Read my film review of 2 Days in New York
Click here to read my latest Exclaim film review of 2 Days in New York, starring Julie Delpy and Chris Rock. I really enjoyed it, and think you will too:)
Sorry for not blogging all week, I’ve been in Montreal seeing family (and doing some graff hunting of course!) so expect regular blogging to resume next week!
Happy weekend, hombres.
Check out my film review of To Rome With Love, directed by Woody Allen
I haven’t been much of a film reviewer this year because I was uber busy with other projects (hello finishing my novel!). But I like to freshen up my critiquing skills every now and then. Click here to read my review of To Rome With Love, directed by Woody Allen and featuring an all-star cast (Allen, Alec Baldwin, Penelope Cruz, Jesse Eisenberg, Ellen Page, Roberto Benigni).
Little trivia for you: did you know that Penelope Cruz learned how to speak Italian for her role in Don’t Move? I saw that film when it came out and found it highly leotarded. But hey, she can still rock the tongue!
Film opens today! Enjoy!
Fassboner in the Top Ten!
It’s too bad that horse wasn’t nominated for an Oscar … what’s its name?…. oh yeah…
Click on the above image to read Exclaim Magazine’s Top 10 Films of 2011. My film review of SHAME made it to #4!
FUCK YEAH FASSBONER.
I wrote a completely new critique of Shame, different from my review originally published back in December … this new review speaks more to the lasting effects of Shame on audiences and why it garnered a spot in the Top 10.
If you’re not feeling clicky, here’s the new review below.
Mo’ Shame, Mo’ FassBoner
my Shame film review was also published in the Dec/Jan issue of Exclaim!, on the stands now, free across the nation.
mmmmm, Fassbonerrrrrrrrr.
Read my film review of SHAME starring FASSBONER
Click on the above image to read my film review of Shame, published in Exclaim Magazine. It opens today, and I would highly recommend NOT bringing a date to this film. It is SO not a date movie. However, as my review says, it’s teetering on brilliance. It’s beautiful, sad, provocative, loaded with depravity, and visuals that will leave you speechless. Enjoy!
Shame, starring Michael Fassbender
i went to the morning press screening for Shame yesterday, directed by Steve McQueen and starring Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan. i tried to review this film during TIFF but all the international press packed the house and there was no room for me in the lightbox. boo.
anyway, i’ve been a huge Michael Fassbender fan since i first reviewed him in the small independent british film Fish Tank.
and this film is a perfect example as to why i’m such a huge fan.
Michael Fassbender gives me a Michael FassBoner.
i’m glad carey mulligan is getting more adult roles as well. i remember when she was just a giggling piece of flotsum in Pride & Prejudice, in the background to Keira Knightley. then suddenly, Keira Knightley was in Carey’s background in Never Let Me Go.
of course, i can’t give you my full review here (there’s a moratorium on pre-release reviews), but when my review is published, i’ll link it here, ‘natch.
suffice it to say, you will want to see this film when it is released in December. i’m predicting Oscars. it’s sicko-brooding-mesmerizing-depravity-undertones-beautiful-cocksure-tinted-symphonic-fuckery that will WOW you until your wow-er is sore.
As If I Am Not There
Last year at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival, I reviewed the film As If I Am Not There. Click on the above image to read my review.
As I say in the review, after watching it, I wasn’t able to stop thinking about it. That was over a year ago now.
For some reason, the DVD is only available for purchase in Ireland (it’s an Irish film and Irish co-production) and they can’t ship overseas. So recently I downloaded the torrent online.
I can’t stress the magnitude of force this film exacts on your heart. While watching it (and even long after the credits have rolled), you sit there feeling as if someone has just taken a butter knife to your heart, and scraped out the inside until it is left raw, seething, and rigid to the touch.
I feel like I have been through what the character Samira has been through. I have never been brutally assaulted, I have never been interned at a concentration camp, nor have I ever been through a war (although I have been to Bosnia-Herzegovina and other warzones). But this isn’t about the specifics of war, rather about much larger behaviours that affect women.
At any moment we can be the punching bags for aggression, or the object of desires. And we’re struggling to understand the difference.
Watch the film.
Like Crazy
Click on the above image to read my Exclaim film review of Like Crazy, starring Anton Yelchin & Felicity Jones, which opens today. I always enjoy a good love story, and now that the season has turned into a colourful and crisp autumn, now more so than ever.
