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Horne Lake, almost midnight.

Spelunking at night

It's pretty much the same as during the day... but when you add a 2.5 hour drive each way on a Tuesday night after work, it starts to qualify as maybe not the sanest thing to do... however, it was a lot of fun... and I'm not sure who is enabling whom in all this madness. I am, however, not 21 anymore, and so am resigned to being a basket case at work tomorrow... to quote the spelunker pictured here, hanging out with young insomniacs beats hanging out with sleepy old people... of which, tonight at least, I am not among the ranks.
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Katherine Clifton must have had an OK time in Gilf el-Kebir ...

Spelunking is more fun than skydiving and bungee jumping! It also felt like one of the most dangerous things I've ever done. It's definitely an extreme sport (apparently, the qualification for extreme sport is a sport in which a mistake can be fatal... I'd always thought soccer is sort of extreme (and dangerous)... but by this definition, soccer is not an extreme sport).

The caves we went into weren't very large (136m long and 30m deep, and 40m long and 15m deep)... but it felt as if there were plenty of opportunities to get lost or stuck or somehow trapped inside forever. At one point, we crawled into a small cavern in which there was only sufficient room to remain prone... there was a colony of spiders on the ceiling... and water dripped from many broken stalactites. We hung out there for quite a while... turned off our headlamps and were in total darkness... and silence. It seemed the perfect place for rest... or death.

We'll probably go back soon and do a guided tour of a bigger cave... 384m long and 68m deep. I should have been a geologist.

Movies, movies, and more movies...

I received Kaurismäki's Proletariat Trilogy yesterday... and I watched Shadows in Paradise... which was beautiful as expected.

I haven't written a single thing since I made my decision to write... for real. I have, however, come up with a good fortune cookie message, which is "Even those with no redeeming qualities can find true love."

There has been some debate as to whether this is an uplifting thought. I'm somewhat inclined to believe that it is uplifting. But I'm sort of in a position in which everything is uplifting...

It's uplifting to know that I now have absolutely nothing to do with the rampant gang violence in the lower mainland. Woohoo!

This weekend, I was half way between Lovekin Rock and Incinerator Rock... and I caught a left and rode it all the way to directly in front of Incinerator Rock. This is a super long ride... as in really amazingly long... so amazingly long that I could not properly now, while sitting on the couch, even understand just how long and amazing it was. And to make it even better, ULTE2 saw the whole thing.

That ought to be uplifting... in a super awesome way... the super awesomeness of which should overwhelm and undo me. Not quite... though there is hope. I'm going spelunking this weekend. I say spelunking because I have no idea what I'm doing. Apparently "Cavers rescue Spelunkers"... so I'd be a Spelunker... incompetent and ill-informed and going cave exploring. Ha!

New Project: Surfassing

The next great Canadian novel... Surfassing... a woman's journey to come to terms with her past and present in the Canadian wilderness... what do you think of the title? It has inspired me to do some real writing... it could be something great.

I think Surfassing-- or surfbumming, if you will-- could be the subject of a sort of Kerouac-Atwood meditation on Canadian life in the 21st century... surf bums instead of dharma bums... and Tofino instead of wherever it was in Quebec's blackfly country. The constant references to trees and the cold should make this a candidate for a grant from Canada Council... but just to make sure it's got enough Canadian content, I'll also make it depressing. Richler was never depressing though... maybe we should all be more like him.

Wow. It's been a long time since I've given any thought to Canadian literature. It probably has a lot to do with my not reading anything Canadian... and then eventually not reading anything at all. I think I'm slowly coming back though... right now I'm reading Beautiful Losers... and it reminds me so much of Barney's Version...

Maybe I've read enough... and now it's time to write?

Okay. Time to write. For real. And not this tap-tap-tap rambling stuff.

But first, a quick movie review... yesterday, I saw 29 Palms by Bruno Dumont. It was beautifully shot. It has a lot in common with Vincent Gallo's Brown Bunny. The plot development was similar... and people walked out of both films at Cannes. I would say that 29 Palms is much prettier to look at... and this, despite that Gallo and Sevigny are prettier to look at than whoever those two were in 29 Palms. It wasn't bad. I watched it with ULTE2, and he, being a photographer, found it sufficiently watchable. I don't imagine I know many others who would find this film sufficiently watchable. (Oh yeah, ULTE2 is back in town. Again.)

