The Longest Poem in the World is a series rhyming couplets drawn from randomly selected Twitter updates. Looking only for end rhyme, the site’s script pairs one tweet with another to make a couplet, then streams couplet and couplet down the never-ending, always-creating, nonstop-scrolling site.

An example:

hide and seek ain’t the game, cos you’ll never find what you are looking for.
and why does a potential employer need my credit score?

Line 1 was written by one user, Line 2 by another. Yet the nonsense blends into a kind of tongue-in-cheek, unaware-yet-self-aware poetry.

Real poets always try to reflect our contemporary moment in some kind of contained literary form. Yet this machine is aggregating the mundane minutiae of everyday life, and assembling the debris into a rhyming reflection of 2009’s most relatable experiences.

Going for a drive and this time i probably wont come back.
Making mac and cheese and bacon. who up for that late night snack?

How can you match such a sinister, threatening line with another that just snaps you back into the trivialty of every day? Did user 1 just threaten a break-up, or a suicide, and the second person balance it off with gourmet KD?

Rise and shine give God the glory!!!
AND WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT LORI?

Author Terry Pratchett always uses ALL CAPS whenever Death or God is speaking. I imagine God has just questioned Lori’s motives for rising and shining.

I find myself clicking “next” endlessly and continually reading for something profound, or something hilarious, but sometimes even just watching something mundane turn into a rhyme makes the silliness of our daily lives that much more passible.

Birds and the Bees. Why is it called that?
I put on my robe and wizard hat.

Our fictional combination poet is hoping to answer the question by donning the wizard getup, I guess.

Anyway, check this thing out. Try reading entire pages aloud with Shatner-like sincerity, or take turns with friends. I love it right now.

• Five finds for a Friday afternoon
• Things That Should Be Invented But Haven’t Been Yet
• My 5 favourite internet radio stations
• A non-geek’s guide to RSS
• This Week on Twitter: 2009-05-31

• Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday Afternoon…
• The Mystery of 645 East Hastings
• A non-geek’s guide to RSS
• Amazing secrets to becoming rich and famous and successful and wildly popular just by sitting on your computer all day.
• Introducing peacedeals.org: Justice has a new name

Here are a few highlights from what he had to say:

• Stories will be “points in time,” but won’t end at publication. (Edits, updates and clarifications would continue to happen after publication)
• Content creators won’t necessarily be on staff at the publication. Nonetheless, curators and editors continue to rule.
• Media won’t stick to just one form. Text, photos, video, music, audio, animation, etc, will all flow together.
• Advertising won’t be the primary method of revenue. Instead, we’ll see publishers marketing the content that’s being written about, contextually and within the article. Brogan writes, “Why not book hotels and flights from my travel magazine directly?”
• Collaboration is key. Why should the editor pick the next cover? Why shouldn’t a reader’s picture of the car crash be the best?
• Everything is modular and linkable. Everything is fluid. If a reader wants the publication to be a business periodical, then he/she won’t have to read a piece about sports.
• Paper isn’t dead, it’s on-demand. Users will be able generate a paper version of the publication when or if they want it. Do-it-yourself publishing.

You can read the full article, plus reader’s commentary, right over here. (Thanks to Kirk LaPointe for the tip — yep, I found out about the “future of news media” via the editor of the Vancouver Sun using Twitter. Perfect.)

From my perspective, I think the next-generation media outlet might just have to be medium-free. That is, it might not be just “a newspaper” or “a radio station” or “a website” — the outlet would use multiple delivery methods, adapted to its subscriber base. Having the fluidity to employ multiple mediums would speak well to the outlet’s core editorial strategy: as long as the content is compelling and well-produced, it should be deployable anywhere.

• This Week on Twitter: 2009-05-31
• Hype kills: Balance & business in social media
• The Greatest Generation Gap Since Rock and Roll
• Things That Should Be Invented But Haven’t Been Yet
• Cargo Law: The Little Website that ROCKED

Over the past year, Kevan Gilbert Online has slid deeper and deeper into a catatonic stupor. Messy, verbose and undirected, my site was the victim of a sloppy, whimsical development process that had no plan, point or purpose.

I’ve had the chance to oversee the design and launch of about half a dozen websites now, and decided that whenever I next re-do my own site, I should do so like it’s a work project: I’d plan well with the future in mind, trying to craft a product that will actually do what I want it to do. For anybody else who is on the edge of doing their own redesign project this year, I thought I’d share what my process was like.

The first step was deciding what the deuce I wanted my site to do. I started by putting together a page-and-a-half outline for the project, part creative brief and part strategic plan. Here are the questions I made sure to answer:

• What’s the objective?
• Who is the audience?
• What are visitors saying now?
• What do I want them to say later?
• What the site’s tone of voice?
• If my website was a store, a product, a food: what is it, and what is it not?
• What are the final deliverables?
• What content will the site focus on?
• What’s my five year vision for the website?

On top of that, I held myself to a strict timeline, acknowledging that evenings and weekends were all the time I had available. Here’s what that plan looked like:

April 19: Project plan signed off on; weekly content resumes
April 20 - 26: Visual identity created, fonts & colour palette designed, favicon created
April 27 - May 2: Database upgrade to WP 2.7 + damage control
May 4 - 10: New theme is selected, tweaked, designed
May 11 - 17: New theme is finalized and installed
May 18 - 24: Plugin testing and further theme customization
May 25: New site launches

With the web changing at the speed it does, I’m grateful for the flexibility of WordPress. The fact that I’m able to switch up the very core of my site, PLUS re-do the front-end without the help of programming team is a just plain extraordinary.

New trends are afoot in WordPress-land which promise to make this process even easier, I’ve learned. Chiefly, the idea of using a “theme framework” in conjunction with a “child theme” is the new direction. Instead of the old-timey straight-up WordPress themes, where all of the main theme files and customizations are tied in together, a theme framework lets you keep all your customizations whenever you want to upgrade or change your theme. There are a few different theme frameworks blazing trails and competing for your attention, but the three front-runners seem to b: Thematic by Ian Stewart, Thesis by Chris Pearson, and Sandbox by Scott Wallick.

In the end, I didn’t choose to launch the new site on a theme framework, because the idea is still so new. I’ll wait for the technology to mature a little first, and for some killer child themes for each framework to come along (right now, there aren’t too many to choose from.)

The whole point of redoing this thing was to finally unify the disparate personas, public and personal, that I’ve got. When my site first launched, I was trying to attain the voice of Anonymous Internet Funnyguy. However, my attempts to be entertaining ended up generating a whole lot of organic search traffic for topics I didn’t even intend to be known for (like penguins, lemurs and yes, ringworm — you don’t wanna know).

Meanwhile, as my day-job began piloting me deeper and deeper into the realm of web projects, social media and online engagement, it became clear that I’d need a site that could reflect my professional work as well as my personal existence. Hopefully, this new site achieves that.

FOR BONUS POINTS

AWESOME DESIGN HELP: My new site benefits greatly from the incredible art direction and graphic design help of Zach Bulick. A superb designer and an even better friend, Zach gave me tips all along the way on typography, colour choice, and even helped me create the hand-drawn search/speech bubble and sidebar boxes. Zach has his own brand-new portfolio site arriving any day now, which is gonna knock your socks off. Anybody looking to collaborate with an extremely gifted designer with super-reasonable rates should definitely drop Zach a line.