I saw the trailer in the cinemas a few months ago, and was actually really moved just by the trailer, so when my editor offered me this review, I jumped at the chance. I’ve been reflecting a lot lately on some of the love affairs I’ve had in my life, all of which seem to be mirrored in this film. Also, for whatever reason, a large majority of my ex’s have been Eastern European and therefore look redonkulously similar to Yelchin. Go figure.
Watch the trailer below:
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.
foxymoron
“Girl you’ve got balls……I have been following your blog for a few months….Very enjoyable, I like your attitude about what you want to do……Clear one thing up, I am not hitting on you, although if I was 40 yrs younger it would be a good idea………I like looking at blogs of young people and especially attractive young ladies, as you are…..Much better than young men……Most of the people I go to lunch with are young ladies. I like being around young people…….And a young attractive young lady with balls is very entertaining.
I really was going to write you a while back when you were talking about being bullied by a classmate. Scott I believe……Christine I have no idea what you looked in grade school but if it was bad you sure grew out of it….Just because a person has tits and a vagina does not automatically make them attractive to me…..You are on fine looking lady…..I saw a pic of your Mother, I am older than her, so again this is not interweb sex . I am just an old shit and wanted to say hi and how I enjoy watching your life on the web……
I saw you mention something about a health issue…..I hope it is nothing serious…..Have you posted about it?
Just keep on being you and having a good life……………….
Be well“
-(redacted for privacy), Kansas, USA
fanks dirty old man! i have a soft spot for dirty old men, it would seem. they’re sweet, in a pervy kind of way. they fall in love with me, i turn them into friendly father figures who can soothe me about my life when it seems in shambles, and everybody prospers.
have love, will travel; if you need loving, oh baby, i’ll travel
this is the first of many more TIFF film reviews to come. Sigh, bring on the festival clusterfuck! Every year I say I won’t do TIFF again, and every year I cave. I just love movies too much, and reviewing them! Being a freelance film critic always wins out over sense and reason. I’ve been covering TIFF for donkey’s years, but I’ve been a patron for a lot longer.
Actually, guess where I was the morning of September 11, 2001?
It was the really crap film Century Hotel, I only wanted to see it because I was a huge OLP fan at the time, and Raine Maida acted in the film (badly). The screening started at 8:45am. After the 90 minutes of pure oblivion, I walked out of the screening, which took place at the ROM, and called mum to say I was headed back to university for my classes.
She told me what had gone down.
I don’t think I understood the full gravity of the situation over the phone.
So I flippantly giggled.
And that’s all I want to say about that.
montreal graffitigasm time!
this was on boulevard st laurent, i think he’s holding a quill, but he’s wielding it like a weapon.
the pen is mightier than the sword, indeed.
this “world of shit” tag was everywhere.
this was off of avenue Duluth, and the following were a series of wheatpastes on the same wall. they blew me away.
the tag on them says “what if art ruled the world?” and i found similar wheatpastes by the same artists all around the plateau.
i LOVE wheatpastes, i think they are the probably among the best kinds of street art you can do. stencils, and sculpture are also among that group.
when pigs fly!
these two colourful spraypaint murals were across the street from the wheatpastes.
i don’t remember my visual mythology well, but phil said this was Thor.
oh phil, thmile when you thay that.
ha!
hahahah!! for those of you who don’t speak french, this translates to ‘the duchess of my balls.”
now now, don’t get teste.
this was buried deep an alleyway that had zero illumination, so my flash was the only way i could make out the details.
i just liked the face with the hands. his arm is like a branch i’d like to swing on.
this was purposefully placed (probably by the owners of the house) on St.Denis.
i wonder if this guy actually climbed the street light?
phil and i found this while cycling along the canal off of vieux montreal. it’s like looking in a mirror, non?
she’s SO me.
i think the tag says “dayo” and i saw that tag a lot. anyone know who “dayo” is?
i was never a separatiste, but i appreciate the sentiment.
all of the abandoned buildings along the canal are perfect graffiti spots. as our bikes approached this building, i squealed and screeched to a halt on the grass, nearly knocking myself over.
close up! i’m assuming this was done by someone named ezar. i like the mathematical symbol before his name. i learned math in french, so that symbol will always mean “donc” to me. in english, i guess you could call it “therefore.”
donc ezar, this piece looks like a memorial to someone you loved. or someone you lost. or both.
either way, nicely done.
emotions are apathetic.
this was placed on Rue Jarry, on a wall that i think belonged to a dépanneur.
