Banksy’s record bomb
A dog with a rocket launcher aimed at a Victrola player …. not sure I get it Banksy, but it’s provocative!
Found this in Shoreditch behind Plexiglass, of course.
Check out my Banksy category.
Another Banksy behind plexiglass
This was off of Rivington Street in Shoreditch. Okay, I understand the need to put Banksy’s behind plexiglass, because they’re worth a lot of money and people hate Banksy so they try to destroy his stuff …. but I fucking hate this.
People like street art because it’s raw, savage, wild, and ephemeral. Putting it behind some authoritarian glass just canonizes it, and removes all the joy.
I mean, if street art was meant to last forever, Banksy wouldn’t have put this up in a fricken alley. Expiry dates are what make urban art special.
Just a side thought – Rivington Street in London is fulla street art …. and so is Rivington Street in New York city. COINKYDINK?
It’s actually rather uncanny.
Check out my Banksy category for more of his work that I’ve photographed 
Banksy’s The Graffiti Painter
Found this old Banksy piece behind plexiglass in Portobello Market, Notting Hill.
I heard they sold this wall for like £250,000 or something.
Banksy’s name is the red calligraphy in the background.
Check out my Banksy category for more of his work that I’ve photographed around the world
Innsbruck street art
Someone in Innsbruck thinks they are Banksy. This is one of Banksy’s old stencils, but I highly doubt this is a Banksy original. I am pretty sure this is a forgery, but whatever, we love Banksy round hurrr.
Ghetto rat with MAH-JAH bling.
Austrians love to love. ICH LIEBE DICH! (that’s what she said)
Another Bansky rat. This is why I question the authenticity of this stencil. Banksy would never put two of the same stencil in the same place.
Lurve.
Fight Nazis Rats. I guess Nazism is still a problem in Austria? Hitler WAS an Austrian after all … I dunno. But I found this stencil several times.
Another bridge with the lovers locks on it. Found these in Ljubljana, in Paris, in New York, in Toronto, in London …. every city does it!
SNUGGLE CAT.
This is a lovely wheatpaste, it is a shame so many people were walking by without noticing the CHEEZBURGER.
AWW. fatty.
This was a tile! I love this kind of ceramic art.
Perhaps Antifa is a taggers name, I dunno.
Me too! Let us throw things and then dance like children of the night.
Jokes aside, well done. Very thought-provoking.
You again?
It’s LE PETIT PRINCE! Someone made a stencil of Le Petit Prince! ZOMG you hafta message me because I wanna be your friend.
We get it already!
Superman logo backwards, with the caption Mindfuck.
Ok, I dig it.
I like stencils of CCTV cameras. Dunno why, it makes me feel like an anarchist making fun of authority or something.
COOL! Someone put up a stencil of Barack Hussein Obama. I don’t know how old this stencil is, but I was in Cambodia when he was reelected as the POTUS. So I feel a bit out of the loop on things. But speaking of politics, I just found out that Toronto’s stupid monkey Mayor Rob Ford has been removed from office by the courts for conflict of interest. I CAN JUST IMAGINE ALL THE WONDERFUL GRAFFITI BIDDING HIM ADIEU GOING UP IN PARKDALE RIGHT NOW! If you check out my Fordzilla category, you will find a whole bunch of graffiti and street art from around Toronto poking fun at his shitstormanity. I just made up a word. Go me.
Oh-Bama, you are Ba-racking my world.
The Banksy Expedition part 2
Yesterday I gave you part 1 of my Banksy hunting through London, now I give you part deux.
This is his Falling Shopper piece in Mayfair. BUY MORE STUFF. HURRY! EVERYTHING IS ALL RIGHT. PLEASE CONTINUE SHOPPING.
A dude saw me staring upwards, looked up and saw the Banksy, then proceeded to tell me how he works on that street, walks by everyday, and never noticed it. I hear that same line a lot. People, when walking down the street, are so zoned, in their own world, they never notice their own surroundings! People are always amazed how much street art I find, and that’s because I’m keeping my eyes open. Pay attention to your cities, people, there is so much on offer!
Since he was yapping with me, I made him take my photo. 
This is a play on the famous graffiti originally found in New York shitty that read, “If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.”
