tiny things are nice

red lady walking

2010-02-08T16:49:00.002-05:00

old lady

2010-02-08T16:48:00.000-05:00

found happiness

2010-02-08T16:25:00.000-05:00

ladies and eggs

2010-02-08T16:23:00.000-05:00

Morans of old (my father's father)

2010-02-08T16:21:00.000-05:00

peoples

2010-02-08T16:19:00.000-05:00

only you

2010-02-08T16:11:00.000-05:00

zen tree

2010-02-08T16:10:00.000-05:00

these are the things i picked

2010-02-08T16:06:00.003-05:00

lonely mr. frog

2010-02-08T16:06:00.000-05:00

screen lighter piece

2010-02-08T16:05:00.000-05:00

mother and child

2010-02-08T16:04:00.000-05:00

lady bug trapped under glass

2010-02-08T16:03:00.000-05:00

froggie syringe

2010-02-08T16:01:00.000-05:00

demerol bottle and moss on metal

2010-02-08T16:00:00.000-05:00

custom made - coral and found pieces

2010-02-08T15:59:00.000-05:00

head bandage and vials

2010-02-08T15:57:00.000-05:00

clothing line with old found metal

2010-02-08T15:56:00.000-05:00

lichen love

2010-02-08T15:21:00.000-05:00

sex

2010-02-08T15:14:00.002-05:00

gummy goal

2010-02-08T15:13:00.002-05:00

make-out session

2010-02-08T15:12:00.002-05:00

hold onto your hat

2010-02-08T15:11:00.002-05:00

fallen

2010-02-08T15:10:00.002-05:00

blinds and shadow

2010-02-08T13:03:00.002-05:00

Tiny Burger

2007-06-29T10:33:00.000-04:00

This tiny tiny burger is from japan ofcourse. It's from www.boingboing.net

hair pin composition

2007-04-26T16:35:00.000-04:00

Candy Love - Photo

2007-04-25T10:57:00.001-04:00

punched gummy bear

2007-04-25T10:56:00.001-04:00

Dream Girl - Shadow Box

2007-04-25T10:55:00.001-04:00

school chairs

2007-04-25T10:54:00.001-04:00

Pink Tulips

2007-04-19T14:40:00.000-04:00

Bluebells!

2007-04-19T14:38:00.000-04:00

the drink

2006-10-09T11:08:00.000-04:00

cheeky lovers her j.d.

Barry Lopez

2006-09-28T11:41:00.000-04:00

"He hesitated for a moment at the edge of the stage. He wished he were back in Nebraska with his students, to warn them: it is too dangerous for everyone to have the same story. The same things do not happen to everyone.

..."Everthing is held together with stories" he thought."That is all that is holding us together, stories and compassion".

From Winter Count. By Barry Lopez.

cheeky bagged

2006-09-24T19:47:00.000-04:00

these are my two best friend xoch and ingrid and their dog cheeky - saved from a los angeles back alley. a tiny, somewhat confused dog who, from time-to-time gets dragged to events in a bag.

the blue frog

2006-09-24T19:34:00.000-04:00

here's some late summer pictures from the blue frog - a property mat's family bought which is exceptionally beautiful... in the back woods of the ottawa valley... the cabin has a new porch, fresh with cedar logs. it's a magical place. known for the blue frogs of the region.

and, also, sometimes, known for its ghosts.

princess tina

2006-09-22T14:38:00.000-04:00

this is beci orpin - she designs the most lovely things - jewellry and clothes and bags. i bought some silver sad teeth earrings by her. they look like the teeth on this tote bag.

her website is here.

old diary

2006-09-18T11:55:00.000-04:00

i have tonnes of old diaries that look like this. these are a few pages i scanned. my writing is really tiny. i would cram every inch of the book with something. i was a compulsive recorder. everything i read, saw, dreamt or felt, had to, in some way, get recorded. flowers, poems, drawings... it's all in there. sometimes (most times) if i look at them i get that creepy "old me" feeling. a lot of the writing i don't like at all, ofcourse. the dreams are interesting. i used to record every dream i had right when i woke up. this particular part is from april 1992. i was in europe for a few months with school, so there are many overly romantic, embellished poems about european cities. ecck. example: "Budapest held all the power and sadness of a summer night, a night inwhich one feels lost in their own backyard and the sweet humidity reminds of old lusts...... wander the labyrinth in cruel enigma.... blah blah blah.... smile in the ectasy of experience, ....the pure pleasure of having been loved, for here, outside the maze all that's left is miss and sorrow, a deep longing like that of a boy for his heroic father." yes it's cringe-worthy. and Incoherent. why can't teens make sense? There are also quotes I'd come upon. "Some day all art will be light" Henry Matisse.

Now I write very little and when I do I try to be concise. Fewer the words the better, more efficient. Brevity is the sister of talent... someone said that. I can't find it in my screwy diaries because they are a MESS.

more squirrel fun

2006-09-15T11:42:00.000-04:00

Rat Art

2006-09-14T19:15:00.000-04:00

..so with more research I have found that junkyard taxidermy is alive and well.

go to Custom Creature Taxidermy to see it all.

for sarah!