i’d like to think this is a comment on what you can find in a dep.
this was in the mile end area, and i got really excited, because i’ve seen this work in toronto before!
here it is again!!
le snob. le sigh. le tired. le mew. le meow.
i think this wheatpaste is by the same “what if art ruled the world?” wheatpaster guy. it’s the same theme and style.
awww, raccoon looks snuggley. i like how this piece has the painted frame. like it’s gallery work but buried in an alley next to a construction site.
curb your enthusi-gasm.
here he is again, the “what if art ruled the world?” guy.
this “teenage hookers” was spraypainted on the sidewalk in mile end, not far from casa del popolo
we went to the Belmont, and they projected this onto the wall.
i love the word ‘scrotum.’ it’s hard to weave that word into everyday sentences. it should be a ubiquitous word, like fuck or shit.
this was in an alleyway near sherbrooke and de maisonneuve. the fleur-de-lis on the corners of the portrait make me think this dude was a quebecois political figure.
same alley.
now for some street culture in between the street art! we went to mont royal for the Tam Tams! it’s a drumming circle, similar to the one held at trinity bellwoods, except this seems to be a festival where vendours can sell things as well.
i’ve always wanted to play a djembe, but who can afford them?
i’m sorry, but i am an extremely talented photographer.
case in point!
ps, krista, that girl looks like you!
the whole weekend, i kept repeating the same dyslexic-freudian-slip in my mind:
“i freak spench and english!”
also just like in trinity bellwoods, there are tightrope walkers at the Tam Tams. this one guy was so talented, he went there and back without falling, even though it was super windy.
omfguy. i don’t know whether to sleep with him, or stuff him into a bong and smoke him.
moment of clarity, scene of beauty, mind of chrome, skin translucent.
back to graffiti!
it’s also a long way down.
you just love me for my money. ADMIT IT.
clearly commissioned, but beautiful nonetheless
for what? zee germans?
“drunk asshole construction” was actually tagged all over the plateau. either someone isn’t happy with all of the development in the area, or that’s actually his name.
i don’t know who these two guys are, but i love this stencil. it’s full of heart. stencils are great, because they force you to pay attention to the negative space, and they take a lot of prep work:) this was in an alley off of avenue Duluth, right before it pissed with rain.
woah, hello.
i don’t understand the message, but the visuals are incredible.
have Spud, will travel.
fromage.
this piece was brilliant. it’s carefully drawn, almost like dot-matrix design, then cut into stickers, and carefully placed.
it’s the kind of scene you’d find on a church window mosaic. absolutely genius.
massive wheatpaste on the Studio de la SOCIETE CANADIENNE D’OPERETTE building on rue st. denis.
this building is famous for having other wheatpastes put in this spot.
this was written on a church that was under construction. it translates to “a house of slaves, at least.” although, you could translate it to also say “a house of lesser slaves.“
someone has gone over the original tag to make it say, ‘une maisoner de se espérée en moins.” which kind of makes sense, and translates to “a home to hope less for oneself.“
when it comes to religious institutions, i am forced to agree.
i have so many TIFF film reviews to write (and more to see!), but instead, i’m making googley eyes at you.
priorities: check.
ps: i’m fucking endearing in this video.
Relax, I’m Hilarious
TIFF is coming up, and I’ve been invited to so many advanced press screenings that I’m debating whether or not I should throw myself face-first into the fest like I did last year. Last year was amazing, I reviewed the festival for FOUR different media outlets, including the CBC. I met some amazing people in the industry, attended some hoity-toity parties, saw a record-breaking 35 films (including The King’s Speech, where I knew from the press screening that it would win the Oscar), and feasted on the visual stimuli flashing through a darkened cinema. Static flicking off the beams of light.
So why the debate?
Mama’s got a book to write.
* * *
sneak with me as i disappear into the back alleys. keep your feet pedaling, the bike leaves no footprint. the night will swallow us like a python, opening its mouth, and then holding its breath.
all the kids in the ghetto call me Don chris estima.
gauzed in red, the colour tearing through my flesh, this painted city belongs to me.
we discover art.
and colour
and you will know i was once here
by the looks thrown over my shoulder.