And... for Valentine's Day, check out these candy hearts. I'd buy them and send them to people... but that would require forethought... and those are hard to come by.

Not Me. We.

I feel ill.

"Not Me. We." is the title of the 2007/2008 UBC Anuual Report. The leading higher educational institution in British Columbia can't tell the difference between subject and object, or, more frighteningly and likely, doesn't care. UBC confers doctorates in English and linguistics. UBC titled its annual report "Not Me. We." So what is your phD in English worth if you got it at UBC?

If Ikea or Ducks Unlimited had titled their annual reports "Not Me. We." I don't think I would be at all concerned... but the University of British Columbia? What were they thinking? It's okay, it rhymes?

I thought "Thinking of the World" was bad... but UBC managed to top SFU by couching lameness in bad grammar. Bravo.

Tofino from the top of Lone Cone

So. Freaking. Tired.

It takes forever to get to the top of Lone Cone... it's 2,500 ft high... and the trail starts at sea level... the trail snakes through a gigantic swamp with overgrown salal... and crosses ravines with fallen and broken trees. On the way up, it has the switchback-free feel of the Grouse Grind. When you get to the top... it's a 150 degree view. Yes, it's pretty high up... but the view is about 10% as spectacular as a ride in a float plane. When you're up that high, the ocean and its water become little more than an abstraction as they stretch to the horizon. I did see eagles fly below me... which I believe was a first... but rather than inspiring awe, it simply detracts from the majesty of the bird. If you're not one to believe in the flawed maxim of No Pain, No Gain, then just drive up to radar hill and walk for 20 seconds up a concrete path for a similarly "breathtaking" view.

Movie: Ariel

On Thursday, I watched Aki Kaurismäki's Ariel. Ariel is the second film in his Proletariat Trilogy. I have the other two near the top of my Videomatica queue.

The first Kaurismäki film I saw was either Crime and Punishment or The Leningrad Cowboys Go America. It was at some sort of a Kaurismäki festival at the Pacific Cinematheque. I was entertained by the Leningrad Cowboys, but fell asleep during Crime and Punishment (it was bleak, I was tired, whatever). A long while later, perhaps years later, I rented Man Without a Past at videomatica (actually walked into the store and rented it). Then shortly after that, I rented it again... and again. I rented it no fewer than three times, probably more. It was that good. Man Without a Past was the second film in his Finland Trilogy (also known as the "Helsinki Trilogy" and the "Loser Trilogy").

If the real Finland is anything like Kaurismäki's Finland, then it is a country of shallow affect. Kaurismäki's characters face violence, injustice, and general misfortune with absolute stoicism... or maybe it's a Schopenhauerian optimism. In any case, the complete absence of any feeling of entitlement makes Kaurismäki's characters and films eminently watchable.

Whom do you love?

I saw a sign when I walked by the drug store yesterday. In large white font (soft and rounded) on a red and forgettable background (roses? hearts?), it asked "Who do you love?"

I thought immediately of David Foster Wallace... what would he think? Perhaps that the word "whom" is going whither "whence" went... and that it's all okay?

David, David, David. What would you have said to that? I love you and miss you and am too afraid to even think of watching the movie that's one day soon going to be in theatres.

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men had its Sundance Screening last month. There are three short clips on Collider.com. And there's a review at Cinematical. Those short clips feature some of my favourite bits of the book. But having heard on cassette a thousand times these lines performed by David Foster Wallace... watching actors mouth these words feels a little bit like seeing strangers parade about in the clothes of one's recently dead boyfriend.

I think I'm going to go cry now... and not because my tongue hurts, which it does... a lot.

