haiku review of joshua whitehead at whychwood barns

life’s better with friends. after cake, issa rae-adjacent shows and a night of dog cuddles, i was ready to greet the world in the company of dope women friends-even if i had to travel to get to them. i’m almost done my stint here as a single dog mom, and it will be nice to get back to my regular life, although i will miss this lovely bean who i have to trick to eat around a ridiculous schedule. i also got to spend the first day of the year doing precious little with my partner cougar partner for life.

duolingo stats: 485 day streak, 631945 xp, 53,795 gems (new currency-this shit is like euros), 13,689 lingots (i guess not all languages have converted to the heart system) languages learned-korean, but flying through the new french and spanish stories to attempt to advance to the obsidian league* update-i have made it to the obsidian league-just one more to go!

i was awarded rookie of the year at our staff party at the rec room, and then got obsessed with getting enough points to get the momanger kit, which i thought was notebooks and tiny lipsticks-i have since watched a review and found out that no notebooks are involved, and i am totally hooked on getting this set. i still have everyone’s bracelets though, so we will see what we can do. (as of january 27th, i have 11,000+ of the 25,000 points necessary to get it).

i also started a goodreads account-when i thought i was locked out of here for a second, so there will be some repetitions, but since i don’t repeat on other social medias, i think i’m good.

i learned how to cross-stitch! i’m hooked! (it’s much easier to do by daylight because of the teeny squares). i have had two dog-sitting clients in the first month of the year! woot! (i also wore a fitbit for two days for the child of the dog family to get his steps in while he was at a waterpark).

the year of the rat has opened without kobe and gigi bryant-just, wow. also, the wolf moon in cancer was hellaemotional.

there are two walk-in dermatology clinics in this city? one is allegedly a religious man in etobicoke and the other is the one i was referred to by my family doctor-a “stunning feat of architecture” in the distillery district where i was treated by a young south asian doctor wearing ripped jeans and asked about my interest of future cosmetic procedures. i also did not know that biopsies, when they happen externally, mean that they cut you open to take a sample, so they have to sew you back up-i didn’t feel anything due to the local anesthesia but apparently i’m a bleeder. now i’m trying not to split my stitches, but it seems that my eczema has been scared straight.

1) baroness von sketch-let me resist calling this “white lady sketch show”, but i’m also glad that i’ve had the chance to catch up on this necessary cbc show with netflix distribution. i’m glad that i got to see them talk about their process at the content canada conference last year, and i’m glad to see the peripheral characters (who are also badass improv artists in their own rights) and toronto really looks glamourous onscreen. i’m all about this digital paper trail of receipts of women being funny and taking up space. (super here for the cameos by sabrina jalees and reggie watts)

2) i be knowing-amanda seales i am glad to be seeing this, just as i am approaching my saturation with amanda seales. i really admire her hustle, but i have decided to unfollow her-the constant barrage of eleventeen hundred part instagram stories is just too much. her book is the hold that i will pick up as soon as the library opens tomorrow, and i love that her character on insecure is called “tiffany dubois”, which basically makes her huey and riley‘s neighbour. one of the things that has stuck out for me is an interview that i saw with her recently when she pointed out that the interviewer missed that she was a comedian, and after seeing this special, i concur that it was a great correction. concentrated amanda is great amanda, let’s hope small doses (in book form) is more that than instagram amanda.

3) so you want to talk about race-ijeoma oluo this book has been on my radar, but on the real, i put it on hold because she’s dating the homie (i mean, it’s been a minute, but we were once tight). at this point in time, there have been a lot of books of this ilk, but i appreciate how smoothly it reads, the fact that she acknowledges her white mother (and how problematic her thinking has been), and this:

“But I am not here to absolve you or condemn you for your rap aspirations.” (149)

which made me guffaw audibly on the subway uptown to see my friends on new year’s eve.

“So yes, the fact that people of color can say words that white people can’t is an example of injustice-but it’s not injustice against white people.” (141)

i mean, ta-nahisi coates vs. white girl was great, but this is more concise and we can just want for people to be better enough that they can get this common sense.

i appreciate the inclusion of a modern and nuanced discussion of why the “model minority” stereotype is nothing to aspire towards, as well as this acknowledgement:

“The stereotype of the docile and subservient Asian woman is often used to encourage and hide abuse of Asian women by their partners. Between 41 and 61 percent of Asian American women will be physically or sexually abused by their partners in their lifetime-twice the national average for all women. Studies also show higher rates of depression and suicidal thoughts in Asian American women. Yet Asian American women are rarely the focus of domestic violence awareness, victim advocacy, or mental health efforts.” (198)

4) girl, woman, other-bernadine evaristo it’s encouraging to read a booker prize winning book that is written in the same style as this blog. we’re in a bit of a sea change where folks are writing about violence in queer relationships, and that’s a thing. i also love the circular nature of the characters’ history, as well as the blurred lines between poetry and prose. i was going to give up on it, but was promptly sucked back in.

5) power-season five “turn it on, jlo” is the moment that i laughed out loud. one of the kids is dead, but the annoying one is still alive. also-i finished this after coming home from a 3-hr questionable mounting of julius caesar (sound and light design were amazing, and bigup to everyone who memorized any of those monologues, but i have questions) and i realized that power is just julius caesar-everyone just gets drunk with power.

6) small doses-amanda seales this is a physically beauty-full book that incorporates her visual arts, poetry, there’s a lot of crossover from her special and her podcast, and it doesn’t hurt that she’s very attractive. this book has inspired me, but perhaps not in the way that the author was intending it to. “you have multiple jordans and no passport” will always hit. also, i thought tiffany dubois was the adult embodiment of huey and riley’s neighbour, but it turns out that her name was jazmine dubois (so obviously they are cousins). finally-crazy 12 years an anna wintour story, yo.

7) this will only hurt a bit-busy phillips i always suspected that james franco was an asshole. i am sorry, for busy‘s sake, that they keep being cast together over the years. but she’s a dynamo and an inspiration as proof of constant work and artist life. this was a great quick read, one of the best things i’ve ever got out of a little library, and i’m certain that the audiobook, if read by her, is even better.

8) like a boss-dir. miguel artega i saw this one on jena’s last tuesday night as a resident of the city of toronto. there were some great comic moments, and salma hayek wears an intentionally terrible tooth insert. it was exactly what you would think it is, and passes the bechdel test because the women are bffs and are fighting for their business (and friendship), not a man. it is mildly problematic that the queenpin is another woman who has gotten her power by mowing over her friend, but hey-nothing is perfect.

9) larger than life-dir.tiffany bartok i found out about kevyn in university. my upstairs neighbour in the dorm got a copy of making faces, which we looked at, but could do nary a thing with. it’s amazing to see how much his innovations carried over, and the impact that he had on the industry. i love that amy sedaris is on the documentary, saying that he “used his paws”-lots of folks talking about his giant hands, and i bought into the homophobic hype that that same neighbour told me-he was obviously gay and died of HIV, which turned out not to be true at all. he literally grew out of his body. i am glad that i know the truth about this, and am glad that i got one of his molten lipsticks last year, and watching this reminded me of how much he liked to use lip liners. “line your lip with a nude before you put on your lipstick so it bleeds out naturally” is one of the best pieces of makeup advice that i’ve ever received from him.

10) broad city-season five this was such a great goodbye. it still has the uncomfortably terrible moments that have become the cornerstone of this series, but it’s nice to see the heroines start to win, even if it means that they had to grow separately. i saw abbi jacobson talk about this earlier in the year, and it actually brings a lot of her book into perspective. hannibal is adorable (and still doesn’t win), ilana’s outfits are the best they ever have been, and amy sedaris is still everything. this one is a big win for friendship, feminism, art, and living as creative people.

11) a song for you-robyn crawford this was much less traumatic than the last whitney houston movie. i am glad that she chose to wait until she was ready to say her piece. i was too young to pay attention to the tabloid news at the time that all of this was happening, but i heard the rumblings about whitney’s queerness through my piano teacher, who, looking back now, was doing her best whitney impression. i had no idea that she dated eddie murphy, and was doing so when she met bobby brown. (no spoiler alert-he was a dick). the honesty and compassion afforded to a lack of control over one’s own life, fame, and substance abuse is that which can only be afforded by someone who truly loved whitney. i’m glad that this tribute exists, and that robyn has found love, children, and a life partner that is as kind and resilient as she is. what an inspiring account of overcoming terrible tragedy and betrayal-i’m glad that she is no longer waiting to exhale.

12) lost children archive-valeria luiselli i am here because of the chicago public library, again. it also didn’t really stand a chance against the puzzle, but i got it done on time. the next week will be interesting in terms of all the books that i have due, and the fact that my women who rock cross-stitch book is available for pickup. it does read beautifully, and is a meditation of literal and figurative child abandonment, it does take an interesting (though not really actualized) turn but overall a worthwhile project-i will definitely check out more from the author. i also arrived to my dog-sitting to see “the book with no pictures” at the home, and it appears a lot in this book. so meta.

13) ballers-season five i watched this because my dog-sitting charges got a last-minute subscription to crave for me (and i got locked into amazon prime until the playstation controller died and couldn’t watch community anymore). it was the perfect companion to my all-night puzzling, as i decided to start a 2000 piece puzzle of a candy shop image. i’m glad that it’s leading the way to the football fairy tale of all the players getting full medical for their contribution and having a owner of colour who advocates for players rights because he has been a player and agent. also-spencer and joe are back together again-swoon!

i can see the sun in late december

January 1, 2020metrotextual completist, passages, wacktose intolerant, writer crush Tags: december consumption Leave a comment

duolingo stats: 455 day streak, 13,474 lingots, amethyst league, 627,917 xp, language learned: korean

this changes all the games. every single one. jeeeeez. my religion is now lena waithe. i’m a waithiest.

i almost hibernated my way out of the beginning of this month. i’ve been seeing the beauty in the dreamsnooze lately, and putt-putting, especially when i woke up in a hailstorm. but the upside is that skating is open now!

i have been getting massages, and that means that work is paying for me to take naps again, though i’m not falling asleep on the table, which means that i’m seeing first-year students, or i’m just more well-rested in general. but it’s nice to have some coverage and double-stamps before the s-c school of massage moves to the science centre.

this just in-i learned that lumpia wrappers and wonton wrappers are not the same. i made some dumplings and tried to cook them in mushroom broth, and the lumpia wrappers just dissolved. it still tasted good, just looked questionable because the brown soup took over, and now i know, and knowing is half the battle.

i have touched a lamb lung, and it feels amazing. like a cool marshmallow. don’t turn down the opportunity if ever presented with it. also, my coworker came up with “i’m not a sous-vide savant” on the spot. that’s the excellence i work with.

i have many less entries-i have been writing more…

i had the loveliest little no pressure christmas ever, and have the pleasure of having a doggy into the new year/decade. what a time to be alive.