Seeing as how graffiti is illegal, you know the kind of change it can precipitate.
Banksy Le Rat
Whatever, taking photos of yourself is stupid anyway.
This is an old Banksy on the Essex road. Even though its behind plexiglass, it has still been vandalized.
it depicts school children, hands on hearts, raising a tesco bag up a flagpole. In Tesco we trust. For those of you outside the UK, Tesco is a huge grocery store chain here that has been criticized for monitoring the shopping habits of its customers, selling that information without your consent, etc. When I lived in London last time, I bought a freeview cable box at Tesco to get extra tv channels, and used my Tesco club points card. A few weeks later, I received a letter in the mail from the tv licence office (you’re not allowed to watch tv without paying for a licence here) saying that there was no licence in my name so what was I doing with a freeview box. SNEAKY FUCKERS.
As you can see, the original Tesco bag has been painted over with a team Robbo tag. Robbo and Banksy have been having turf wars for years now, which was documented in this documentary which you can watch here. I will go into more about Robbo in a bit. 
This is another old Banksy I found in Bermondsey which has been left untagged behind the plexiglass.
When I was photographing this though, I was in a particularly bad mood because I had just come from Turnpike Lane where a Banksy was located on the side of a Poundland. I arrived perhaps only ONE HOUR after it had been painted over! The paint was still fucking wet! I tried wiping it off with my hands, then with some scrap paper and plastic bags, but then gave up. So I stormed into the Poundland and demanded to know why they painted over the Banksy. I was in a huge huff. “You know it’s worth millions of pounds, right!?” I barked at them. They insisted they hadn’t painted over it, that it must have been someone else. But the paint was the EXACT SAME COLOUR as their wall! What a manufactured lie. I stormed out of there in a massive huff like a moody cow. But other people in the community, who saw me trying to wipe off the paint, said they thought it was a shame it was painted over. Think of the community Poundland! I literally had half a mind to buy paint remover and a brush from Poundland and go do the community’s bidding…. But really I only thought of that when I was already back on the tube speeding back into central London to get to this next piece….so there you go.
I like to think this is a self portrait of Banksy, and he’s walking his dog fashioned as a tribute to Keith Harring (the style employed to create that dog is awfully reminiscent of the late great Keith Harring).
Then, I was inside the Groucho club in Soho having lunch with my British husband Pete (back off bitches, he’s mine. MINE!), when he pointed out in the frame one of Banksy’s counterfeit £10 notes featuring a bored Princess Diana instead of the Queen!
If you saw Exit Through The Gift Shop, you’ll remember that scene where Banksy retells the story of printing and using these notes. Scandalous!
And now, back to Robbo. So this mural underneath Camden Lock has a lot of significance, because originally Robbo’s tag sat here unblemished for 25 years…. Until Banksy went over it. A turf war erupted back and forth. Then sadly last year Robbo suffered a massive brain injury after a all, and has been in an induced coma ever since. So this spot has been fashioned into a “memorial” of sorts to Robbo…which was instigated by Banksy after he heard the news, trying to make peace.
Note the spraycan with an eternal flame, the crown to signify King Robbo, and the number 25.
Touché.
The Banksy Expedition part 1
I decided that since London is the land of plenty when it comes to street art, I might as well use my time here wisely and find as many Banksy’s as I could. When I lived here before, I did photograph quite a few Banksy’s which now have been painted over, and I didn’t want to leave here without documenting what I could before the awful paintbrush of doom destroyed his works again. Here is part 1 of my Banksy expedition, part 2 to follow!
Vandals found vandalizing this vandalism will be prosecuted.
This one kind of mocks Ikea, which I think is brilliant.
This one is a response to the News Of The Worl phone-hacking scandal. Note the water tap making a ringing noise!
Check out my Graffiti photoshoot & interview with TorontoVerve!
Recently, I had a very fun photoshoot and interview in Toronto’s infamous Graffiti Alley with TorontoVerve. If you don’t know, TorontoVerve is one of the more popular street style photoblogs in Toronto, and presents a really great cross-section of the personalities and characters to be found whilst traversing our awesome little city. Also, the photos are absolutely stunning! Anyway, they asked me if I would like to be one of their subjects, and I was humbled and flattered by the invitation.