MOST-DEF HOSTING: Calgary’s most down-to-earth designer, aka Neil Gilbert, aka my bro, aka Elbowroom Design, deserves mad props for the ever-generous hosting. The site has been riding on ERD server space since 2005, and I’m incredibly indebted to Neil for that generosity.

THE THEME: The theme this site employs is called Magazeen, created in early 2009 by Smashing Magazine in conjunction with Function, and was modified mercilessly by yours truly and truthfully.

If you notice anything quirky about the site I need to fix, let me know! If you’ve got shout-outs, antagonizing comments, or anything else to say, please, leave a note below.

• Google Adsense = Chambar, and other equations
• Overhaul at the Automall
• Problems in paradise: an update
• The Best Things I Know About Right Now (on Friday, March 23)
• 6 Rules for Online Fundraising for Non-Profits

Illustration by Zach Bulick

It’s hard to have a conversation about Twitter without having to first talk about how silly it all is: the name, the character counts, the very concept. Same with blogging, or with virtually anything in social media – before you can have any serious discussion around it, you first have to shake your sillies out.

We gotta stop getting hung up on the seeming triviality of it all: as much as it’s a fad, a series of startups with silly names, and a passing phase, it’s also a new medium. Real dialogue is taking place, real connections forming, real business happening. Stop going meta, start thinking about how you can do it better.

This post is a stream of lessons I’ve been learning and ideas that’ve been brewing for a little while as I work with UGM to steer the organization’s social media plans. I ain’t saying I’ve figured out this crazy stuff — just sharing some of the realizations I’ve come to.

SOCIAL MEDIA IS PEOPLE

Social media begins and ends with real-live people, and the minute it’s mistaken for mere technology, that’s the moment it loses its value. That’s especially important for non-profits, where people are at the core of why you do the work you do. You can start monologuing on Twitter or postings videos on YouTube, but at some level, your strategy has to connect with, celebrate and centre entirely around people.

Social media is not about sitting at your computer and simply typing to people. It’s a way to rally people to come together, meet each other and make a tangible difference. As high-tech as the world of social media is, it really just comes down to a lot of traditional principles and values. Networking. Relationships. Connections. The next generation of communication isn’t about staying hidden behind a screen, it’s about using that screen to connect you to real people in real life.

NOISEMAKERS

There are a lot noisemakers out there in social media – prove you’re different by adding value instead of noise. Act like you’re in a living room — impress people with your ability to listen.

Take Facebook as your example: the great worldwide common room, with transparent room dividers segmenting people into social pockets. As an organization, you don’t really belong – not until your brand is seen as adding value to the conversation. On Facebook, people have a hard enough time ignoring ads, the influx of updates from peripheral friends they don’t care about – why should they care about you?

ONCE YOU’VE BUILT IT

“Just being there” isn’t enough – to make social media worthwhile, you need to know why you’re there. For non-profits, is your point to raise money, educate donors, or just establish a reputation? Clarify your intent early – after you’ve allowed yourself enough time to experiment. What are you going to do with your community? If you manage to gather 500, 1000 or 50,000 Facebook friends, how are you going to mobilize them to rally to your cause?

SUBWAY PLATFORMS

No social media strategy should be reliant on a specific platform. Platforms are inherently transient, and businesses have to be nimbler than that. Setting up shop on YouTube or MySpace will bring short-term gains, but in order to last, you have to have a strategy that’s bigger than that – you have to be connected with the people themselves.

FOCUS POCUS

Keep one eye on the clock and the other on your web stats. It’s tempting to spend a lot of time cultivating your relationships online, but it’s all about your bottom line. Why does your organization exist? Make sure that in social media, your audience is being drawn to the core of your work, rather than being overwhelmed by the spectacle of your online strategy

FINDING THE PULSE

Knowing what’s next in social media is easier than you think. My #1 philosophy for technology & trends has always been: “hype kills” (I keep meaning to make a t-shirt that says that). In essence, don’t be an early adopter, but have the same knowledge as one.

• Subscribe to major tech blogs like TechCrunch and Mashable
• Subscribe to major non-profit/social media blogs like Corporate Dollar, Beth’s Blog or the Online Fundraising Blog
• Use Google Trends to witness the rise-and-fall of social networks
• Monitor conversations on Twitter to see what networks are catching buzz

What did I miss? More importantly, what do you think? Let’s talk: leave a comment below.

• The next-generation media outlet
• Five finds for a Friday afternoon
• Amazing secrets to becoming rich and famous and successful and wildly popular just by sitting on your computer all day.
• Things That Should Be Invented But Haven’t Been Yet
• Super Disco Breakin’ - A Beastly Ballad

I am feeling the frenzy too. After reading books like The World is Flat , it’s easy to realize that trends well underway that we should have been on board with at least 3 years ago. Any non-profit serious about longevity needs to be actively engaging its supporters online. It’s time. It can’t be ignored anymore.

That being said, there has never been a better time to just cool it. Calm down. The web is both urgent and attractive right now, but we need to maintain temperance and caution in any strategy we pursue. Of course it’s the future — it has been for years.

Here are a few rules to help us keep our heads on straight:

1. IT’S YOUR CAUSE, NOT THE COMPUTER

Don’t fool yourself: being successful online, whether you’re Obama or the local food bank, is only 10% due to the technology. The rest depends on the strength of your cause.

Obama, for example, had a compelling personal narrative. Do you? Obama had a well-controlled brand. Does your organization have that? Obama also had a captive audience that spanned not only the nation but the world, and had a major presence on every single media outlet for the previous 2 years leading up to the date of the American election. Does your organization have that? Lastly, Barack Obama had a role of historical significance unparalleled in America’s recent history. If your organzation doesn’t have those things, then use the Obama example as your inspiration, not your business plan.

You’ve got more work to do than just “get up there” on the web. It’s wonderful start, and by all means, run with it, but don’t forget to be a well-rounded organization.

2. STRATEGY FIRST, SOFTWARE SECOND

There is absolutely no point in shelling out the dough for an expensive constituent relationship management tool (CRM) or online fundraising solution if you have no internal strategy behind it. If you’re investing in your online giving technology, make sure that you know why you’re doing it.

• Have you found yourself limited by the free tools, open-source software and community-driven social networks that already exist?
• What percentage of your supporters currently give online? Has that number been growing or shrinking?
• Have your past online endeavours shown your supporters are comfortable interacting with your organization on the web?
• What is the impact on your organization if you don’t expand your online initiatives?

Do not swoon at the first software salesperson that comes digi-knocking. Know why you need to grow, before you branch out.

3. PEOPLE ARE THE ANSWER

Web 2.0 is not a machine made up of parts, but of people and faces. “If you build it, they will come” does not apply online. On the web, people gather where they feel connected. You need to reach out to people to meet them where they are, and to give them what they need — it’s not just a matter of dropping your organization’s fishing line into Facebook and hoping for a bite. Software is not going to do the work for you — people need to be behind it, before it, within it. If people are passionate about your cause, their personal endorsements and support will carry you far further than any purchased tool or ad ever will. It’s vital to respect that support by showing that you’re listening. You can’t just set up a new website and expect (or demand) they sign up.