1)maid-stephanie land (audiobook read by the author) i started to listen to this to lull myself to sleep and when i was making soup on the day that i was sick. i think i got the idea here, on the feminist texican read‘s blog. i usually listen to famous peoples’ audiobooks, and this is the first time i chose a “regular” person. although she’s a bit extraordinary-in a world where “domestic” work is done by undocumented women, she qualifies and benefits from more than five kinds of government support, and that sustains her to this point of a book deal. she has pretty terrible taste in men, but i guess i can’t fault her for that. the insight that she brings on how much people let the cleaners see of their houses is a new kind of intimacy, but one that is only there if they render themselves invisible. her admission of loneliness is real and brave, and a big deal. i’m glad for the kindness that has found her, and sorry for the ignorance that she has experienced-at the very least, it’s always more moving when a white person shows how terrible white people are. and, quality of life is a thing. i joked with a friend recently that i was living really well at the poverty line, but it turns out, i have been living really well $2000 over the poverty line, so there. i did listen to a lot of this audiobook from my bed and also do appreciate that i’ve always managed to make the little places that i’ve had home, and this is the biggest place i’ve ever had, so, there’s that. in the same discussion, i was asked if i would like more space, and while i don’t, i would appreciate a different layout. but this place has been good to me, even though it seems to get cluttered every other day. funny that she mentions dusting a bell biv devoe cassette, because surely, hootie mack (indeed an underrated album) was in that collection. single parenthood is a real struggle, and i count my blessings that i am not with an 11-year-old at this moment-i can only imagine the continued flashes of ptsd that would be.

2)jane the virgin-season four i watched this show so long ago that i don’t remember what i’ve seen, but so far-it all seems new, if familiar, and it’s nice to be back. matteo is a total brat, but is that supposed to be indicative of the crazy home lives that he is living? there’s a lot more exploration of the impact on the children that dating and co-parenting has, and we’ll see if i’m here for it. lots of big appearances this season-isabel allende, rosario dawson, and iyanla vanzaant, brooke shields, er, river fields and the whole cast of “the talk”. and dianne guerrero got me kardashian wondering-is that surgery or contouring?! lots of betrayals, flip-flopping, and big drama, just like a telenovela! i don’t think i remember xio being this deep into cancer, or the return of michael, so once again-i am on the brink of a show that will take the library a minute to catch up on the dvd release. at least there is “borrowing history” to help me with this now.

3) permanent record-mary.h.k.choi another one to thank desus and mero for…way back in the vice days. i liked emergency contact to pay attention to the release of this one. i know new york is really multi-culti, but it’s almost a toronto-level miscegenation of characters, and that’s literally a thing. (spoiler alert on a jerky note-it might be a character thing, but i feel like i’ve literally read “literally” sixty times in the first 138 pages). i do appreciate how she writes relationships, both a stunted one in her first book, and an easy in terms of personality, hard because of circumstances one in this latest. i appreciate the rock paper scissors strategy tip and the reality of NDAs. it never occurred to me that i would want to know the POV of someone in a celebrity relationship, but i’m glad for this. “Families are a trip,” says Lee, “you think you know them so well that you stay wrong about each other.” (145) ain’t that the truth.

4) it’s always sunny-season 12 we are catching up to the present, and it’s official-the gang will live forever. they can do no wrong. no plot too far-fetched, no production budget too big-this is the first season that i’ve clocked zero throwaway episodes. i’m absolutely here for these unapologetically white people. i’m glad they stay in their lane and don’t try to “help”.

5) dear girls-ali wong i don’t think ali wong trims her pubic hair. or maybe she’s one of those people who talks about the thing that she doesn’t do so much that she actually does-the opposite of drake and sex. it’s interesting that her ex-boyfriend, chris garcia, is also showing up on my radar with his new project about tracing his father’s roots, though i definitely have heard his standup making fun of his dad. i feel a bit of a lack as an immigrant person who does standup without an impression of my parents, but maybe this is another american trope to question. i love finding out more about her, especially about her time in viet nam and how she was also harangued as a viet kieu for being fat. unlike me, she drank the still-beating cobra heart liquor (with gusto), and then broke into her paramour’s room and read his diary. it gives some context to why her first special was called cobra baby. i love that her baby daddy also chimed in on the afterword in this letter to their girls. i got a bit verklempt because i never knew a father who ever acknowledged that being my dad was his most important job, but then again-i was never anyone’s princess either. i waited all my life to be able to say what i wanted to my dad-and now he won’t even fight with me, but that’s what taught me that i’m worth fighting for.

6) i hope we choose love-kai cheng thom just, wow. once again, a beauty-full offering of writing, and essays-swoon, a medium after my own heart. i’m so here for this straight talk on queer silence around abuse/rs, call out culture and how it’s not the answer, and how hard it is to choose love. it’s interesting that kai chooses to self-identify as transsexual, because i feel like the debate has been going on for soooo long now. i guess folks just stop at “trans”.

“It is not radical to “support” trans women dying when we are already being murdered regularly. It is not revolutionary to simply accept that society is so terrible that trans girls might as well kill themselves.” (45)

“The problem of intimate and sexual violence is not individual; it is cultural. That is to say, we are responsible for it. All of us. You are.
Me too.” (65)

aaaaaah. i got a chill here-that is what is missing from this movement that was co-opted by white women in the first place. a deeper discussion into broken systems and the ways in which we all benefit from and are complicit in upholding.

“I now recognize this as a skill born of trauma: the ability to ceaselessly and accurately scan the people in one’s environment for a sense of what will please them, and then to enact it, no matter the cost to one’s long-term health.” (85)

and, this one hit very close to home, and gave me the words to express what i was feeling in my heart about a relationship that i knew wasn’t quite right, and the freedom from the proximity of it with the person moving across countries and time zones that gave me the distance that i needed to not participate in it anymore. i’m sad, but i don’t regret choosing myself.

it always comes down to the poetry. poets are special people. poets are seers. and these poems are no exception. read this one, if for nothing else, then for the poems. but really-read it for everything, especially the poems.

7) late night-dir. nisha ganatra “be careful showing who you are, because you can never turn back from that” “you might as well call it catharthsiscism” i shouldn’t be surprised that this was directed by the same person who made chutney popcorn. i was supposed to see this in the summer, when there was all that hoopla here, but i missed it. i think it’s once again a case of good timing, because i think i needed some of what i’m getting out of seeing it now. it’s kind of hollywood in the end because a diversified writer’s room that ultimately helps uphold a white woman’s job seems like the best we can shoot for, even in the movies. it was interesting timing, to set this in the past (and that made me think of a certain web host for a now retired late-night host (who recently showed eight more of the chins on his real face with gabriel union) and its release date coincided so closely with lilly singh‘s late night debut that i thought there would be more made of it. btw-she’s bisexual?! (i guess i missed that in all the other focus on how she presents her identity).

8) queen & slim-dir. melina matsoukas i don’t know what i was thinking-there’s no way i could’ve seen this movie with the person i was envisioning seeing it with-sheesh! so much pressure, in all of the ways. i avoided the read for two weeks because i was avoiding spoilers, but i’m glad i actually listened to the motivations before seeing this. btw-i’ve never been the person who cares about spoilers. i was surprised that it was james frey who brought this idea to lena, and that she took “yea, you can’t write that” all the way, whilst “thanksgiving” was happening (“nipples and toes…amperstand?”)-i mean she always was, but now she forever will be writer goals. i love that her goals of “last say, a fat budget, shoot and release this year, and break a new actress-a brown-skinned one” was executed to the absolute fullest and i gotta give kudos to melina obviously as well-damn. and jodie. and daniel (who had to audition and convince melina that he was going to be slim). the new lauryn track, the re/mixed dilla and pharcyde one-ugh. this is everything-the big love story, the body politic, “i knew i wanted to make her malcolm x and him martin luther king and that they would end up switching places,…but it’s not a film about cops and not all cops are the same”. this is the kind of bittersweet legacy that you wish nobody has to have, and it’s so moving to honour the families of those whose names were never said while they were alive. just, wow.

9) opposite house-helen oyeyemi it’s been a minute since i decided to read through this woman’s catalogue. i feel in-between about this one-not as immediately blown away as her earlier catalogue, and not as “meh” as the latest one-there are definitely gems in here, like this:

“I was seven years old when we came here. I’ve come to think that there’s an age beyond which it is impossible to lift a child from the pervading marinade of an original country, pat them down with a paper napkin and then deep-fry them in another country, another language like hot oil scalding the first language away.” (12)

“This place is more of a home for books than it is for people…” (162)

9) grand union-zadie smith zadie smith is a beast. that being said, i feel like short stories are the hardest. i was really into the first few stories, notably “sentimental education” but admit that i zoned out (more an indictment of my attention span than the author’s talent, obvi). i love her essays, fiction, and even her film reviews, but short stories are hard. here are a few disjointed highlights, though:

“For a man without legs, he talks a lot about dancing.” (Words and Music, 39)

“…the less claim a person has to a thing, the harder they chase it…” (ibid, 40)

“The only people left in England were the ones who couldn’t leave.” (Meet the President, 160)

“I was wrong at twenty, he murmured, and I’m still wrong now. Being wrong is a lifelong occupation.” (For the King, 219)

10) tiffany haddish-black mitzvah/they ready i have to admit, i like the curated series more than the individual special, but you gotta give it up for a woman who actually makes good on the promise to come back and get folx. i love that her crew is diverse because they’re her crew, and not just because it was a benetton ad for the sake of putting one together. everyone held their own, and kept their sets tight.

11) the unbreakable kimmy schmidt-season three and four during a very long stretch of holiday work, this show was everything i needed to decompress and laugh. everyone needs titus in their lives. everyone. i gotta dog and netflix now, and am finishing shows left and right-look at me! i’m so glad that amy sedaris stays weird and working, and i feel like i’ve been making up ridiculous songs because of this access to television.