It turned into a really fun 101 lecture on Graffiti and Street Art from Toronto, which as you all know, I can yap my freakin’ head off about! We wandered together through the alley for a few hours, and I even made him hike up Spadina to show him the last Banksy left in Toronto!
Here are some of the photos of me in the alley, but for the full interview (We talk about Banksy, Spud, Poser, graffiti turf wars, and of course, Mayor Rob ford), click over to TorontoVerve now!
Enjoy!
Fanks for Nigel for the invite and for being made of awesomesauce.
(All photographs copyright Nigel Hamid/TorontoVerve)
Word on the Street
That sign outside Polka Dot Kids on queen street west keeps coming up with some funny slogans ….. last time it said, “be the sign you wish to see.”
now, again in gandhi fashion, it says, “namaste! the kale in me honours le croissant in you.”
thank you, obi wan.
wait, wuzzat say? stupid reflection!
What Would Godot Do?
FUCK YES, I DO.
says you, random sign…. i beg to differ.
oh gregory, you dirty ol’ man…. i have a soft spot for you, but i can’t shake a spray can without dribbling on 20 of your stencils.
i photographed this before in liberty village, and here it is across the street from the ROM.
…..does what? finish your sentence!
you only love me for my money.
yup!
nope!
i sure as shit don’t!
bahahahahahaha!
my love isn’t free! i require a love-deposit in return!
Wall & Piece
the inside cover of Banksy‘s book Wall & Piece.
when it comes to graffiti and street art, the very fact that it’s FREE, democratic art, available for everyone, means that it would be rather hard to assert a copyright for it. In fact, most art that i photograph doesn’t even have a tagger or artist name attached to it.
so yeah, if you’re gonna do graff, trust da man. copyright is for losers.
Check out my Banksy category to see more of his work that i’ve photographed. (Yes, I HAVE photographed Banksy’s original street art many many times before. I LIVED IN ENGLAND FOR FUCKS SAKE).
Dundas Square is a gaudy monstrosity and a scar on the face of Toronto
Banksy on Advertising
“People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are “The Advertisers” and they are laughing at you.
You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.
Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.
You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.”
~ Banksy
Hanksy in the Lower East Side!
i first found out about Hanksy back in the spring when i visited NYC and found this small sticker amongst many on wall. right after i found that, he blew up in popularity. his theme is pretty simple: he spoofs and satirizes major works by Banksy by refashioning them with Tom Hanks’ face. so when i found that out Hanksy had just recently put up a new piece in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, i ran out in the morning to find it!
this piece is a lampoon of this recent Banksy piece from Liverpool. instead of airplane exhaust, the spray is doggie wee, and the dog has Tom Hanks’ head.
but if you pay close attention, you’ll notice that Tom Hanks is wearing the Rockford Peaches baseball cap that he wore for his role in A League Of Their Own.
and Tom Hanks’ most memorable scene in that movie was where he drunkenly goes for a wee in front of the ladies, and they time him.
HANKSY IS LOADED WITH DOUBLE ENTENDRE HERE!
so many new york bozos don’t even notice genius when it’s right next to them.
i wandered to several locations in the LES where Hanksy had previously put up work, but as is the way with street art, almost all of it had already been removed or painted over. that is, until at my very last hunch, i found this Hanksy!
so naturally, it lampoons this previous piece by Banksy but it removes the monkey head and places mr Hanks’ head there instead.
some tagger sprayed a heart on Tom Hanks’ head, but whatever, such is the world of graff. seeing as how it’s a heart and not something derogatory, Hanksy should take that as a compliment:)
You shoulda seen me when i found these pieces! I was jumping up and down on the sidewalk, and snapped maybe a bajillion photos from the same angles (obsessive compulsive much?). I get so excited when I find exciting work. Lots of people came up to me as I was snapping photos and asking me about the work. They mostly wanted to know if the artists were famous. I said, not really, but the work is thrilling to me.
That didn’t seem to satisfy most people.
anyway, only my second day in NYC and I’ve already taken 244 photos! I must blog more of this! Keep checking back often, will try to update as much as possible!