4. EXPERTS ON THE INSIDE

Just like our mothers warned us about taking candy from strangers, the same applies to taking advice from consultants. If you want to develop a web strategy that really works for your organization, it needs to be developed from the inside. Not just because it’s less expensive, but because it’s more relevant and valuable. At your organization, at least one half of somebody’s job should be dedicated to overseeing your web strategy, including social media.

There are so many nuances to how your organization lives, breathes, works, thinks. There’s an equal amount of nuances to how to use the web. Knowing the intricacies of both is what makes a good web strategy work.

5. THE WEB IS WORTH INVESTING IN

As a direct counter-point to Rule Number Two, sometimes you have to pay for services and software if you want to do the job well. Assuming you’ve done your homework and checked out the existing free or low-cost options, don’t be afraid to part with some serious cash if you’re getting a good product. Do the math, do your homework, and make sure that you’re going to be getting an adequate return on your investment…then pay up.

6. JUST DIVE IN

Go to http://search.twitter.com and type in your organization’s name. Read the results: that’s what people are saying about you right now on Twitter. You don’t have to stay on the outside looking in: you as an organization can start participating in that discussion within minutes.

• Dumpster diving online: today’s discoveries
• Redoing your WordPress site in 2009
• Overhaul at the Automall
• Kevan and Kendra’s Budgeting Tips for Newlyweds
• Google Adsense = Chambar, and other equations

For repeat visitors to this blog of mine, you’ll notice that the old homepage, with its magazine-like template, has been replaced with a new look, one which scrolls endlessly like a conventional blog.

Why? Lately I’ve been focusing more on optimizing user experience by analyzing web statistics. I took a close look at this past year’s usage patterns, and discovered visitors weren’t exploring the original homepage links as I had intended. This redux aims to provide readable full-text content quicker, which will hopefully lead to more engagement with the site’s content.

Here’s a look at what’s been happening since I last published actual words on the Internet:

1. Introducing Aaron Fedora

Friend and local entrepreneur Aaron Fedora recently ran for School Board Trustee in Langley, BC. His presence made a splash at town-hall meetings and debates, but unfortunately as a rookie, didn’t quite get the votes needed to land a seat on council. During the campaign, I had the privilege of helping Aaron out with some campaign advice over the past month, on copy-editing, consulting, and design. I definitely can see that Fedora’s role on council could help the city out — be sure to remember the name the next time a civic election comes around.

2. Google Adsense: My first cheque!

This month, I received my very first payment ever from Google. After a year and a half of running Google AdSense on this site, I finally made enough to receive a deposit of $100! Actually, thanks to the lousy Canadian dollar, the total come to $119. I took my wife to Chambar to celebrate. While it’s probably Vancouver most delicious restaurant, it unfortunately means I now only have about 5% left from the original deposit.

3. Twitter: It’s what’s for breakfast

The Internet’s silliest-sounding service keeps getting more legitimate. Like many of you, I’ve been hearing about Twitter for over a year, but have been steadfastly ignoring it because of how trivial it seemed. However, as of a couple weeks ago, I now consider myself on-board.

So, an explanation: Twitter is a way to transmit tiny, 140-character blog posts to a network of friends, ideal for posting news updates and on-the-go commentary. Twitter played a big role in both the Canadian and American elections, with all major new outlets referring to Twitter users’ commentary to instantly gauge public opinion. Companies and non-profits are finding Twitter to be a great communication tool, too. If you’re a user of Twitter, be sure to follow Union Gospel Mission’s Twitter updates to see what I mean. And while you’re at it, add kevangilbert to your “following” list and say hello.

4. Elbowruminations: Graphic design for everyone

Elbowruminations, your source for Canadian graphic design insight, just got more awesome. My brother Neil and I recently re-launched the site with an all-new design, courtesy of Lethbridge designer and developer Chris Morris. This is a reliable blog is geared to designers and small-business owners, and will supply you with graphic design tips, trends and reviews.

• Harrison Mooney blackens up the blogosphere
• Redoing your WordPress site in 2009
• The Best Things I Know About Right Now (on Friday, March 23)
• Life of Pi movie in the works
• Problems in paradise: an update

Why not induce some premature nostalgia? This episode of The Pianimal unearths forgotten pop songs of the yester-decade, and gives them a pianamalistic makeover. Cher’s “Believe” leaves the dance-hall behind, and becomes an earnest, folksy song about jaded love, while N’Sync’s “Bye Bye Bye” kicks out the straight-eights and turns up the piano-amp to 11 to provide a near rock-‘n-roll experience.

As you’ll remember from episode 1, The Pianimal is recorded “semi-live,” in only one take, with absolutely no edits in post-production. That means that any and all mess-ups (and hot damn, there are LOTS in this episode, with me still being mostly-sick and all) are left unchanged just for the live, living-room concert vibe.

This episode’s tracklist:

1. Cher: Believe
2. Backstreet Boys: Larger Than Life
3. Britney Spears: Baby, One More Time (instrumental interlude)
4. N’Sync: Bye Bye Bye

Got nice things to say, or constructive feedback to send my way? Please comment, I promise I’ll wait until you’re out of earshot before I succumb to my urge to throw up from sheer nervousness.

Listen In:
The Pianimal: Episode 2 - Nineties Pop Songs (MP3 file)
Subscribe to the Pianimal podcast (includes all Kevan Gilbert Online content)

Previous Episodes:
Episode 1 – Tom Waits Covers

• The Pianimal: Episode 1 – Tom Waits Covers
• Private Vinyl Showroom

The Pianimal is a bi-weekly, one-take, four-song, piano-based podcast, each song chosen to suit a new theme each episode. In the debut episode, I brandish my fingers, dust my ivories, and polish up my vocal cords to deliver a performance that critics are calling “lackluster” and “a good start.” The theme is Tom Waits Covers, and here are the songs I chose this week:

1. New Coat of Paint
2. Big in Japan
3. San Diego Serenade
4. All The World is Green

Episode 1 was recorded live in Vancouver, BC (well, technically, Burnaby) on Monday, August 25, 2008.

Next episode’s theme is 90s Pop Songs, which is sure to make you fall in love with the Backstreet Boys all over again. Future themes you can look forward to include Miserable Sap (consisting only of the saddest songs ever), Duets With My Wife and the completely unplanned Improv Night.

The Pianimal: Episode 1 – Tom Waits Covers (MP3 file)
Subscribe to the Pianimal podcast (includes all Kevan Gilbert Online content)

• The Pianimal: Episode 2 – Nineties Pop Music
• Private Vinyl Showroom

Somewhere south of the year 2000, a trio of loud-mouthed white dudes from NYC called the Beastie Boys finished up fighting for their rights to party, and released an album called Hello Nasty. The opening track was a blitzkrieg of hip-hop and hollering that went by the name of Super Disco Breakin’. Leaving no room to breathe, the three MCs spat out two minutes of thoroughly energetic diatribes about making money, drinking coffee, and something about an 808.

Super Disco Breakin’, the original, is filled with party shouts and mixed-up metaphors about pancakes, records and head-hunting. The track cannot be called sincere by even the most Gumby-like truth-stretchers: it is bereft of introspection and completely lacking in melody, and that’s exactly why we like it.