12) orange is the new black-the last season you’d think after kickball, i’d be over this. but i had to check in and just finish it. it’s not that awful so far, going really the realest i’ve seen it in terms of going into the women’s minds, and they opened the show with actual vietnamese people speaking in the first episode. no matter what, it’s a cornerstone of television history, at least in the last decade, and i gotta give it that. i wonder what the new black will be after this, and it’s interesting that the only “inmates” who are in orange now are the ones detained by ICE, which is also telling. it’s also a thing that they have a nigerian inmate explain/justify casual racism as well as deport nikki’s love interest, but not before she names herself as an egyptian with FGM. i feel like the guards are still too sympathetically portrayed, and piper/alex is too cliche. but all in all-it’s a good wrap to a groundbreaking (and problematic) show. (shoutout to the art cart in polly/larry‘s apartment-i see you, art cart!)

13) inside the dream house-carmen maria machado what does it mean to call something a memoir, and also write it in second person? the last time i considered second person, i couldn’t recall any books written in the form except choose your own adventure books, and that series was paid homage to here (not just for rap albums anymore-jean grae and classified-what up). is it distance from one’s own story, or is it an intimacy so forced that it cannot be denied? either way, this tale of love and abuse points brave fingers at the queer community, and recalls situations and humans that i’ve known in the past but not known what to do with/about. it reads easily, because machado is obviously a strong writer, but leaves a sting because of its truths. i wouldn’t exactly recommend it to anyone, but i understand why it has won awards and accolades.

14) a black lady sketch show-woooow. i was searching the crave for fresh off the boat and could not find it, but found the hbos instead. when i tell you that the timing for this couldn’t have been better-i had just come home with an entire cake to decompress a stress-full post xmas work week to kick off a few days off and binged the entire season. i had seen sketches when it came out on instagram, but the whole collection at once was everything. i’ve been in love with robin thede since “shit black guys say” (an early version of chris, if i do dare to mythologize) and this showing of skits and ensemble cast is everything. it was so hilarious and necessary, and the puppet intro (which i cannot find to save my life) where she smashes up that lemonade stand is so perfect. i also love love love love “eyore in dior” and kind of feel like that’s my whole vibe, except more sunniness, less designer, but hey. this show was worth the hype, and also stands up. i’m here for it.

15) insecure-season two and three-so, i’m catching up visually, as i’m late to the game. i heard about the episodes in real time, with fran and chrissle‘s podcast, but in a lot of ways, i’m glad that i’m seeing this after queen & slim so i can truly appreciate melina‘s work. it’s visually so irresistible and i wanted it to keep going, just to see what people are wearing (much like dear white people) even though their relationships are messy as fuck, and everyone’s kind of wrong. but i’m kind of here for daniel-even though we’re supposed* to cheer for not-prison bae? i watched the first couple episodes with FZV, and who knows, maybe we would’ve been better watching this than we would’ve been at unpacking our own shit-but i like that conversation between lawrence and his dad where he says he wants a woman without baggage, and his dad says that he and his mom both showed up with their own suitcases, and then did the work. i guess that’s what a relationship is all about, because who can be in the world without their own bullshit?

bye, 2019-it’s been a slice.

october’s very bold 2019

November 1, 2019metrotextual completist, like_minded folks, passages, writer crush Tags: #booklook, october reading list Leave a comment

duolingo stats: 395 day streak, 13031 lingots (i bought the owl the tracksuit), 623,801 xp to date, still learning latin

the first day of the month was gorgeous in the morning, and a humid monsoon in the night, so-full scorpio mode for nature, let’s go.

the second day brought uninspiring weather, and i almost did not leave at all, but i made it just in time for the last round of music bingo, it was disco, and i won the grand prize for the first time ever!

i missed nuit blanche (scarborough) once again because i was celebrating my dearest zahrabai‘s birthday (first time ever we could do both our bdays in the same city) and there was hallumi involved, so-i’ll get you next year, white night!

i worked food retail through thanksgiving again, and it was great! very well-organized and staffed so we didn’t feel stressed, just tired-long days with lovely rewards. and it was a bit late in the season for our third annual apple pick, and lambcoma. yummmm.

and, we are back on set! bigger, baaader, and baaaack together again!
i am inspired for long days and a long commute, but i don’t want to do my dishes!

on a related note, i can access my library account online again, my instagram is busted, and i am still holding out on my duolingo for desktop. (sigh). the innernets, amirite?!

i have been to a corn maze in a small town in ontario! i have also visited the peanut family empire, tasted celery bread, and have knowledge of the growing of local tabaco, ginseng, peanuts, and daikon. i am ever great-full for the impromptu road trip with one of my favourite couples.

plot twist-we hit a wall in the lease of our barrowcar, and a lot hangs in the balance of the next 24 hours. decisions must be made…and…see you next april!

1) us-dir. jordan peele i guess we kept on the twin-theme as this month rolled over. i was scared to watch this, but i should’ve known better. jordan is a visionary, and is not doing horror for horror’s sake. i liked the dvd bonus on how they actually pulled this off. i had to take a break and see the terrible brad pitt space movie (with great special effects) in between because i was still afraid to watch it in the dark. (it’s super petty of the library to charge me an overdue for this-it was returned by this morning/eodue date).

2) orange is the new black-season six the season opener took things to a fantastical space, and the subsequent episodes smacked us back to reality. new guards, same shit of blurring their lines between terrible and troubled and a product of their surroundings, blah blah, but i guess that’s been the direction that the show has been going in. unlike spoiled piper who is once again too focused on alex, i wanna know where maritza is. baddington (and her accent, as well as the “nigerian”‘s?) is interesting. they gotta stop putting behind the scenes materials on discs that happen before the plot points, because-spoilers. it’s also interesting that the writing room just went ham on fantasy inmate and other related white supremacist narratives, because it’s all fine and good to say that they are “starting the conversation” about racism and a broken system, but it’s also safe to say they totally dodged the reality of a very homogenous writing room. but, i suppose the easiest way to avoid addressing that is to just end the show, which they have. and shit-it’s probably a good thing, because this is depressing as shit-having the black woman falsely accused of murder, the latina that qualified for early release unexpectedly be passed onto ICE, and the white woman once again jumping the queue to go free-but at least she organized kickball before she left. WOW. aaaaaaah. and those two sister-murdering bitches killed each other over a story they both stole from a black woman?! after years of organizing prison fights between countless women who had no dog in their race?! i feel like i am at the same point i was at with breaking bad-i hate all these people and watching them makes me depressed.

3) blindspotting-dir. carlos lopez estrada this one was just as good the second time around. it was the perfect accompaniment to my belated birthday present of a “canine alphabet” puzzle. now that i know the spoken word history of these two talented mens, it’s even better.

4) the origins of others-toni morisson it’s unbelievable to me that folks still don’t know that we have a black bookstore in this city. but itah‘s been at the heart of a lot of cultural events, from the freedom ride, to quickly organizing a re/membering of toni morrison not even three weeks later. i haven’t caught up completely to her catalogue, though i did have an argument about where her work fits within the white-privileged metric of academia, and was surprised to find that this was also a slim volume, but it makes sense as it is essentially a transcript of her norton lectures. “Unlike starving China, Africa was both ours and theirs, intimately connected to us and profoundly foreign. A huge needy homeland to which we were said to belong but which none of us had seen or cared to see, inhabited by people with whom we maintained a delicate relationship of mutual ignorance and disdain, and with whom we shared a mythology of passive, traumatized Otherness cultivated by textbooks, film, cartoons, and the hostile name-calling children learn to love.” (101, The Foreigner’s Home) thank you, ms morrison, for naming this work that we all need to do, and for leaving such a prolific blueprint.

5) i’m afraid of men-vivek shraya “What might be cruising can also be contempt.” (24) this book is smaller than i thought it would be-i guess it just photographs bigger? it is much smaller than it could be, and that’s a thing. a few months ago, vivek‘s face was plastered across bus shelters and buses, and that’s amazing. she is beauty-full.

6) person to person-dir. dustin guy defa the options for ny ensemble film are quite limited now-either you stifle your disdain for directors who marry their children, or you suffer through something like this. the first shot was of a building that looks exactly one that i stayed at in queens in 2006. the second scene was one that made me question for a second why michelle williams was acting so annoying, but then i realized that it wasn’t her. as much as i like abbi jacobson and michael cera (and as fine as bryan tyree henry and his “over it” face is), this was largely hot garbage. but it was the perfect movie to not get too invested in, as i wound down after work with a pomelo and a ham sandwich.

7) finders keepers-directed by bryan carberry and clay tweel once again, i love the documentary section of a new library. this real-life story of these white mens fighting each other over the ownership of an amputated foot-“with the cholesterol dripping out of it” is perhaps the inspiration for the tv shows that they make about addiction, institutions, and mental health. what a bizarro world of family obligations, capitalism, and a take on one’s “fifteen minutes of fame”. and judge mathis is the hero! “i would like to thank shannon for being the douche that he is, because he was the catalyst” “sometimes, you gotta hang on to certain merchandise, and other times, you gotta liquidate”. i’m dead. actually dead. THIS DOOD RAN FOR PRESIDENT IN 2016?!

8) approved for adoption-dir. jung et laurent boileau well that was a different take on korean foreign adoption. i got it at fort york with twinsters, but with the animation, the difference in gender, age, and experience of internalized racism and familial abuse-we go further an deeper. it’s also much more lonely, as it’s a meditation on being an outsider in a completely different way. this one is a real exercise in form, and i believe it to be an oversight to remove “skin colour: honey” from the translation. it is to be noted that i’ve started reading pachinko (again) and i’m seeing this right now.

9) nurse jackie-season seven i’m not sure how i feel about this series finale, but i echo akalitis’ sentiment to jackie after the hearing: “so thank you, and fuck you.” i do appreciate how edie asked not to get scripts ahead of time-that’s an interesting acting note. unlike oitnb, this one felt like closure, and relief that it’s over.