2006-09-14T18:37:00.000-04:00

lost and found

2006-09-12T19:39:00.000-04:00

I find lots of things at work. this is part of a child's project about the ojibwa. Spelling is, apparently, no longer taught in schools. I like the drawings though.

motels

2006-09-12T14:15:00.000-04:00

I like motels. i like taking motel pictures. i like walking around the room and finding evidence of the things that happened there before.... the smashed in doors and the blood stains that weren't removeable. i like old tiled bathrooms and sixties bathroom fixtures, bleached towels and crisp sheets.

sometimes i like fancy expensive new hotels too, with their "service" and their soaps, but sometimes an old crummy motel is just fine by me.

cat power

2006-09-08T15:32:00.000-04:00

Cat Power live was excellent. she surely has all the talent you'd expect from her recordings and more. Her voice was even more interesting live and the fact that it was just her on stage was very brave.

i was a bit surprised it was hard to find some pals to go with me ... but luckily Andrea and Sean pulled through. They like depressing music too. And it was fun to see my old friend Moris there. Yeah for moris.

Much drama as someone broke into her room backstage while she was preforming and she had to call security. That took too long and then the idiot started to ruff up her friend. awkward.

Drama continued when, an hour or so later, a woman fainted. Chan herself, went down into the crowd to help out the woman and there was about a 20 minute delay.

she's so caring.

She made mention of her new clean and sober ways as she drank Earl Grey tea. As she sang "Lived in Bars" she managed to wag her finger at the audience - as if scolding us. And she changed the lyrics in one song - where she used to sing "I hate myself and I want to die" she now sings "I don't hate myself and I don't want to die." Go positivity!

She refused adamantly to play "Werewolf" which people kept asking for. She said it had to be a song she likes.

Kay Ryan

2006-09-02T13:53:00.000-04:00

Poetry, however, "is the most complicated thing. It's the most beautiful sport. I am always a student of poetry, and in it I find a rest that I don't find anywhere else, whether writing my own or reading the masters. And by rest I mean not quiescence or stop, but release. What poetry does is put more oxygen into the atmosphere. Poetry makes it easier to breathe."

Ryan attributes her penchant for brief poems to "a short attention span. Actually, the way I write is to melt all the materials in my brain at once, like those cyclotrons in which they get atomic matter really hot and get it to do weird things. I have so many things that I like to do at once, that I can't do very long poems. It's hard to sustain. And I seem to be able to say what I want to. I'm very satisfied with short poems."

Kay Ryan. Poet.

sculptures

2006-08-25T12:21:00.000-04:00

Here's some sculptures by our friend Nicola Prinsen who we stayed with on Salt Spring island. Her work is amazing. This is the beaver that Jim Carrey bought. It is called Fetch. She did a series of ravens and crows.

destiny

2006-08-24T17:40:00.002-04:00

"This was the true lesson of Romeo and Juliet: The course of destiny was hard and swift. That stranger you met on Sunday could be the corpse of your true love draped artfully over your own cadaver on Thursday. You just never knew. "

From "The Bronte Project" By Jennifer Vandever.

auntie barbie

2006-08-20T18:02:00.000-04:00

my aunt barbara is one of my favourite people in the world. she is funny and sweet and wonderfully eccentric. she collects a great many antique curiousities. she tells stories like no one else i know. this is when we went to see her in vancouver. she has a new bird. his name is baby chown.

when i was little my mother and aunt barbie would take us on road trips and we'd stay in cheap motels and stop at every thrift store and buy silly elaborate frilly 50's nightgowns. we would then lie around our motel rooms in our extravagant undergarments and talk like movie stars, and tell stories about our dramatic and utterly luxurious lives.

ruby the dog and tidal pool joys

2006-08-20T17:53:00.000-04:00

much fun was had exploring tidal pools around salt spring island - where we stayed for a week with our friends. they are both artists and have a huge barn/loft/studio there where they work with a view of the ocean. here (top photo) you can see their dog ruby surveying the view.

i love the sea!

2006-08-17T20:46:00.000-04:00

back from b.c.

best was lots of time spent with the sea. top photo is a view from our room.

i could happily look at the ocean everyday.

cottage and hair cut

2006-08-01T23:15:00.000-04:00

we had another trip to the cottage. yeah! and we both got hair cuts. i got bangs and Mat got his head shaved.

Happy Birthday Barb!

2006-08-01T23:10:00.000-04:00

These were taken at Barb's birthday. Happy Birthday! She's in Paris now enjoying the culture and couture.

Best Secrets Blog Ever

2006-07-28T13:58:00.000-04:00

Ok I LOVE this Blog. Post Secret. Go see it. Use it. It is so funny and great.

