MASSACRE, and after spotting a few patterns in the 10 first minutes, fast-forward it was.

The story is simplistic - and exploitative : a girl gets raped by a few construction workers, and a few weeks afterwards they are "nailed" by somebody wearing a ski suit and a motorcycle helmet, carrying a nailgun, and pitiful one-liners. It gets pretty repetitive, and since the movie was shot in 1985, the only thing keeping me from stopping it was the hairstyles and the clothes that the characters had on. Texas fashion kills.

There are a couple of scenes that are pretty erotic, until the nailgun killer disrupts the action and puts an end to the fun. He shoots a hitchhiker in the shoulder and that makes him die. It's also the type of movie that seems to have been shot in the course of a day, because the characters are pretty much wearing the same clothes all the time even if the action is supposed to be spread over the course of a few days.



The flick was directed by Bill Leslie and Terry Lofton, and it seems to be the only movie they ever completed. It recently has been released on DVD, and unless you wanna waste your time laughing at bad performances and being bored by long, useless conversations, I would give you a friendly warning : stay away !

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Have you ever thought you were losing your mind ? A couple of months ago, I was going through my movie shelves and I noticed a "grosse pochette" of Reginald Le Borg's PSYCHO SISTERS (also known as "So Evil, my Sister"), from 1974. I left it where it layed, and I continued my "researches". Then I saw it again, a few rows underneath. Turns out I had TWO original copies of the flick !

Don't ask me how it happened. Upon finding this out, I told myself that I would be well advised to watch it.

It's a rather interesting, and very hitchcock-ian thriller, about the relationship between two sisters. Things are never what they seem and we follow with interest as the story punches us in the stomach with incredible revelations. It's the story of two sisters, one who has recently lost her husband in a car crash, and the other one consoling her in her lovely beach house. The widow has visions of her dead husband and suffers from wild nightmares, and in the daytime she flirts with a surfer stud who happens to be a cop in disguise.



The pacing is fast, the actresses keep things interesting - mostly Susan Strasberg, who's extremely easy on the eyes - and the action shifts from serious to unvoluntary funny in a few places. Add to this a rather short running time, and some kind of nostalgia for the seventies, and you get what you didn't pay for : a worthy flick that you'll enjoy if you can find it.

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I hear architectural news coming from St. Petersburg with a mix of excitement and amusement. Excitement because, well, after China opening to revolutionary design ideas, it's about time that another (ex) bastion of communism, namely Russia, lets dissidents in to fuck around with the cityscapes.

Rem Koolhaas has moved swiftly enough, last year, to get the chance to design and supervise a new addition to the legendary Hermitage museum. His methods & strong personality were layed out in a New Yorker article I read some months ago.

Now, always in St. Petersburg, there is an ongoing "controversy" about a new landmark project. Gazprom is sponsoring what's called "Gazprom City", a gigantic skyscraper that will be at least three times higher than the highest building sitting in town. Some laws on the maximal height of buildings are in place, but it's Russia, after all, so one can easily picture that those with the most money will simply have these laws changed. The city currently restricts, in that part of town anyway, anything over 157 feet from being built.

Some designs were proposed by six architecture firms, among them Paris' Jean Nouvel, and of course Rotterdam's OMA, Rem Koolhaas' everpresent lovechild. Those who won are London's RMJM, also known to have built the Scottish parliement :



Koolhaas' design is rather intriguing :



The protester's main concern is that a skyscraper would deface St. Petersburg's "horizontal" cityscape, who has never changed in 200 years. Sounds pretty retrograde to me, no ? If reserves like that would have been brought upfront during the construction boom of New York in the sixties, let's say, would we live in the same world today ? Is this a valid argument ? Insisting on preserving the past is not a very progressive attitude, to say the least.

Officials from the Russian government and close friends of Putin have spoken in favour of the project, specifying that its height might be reviewed. At 1299 feet high, the winning design could very well clash with the other structures in town, but what the hell, isn't that the point ?

Here are the RMJM design, the one designed by Daniel Liebkind, and the one proposed by Herzog & de Meuron :