Theories on Skydiving Anhedonia and Rewards for Being Stubborn as a Mule

I went to the dentist in Port Alberni today. Sometime within the last two or three weeks, my mandibular third molar on the left broke through the gums, which it was not supposed to do, as the last x-ray showed that it was pointing straight forward, and not up. In fact, both mandibular third molars were pointed forward instead of up, while both maxillary third molars were stuck behind the second molars. When this tooth peeked through, I thought that after years of putting off the extraction of four impacted wisdom teeth, the time had finally come. They took two single shot x-rays and the panoramic x-ray three times (technical difficulties-- I may now be a little radioactive). I might have been a little annoyed by the repetitive exposure to radiation... but I was too overjoyed. As it turns out, all four of my third molars have straightened themselves out, and are now coming in perfectly straight. I was first told about the impacted wisdom teeth about ten years ago. I was told repeatedly that they are not going to fix themselves and that I'm going to have to have them extracted, if not right away, then later, and with increasing difficulty and pain. There is no possibility of their coming out the right way, they said, they will just continue forward and damage the roots of the second molars. Well... here's my reward for being unreasonably stubborn: they did fix themselves and they're pointed in the exact direction in which they should be pointing. Ten years of obstinance, a few periods of intense pain... and voilà... now they're pointing the right way. Ha!

Of course, this doesn't actually mean that I don't have to have them taken out... because even though they're pointing in the right direction, there still isn't really enough room. They're sending the x-rays to an orthodontist for his recommendation. In the meanwhile... I still get to enjoy the intermittent pain (which can be sort of useful-- the last really intense episode coincided with the sudden end of a relationship, and the physical pain in my mouth radiated so radiantly from my teeth that the source of the pain could not be identified, and, though the emotional trauma of the breakup might not have made me cry, the super intense toothache hurled me right over the point of catharsis, and I bawled my eyes out for at least a couple of days... the only negative effect of that whole episode is that now when my teeth hurt, I end up thinking of the dude).

Skydiving and Anhedonia:

Theory #1: Amygdala malfunction - The amygdalae are neurons that control emotions. I once saw a documentary about rhesus monkeys who had had their amygdalae removed... the scientists placed food immediately in front of an rubber angry cobra, then brought monkeys to the scene... when normal monkeys saw it, they were terrified... when the brain altered monkeys saw it, they took the food and started knocking the rubber snake around for fun. Apparently, damaged amygdalae can lead to hypoemotionality and loss of fear. If my amygdalae weren't properly functioning, it could explain my lack of response. (This is somewhat worrisome... Klüver-Bucy syndrome is not cool... I might end up wanting to eat rocks... or worse...)

Theory #2: History of adrenal gland/adrenergic receptor abuse - Maybe I've been an adrenaline junkie all along, and all the times that I've started writing papers at 11PM when they were due at 10AM the next morning had lasting effects (pretty much every paper was written that way... there might have been a few exceptions... but probably not more than three in the 11 semesters). I remember staying awake for three days in a row because I had three papers due one day after another. I remember being a little messed up on day four. Maybe that incident overworked either the adrenal gland or the adrenergic receptors or both, and they have never functioned properly since... so no rush for me.

Theory #3: Lack of height - maybe 3,500 ft isn't high enough. Sean and I are going to go back for our second jump at some point... and it will also be from that height. I think maybe we should also do a tandem jump from 10,000 ft... that might make it scarier (it would be awesome if we could solo from 10,000, but you have to do something like 14 jumps before you are allowed to do that). I know I said that a 150 ft bungee jump wasn't high enough and that a 3,500 ft skydive would be scarier... but I think maybe there are different height standards... as in, a 3,500 ft skydive is no scarier than a 150 ft bungee jump... but a 10,000 ft skydive would be as scary as a 720ft bungee jump, which would be WAY scarier than a 150 ft jump.

Theory #4: Jump order - maybe it wasn't scary because I was the first one out of the plane... so I didn't see anyone else falling out of a plane and didn't get to observe how crazy a thing it was to do. I missed the "this is scary" cue. This also explains why the 150 ft bungee jump wasn't scary... because there was no one else to demonstrate how scared I'm supposed to be. It's like watching a stupid comedy... when you watch it at home, you don't laugh... but when you watch it at a movie theatre and everyone else is laughing, you laugh too... this is why they filmed Cheers in front of a live studio audience and had a sign that lights up to tell people to laugh... so that the viewers at home could hear the people laughing and know when to laugh (hey... do they still film sitcoms in front of a live studio audience?)... so it would probably have made a difference if Sean looked terrified... but he didn't. Brigitte looked scared, but not terrified... besides which, I'd had all day to get used to her looking scared... so it didn't really register.