I was compelled by fate itself to transform this 90s rap track into a piano ballad - one that could turn even the coldest, darkest heart into a flourishing rainforest of love. Folks, this is the piano version of Super Disco Breakin’. The money-making anthem has been given a melody, and I have viciously injected this tune with enough sap and sincerity that even the Beastie Boys wouldn’t recognize the song. Please have your ‘kerchiefs at the ready. If the concept itself doesn’t bring you to tears, then having to listen to my Alanis-like voice wailing about the disco certainly will.

Download the file: Kevan Gilbert - Super Disco Breakin’ (Beastie Boys cover).mp3

Super Disco Breakin’: The lyrics

Verse 1:
50 cups of coffee and you know it’s on
I move the crowd to the break of break of dawn
Can’t rock the house without the party people
Cause when we’re gettin’ down we are all equal

Chorus:
Money Makin’, Money Money Makin’
Super Disco, Disco Breakin’
Money Makin’, Money Money Makin’
Super Disco, Disco Breakin’

Verse 2:
There’s no better or worse between you and me
But I rock the mic so viciously
Like pins and needles and words that sting
At the blink of an eye I will do my thing

[Chorus]

Verse 3:
It’s like a needle in the cartridge when the record spins
Like diggin’ down deep in the record bins
Everybody gettin’ down make no mistake
Nothing sounds quite like an 808

[Chorus]

• Pop goes the Radio(head)
• Please Begin Dancing Now (A YouTube Playlist)
• Five finds for a Friday afternoon
• Amazing secrets to becoming rich and famous and successful and wildly popular just by sitting on your computer all day.
• Volkswagen Ad: Gene Kelly Redux

If you’ve ever wished you were more inquisitive and adventurous, and able to find meaning and value in the mundane refuse that surrounds you, you should meet Wall*E. The tiny tank-like trash-compactor robot from the movie of the same name, Wall*E is a binary binner that puts the most avid dumpster-diver to shame. He can find more excitement in a thrown-away VHS tape of an old musical than most of us exhibit when we encounter major milestones in our lives.

Seeing Wall*E celebrate what the rest of us would abandon, and innovate where the rest of us would have given up, was embarrassingly enlightening. It was as if Wall*E had called me an unimaginative and lethargic sad-sack who should start being more grateful and involved with my surroundings and clean up after myself. Except, of course, this was communicated through chirps, beeps, metal fingers tapping together, timid politeness, and plenty of old-timey musicals.

• Movie Review: Juno
• Movie Review: Melinda and Melinda
• Music Review: Radiohead, “In Rainbows”
• The 10 Most Amazing Performances of the 2007 Calgary Folk Music Festival
• The timeless literature of Dan Brown (or, why The Da Vinci Code just plain sucks)

FLEA MARKET START

It was approaching winter when Rob Snopek carefully loaded up the back of his pick-up truck with over 2000 vinyl records. A collection cobbled together thanks to years of careful searching, lucky finds and generous friends, he was ready to bring his prized albums out of his apartment and into the marketplace.

On this particular Saturday in 2006, he drove his record-laden truck down to the flea market, and threw open the tailgate. “One dollar each,” he said to any buyer or bystander dropping by to bargain. A steady stream of shocked visitors found themselves the new owners of early Beatles albums and mint condition Pink Floyd records, and by the end of the day, Rob’s truck had nothing left in the back except for a few lonely Anne Murray albums.

“I had no idea what any of that stuff was worth,” Rob laughs. “You wouldn’t believe the kind of records I let go for a dollar.”

Over the next year, after posting dozens of “records wanted” flyers up in local Laundromats, Rob’s record collection slowly began to grow again. By the time I came across Snopek’s legendary supply in the autumn of ‘07, the number of records was estimated to be well over 30,000, and his personal reserve was already turning into the new mecca for Vancouver vinyl hounds.

DISCOVERIES

“Private vinyl showroom,” said the ad. “Thousands of records, old and new! By appointment only.” The bizarre combination of words intrigued me. I had been idly collecting records for a few years, and felt I could use a fresh new source, outside the traditional musty thrift stores and overpriced retail shops.

The phrasing of the ad made me cautious. Craigslist has the bad habit of attracting boatloads of creeps, and I wasn’t in love with the prospect of showing up at a “private vinyl showroom” only to discover that private, vinyl and showroom had very different meanings than what I was expecting. I pitched the idea to my friend and fellow vinyl-liker Harrison.

“Why is it by appointment only?” Harrison wanted to know. “Why is it in his apartment? Where did he get all those records?”

“These are very good questions,” I responded. “It sounds like it could be a trap. Maybe he’s an axe murderer.”

“Let’s do it,” Harrison replied. “Could make for a good story. On the news. After we die.”

I picked up the phone to make an appointment. The voice on the other end supplied directions, and said he’d be waiting in the parking lot for us in one hour.

PRIVATE VINYL SHOWROOM

Wearing a denim jacket and blowing cigarette smoke into the October fog, the man was waiting for us as we pulled into the parking lot of a high-rise by Lougheed Mall in Burnaby. I couldn’t have known it then, but the sight of Rob Snopek, king of Vancouver vinyl, waiting at the base of his apartment complex would soon become an iconic sight.

“Hello, great to meet you!” said Rob, extending his hand. He spoke with a faint but implacable Eastern European accent, and his demeanor exuded a hospitable pride as he prepared to welcome us into his showroom. He gestured for us to follow him.

“So what types of records d’you like?” Rob asked, as we darted down down a short cement stairwell. He held the door for us at the bottom, and we stepped into a smokey hallway, the sounds of a sports game and clinking glasses drifting over from a basement bar to our left. “Um,” I said, trying not to give away my lack of education on the matter. “Been really getting into the blues lately,” I tried. Harrison stepped in for the save: “I’m specifically looking for early funk and soul records,” he declared, as Rob unlocked a door across the hall from the bar. We entered another hallway, this one dimmer than the last, and the door shut behind us. “Motown albums, Curtis Mayfield, that kind of stuff. And I’d also love to find anything by Nina Simone or Billie Holiday.”

“Perfect,” said Rob, pausing in front of a set of imposing, medieval-style wooden doors. He swung the doors open, and we stepped inside the Private Vinyl Showroom.

Tables and boxes overtook our vision. From ground level to waist height, along every wall and every spare surface, U-Haul moving boxes had been carefully stacked, tops opened to display the thousands of records within. Some boxes featured filing-style dividers indicating genres or artists, others had Sharpie’d labels on the front. Looking closer, each record had a transparent plastic slip-cover, with a small label in the top right corner. Every record was hand-labeled with the year of its release, the album’s genre, and this particular record’s key features, whether it was “first edition” or “coloured vinyl.” It took a second for the fact to sink in that this entire collection was curated by one individual.

Rob swept his arm across and room. “Dollar bins are under the tables,” he said. “Discs sorted by artists are on the left, and records by genre are right here,” he said, tapping the table in the centre of the room. “These boxes,” — he touched the row of boxes on the right — “contain fresh arrivals I have just finished pricing.” He pointed towards a turntable at the back. “I can put on any record you want to listen to, and if you have any questions or if you are looking for anything, just ask me. Okay?”