Rob introduced me to Poser, who does these smooth rabbits all over town. Now you won’t be able to walk around without noticing them. I love how the rabbits are holding spraypaint cans whilst almost saying “Eyyyyhhhh, sup gurrrrrl.”
word.
speaking of Deadboy, my last post (which detailed his new Rob & Doug Ford as Tweedledee/Tweedledum wheatpastes all around the city) got some love from BlogTO
that single BlogTO tweet sent my blog traffic batshit crazy through the roof, kiboshing all previous records. fanks hombres!
hello new munchkin readers! enjoy my neurotic blogjaculation.
relax, i’m hilarious.
now shut up and show me your tweets.
rob takes a decent graffiti snap.
rob and i snuck around the back alleys for about four hours, well past midnight. darkness creeping in on secrets.
first obvious target: graffiti alley, then up the ossington alleys, then through kensington market. i think our next destination should be the rail path which runs through the junction. i know there’s some amazing shit there, my camera is gagging for it.
does anybody else think this looks like a concentration camp?
zejko? that sounds yugoslavian . . . maybe serbian or croatian or bosnian. i wonder who this guy is.
political figure? martyr? writer? philosopher? just some dude?
andy warhol just rolled his eyes.
ha, i love this little gas-can fucker.
oh hello mr elliott. we meet again.
i’m surprised to still see some of the Andrew posters around, they’re quite old (in terms of street art shelf life), so this was a rare find. however, considering the way Andrew died, tagging the poster with a mouthful of blood and a speech bubble with “liberal lies” is rather upsetting.
what kind of tagger writes “liberal lies” anyway? i’m sorry, is Andrew’s tragic story offensive to your conservative graffiti ethos? fuck off with that shit.
my last post detailed some Tokyo tags, and now we know who he is. Rob found him on facebook, so we have a face with a (fake)name now. Sup guy.
i also recently blogged about the posters and stickers that have gone up around queen and spadina, commemorating the kettling and brutality that occurred last year during the G20 summit. the stickers say “our civil rights were lost here.” the posters show sombre photos of the attrocities done against peaceful toronto civilians.
the “tokyo” is almost gone. i wish rob ford was rubbing away too.
this headless frowner reminds me of our unhappy hipster run-in while rob and i took a break at 416 Snack Bar. some loud hipsters with massive, square, black-framed specs, and nostrils brimming with white coke, shouted at me from across the table to smile.
i turned into them and gave a fatal grimmace.
coked-up hipster goes, “that’s the worst smile i’ve ever seen. why won’t you smile for me?”
to which i leaned in and coo’d, “I’m not going to be your monkey.”
and at that, his balls crawled back up inside his body.
from what i can gather here, someone stenciled “supreme” then someone with a spray can tagged it into “supremely stupid” but they spelled “stupid” wrong…. studpid? stucpid?
this freaked the shit out of me, because in the darkness of the alley, you couldn’t see all those details. you could see a bit of the face. my flash revealed the bleeding ghost.
some daytime shots from the back alleys in parkdale.
reminds me of some graffiti seen in the background during the film Children Of Men…. “last one to die, please turn out the light.”
is that elvis presley or chris cornell?
when horses are this lame, they shoot ‘em.
hi c-saw, i will respond to that question with this.
good call, speaking of bikes …
i’ve got more THE GOOD BIKE finds!
a basket filled with a potted plant, untouched!
AND it’s bolted to the ground. you ain’t stealing this, fuckfaces.
the photo of me at the top of this post is of me taking this photo….
wow, that’s so meta.
and the moral is: the easiest way to make guys lose their shit is to have yours together
hey open wide, here comes original sin
pick up a (free) copy of the August issue of Exclaim, already on the streets nationwide, my film review of Beats, Rhymes, and Life: the travels of A Tribe Called Quest is published within….
microphone check, 1, 2, what is this?
i took a really long walk the other night. Sitto (that’s an arabic colloquialism for “granny”) passed her driving test, the woman is 89, and i don’t want her joyriding, so i hijacked the car, parked it on brunswick, north of bloor. then walked, and walked, and walked.
no headphones, no music. i just wanted to walk and listen to the streets. like a Weimar flâneur (flâneuse?). i ended up at queen and lansdowne in the heart of a hot parkdale. 5 kilometre walk under the gauze of an unforgiving night and an easy breeze.