10) pachinko-min jin lee this book is beauty-fully written, and i’m glad i’m back to it-i didn’t get to it before it was due last fall, and had to send it back. i do wish i got a paperback version, but, such is life. i had dreams about serving pate de campagne and making sure that korean immigrants were not persecuted in japan, so there was an imprint. i feel like the years and issues (internalized racism, war and migration, the inheritance of trauma, religion, and feminism) span all of the horrors that can occur, and some of the healing. it’s still quite heavy, literally and literally. i can see why this won so many awards.

11) the people’s future of the united states-eds. victor lavalle and john joseph adams “speculative fiction is too wishy-washy” i said to lindsay yesterday in a lamb coma. and that, in a nutshell, is my struggle. i don’t think that “imagining” trump is particularly future-looking, it’s just describing the present, but i do like the idea that we are the books/stories, and the battle for the end of the world would go down in a bookstore. there were some good stories, but this one took me two months to get through, and does not inspire me to go further into the genre. (but i did immediately put girl woman other on hold, bigups for splitting the booker with madge this year)

12) sharp objects-season one jean-marc vallee and his sentimental direction always gets me. i also love how he incorporates music, this time in the form of a different song in every opening credit and as a form of escape from the evil that lurks in one’s home/head. gillian flynn-i’m not sure of. and i suppose i should qualify that as film/tv adaptations of gillian flynn books, i’m not sure about. on the apple orchard, i floated the idea that perhaps her feminism is to show that women can be serial killers too-i just don’t know how useful that is. but i do know that i never trusted that little one, and that patricia clarkson is one of my favourite actors, ever.

13) the gospel according to andre-directed and produced by kate novack i watched this twenty minutes at a time, over the thanksgiving rush, and if given the option, everyone should watch a young karl lagerfield through a tantrum with silk scarves. also, i’m kind of mad that i may have been in white plains at the same time as andre leon-talley, but then again, i may not have. i appreciate the exhilaration and the loneliness of blazing a trail and taking up space.

14) the sixth man-andre iguodala with carvell wallace that other AI…(who played with the first one) without whom (along with shaun livingston) the golden state warriors would have zero championships. you can say that he won “steph’s” mvp but sixth man of the year is no small deal-just ask lou will. i listened to his spot on the only a game podcast to see if there was any insight into this-it just reiterated the same things in this book, but it was nice to hear his voice saying “my name is andre iguodala and i am a human being”. the book doesn’t have a conclusion, and i’m wondering if he knew he might be retiring when it came out/now. i really want to know how he feels about his current limbo/his current feelings about steve kerr. he describes being traded from the sixers in the exact way that demar was traded, as well as losing coach jackson (who he confirmed as having built that team as well as being an amazing coach) in the same way. i love that he also loved scottie more than michael, and the advice that he got from iverson. he also brings up the crucial point that when a team wants to change direction (and players), it’s just business, but when a player wants to do the same, it’s somehow an insult. that is important because it confirms how entrenched in the patriarchy and systemic exploitation that is the structure of the league.

15) the kiss quotient-helen hoang i am completely here because i read the bride test last month. gotta love a half-vietnamese person who is either autistic or dating an autistic person who only occupies one of their races. i liked the plot twists in this one, it was actually less predictable than the newer release (that i read first). a great, easy read nonetheless.

“Besides, large groups of horny women were terrifying. You couldn’t defend yourself against them, and their nails were sharp.” (11)

“Love, he found, was a jail. It trapped, and it clipped wings.” (249)

16) french exit-patrick dewitt i forgot how much i love this guy’s writing. to be fair-this is my very favourite of his showings. insider info from a former anansi employee is that he’s kind of hard to deal with, he has a way with a sentence, and i enjoyed his author talk at the reference library during the junket for undermajordomo minor.

“Frances had come to think of gift-giving as a polite form of witchcraft.” (10)

“He was a pile of American garbage and she feared she would love him forever.” (20)

swooooooooooon. i also love the idea of a person being so rich that suicide is a privilege being reincarnated as a cat that cannot die through all the lives.

17) 26 knots-bindu suresh so this is a bonus, as gerard put it on hold and never read it, and i committed to it because i trust that he put this (cbc featured) book on hold for a reason (that he no longer remembered), and its slim volume, along with its mention of lionel-groulx (i can see the tiles now!) and oyster shucking within the first pages hooked me, and here i am-writing about it before i return it a few hours into its due date, on my way to a corn maze. reading the author’s motivation, she claims that she would count success as a reader walking away thinking about their own relationships and decision-making process in any way, so i suppose this book is a success. it takes ghosting to the absolute next level. everyone always has at least a brief moment when someone disappears that something could have happened to them, but it all comes down to your abandonment issues vs theirs, and there’s this weird power play attached to who “leaves” first, and i guess i’ve never seen death as an abandonment, because life has always been so much more present. the introduction of the next generation, and the inheritance of abandonment in the form of reality is also a thing. yesterday as i was leaving, the trope of clones was being discussed on the radio-the concept of do-overs and giving up your present life for a second chance at the sacrifice of it, but it’s also a way of starting over. even when you are so obsessed with someone (who is so obsessed with someone else) that you miss the fact that you are hurting everyone who loves you.

18) an american marriage-tayari jones this one has been orbiting for some time, but i only put it on hold when i found out that tali would be moderating a talk with her for IFOA at the end of the month. silly me. right away, i knew that i would love it, and i’m kind of glad i avoided press for it, because what a treat it was to fall into its pages. the story, the plot twist, the format of letters, the history that is unveiled-whoo! and a quick google search to see what other books of hers i must put on hold has yielded that i am already familiar with the work of her brother, bomani, on the other formats of twitter and podcast, on the topic of sports. i’m kind of loving that my life right now is about shooting the show and catching up on my library materials. and letters of my own.

“There are too many loose ends in the world in need of knots. You can’t attend to all of them, but you have to try.” (187)

“It’s like the difference between a raw egg and a scrambled egg. It’s the same thing, but it’s not the same at all.” (41)

“If you have a woman, you recognize when you have said the wrong thing. Somehow she rearranges the ions in the air and you can’t breathe as well.” (16)

19) office christmas party-dir. will speck and josh gordon i’m not gonna lie-this one was a complete impulse pick one day when returning my library materials-way to use my home branch, though the system continues to disappoint this year, with the refusal to back down on the grounds of hate speech-but supports my theory that the folks who profit most are the ones who don’t really care about the library-i mean-it’s a pretty clear stance to not support local authors’ and performers’ boycott, not to mention a petition that got 8000+ signatures faster than the settlers could hand out syphillis-infected, alcohol soaked blankets to the indigenous. shame, tpl, shame. i guess jennifer aniston and jason bateman have a real office comedy niche going on for them, and i will see anything that kate mckinnon is in. this is the first thing i recall seeing tj miller in since crashing, and he’s got a russell brand thing going on. this was silly, predictable, and perfect for zoning out between shooting days.

20) 13 reasons why-season 2 i am still figuring out my feelings about season 1 of this show, and it’s interesting to find out that they have since removed the suicide scene, though i feel like they pushed it even further this season with that surprise rape scene and all of the somewhat irresponsible flirting with gunplay and the reasons and methods that kids have access to in expressing their feelings with guns and bombs. it’s still a completely casual attitude towards sexual violence and underage drinking that is wildly problematic, and i’m not sure that the disclaimers are doing any good. i am also not sure that slut shaming is adequately addressed in a way that does not glamourize it, and unlike other shows that just claim to be “telling the truth” instead of presenting even a different outcome in a fantasy world-i’m a bit intrigued that bryce gets his “just desserts” in season 3, though my money’s on his mom. i do know that black tar heroin is a realistic addition, thanks to dreamland. as an aside-it’s horrible that the screen adaptation of that book focuses on fentanyl between the us and canada and not the other relationship between the us and mexico that is way more nuanced and implicating.

21) haiti noir-ed. edwidge danticat the second of the akashic noir series that i’ve read now has reminded me that mystery isn’t my favourite genre, so i should prolly take a break, though i am intrigued by the travel aspect of things. i was legit shocked by some of the plot twists and the win of the “dark element”-i can see why this works as escapist for people. i was surprised to see that mark kurlansky was a part of this, and that he’s been reporting in the caribbean, but then again-i’ve read his books about salt and ports (oysters), so i’m not that surprised, just delighted to “know” someone else in this ensemble cast. i appreciated the kreyol, and the fact that i can kind of understand it, and giggled to remember the misguided secret intentions of that man to start literacy projects with me in haiti (that he never told me about) whilst also refusing to teach me kreyol. my only pull-quote comes from the editor’s piece:

“San manman, motherless, was the way you described someone who was lost, brutal and cruel. Fantom, ghost, was another. People without mothers, it was believed, were capable of anything.” (125, Claire of the Sea Light).

et, alors.

22) while we were young-dir. noah baumbach for some reason, i have a strong memory of this director being that of the squid and the whale. i barely remember the movie, though. funny how the mind works. i guess hip hop is not the only way in which halflife generations are observed, it was just the one that became first visible to me. that being said-watching these people do “hip hop class” at home and in the studio to “hit ’em up” is one of the most uncomfortable things i have ever seen. part catfish, part mid-life crisis, this movie is watchable enough, but kind of depressingly inspiring in the way that girls and reality bites are.

prompt: “add a rainstorm” (with mild edits)

September 26, 2019metrotextual impulse, montrill, passages, process, true story, unfinished, writer crush, writer's boot camp Tags: journal mine, one time, pretty good writing on the fly Leave a comment

in my constant inventory, i’ve devoted myself to filling all of the notebooks that i’ve started over the years. i found this gem from one of my writer’s bootcamp classes:

Montreal Jazz Fest, 2007.

