Today marks my two-week mark in BC. Yesterday we went into Vancouver and Dock took me to one of the best bars I've ever been to - there is no "entrance," just an open door at the back of a warehouse building. A few dilapidated hallways later and you're in a sufficiently bohemian but non-pretentious red room covered with neo-colonial paintings and local artwork, drinking cider and buying fancy cigarettes from a dude with an amazing tattoo sleeve and getting advice from locals about where to buy the best dumplings in old Chinatown.
People are so much more friendly on the West Coast. I can't count the number of random conversations struck up with mostly working class dudes on random patios, buses, ferries. It helps having a highly personable and outgoing partner.
After the bar my boyfriend was presenting a talk on Hauntology (Derrida, Deleuze, Beckett, Kafka) at a whole-in-the-wall art space filled with kind people. A bunch did talks on random things. It was a great vibe - and so much more relaxed than an academic conference. At academic conferences there is a certain level of "high theory" expected from the speakers, so when people just shoot the shit about stuff they like, I always feel a little disappointed. Not for lack of interest but for lack of theoretical engagement. Here, though, it was just relaxed and good vibes. You like twitter? Tell me about it. You're a teacher and your gifted students wrote a collaborative mystery novel? Amazing.
We have bought almost 30 books while here. I have bought a bunch of mid-century antiques for our new place. I am reading "the Broom of the System" by David Foster Wallace. I just finished reading Mieville's "The City and the City." A fresh volume of Bukowski is sitting beside my bed on top of Deleuze under a mug of peach mango tea. I smell bacon in the air and we are going to a water park later today.
Shit is good.
ps. that Bukowski poem really struck me and made me happy and sad when I first read it. I want a wall of my home covered with Bukowski quotes that make me cry.
