OTHER PEOPLE'S PETS: OBERON

Obes belongs to Becca, but his heart belongs to me. I cat-sat him for a couple of months and I love him. He’s the sweetest, gentlest, cutest cat I’ve ever known, and he likes me better than he likes anybody else. He’s big, and he’ll shit in the bathtub if you give him half a chance. True story. It’s like a game with him, called “Leave That Door Open, I Dare You.”

Before we get to the questionnaire, here is a movie in which Obes is the star:

Now:

FULL NAME: Oberon Buttlejig, technically. Obie for short. Or Obes for syllabically shorter. Oberonicus for long.

AGE: No one knows, for sure, though I’d guess he’s over ten years old.

BREED: Maine Coon, a/k/a Mancoon, which I'm amazed to learn is in fact the second most common household purebreed in North America, behind only the Persian. Go figure. (Eff you, Siamese! Bite me, Russian Blue!)

FAVORITE TOY: The bathtub. (See above.)

FAVORITE GAME TO PLAY: I’m Gonna Shit In Your Bathtub. (See above.)

FAVORITE PLACE TO SLEEP: On a desk. Any desk.

TRIVIA: When he was a young cat someone put Obes in a box and left him by the side of a road. He had no food or water, and was stuck in the box for a number of days at least, living amongst his own waste. When he was rescued he’d developed a serious bum infection, which required the removal of much of his intestinal tract. The doctor who performed the operation did so improperly, and now his bum appears red and raw-looking, and is clearly sensitive. (To clarify: Obes's bum is red and raw-looking, not the doctor's, unfortunately.)

TRIVIA, PART TWO: Oberon is one of two cats in the world that my mom is not afraid of; in fact, she loves him to bits. And while he is very fond of her as well -especially her feet, which he likes with abandon- he doesn't like her as much as he likes me, whom he loves above all else.

Here's the notorious cat-hater caught red-handed:

How's that for evidence?

LIGHTS! CAMERA! ACTION!

My niece Abby and my nephew Cory came to visit a couple of weeks ago, and while they were here they -and I- played in the park across the street from my house A LOT. We played on the swings and the jungle gym (now known as "the play structure," apparently... When did that happen?) and in the empty hockey rink... The first day they were here Cory got stuck on part of the fence, when it swung out over nothing while he was climbing it. We made a bunch of movies, so their parents would be able to see what we all did together. This is the movie we made to introduce the park... It's in the style of Alfred Hitchcock's Rope.

Enjoy!

For those who care -and I know you are legion- the music used, in order of appearance:

“Brooklyn is Burning,” by Head Automatica
“Bad Seamstress Blues,” by Cinderella (the air guitar solo)
“Everybody’s Gonna Be Happy,” by The Kinks
“Phoney Maroney,” by Apollo Sunshine
“Pump it Up,” by Elvis Costello & The Attractions
“I’m A Love You Anyway,” by Danny Michel
“Mr. Pitiful,” by Matt Costa
“A.I.R.” by Anthrax
“Get Ur Faith On,” by Missy Elliott & George Michael

The tinkle at the scene changes is from "Hush," by Jellyfish

OLYMPIC FEVER!!!

To be honest, I don't really watch the summer Olympics. I find it pretty boring comparatively... For example, I just found myself watching -actually, I find myself watching... It's still on...- the women's singles badminton gold medal match (at this point it's just a matter of which Chinese player gets gold and which gets silver) and one player (Zhang) returned the birdie, which landed just inside the tape, and the commentator described the shot thusly:

"That birdie, hit with incredible force, landed inside the tape like a butterfly with sore feet!"

The art of metaphor is truly lost, like the virginity of... A particularly... Umm... Busy prostitute... With sore feet.

Ugh.

There have been some pretty ridiculous controversies at this year's Olympic games, which is amazing considering they're being hosted by a communist government bent quite literally on world domination (America's national debt is owed to whom???) and not above committing unimaginable atrocities against it's opposition... I'd have to say that choosing some cute little girl to lip synch to the voice of some homely little girl is probably one of the more honourable moves perpetrated by the Chinese government in recent times. At least they didn't "disappear" the actual singer and her entire family to cover their tracks. Nice restraint, China!