Harrison and I moved like magnets towards the boxes. The record collection in front of us was a veritable museum of music history. Like portals into the past, the album art was transporting us into times we never knew. As I flipped through the Jazz section, I saw Ella Fitzergald send a wink in my direction, and nearby in the blues box, Muddy Waters had a serious bone to pick with me. I saw Johnny Cash stomping his foot at Folsom Prison, while Jimi Hendrix was wrestling a guitar that looked like it was on fire, and meanwhile, four hippies were in mid-stride on a British crosswalk.

It only took about twenty seconds for Harrison to find his Nina Simone, and maybe thirty for me to pick out the blues record I wanted, but it took us two more hours to emerge from our trance. Harrison had selected 30 albums to bring home, and was only paying $30 for the whole set. I had found an original, mint condition pressing of Bitches Brew (a timeless Miles Davis double album from 1969), and in addition to Abbey Road and a couple other standouts, my bill came to only $20. For price, variety and style, the private vinyl showroom and successfully upstaged every record-hunting experience I’d had at places like A&B Sound, Beatstreet Records, thrift stores, pawn shops and eBay. I knew I’d be coming back.

ON THE MOVE

From the record player at the back of the showroom, over the speakers around the room, a bassline was keeping a messy band on track. It sounded like surf music meeting James Brown, or maybe like Weezer meets the Clash, on the inside of a tin can. “What is this?” I asked.

“It’s the Blues Magoos!” Rob replied. “1967. British psychedelic garage music. Amazing band. This is the first edition, very rare.”

Rob was not even ten years old when this Blues Magoos vinyl was released, yet he is able to rattle of encyclopedic info on it as if he had been waiting at the record store on the day of its release. He can provide this kind of snapshot on virtually record in his possession, whether it was released last year, or some time in the 1940s. “I have been loving vinyl almost since the day I was born,” Rob says. And it shows.

Since moving from Czechoslovakia (the Slovakia part) in the late 70s, Snopek has remained settled in Vancouver, but his love of vinyl has kept him constantly on the move. “I pretty much have to hunt all the time,” he admits. “I’ve traveled to Alberta, through the States, all over the place, trying to find records.”

Reciprocally, his customers come from as far away from San Fransisco to pick through his collection. Thanks to the web, word of his business has spread faster than his early Laundromat-ads could have done. In recent months, he has sold and shipped batches of over 5000 records to two separate buyers in the States, and still, his collection remains sophisticated and diverse.

It’s hard to find new sources to dig up good vinyl for the showroom, but for Rob, it’s a worthwhile endeavour. Before Rob’s records ever roped in any real revenue, he worked as a GIS Technologist, performing digital mapping in real-time environments. These days, Rob only needs to find the occasional mapping contract to keep him afloat: selling records brings in 90% of his income.

“A lot of people have tons of records, just sitting in their basements, and they just think they’re junk,” Rob laments. “I need to find those people.”

ELEVATOR MUSIC

The gentleman sharing my elevator was eyeing the two records I had tucked under my arms.

“Are those LPs?”

“Yup,” I replied. It was early 2008, and I was just returning from another successful visit to Snopek’s showroom. An Ella Fitzgerald/Oscar Pederson collaboration was my prize discovery, and the other was a Louie Armstrong live double-album.

“Neat,” said Elevator Man, trying to make conversation. “I have a big whole box of records down in storage.”

I wished I had a card to hand him, but all I had was Rob’s name and a story too long for an elevator ride. For all Elevator People of the future, dutifully hoarding un-spun stashes of records, and for those of us on the hunt for vinyl old and new, appointments to drop by Rob Snopek’s showroom can be made over email at robsnopek@shaw.ca.

• The Best Things I Know About Right Now (on Friday, March 23)
• Super Disco Breakin’ - A Beastly Ballad
• Additional awesomeness around the web
• Please Begin Dancing Now (A YouTube Playlist)
• My 5 favourite internet radio stations

Credits:
* Drawings of people: Kevan
* Drawings of food, mountains, airplanes and luggage: Kendra
* Subtitles & live motion: Kendra
* Camera work: Kevan
* Fake snow: The 3-hole punch
* Music: Illinois Street Lounge internet radio

• My 5 favourite internet radio stations
• Please Begin Dancing Now (A YouTube Playlist)
• The Best Things I Know About Right Now (on Friday, March 23)
• Best Christmas ever: yuletide podcast & website remix
• The Mystery of 645 East Hastings

The ’Tube lets you create custom playlists from any movie on the site. Harnessing this simple feature, I put together my first YouTube playlist. It’s called Please Begin Dancing Now.

Heavily indebted to Bruce Mans’ The New Balaeric podcast, this playlist consists of quirky electronica — danceable indie stuff that you’d probably hear in commercials. In fact, the first track is straight off the recent iPod Touch commercial. This collection ends up being a pretty enjoyable, breezy little list of songs, and I hope you dig this foray into fun and simplicity as much as I have.

The Playlist:
1. Cansei De Ser Sexy - Music is My Hot Hot Sex (Don’t worry, the song isn’t actually sketchy)
2. Project Jenny, Project Jan - 320
3. LCD Soundsystem - Daft Punk Is Playing At My House
4. Le Tigre - Fake French
5. Fujiya & Miyagi - Collarbone
6. Beck - Ghettochip Malfunction (Hell Yes)
7. Death From Above 1979 - Black History Month (Alan Braxe Remix)
8. Justice - D.A.N.C.E
9. Prototypes - Who’s Gonna Sing?
10. Junior Senior - Can I Get Get Get
11. Gorillaz - Kids with Guns
12. Simian Mobile Disco - It’s The Beat
13. LCD Soundystem - Tribulations
14. Datarock - Fa Fa Fa

A quick note: This video playlist contains videos I’ve never actually watched – I can’t vouch for their goodness, or warn you of their badness. I just click play, and let the music rock me into a trance of productivity.

That’s all. Please begin dancing now.

• Volkswagen Ad: Gene Kelly Redux
• The Best Things I Know About Right Now (on Friday, March 23)
• My 5 favourite internet radio stations
• The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
• Starving in the Belly of a Whale

• Singing songs at the piano but not recording any of them.
• Adding pictures to my Flickr account but not telling anybody about them.
• Discovering great things on the internet but not sharing them.
• Customizing the look and feel of my blog but not writing anything for it.

I’ve decided that if I am ever to survive in this cold, harsh wilderness called blogging, I think I will simply have to come face-to-face with my fears. Slash through this delicate, unproductive silence like Conan the Librarian.

First off, this piano thing. My mini-studio has been languishing like a forgotten child in the corner of my condo for months. Besides the occasional group singalongs to “Hey Jude” when our friends come over, I never actually do anything useful with my piano and microphone and mixing board trio – for instance, hook up my computer to lay down the tracks. So tonight, being Thursday night, I opened up the lid of my laptop, busted open some recording software, and decided to just RECORD whatever the deuce happened to emerge from my fingers and lips.

The resulting improvisation was a slip-shod cacophony of absurdity; a lyrically inept, musically unlistenable, unforgivably painful ballad that I think I will call “Transportation’s Got Me Down.”