Baudelaire originated the term “flâneur.” He also once said that “the sole pleasure in love lies in the knowledge that one is doing evil.”
there was a bench outside cafe taste so i sat there for a long time, watching people walk by with falafels in hand. on their bikes, ringing bells like summoning good fortune. girls in white messes.
i never go anywhere without paper and a pen. ideas strike and memories fail more often than not. i started jotting down small notes.
in the heat of the city at night is when i curate the jumble of my head.
as i’m writing, half a dozen sauced blokes tried their hand with me. at this age, i have learned that the best way to navigate unwanted attention is just to ignore it. also at this age, the attention i’m getting is from men easily ten years younger than me. a man with a belly elbowed his mate and said loud enough for me to hear, “she’s a brazillian beauty, no doubt she’s brazillian.”
ignoring gave way to disbelief when a twig of a kid said, “damn gurrrrrl, you is fine” or something along those lines, to which i snorted, “how old ARE you, 12?”
his friends laughed their ass off at him as his 12-year-old balls crawled back up inside his body. in actual fact, they probably hadn’t even dropped yet.
i think i heard him say something like “no i’m 18 with a big dick,” but that was inaudible over the sound of his embarrassment.
“just remember, you’re a girl, you’re not funny, smart, interesting, or any of those things…..if he asks you a question, don’t panic. he already thinks you’re an idiot.”
just because a woman is walking alone on the street doesn’t make her a street-walker.
in my head, i’m still a little girl, looking to adults to tell me how the world is.
i walked back to the car, another 5 kilometres. dundas west is a quiet portuguese strip that is kind of lovely, reminiscent of brooklyn, raw and untamed. men who look like all of my uncles and cousins said things to me in portuguese that i understood and made me hate them.
i think i’ll walk in another direction next time.
“Power to the people, we don’t want it, we want pleasure. And the TVs try to rape us, and I guess that they’re succeeding. Now we’re going to these meetings but we’re not doing any meeting. And we’re trying to be faithful but we’re cheating.
Cheating.
Cheating!”
50 kilometres on my bike, dying from the heat, having to stop to take proper water breaks before my body capsized. vicki took me to the park lawn spit in etobicoke, and snapped this photo of me. i look weird, like i’m trying to swallow something. we sat on the rocks and could hear caribana music from across lake ontario, the water provides echoes. an ant bit my arm and i wailed.
she took me back to her place and made me a chickpea/rice/egg/onion salad mixup thingie with guacamole-lime dressing. she went to wash her hands, and by the time she came back, i had cleaned my plate.
you will find me from the trail of dead organs i leave behind.
one of my besties is going on holiday for 3 weeks, and i’m house-sitting for her whilst she’s gone. i house-sat for her earlier this year, i get to hang with “sid fishous” again. jerkface figgy who likes to freak me out, but i could never stay mad at him. the place is on st george & bernard, north of bloor….3 weeks in the annex during lovely august, with my bike and a penchant for writing down the thoughts that keep me trapped in my head.
my ears are like book-ends.
girl bled to death like she was tongue-kissing a razor blade
woody allen once said, “love is the answer, but while you’re waiting for the answer, sex raises some interesting questions.”
i seem to have a lot of answers that just result in more questions.
it’s july and the only way to make it better is to wear a polynesian flower that cups my hair … to whisper decomposing secrets into my hands.
at the Vice Magazine Photo Show this past week, all the crunked up hipsters in kicks and half-shorn heads showed up sweaty, accosting the free beer and pizza, spilling puddles on the floor, and ignoring the homosexual nazi photography on the wall. i never leave home without my chinese fan, and ended up cooling off some coolies while lauren and i tried to have a proper conversation.
there was a bitchin’ DJ pumping music but no one danced.
only unhappy people don’t know how to dance.
outside, cooling off with iPhone photos and seeing the ossington strip regulars that i peripherally know, a man in thick rimmed glasses accosted my journo-convo with a chip on his shoulder, with a disdain for the veiled honesty music critics espouse in order to obtain a regular paycheque.
i wasn’t interested in arguing, but lauren still had the capacity to evoke erudite shutthefuckup-isms.
the next day, a few doors down, a blonde debonnaire named JT tried to pick me up as i was walking by The Port. i wished it had been at The Red Light. he was hosting an event that night, and told me to swing by at 11pm. although he was lovely to look at (blonde curls and dangerous lips), he presented himself on a silver party platter covered in garbage that would surely result in more questions.
i’m doing the safety dance with my body these days.
bitch, please.