To me, the most amazing and one of the lesser reported controversies has nothing to do with China, but instead is the advertising campaign used by the Spanish basketball teams to promote themselves in their homeland. The ads feature the men's and women's basketball teams gathered around a Chinese dragon painted upon centre court... And what they're doing, with "love" say the players, is using their fingers to pull back the skin at the corners of their eyes so they look Asian. They are making chinky eyes. With "love."

Here's the men's basketball team's ad:

And a detail, so you can see all their racist love close-up:



And here's a detail from the women's team's ad:

Awesome.

There's been a history of racism at sporting events in Spain, with Japanese, Chinese and Korean teams complaining about being subjected to racist taunts from Spanish players, coaches and fans at world events for some time.

And to make the case for a racist Spain -and also to show their support for their basketball heroes- the 2008 Spanish Federation Cup Tennis Team recently posed for this little picture:

Those are the members of the tennis team, with the circles around their racist but loving heads...

Go Spain! I can't wait to see them play the Confederates in the finals!

Oh, and that thing I said about the women's badminton match being boring? Zhang came back from nine points down, after she was completely counted out and won the gold, all in a matter of about twelve minutes...

THE SELF-PERPETUATING MYTH

This is going to e a bit scattered, but stay with me...

Summerworks in Toronto has taken the step of posting a couple of ads -one male- and one female-based- for their upcoming theatre festival. The ads -particularly the female, which features a cluster of “hot” female playwrights* thanking Claudia Dey for paving the way for “hot” female playwrights, and then engaging in a pillow fight, all scantily clad- have drawn the ire of many, primarily women, who find the whole thing offensive, a missed arrow aimed at the heart of 21st Century pseudo-feminism. There’s no question, frankly, that it is a missed arrow. It’s a poor attempt at satire. But whatever. The YouTube generation’s lack of understanding of feminism -or true struggle of any kind, for that matter- is an unworthy adversary.

On the Summerworks discussion page Hannah Moskovich responds to people calling the female ad humiliating by saying, essentially, that she’d have known if she was being humiliated, and she recounts some examples from her days as a server when she was outright humiliated by piggish male customers... A couple of years ago I saw an interview with Mickey Rooney in which he was asked as a final question if he’d do anything differently, and he responded without hesitation “I’d do Breakfast at Tiffany’s differently. Well, I wouldn’t do it at all.” (As a refresher: In Breakfast at Tiffany’s Mickey Rooney donned bad teeth, a blunt black wig and a kimono and ran around yelling at Audrey Hepburn in a “Chinese” accent.) “At the time I thought it was hysterically funny. I didn’t realize I was humiliating myself.” Humiliation is very often in the eye of the beholder, as one other poster on that page points out. And just because your intention is satire, that doesn’t mean the result is satirical. Sometimes it’s just humiliation. And, though I agree the examples of humiliation she provides were no doubt hurtful, soul crushing and immediate, it’s also true that humiliation sometimes takes time, and sometimes the humiliated is entirely oblivious.

The men’s ad is not provocative whatsoever. It’s not humiliating. There’s nothing offensive about it. There’s nothing challenging about it. It’s just bad. Assuming you know Michael Healey, there might be some initial humor in seeing him act foolish, but that goes away pretty quickly, or so I’d assume. (I don’t know him, save by reputation.) If you don’t know him what it is is just a bad YouTube skit.



One comment on the YouTube page for one for the ads says something along the lines of “Leave them alone, at least it’s better than most of what you see on YouTube.” Talk about damning with faint praise. But also, A) Aim higher; these are some of Canada’s top actors and writers in these ads and they should behave as such. And B) No, it’s not. It’s not better than most of what you see on YouTube. It’s equally as bad as most of what you see on YouTube.