Deadboy’s raccoon steals bling from Banksy’s rat
DEADBoY messaged me yesterday the locations of some of his new stencils in and around the Ossington strip, and the first one I found was a return to his raccoon series and a nod to one of his graff idols, Banksy
it’s Banksy’s rat next to DEADBoY’s ghetto ‘coon! as you probably already know, Banksy has had a long history of stencilling his rat series around London, which he admittedly ripped off of Blek Le Rat. The original ghetto Banksy rat that DB is referencing in this stencil looks like this below:
so DB returned to his raccoon series, and took the bling offa Banksy’s rat and gave it to Ghetto Coon!
hahahha, he looks gutted.
this is the second DB piece that I found yesterday. it’s a lampoon of the NIKE adverts. it now says LIKE, and instead of the slogan “just do it,” it says “just forget it.” there’s a picture of a young child holding a gun.
DB has previously created pieces of children with fire arms before, but i feel this takes on a greater significance because NIKE is well known for using sweatshops in south east asia, employing child labourers, paying them pennies a day, mistreating them, forbiding unions/job security/benefits/proper rest facilities or safety conditions …. so when you buy a NIKE product, you are basically telling the children NIKE exploits that you “like, just forget it” ever happens.
this is the third DB piece of the night, and it’s his trademark. when out in public, he not only wears this mask (as he did the first time i met him), but it’s also the image on his stickers.
it’s kind of scary, especially since it looks like it’s dripping blood or saliva or something. which is ironic, ’cause the whole time i’ve known DB, he’s been such a lamb.
check out my DEADBoY category for more of his work that i’ve photographed.
new Banksy hits Lundy-Lundy-Lundy!
Banksy has been hitting up various UK spots lately, and now he’s officially back with this hit on poplar, london and with a new website as well.
“sorry! the lifestyle you ordered is currently out of stock.“
if you take a peek at the “questions” section of Banksy’s new website, you’ll see that he tips his hat to the great London graffiti artist Robbo, who recently suffered a fall and has been in an induced coma since April. if you don’t know who Robbo is, you can watch below, in its entirety, this Channel 4 documentary on Robbo and his long-standing feud with Banksy. it really is a fascinating documentary, and the art depicted is breathtaking.
sweeping the motorway under the rug
i took this photograph in early 2007 just outside of Camden Town market in London. it is a Banksy original. I took the photo with my crappy Motorola krazr phone (which at the time, was pretty high tech). this piece is rather popular because it shows the maid sweeping the yellow lane divided under the rug. at the time, the piece was so weathered and crumbling, that the yellow lane divider (which banksy had painted from the road, over the sidewalk, to the wall) had chipped off and was fading. and because i was so dumb, i didn’t bother to get more than shots from different angles.
i don’t know if it’s still there or if it’s being restored. it was a great time to be living in the big smoke.
hang in there, baby
i took this photo in early Autumn 2007 on Park Street in Bristol. It is a Banksy original. It has since been vandalised a few times with paint bombs and is being restored.
I went to Bristol because I was living in London at the time, had just broken up with a douchebag, and had this all-consuming need to travel every single weekend. Luckily, England is a pretty pint-sized country in terms of landmass, so I could visit cities all the way on the other side of the country, and it would only take a couple hours roundtrip. Tops.
I blogged about my trip to Bristol at the time, read the archive post here. As you’ll see from reading it, I actually didn’t know this was a Banksy as I snapped this photo. I thought it was clever, and probably commissioned by some art gallery. But the image of a lover hanging on for life, and the blending of two artistic styles….it kinda did the trick for me.
Bless those Brits.
I do this thing after I go through a breakup where the need to travel is like a scab I need to pick. It gnaws and chews at my ligaments and nerve endings. Teeth grate. Passport starts hissing. Airport calling!
buy more stuff. hurry! HURRY.
This is Banksy‘s latest, in response to Buy Nothing Day.
EVERYTHING IS OK. PLEASE CONTINUE SHOPPING.
