May 2012
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an argument for hip hop
i guess lately i’d fallen out of love with rock n roll, and now i guess im becoming a believer again. the strange boys, ty segall, rock music that makes sense because it isnt trying to be, it just is. this is refreshing because for a long time i wasn’t getting anything out of rock, just hip-hop. i read a quote by designer patrik ervell and it captured exactly what i had been...
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Reflections on the Future of Quebec Universities
It’s May 1st and student strikes are still in full swing in Montreal, eleven weeks after students began walking out of classes. That makes the current strike the longest in Quebec history. It’s hard to say where it will go, but with international media and other outlets catching on and surprisingly showing support, there can be no doubt that students have earned a place in Canadian...
April 2012
1 post
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“I will remember your small room, the feel of you, the light in the window, your...”
– Charles Bukowski
March 2012
11 posts
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“Just because you are a character doesn’t mean you have character. The...”
– Winston Wolf, Pulp Fiction
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“I can’t afford to hate anyone. I don’t have that kind of time.”
– Iriku, Akira Kurosawa (via emotional-algebra)
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Truth, Falsity, Bullshit
There’s a scene in Farewell, My Lovely when Marlowe escapes L.A. to visit a luxurious beach house on the Pacific coast. Approaching the site, he notes in fine Raymond Chandler tone: ‘It was close to the ocean and you could feel the ocean in the air but you couldn’t see the water from the front of the place.’
This is a great imaginative account of what Marlowe sees because...
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February 2012
19 posts
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All of us are the perverts our parents warned us...
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I heard my train whistle blow!
We go to a party. Nothing interests me. I’m drinking bitters. You smirk and say that’s what you like about this city: everybody’s neurotic. You ask if I drink often. I say, occasionally; I’m the kind of guy who has a drink and wakes up with a full beard in Singapore. We’re on the balcony in the back. The skyline opens up for the summer. You sit cross legged on...
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On Bookstores
Bookstores are crackpots these days. The bookshops of the past had their pretentions: the massive bookstores of today trouble even on the level of decor. Everything reaches the fantastic ideal of the book and what the book should be. The Indigo stores are cozy, hygienic, stimulating, social. Add in the cafés, and they’ve almost reworked the book as sexy (but not yet as sexy as...
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Sextology
Mild February evening thought #41. Girls can be hot and sexy as grandma’s dentures at the same time. Stunning, sure, but that doesn’t make them sexy. Sexiness is an art one learns experientially. Take a look at Kim Kardashian (hawt?) and Grace Kelly (sexy). Grace Kelly never had to dress down to add to her appeal. She just had embody an attitude that said, without appearing...
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January 2012
16 posts
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“Women aren’t attracted to good-looking men. Women are attracted to men...”
– Milan Kundera
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“A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when...”
– George Orwell (via nevver)
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Gender Benders
I didn’t like Raf Katigbak’s articles in The Mirror before reading his latest, Gender Bender, and I like them less now.
Katigbak responds to a Canadian Medical Association article arguing for the sex of fetuses to be concealed, given the reality of global feticide and its preferential treatment for penises. He uses this as a springboard to reflect on sex and gender, emphasizing that...
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The Call of Duty
I don’t think soldiers are honoured enough in Canada. I’m not saying they should be exonerated from the legal system, or given special privileges. I’m talking about honour, a civic responsibility. A handful of my grandfather’s brothers fought in WW2; the proof of which for me is a mustard coloured paratrooper bag in my room with the worn initials H.W. Nichols on it. But...
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A Dash of Hemlock
Juliana: How do you hope people will be activated by your work?
Erwin: Turned on. Opened up. I saw so much art from recent years in Germany that was very serious, asking serious questions about serious life issues and they did it with pathos, and I found it awful because pathos makes us heavy, squeezes us down. I use cynicism and humour to lift up and levitate.
- Bad Day Interview with Erwin...
Memo
I’ve been struggling with this a lot because it’s my 400th post, and I have a lot to say, but I can’t seem to get it right. So I’m going to let it slide. New writings, new ideas, new tattoos. In the three or so years of its existence, this little guy has become an online, accessible, archived history of somebody’s head (mine), and that’s pretty cool. We look...
XXX
Today’s track, Danny Brown’s I Will, is impeccably abhorrent, and for that reason awesome. This if from 2011’s XXX. Detroit hip-hop ya’ll.
Danny Brown - I Will