There is a third ad, featuring just Summerworks Artistic Director Michael Rubenfeld singing a terrible song about Summerworks, apparently as a spoof of those terrible and terribly narcissistic songs that teens post on YouTube because they can... It’s whatever, an interesting if obvious idea, except Who the fuck is Michael Rubenfeld? I’ve met him a couple of times, I think, but seriously: The joke only works if the people watching it know you’re not actually one of those narcissistic kids. Most people don’t know that about Michael Rubenfeld. Most people don’t know anything about Michael Rubenfeld whatsoever, including his name, what he looks like, and his position with Summerworks. The ad is for his friends. The ad is for the people in the other two ads, and whoever else is in Michael Rubenfeld’s MyFive. The ad, as it turns out, is for the same people for whom those kids he’s parodying make their videos: Pals. I can’t tell if this is the most post-modern post-modernist piece of art ever created, or just the height of narcissism, though I suspect it’s not the former, unfortunately.

If you’re the Artistic Director of, well, anything, shouldn’t your advertising campaign be directed at those other than the already initiated?

Personally, I think this is the most offensive ad of the bunch.

There is a bolder statement to be made about these; one I’ve danced around a bit, but I guess I have to spell out, which is this:

THESE ADS ARE REPRESENTATIVE OF EVERYTHING THAT’S WRONG WITH THE TORONTO THEATRE SCENE.

It’s incestuous. It’s exclusionary. It’s a club. Artists in the scene don’t make theatre for audiences, they make it for other artists. Almost without exception the people who jumped to the defense of these ridiculous ads are people who know the “actors.” (“I know Claudia Dey, and I think this is hilarious.” “Hannah isn’t really like that at all, and that’s why it’s funny!”)

With all due respect, who cares what you think? You’re going to go to the shows already, supposedly, so who cares? If these ads had been made and sent through e-mail from person to person, then ha ha ha, nice work; but they weren’t. They were posted on the Summerworks website. If those involved weren’t so blind, they’d see the outcry about their crap for what it is: People who care about theatre, who care about Summerworks wanting those involved to pay it the respect it deserves. It’s not just a couple of whatever, fun videos, so what?The ads are representing something that people are passionate about, and they’re representing it exceptionally badly.

And what’s worse is they’re doing it in a way that basically says Theatre is about the artist, not the audience and not the art.

There’s no question that theatre is in trouble. Audiences are weak, and without audiences theatre is nothing; it can’t live.***

It’s attitudes like the one behind this campaign that keep audiences away.

Why are musicals -disdained by all serious theatre artists, the scourge of the theatre world- kicking our ass? Because they’re inclusive. They want audiences. They want to impress people, make people happy, make people sad. David Mirvish doesn’t care about impressing his friends, he wants to impress people he doesn’t know. The people who pony up and allow him to do what he does are people he doesn’t know. They’re buying the tickets.

People want to be included. The slogan for this campaign cold have been “Theatre artists: We’re smarter than you. We’re more clever than you. We’re better than you.”
________________________________

* Seriously, though: Where’s Kate Hewlett? Are you kidding me?
** The saddest part of the whole thing for me has to be when, after listening to so much praise for original hotness being heaped on Dey, the older Linda Griffiths says “Wait, what about me?” It’s just... A sad moment.
*** It’s sad to go to a show in Toronto. Afterwards everyone piles out of the theatre and gathers at the stage door to say hi to the writer / the director / actor, or more often than not some collection of people involved in the production, because the audience knows them all. The people in this show are the same people that came to support them at their show. And that’s fine, there needs to be support within the community, but if the support from the community is what’s keeping you afloat, if your audience is all actors and the writers and directors of things you’ve seen, than what’s the point?

TELL ME ABOUT GOD

I found this book in a great used bookstore on Spadina: Tell Me About God, written by Mary Alice Jones and illustrated by Pelagie Doane, circa 1959. (Originally published in 1943.)