She had moved into a summer sublet with cantaloupe-coloured walls and knew that her relationship was coming to an end. It was too humid for long-distance. She had just gotten back from visiting him in New York, and he was already slated to visit her for their first jazz festival. That would bring their total time spent together in recent history up to a month. Straight. In two years. What a development. She was learning that she didn’t like this amount of time together, she liked having her own life, and that he didn’t have much of his own. He wasn’t interesting, so she wasn’t interested. Not long-term. The 36 hours of real time and three months of anticipation was previously working in his favour but he was now slated to invade this tiny space. She checked the time and pre-suffocated. Later that night, the musician from Somalia would keep playing despite the monsoon and everyone stayed, filling the streets to soak up the rain like experience-starved sponges. She felt him pulling at her, but she wanted to dance and drown. Her eyes were burning, and she wasn’t sure if that was due to her eye makeup or if it was acid rain because, well, when it acid rains, it pours. She agreed to duck into a doorway with him, not at all panicked when it appeared that her phone was water-logged because if it was damaged then he wouldn’t be able to call her-four days, six hours, and seventeen minutes from now when he went home. Back in the sweltering melon, she sat on the floor, clothes fully stuck to her, and stared at her reflection in the mirror. Her hair was very heavy so she plugged in the clippers and started to relieve herself of the weight. “Don’t you want to wait-for a professional?” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a rabbit, drawn in pen by the lease holder and replied, “Nope.”

july talk 2019

August 1, 2019metrotextual cinephile, completist, i heart toronto, ontario librarian's association, passages, process, toronto public library, true story, wacktose intolerant, writer crush Tags: #booklook, summer reading Leave a comment

duolingo stat line: 306 day streak, 12,247 lingots 602,221 points
language studied: arabic (brand new!)

i suppose july 1st has always been a big day for me, and if it has anything to do with canada day, it’s more in line with quebec‘s understanding of it being “moving day”. i left montreal on july 1st, 2009, and last year it was my shift-aversary to a renewal of my commitment to live my best life. i wanted to go to the beach and go to the mandarin, and while i did neither of those things-well, i went to the mandarin, but arrived too late to participate in the buffet, (so my bday it is!) i did find myself in the endogphins of staying warm in the ac under avery while his gentle snout moved my fallen ripple chips around. and i got my version of a subscription box of frankie‘s medicine cabinet rejects (“i’ve never heard anyone get that excited over neo-citron“) and took a nap before heading uptown. i had a conciliatory cinnabon and actually had a lovely time at a well-organized and delicious bbq with more dogs (swoon).

i couldn’t wait until my birthday to go to the mandarin, and i loved it in the moment, and had a giant tummyache after. go ahead, tell me you told me so. (sigh).

WTF IS THIS FREE AGENCY?! i maintain my calm and stance around kawhi, but everyone else is off the rails! thank you, homie, for at least keeping us in the top ten news items FOR WINNING AN IMPOSSIBLE CHIP for the duration of you revealing your next move. aaaand, mans is in LA. give our best to lou will-thank you (and you’re welcome) to everyone. listen to these pods be so disrespect-full as to imply that the mufuckin’ KNICKS (a team of which i haven’t been able to name three players on for the last four years, at least) are better than us now that kawhi is gone, LOL.

i am sad to report that the meat lover’s pizza at pizzaville is not what it was/what i remember it to be a few years ago. (sigh). but at least it was cheap and i can move on now.

i have renewed my commitment to my tpl reading challenge, currently at 10/25 completed, but i have filled in my selections for the rest, and have signed on for the ola evergreen reading list and the toronto book award long list. it’s a cute addendum to include kids and teen books on the tpl reading challenge, and i like that the chicago public library is doing an adult summer reading club. libraries are amazing and all of our lives are enriched by them. i also love that the philly free library podcast of john waters‘ latest junket (that i listened to after the audiobook, but was the reason i knew that he had a new book out) has him saying “the library was where i saw my first glory hole!”

i have been so heavily recruited as of late-and it finally happened-i was offered a corgi (really one every year) as a signing bonus. on the real-i am on the verge of shaping one of the biggest offers of my life-and glad to reap the rewards of trusting myself. i have so much gratitude in my heart for the people doing good things, who also see me.

also west coast-you’ve taken enough of my loved ones this month, ease up, ya heard?

1) creed II-dir. steven caple jr. i never saw the first one, but somehow i didn’t think it mattered. it didn’t. i am definitely pre-menstrual because i bawled throughout this movie, even though i felt a bit tricked by the fact that i was watching a complicated american hero movie vs. russia because the hero is black. also-damn, michael b. jordan has done a lot of physical work-this is the one he did immediately after black panther. i’m not sure why people hate tessa thompson but i’m here for her. i even tried to mimic one of her manicures in this film, albeit with a much closer colour combination lest it went sideways. finally-how does sly stallone get away with the amount of work he’s had done on his face? and those eyebrows?! whyyyyyyy?????

2) it’s always sunny in philadelphia-season four what a perfect follow-up to a day that i spent quiet after my first volunteer shift at feed it forward, the pwyc grocery store. there is a lot of meditative energy in culling a bunch of produce and building beauty-full displays. the challenge was that i was going in tired and the ac was down, so it sapped out all of my energy. so napping/being on my couch watching this show was the way to go. at least they gave me a musical this time to go along with their usual “ironic” racism (representation matters) and explosions and took it to the final frontier of cannibalism. it felt like there were less episodes, and i suppose that’s a good thing.

3) the sisters brothers-dir.jacques audiard i was surprised to find this in the stacks at runnymede. the book reads like a total movie, so i’m surprised that i didn’t know that it was made, let alone with joaquin pheonix and john c. reilly as the brothers. oh, because it’s a french production. fitting, as i’m set to read patrick dewitt’s french exit as per the annual ontario librarians’ association evergreen list, which i was reminded of at sanderson the other day, where there was a sign and seemingly none of the books, but i got one, and put the others on my holds list. i really like the score of this film, it’s interesting-kind of modern and experimental, unexpected on many fronts. the toothbrushing scene is just as magnificent on film as it is in word. ok, i’m not really into this. i’m not really watching it-it might be too “period piecy” for me, and while i applaud the efforts, i’m thinking more about cleaning the bathroom. yikes.

4) last interview-david foster wallace i’ll admit, i put a lot of these on hold at the same time, and think i mixed him up with david rakoff (i know, i know). i was a bit disappointed when i’d discovered my blunder, and admit that i couldn’t even get through three pages of infinite jest, and probably hold dave eggers’ work to unfair confirmation bias for what teeny sliver i was able to stomach (and of course he does one of the interviews). because it’s mentioned in the intro and body of the collection, i have to question david streitfeld‘s claim that “no one in the issue went on to greater fame except Wallace” of his profile for details magazine (yes, it’s dead but…) that also included stories on adam sandler, john woo, and coolio. what the fuck am i missing here?! all of those people are waaaay more famous than dood. i really like his statement of tv having the inverse function of books.

“The language is always smarter than we are.” (16)

“Most of the modern writing I like the best is both sophisticated and colloquial-that is, high-level and complicated but at the same time intimate, sort of like a smart person is sitting right there talking to you-and I think I do little more than try to achieve this same high-low blend.” (121)

5) fifty shades of black-dir. michael tiddes i knew something good would come out of seeing fifty shades of gray, and now-here it is. this was an impulse grab from bloor/gladstone because i was killing the hour before music bingo (my streak of bringing folks that win while i get sooo close continues). marlon wayans got fine. or least his body did. this was a perfectly executed parody.

6) friday foster-produced and directed by arthur marks “friday foster, pam grier structure, look at your body…” is exactly what i thought of when i saw this on the shelf at runnymede. i love black thought, and always will, not only for his ridiculous breath control, but for the fact that i’ve learned things from his raps, like thomas’ toasts and now this. this movie looks like it was shot in 1975, in a good way. apparently, this was a comic strip first? i don’t know that i am convinced to look at that, but i love a young, fine pam grier (as opposed to today’s fine pam grier) choosing to work as a photographer rather than be pimped out. ALSO, EARTHA KITT! there are a lot of people who can walk with knives or gunshot wounds in the back. there is also rampant sexism though she toes a delicate line. the soundtrack is pretty amazing. i also don’t know how down i am with the idea that her kid brother pulling a fast one on her, like the opposite of penny and the dog in inspector gadget-instead of helping, he’s making a profit on her expensive gifts. she got that luis vuitton tho. and she’s sexually free without being painted as a ho, which is inspiring to see.

7) the last interview-david bowie “The media is either our salvation or our death.” (50, 1974 Rolling Stone interview with William Borroughs and Craig Copetas)

“Certain countries don’t need rock & roll because they were so drawn together as a family unit.” (51, ibid.)

i had no idea that bowie‘s actual true artistic love was acting. this is kind of like iverson actually being better at football than he was at basketball-mind blowing! these insights (as well as the bizness about the holograms) is quite forward-thinking, i gasped aloud when i read the interview by iman for bust magazine, and love the banter between him and alexander mcqueen. i was also quite interested to learn that bowie was born four days after my father, what a year 1947 was-and it explains why my dad “knows davids bowie”, which was his comment on how he didn’t know george michaels.

“Wide shoulders are the flared trousers of the Eighties.” (107)

and, i am now seeing bowie as a fashion historian.

8) god’s pocket-dir. john slattery interesting. this film doesn’t show up on slattery‘s imdb page, and a full title google search yields that it is “an uneven debut”. i usually don’t do this before i start the film, but i was waiting for the torey lanez album (that i’m not sure i’ve heard) to play out. i picked this one up at st. lawrence when i went to the post office before work, and honestly was instantly sold by turturro and philip seymour hoffman-it was surely one of his last projects. on the day that i find out that an entire pig head costs a mere $10, i come home to watch a movie about stealing meat to pay gambling debts (in part).

9) the duff-dir. ari sandel i’m a sucker for a teen movie, mostly because of how bad they can be, but this one has ken jeong and romany malco and allison janney, so it was amazing. i guess we’re at the point where there are no more ideas, because this is also based on a book (go, YA), and while i’m not rushing to read it, i’m glad that writers are involved in the film adaptation process. another gem from st.lawrence.

10) lay the favourite-dir. stephen frears i watched this one on the evening before i found out that kawhi chose the clippers, who somehow also managed to get paul george. i’m not a betting person, but this was a nice look into the world of bookies. another star-studded cast, this one definitely one for the soft “feminism” of the day, but an absolutely entertaining after-work wind-down. also-alex voss as a platinum blonde stripper? here for it.

11) hateship loveship-dir. liza johnson this is somehow billed as kristen wiig‘s first dramatic role, but i’m sure there have been others before it. she really is great. my favourite is her pretending to be liza minelli pretending to be a lampshade. it’s a bit unsettling at this point to see harvey weinstein as partly responsible for this film, especially with the young female shining stars, along with wiig and jennifer jason leigh. loneliness is a mug. and it’s easy to make up a romance with someone, especially over letters, and so much more heartbreaking when they’re fake. this move in and forced wedding hits a bit close, and i wonder about women whose determination leads them to this end by any means, only to regret it in the near future after their “coup”.

