skonen_blades

My heart is huge
As big as an abandoned mall
And as dark and empty
Bankrupted
No electricity
In disrepair
An opportunity for business
Cheap rent
Perhaps some pop-up romances
Some lusty neon
Love in this economy
With all this square footage
Seems impossible
So, this October
The whole thing
Is going to become
A Spirit Halloween Store
And that’s okay with me

I got the news the other day about Black Dog video on Commercial Drive shutting down.
I've been renting there weekly for years.

An elegy is a poem that reflects upon a subject with sorrow or melancholy.
Whereas a eulogy is meant to offer praise.

Well, I come to praise the video store, not to bury it.

This one’s for the DVD
The commentaries from the cast, director, and crew
Giving insight into so many levels of the film
That obscure niche-horror B-movie
That noir foreign film one-shot from that writer-director’s short ‘magical realism’ phase
That divine experimental five-country co-production that’s no longer in print
That hard-to-find music documentary

The transition from Film to Beta to VHS to DVD to Blu Ray to digital
Already filtering out too many movies forever
But video stores were where so many of them could be captured
Collated and hoarded
Caught and preserved
Held in amber
An entire library of culture
A snapshot of the medium itself
A specialty shop of our collective dreams
And voices from the entire planet

Not these weak offerings that have the gall to call themselves services
Offering only the last decade
of only the greatest hits
While furiously churning out their own productions
And ignoring history
Split between a dozen companies that cost fifteen dollars a month
The math is clear
It’s the return of cable
They’re busy recreating the reasons we went to the video store in the first place

I feel like a history professor watching a library burn
While the people in the crowd around me talk about how
the property would make a very valuable something else
Once the lot is cleaned up

Streams are shallow and they have a current
Rapids pulling things by swiftly and then they’re gone
They’re supposed to lead to large bodies of water
Stable, deep repositories that in turn inspire the clouds to rain more ideas
Instead of just endlessly refreshing with the latest offerings
And there’s so much disposable pollution floating past

I’d have less of a problem
If they crossed the streams
And it led to a torrent
Which in turn led to a bay
That wasn’t run by pirates
Streams offers sips to a traveler
But you can live on an ocean
And you can dive so deep

The video store clerk is that elusive sibling
To the comic book store cashier
The record shop worker
The bookstore owner
All arbiters of culture
The person who you go to for a good recommendation
With an entire cathedral of material on hand to offer

I’m worried at what’s to be lost with the transition
As these businesses starve to death in the streets
The libraries do what they can
And I’m grateful they exist
But I worry it’s a band aid on a cut throat

The video store was an entrance to another dimension
Where couples went to pick out films
As a litmus test of compatibility
Where your mind emptied at the door as it faced countless options
Where the counterperson’s encyclopedic knowledge
Could steer you in the right direction
To walk through the shelves and see
The end products of unfathomable hard work
Where the lurid covers vied for your attention

The video store was where the question
“Is this any good?”
Could be answered with honesty
And would lead to a tour of other delights

To conjugate
Like the old man I am
I will miss the video store
I am missing the video store
I miss the video store

And I have so much love for them

So pour one out for all the independent purveyors of fading mediums
And if you happen to see a film buff crying silently in the bar
Consoled by someone with a crate of vinyl
And a person with a bag of zines and comics and old books
Hide your ereader and your iphone
And ask these ghosts of the echoes of the memories of gods
What their favorite anything is
And luxuriate in the ten-day answers

Here’s to Black Dog.
The latest domino on the Drive



tags

This was an accordion to love.

Bright red enamel finished with mother-of-pearl scalloped inlays racing each other around the edges. Ornamental etchings decorated the keys and the traditionally black keys were coated with silver and engraved with famous names from South American history.

The chord buttons were black jet polished to a sheen interspersed with white ivory in a checkered pattern that made the eye hurt.

The fabric between the spines of the bellows was a naked woman laid out on a bathing mat with a shower of cherry blossoms falling down. She stretched and contracted, became visible and invisible, during the playing of the music.

It was a masterful instrument. The insides were tuned to perfection. The Master Accordion maker Guglielmo himself had made it without apprentice help.

It sat on the pickup shelf in Guglielmo’s accordion shop. It had been waiting for years. Durango, the master accordion player who had ordered it, had ordered it two years ago and then disappeared.

The front door swung quietly open and the bell jingled at the front of the shop, disturbing the dust playing in streaming sunbeams coming through the front windows. Guglielmo snorted awake. He’d been napping behind the cash register. He did most of his work late at night for foreign orders. Actual foot traffic was slow. Quickly, Guglielmo slicked back his hair and stood up straight.

The stranger was immaculately dressed but about a century out of date. He was tall and thin and wearing a top hat. His suit was elegant with violet brocade across the vest and a gold watch chain dangling in the sunlight between the lapels of his jacket.

His nose had been cut off some time ago and he was wearing an eyepatch. It was hard not to stare at the twin holes in the center of his face so Guglielmo maintained a steady stare at the man’s good eye.