From the inside flap: "Inside this unique and beautiful book are answered the most profoundly important questions children can ask. "Who is God?" "Why Can't I see God?" "How does God care for me?" "Does God Love everybody?" With these first wondering questions the little child is approaching the great fundamental truths of religion. His whole spiritual development may depend upon how wisely he is answered. Mary Alice Jones... has prepared this book especially to help parents with their important task of bringing their children to know God. Entirely non-denominational, TELL ME ABOUT GOD reflects the best thinking of present-day leaders in the field of religious education." Once I get set up with a scanner I'll post some more of the illustrations, but for now here's my favorite. It goes with the chapter titled "God Sent His Son." I'll reprint the whole chapter here, and dedicate it to Shira Leuchter, who will hopefully learn something...

GOD SENT HIS SON

BOBBY showed his mother a picture of Jesus. His teacher at church had given it to him. "Tell me about Jesus," he asked. "God loves us so much, Bobby, that he sent his son, Jesus, to tell us about it." "How did Jesus tell us?" "He did more than just tell us. He showed us. He helped those who were sick. He played with the little children and told them stories.He was kind to those who were sad. He said, 'See, I love you. That is why I want to help you. God loves you, too. And God wants to help you, too.'" "Did the people listen to him?" "Many of them did. And they understood God's love. Jesus showed them what it meant. They said, 'God is like Jesus. He loves us.' " "Were the people glad?" "Those who listened to Jesus were very glad, Bobby. They felt happy. They said, 'We feel all made over. We are not sad or afraid any more. We know God loves us, whatever happens to us.' " "What else did Jesus tell the people?" "He told them God's plan for them. He told them how God wanted them to live together. He said 'Love one another. Help one another. Share with one another.' " "What did the people do?" "Some of them said, 'Jesus is telling us God's plan for us. It is a good plan. It will make people happy. We will live the way he says.' " "What did the other people do?" "The other people did not listen to Jesus. They did not want to know God's plan for them. They wanted to have their own way. And they made many people unhappy." "If I had been there I would have listened," Bobby said. "Would you, Bobby? I am glad. What Jesus said is still God's plan for us. We can listen to him now."

THE FEET ARE THE BEST PART

Here are some pictures of an installation called TELEPHONIC SHEEP at The Frankfurt Museum of Communications, c. 2004. The artist is Jean-Luc Cornec.

Supposedly these guys were all over the web a couple of years ago, but I missed them then. Better late than never.



The sheep are constructed entirely out of recycled telephone parts, their wool being, of course, the telephone cords.



I'm actually amazed at how life-like they appear.



The feet are my favorite part.



Thanks to Jenny Kuri for bringing these little guys to my attention.

BURTON CUMMINGS, PEDOPHILE*

"Hi! I'm Burton Cummings! Just an average, ordinary dude! Do you like my suit?"

"I've never actually tried before, but I feel confident I could hypnotize you using just my hands and my voice... No, you're right, I have not been sleeping well lately. I'm feeling stressed."

"I've got this very" (Sweat, sweat.) "powerful urge building within me... I can't" (Sweat, sweat.) "help it. I've got to" (Sweat.) "get to a" (Sweat.) "playground right now. Heh, heh... Sloppy! Sloppy!" (Sweat, sweat.)

(No caption needed.)

"Burton Cummings. Prisoner 7694381. Ready for rehabilitation... Can I get a work detail in the nursery? Is that possible? No? This is going to be a long thirty years."

*Burton Cummings is in no way an actual pedophile, so far as I know. He just seems like one based on the evidence presented above.

BANKSY HEARTS BLEK LA RAT

Banksy is a London, England-based artist. He makes public art. His work is almost always political, or at the very least it comments on societal norms, and it more often than not achieves genuine wit.

Banksy is famous. New works of his are regularly covered by London newspapers. There is wide speculation as to his identity. If a Banksy appears on the side of a building it usually stays there. In some cases the owners of the buildings have repainted around the art... A far cry from how standard graffiti is treated, wouldn't you say?

Here is a selection of my favorite of Banksy's works...

Banksy's style is derivative of a guy named Blek la Rat, a French artist -and the inventor of stencil graffiti- who visited New York in the early 1980's and loved the traditional graf he saw there. He decided to use stencils so as to not just copy what he'd seen while in the States. Blek la Rat's stuff was also often political or satirical, and sometimes he even appeared in his work himself.