Soon we are off to B.C. yeah for vacations!

more forest fungus, old shoe, and cottage pics

2006-07-17T23:56:00.000-04:00

oh and this is Mat at the mohawk stage of his head shaving.

lichen world

2006-07-17T11:12:00.000-04:00

this is the wonderful world of lichen doing their thing on the old dock at the cottage.

and forest bliss....

secrets around each bend.

moss blankets twigs and logs with loving care,

mushrooms nibbled by dears,

sunlight seeps in showing greens aglowing.

regent park goodbye

2006-07-17T11:07:00.000-04:00

i took this picture in regent park. they are destroying the old housing enclave and eventually bringing something better. right now it looks like chechnya.

garden

2006-07-14T12:23:00.000-04:00

everyday i walk the same way to work. i have tried different routes but the one i use now works the best. it utilizes the side streets most effectively and that is essential, because walking along in a cloud of exhaust, on never-ending concrete with a view of ashpault, to a symphony of honks, is just too sad. now, i take a route diagonially across from home to work, past various houses and their pets and their home owners. there are the houses i like best and the little ones you wonder about everyday - apart from the ones you just want, like the giant cathedral that's been converted into a home. complete with covered courtyard.

second favourite to that one, is a tiny, one floor, semi-attached that has the most beautiful garden. the homeowner has planted every kind of wild flower and peonies, bleeding hearts, daisies and a giant rose bush. in the middle of all that glorious blooming beauty stands a small stone sculpture of a stone woman holding the scales of good and evil, the woman stands with her head down.

each day this garden makes me smile as i pass it and makes me feel better about things. i was thinking the other day if i ever see her i will thank her. i pictured her spritely and smiley, jovial and communicative." it's good that people beautify" i thought." there should be more beautification". everywhere. always.

three weeks later i final saw her. it was late and i was walking home from an outing, not from work. i walked by her house, the dark of the street was lit only by occasional streetlights, still her little garden glowed and the smell was bounding and magnificent as i got closer. one light was on inside the house and it bled out through a tiny window, blue light, frightening at first, perhaps because of the contrast with the myriad of oranges, reds and pinks from the garden.

i stopped and looked in, but only for a second. her grey hair rest on a pillow, wiry and knotted up like a bird's nest, she was spread on a couch, feet up in slippers. her shape highlighted by the light of the t.v. coming from somewhere just outside of my range of vision. blue flickering light. i had a wash of melancholy roll through me and looked away. i trotted off, feeling i had invaded her privacy far too much.

something in the angle of her head, the way she was lying, the unkind blue light of the t.v., the look of her slippers, made me unbearably sad for her.

her loneliness there, laid bare.

the feeling, the awareness, that she had her garden but little else.

The Whitney

2006-07-13T14:37:00.000-04:00

The Whitney is having a 75 year retrospective. Go see this excellent slide show and read the article too.

the mystery of pain

2006-07-12T13:16:00.000-04:00

The Mystery of Pain

By Emily Dickinson

Pain has an element of blank;

It cannot recollect

When it began, or if there were

A day when it was not.

It has no future but itself,

Its infinite realms contain

Its past, enlightened to perceive

New periods of pain.

victim

2006-07-08T10:51:00.000-04:00

a man with smashed up face, in a wheel chair, just came into the library today to get a library card. he handed me his license. on it, his face appeared just fine. eyes in the right place, nose round and there. mouth full of lips, and a smile. a long prosaic beard. he looked plump and pleased and swedish. but the face before me looked nothing like the picture. it had clearly been ripped apart, and then crudely sewn back together. his body too, one leg missing, one arm severed above the elbow. he made some comment about "not having a card since he was a teenager" and a "real partier" drank a lot until it almost "cost him his life". i wondered about people who need to tell you too much, to tell you their story after having just met you.... we have a saying when that happens at work: "too much information". i guess because it happens a lot.

although most people would probably wonder how he lost his face... so maybe he's just helping us out by answering the questions before they are awkwardly attempted.

Old Weird America

2006-07-07T14:48:00.000-04:00

This is a piece from a zine by Rose White. It is excellent. I was always fascinated by Detroit. We'd drive through it on our way, to and from Ann Arbor, and a few times we went to bizarre underground parties there. What a city! With it's giant ruined abandoned mansions and creepy crack houses... it has quite a feel.

You can get her zine here.

Dead Dog on Avenue

by Rose White

Last night was spent dealing with a dead dog. At dusk, a happy dog with its tongue hanging out emerged from a sidestreet and began trotting blissfully down Michigan Avenue. I knew what would happen next, and couldn’t not watch: a car, making no real attempt to avoid the dg, hit it and drove off.

They drive off when they hit humans, too: I remember picking Randy up at the hospital with his blood-soaked clothes in a plastic bag, and picking Drew up at the hospital with his hair caked to one side with blood, a row of fresh staples in his head.

So the dog: I had to fix it. I put my finger on its neck where I thought its pulse should be, and, finding that inconclusive, carefully touched a boot tip to its furry stomach.

Then I noticed that its neck was twisted around in a strange way, and a perfectly shaped pool of blood was forming on the concrete behind its head. No, definitely dead.

A lady drove up and got out.

“Did you do this?”

No!

“Got a shovel?”

”No.”

“Well, I got some boxes.”

