[Wisconsin Ave, downtown Milwaukee, 3:00pm]
“I drink Miller!!!!!”

[South Shore Line, near Beverly Shores]
“You’re not a Cubs fan…you’re just an asshole.”

[Sheridan Beach, Stop 2]
Mom: “No whining at the beach. It’s the rule.”

Kid: “But I allllllllways whine at the beach!”

man on platform: “this train isn’t going to smith-ninth*, is it?”

liz: “i don’t think so”

man on platform: “okay, thanks.” [pause] “you’re pregnant?”

liz: “uh, no.”

man on platform: “oh. because your coat.”

liz [silently curses new flared-waist coat]: “no.”

man on platform: “oh.”

liz: “that’s why you never ask women if they are pregnant. because if you’re wrong it’s kind of insulting.”

man on platform: “oh well i thought because of your coat, you were pregnant.”

[pause]

man on platform: “well maybe someday.”

*it was

I hadn’t been to a show like that in ages, you know? THRRRRRNNNG. THRRRRRNNNNNNG. RNNN RNNN RNN RNNNN RNNNN. By which I mean, it’s been a heck of a long time since I’d seen a Table of the Elements merch table.

I’m not pretending I wasn’t two years old when Rhys Chatham wrote Guitar Trio 1977, but hey, that still makes me more actually born than most of last night’s performing ensemble were at that time — Toronto’s “local assortment” of talented musicians (drummer dude! you rule!) spanned probably a few decades of age range. (And if it isn’t clear, “guitar trio” in 2007 means somewhere between 1-400 guitars: here we fell a little closer to the low end, but hey! We got a string section!)

Even though it was dissapointing citywide that not enough people knew about/made it out for the show, technically that might’ve been for the best. For whatever reason, the Tranzac decided to open the doors 70 minutes after the ticketed time, leaving many of the slightly less nerdy among us waiting out in Toronto chill. Actually they told us the reason, someone was late to soundcheck, and I also saw the other reason of a dozen musicians (politely) shoving past me with takeout restaurant meals. Yeah anyway so after an hour or so Owen Pallet comes out and says, “How come you guys aren’t waiting in the tiki room? It has couches!” and just as we’ve all pigpiled into said lounge, the doors open and we all go watch some guy’s like fly-eye power point electronic movie.

But then suddenly half the audience cleared out and we realized they were all on stage as part of the performance. Then, y’know. I can’t and won’t describe RNNNN RNNNN groove groove RNNN RNNNN but you missed it and it was lovely. The guitarists held this steady and unpliable presence and then the most wonderful thing happened when the strings came in: the string section undulated. They felt it and moved totally differently than the guitarists. To the right and the left they tossed the force back and forth between them, guitars to violinists, drummer to cellist, old dudes to young dudes to people who had known each other decades to those who’d met, I’m thinking, that night. We got two sets of RNNN RNNN RNNN and danced and enjoyed the accidents of others’ flashbulbs, rocking on heels and knees and trying to fully live in as much of that feeling as those strings and the vibration of the room and the shaking and regret of my toilet-paper-earplug-attenuated hearing.

Then the Tranzac had curfew and Rhys just put his guitar down and marched right to the bar and ordered a beer as if that hadn’t all just happened and as if avant music suddenly just took place in like, community centres with your friends every day of the week. Excellent.

[more pix via slowshutter]

What happened at the Magik Markers show was throbbing, humid, dangerous. The back of the Oasis was hot hot hot. Not desert hot, like an Oasis should be, but really muggy, or as they say in some parts of the world, “close”. It was really close. Then these kids who were tripping on shrooms or something started tumbling, and kind of kicking people in the face, which was weird enough but it was already weird that we were sitting down, beers being grabbed out of the way in emergency measures, guitar thrumming a line you would bounce to if bouncing were an angrier thing. Elisa stumbled into the crowd, into a confused goth man, into a fight, into the tumblers, who started hitting each other for pleasure while the goth man grew convinced Elisa was out for pain. (“I think he didn’t get it,” I said to her later — “Do I?” she responded.) One of the tumblers split her pants, Elisa stopped wanting to play, and a guy sitting next to the stage took the front grill off of an electric fan and started putting his face in it. It was all high-level noise and low-level anxiety, a film of moisture, microphones flying, a boot to somebody’s back, lost watches and regretted sweaters. I thought I was going to get hurt. I hope they come back soon.

It’s not a shocking statement to say that among my social circles (and my adopted countrymen in general) I’m considered more on the brash end of the scale. I prefer “straightforward”, others may prefer the more explicit term “rude”. Secretly I like to think Canadians enjoy having a mouthy American in the group. Like I always say, who else is going to send the food back?

That said, I’ve been trying for some years now — well, let’s start with my column in the eighth grade newsletter — to establish myself in the tradition of the world’s finest etiquette columnists. Though my use of the plural there is a bit disingenuous: I don’t think anyone comes close to Miss Manners, and I don’t really bother reading anyone else these days. Her biweekly column and amazing legacy of books are imbued with not only a staunchly proper code of conduct but a beautifully humanitarian set of ethics. Etiquette, Ms. Martin taught me at a young age, is not in fact a set of rules established to alienate economic classes unfamiliar with the proper use of cocktail forks, but rather, when used correctly, is society’s great unifier. Manners include rather than exclude; they teach by guidance and example rather than admonishment, they smooth over awkwardness rather than create it, and most importantly, they dictate that we must each respect one another. It is this respect that keeps society from entirely running off the rails, people extinguishing their chewing gum in one another’s hair, cussing at little kittens, et cetera.

Although Miss Manners is my hero, I will admit that my own personal sense of right and wrong tends to swing more towards the indignant, “what the fuck?” variety — and I’ll concede that the niche market of snarky etiquette delivery does have a certain cache.

But even I of the shouting-you’re-welcome-behind-your-back school was surprised to have the tables turned the other day when, upon the subway, I was “your welcome’d”! That’s right — I took a seat and the woman who had “let me” squeeze past her — because she’d selfishly chosen to sit on the outside seat of a two-seater — sneeringly said “you’re welcome” to me as I took my seat. On public transportation.

Had I been in a movie and tried to squish my way past someone towards a more premium seat, or perhaps had I even felt I had brushed her or entered her personal space, I would absolutely have said “pardon me!” as I walked past. Heck, I’d do it even after tripping over the knees of a family of twelve at a baseball game for the tenth time that inning. But to be chastised with saccharine for not asking permission to get into a seat that someone had deliberately made difficult to access (she sat down seconds before me)? That’s a new one. The thing is, she clearly thinks she’s making the world a better place, too, by going around letting me know how rude I am. I’ve known for a long time that the whole “leading by example” thing is better than correcting, but, you know, since I’m always right I figured it was at least a little more okay when I did it. But I think I’m going to have to go back to the drawing board with the whole reforming society thing. Or, you know, sharpen my elbows up some.