Author: James McNally

Death and Dismemberment

I just returned from the Toronto stop on the “Death and Dismemberment Tour.” Yes, thank you. I still have all my limbs. I’d not seen either Death Cab for Cutie or Dismemberment Plan before. I’d have to say I enjoyed Dismemberment Plan more, but I’d also say their music requires further study. They definitely looked like they were having a good time, and during the finale, somehow a giant stuffed iguana was torn to pieces. I’m sure that doesn’t happen at every show. Of course, I think I was probably ten years older than the next oldest person there. Plus, I comb my hair.

Time Capsule

I’m sorry I haven’t updated. Since getting back from Austin, I’ve been snowed under with work, mostly of the unpaid kind. I spent yesterday afternoon moving an old filing cabinet I’ve been storing at a friend’s parents’ place for the past ten years. It was like opening a time capsule. Some of the stuff I found inside:

  • Bad poetry I wrote, circa 1983 (sorry, no examples!).
  • Several issues of Atari ST User, a British computer magazine for my computer of choice in the late 1980s. These are from 1988!
  • Several “important” documents, including my high school diploma and my Certificate of Canadian Citizenship.
  • “Compact Disc Yearbook 1989,” a magazine that actually rated CD releases as they came out.
  • Newspaper clippings of things I was concerned about. Example: articles about the possibility of nuclear war from 1983. Sample headlines: “No plans to evacuate Metro in nuclear war: Alarm may not even be sounded” and “Half of Canadians would die in nuclear attack, MD says.” It’s hard for younger people to imagine that we grew up thinking that the Russians might bomb us into oblivion.
  • A book of poetry and short stories I wrote in 1989 while travelling alone in Europe.

More “treasures” as they are unearthed…

Oscar Nominated Short Films

Brooke and I went with some friends last night to see the Oscar-nominated short films, both live action and animated. My favourites were:

  • Give Up Your Aul Sins – This Irish gem is about a television crew’s visit to a Dublin classroom, where a little girl recounts the story of John the Baptist
  • Copy Shop – This one, from Austria, was like Chaplin doing Kafka
  • The Accountant – Set in the Deep South, this was beautifully shot but almost too “quirky”