#OccupyXmas
Post-Graffiti exhibit at The Gladstone Hotel
i have found lots of Shepard Fairey’s around Toronto and New York (check out my Shepard Fairey category for each find), but i thought i had found them all in Toronto. i don’t think he’s been here for a few years, so to find some of his OBEY stickers still lingering about is a real treat. i found this practically unblemished OBEY sticker on queen west near dovercourt
speaking of Shepard Fairey…..
i found out recently that The Gladstone Hotel quietly opened a free exhibit on their 3rd and 4th floors called POST-GRAFFITI. it features the work of Shepard Fairey (the Obama HOPE poster!!!!), Dolk, Retna, Anthony Lister, Dan Bergeron (aka FAUXREEL), and yes, Banksy.
they’re having a launch party for it on the 27th in conjunction with another art exhibit, BUT they’ll charge ya $5. if you go any day between 12pm and 5pm, it’s free to the public.
just sayin’.
shepard fairey.
apart from his obvious style, there are lots of visual cues to his previous work here.
more shepard fairey. basically the whole 3rd floor was dedicated to him.
SF.
this is Anthony Lister. he has this motif with golden award trophies that he works with often.
this piece by Anthony Lister previously appeared this summer at the Show & Tell Gallery
DOLK.
i was first introduced to his work when i wandered around Brooklyn for two weeks earlier this year.
au.to.graphed.
dolk
dolk’s homage to warhol.
i’m pretty sure this if FAUXREEL, as he primarily works with photographs of people. if so, he only had this one piece in the whole exhibit. what a shame. i love his work.
i’m assuming this Indian/Pakistani scene is by Retna
and the one BANKSY at the exhibit
you can tell it’s a BANKSY by the lettering/font of the word “applause.”
hahah uss enterprise.
Mr Brainwash in Toronto
i’m a little late in the game for this one. Mr Brainwash (aka Thierry Guetta, the notoriously bad graffiti-poseur who unwittingly became the subject of Banksy’s Oscar-nominated 2010 documentary Exit Through The Gift Shop. read my review of it here.) came to Toronto during TIFF to launch a gallery exhibit. i was covering TIFF for one of my regular freelance gigs (so much movie garbage aka review fodder), and then i embarked on my epic bucket list trips to Vancouver and subsequently Peru, so i didn’t get the chance to see the exhibit when it launched.
it’s at Gallery One in Yorkville, and now that i’m back, i thought i’d check it out, but i refused to go inside, instead sticking to the wheatpastes he erected outside the venue.
why?
there’s a reason why it’s called STREET art. by having the work outside, it immediately becomes site-specific and affects its surroundings. it provides a critique and comment on the area and thereby the community. gallery exhibits are removed from cultural contexts and placed on white walls you’re not supposed to touch.
it’s ephemeral.
it’s also democratic. street art is free and enjoyable by anyone who stumbles upon it. there is no admission fee, and there’s no gallery attendant whose shoes cost more than you make in a year. it’s not intimidating.
while gallery work (and even some street art) is curated, it’s the curate process that can, in a word, censor street art. it can be prone to editing, vanilla-ization,and the political provocation inherent in the majority of graffiti can be muted.
and the greatest thing about street art is that EVERYONE is welcome to launch an attack on the streets.
imagine if we were all welcome to comment on our society in creative, clever ways without being subject to the approval of the municipal government first?
i originally posted this here. i took mr brainwash’s blasé saying and added a woody allen quote to (frankly) make it better.
unfortunately, even Banksy noted in the documentary that, after the clusterfuck of Mr Brainwash, he doesn’t think EVERYBODY should make street art anymore.
Guetta’s work is trite, derivative, lacking in unique voice and style, and doesn’t express anything beyond the realm of Hallmark cards. as Banksy said, Guetta took Warhol’s pop culture motif and made it even more meaningless.
talk about being a monkey.
the more i know people, the more i love the smiths
i leave today! Via Rail is putting me on the cross-canada train from Toronto to Vancouver (with a brief stop in Jasper, Alberta) to blog, vlog, and live-tweet the train experience, and upon arrival in Vancouver, I will be speaking on a panel for the Social Media Week conference. The panel is “Brands, Agencies, and Influencers” and we’re discussing how to build personal brands, the relationship between brands and bloggers, and the ethics therein. if you’re gonna be in Vancouver on September 19th, register to hear a sistah speak here!
most of you know that i’m a huge travel junkie, so being able to explore my own country as much as i’ve explored others is a huge opportunity, one that i couldn’t pass on. it takes a bigger woman than me to refuse such a generous offer.