No wonder I never do this. I really have nothing else to say about it, other than “Oh sweet heavens please prepare yourselves for this fearful audio experience.” Let’s move on to the Flickr thing before somebody realizes what they’ve just listened to.

It has taken me a while to get accustomed to the idea of purchasing items that are completely and utterly intangible, but I finally went ahead and purchased a Flickr Pro account. With my newfound bandwidth freedom, I have uploaded over 130 photographs from my family’s photo archives. These are archaic shots from the 50s and 60s that document my mom’s upbringing with her eccentric family in the city of Burnaby, and my dad’s fascinating history being raised with his lettuce-farming, six-sibling’d family in Australia. The pictures demonstrate a bygone, now-foreign era that is bewildering to behold. Click here to check it out.

Somewhere else across the vast divide of internet-dom, there are even more intriguing things to discover. One item which has successfully held the interest of both my wife and I for over a week is the new(ish) Google Image Labeler. It’s a game you can play, and it’s also a way to help the search engine. Like a cross between Pictionary and Taboo, you are shown a picture and have to describe what you see. Up to five words will be “off-limits,” but once you and your randomly assigned partner both type in the same words, you score points. Our best score ever placed us at #12 in the day’s top rankings.

You may have noticed that I have introduced a new attempt to attract advertisers to my website. The green rectangle perched on my sidebar is a weak effort to farm out space on my blog to anybody who would like to pay a mere $5.00 Canadian dollars. However, since nobody seems to think this would be a worthwhile investment, I’ve decided to hold a contest instead.

I invite all readers of this post to leave a comment on my blog, and answer this question: if this ad space was yours for free, what would you advertise? You can tell truths, fictions, confessions or lies. At the end of four days time, I will put all of your names into a hat (or maybe a bowl, or perhaps a basket) and draw out one name. The person whose name emerges will receive an entire month of free advertising: any message you wish to cram into the 250 x 90 space is all yours. You can design the ad yourself if you wish, or work with me to create something pleasing.

Alright, that is certifiably all of the mutterings I can muster for one evening. In an attempt to reduce my carbon footprint and help meet Kyoto protocols for blog emissions by 11:30 pm, I’m signing off. See you in the comments!

• My other blog is a Porsche graphic design blog
• Amazing secrets to becoming rich and famous and successful and wildly popular just by sitting on your computer all day.
• My suburban Saturday: A phonecam’d collection of retail art
• Best Christmas ever: yuletide podcast & website remix
• Things That Should Be Invented But Haven’t Been Yet

Sometimes, when an episode of Gilmore Girls shows up on my TV (I’m not sure how they keep doing that, although I’m starting to suspect my wife might have something to do with it), I find it hard to focus on all the Stars Hollow drama. It’s not that Luke’s Diner doesn’t have enough gossip to go around: it’s just that the dialogue hogs all the attention. It seems the screenwriters are hijacking each piece of dialogue as means of showing off their own cleverness.

It’s like that with the movie Juno: the leading lady’s mouth produces a non-stop stream of well-written idioms and clever proclamations that seem uncomfortably out-of-place in a 16-year-old. It’s less like character development, and more like ventriloquism. While Juno’s motormouth provides the bulk of the levity in the movie, it certainly makes it a little harder to believe she is anything more than a deliberately constructed container for the screenwriter’s ideas.

“It’s just that you’re so cool and you don’t even try,” confesses Juno near the end of the movie, to a shuffling Paulie Bleeker. “Actually,” he stammers back, his voice squeaking a bit. “I try really hard.”

Like Bleeker, Juno is a movie caught awkwardly between earnestness and pretentiousness. The visual and sonic ideas are precious and artful, but its cleverness kind of clouds the sincerity. By the time Juno and Bleeker are playing their acoustic duet at the end of the show, it’s hard to tell if Juno has actually changed that much from the Stooges-loving 70s-punk-rock chick she claimed to be, or if it’s just another excuse to include a great song.

Best moment: The opening credits, a live/animated hybrid accompanied by a great folk song called “All I Want is You,” by a guy I’ve never heard of named Barry Loius Polisar.

Most questionable moment: The abundance of Napoleon Dynamite-isms. One of the very first spoken lines in the movie is this: “Jeez Banana, shut your friggin’ gob, okay?” I kept expecting Juno to bust out the “Vote for Pedro” t-shirt.

• Movie Review: Melinda and Melinda
• Movie Review: Beowulf & Grendel
• Music Review: Radiohead, “In Rainbows”
• Feist concert review: The headliner
• Feist concert review: Opening act, Chad VanGaalen

I hope that 2007 has brought you a satisfactory sequence of months and weeks. For me, this year has been like attending an auction on the roof of a train: mile-a-minute decisions and actions proceeding with dangerous speed, resulting in an overabundance of unexpected blessings that I keep expecting to fly away.

As advent calendars, Rick Dees and that guy who announces NASA space shuttle launches would love to tell you, there are only 14 days until Christmas. Soon, there will be 13, and depending on when you’re reading this, it might even be Christmas already. Since my impending holidays will involve precarious wintertime road travel, I’d like to give you your Christmas gifts early. Only for the sake of alliteration, I shall not call them “gifts,” but “contributions.”

Christmas Contribution Number 1: A Christmastime Podcast

This 45-minute, 16-track Christmas mix brings you a cheerful smattering of Christmas songs that are both piping-fresh and well-aged. If you are looking for a little bit of seasonal music to spice up your Christmas parties, road trips, work days and iPods, this mix is here to help. It’s called “Yuletide Cheer.”

Tracklist:
1. Ron Sexsmith: Maybe This Christmas
2. Sufjan Stevens: Come On! Let’s Boogie to the Elf Dance!
3. Beach Boys: Little Saint Nick
4. Hawksley Workman: Common Cold
5. The Rat Pack: Have a Holly Jolly Christmas
6. Aimee Mann: Christmastime
7. Otis Redding: Merry Christmas
8. James Brown: Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto
9. Brian Setzer Orchestra: Zat You Santa Claus?
10. The Blind Boy of Alabama (featuring Tom Waits): Go Tell It on a Mountain
11. Son Seals: Lonesome Christmas
12. Chuck Berry: Merry Christmas, Baby
13. Charlie Parker: White Christmas (King Kooba Remix)
14. Erlend Oye: Last Christmas
15. Johnny Cash: Silent Night
16. Sufjan Stevens: O Come, O Come, Emanuel

“Yuletide Cheer” is the name of the mix, and it comes in the form of a podcast. “What on earth is a podcast,” you ask? Well, in this case, it’s one giant MP3 that contains 16 songs, which you can burn to CD, or throw on your MP3 player, or play from your computer.

Click here to download the podcast (41.2 MB).

Christmas Contribution Number 2: Website Remix

Just in time for the holidays, I’ll soon be unleashing a completely redesigned “Kevan Gilbert Online” upon the internet. While the new look won’t exactly be Christmas themed, I decided that ‘twas the season to for some serious website renovations.

Depending on when this Christmas missive reaches your retinas, the new site might already be live. If not, keep your clicking constant and your refreshing rampant, because this site will be “off the hook.” Indeed, it will embody a term I have just now decided to call “profunktionalism.” I haven’t been this excited about the internet since I discovered that you could make sideways smiley faces by combining colons, dashes and brackets.
:-) <----- See??

