The Saddest Watering Can in the World Posted by Alex

Elephant watering can with drippy eye-glue? Absolutely. Never change, Honest Ed's, never change. Shit, she looks so soulful.

NXNE Day Three: It was Preciously Woven With Zooey Deschanel's Eyelashes by Alex Snider

Well yesterday was pretty great, even in addition to cancer-free bills of health, with the Elwins in the park, amazing comedy at the St Lawrence Centre for the Arts and then the F-Holes at the Monarch Tavern to wrap it all up.

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The Opposite of Grief by Alex Snider

What happens after you find out that one of the four most beloved people in the world to you is officially cancer-free:

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NXNE Day Two: Late Texts, In The Dark by Alex Snider

It's the big North by Northeast music festival here in Toronto this week (which I'm covering for The Little Red Umbrella – my first review of the ever fantastic Tomboyfriend is here!) which means hanging in the park all day, watching bands, then riding from venue to venue, seeing a band every hour from about 8 or 9 on. It also means a lot of cocktails because, I don't know, social lubrication? Something to do with my hands? It tastes good? 

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Doris and Mona Have a Picnic as Told by Cormac McCarthy by Alex and Allison

Doris and Mona is a segment brought to you by Alex and her friend Allison and accessories and props from the store they work at. These are the displays they make, and these are their stories. 

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Maturing as Seen Through 30 Books by Alex Snider

There are a lot of 'books to read before you're 30' lists floating around these days, lists which are typically Western-centric and sorely lacking in any voices other than straight, White dudes. I guess that makes sense as the Western canon is made up almost entirely of those guys (all very worth-while, amazing books, don't get me wrong!). Personally, I'm less interested at this point in what I should read than in my own reading history and the story that it tells (also, in what I want to read). Looking back over my twenties reading lists and the hundreds of books I've read I can see distinctly how I've grown through the ways in which my reading priorities have shifted. I can track when I've discovered a genre or author and, like wildfire, devoured every work I can get my hands on. Adversely I can see when I exhaust a genre or get my fill. I can pinpoint when I was obsessed with the Modern Library Top 100 list, and when I stopped worrying about how many I've read. I can pinpoint when I realized that I wasn't reading enough women authors. I can pinpoint when social justice became a major part of my life. 

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A Few. Texts I've. Sent by Alex Snider

My phone! My phone. *shakes fist* 

So, mildly helpful thing that it does is that after two spaces, it adds a period and capitalizes the next letter. Great except the space key on my phone keeps sticking, so there are all these random periods inserted into all my texts. This really irritated me until I just embraced it and started imagining Christopher Walken reading them:

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How Not to Collaborate or How I Got Over My Crush On Wayne Coyne by Alex Snider

One of the many, many tweets about the beef between Erykah Badu and Wayne Coyne states that it's really hard to pick a side between two amazing artists. I agree with half that sentence. Both Erykah Badu and The Flaming Lips are massively talented, visionary musicians. Both are among my favourites of all time. But I disagree strongly that it's hard to pick a side. 

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Flaming Lips and Erykah Badu: "The First Time I Saw Your Face Posted by Alex Snider

*UPDATE* Alright, so the video has been pulled and now we know why, because Wayne Coyne did not have Erykah Badu's permission to publish the video. I'm writing a longer post about the issues and in the meantime I've taken down the picture of Badu I screen capped from the video. I'm sincerely sorry for taking part in what seems to have been the appropriation and exploitation of two Black women's bodies. Shame on Coyne and the Flaming Lips.

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Losing My Edge, the Kids Are Coming Up From Behind by Alex Snider

I was riding home from a conference last night at around 11 and had to ring my bell 8 or 9 times at a group of 17-18 year olds who were wandering, drinking on the road to get out of my way. One of them made fun of my helmet and t-shirt that had 'volunteer' emblazoned on the back. At first I wished I always rode with a giant bull whip so I could go all Indiana Jones on people who said/did things that stuck in my craw but that would be inconvenient and illegal. Then I wished I had said something to the tune of "whatever, I can still bring the party. Hard" or "my closet is full of leopard print" or just screamed "you don't know me". But any of those would have only been terrible and would not have convinced anyone of my coolness. I probably would have rode into the curb if I said anything. So instead, I'm just resigning myself to my new status in the world: yeah, I can (probably) still chug a beer but I also wear a helmet and care about things like volunteering for the TRC.

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The Assassination of Dr Tiller and a Feminist Awakening by Alex Snider

Three years ago today, Dr George Tiller was shot and killed while serving as an usher at his church in Wichita, Kansas. He was one of three doctors in the United States that would preform late-term abortions. Before Dr Tiller was murdered, I hadn't thought much about abortion. I had friends who had had them. I knew that if I got pregnant at any point in my post-sexually active life, I wouldn't hesitate getting one myself. Beyond that though, beyond living in Canada where the right to abortion was won years ago and was fairly protected, I didn't need to think about it. I also had never thought much about late-term abortions, at the time not being entirely familiar with the terminology but if pressed I probably would have been critical of the women who needed them. 

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The Pretty Good Swim by Alex Snider

You start out lazily enough. Pick a lane that has a woman swimming slower than you but the other option would be a lane with a man using a flutter board.  You do a few laps, waiting at each end for your lane partner to get far enough ahead before you begin again. She stops and rests and as you reach her, excited to for the chance to just continue without stopping, she jolts ahead of you.

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Worst Job Interview Ever Posted by Alex Snider

This is a video starring our very hilarious, brilliant and extremely talented friend, Dave Merheje about an extreme job interview.

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Father John Misty: "This Is Sally Hatchet" Posted by Alex Snider

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The Two Novelizations I've Read by Alex Snider

1. Adventures in Babysitting 

2. My Girl 2 

I haven't seen either movie, nor have I ever seen the original My Girl. But Adventures in Babysitting was filmed in Toronto and I've seen a lot of rock shows at the Silver Dollar where the blues scene takes place. So that's something.