So. now I've been here for two weeks and things still haven't really settled down for me yet. I still don't have a phone or internet at home and now my trusty steed, my three week old laptop, has already died, leaving me completely disconnected. If I didn't have my iPod at home, I don't know what I would do with myself.

And speaking of home… here's the view of the school from my apartment. If you look close enough, you can see a student leaning out her window talking on her cell phone in the second row, third block from the left in the left side window grid.  

These are the scads of students that walk by my window every morning to get to school. It's just a tad bit zombie-ish in more ways than one.

When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth…

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Annyeonghaseyo! (Hello! politely)

Uijeongbu at night – so beautiful and it was very serene at this moment, surprisingly.

So I’ve been here for a week now.

One week. I’ve been here for one week. Wow.

There’s so much to write and recall, I feel like I can barely get it down. I’ll inevitably be missing a bunch of memories, details and thoughts in this post, but I think I need to just post this before I put it off for good.

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I suppose the West Coast must be more enlightened than the East, since I’m using free wireless here at Vancouver International Airport whereas I had to use my computer internetless like a neolithic trogdolyte at Pearson.

Oh, the utter tiresomeness of Nuit Blanche (or Ennui Bland, as A says) blogging. Is there even really a point anymore? What with all the biggest Toronto blogs covering it already and Flickr and Facebook accounts exploding with pictures of all the same exhibits, the tedium really feels overwhelming.
I'll try to keep it short, then, anyway. 

The Fearsome Foursome that we had last year was unable to reunite since one member was sick so I was only accompanied by S and A this time around. 

Overall consensus about this years festival, for us, was about a B+, which is surprising since most people have been panning it as almost worst than last year's. 

The key to our enjoyment seems to hinge upon going in with zero expectations in combination with very minimal planning and rejection of maps, which, apparently, were inaccurate anyhow.
Learning from last year, we stuck exclusively to Zone C (West Queen West and the surrounding area) and didn't even bother with Zone A or B, both of which were unbearably crowded last year and for no good reason either. As a result, we were very pleasantly rewarded with surprises around each corner and no waiting or schedules to race to fulfill. 

Here's a quick smattering of photos that I took. I think I'll make another quick post when I'm able to wrangle pictures from A, who took both more and better pictures than me.

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Recently, Billy Corgan announced that the band will be releasing their second band DVD, called If All Goes Wrong in addition to dates for the 20th Anniversary Tour. So I think that this is the best time to start what I’ve always wanted to do: write about The Smashing Pumpkins. I honestly think that they’re one of the most important leaders of the 90s rock zeitgeist (ironically, they were then, not now, despite Billy’s attempt to do so with their latest album title), which, to me, makes them one of the most fascinating yet under-analysed bands in the modern era.

I feel like not really enough is known about the “new Pumpkins” yet to write about them (and, to be honest, I’m not even sure they deserve it) so I’ll start from the Machina II-era because I’ve been listening to that material more lately and going in reverse-chronology makes sense to me.

I’ll try to avoid talking about much band history because that’s already well-documented, and quite a bit better than I could ever dream to do, so it’ll mostly be my interpretations of his work and also discussions of personal significance. Actually, this whole “series” has two-fold significance: one, to hone and exercise my writing skills, and, two, to help me express and record my thoughts and feelings about my favourite band of all time.

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The Beginning

1995: I first heard the lead single off of Mellon Collie, Bullet With Butterfly Wings, on the radio but in the most unlikely of spots: in the car on the way to dim sum with my entire family. I’m the awkward type to feel weird when I hear or see sexual or angsty things around my family, so I didn’t particularly like listening to lyrics like “And I still believe that I cannot be saved” and “Tell me I’m the only one / Jesus was an only son to you” with my parents nearby, but I guess that’s better than having an awkward spotlight shone on my male adolescence by watching Titanic with my mother and sister.

At the tender age of 10, I hadn’t yet developed my own taste in music, so I basically just listened to whatever my sister did, which happened to be Top 40 at the time. This wasn’t as bad as it sounds because I basically was able to listen to great stuff included in the 90s grunge zeitgeist but also other awesome cheesy tracks like The Sign by Ace of Base. I wasn’t too turned on to Bullet the first time I heard it because of the typical reasons: Billy’s voice and angstiness but what is my bane now happened to be my good fortune back then. The lack of any kind of playlist variation led to DJs hammering Bullet several times every couple of hours, so eventually it started to grow on me. I would never have said that I was in love, though.

2000: fast forward to the millennium, when Billy attempted to rock the world one last time with Machina | The Machines of God, and it was once again a lead single, The Everlasting Gaze, that caught my eye. The crunchy guitar speed metal riff, Billy’s almost-kinky leather outfit and, most notably, Melissa Auf der Maur finally hooked me.

I think you’ll see that it was literally impossible for my little 15 year old brain to stand a chance against that infamous almost-boob outfit.

See?