Anyway, let me tell you about the new look. Thanks to a brilliant WordPress theme by Darren Hoyt called Mimbo, the old Kevan Gilbert Online has been replaced by a tighter, cleaner, shinier version of itself. The site’s design fuses clean professionalism with decidedly hip typography and colour usage, giving it a spit-shine polish that makes things easier to read and funner to click around. I truly hope you like it as much as I do.

Christmas Conclusions

I’m afraid those are all the Christmas contributions I’ve got for us this season. While you can always recycle the old tradition of reading “The Real Story of Christmas” around the family tree, I am essentially all out of yuletide offerings. So in closing, I’d like to wish all of my loyal friends and imaginary readers (or is it the other way around?) the merriest of Christmases, and the happiest of New Years. Download a podcast, click around the new site, and make sure to leave a comment or two.

• Transportation’s Got Me Down
• Please Begin Dancing Now (A YouTube Playlist)
• Introducing peacedeals.org: Justice has a new name
• A non-geek’s guide to RSS
• The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

The mysteries of addiction and pain, buried inside people, are only explored through dialogue. I don’t have time for that, I assure myself, fumbling with my security pass. I’ll be late for work.

But work often lends itself to distraction, and this week I solved a mystery that has tugging at me since 2006. It’s the mystery of 645 East Hastings Street.

This building, nestled between a drycleaner’s and a clothing shop, is painted a reserved, uninviting gray. From the stucco to the security bars, the paint is like a blanket, covering even the windows. There is no signage — only a touch of graffiti — and the three black digits on the door, reading 645. It’s the cleanest building on this stretch of Hastings, but also the most austere.

645 E Hastings has a twin: a residential building covered by the same heavy coats of triple-thick concrete-milkshake paint. This twin is situated at 640 E Cordova. The narrow alley between Hastings and Cordova finds the rear ends of these two buildings situated diagonally across from each other, trying so hard to blend in.

Rarely does anybody enter or emerge from these twin buildings, save for the occasional vehicle being driven out of the heavily secured garage in the alley. The gray colour makes the buildings incredibly evasive – in fact, it’s such a subtle colour that the buildings are virtually invisible. I’ve often wondered why these buildings exist. What is their purpose? What function requires this much privacy, security and ambiguity? Is it a mob thing, a cult thing, a sex thing?

On Thursday, a lunchbreak stroll with a co-worker brought me through the alley where the mystery buildings connect. For the first time, the rear doors to 645 E Hastings were flung wide open. A young man was painting some very tall doors a very white colour. Inside, I saw white walls, white floors and a white ceiling. One or two workers moved about inside, amongst ladders, shelving and other unidentifiable gear in piles on the floor.

“He’s got an amazing studio space,” said my co-worker, shading his eyes to try and peer inside better.

“Wait, who does?” I asked. “It’s a studio? Whose studio? For what?”

“It’s Jeff Wall,” he said. “Jeff Wall, famous photographer?”

Jeff Wall, Jeff Wall, I repeated to myself, preserving the name until a convenient Googling time arrived. The web search quickly turned into an all-out Internet-wide info-hunting expedition, and I soon learned that Jeff Wall’s technical proficiency, creativity and iconoclasm has been a driving force in the international photography scene for decades.

THE WORK OF JEFF WALL

Born in 1946, Jeff Wall has been creating art in Vancouver, BC since the late seventies. He takes pictures as if he were making an entire film: that is, each photograph is meticulously constructed over the course of weeks, months, and sometimes years.

Wall is known for his giant-sized photographic transparencies mounted on back-lit boxes – think bus-stop ads or X-ray screens. He specializes in elaborately composed shots that look either unfathomably complicated, or confusingly mundane. The shot below falls into the former category. Completed over the course of two years, the final image was composed from 75 different photographs, taken in two different Vancouver cemeteries and within Wall’s own studio. Wall worked with oceanographers to create the tidal pool in the open grave.

The Flooded Grave, 1998-2000
Read more about this image at Tate Modern.

Early in Wall’s career, he began experimenting with documentary-style compositions. Because his lightbox transparencies required large-format prints, a portable camera (in the 80s, at least), couldn’t provide the clarity he required to capture candid moments on the street. Still wishing to catch the genuine, street-level vibe of the occurrences taking place around him, Wall would instead hire amateur actors to recreate street scenes in studio. The shot below, titled “Mimic” is from 1982, and recreates a racist exchange Wall observed on a Vancouver sidewalk.

“The gesture was so small,” explains Wall. “I was interested in the… physical mimesis. The white man was copying the Asian’s body. Mimesis is one of the original gestures of art.”

Wall’s words are what gives his photography added significance. Critics might be less equipped to read into Wall’s work if he wasn’t so actively doing it himself. Having served as a professor at three different colleges and universities (including UBC), Jeff Wall has published a significant amount of essays relating to photography, philosophy and art, and of course, his own work.

Take a look at the photograph below, titled “The Storyteller.” Evidently one of Wall’s most iconic works, it exemplifies his mastery of elaborate set-ups that don’t seem elaborate, but which turn out to be loaded with intentionality and significance.

The storyteller in this image is the woman in the bottom left-hand corner. Wall has stated that this woman represents “the historical crisis of the Native peoples of Canada, whose traditions of oral history have been eroded by modern life.” By setting up the shot in a typically overlooked locale, he emphasizes the distance between Native history and contemporary existence.

Wall’s writing about this work are academic and dense, using words like “archaism” and “figura” in his descriptions. His inaccessibility is charming, illustrating an enchantment with intellectual explorations, but a detachment from popular art. In a way, Wall himself is the Storyteller, passionately providing fervent lectures on photography and art, just off the beaten path.

THE INVISIBLE MAN

Hastings Street is certainly a curious corridor to choose for studio space, but I imagine that the veil of poverty lends itself to considerable privacy. As the annual Eastside Culture Crawl demonstrates, there are plenty of artists who find this part of town to be an ideal venue for their work.

Wall’s obscure studio is incongruous with such a prolific career, but provides such a captivating legend:

“I heard there’s a famous old photographer with a high-tech studio just two doors down from Union Gospel Mission.”

“I heard he lives there too, surrounded by photography gear.”

I don’t know anything about Jeff Wall beyond what I’ve learned this past week. I don’t know if he resides in his studio, if he’s connected to his community, if he ever emerges from the darkroom or the lightbox. But every time I walk past the gray walls, I imagine Wall at work in a situation similar to the one he created with his 2000 piece, “Invisible Man.” With 1,369 illegally connected light bulbs strung together over the ceiling, the subject lives quietly and unobtrusively in a New York cellar, going about his business under the otherwordly glow of leftover lightbulbs, completely separate from the city around him.

