 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
Monday, January 24, 2011
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Take 5
 |
| 1. Watching Party Down |
 |
| 2. Reading A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, by Mary Wollstonecraft |
 |
| 3. I want to go to Caño Cristales, South AmericaPhoto: Fredy Gómez |
 |
| 4. J'aime this print by Andrei D. Robu |
5. This song is all I need to get by. So Very Hard To Go, Tower of Power.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Sunday, January 16, 2011
"Bachelorette took too many mushrooms and fell in love with a computer."
So says her MySpace page, and as hard as I tried, I couldn't come up with a description that fit Bachelorette's daydreamy electronic music any better than that.
Chek out a young Ian McShane (!) in this video, which is made up of clips from the British sci-fi series Space 1999.
Chek out a young Ian McShane (!) in this video, which is made up of clips from the British sci-fi series Space 1999.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
I Remember When Dinosaurs Roamed the Earth
Depressing/hilarious conversation in class the other day:
Kid in my Aboriginal Studies class who spends the summers on reserves doing missionary work (!) -- I need a projector for my presentation because I have a power-point.
Long suffering, but patient TA -- You should have given me notice because we don't have one here now.
(Pointing to the overhead projector in the corner) Annoying girl who says stuff like, "I'm a real Torontonian, like, I grew up down-town"and "I studied Native literature last year in grade 12; I've, like, read Joseph Boyden"-- Isn't that one?
TA: No.
Other hipster Christian missionary (seriously, what is up with all the missionaries in my Aboriginal Studies class? How do they not feel awkward when we discuss the cataclysmic effect that the missionaries had on First Nations? Um, cultural genocide, yo!) -- No, that's a super old-school magnifier.
Other student young enough to be my daughter -- Haha, yeah, the one you could draw on and stuff!
Me (in my head) -- Old? When I was in school that was all we used! Wah, wah.
Kid in my Aboriginal Studies class who spends the summers on reserves doing missionary work (!) -- I need a projector for my presentation because I have a power-point.
Long suffering, but patient TA -- You should have given me notice because we don't have one here now.
(Pointing to the overhead projector in the corner) Annoying girl who says stuff like, "I'm a real Torontonian, like, I grew up down-town"and "I studied Native literature last year in grade 12; I've, like, read Joseph Boyden"-- Isn't that one?
TA: No.
Other hipster Christian missionary (seriously, what is up with all the missionaries in my Aboriginal Studies class? How do they not feel awkward when we discuss the cataclysmic effect that the missionaries had on First Nations? Um, cultural genocide, yo!) -- No, that's a super old-school magnifier.
Other student young enough to be my daughter -- Haha, yeah, the one you could draw on and stuff!
Me (in my head) -- Old? When I was in school that was all we used! Wah, wah.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Nabokovvvvvvvvvvvv!!!!!! by Alex Snider
Today, I embark on a journey that will culminate with me becoming the preeminent Nabokovian scholar. That being, I begin my course on my long-dead (*come on Zombie-apocalypse*) boyfriend. Oh, can you even imagine having Vladimir for a boyfriend? He'd be the one that you'd try and impress by being all serious and smart and never fart in front of.
 |
Been there, bought the nerdiest t-shirt ever. A side-note, this picture was ridiculously hard to take with my computer without making my breasts look like watermelons hence the terrible, half-shimmy, "who's your daddy" pose/face.
|
But, I digress... As you can see I am a little enamoured with the greatest writer of all time; his prose has actually brought me to tears; he is the kind of author in who's novels you would write in the margins, underlining ferociously because while you had never perceived the world that way but now that image, that thought is branded in your mind and you will never be the same. John Updike described his writing as such: "Nabokov writes prose the only way it should be written, ecstatically", which incidentally also describes how I feel reading his prose; for reals, I get goose-bumps.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Word.
"This culture, this habit, of eliminationist rhetoric is not happening in a vacuum. It's happening in a culture of widely-available guns (thanks to conservative policies), of underfunded and unavailable medical care, especially mental health care (thanks to conservative policies), of a widespread belief that government is the enemy of the people (thanks to conservative rhetoric), and of millions of increasingly desperate people (thanks to an economy totally fucked by conservative governance).
The shooting in Tucson was not an anomaly. It was an inevitability.
And as long as we continue to play this foolish game of "both sides are just as bad," and rely on trusty old ablism to dismiss Jared Lee Loughner as a crackpot—dutifully ignoring that people with mental illness are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators; carefully pretending that the existence of people with mental illness who are potentially dangerous somehow absolves us of responsibility for violent rhetoric, as opposed to serving to underline precisely why it's irresponsible—it will be inevitable again.
Let's get this straight: This shit doesn't happen in a void. It happens in a culture rife with violent political rhetoric, and it's time for conservatives to pull up their goddamn bootstraps and get to work doing the hard business of self-reflection.
This is one problem the invisible hand of the market can't fix for them—unless, perhaps, it's holding a mirror."
via Melissa McEwan.
Go over to Shakesville to read the complete post. It's worth it.
The shooting in Tucson was not an anomaly. It was an inevitability.
And as long as we continue to play this foolish game of "both sides are just as bad," and rely on trusty old ablism to dismiss Jared Lee Loughner as a crackpot—dutifully ignoring that people with mental illness are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators; carefully pretending that the existence of people with mental illness who are potentially dangerous somehow absolves us of responsibility for violent rhetoric, as opposed to serving to underline precisely why it's irresponsible—it will be inevitable again.