We use them as tools to push the dog out of the road, but the dog is heavy and limp, so now it’s harder than we thought; we leverage ourselves by kneeling down to push, oblivious to the cars now swerving around us, and then, of course, blood starts smearing everywhere and gets on me; I realize that I can’t get blood on jeans that aren’t mine; this requires even more delicacy.

Finally, the dog is out of the road, asleep next to the curb, and she arranges its paws so that they aren’t so grotesquely pointed in the wrong directions.

“You know,” she says, “I just wanted to, you know, get it out of the.. you know, I couldn’t.. got a cigarette?”

”No.”

“I just wanted to.. you know what I mean?”

”Thanks.”

excerpted from Old Weird America #1

beirut

2006-07-07T12:07:00.000-04:00

I am really enjoying this Beirut album.

Thanks to Marty for playing it on the boat at the cottage!

The song "Postcards from Italy" is perfect.

For more go here to stereogum.

http://www.stereogum.com/archives/002537.html

for the next week it's just this....

2006-06-27T19:36:00.000-04:00

sunny walk in the park

2006-06-24T18:30:00.000-04:00

these are photos from a fun sunny walk, xedar showed paul how to play wildlife explorer in the trees, (a game she learned from real life explorer aunty ingrid), xochitl wears sunglasses, photo of me taken by xedar who is only 3 years old - but already a fine photographer.

the last photo is of my mom's dog winston, the bulldog. that's his bum.

my mom and my brother

2006-06-24T00:36:00.000-04:00

neo rauch - great painter

2006-06-23T13:46:00.000-04:00

clarke for mayor

2006-06-22T23:04:00.000-04:00

here's my little video of local street preacher clarke for mayor.

he was being santa that day.

its hot death

2006-06-22T19:04:00.000-04:00

"perhaps the phone rings, reminds the man
he knows nothing
about that place where poetry
was led to its hot death."

from the poem Room:A Still Life, From the book Grass Psalms by Jonathan Garfinkel

my parents

2006-06-21T23:10:00.000-04:00

this is my parent's engagement photo.

no photos exist of their wedding day, because, apparently, it was too sad. they had a tiny service at city hall which neither of their parents attended because it wasn't god-affiliated. an uncomfortable tea was held afterwards at my grandmother's house. she was very catholic.

my father passed away from cancer in 2001.

me and my sister early 80's

2006-06-17T04:00:00.000-04:00

Donald Hall

2006-06-16T12:28:00.000-04:00

Donald Hall is the new Poet Laureate. I have always loved him. Specially since the 90's when I saw him read poems at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He was teaching there then.

This is from www.poetryfoundation.org By Arthur Allen:

In “Affirmation,” one of dozens of poems written to or about his late wife, Hall mourns her disappearance, abandons her garden, yet cannot help but finish with cosmic distance,

Let us stifle under mud at the pond’s edge
and affirm that it is fitting
and delicious to lose everything.

Hall is often considered a nature poet, but his eyes have seen much more than the ducks on Eagle Pond (his personal Walden). For example, the pain of a divorce in “Shrubs Burned Away”:

My daughter curled in my lap, wailing and red,
six years old. My fifteen-year-old son’s long legs,
writhed from a chair as tears fell on his spectacles.
Their mother was leaving them . . . I was leaving them.
Their muscles contracted knees to chin,
as I watched from my distance.
And their limbs twitched and jerked in the velvet room.

Esteemed rock critic Greil Marcus chose Hall’s 1988 poem “The One Day” for his Top 10 list of rock ’n’ roll moments:

Your children will wander looting the shopping malls
for forty years, suffering for your idleness
until the last dwarf body rots in a parking lot.

His book "Without" is essential poetry reading. This is from that book about his late wife Jane Kenyon's illness:

When the infusions are infused entirely,
bone marrow restored and lymphoblasts remitted,
I will take my wife, bald as Michael Jordan,
back to our dog and day.

That book is guarenteed to make you cry. I reread it when my father was dying and couldn't believe how painful, plain and apt his writing was. Succint as well. If only I could write that well. Maybe one day.... To get the pain in just the right amount, by not overstating anything, is a tremendous skill.

party. night shot.

2006-06-15T23:52:00.000-04:00

bert and ernie

2006-06-15T23:26:00.000-04:00

Jenn's bert and ernie. after being reunited. happy day.

and by the way, this photographer is great. you can rely on this site for your daily dose of awesome images.

and don't forget to head over to Elimae for new poems by me. Well... they are old but i'm lazy at sending stuff out there.

cat power cont'd

2006-06-15T11:19:00.000-04:00

this is my friend victor's cat playing d.j.

Mount Forest Family Reunion

2006-06-14T13:36:00.000-04:00

This past weekend we went to a big family reunion in Mount Forest. It was filled with hikes and fishing and food. Unfortunately, when Mat tried to play a bit of football he dislocated his finger. Poor sweety.

Good Lordy He's Forty!

2006-06-12T23:18:00.000-04:00

Mr. Sean Yelland is Forty years young. Sir you are an inspiration to our entire organization.