EXPLORING MORE JEFF WALL

• Wikipedia always offers fascinating tidbits, including this gem: did you know that Wall’s photograph “The Destroyed Room” was used as the cover shot for a Sonic Youth EP of the same name?
• Read “If You Build It They Will Come,” an article in Time Magazine from February 2007 and written by Richard Lacayo. The revealing essay explores staged photographs and includes Wall in the exploration, calling one of Wall’s shots the “photographic equivalent of a Jackson Pollock drip painting.” (Ouch.)
• TateModern has created an exceptional interactive online exhibit of Wall’s work from 1978-2004, featuring detailed views and write-ups for many of his signature pieces. All of the images I have used in this entry have been borrowed from the Tate site. Visit this page to see read up on Wall’s work and career. Be sure to explore my favourite from Wall’s photographs, called “A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusa)” from 1993:

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I paid two pounds (approximately 0.9 kilograms, for you Canadians) for Radiohead’s intangible new release, the digitally delivered seventh album, called “In Rainbows.” Since the stunt was announced in early October 2007, this album has everybody talking, but for the first time in Radiohead’s career, the conversation has nothing to do with their music.

“In Rainbows” is music to become familiar with, not music that captures your attention. It’s not music to share with your family and friends, unless you’re hosting a “Serious Music Discussion Night.” It’s not music you listen to for fun, unless you define fun as “a period of discouragement and longing.” Plain and simple, like much of the Radiohead catalogue, “In Rainbows” is music to be lonely to.

The album opens with “15 Step.” As electronic drums set up the song’s over-complicated rhythm, drummer Phil Selway joins in to add a little more confusion. Thom Yorke begins inserting quotes he heard during the day: “Won’t take my eye of the ball,” “Did the cat get your tongue?” and so forth. You can’t sing along – because you don’t actually want to, because the words are unclear, and because your voice doesn’t sound good when you sing like Thom Yorke. Congratulations, you’ve just been alienated.

“Bodysnatchers” takes over, introducing Radiohead’s first memorable rock riff since “Just.” The panting drums carry the song like a dogsled team. Each time this track starts, within three seconds, I’ve got my air guitar plugged in. “Has the light gone out for you?” Yorke demands, “Cause the light’s gone out for me.” This is a rock song for the apocalypse – but then again, Radiohead songs were bred for no other occasion.

Track 3 – bear with me, this isn’t actually a track-by-track review – is when the album’s mood and personality is finally established. “Don’t get any big ideas,” the listener is encouraged. “They’re not gonna happen.” Selway’s waltz rhythm is purposely ironic, taunting the listener with a rhythm you’d be tempted to snap your fingers to, while Thom Yorke is busy pissing pessimism all over the percussion.

Throughout this record, you’ll find that drummer Phil Selway is given one of the most prominent roles on this album, with his human rhythms winning out over the machines. His diverse beats, from the meandering hip-hop of “All I Need” to the quick straight-time rhythm of “Weird Fishes,” provide something tangible for the listener to hold on to. It’s a vital role to play in an album that doesn’t make an effort to stick in your head.

If you’re in the mood for a little bit of isolation, with a side dish of “haunting melodies,” this is the record for you. In public, this record alienates, but in private, it provides nothing but empathy. If you ever find yourself commuting to work on mass transit, lost in an anonymous sea of faces and burdened by the insincerity all around you, put on “Videotape” and let the scattershot percussion blend in with the sound of traffic and movement that surrounds you, and let the cyclical, soothing piano line carry you off to the pearly gates. Keep in mind that when Thom Yorke says this will be on videotape, he only means that figuratively. It will actually be on TiVo.

Music has changed so much since “OK Computer” and “Kid A” took everybody by surprise. After all of Radiohead’s vital work providing new creative direction for music, it seems they’ve finally arrived at a sound and a style that is firmly their own – and it’s a style that revels in despair, remains in darkness, and relishes desperation. While for many, this type of musical sadism helps heal wounds, for me, it suggests that it’s time to be looking for music that is actually looking forward. It is Thom Yorke’s line from “Faust Arp” that summarizes Radiohead’s new release for me: “I love you, but enough is enough.”

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• Movie Review: Melinda and Melinda
• Movie Review: Juno

Today, I stepped on the Skytrain and was immediately surrounded by approximately 327 six-year-olds wearing toques and waving stuffed bunnies in the air. It seemed all the children in Burnaby had been ordered to evacuate the city en masse, and head towards downtown Vancouver. At least, it appeared that way until a Grown Up shouted “EVERYBODY STAY STANDING FOR THE PEOPLE WHO WANT TO SIT DOWN!!!” It was clear somebody was in charge, and when I asked a nearby gremlin what was up, he confessed it was a field trip to Science World.

I wish that the organizations we work for still arranged regular field trips, allowing adults the privilege of visiting nearby museums, scenic interest points and maybe the gravesites of famous dead people. However, when you try to organize a group of adults to move from one part of the city to another, it’s like respectfully inviting a group of babies to please spell their names backwards. All you get is a bunch of nonsensical screaming.

Consider an incident from this morning, on the bus:

At 10 am, there was a noticeable predominance of older folks riding the bus – most of them contentedly immersed in their blue fabric sites, a few squabbling for seats near the front. I was absently-mindedly reading a daily, sitting at the back of the bus, when suddenly a horrifying shriek pierced the near-silence.

“Yiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!” came the noise; it was the type of noise you’d expect from somebody who has just had their leg trapped in the bus door. But the only thing close to a medical emergency going on was the accelerated heart rates of the passengers. An older woman with a cane was busy exploding with rage: “DOES IT LOOK LIKE I WANTED YOU TO HOLD ON TO ME??” she screeched. Turns out, somebody had tried to stabilize the woman as she nearly fell on top of her fellow passengers.

She quieted down and said “Can I get off now?” to the bus driver. The courteous chauffer, not even at an official stop (but rather, just a light), opened the door and let the woman leave. The passengers let out a collective sigh — another failed attempt at adults trying to get along.

But wait, don’t give up hope yet. Just when you thought we were doomed, along comes John Chow, legendary internet mogul and superstar philanthropist. I won’t spoil the surprise, but let’s say John has pretty much started a worldwide blogathon. Head on over to John’s site to read about how a free lunch at Union Gospel Mission is turning into the fundraising spectacle of the century.

While the web is busy raising funds to help feed the homeless Thanskgiving, I’m spending the day over in UGM’s auxiliary headquarters at 659 E Hastings, manning the phones for the JRfm “Feed the Hungry” radiothon. If you can handle the onslaught of country music, tune in to hear amazing stories from UGM’s clients, and to hear this phone number broadcasted regularly: 604-874-8837. You can call in to make a donation, or donate online any time at over at the official UGM website.

And while we’re talking about the web, I’m pleased to announce that my own website just got a little more official. You can now point your browser towards kevangilbert.com any time you wish to visit the site. I acquired the domain name a few weeks ago, and just took the appropriate steps to redirect the domain to the existing site. I am planning (in the loosest sense of the word) to introduce a whole new design sometime over the next couple lonely winter months, which promises to be better! Bigger! Beautifuller!!

In the research process for purchasing my own-name domain name, I discovered a couple things: first of all, some hoser already scored the domain name “kevan.org” – however, it you do a quick Google search for “Kevan,” my site is the third answer to appear. Yay!

Alright, that’s about all the useless trivia for today. I have to get back to my annual Thanksgiving weekend rituals – wallowing in self-pity while ingesting regular doses of Sudafed capsules and trying to remember what it was like to have a holiday where I wasn’t afflicted by some mysterious ailment. Happy Thanksgiving!

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