You can see Blek la Rat's work HERE.

THE ALIENS, THEY THINK THE FARMING IS PURTY

It looks like some kind of fancy -and awesome- geometric painting, but it's not... In fact, it's a photo of Kansas farmland taken from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER). It's a real photo.

The photo was taken on June 24th of 2001, but was classified until 2005. The green circles -which measure as much as 1.6 km in diameter- are corn, leafy in June, and the paler green is sorghum; the bright gold color is wheat. The circular shape of the field is owed to a method of irrigation that draws water from a well at the centre of each field, using long pipes mounted on wheels that rotate on a pivot, dropping water onto the crops instead of spraying it over them with sprinklers, and necessitating round fields.

Agriculture is hot.

Click HERE to see more pics from ASTER.

LET THERE BE (STYLISHLY APPOINTED) LIGHT!

Shopping on Queen a couple of weekends ago Shell and I found this antique store (I think Art Deco...) with a downright bizarre collection of lamps. Here are some of my favorites...

Clearly this lady is a very sexy ballerina.























If she was on my bedside table I'd never get any sleep.

Q. Are We Not Men?

A. We are Equus.























A horsey! Wearing a Devo "Whip It" hat!

And my favorite... The Mushroom Fairy.























It's the knife that makes it art. Also the hat. And the boots. And check out those calves!

Is it just me, or does this fairy look vaguely like Renee Zellweger?

SNEAKY SUBMARINE

So, though there's little evidence to suggest I can maintain one blog consistently for any length of time, I've started a second...

It's called SNEAKY SUBMARINE, and is dedicated solely and wholly to music.

I'm a music geek of sorts, and even though the header says and will continue to say that BOATS MADE OF OCEAN is about, at least in part, music I wanted someplace that was all about music.

Anyway, I hope you take a second to check it out. I've written a not terribly great little blurb about a terribly great HARMONY TROWBRIDGE show I went to recently, and a review of the new ELVIS COSTELLO album, MOMOFUKU... Which is brilliant, by the way.

OTHER PEOPLE'S PETS: LADY

Lady belongs to Shelley's co-worker, Linnea. It didn't come out in the questionnaire, but in the interest of full disclosure I feel there's something you should know: I have it on good authority that this little black pug has a touch of... Well, the racist in her. Apparently she barks incessantly whenever black people come near. Can you say "self-loathing"?

FULL NAME: Lady Cain.

AGE: 3 years old on May 15th.

BREED: Pug.

FAVORITE TOY: Too many to mention: Animal, from the Muppets; Telus Rabbit; "Pinky," a pink toy I bought her... She bites the noses off of the toys (wonder why?) and then eats the stuffing. We go through lots of toys, but I don't have the heart to throw them out.

FAVORITE GAME TO PLAY: "Can't catch me!" Bum in the air and head on the floor, glaring up at me. I swear she runs faster than a Greyhound.

FAVORITE PLACE TO SLEEP: Under the covers cuddling me.

TRIVIA: When she was a puppy and friends or family would go to leave our house, she would bark-scream because she didn't want them to go... It actually sounded torturous. Probably the reason the
neighbors still don't really talk too much to us!

ALL FOR ART & ART FOR ALL: BATHURST & QUEEN, PART THREE

Okay, last post on this, I promise...

This is the giant piece that I'd mentioned before...

Impressive.

"Toons":

ALL FOR ART & ART FOR ALL: BATHURST & QUEEN, PART TWO

These are the remaining photos I have from my time lurking in the alleyways at Bathurst and Queen... As I said in my previous post, while I was there the artists who did the majority of these pieces were working on something new; someday I'll go back and get pics of their new work.

To be honest, there's one more piece from the alleys that I have a photo of, but I'm having trouble up-loading it, as it is HUGE. (The actual piece is about fifty feet long and fifteen feet high, and my photo is made up of about twelve photos combined into one... I'll figure it out and post it as soon as I can... It really is the best of the bunch.)

I forgot to mention last time: You can see larger versions of the photos by clicking on them.