* * *
what’s that i see?
fordzilla! the man behind the brilliant fordzilla wheatpastes i’ve blogged about like a bajillion times before erected this huge piece on college near markham street.
rob ford and stephen harper eating the citizens of a high rise, before some schmuck with no respect for other people’s street art scrawled “bitch move” over it. if you want to see the finished piece before it was defaced, watch this video!!
i have been informed from the project coordinators behind Fordzilla that there will be no more wheatpastes of this theme, so go out and find all the fordzillas in the city and enjoy them while you can!
on spadina road, at kendal avenue (my old street).
near lansdowne and college.
last year, during the G20, i skipped town, flew to NYC, had a manhattan fling and was tossed.
looking back, i can’t decide if it was worth it. i think i would rather have been kettled at queen and spadina, then locked up for 36 hours, than sitting on the steps of union square at 14th street, crying.
happy birfday val!
lauren and i went to a rooftop luau in the clubbing district, full of suits, bikini clad entrepreneuses, scientists, vegans, DJ’s, pieces of pineapple and leis with condoms attached (if you’re gonna get lei’d, protect yourself).
i had a long conversation by a roasted pig on a spit with a scientist who will one day be an astronaut. he swooshed his hair around and told me about the tapestry of his life. he had all these stories about wake-n-bake driving to calgary and The Filth pulling him over in manitoba only to battle it out while trippin’ and getting a mere fine. he also told me about his ambitious goals, going from a 7-time undergrad reject to running his own company at the age of 29. he’s off to chile next, and i’m off to peru. south america and macchu picchu. i listened intently, drinking words like i was swallowing my past, tasting future.
present tense, a guy at the bar shoots green grapes up in the air, and i catch them in my freakin’ gob.
the cn tower glowed green like a rave (disco) stick.
lauren says all wealth is relative.
she’s right. i’m not rich in money, but i’m rich in character.
i’m going to the press screening of Beats, Rhymes & Life, the A Tribe Called Quest documentary, because i’m reviewing it for one of my freelance gigs. i’ve already seen the flick when it premiered at Hot Docs, but a refresher is much appreciated for critique purposes.
all you guys acting out your own hip-hopera need not fret, you can see it before it opens on july 29th. there will be an advanced screening here in toronto on the 21st, tickets are $20 and will go fast (if they’re not already gone). peep the deets below, playa.
and watch the trailer for the documentary here:
if they were to name a rock musical after me right now, it’d be Headcase and the Angry Bitch….
….all evidence to the contrary.
blame it on my ADD baby
i am officially a meme.
this photo was taken just over 4 years ago when i lived in the UK, on a national express bus from oxford to london. i had been particularly emotional that day, as everyone in oxford was in groups, or in pairs, and there was lonesome me. i was so lonely, it ate away at me like a locust. the next egyptian-like plague, known as my boyfriend, was just about to befall me in a week’s time, but right before this photo was taken, i had actually been crying. not the kind of crying that screws up your face and makes veins pop. something softer, something only you know you’re doing. ironic that this one photo is meme’d with a FUCK YEAH. i certainly didn’t feel that way at the time.
also, look at how different i looked back then! what’s with my eyebrows?
* * *
i went to the press screening of Forks Over Knives this week and wrote this film review. seriously, planet, when this film opens, you are REQUIRED to go see it. this is a short documentary of unimaginable brilliance, astute observations, and such a tight-shoe-string budget that you can’t help but love its lack of flash and pizzaz. it could use a bit of rearranging, as some sequences have choppy editing and a confusing non-linear-ity (so not a word, but whatever), but you won’t forget it’s message for a long time. read my review, and watch the trailer below. enjoy!
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i cannot get over how sexy this song is.
i like riding in the back of half-empty streetcars with boys. windows all around, surrounded by cars. awash in lights. but our eyes our glazing over at the heat from the freshly-bloomed season. the night ties its ends to our appendages, and we can’t untie ourselves without moaning, or attracting attention from the other streetcar riders.
i say something about ‘riding the rocket’ and we collapse into giggles.
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the thing about street art is, it’s ephemeral, it’s livable, it’s democratic, it’s untamed, and you aren’t intimidated by gallery owners whose shoes cost more than you make in a year. you can enjoy art and comments on society for free, on your way to work.
remember how whilst in new york city i found that tom hanks sticker that was awfully clever? turns out, it’s part of an entire sequence!
hansky, you had me at splash.
reg and i meet up after work and i end up buying the sunglasses i had two years ago whilst in india but then sat on and broke. i remember paying $14 for them in kensington market. i find them for $6.80. kensington you thief of hearts. reg and i have a sushi dinner and we’re talking about the things in life that concern us like we can’t figure out how to muddle our way through ourselves. the advice we give the other is so simple, so straightforward, so no nonsense, but we can’t bring ourselves to direct that advice at ourselves. i wondered if i was being rude, and our waiter was kinda insane.