12) the early works of cheryl dunye if i taught a film studies class, this would be the one. there is just so much in her catalogue, and i could design so many syllabi/talking points/direct lines to present her/story with her themes and accomplishments with experimental dunyementary. it’s been amazing to see her get better at completing a narrative arc (as i have binge-watched so many of her works recently). “i went through the process of learning the technology first, and then learning to speak” daaaaang. this is the perfect summation in her own words.

13) never can say goodbye-sari botton isn’t it the most ny shit ever to publish a love letter to the city immediately after a breakup letter?! i mean…again, i’m glad that i came to this through the things we don’t say about our mothers anthology. it is dedicated to maggie estep, who must have died between the printings of the set. this one doesn’t have as many “star” writers, i say as i’m about to read a piece by whoopi goldberg. followed by the one by alexander chee.

“Did you know that the Jefferson Library on Sixth Avenue used to be a women’s prison, and the word catcall came from the women who leaned out the window to call down to the street?” (10, New York, in the Mirror, Rosanne Cash)

this is the exactly the kind of badass fact that i needed to learn while i am sending a young dear into new york with my favourite spots, and exploring the streets of this fair city with the same energy as one would on vacation. on the day that i finished this at propeller, i nursed a delicious espresso tonic, saw a fleshlight “in person” left on a toronto sun box after writing about them in my sex column after a hot tip from the ny museum of sex, and met a shiba inu puppy. the world is a wondrous place. it’s also no accident that folks have mentioned dog day afternoon in this collection, and i know exactly what they’re talking about, having just watched that one too.

“I witnessed New Yorkers sobbing alfresco all the time-or at least I noticed it and then quickly averted my eyes, hoping others would do the same for me once it was my turn to fall apart.” (147, Quit Everything, Kathleen Hale)

i can also identify with the feeling of having an amazingly accurate meeting with a psychic, and then having a completely trash meeting with a psychic in the city.

“New Yorkers are fascinated by movies, because movies are fascinated by New York.” (154, City of Mundane Fantasy, Elliot, Kalan)

“Like so many of us who don’t know what to do with ourselves, I chased a relationship.” (162, SF -> NYC, Isaac Fitzgerald)

oooh-weeeee! this one hit a bit too close.

“The thing about missing eight winters, though, is that you forget that you also missed eight springs.” (165, ibid)

forest for the trees and all of that.

“I almost move to Los Angeles every year, but I never wrote love letters to it.” (179, ESB, Rachel Syme)

14) billy crystal 700 sundays-dir. des mcanuff netflix might be the place that makes comics, but hbo (and that signature sound effect) is for comics who are already made. it’s the place for a concept show-and this is a one-man show. the laughing and claps feels a bit canned, and i’m not sure how much of it i can handle. (17:03 is the answer to that question).

15) puzzle-dir.marc turtletaub so, the last feature film i watched ended with vacuuming in a frame and this one started with vacuuming in a frame. i can definitely relate to the joy of doing a puzzle, and the resistance to having a cellphone. what an amazing concept for a movie-ah, it’s based on a argentinian film. kids are fucking entitled jerks. i’m glad this ended the way that it did, but shoutout to everyone who has been a “filler” relationship-it sucks, but we usually know what we’re in for before we make that mistake. this was kind of a shit alternate ending, save that she’s by herself.

16) overboard-dir.bob greenberg just how common is amnesia? i love that it’s set up as a telenovela, as soap operas are where the most amnesia seems to happen. i may have stopped listening to anna faris‘ podcast, but that doesn’t mean that i don’t find her irresistible. i really think she is comically matched with eugenio derbez here. i’m also loving the concept of making sure the rich men get theirs. and giving single moms a break to study for nursing school without working. “sometimes, dad’s leave”. i’m a puddle. and the genderqueer middle daughter wearing a suit to the wedding and flying the seahawks‘ flag?! i’m done. i love this impulse pickup at bloor/gladstone. OH SHIT! THIS IS A REMAKE OF THAT ’80S MOVIE! WHAT A CLEVER TWIST!!

17) the last interview-gabriel garcia marquez the GGM book i ever read was his autobiography, so that’s a thing. i read it when i moved to toronto from montreal and took a detour through vancouver. the read came off tasha‘s shelf, during a surprisingly rest-full weekend in victoria, when we were still friends. i will forever be great-full for that, despite how things eventually fell apart there. i have gone on to read a few of the fictions, but am kind of holding out to when my spanish is good enough to read them as he wrote them.

“Before we leave, we learn that he studied law for four years and then was on the faculty for six months, but that he doesn’t remember anything from those studies because he spent all his class time writing stories…” (12)

“Every writer must write the book they’re able to write.” (19)

“Death isn’t a necessary condition of revolution; revolution doesn’t have to continue to be an inventory of disaster.” (28)

“When it comes down to it, the writer’s duty-his revolutionary duty, if you like-is to write well.” (59)

18) the dog-produced and directed by allison berg and frank keraudren wow. imagine watching the godfather to inspire your friends to rob a bank with you, only to have al pacino play you in the movie they made about your bank robbery. this was a new story to me, but i was intrigued by the summary on the cover. i’ve seen a number of “documentaries” about heists, and was kind of waiting for this to be revealed as fake news, but it was not. stranger than fiction, and definitely worth the watch.

19) how to lose your virginity-dir. therese shechter i had no idea that the creator of the barely legal porn series was a woman, re/writing her own non-consensual sexual initiation, but this was one of the things i learned from this doc. i also had no idea that purity balls in part fund emergency pregnancy clinics, and just how backwards things are in the states in terms of reproductive rights and health. this short doc crams in a lot of crucial information, and showcases a lot of different women doing the work. i also appreciated jessica valenti‘s face, which have never seen before, despite reading her books.

20) becoming bulletproof-dir. michael barnett i fell in love with documentaries, i’m sure i’ve mentioned, in victoria because i spent much of my undergrad at the cinecenta, the on-campus theatre that did such a good job curating documentaries for me. i’m so great-full to the public library for continuing to provide this service for me. this one is amazing in all of the ways, and i can’t help but fall in love with everyone involved in the zeno mountain farm project. and, of course, i am bawling. and i have a new entry for the bucket list that is my life-i gotta participate in this at least one year. i gotta meet AJ.

21) the last interview-oliver sacks so, awakenings was about tourette’s? and based on his book? i knew he was a neurologist, and had even remember one of his last books when he was on the junket for it through the philly free library podcast, but had no idea he had worked so extensively with the subjects of awakenings, robin williams, and temple grandin. all i can remember is the cover of the fisher king, so i immediately put awakenings on hold (just as i did dog day afternoon) so that i could check it out. it just kind of seems like we are learning the same lessons over and over again when it comes to our identifying differences, and that’s either hope-full (we do keep learning), or exhausting (we have to keep learning the same things), or just the truth that we don’t have that many moves as humans, so we might as well make them. of course he was a regular contributor on radiolab (and i forgot that because i overdosed all those years ago), and his last interview was with them at BAM, one of my favourite places of mixed-medium learning in the world. also, of course his work with the brain and music is referenced in the poetry of pop, and the first selection i read from the OLA evergreen list is about brain matter. no accidents, just soft focus.

“What was happening was that he was unconsciously copying the shape of the letters with his tongue. And that would show people who lose their reading are still able to write, which is a strange thing. So in a way, he was converting what his eyes saw and writing it with his tongue. And I would absolutely not have thought such a thing was possible.” (66)

me neither, but this is one of my biggest fears, so, phew.

22) women of resistance “i saw a latinx bookstore in california that reminded me of you-there was a huge mural of selena and it was full of books like this” is pretty much the highest compliment someone could pay to me when i pull out this one to match my company to my booklook before tita jokes, the star of this year’s toronto fringe festival. i am pretty sure it was recommended by another story or a different booklist, one of the city’s remaining bookstores. it’s a small, punchy volume, and i love that it, along with tita jokes, acknowledges that women are neither a monolith, nor the sum of our “parts”.

“My god understands how for generations bodies like mine
were the choice for someone like you to make.
Do you know how many years, women like me
lived equally afraid of both hangings and hangers?
Yet we’re still here, everyday carrying ourselves.” (44, An Open Letter to the Protesters Outside the Planned Parenthood Near My Job, Elizabeth Acevedo)

“O, to be permitted the luxury
of only worrying about one thing at a time.” (135, Shiv, Rachel McKibbens)

23) george-alex gino this book is my selection for the “banned book” category of tpl’s 2019 reading challenge. it’s kind of hard to believe that it was banned for having a trans protagonist, but then again-plus ca change….and all of that. the narration is interesting-third person first, it feels like, and that would very much be in line with the subject material.

“Dad made a better part-time father than a full-time one.” (26)

24) the saturday night ghost club-craig davidson well, this is actually the second of the OLA evergreen list, as i read camp forevermore in the fall. and i heard about the author because his book was shortlisted for canada reads the year that jully black took it to jeanne becker, so that’s a reminder to go back and read that. this was a fascinating read, really well-written and took me in from the beginning, with the passage of tense, which, now, i’m seeing, is exactly like memory, and mimics how the brain actually processes things, and the ghosts of memory past can be real or imagined ghosts. wow. i will be thinking about this one for some time to come, but yea, librarians-thank you for being amazing.

“It was just like my uncle to lead you halfway down a lonely road, stop, and ask if you wanted to be there at all. By then you had no choice, did you? He’d brought you there, and he was the only one who knew the way back.” (95)

“Hungry ghosts are born when a person dies wanting something, be it love or hope or sanity. That’s why they have slender necks and gigantic bellies. Pretas have enormous appetites but lack the ability to satisfy them.” (131)

“Memory becomes what we need it to be.” (237)

25) skyscraper-dir. rawson marshall thurber ok, so i’m still all about the rock being in everything, but this die hard tribute is taking it very close to the edge, especially because it seems like a bizarre commercial for duct tape. it is an interesting meditation on the u$’ insecurities about china once again, i mean this is literally about building the tallest building in the world, and having your wings burnt off like icarus. it’s a good thing that i’ve got season four of ballers to balance this all out.