i’ve travelled the european rail networks extensively, and i swear by them because they’re fast, they’re efficient, and they’re inexpensive. i’ve always been a critic of our canadian rail system, so this experience is the opportune time to prove me wrong.
time to whip out my backpack and load it up with travel essentials. tell me, what does one wear to a panel discussion? business casual? i have my pencil skirts and blouses buried somewhere.
more importantly, what does one wear on a train for three days? Via Rail has set me up in the swanky sleeper touring class cabin, where i will apparently get my own shower, and my meals prepared by a kickass chef. i get my own cabin as well, NO SHARESIES!
when i rode the rails in europe, I always had to settle for the 4 bed or 6 bed couchettes shared with complete strangers who snored, had screaming children, or yipped out the window at every train platform we crossed.
one time, when travelling for over 24 hours from lisbon to budapest (it’s a fricken lonnnnnng train ride, with stopovers in paris and vienna), there were no couchettes left, and i had to sit upright in a compartment with 4 others all night. it was THE WORST.
in india, you didn’t even get a separate compartment. you just slept right out in the open, no curtains, no privacy, and everything at risk of being stolen.
anyway, ADVENTURE TALLY HO!
see ya on the west coast, suckas.
* * *
speaking of Social Media and influence, I tweeted this on the 10th anniversary 9/11:
as you can see, it was RT’d by more than 100 people, which actually happens quite a lot on my end, but that number was probably increased when it was RT’d by my main man:
now i finally know what celebrity tweeters have to endure. some people were INCENSED by those nine little words. amazing how one little pacifist sentiment can incite so much furor. some of the messages i received in response to that tweet were ripped right out of Team America, surely. most of them were xenophobic and racist comments directed toward arabs and muslims, i might add. twitter really is the only refuge for the scoundrels.
hey everybody! got an opinion? you should post it on twitter.
PEOPLE WILL SHIT THEMSELVES.
I worked at the CN Tower during 9/11. I quit shortly thereafter, as did everyone else. I don’t just mean employees, I also mean guests and customers. Towers became taboo.
“Hi Christine,
i’ve been blogging about Deadboy‘s street art and graffiti for months and months now, and we talk often.
guess who i finally met?
YES YES YA’LL.
Deadboy had informed me a few weeks ago that he had been asked to participate in the street art showcase which drops in toronto on september 24th, and the official media announcement was last week at City Hall, so i went to support the man in the mask.
i actually didn’t realize he was the one in the mask until he waved at me and came over to say hi. seeing as how we’ve never met before, and i have no clue what he looks like, i just assumed he was someone else. as he got closer, i looked at his mask and was like WAAAAAIT A MINUTE, that’s the mask used in his street art!
anyway, we spoke for about an hour, and the press conference was actually super interesting. turns out the Street Art Showcase has received invitations from Bristol (banky’s hometown) and 5Pointz in Queens!
imma be out of town on the 24th (going to Peru!), but you should definitely check out the showcase. follow them on twitter for updates. support Deadboy, tell him Estima sent ya.
speaking of City Hall….
..and another one…
see what i did there?
lol.
interesting viewpoint.
do i think that graffiti and street art is vandalism?
the short answer to that is no.
the long answer is FUCK NO.
another brilliant and colourful Spud bomb, right across the street from MuchMusic.
CHRISSY MAD! CHRISSY SMASH!
i’ve not blogged about the Good Bike project lately, because there are just soooo many bikes to cover, and i see so many of them, i doubt i could ever photograph them all before they’re busted or ripped up. but this one on queen and spadina caught my eye because it had a name on it.
the Good Bike project ladies put Jane Jacob‘s name on another bike, so i’m wondering if Isabella Angel is an activist like Jacobs?
site specific work is the most ingenious work.
i love the idea that someone saw that sewer hole with the pylons and envisioned something else for it, something that is clever and provocative and colourful.