i spent a few hours at tequila bookworm writing in my journal, and ended up finishing it off. i have kept a written journal since the age of 7. i can go back and revisit my life any time i want because i recorded things i did, feelings i felt, experiences i had, people i met, all meticulously. we’re living in interesting times, but memories fail. now is the time to record things.
i’m looking at my bookshelf right now, and en entire row is full of my life’s journals. the places i’ve been, the men i’ve loved, the friends i’ve lost, the people i’ve hated.
sometimes i wonder what i’ll do with this record of my life. will i bury it? will i publish it? will i give it to my grandkids? i might just end up burning them. if people ever really knew the real me, the things that even i don’t like to admit to myself, i wonder what would happen.
you’ll realize that you never really know a person.
speaking of india, i have to start a new journal now, and i’m going to use the leather-bound, hand-crafted journal i bought in Udaipur for 250 rupees (which is like a couple bucks when you convert it).
before and after. which would you rather have on your wall?
don’t remove street art, or we’ll cock-ify you.
so remember in my last post i mentioned how sick i had been on friday and had to take the day off work. well that day, a gift arrived at my desk, so i only received it on monday upon my return. there was no name on it, no return address, no one to thank.
whoever it was clearly knows me well, as they sent me SOY milk, coffee, and a nice mug. but who sends stuff to my office? and takes such meticulous care to wrap it up? and doesn’t leave their name? my tweeple (follow me on twitter, by the way) think it’s a secret admirer, but wouldn’t a secret admirer at least leave some clues? at least one hint?
it’s probably a work colleague or business associate.
still, i think the 16 year old girl in me wants it to be a secret admirer. how romantic.
i found my first sheppard fairey andre-the-giant-obey sticker in NYC recently, and then i found my first sheppard fairy TORONTO sticker a few weeks ago. and now, they’re everywhere. here’s one i found on queen west near ryerson avenue.
and then another, even better-placed sticker, just a few poles down from the first. i don’t know when sheppard fairey was last in toronto, but next time he’s here, i want to usurp his wife. just sayin.
i’m having fun with editing photos lately, this will reoccur now and then, get used to it, my darling munchkins.
i went to the exclaim anniversary party at wrongbar, saw juno winner Shad perform whilst eating wasabi mashed potatos and raw veggie spring rolls. it was actually almost better than last years party. i love how the places i write for invite me to epic city-wide shit.
i’m sorry, i can’t hear you over the sound of my awesomeness.
so i’m walking along after work and i find this amazing wheatpaste piece of artistic genius! it’s FORDZILLA! rob ford, the mayor and well-known art terrorist, portrayed as a godzilla eating our streetcars.
this man is horrifying, but this artistic rendering is actually rather proportional. he’s in the exact same shape as the death star he’s building.
then i’m walking along queen near augusta, and look, i find another one (photo edited to look wicked-cool). now he’s eating a spray can, because of his war on graffiti artists. luckily, someone was smart enough to label him a skinhead here.
HEY TORONTO STREET ARTIST WHO IS MAKING THESE FORDZILLAS, PLEASE CONTACT ME. I WANT TO BE YOUR FRIENNNNNNNND.
my mother is pretty dangerous, it’s true, she is a broken down construction site near baldwin village as well.
MUM QUIT WITH THE BLOG-READING AND MAKE WITH THE FOOD.
i ain’t going no where.
here’s another bit of street art (cleverly enhanced with editing) i found on queen west.
this is hauntingly beautiful, arresting really. the only name i could find on it is written vertically up the side, that says ‘deadboy’ but a google search reveals nothing. who are you, artist?
deadboy, did you love someone? did you lose someone?
these are the things i wonder about when i’m riding the subway back and forth between uptown and downtown, trying to read my commuter-convenient novel, but am more fascinated by the living.
“It isn’t enough for your heart to break because everybody’s heart is broken now” – Allen Ginsberg
oh hai there! here i am!
but enough about me, tell me more about your single father.