Theory #5: Skydiving is perfectly safe - it's safer than being a pedestrian in Montreal... and I've done that already... hey... maybe that's what busted my adrenergic receptors! Crossing Boulevard René Levesque.

I've come up with more ideas, I think... but I've forgotten some of them... some of them didn't really make much sense...

Skydiving

Happy Birthday to Sean. He has made it to his 21st birthday. Congratulations also to Brigitte, for having survived jumping out of a plane contrary to her expectations.

Before I describe how the day went, I'd like to share an excellent dinner party idea with you... consider this my "Good Things" segment. I was at the liquor store yesterday. As I walked by the Californian wine section, I noticed a loud bottle of wine that in large all caps, announced itself as "THE KING" cabernet sauvignon. Above the letters was a picture of Elvis dressed in a rhinestone covered white jumpsuit, frozen in a sweaty drop knee turn. I have not tasted this wine... but I figure it would be good wine for a dinner party, at which the music played shall be a collection of opera arias performed by Michael Bolton (yes, this is out there in the world, the album is called "My Secret Passion" (very aptly named, but unfortunately, not kept secret as it should have been), it has all the standards: e lucevan le stelle, che gelida manina, una furtiva lagrima, and even nessun dorma... check it out before the party but make sure you're equiped to clean the blood out of your ear canals)... as for food to serve... does it really matter? With the winning combo of "THE KING" and "My Secret Passion"... you don't need food.

But back to the skydiving. Brigitte and I got up at 5:45 and drove to Sean's place in Ukee, whence he drove us all the way to Campbell River, where I felt compelled to remark "Hey! This looks just like Surrey" so many times that Brigitte offered to bash in my head. She's generally not a violent person... but at the time-- I was to later discover-- she had all sorts of thoughts going through her head, including the urgent need to write and post her last words of love and wisdom to her nephews in New Zealand, whom, she did not believe, she would see again after falling to her death due to multiple parachute failures. She was later to confess that she was certain something terrible would happen, that at least one of the three of us was going to die, or get seriously and permanently injured, or, at the very least, break an ankle or dislocate something. I cannot know what Sean's state of mind was at the time, but he was completely unfazed by the suggestion that he may not live to see his 21st birthday, which is today. He didn't seem at all nervous, and he and I talked about the possibility of watching skydiving accidents on youtube while we waited for the class to start as a way of creating anxiety. I was thinking that this skydiving thing had better be scarier than bungee jumping. It is reasonable to believe that if a 150 foot jump off a bridge isn't scary, a 3,500 foot jump out of an airplane might be.

The instruction began at 11AM, and started off with a rather drawn out explanation of the waiver, which consisted of 4 pages, each of which had to be filled out, initialed, signed, &c. There was then an overview of the equipment and aircraft, and several hours of instructions on what to do to exit the aircraft, what to do to ensure that your parachute is operable, what to do if it isn't, how to fly a parachute, and how to land one. We were doing solo jumps, so aside from instructions over radio, we were on our own as soon as we're out of the plane. The plan is to, once we get to the appropriate altitude and on a cue of "get ready" from the jump-master who will throw out your guide chute, step out of the plane and hang off the strut under the wing with both hands, and then, on the cue of "go," to look up, let go, lock into the arch position, count out loud (arch thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand, five thousand, check canopy)... then look up, check to see if your parachute is deployed, check for tangled lines, kick out of tangles, pump the steering toggles twice, check steering, fly for a while, and then land under direction given over the radio. If any of a number of problems occurred during this process, there was also plan B-- the procedure for releasing the main chute from your harness and deploying the spare chute.

We practiced the whole process numerous times, and even practiced plan B once. I was totally stoked the entire time, and but became a little worried as time went by, because it looked like the clouds were moving in, which, if they had, would mean we don't get to jump, and I really really wanted to jump and not wait for another day.

