In what's becoming a semi-ritual for me, I took Marianne downtown to go out with some of her friends, headed off to the comic shop to buy some stuff and then ended up in The Green Room to drink a beer, eat delicious Vietnamese soup and read them. If you're not from Toronto and ever visiting, The Green Room is one of those places you have to go for an evening; it's loud, bohemenian, and annoying in large doses, but fun.
I read the new issue of Palookaville and the flickering light of the candleon my table created just the right ambience for the reading experience, which is dark, and a more than a little disturbing; Simon, the protaganist of the current storyline Clyde Fans, is entering into an ever deeper state of hallucinations and paranoia. I think this may be the starkest looking issue yet, in terms of layout and design, which really works to intensify the feeling that the world is closing in.
After finishing my soup I pulled out another comic and clumsily knocked over the Steamwhistle that had just been delivered. It poured over the table, and down on to the chair and floor. I looked around,embarrassed, and immediately assumed that I had suddenly transformed from the 'quiet guy nobody really notices' to the 'old comic-book reading wierdo siting all alone in the corner, who is so pathetically drunk that he has lost all motor control' in the eyes of everyone there,. I started grabbing napkins to wipe it all up and realised, with some relief, that everyone was too busy gabbing among themselves to notice what I'd done.
I didn't like the beer that much anyway.
***On a totally unrelated note, a colleague at work and I had a small debate about the proper spelling of Smorgasbord (I lost) which prompted me to look up a partial spelling of it which came up with a list of words that prove Joe Matt's theory that some letter combinations are just intrinsically funny:
smorg as
smorg-as
smags
smoaks
mogas
smirks
smorg
smras
smirk's
sorgos
smocks
smokes
smeacs
msogs
smegmas
mogsa
smacs
smokers
somas
smock's
smoke's
smudges
smoss
mogs
smas
smecs
smog
smoker's
smos
sogs
smrs
srgs
margays
morgues
saigas
smearcase
sorghos
sorgo's
samaras
samosas
smcs
smerfs
smiris
posted by Alan
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11:58 PM
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