To see some of Sean's Incredible paintings go to his website.
www.seanyelland.com

This is Stef and I!

Below are some more pics from Chris' several going away parties. We miss him already.

the daily soup

2006-06-12T23:16:00.000-04:00

Do The Robot!

2006-06-12T23:08:00.000-04:00

Chris' Goodbye Party. Mat and Chris did the robot dance with the kids. They made us oldies look even older. Have a great time in Africa Chris. We'll miss you.

sew

2006-06-09T17:37:00.000-04:00

sew darn jenny can sure make some great crafts. go see what she and her friends can do with felt and crochet. lovely.

highschool...

2006-06-08T23:08:00.000-04:00

This article appeared in the past sunday star about my highschool reunion.

Album maters
Jun. 4, 2006. 07:44 AM
BEN RAYNER
POP MUSIC CRITIC

"Fear" is the motivational slogan Kevin Drew has scrawled across a blackboard to rally the young troops arrayed before him in the Etobicoke School of the Arts auditorium, but the Broken Social Scene frontman's return this particular morning to his old high-school hallways is actually a rather comforting one.

For students living and breathing the very sorts of cultural pursuits that are usually first on the chopping block when governments start tightening the education system's belt, the international success of the Broken mob and its numerous indie-rock offshoots is reassurance that devoting your life to those arts so often dismissed as "fluff" by a business-minded society can eventually pay dividends.

Indeed, Toronto's recent indie renaissance has established the Etobicoke school — attended in overlap roughly 15 years ago by Drew, his Broken compadres Amy Millan of Stars and Emily Haines of Metric, as well as Tangiers and Deadly Snakes members — as an historical pillar of the contemporary Canadian music scene.

ESA, as it's known, has even come to rival Thornlea Secondary School — a Thornhill institution known to some of its grads as "Rock 'n' Roll High" as the breeding ground for notable late-'90s acts from Hayden to hHead to the Philosopher Kings — as the region's most fruitful supplier of rock-inclined graduates.

ESA's "incubator" status isn't hard to explain, since it's the sort of place where the halls get littered with sheet music for Romberg's Concertino: Opus 51 for cello and piano rather than discarded potato-chip bags. Its annual auditions draw 800 to 1,000 students from points well beyond the city limits (and sometimes beyond the border) vying for a chance to immerse themselves daily in classical music, vocal training, theatre, dance and visual arts.

The school celebrated its 25th anniversary this weekend with a reception Friday night at the Drake Hotel and a gala at the school last night featuring alumni stars and today's students performing works that span its curriculum.

"It wasn't like any other high school," says Drew. "They pushed you in a direction you chose at a very young age. You were constantly asked what you wanted to do with your life. Your age didn't matter — age was just a number there ...

"You get a big chunk of time at ESA to figure out what you want to do and to express it constantly. It was a gift, and if more people had that opportunity, we'd be in much better shape, I think."

While the "starving artist" stereotype is often invoked by opponents of liberal arts education, it's a satisfying turnabout that an environment such as ESA's — where artistic and academic achievements are treated with equal importance, and cultural endeavours aren't shunted behind sports as in so many other schools' pecking orders — can actually lead to sustainable careers. Be they Broken Social Scene-sters, National Ballet conscripts or Shaw Festival actors, many graduates go on to earn a living through their art.

The school "taught you about the work you needed to do and the work you had to do," says Drew. "And it was always testing your emotions, not just your art. For all of us drama kids, it taught us `drama' at a very young age. You've gotta have `Don't give up' tattooed on your eyes to go there."

Haines, who transferred into the musical theatre program alongside Millan in Grade 10, remembers ESA as "a life-saving escape from high school jocks, and a chance to play music all day." And that perception seems to be shared by attendees old and new.

"It was very much like Fame," laughs Lorraine Lawson, a local songstress who arrived at the school in its fifth year of existence. "It had an energy unlike anything anyone had ever seen before. It was literally people singing and dancing in the hallways."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
`(Thornlea) was kind of a stoner school. It was funny, but the very culture of the school to some extent — and I say this, maybe, because I was in that culture — was a lot of kids walking around the building with guitars'

JIAN GHOMESHI,

graduate, musician, CBC personality

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At ESA, the "artsy" kids aren't a pack of outcasts. So naturally, a remark dropped by Drew during his speech about never having to worry about "jocks" or fitting in with the "popular" kids draws a loud whoop of approval from the ESA auditorium — almost as loud as the moment when he hauls Paris-exiled Broken starlet Leslie Feist onstage as a surprise guest.

ESA might be sort of a clique, but at least it's a unified one. The intermingling of disciplines there — so that, for instance, music majors compose scores for theatrical productions and art majors design posters and T-shirts for the annual, student-run Solstice music festival — negates any stratification of subjects and encourages ensemble participation by the various faculties on major projects.

"It's not like other schools where people are just there because they have to be," says Jamie Peters, 18, a music major. "Here, I've met a lot of interesting people because everyone is interested in something."