I like this one, though. "The hunchback":

"Space Elvis":

"Mess":

OTHER PEOPLE'S PETS: SOPHIE

My friend Shelley filled in the questionnaire for her roomate's adorable kitty, Sophie, for this, the inaugural edition of Other People's Pets! Look at that face!

FULL NAME: Sophie Shepperdley.

NICKNAMES: "The Sophinator."

AGE: 8 months.

BREED: Blue British Shorthair.

FAVORITE TOYS: Red ball; Yellow thing; Right now the dangly doorknob thing is the hot item.

FAVORITE GAME TO PLAY: The standard cat games, including "You Pet Me / I Bite You"; "Just Try Making Your Bed With Me In It"; "I Know You Don't Want Me Up Here But I'm Going Up and Knocking Things Off Anyway" and "So What If Those Are Your Feet I'm Totally Attacking Them."

FAVORITE PLACE TO SLEEP: Above the kitchen cupboards.

TRIVIA: "One day, Sophie was making whining and moaning sounds, which is odd because her breed is not really that vocal. She had been playing with her reindeer toy on my roomate's rocking chair and managed to get her head stuck between the bars. We had to slide her body upward to where the space between the bars was a bit larger, and then twist her head sideways and pull it out. Sadly, no photographic evidence of this exists. Then there was the time I was brushing my teeth and she decided to jump into the sink just as I spat toothpaste. Do you know what it's like to scrub toothpaste off a cat?"

ALL FOR ART & ART FOR ALL: BATHURST & QUEEN

I love graffiti. I've loved it ever since I bought Twisted Sister's album Come Out and Play, with the band standing in front of giant wall, spray-painted with the band's logo.

I've never done it, because I don't know the techniques and the tricks and I don't know anyone who can teach me. These kinds of things aren't readily available on the internet; I think graf artists are pretty secretive* about how they do what they do, not wanting the form to become more prevalent than it is already. I'm going to make it an aim to produce one piece of graffiti this summer. I'm going to work on a design and find a spot and then I'll go out one night and just do it, and hopefully not fuck up someone's wall.

Anyway, there are some spots in Toronto with some pretty incredible work, and on Sunday I went out with my camera and took some shots of a lot of the graffiti around Queen and Bathurst; there's an alley just south of Queen that is covered in amazing, detailed and very colorful graffiti, and that area is where all of these pieces can be found.

While I was there -at NOON! Broad daylight!- a group of artists were there working on a bunch of new pieces. They didn't want me to take pictures of them working (because they're criminals) but they told me that they are the ones who've done all of the work in those alleys, pretty much.

*Watching them I did pick up that they get the specific, bold lines by breaking off the plastic nozzle from their spray cans. Lesson one...

Here is a selection of my favorite pieces from the alleys there. Click on the pics to see more larger versions. Enjoy.

Some of these were too big to fit into one shot, so they're put together using multiple photos. You can see the seams if you look, but I've tried to fit them together as best as I can.

The shading on this one is incredible:

I have no idea what this says:










I'm amazed at how well these guys can do people. The feathers in the head-dress blow me away:





























"Bacon scam":

THE GREAT SPOILER

I have to admit that I've never liked Hillary Clinton much. Her friendship with Tipper Gore made her first amendment pedigree questionable to me as far back as high school, pre-Clinton White House. After Bill took office and humiliated her with Monica Lewinsky I was uneasy with her reaction; it bothered me how it seemed she allowed it to turn their marriage into a political front: My father cheated on my mom, and at the time especially it was something I couldn't imagine a woman letting go so breezily, and viewing it from the P.O.V. of their kids... It just seemed cheap to me. (Obviously, I had no insight into what was happening behind closed doors between a husband and his wife, but this was my reaction.) When she got into the race for president last year I started to turn a bit in my opinion of her. She was well-spoken, and seemed genuine at first. Unlike others, I actually welcomed what may have been a return to political influence for Bill Clinton... Though I hated what he did to his family, and the lack of respect he showed to the office of the president, I actually think he was quite a good leader when he was being president as opposed to the adulterer in the White House.