26) arrested development-season four maybe i just needed some distance, or i’m remember this completely differently-i don’t know anymore. i was late to the series, and had watched the “old” episodes just as the new ones were coming on netflix, and remember not being into the first few episodes, but this scratched copy of it, all these years later, was perfect for a day of sweating and sleeping out my first (and maybe last) mandarin buffet. i do miss these characters, and in retrospect, all these amazing guest stars that were using this as their jumpoff.

27) the seas-samantha hunt this one is a re-issue, with more stunning cover art. it reads like the nourishment that is her other fiction. i never thought to call it magic realism, because that is usually a genre i affiliate with south asian authors who write in (beautiful) circles. i love the focus on words and water in this one-thoughts for food and food for thought, if you will.

“My mother is regularly torn between herself and being my mother.” (19)

“There are two rooms used as libraries, for which my mother and grandfather keep two separate and opposing systems of organization in their heads-hers by subject, his by the way he feels about the author: Animosity, Betrayed, Curious, Delighted, etc.” (37)

how facking petty do you have to be to do this…

“I told her voler oddly enough means both to fly and to steal in French.” (87)

“The word prison shares a root with the word surprise, from the French prendre, pris-to take.” (182)

“If one word can mean so many things at the same time then I don’t see why I can’t.” (216)

28) dog day afternoon-dir. sidney lumet i’m totally here because of “the dog”-i had to see what the prisoners of gen pop viewed along with john wojtowicz. i wonder if the “attica” chanting was added for their benefit. a lot of this wasn’t in the documentary, it’s hard to say what has been embellished, even with all of the years that have passed, and both versions. i have a good idea now what has been embellished. but hey, 1972 al pacino, i see you. i wonder what john waters thought about this story and what he would’ve done with it. the “making of” documentary bonus material is enlightening (as per usual). it’s kind of amazing that it’s a lot of these actors’ first film, though probably great that they had done stage acting together. it’s interesting that the writer celebrated his oscar on set of a star is born, and there’s an ad for that film on the marquee during one of the shots. it’s also interesting to know that it was nominated for all those oscars the same year as one flew over the cuckoo’s nest.

29) awakenings-dir. penny marshall even if i saw this movie before this point, i don’t think i would’ve been able to appreciate it or understand it in the way that i do now. i was especially moved by the friendship that oliver sacks had with robin williams, and how he was weirded out by just how close he got his mannerisms in this portrayal. i love how it is shot with a focus on mirrors and eyeglasses-metaphors for “reality” and dreams, living and existing, reflexes and momentum. robert deniro is truly a great actor, he really captured the ticks of someone that has tourette’s, and did so with compassion and care-full study. i don’t really like the hollywood ending of hinting that he asked the nurse out for coffee romantically, but maybe sacks wasn’t out at that point.

30) just like being there-dir. scout shannon “if you’re a misfit, or an artist, and you don’t want to make money, it’s the perfect place for you” “good thing i went to flatstock, because if not, i’d be in law school!” this is in the stack of documentary gems that i snagged from st.lawrence last month. “the history books will tell you what happened, the art will tell you how we felt about it”. i was hooked from the first statement that at its heart, poster art is copyright infringement. i must have touched a poster that has been screenprinted at some point, but i just don’t remember. i’m a lover of the niche, so this is the perfect doc for me. i can also see the extreme pleasure of carving the levels of the screenprint-i’ll put it on my list of things to do again-i did a brief workshop at the st. emilie skillshare back in the day, making a print of my own face. years later, a new roommate saw it when she went home to visit and confirmed that it was me.

31) holy rollers-dir. bryan storkel i’m ready to say that this hand-full of docs that i got from st. lawrence is the strongest that i’ve procured in awhile. the idea that these christian pastors et. al have come to be the biggest team of card counters started just to make some money on the side is very intriguing to me, and reveals big church to be the pyramid scheme that it is. the pastor that has branched out into selling mom jeans and “nutritional product” justifying that god is ok with him also playing blackjack is a trip. over the course of the doc, he couldn’t reconcile it with his god. i really just wish he would shave his goatee-it’s so public-like. i wonder if the christianity of the players makes it easier for them to buy in to the pot and make an hourly wage despite how much they win-i don’t know why some don’t just splinter off as independents. “i think the casino is wrong because they mislead people”…interesting projection. the disguises tho. they acknowledge that it looks weird that he was let go from the team as the only non-christian. “god has provided this all for me-it’s my calling.” “some people go to business school, i ran a blackjack team”. with a pretty, pretty great rate of return, if i do say so myself. it’s an awful lot of biting the hand that feeds you when they’re all saying how much they hate casinos. interesting, but flawed logic like the interpretation of christianity itself.

32) the farewell-dir.lulu wang WOW. the only thing i saw about this was a brief glance of the cover (so brief that i didn’t even notice i was looking at awkwafina, but she wasn’t wearing a wig or glasses or anything at all but her face) and that mish had texted me asking if i wanted to cry my eyes out with her, and friends-that kind of therapy is good to have. it was so brilliantly cast, acted, written, shot, and scored. and to find out that lady is half of a power couple with barry jenkins?! whooo! i didn’t actually get to respond to simu‘s invitational (and only now realizing that he was next to jeremy lin on the raptors’ caravan), but i’m so glad so many folks turned out, and that i must have passed danita on the way out. i definitely need to see this again (and again).

33) ballers-season four so, ricky‘s lying to the woman in his life again, guys are blowing too much money, and now, russell brand is in the mix? at least he is more entertaining than he was in his audiobook that i could only stand for three minutes. it was priceless to see him yell “allah akbar” just before the young surfer put up his black power fist on the podium in a tribute to john carlos, tommie smith, and the panthers. it is interesting to see spencer dating a black woman, hey joy bryant-nice to see you haven’t aged a minute, but their chemistry is not at all believable. maybe because she’s a nice lady and more hotep than ho-tip, but still. the t-shirts are still on point, the wit sharp, and “tinder for dogs? man people keep stealing my good ideas!” and the sunken place bbq is hilarious tho. but it took a dark turn very fast. why doesn’t this guy ever take off his sunglasses when people could really use seeing his eyes? (oh, because he was saving it for the second last episode) and why is everyone so unduly mad at him when they are all implicated in the same shit? i have to take my hat off to the show writers and runners to keep this football soap opera going so strong for four seasons, and i love how it’s such a present example of justice and doing the right thing. whooooo. except ricky-he’s always doing the wrong thing. maybe for the right reasons? but maybe not.

34) time is illmatic-dir. one9 & erik parker it’s been 15 years since illmatic, and i’m glad dood is still touring-i have seen him a few times over the year, and he’s coming with mjb in a few months. the album has staying power, and this doc really focuses on the history and making of-knight makes an appearance, as does destiny, but there is no mention of their mamas or how the relationships happened. the testimony of his brother and father is something, and the scenes where they are reminiscing about where the folks in the liner credits are is kind of heartbreaking, as his his brother saying, “i’m not calling anyone out, but why wouldn’t you move if your son got shot? i had to pass by this courtyard where i got shot every day, and that’s kind of traumatizing.” oh, man.

35) grace jones-bloodlight and bami-dir. sophie fiennes “my expectations way exceed theirs” “i need more rouge” wow. grace jones is a clinic for life. her hats, her face, her stage presence, the fact that she seems to be shucking oysters constantly-aaaahhhh. what an icon, what an inspiration, what a hero not afraid of taking up space. no matter where. i think i was supposed to see this in the theatre, but i’m glad that i saw it after overnight inventory, when i was just laying on the couch eating popcorn and dried mango, bleeding into the power of my moon. it really set off my wine/weed/tarot/manicures hang with alex in the park.

36) it’s always sunny in philadelphia-season 5 i feel like this was one of the most succinct seasons, and any feeling that i wasn’t here for the rest of it have at least now been assuaged. the jokes are snappy and the timing is perfect, and rhea perlman is flawless once again. they took on the sexism, and i think this is the lane for them, it doesn’t make me as uncomfortable as the race stuff, because well, representation matters. season 6 is already on hold.

37) the book of salt-monique truong this one was recommended by anita, when we attended kim thuy‘s talk at the reference library for her cookbook. the bare minimum of a search to find out if this is a true story yields no answers. it’s certainly an interesting perspective and a snapshot of a time of many conflicting interests-french, american, vietnamese, gay, creative, and culinary.

“It denies her. It forces her to be short if not precise. In French, GertrudeStein finds herself wholly dependent on simple sentences. She compensates with the tone of her voice and the warmth of her eyes.” (34)

“Anh Minh believed that if he could save three minutes here, five minutes there, then one day he could tally them all up and have enough time to start life all over again.” (43)

“…but he was broke, and having no money at sea, he had learned, is better than having no money on land.” (108)

“A cook who has no desire to eat is a lost soul. Worse, he is a questionable cook.” (138)

“Yes, I know that they could have concluded that just from hearing you speak, but my Mesdames are in this way like me. They never assume that words can tell them the whole story.” (186)

“Words, Sweet Sunday Man, do not have twins in every language. Sometimes they have only distant cousins, and sometimes they pretend that they are not even related.” (223)

somehow, the days leading up to this book’s due date had slipped past me, and it’s a good thing i decided to honour the desire to go home and read this to return it on time, rather than not use my time wisely at the volunteer job that was not good at honouring my time this morning. it meant that i was around to answer the call to interview at the libary-a call i’ve been waiting for for close to ten years now. eeeeeeee!

singin’ a new june

July 2, 2019metrotextual completist, i heart toronto, like_minded folks, passages, toronto public library, writer crush Tags: summer reading, writer crush Leave a comment

we are one of two teams that still has current basketball-it’s kind of surreal, but also, catching up on all these pods that had us eliminated by the bucks, i have to just smile a bit, because we’re on a momentum that comes with playing with house money, against all odds. no matter what, we’re making history every game. every single game. what a time to be a raptors fan. our crew experienced our first loss together, but we weren’t going to sweep the warriors, and they got that one AI who used to play with that other AI. we won another one on the road! and tina found the cutest photo of us as kids and took it gracefully as i used it as a montage about how her team sucks, lol. but then we won the next two and doods came up big! and then, we lost the championship by one point-whom whomp. also, there are no acceptable circumstances under which we cheer for the debilitating injury of a superstar player-even if he’s kd. i’m sayin’. WE THE CHAMPS! WE THE CHAMPS! lowry wearing damon‘s jersey and holding up the trophy was everything in the parade, as well as ibaka leading the charge like it was the titanic. i’m great-full that my babymama came thru with the kids and my cappuccino. also-i’ve developed a taste for cappuccino.