"You're just immersed in arts in general," concurs Phil Nozuka, 18, another music major. Teachers "give you a good attitude. They really, really support you in your aspirations. You feel great about it. There's no guilt about wanting to be an artist because it's not the `best' career."

Thornlea's "Rock `n' Roll High" reputation stems from a similarly supportive attitude towards the arts.

The school was hailed as a landmark experiment in unstructured, progressive education during the 1970s, and although some of that '60s-born idealism had cooled by the '80s and '90s, it still helped to spawn a diverse roster of musical talent that includes Moxy Fruvous, Hayden, Poledo, half of the Sadies, members of By Divine Right, hHead and the Philosopher Kings, go-to Canrock producer Gavin Brown and one of his successors in the drummer's seat for Danko Jones, Damon Richardson.

Ex-Fruvous member and current CBC radio and TV fixture Jian Ghomeshi recalls "a real emphasis on arts and fine arts" that found space to thrive in a trimester system. Students were able to get "serious" subjects like math and science out of the way during the first two semesters, then spend all day indulging in music or drama for the rest of the year.

"Really, really strong teachers" addressed by their first names didn't hurt either, he says. Ghomeshi described one of his music instructors (and Thornlea "cult figure") Bob Leonard as the "late 20th-century, CanCon version" of the Richard Dreyfus character of Mr. Holland's Opus.

"Plus, I've gotta say this, it was kind of a stoner school," says Ghomeshi. "It was funny, but the very culture of the school to some extent — and I say this, maybe, because I was in that culture — was a lot of kids walking around the building with guitars."

By Divine Right's Jose Contreras, who tipped his hat to his alma mater in a song entitled "Rock High," wonders if the late-'90s band boom of which he was a part might have stemmed from Thornlea eventually clamping down on its "very hippie" past.

"When I went to Thornlea, about halfway through, they changed back to the `three Rs,'" he says. "My theory is, we got that taste of freedom and then the taste of that authority. Maybe that makes it all more poignant.

"Still, it was a very Neil Young, Pink Floyd, pot-smoking kind of school. I remember turning up to class very, very stoned many times and nobody calling me on it. There were lots of Pink Floyd lyrics scratched into the walls. All the lyrics to The Wall were somewhere on the walls."

Lived in Bars.

2006-06-04T00:52:00.000-04:00

Lived in Bars.
Cat Power.

we've lived in bars
and danced on the tables
hotels trains and ships that sail
we sim with sharks
and fly with aeroplanes in the air

send in the trumpets
the marching wheelchairs
open the blankets and give them some air
swords and arches bones and cement
the lights and the dark of the innocent of men

we know your house so very well
and we will wake you once we've walked up
all your stiars

there's nothing like living in a bottle
and nothing like ending it all for the world
we're so glad you will come back
every living lion will lay in your lap
the kid has a homecoming the champion the horse
who's gonna play drums guitar or gorgan with chorus
as far as we've walked from both of ends of the sand
never have we caught a glimpse of this man

we know your house so very well
and we will bust down your door if you're not there

we've lived in bars
and danced on tables
hotels trains and ships that sail
we swim with sharks
and fly with aeroplanes out of here
out of here

Jeff Wall

2006-05-30T16:37:00.000-04:00

tiny sans taste

2006-05-27T13:52:00.000-04:00

During the Riverdance Japan Tour 1999, many people got impressed by the dancers' dazzling performance. Especilally, girls took a fancy to the male principal, Breandan de Gallai.

One of such Breandan-fanatic girls made a doll like this. (As a great Japanese essayist wrote in 10th century, the Japanese love tiny things...)

where did he get those eyebrows though?

study a crack in the wall...

2006-05-26T15:51:00.000-04:00

From the website Secret worlds.
From Stories from Space.

"When Leonardo's da Vinci's pupils were stuck for inspiration he advised them to make a study of a crack in the wall, and it's true that when you spend time engaging your imagination with such a crack, all sorts of possibilities and new worlds may begin to appear..."

ahhh... to all those others who understand the meaning of tiny.

Charlie's tiny film

2006-05-25T14:04:00.000-04:00

here's a great little film

charlie.

"The world ends when you're dead, until then you got more punishment in store"

2006-05-24T13:57:00.000-04:00

Worst News Ever.

Deadwood's R.I.P. has fans up in arms
May 24, 2006.

SCOTT COLLINS
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
HOLLYWOOD—David Milch, the creator of HBO's Deadwood, says the show couldn't have been done on any other network, and that's probably true. Few other outlets have tried Westerns recently, and none has featured a villain like Al Swearengen (Ian McShane), a profane, surreally menacing saloon keeper.

In one scene, Swearengen sweetens a prayer for a butchered pioneer family by blithely informing his patrons of a half-price special on the services of his prostitutes. McShane's portrayal makes Al Pacino's gangster in Scarface seem charming.

Of course, HBO has always taken pride in running apart from the network pack, hence its marketing slogan, "It's not TV. It's HBO.'' But as the abrupt death of Deadwood makes clear, HBO is behaving more like a regular network these days.