* * *
speaking of colourful, i was invited to the Diet Coke TIFF fest this year.
i went last year, and as you can see from my blog post at the time, it was a much smaller affair, just our little twitter crew. we all fit into 2 limos at the time. now the Toronto twitter crew has grown so much such that the attendance was easily over 500.
i didn’t bring my camera but raymi‘s photographer colleague made up for that.
there’s ameet off to the left. we met last year when he used to date a friend of mine, but we kind of run in the same circles, so we bump into each other from time to time.
this looks inappropriate.
raymi says she looks like sharon stone in this pic.
and i look like rachel weisz.
our movie would be box office poison.
my friend paul wrote a round-up of the night’s events for The Grid, and decided to link up one of my tweets about the night in the article (go to 10:30pm, and the hyperlinked “REALLY” in brackets at the end of the paragraph).
i stand by my love of veggie poutine, dammit.
and hey, i write for The Grid too, ya know.
Estelle was brilliant, and i managed to elbow my way to the front.
she’s so gorgeous.
and her shoes were fierce, miss thang.
reg and i were made into flipbooks. watch this video until the very end, where i vent my frustation in caption-form.
* * *
i meandered by a venue last night that i shouldn’t have. i saw the scooter and took off running.
go away. please go away.
my next girl will be nothing like my ex girl; i made mistakes back then, i’ll never do it again
nicely done, deadboy
* * *
EDIT!!
guess who just sold the above photo, along with many other of my Rob Ford graffiti photos, to The Grid! I love adding “photographer” to my growing portfolio. Check out the spread here, munckins!
* * *
sometimes i share the emails i get here, sometimes not, but this one came with the tacit authority to share, and it’s rather lovely, so why not.
Hello!
My goodness! I’ve just spent the past three hours reading through your blog and I’m still not finished. Now I see you’re on Twitter, as well. Where do you find the time?
I “stumbled upon” your blog while browsing something totally unrelated (don’t know how Google always manage to do that) and I was so intrigued (yes, it was because of a photo of you) that I decided to peruse through it. Very entertaining, indeed. Informative at times… even inspiring (the bit about eating healthy). There’s so much material to cover that I doubt I will get to it all.
Portuguese and Lebanese, eh? I see it now. Beautiful combination. You kinda got that Nelly Furtado-Kim Kardashian thing going on, eh (Apologies if you can’t stand those two!).
Another thing from your blog which stood out in my mind is the part about how you would fill in the blank to end the sentence on the picture you saw at the hipster house party. I thought your response was brilliant. Deep with a dash of humour. I wonder how many people actually got it? I also made note of the part where you blogged about traveling to NYC because of a love interest but things didn’t go well and you were left crying on the steps of Union Square? I assume figuratively and not literally because, His loss, I assure you!
Anyway, it’s been fun reading. All the best to ya!
-”AWspicious”
fanks mate. for the record, i didn’t travel to NYC last summer for the guy, but i’ve known him for years and he’s always good for givin’r, so he just factored in to the trip. he’s in a relationship right now, so when i went to NYC earlier this year, i didn’t bother contacting him. if i did, the response would be silence. but if i’m being honest, he was probably one of the greatest longstanding affairs i’ve ever had.
technically, that’s not saying much.
and fanks for the “his loss” bit . . . it’s not his loss just yet, but give me some time, and it will be.
Banksy’s latest, in response to the News Of The World phone hacking scandal.
last week, i collaged about “the good bike” project here in toronto, which has been getting so much attention not just around town, over the pond in the UK, the guardian has even taken notice of our Mayoral clusterfuck.
anyway, here’s another find. this is the first blue one i’ve found, it was on bloor near dovercourt. i want to find the green “jane jacobs” one, anyone know where that’s located? i know it’s on Albany, but where?
i still need a name for my new bike (since my old bike Bea Arthur was totaled by a raging syphilis-cyclist, i hope she dies of a rectum rash), but i’m leaning toward calling it Aunty Edna. old lady names for bikes=boom goes the dynamite.
this is the mural at luna cafe on dovercourt and argyle. i always ride Aunty Edna past this lovely converted grocers, and i adore how they have kept some of the grocer’s painted adverts on the window. gives it such a great feel. people who live in and around argyle street are so lucky. i want to live there, the area kiboshes the annex.
text messages from august 10th:
mr k: your mind shines as brightly as your eyes do.
me: how is it you always know just what to say?