Let's get this straight: This shit doesn't happen in a void. It happens in a culture rife with violent political rhetoric, and it's time for conservatives to pull up their goddamn bootstraps and get to work doing the hard business of self-reflection.
This is one problem the invisible hand of the market can't fix for them—unless, perhaps, it's holding a mirror."
via Melissa McEwan.
Go over to Shakesville to read the complete post. It's worth it.
Teena Marie, 1956-2010
I'm sitting in the living room with my Poppa. I'm on my computer, he's watching The View. Whoopi mentions the recent passing of R&B legend Teena Marie, so my ears perk up. I'm a fan, and her death was a tragic loss, but I don’t expect my grandparents to know who she was, which is why I’m so confused when Poppa calls Nanny into the room...
Poppa: “Margaret, come here for a sec!”
Nanny: “What is it, what do you want?”
Poppa: “What was the name of that singer you liked? The one who had her own show? The one who was gay? With the raspy voice?”
Nanny: “Who?”
Poppa: “What was the name of that show.. Beyond, something?”
Nanny: “Beyond Reason? Beyond...”
Me: “Do you mean Melissa Etheridge? That wasn’t-”
Poppa: “Yeah, yeah. She looks like the woman who just died.”
Nanny: “Beyond Belief.”*
Me: “Wait, Melissa Etheridge had a TV show?”
Nanny: “Who died?”
Poppa: “That singer, Tina Louise.”
Me: “No, not-”
Nanny: “Oh, she was getting on...”
Poppa: “She was only 53.”
Me:“No, it was Teena Ma-”
Nanny: “No, she was older than that... she was on that old show...”
Poppa: “Gilligan’s...
Me: “No, Tina Louise didn’t die, it was Teena Marie.”
Nanny: “ Gilligan’s Island.”
Poppa: “Oh? Who’s that, what did she do?
Nanny: “Who?”
Me: “She was a singer.”
Poppa: “Oh.”
Nanny: “Don’t call me in here again!”
Poppa: (to me) “You’ll be old one day too, you know.”
Yeah, so that's the kind of conversation that happens several times a day. I've got dozens more where that came from...
But seriously, Teena Marie was an enormously talented singer, songwriter, and producer, and we lost her far too soon.
Yeah, so that's the kind of conversation that happens several times a day. I've got dozens more where that came from...
But seriously, Teena Marie was an enormously talented singer, songwriter, and producer, and we lost her far too soon.
*The TV show in question, which I was not familiar with, was in fact called Beyond Chance. It starred Melissa Etheridge and ran from 1999-2002 on Lifetime. Yeah, I had to do some Googling to find that out.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Sunday Songs - Blame it on the Bossa Nova Edition
It's friggin' cold and we're knee-deep in snow here (even deeper for some: I tried to take my parents' shih-tsu out for a walk yesterday, but she was literally in over her head) So, when faced with choosing a song for today, I knew I wanted something that put my body on a sandy beach and my head in the clouds. It had to be Bossa Nova. But just one video wasn't enough to put me in the mood, and besides, I really couldn't decide. I'm starting off with smooth classics from the likes of Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto, followed by some more politically charged folk songs from Gilberto Gil and Zelia Barbosa, and rounding it out with some contemporary offerings from Cibelle and Toronto's Maylee Todd. Finally, a seriously steamy track from Seu Jorge & Almaz. That last one really did the trick. I hope this warms you up, enjoy!
Astrud Gilberto - Meditation
Gilberto Gil - Expresso 2222
Zelia Barbosa - Funeral do Lavrador
Cibelle - Green Grass
Maylee Todd - Summer Sounds
Seu Jorge & Almaz - Everybody Loves the Sunshine
Astrud Gilberto - Meditation
Gilberto Gil - Expresso 2222
Zelia Barbosa - Funeral do Lavrador
Cibelle - Green Grass
Maylee Todd - Summer Sounds
Seu Jorge & Almaz - Everybody Loves the Sunshine
Not to Harp on About Feminism or Anything But... by Alex Snider
Have you ever had something, an idea, an opinion, a cause, anything, that was really important to you and you wanted to tell lots of people about it so they could understand you a little better? And, has that something, whatever it may be, affected your life? How about the lives of people you love? Or people that are in really horrible situations and need extra support because they're busy struggling to just survive? What about those who haven't been born yet, your future children, nieces, nephews?
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Really, Colbert? Really? by Alex Snider
Monday, January 3, 2011
Portraits of Women, 1974-1977.
 |
| Jackie Burroughs, Actress |
The University of Saskatchewan archives are home to a fascinating collection of portraits by photographer John Reeves. Commissioned by Lorraine Monk in 1975 for the International Year of the Woman, the photos document Canadian women of achievement from various walks of life. While the arts, authors, and performance galleries are fun to browse for all of the familiar faces they contain (including the lovely Jackie Burroughs, above, who passed away recently and was a familiar face in our neighbourhood, as well), I also enjoy looking through the portraits of judges, scientists, clairvoyants, and manicurists in the other "less glamourous" galleries. These women look at the camera like they would an old friend, about to share their deepest secrets. Some are humorous, others haunting, but all have the power to entrance and capture the imagination.
 |
| Constance Nozzolio, Scientist |
 |
| Vicky Crowe, Craft Manufacturer and Retailer |
 |
| Karen Kain, Ballerina |
 |
| Beryl Fox, Documentary Film Maker |
 |
| Buffy Sainte-Marie, Singer |
 |
| Dorothy Wyatt, Mayor |
 |
| Margaret Laurence, Writer |
 |
| Joan Fox, Film Historian |
All photos courtesy of John Reeves and The University of Saskatchewan Archives.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)