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check out my film review of the bang bang club (that’s what the actress said to the bishop), this is a poor-man’s Blood Diamond, but it’s still a timely and relevant film, seeing as how 2 war photographers were just killed in Libya. so watch for some context, but it should have been told from Kevin Carter’s POV, IMO. WTF. OMG. LOL. Smiley Face.
also, i interviewed mia donovan, who directed the documentary inside lara roxx which premiered at the hot docs festival, check out the article here
we found this in an alleyway just north of queen and dovercourt. i’ve found a few rob ford graffiti stencils before, i’d love to know who is behind them. they are clearly the offspring of stephen hawking, jesus, and gandalf….they are made of perfect jesus wizard sauce.
we found this in an alleyway just south of queen and dovercourt. that ol’ german jew would approve.
wait, what?
we find the best graffiti murals on our bikes.
biked to the distillery district and found cube works, a shop that sells things made out of rubix cubes….just like one of my fav street artists, Space Invader!
reg and i found a few bixi bikes docking stations mere hours after they launched in toronto (i wrote an article about Bixi Bikes, read me!). notice how half of the bikes are already gone? people love them! you know what this means – toronto requires further bicycle infrastructure, more bike lanes, and more civil rights for cyclists. yes, yes ya’ll, i’m a bike-nerd, WHAT OF IT?
she’s so cute.
when reg and i get together, it’s like pegasus has just mated with a unicorn, and we’re riding their super-hero offspring across the neon blue sky.
this piece is by Jerm IX
i had a really trippy thursday and friday. thursday night i went out to yuk yuks with a friend for some comedy after a particularly upsetting day when i had to visit a clinic for a stressful check-up. we were laughing and enjoying ourselves when he gets a message from a friend that’s gone out of town. friend is worried he left stuff burning in his apartment, so we go, keys in hand, to make sure the home fires aren’t burning (see what i did there?).
we help ourselves a bit to stuff that’s in the fridge, and i have half a homemade cookie, and some homemade chocolate.
30 minutes later, we’re walking up broadview to bloor, and i completely lose my shit. i start to get dizzy and really hot, i can’t walk properly or gain my focus. he sits me down a bench and my nervous system fails, and it feels like something is pressing down on my cerebral cortex. my brain is screaming at me to snap out of it, and to pull myself together, and to stop milking it. but my body won’t listen. i begin to BONK with the biggest braingasm and body-clusterfuck i’ve ever had the misfortune of experiencing. there was something wrong with that cookie and chocolate bar. i don’t know what exactly it is that i ate, but it’s definitely on my never-have-ingested-before-and-never-will-ingest-again list.
he has to run and get me some food because i am tripping and wigging out so hard that i’m paranoid at the voices i hear around me. time is slowing down and i can’t focus on what he’s saying. one minute he’s calmly stroking my back to get me to chill the fuck out, but that minute in my head lasts 45 minutes. he’s trying to talk to me as he leads me back to the house, but i can’t hear a thing he’s saying, my brain just won’t focus. bits of my life are not registering in my long-form memory (me so clever) and suddenly i’m passed out in some strangers abandoned bed, then a few hours later, i’m hovered over some strangers abandoned toilet regurgitating out my pretty-pink insides.
toilet water is splashing up into my face as life seeps out of me.
he puts me in a cab and i go home and vomit some more until Sitto (that’s ‘granny’ in arabic) starts talking in that high-pitched sad voice that means she’s upset and worried about me. i pass out and miss a day of work because my dizzy body has officially gastro-interitis’d me into oblivion.
seriously, who the fuck bakes sweets with ingredients that will put you out of commission for a full 24 hours?
mum stop reading my blog!!! happy mother’s day you snooping scavenger!
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with the following photos…..um…….
you guys enjoy high-brow photographic fuckery, right?
we had brunch at aunties and uncles
then went to the beach
when i put my head on someone’s torso and can hear their pulse and their organs groan, i small part of me thinks i can hear their thoughts in there too.
just sayin’.
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it was a particularly cold winter.
>we love you zoilus!
>after din-din on queen street west, across the street from MuchMusic, and an evening of drinking on the patio of sutra tiki on college, the femmes fatales of chart decided to shamelessly interlink.
carl wilson, you are our sugar-daddy!
we laughed all night as the discussion flowed from the best/worst interviews we’ve ever conducted, to men, to rockstar gossip, to industry gossip, to gossip, to sex, to sex, to sex, to feminist issues, to body issues, and to debit-card fiascos temporarily relieved.
ya’ll want in our circle, dontcha?
admit it.
BIG EDIT: after much pressuring, i just joined myspace. check out my next effort in infamy here, and add me so we can be bff 143.
>kill . . . fuck . . .
>check out my latest film review here.
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when they write my life story, i hope they use the word “fierce” a million times.