mr k: i just kinda adore you so it’s natural… everything about you just feels so organic. you blow my mind.
at the Ali Baba falafel place on bloor street with nate, a delightfully schizo’d woman heard me say that i was portuguese, so she came over and said that i was a beautiful portu-geezer, and proceeded to kiss my head about 16 or 17 times. i actually don’t think i processed what she was doing. i kind of tuned out, not even realizing it was awkward or weird. i let her kiss my hair, and stared at a point on the street outside the window.
it felt like everything and anything, except like what it was.
this photo was taken last year at the TedxTO afterparty, but i was only recently tagged in it on facebook. i don’t at all remember taking this shot, or frankly, who the dudes in it are. Reg, any clues?
i’m such a glad-hander.
i’ve blogged about fauxreel twice before, but this old piece of his from 2009 that went up in our fair city still gives me pause.
i was at a funeral once. as is expected, it was a very sombre, melancholy event. it was a hot july day, and the church had left the windows open for ventilation. as family members came forward to give their speeches, a car outside on the street was blasting its crap music (as most low rider douchebags who drag The Danforth are known to do). unfortunately, it was this song. the fucking car was stopped at a really long red-light outside, and because all the church windows were open, the song invaded the ceremony. we were trying to have this respectful, reflexive, and downright sad experience to mourn the loss of life…
…and instead, we were paralyzed with a case of the giggles. everyone had their hands over their mouths, unsure of whether to choke back tears, or choke on our cackles.
horribly hilarious, i was uncontrollably laughing at a funeral.
that’s what going to Moth-Up the other day was like.
someone walked by me, pretending not to see me. But seeing as how i’m an adult, i made the courteous move to say hello. i had forgotten that we weren’t talking … and now i remember why.
in hindsight, i probably should have checked the FB event page to see who would be at Moth Up so i could have avoided it altogether, but i have completely given up stalking on FB. if people didn’t show up in my FB newsfeed, i’d never know what others are up to. i absotively posulutely refuse to look at anybody’s profile but my own. i have extended this ban from FB to twitter, and even some blogs. … mostly, because i couldn’t give a shit.
luckily, i was with someone worthy of my attention. we giggled like conspirators well into the night, actually leaving the event early for more one-on-one.
we bounded out the door, taking the steps two at a time, and disappeared into the velvet black of midnight… i didn’t bother to take notice of what i left behind.
life is right in any case.
and my heart is open as the sky.
“your mind shines as brightly as your eyes do.”
you try to fake it but you’re breaking every rule; right from the start you always made me feel a fool
A scorpion, when trapped in a fire, will sting itself.
But what do I do when trapped in the fire of my mind?
step-by-step fun with photo editing software starring christine louise estima as herself.
step 1: i take this photo.
step 2: i amplify and enhance this photo.
step 3: i put my quote on this photo.
step 4: you steal this photo.
sacha saw me on the subway. i only realized it was him later.
as he left, i grabbed my bag and chased after him with a lashing of apologies.
sometimes i am a dead girl.
Starving Artist vegan-gluten-free mini waffle brunch on May Two-Four long weekend when fireworks exploded the night sky… either that or the neighbours were pipe-bombing each other. this is the suburbs, so that’s a real possibility.
“Love!”
we found a ghetto scooter shop. the sales guy may or may not have wake n’ baked. his crooked teeth poked out of his gums like dead worms in a red delicious.
“love?”
i climbed on the back of the plastic vespa and exposed myself in a jean skirt. this is what’s between my legs.
“love….”
kensington market ate our rubber, and coppers on foot couldn’t force helmets. we traveled to the edge of Bloor where pastures eat dilapidated buildings like locusts. we sucked on cherry popsicles until our mouths were too icey pink to eat.
MOCA Banksy
oh Banksy, you really have lost the plot.
deadboy says to me via email:
‘This is only the beginning; I have much up my sleeve for this city!
(Insert crazy laughter here..lol)”
here are the details of his show, i will be there, and so should you!
Wunderland Gallery/espresso bar
1905 QUEEN ST. EAST
OPENING NIGHT RECEPTION JUNE 3rd 2011 at 7pm – 11pm
SHOW RUNS: JUNE 3rd – 30th 2011