Once the instructions were over, Brigitte wondered why they don't do tandem jumps. Sean and I informed her that they did... but neither he nor I were very interested in having a guy on our back while skydiving... so we opted for the lesson. She wasn't part of the decision making because while Sean and I had discussed skydiving for a few weeks, she found out about it the day before yesterday.

A little after 3PM, they pushed the plane out of the hangar, and we put on our brown jumpsuits (jumpsuits! for jumping!)... put on helmets... Sean and I had our hiking boots duct taped so that the hooks wouldn't have a chance to catch on the lines... they got us in our parachute harnesses, put a one-way radio on us, checked everything twice. We decided our jump order (me, Brigitte, Sean) and headed to the plane. The plane felt really small during our practice, but when we got in it with our packs on, plus the pilot and the jump-master, the plane felt really really small. Kneeling with the harness on and with five people inside a little tiny plane made my feet go numb. I tried as best as I could to wiggle around so as not to get crampy... but ouch... that hurt. When we got to jump altitude, the pilot opened the door. The wind and noise was a bit of a surprise. On the cue of get ready, I stuck my right foot out as practiced, only to experience the wind resistence that was earlier discussed (I had mentally prepared for this, and also mentally prepared for the possibility that I may not be able to hang on in the wind, much like I wasn't able to hang on to the rope when I was trying to surf the rapids of the St Lawrence by Habitat 67). I "determinedly" (as was instructed) climbed out, hung on the strut, and, on the cue of "go," looked up, let go, and flew away from the plane. I started my count probably one second later than instructed (it takes just that long to realize that I have in fact let go)... "arch thousand,two thousand, three thousand" and wondered why I was spinning so much (we didn't discuss spinning)... "four thousand," WHOMP!.. the chute opened... and I continued... "five thousand, check canopy." I looked up... and there was the parachute, fully opened, but with the lines twisted in a chunk about a foot long. I kicked out of my line twists (probably four or five twists), pumped my steering toggles, checked my steering, and the radio guy says "turn right if you can hear me"... and I turned right... "turn left if you can hear me"... and I turned left... "you look fine where you are, so just fly a while. enjoy the view." Hmm... yes... flying... and yes, view. "and if you're feeling particularly athletic, do a 360." I started my spin "but just do one though, just one 360".... and I did it hard enough that I spun out with the speed; this reminded me of the carnival ride with the swing seats on the carousel that rises and then spins the seats out... that's a good feeling. I flew for another while... and then was directed to the landing area. I was to land in the direction of an orange arrow placed on the ground, I was to look at the ground at around 100 ft, get ready for landing, and then at 20 ft, brake the chute while looking forward (we were told not to look at the ground, because we would be going about 20miles per hour, and the ground would look like it's jumping up at us and that might make us forget to do what we're supposed to do). "aim directly for us"... so I aimed for the gap between the radio guy and the pilot's brother. I braked as instructed and landed, and was pulled forward by the chute and dragged for a couple of feet. Then I got up, and the pilot's brother helped me gather my chute, and I turned around and watched Brigitte and Sean in the air. Brigitte landed about 80 ft away and ended up seated in a watery ditch. Sean landed on his feet about 2 ft away from her and on the ditch bank. If there was anything attractive about that ditch, I did not perceive it when I was in the air.

We walked back to the hangar. I cannot know for certain how they felt, but I imagine that Brigitte got the most out of the jump. I don't know how impressed Sean was by the whole thing, but Brigitte appeared as if she has just had this great big wonderful exhilarating experience. They apparently both felt such a rush that they had forgotten to count...

Unlike my friends, I had told my mother I was going skydiving, so when we were in the hangar, I called her to let her know that I was done (we had intended to do two jumps, but there was not enough daylight for the second). "So, how was it?" my mother asked... "It was okay," I replied, and then felt immediately guilty for being so unmoved by the experience in this hangar full of stoke expectant people, the pilot, the jumpmaster, the radio guy, the pilot's brother, &c.

I've come up with a few theories to explain to myself why I experience things so differently than would be expected... but I will save that for the next post... right now I'm going out for Sean's birthday dinner.