HBO revealed this month that, because of money considerations, Deadwood, one of the network's top four original series after The Sopranos, will most likely end its run with the third season, which starts June 11. (It's seen on TMN in Canada.) Although HBO did not cancel the show, it allowed the ensemble cast to pursue other work, effectively spelling the end of the series.

Outraged fans, who were expecting the fourth season, promptly organized a show-saving campaign, with some demanding a "cancel HBO" boycott (for details, see savedeadwood.net).
"I am deeply disappointed by the way things turned out," Milch said last week.
"Not having a fourth season is not the result anyone wanted," HBO boss Chris Albrecht said by phone last week.

But the network was excited about another Milch project, a surfing drama titled John From Cincinnati, and did not believe he would be able to return to Deadwood for some time, Albrecht added. By all accounts, the network did not wish to pay the Deadwood actors' contracts during the months spent waiting.

Milch, who seems genuinely excited about Cincinnati, said that Deadwood is a costly show and does not produce the high ratings Sopranos does.
He confirmed that Albrecht offered to approve six episodes rather than 12 for a Deadwood fourth season — in the TV industry, a "short order."

But the writer-producer rejected that because of bad experiences with short orders on series such as Hill Street Blues. And with that, Deadwood was dead.

The series' puzzling end has left militant fans seeking comfort in the words of — who else? — Swearengen:

"The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man — and give some back."

los angeles times

old drunks at the library

2006-05-23T17:54:00.000-04:00

This art looks like my workplace.

“A GUEST + A HOST = A GHOST”
— Marcel Duchamp

“Je cherche en même temps l’éternel et l’éphémère.”
— Georges Perec

"For twenty years, Daniel Olson has been presenting works of ambiguous intention. An anachronistic film star peering through the wrong end of the spyglass, he reveals a world with a distinct carnival atmosphere, but where an air of death hangs over everything. At heart a poet, and a thief, Olson plays at working and works at playing in pursuit of the marvellous and the ungraspable. His works are a poetry of almost nothing, simple gestures imbued with extreme significance, small explosions where very little happens—but in an interesting way.

In this exhibition, two new video projects continue Olson’s private investigations of ghosts and doubles. In Beside Myself, two ghost-like versions of the artist at work and at play on a typewriter and a toy piano—or is it the other way around?— come together in an office. In Olson-Welles, he attempts the impossible feat of inhabiting the past, something he has successfully failed at twice before by positioning himself within projected images of his father and of himself as a child. This time he has chosen Orson Welles, the director of one of the greatest films of all time, and arguably the biggest failure of the twentieth century.
It’s not that Olson believes in the supernatural—he is an obstinate non-believer in almost everything—nor that he considers himself the equal of Welles or the other great figures with whom he “collaborates.” But if you’re bound to fail—and we’re all going down eventually—you might as well do it in an interesting way.
— Leo Danielson

From www.optica.ca

art i like...

2006-05-23T15:10:00.000-04:00

artwork by michael caines and drue langlois from the katharine mulherin gallery.

chikinramen will move you

2006-05-19T12:22:00.000-04:00

welcome to the slightly cute but confusing, psychedelic world of chikinramen.

And Even More Creepy...

2006-05-18T12:26:00.000-04:00

Okay - the award for best scary tiny thing sent to me goes to John.

You have to see this to believe it.

Conodonts. The teeth you never knew.

Creepy

2006-05-18T12:22:00.000-04:00

Thank you to one of my many sicko friends for sending me this utterly disturbing image.

I Like it.

Blue Moon Issue Cont'd

2006-05-18T12:15:00.000-04:00

I was happy to see these two letters below in NOW in response to sheila gostick's pathetic lamenting of the closing of the Blue Moon. I know from working at Parkdale Library, and living in Parkdale, what a great City Councillor Sylvia Watson is, and she wouldn't be against the place if it weren't for good reason.

Bark at the Moon

sheila gostick's recent article on the revocation of the Blue Moon Restaurant's liquor licence (NOW, May 11-17) has done a great disservice to the people of Parkdale. To characterize public harassment, crime and extreme public drunkenness as "indigenous street and social life in Parkdale" is an insult to the residents who know how to have a good time without resorting to disorderly, offensive and illegal conduct.

My office received constant complaints about the Blue Moon. These came from local business owners and residents forced to pass by it as they travelled to and from the Parkdale Public Library or the Masaryk-Cowan Community Recreation Centre. Public urination, vomiting, fighting and abuse were commonplace.

The Blue Moon had the opportunity to join the many other Parkdale businesses who are making a positive contribution to the neighbourhood. Instead, the proprietors chose to flaunt liquor laws. The Blue Moon is not a loss for the poor, but a victory for all Parkdale.

Councillor Sylvia Watson
Parkdale-HighPark

Moon's lunatic fringe did everyone at now smoke crack ?

Just read the extremely touching article about the shutting down of the Blue Moon and am wondering how anyone in love with that shithole could actually be published in your magazine. I've been living two doors down from the Blue Moon for a year and a half, and the scene outside my window was the same every night (and day sometimes) – very drunk people fighting over absolutely nothing, screaming, breaking glasses and rendering the whole strip of the sidewalk utterly disgusting. My friends stopped visiting for fear of getting harassed.