So, I'd started to like her. And then she lost some primaries. And when she lost some primaries she started attacking Barack Obama, who I think quite frankly is the real thing, despite all of the indie-band-of-the-moment hype that's surrounded his campaign. It's perfectly ordinary and right for one candidate to attack another's platform, to attack the perceived holes in their theories and plans, but Hill started to attack Obama in the cheapest place possible: His faith. Now, I'm not a religious man. I have my beliefs and would consider myself somewhat spiritual, I guess, but certainly not religious. My problems with the church are expansive and deep-seeded. But Obama is religious, and this is something that is important for an American president to be, and despite my leanings I think that religious faith is incredibly impressive these days and on some level I envy it. I find his faith comforting because it doesn't seem put-on to me, the way George W.'s does, or even Hillary's; it seems real and profound and the kind of thing that would help to keep him running the White House with a good heart, and an eye towards doing right. Anyway. Hillary started to attack his faith, insinuating that the man is a Muslim, and hypocritically mocking his Christianity openly.

I'm not even sure where to start with this.

A candidate for the presidency using the fact that an opponent's name sounds Muslim, and that his skin-color makes him appear Muslim is disgusting on so many levels, the most disgusting of which is that fact that it clearly spells out that she believes that being a Muslim is something of which the country should be weary, because, of course, Muslims are terrorists and want to kill all white people and have no souls or consciences and hate democracy and everything for which the USA stands. (FUN FACT! The USA is in fact not a democracy, it's a republic... This country, committed to spreading the cause of democracy around the world, does not even practice democracy within it's own shores.)

That she attacked his supposed Muslim religion while at the same time making fun of his Christianity exposed her as the sort of desperate, pathetic politician that gives all politicians such bad reputations. She showed herself to be an opportunist with little in the way of morals, and even less in the way of political savvy. (It's a good thing that in the USA political savvy doesn't count for much.)

When Al Gore lost the race for the White House to George W. Hillary, among many, many others blamed Ralph Nader, for taking votes away from Gore by running as an independent and staying in the race well past making a point.

Six months ago Barack Obama was polling without exception well ahead of Clinton and McCain. He was a lock. Now, it's ridiculous to think his numbers were going to stay as strong as they were, but he was in an incredible position, and the idea of the Republicans successfully side-stepping George W.'s legacy was a ridiculous. Even Republicans were admitting a almost insurmountable uphill battle.

But Clinton kept attacking, and attacking. and attacking. She's been in the race months after a victory became a practical impossiblity. The math is a joke. She can't win the nomination. She's been beaten by Obama and beaten again, but still she stays in attacking the man who will surely be her party's nominee for president, weakening the Democratic ticket every time she opens her mouth, and giving the Republicans -now sitting quietly watching her single handedly destroying her party- ammunition. "The Democrats can't even agree on a candidate! We picked one months ago! Ours must be much better than their guy!" Now McCain is polling even and in some cases ahead of Obama. She's Ralph Nader, but worse. You could say "Well, everything Hillary is saying would have come up eventually," and this is true. But: It's a hell of lot worse when it's coming from inside your own house than when it's coming from the people across the street. Had McCain attacked Obama's religion -and to be far, I don't believe he would- it could have been painted as party politics. But when Hillary says it? It's real now. It's a legitimate concern.

We're facing another four years of a Republican White House. Four more years of a party with no love for the poor or visible minorities. Four more years of a party willing to kill it's country's enlisted youth to make a point. And this because of an egotistical opportunist.

And here's a cheap shot for the haters:

(Hey, she's throwing the cheap shots around like tennis balls... She should expect a couple back, no?)

THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE & THE MESSAGE IS TASTY

There’s a strange thing happening around Toronto, and I’m not sure if it’s meant as a (literally) sugar-coated “fuck you” to the human inhabitants of the city, or if it’s a vicious declaration of war against empty, useless calories.

I was walking into the core on the Saturday of the recent ATU strike (bus-fuckers) and I ran into my friend Laura... (The single positive thing about that greed-soaked day off for Toronto’s transit workers turned out to be that I ran into a lot of friends walking the streets.) We stood out front of the under-construction library near Dufferin and Bloor when I noticed something attached to the “Keep Out” sign near by...

