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