“Are you Guglielmo Sartori, son of Vincenzo Sartori, master accordion craftsmen with no equal?” the apparition asked.

“I am.” Said Gugliemo.

“I am here to pick up an accordion on behalf of an acquaintance. I had a deal with him and he has forfeited. I’ve given him a last request. That last request was that I should pick up the accordion he has been pining for. He says that it is here. His name was….sorry, is Durango.” Said the tall stranger.

Guglielmo looked past the dark stranger at the accordion on the shelf. He’d gotten used to it over the last few years and there was no doubt about it being the pinnacle of his profession. Craftily, he walked over to a blue accordion with hummingbird feathers shining iridescently under the etched enamel.

“Here it is.” He said with a smile.

It got dark outside the store. Maybe a cloud had passed over the sun. The stranger’s good eye grew larger.

“I’ve no time for games. That is not the instrument I seek.” He said. His voice was suddenly pitched a little lower than Guglielmo would have thought humanly possible and he heard tires screech in the distance.

“Right you are sir. Where was my head? It’s right over here.” Guglielmo picked up a dark green accordion, elegant in it’s simplicity with all the colours of the rainbow on the chord buttons. The keys themselves had been yellowed to look like smoker’s teeth. It was definitely macabre enough to interest this gentlemen.

The first few drops of rain pattered onto the storefront’s window. A rumble of thunder sounded in the distance. Guglielmo heard a dog whine.

“You are a master of your craft so I shall give you another chance. I warn you, sir, it will be your last.” Said the stranger. On the last word, blood trickled down from behind the stranger’s eyepatch and Guglielmo noticed how long the gentleman’s teeth were.

He came to the realization that it would be his life or the accordion. He valued his life more.

”It’s the red one over there on the pickup shelf. He paid in advance. It’s yours.” He motioned with his hand and walked back behind the cash register.

The stranger looped a long-nailed hand through the shoulder strap and lifted it up. It wheezed just a little as it was hoisted on the back of the stranger.

Without further ado, the stranger opened the door of the shop and made to leave.

Guglielmo started and shouted for the stranger to stop. The stranger stared at him.

Guglielmo gulped and said “If you could, please request for me that he play The Lover’s Lament on it as the first tune. It was part of the bargain I struck with him. It was my wife’s favourite tune.”

“Hm” the man said and smiled. It was a terrible thing to behold. “I’m not familiar with your wife. However, the idea of an inaugural song, while touching, is quite moot. Durango has no hands anymore with which to play. I just want to give him something to look at.”

With a smirk and a tip of his hat, he left the store.

The weather got better outside immediately.

Guglielmo thought about that day for the rest of his life. He never made a better accordion than that one.



tags

The owner of the shop wore a clean gold monocle over a pale blue eye. His other eye was brown. I suspected the blue eye was plunder. It would be expensive to go to the wetmage every week to keep it from being rejected. Ths was the buyer, I guessed. He had money.

I had goods to sell.

In the time box, I had a full two years stored going for a low rate of twenty dollars a second. I had a wrath-bone jawblade worn from use but it still had a few molars of kill power in it. I had a twin charm for subterfuge and fertility plus a roving ear to go with it as a sentry. I had some Adjunct bodies in the ice trunk ready for posession. They were vaulable but they very expensive to store and my upkeep was eating into the possible profits.

I needed gun oil, soap and bullets. I also needed some Dead Man's Money, two rods (one lightning and one sunstrike), and some short-life conduit screamers.

He leered at me over an enormous moustache while wiping an already gleaming counter.

I sensed the travel dust I was tracking into his tidy store was making him twitch so I pressed the advantage in the hopes that he'd trade or buy early just to get me to leave.

I slapped my hat down on the mirror finish of the counter in an explosion of dust.

"Good day, sah," I said. "Might you be the proprietor?"



tags

There’s a woman that works at the liquour store who’s just as tall as me.
She’s greyhound lean and long and strong and probably near forty three.

Librarian glasses with black horned rims are perched on a long thin nose.
A long pearl string keeps them safe on her neck and at hand for wherever she goes.

She twitches and stares and she moves like a puppet that’s moving for pennies a show.
There’s beer after beer and wine after wine and customers row after row.

She looks like an animal; no sense of self, just purpose and learned little skills.
She’s done it for years and busy or slow she always can balance the tills.

Her face has these tics. She’s tired and single. Her smile is practiced and prim.
Her eyes are untouched by the smile and lately her patience is wearing quite thin.

Her name is Darnelle which is odd for Vancouver or anywhere north of the South.
Her legs are so long. They must hurt a lot. She has a wide scar for a mouth.

There’s nothing about her that screams “I was hot!” or “you should have seen me at twenty”
I think she’s been awkward and outcast for life. I think that her dreams have been plenty.

She’s a family of one. She’s healthy by habit. Her goals are no longer before her.
She’s lovely to me. She’s probably common but right now I fully adore her.


tags