It’s a cupcake. It’s a cupcake nailed to the sign. It says “TWAT.” Somebody made the cupcake, iced the word “TWAT” onto it, carried it to this spot taking pains not to ruin the icing, and nailed it through the centre to the pole, like some kind of sugary Christ-hand or eviction notice. Again, I wasn’t sure what it meant, but it was kind of funny, and we giggled and parted ways, going about our separate days.

Later that night I was at a small gathering at a friend’s place and I mentioned what I’d seen, and another party guest exclaimed that she’d seen it as well, and while we were explaining to the other people present about what we were talking, it became clear that the cupcake I’d seen, and the cupcake she’d seen were two different cupcakes. The one she’d seen, actually, had fallen off of the post and was lying at the base of the pole on the sidewalk. I asked her if she’d looked up to see if there were other cupcakes attached to the post, but she hadn’t. “Why would I?”

As a group we decided on a field trip and made out way down College Street, where she’d had her cupcake encounter, and lo and behold, lying on the sidewalk was a smooshed cupcake with the words “a dick” emblazoned.

Glancing up the post we saw two more cupcakes:

The bottom one goes with the one on the ground, presumably, and says “Go suck.” The top one says “Man up.”

Think of it as a kinder, gentler form of graffiti. “Grafectionary,” or maybe “candfitti.” Abrasive and insulting, yet sweet and easy to swallow. Rebel cupcakes dotting the urban landscape, challenging the city’s inhabitants, making us take deep and disturbing looks into our own selves. Are we, too, just sludge dressed up in sugary goodness? Are our niceties empty calories, hiding the vitriol within?

I’m not sure, but I have to admit to a craving for cupcakes this past week. I like chocolate ones with chocolate chips in the mix, chocolate icing, and maybe some of those little candy sprinkles they put on top. I almost wouldn’t even care if it called me a “fuck-wad,” or “dumb ass” or something, so long as it has it does so in sweet chocolatey goodness.

ESTABLISHED 2008

I was inspired to start this blog by my friend Shira Leuchter, who has one of her own called In the Sky and On the Road in which she writes about fashion and architecture and other such things. It looked like it might be fun.

On this page I’ll be waxing poetic on, as the subtitle above says, music and design, as well as art and other. It will be opinionated and self-obsessed, and hopefully occasionally funny and enlightening.

The title, Boats Made of Ocean, comes from a song by one of my favorite bands, Television.

Television were a first-wave punk band who weren’t at first glance a punk band. They were poetic and insanely melodic when others were abrasive and jarring. To this day they are regarded as one of he most technically proficient bands not just in punk but in all of pop music, which is stunning, considering their home is a genre known for housing barely competent players. (Sid Vicious, I’m looking at you.)

In the mid-1970's, Television quite literally built the stage on which punk was born, at CBGB’s in New York City. The bar was founded as a spot for bluegrass and country music singers to ply their trades, but Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd (the guitarists of Television) convinced it’s owner to allow them to play there on slow nights in return for building him a stage to replace the broken and tattered existing one. He agreed and a few weeks later Television shared that stage with The Ramones and history was in the making. The audiences for Verlaine’s shows became the bar’s bread and butter and country music dropped to the wayside and punk was born.

Anyway, the title of this blog comes from the song “See No Evil,” off of their brilliant debut, Marquee Moon. The lyric goes thusly:

I get ideas
I get a notion
I want a nice little boat
Made out of ocean

For whatever reason that lyric has always stuck in my head as being especially beautiful and interesting. It reminds me of being a teenager and depressed and just wanting the whole shit world to end and the hurt to just go away, but not in an emo sort of way. This will not be an emo blog.

And there it is, the first entry out of the way. To be honest, I’m not sure what kind of blog this will be. I’ll figure that out as I go.

I do know, though, that I picked up the excellent new Elvis Costello & The Imposters album, Momofuku, a couple of days ago, so I’ll be writing about that shortly...