I love your long shadows and gunpowder eyes

Winnipeg, Manitoba, may not seem like the ideal destination for a simple American tourist, but it can't be denied that certain areas of the city are unabashedly hip. During my short visit my friend Christine and I made it to two fantastic vintage stores (one of which I am crouching in above), the local art gallery, an amazing coffee/bookshop that possesses the best atmosphere one would ever want to sip their americano in, an Indian restaurant, a very High Fidelity-esque used record store, and various other places of the like.
For those of you who know me well, I have probably told you about my self proclaimed soul mate who worked (works?) at this record store, Into the Music. I fell totally in love with this dude when I was thirteen and had first sauntered into the place to pick up a couple of Hot Hot Heat cds or whatever stupid shit I was into at the time. Upon seeing his Buddy Holly glasses, Joy Division tee, and pale pinkish red hair (natural!) I was completely smitten. So imagine my surprise when the very next year, age fourteen, I wandered back to the same place and saw the very same guy chilling behind the counter! After an awkward exchange where I asked if The Damned were playing, (it turned out to be the Misfits) I vowed to make that bespectacled boy mine. I mean really, it had to be more than a coincidence that he had been working both times I happened to show.

You can probably imagine my shock and horror when I found out the next year that the Winnipeg excursion had to be canceled. Fate had brought me and my red-haired Buddy Holly together (sort of) and now she'd decided to rip us apart. My agony was only increased three days ago when I finally had a chance to return to Into the Music. I did not see my Ian Curtis/Glen Danzig fan man but instead saw some thirty-ish dude in a gray t shirt looking in need of a shower. My heart was noticeably broken but I browsed the aisles a bit, continuously checking the door.
After awhile I gave up.
I ended up leaving with Meat is Murder and some Stone Roses, but had hoped to leave with a future husband. Though the experience was definitely discouraging, I choose to believe that my Canadian soul mate is still out there, smoking cloves and listening to Love Will Tear Us Apart.

Anyway here's me trying on hats:


Excuse the shitty quality. A new camera is definitely on my list. The store in the first, third, and following pictures is this large, high-ceilinged place with tons of old-timey clothes and costumes for rent. The girl who was working told us that they were in the process of clearing the place out because it was going to be turned into a library for a movie that's going to be filmed there.

I have more pictures of Chrissy and I in the store dressed up as Adam Ant in pirate hats and Revolutionary War style jackets, but they have yet to be exported.


BTW now that this trip is over and done with my life is back to being ultra shitty, so you should bake me cookie.

O RLY

December 12, 1983

Dear Alex,
I shall now begin what will unquestionably turn into a very long, very tedious, very tiresome typewritten correspondence. I can tell you are already beating your brow and cursing yourself for opening this envelope, but according to mother it is “imperative” that I write. The question she so desperately needs an answer for is one of the vaguest and most simplistic inquiries known to mankind.
How are you?
Now, knowing the fiend of interrogation that is Evelyn Hunt, her curiosity will not be satisfied until she receives an up to date oral report on your physical and mental health (twenty minutes minimum, mind you). If only you owned a telephone, I would not be the one subjected to hours of endless chatter. Perhaps you think this unkind of me. Honestly though, you should hear her go off. I believe poor Evelyn’s severe, chronic nosiness has gotten progressively worse since all of her children moved out of the house. That woman is comparable to the American troops storming the beaches of Normandy on D-Day; even over the phone such is her force. Yesterday she talked to me for a full half hour because she was concerned about whether or not you were eating enough, the whole time making it sound as if it were my fault that you may be becoming malnourished. These twenty-six years I have heard nothing but lectures.
Now of course I realize I have made a right fool of myself throughout this paragraph, because a man who still complains so vehemently about his mother, in my opinion, should not be considered a man at all. For chrissakes though Alex, buy a telephone.
I realize you may be wondering why mother didn’t write to you herself, or employ either Zoë or Ewan to do the job. I suppose she thought you would be more prone to discuss the details of your life with me, rather than our extremely pious sister, egg-headed and self-absorbed older brother, or her own crotchety self. It may also be due to the fact that Zoë is currently exploring the mountain regions of Tibet and Ewan isn’t taking any calls. (He is supposedly on the brink of discovering a cure for polio or cancer or something of the like and has been working like a dog day and night for the past few months. He had articles published in the New York Times and The New England Medical Journal last week, if you hadn’t already noticed.) Father is engrossed in his crossword puzzles as per usual, and of course would be of no help.
Right, now that the affairs of each member of our immediate family have been covered I must throw my attention back to you. I really do hate to say this, but I see some sense in our mother’s current concern over your well-being. The last time we spoke over pay-phone you seemed dangerously detached from your surroundings, and had expressed that the only emotion you felt as of late was one of “utter contempt.” Was this mainly directed at your peers? Your professors? I would hardly think so, this being your third year of attending university. One would assume that at this point you would be fully aware of the massive egos that thrive on a college campus. Hell, haven’t we all been little egomaniacs since we emerged, kicking and screaming from the womb, and declaring it our God-given right to make as much noise as possible? I can’t help but laugh when I think back to my own years at university. How tiresome it was to constantly be surrounded by chain-smoking children drinking black coffee and quoting Nietzsche.
Now I have a feeling, correct me if I am wrong, that the majority of your professors are quite similar to Ewan (or he to them, whichever you prefer). You know the type, men who live life believing that they’re God’s gift to planet earth. It would be more irritating if their arrogance weren’t so often coupled with brilliance. Wasn’t one of those old fools at that school of yours even awarded a damn Nobel Prize? Yes, that Dr. Eisenberg fellow. For pete’s sake, I can’t imagine you harboring much contempt for him. Are you feeling less than jovial towards our ever-loving parents, dear Eli and Evelyn Hunt? You know they tried with the lot of us, they really did. Now I’m well aware that I’ve just simplified your worldview down to its barebones, and that your troubles no doubt extend far beyond school and kin, but by gosh you’ve got me stumped. My dear boy, what is the can of worms behind your discontent? Describe this can for me, from top to bottom, and I will try and be of assistance.
After our brief, but stimulating pay-phone conversation last week I started to think about what a funny child you were. Do you remember how you would often lock yourself up in your room and sit in silence for hours? It was fantastic to behold, because you simply would not stir. When anyone in the family bothered to ask what on earth your were doing, your response was merely, “meditating.” (Now I seem to recall that around this time Eli had been reading you passages from Siddhartha as a substitute for bedtime stories, which I believe was partly responsible for your Zen-like trances. I still marvel at the surprising amount of self-discipline you had as a seven-year-old. I suppose it’s all rather funny, in retrospect.) Are you reverting back to your second grade self and trying to reach enlightenment by tuning out the rest of society?
Please reply posthaste.

Love,
Miles

P.S. I heard through some rather unscrupulous sources that you were abandoning your thesis. Is this true? And that you are also scrapping the novel you’ve been working on since the age of fourteen? Your spare, beautiful prose is one of the greatest gifts the literary world has ever been graced with, and it kills me inside to think of you holed up in that apartment, day after day, doing absolutely nothing.

I need the snow to melt.


I need to quit being an introvert!