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Showing posts from October, 2013

the soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts

things i've seen lately broken umbrella on sidewalk black glove in bushes entire hardcover set of soaking wet encyclopedias university girls in faux army jackets blonde woman smoking inside a yellow sports car, smoke also looking yellow man shouting at dog guys in hoodies carrying tiny cups of coffee, smoking, looking around like they have nowhere to go broken vacuum spider, on the tip of my ear

some noiseless patient spiders

The thing about Netflix: you indulge the counter-instinct when it comes to old movies, ones you've passed by a thousand times in the video store. You say, What the hell, I've never seen it . Two recent spectacles: Coptown An all-star cast that looks just TERRIBLE. Ray Liotta, in particular, appears to have escaped from rehab. Homeless. De Niro has the facial hair of a depraved Kinsmen, Harvey Keitel wears shirts fresh from the rummage bin at Winners, and Sylvester Stallone sports a sheriff's hat that literally does not fit on his head. It looks like a pylon with wings. A sheriff's hat! Also: something about corrupt cops who all live in the same small town. Wonderland Wow. Sometimes you forget about the Val Kilmer who wasn't a wet, bloated pillow. Who was young and quick and had a jaw that cut bread. Another all-star cast here, although more in the cameo department. Paris Hilton! Also, something about drugs, murder and a guy with a huge ding-a-lin

the rest of october

The rest of October will be divided as follows: a) strange b) late c) vertically striped d) covered by leaves e) on fire f) lit by halogen lamps g) complainers h) muffin-ized i) tearful j) with change owing k) inconvenient, thank you l) stooges m) nicely framed n) birds, swallowing o) perverts p) head length q) digital r) rumbling s) fenced by arrows t) assaulted by lambs u) reading the paper v) highlighted in orange w) sure-footed x) kept in wickets y) bracket creeps z) red

Warlock

Warlock; ink and gouache on letraset paper; 8.25 x 11.75 inches; shop .  Warlock, by Oakley Hall A big, impossible book – impossible because it's a Western, because it trades in every expected dodge and scheme and stock character of the Western genre, because its ambitions lean against its own form but in the end never exceed it, because it wanders into dark barrooms and across soulless plains only to emerge, again and again, before the false fronts of manliness and identity. Mostly it's about losers: doomed men with names like Morgan and Curley. Nearly 500 pages of gloaming death and choking dust. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Made into a movie with Henry Fonda and Anthony Quinn. 

i believe that i believe

christ we believe in some shit, don't we? i remember standing below a bolted-in television set in a downtown Winnipeg bar, watching in bewildered awe as a white Bronco careened along a LA highway, trailed by squadrons of police cars, while this girl beside me, beneath her silver eyeliner, commented, I don't think he did it, I can't believe he did it, he seems so nice . and so it went with lance armstrong, and iraq, and housing prices. afghanistan and a-rod shortly to follow. and, personally, still praying for the olympics to burst into flame.  your forties are interesting this way; you've reached an age where you almost don't believe anything that anyone tells you, where almost everyone sounds like the east german women's swim team. you might even have *less* respect for authority than you did as a teenager.  the only difference is that you think more but say less. the shift is towards more understanding but also more resignation. a kind of illumina

and nowie bowie

Instead of Thanksgiving – which is weird with the overeating aspect of giving thanks(?!) – we went to the Bowie exhibit at the AGO in Toronto. We took the train, so of course it was late. By an hour and a half. So me and Chicky Pea got to go on big walks in and around the station. And around again. O Christ she just would not shut up. Mostly just annoying on the trip there but digressing into some pretty terrible behaviour on the trip back. You pinched me! she cried at one point. Yep, I said. O look at Tim and his faux family. We just drove in from the suburbs! In our Range Rover! I think U2 is still relevant. Do you? Oona abusing the Ai Weiwei installation in front of city hall. And if you don't like it? That's ... Chinatown. Oona had the following questions: Do Chinese people cough? Do Chinese people eat seaweed? C told her that Chinese people live in underground forests, like dark elves, and only emerge in times of a bankin

this post is animated

Struggled to find a narrative this week. Yes, fine, fine, who cares about meaning just give me the story. Not just this collapsing hectic with no sound at the bottom.  By Thursday, all I could come up with was: slow down, do your own work first. IGNORE ALL OTHERS. Certainly it's a short list but still several people who I don't mind doing last-minute-panic work for – my wife, a few friends – but the rest is unadulterated bullshit. With an inflated sense (and growing) of who we are comes a certain kind of hyper demand: everything right now, I love your work but centre that please I want it to be consistent although I don't know why, when can we meet to talk about the changes. This broken tail light blinking ASAP ASAP ASAP. Graphic design continues its slow death amidst total chaos and like the end of Rome it has to be absurd and awful and veering towards a manic blackness. Yes, fine, fine, and let's be honest: it was always bad. Any dynamic where you

ain't no party like ...

... like Oona's birthday party. Hey. Ho. And all the hip-hop-hippopotamuses were there, feeling lucky with the weather. Oona went as Dorothy, of course. C did all the planning and grand-scheming, so there was pumpkin carving and a musical parade and even doughnut bobbing off strings. And by the time it was done we were so exhausted that we couldn't see straight.

the big four (oh)

Someone is turning four today. Party tomorrow. Passengers, please return your chairs to the upright position. Wipe the yoghurt from your face, brush the muffin crumbs from your lap. Relax. The oxygen masks will be dropping shortly. I would say just have faith in your pilot, but we all know she's high on goofballs.

galloping

Listening to a BBC podcast about drunk driving, only they call it drink driving. Which you never quite get used to, but does sound more collegial. *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *    Walking downwind of the garbage truck this morning. Christ. The eyes widen. The guy who hangs off the back should get a highway named after him.  *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   * Inspectors are going into Syria, take away all those terrible weapons. Leaving other terrible weapons behind. This is a war that will not end in five years, not end in ten years.  *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   * The Americans are playing Crazy Fun Budget Time again. A stale, tiresome game, no matter how they sell it. While this current play will end in a week or two, the larger sport will never end, because some of the players can never know they are beaten. *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *    Cleaned up my LinkedIn account, so it is all nice and respectable now, and ev