Toronto is changing.

So stop your propaganda against the natural development of the metropolis and keep writing about movies and music. You're good at that.

Fabrizio Divari
Toronto

urban poem.

2006-05-17T13:49:00.000-04:00

you can see more of the artist's paintings here.

Urban poem.
-------------

Parked Car croaks -
Signaling its defenses are working,

Man crossing the street
Walks 'Grand Theft Auto' style,
Heavy lifts and falls of digital feet
There is something slightly defeated in his gait.

Woman on the corner
Wells up with tears,
a small silver box
connected by white cords
to each ear.

toronto award for the best old theatre

2006-05-15T17:21:00.000-04:00

the award goes the the Mt. Pleasant rep. theatre.

a lovely old place.
go there!

Party pics

2006-05-15T17:15:00.000-04:00

Thank you to all my wonderful friends and family for an amazing party.

I am so lucky to have so many great people in my life!

The Vines

2006-05-11T19:06:00.000-04:00

Check out this great video. it reminds me of my most happy childhood days watching "Davey and Goliath" .
I learned all about God and virtues and morals and really just doing the "right thing" in any given situation from those little animated cuties. And I am happy to say they are available again on dvd. Last I checked, an old dvd was going for more than 200 dollars on Ebay. See... other people liked them too.

I know just the three year old that's getting those as presents. Every child needs a set of those to grow up with.

an ode to old diners

2006-05-08T23:48:00.000-04:00

old diners make me miss being a kid.

going out for dinner seemed so fancy back then... the elegant lighting, the blissful soft tunes of the 70s, the rounded juice glasses. i used to love everything about it. it felt like a kind of escape. even the sight of an overflowing chocolate milkshake made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. everything was going to be okay. perhaps those diners were only second only to hotels, on my little lists of "places i would most like to go".

salisbury steak, fries and gravy, western sandwich, fried eggs, chocolate ice cream... cherry on top.

Analysis of Infinitely Small Things

2006-05-04T14:09:00.000-04:00

Okay! These are my kind of people! Expeditions and reports on small things found around different cities. Have a look at their website here.

This specimen is a ticker tape found after a football parade. Good find.

The Books

2006-05-03T11:54:00.000-04:00

Went to see The Books last night. Wow it was super. thank you to matt h. for the ticket for my birthday. yeah! what a great present!

He bought a tiny cd which has their compositions for elevator sounds as commissioned by the french government. very cool. ding dong.

i haven't been to many shows lately but i certainly enjoyed the books. the visuals they had to accompany each song were excellent. they used found images to accompany the found sounds they incorporate into their songs. some of the image collages were very funny - such as people going to see an evangelist dancing and falling, the tape was sped up and replayed and looped. the editing of the images together was really well done. there were moments that were completely mesmerizing. i only regret giving up my good spot near the front to go get a drink. i seem to have forgotten the rules of going to shows. number one being - never give up your spot. when i thought i might go back i was met by an impenetrable wall of wide male shoulders. i slinked to the back and watched from there.

okay - i do have some questions for todays youth. (yes i felt very old there). 1. Since when have men started wearing patchouli oil??? seemingly straight looking, hippy men doused in Perfume. and it's so strong... when they walk by one is assaulted by the smell. actually many of those young things were exceptionally smelly. i mean they were wearing loads of products and cologne or perfume. i just don't remember everyone smelling so much when i used to go out a lot. and some of the colognes they were wearing were weird, like fahrenheit. okay is fahrenheit still in ? it can't be, it's like wearing drakkar noir. it smells so dated.

2. why do people go to quiet art rocky concerts and then Talk through the entire thing??? when i got in my second position at the back, there was this super annoying gay guy blabbing through the whole concert and what a jackass he was. ..." she is such a bitch...any man would be like okay to a one night stand with her but because of her butt but the second date NOWAY... she is such a MILF but then it's help! like run away..." Okay - if you need to talk shit for more than an hour don't do it in a small room inwhich people are watching and trying to listen to a concert! so terrible. anyone can talk shit at any bar for free and Not ruin everyone else's time. several people looked over at him - as if to say "shut up" but he paid no head and right on gossiping loudly.

That's one thing that is so much better about seeing shows in New York. There's no such behaviour allowed. and if you try to pull that shit... someone will, guaranteed, tell you to "shut the fuck up". and you will.... and if you do not you will be punched.

Frankly, the last show I saw at the Bowery Ballroom was way funner than any show I've ever seen in Toronto. They were fights and yelling the musicians, and they yelled back and it wasn't even punk, it was, on the completely other end of the spectrum, Love, with renowned gun-toting landowner Arthur Lee. newly out of prison.

Toronto is soooo polite. when one tiny opening came up in the crowd, when i was near the back, no one would move into it because the shorter people staid put behind it so it would be rude to move in front of someone shorter than you. instead we all just cautiously surveyed the opening, wishing one of us had the courage to make the move into it. i really wanted that spot but you just can't break toronto code like that.