thank you and you’re welcome, basketball fans. i’ve been watching this video and kyle and kawhi sharing the finals mvp trophy (“that’s nice!”) non-stop. bigups to pascal for winning the most improved player-we never had any doubts about you!

i got a shoutout in the employee newsletter in my first month! even though my name is spelled wrong, i know it was done as such so that folks can remember how to pronounce it. 🙂

abbi jacobson is amazing and i’m glad that i got the chance to see her say that she’s working on a queer tv adaptation of a league of their own.

i have been mainly learning czech on duolingo this month. i have also had many more discussions about killing and eating squirrels than i thought i ever would.

mum’s still the word for the moment, but there is huge news coming from the miikshiverse and i cannot be more elated! i am meeting corgis every day and nothing can stop us now!

there’s been a parade every week in this town! hooray for this pride where i seemed to have developed a tolerance for alcohol-i’m not sure why i was drinking so much rose-i’m not rick ross! i may not have found corn, but i wore my kimono and ended up rolling with so many of my new co-workers, and life is beauty-full. i even got so lit that i didn’t get my duolingo streak. i guess that’s what my 12,000+ lingots are for.

i’m finally putting my gay-ass baby badminton rackets to use by shuttlecocking around town. this humidity isn’t ideal for racket sports, but we will sport if it kills us. although i didn’t win the teeny trophy at music bingo, the winner did give it to me, so we are all champions indeed around here. also, i fired up the fan that lindsay bunz’d for soy milk for the first time, and damn, this is some good living. it’s a whole new world in this apartment.

1) just friends-dir. roger kumble i’m so glad i’m out of my friend-zone situation! also, someone that FZV introduced me to (and try to pawn me off on) recently walked back into my life, after also messaging and flaking on me online. surprise surprise-i gave them my number and they whatsapp’d to say that they were talking to someone, and proceeded to try to keep a conversation going. (harumph. are even the people connected to you by proxy all wack?!) anyways-this movie that seemed unnecessarily violent, but i guess that’s what’s funny-the comic genius of anna faris, and shades of deadpool future were the highlights. the story itself, of punishing the hot girl for not getting out of town and bettering herself, well-that’s a bit misogynist. but it was fun enough for an after-work decompress after a meandering graffiti walk from the market.

i spilled a whole smoothie after blending it, and my reaction was, “well-now i know how an oil baron feels”. (not sure what to make of this)

2) night school-malcolm d. lee “where the chicken is christian, for some reason” made me laugh out loud. i kind of love that kevin hart and the rock are in every single movie, and this one has the ensemble cast of comedic performances. it was nice to see tiffany be a regular person, and i’m loving that it was malcolm d. lee to do it. i bet this was a great set to witness improv on. i missed this one in the theatre, but am glad i’m seeing it now. thanks again, sanderson!

3) baywatch-dir. seth gordon if you would have told me that two of my favourite movie actors would be zac efron and the rock, i would have looked at you sideways. but there is something to action flicks, the movies are larger than life, with real people rather than superheroes. we keep seeing the trailer for the new fast and furious movie because they added idris and jason statham and while we were making a plan to see it, someone (who has questionable basketball facts) stated that the rock is a republican, so i checked into it, and it turns out that while he has once been republican, he has considered running for president as an independent against the sitting actor in office. nice cameo by hassel the hoff! i was wondering if there was going to be a callback (other than pam anderson in the opening credits) and thought it was only going to be on that little keychain. i gotta love that the villain is a woman of colour, and nice touch that the last remnant of her is a glass slipper.

4) angie tribeca-season one i am not really sure how i got here, but i’m here for it. i’m not sure why i thought this would be a serious show, but a few minutes into the first episode, i’m totally seeing how this is a show from the mind of nancy and steve carell. i love the ridiculous hot dog stand that seems to be all over town, and the ford sponsorship is an aggressive counter to they lyft sponsorship in insecure. i have been wondering why car ads are the only ones out there lately-is it because nobody is buying cars anymore? i spoke too soon-there are many other blatant ads for other products. and, “frontbutt” is the reason i got here-i’m kind of leaning towards seeing toy story 4 because of them. i’m here for cop farce, this is cute and funny. too bad the library does not have more than one season of it. OH SHIT! BILL MURRAY! BILL MURRAY QUOTING CARLY RAE JEPSON!

5) the dark dark-samatha hunt i love when a writer is good at short stories as well as novels. this collection seems to be pregancy-centric, and also death-centric, so-circle of life i guess? also-the wilderness and the unknown figure very prominently. i am so compelled by the deer story, as well as the completely formed and executed fact of each story. a love story is the one that was in non-required reading, but for some reason, i remember the arranging the chicken bones story as well. either way, the work stands multiple reads.

“America moves so quickly it blurs itself into a coma.” (133, The Love Machine)

“I’ve made humans. I’ve made things up. I tip taxi drivers ten, twenty dollars every time they don’t rape me.” (148, A Love Story)

“Why do people act like boys can’t be human? Like they don’t control their own bodies? It’s not a very nice way to think about boys.” (150, ibid)

multiple reads, it turns out, in the same volume. i discovered why the stories seemed familiar on the 29 bus. interesting, they are versions that are familiar yet different-i recognize the bones.

6) women with money-jean chatzsky i first heard about the her money podcast in bust magazine years ago, and have gotten some useful information out of it. i’m here for this audiobook, read by the author, because it’s like a v. long podcast. i appreciate that although we as women are socialized to be more open with each other, money remains the taboo topic that nobody talks about, not even with women friends. hearing about the process of this, i had a thought about attending a money conference with womens-i’d like that experience. she also has insights on how we are shaped by our money story, and how we can re/shape it. i have figured out that i don’t like the music or her cohost(s) on the pod-i really like this experience. i have been lying on the floor a lot to it. in hearing about her way to teach children about money, i’m realizing that my dad had his own way of “letting me make my own decisions” that would’ve been disastrous had he been someone else, but i’m also not someone else. “you can’t teach what you don’t do”. dang. that’s some shit. also, we have failed the 40/70 rule, but i suppose a lot of the other things would’ve had to have happened first. (shrugs). it’s interesting that she says “ah-men” and not “eh-men”. i suppose there is so much that i don’t have to worry about-elder care, fighting with siblings over an inheritance, etc. etc. there is a certain freedom in not expecting an inheritance at all. i feel like this book, in any form, should be required reading for all womens.

7) almost christmas-written and directed by david e. talbert i bawled all the way through this one, so i’m definitely premenstrual. i also grieved a spilled smoothie like an oil baron and had my neighbour fix my shaved side (how the fuck am i going to grow out this haircut?!) and he so very generously asked me if i wanted a time out before coming down to enjoy his last good food dinner. that’s exactly what i wanted. what a good friend. i feel like this is a remake of soul food, like how they already remade shaft with sam jackson twenty years ago, and they’re trying to pass this off as an original idea now. i believe the link here is the shared actor-who i recognize from survivor’s remorse.

8) mentors-russell brand “those of us searching for god in romance are doomed” i tried to renew this audiobook read by the author, but i could not, because there is a hold on it. (there was no hold on her money-just sayin’). this was only three discs, and i returned it after 3/4 of one. i’m sure he has a fascinating story, but he’s not the best reader, even of his own work. i’ll wait for the standup special.

9) ballers-season three after walking all the way home through dundas west fest, i decided that i wanted to watch ballers more than anything else. it’s perfect television. episode one had steph and aisha curry-making a very natural cameo in better times than the current ones (in basketball, not their love). episode two had the rock driving a monster truck! episode three brings the product placement of nba x espn as well as the crossover of all the good marijuana industry arguments. it also ended on a note that i didn’t get-ooh, the suspense. i am super loving ricky‘s indoor and outdoor pajamas this season. “yea, how does one get into the piss business, anyway?” i love hearing jidenna and keith sweat in the same five minute sequence. also, joe answered his phone with his nose, a skill that only white people seem to have tried to find out they have. i think i like this show because i wish i could limit all this stupid machismo to palatable 28-minute increments, but alas and alack, we cannot believe everything we see on tv. i also hate new york, and welcome different perspectives on why others do too. wow, not sure how i feel about the non-consensual ejaculating, but i guess they had an understanding about going in unprotected in the first place. i guess legacy is a theme in this season. what a great uphill camera angle to communicate san francisco. i think they made a mistake saying that kim k got famous fucking reggie on a tape, but it was ray j. i just read an article about raiders nation (including the gorilla) and there they were. finally-can someone tell me what the allegiance to travis scott is here?

10) charlie murphy-i will not apologize-dir. lance rivera un! it’s been a long time since i thought of him! the last time i heard anyone speak of charlie murphy, it was jay pharoah, talking of what a great mentor he was. i’m kind of feeling a way about the “high-functioning retard” material and the laughs it’s getting, and then it kicks in that it was 2009 and he brings it back to president bush. imagine how this material would land, and how much more ironic this would be. using his brother as a final punchline tho….there’s something charming about the lack of production value of the special and the bonus material live from the comedy clubs. but i’m beyond blown away by the leroy smith series, especially the absolutely perfect and timely single, “my gift to the game”. i don’t know if cee has seen this work, but it absolutely reminds me of him.

11) what doesn’t kill you makes you blacker-damon young so, this thing happened where my books are cross-referenced by my podcasts, and i think that means we’re living in the future. i first heard damon talking with kiese on death sex and money, which was rebroadcast on it’s only a game, and i was really looking forward to luvvie‘s questions for him on rants and randomness and surprisingly, she had no direct ones for him. he brought up lots of things in terms of gender and his privilege, and this is a man who has done the work-both in his book and the tour for it.

“(Little hood ni$$as get meet-cutes too, apparently. How do you like dem apples, Nora Ephron?)” (16) there’s just something so earnest and adorable about this statement, and it was the one that captured my heart.

“High school classrooms are basically Internet comment threads with acne.” (100, No Homo)

“I even began a short-lived bartering service where I’d lend rentals to classmates, exchanging them for cafeteria cheese fries or Karl Kani belts. For two weeks in the fall of 1995, I was Penn Hills Senior High School’s thrift shop Larry Flynt.” (116)

“There’s just no way of euphemizing the fact that you’re getting a new barber because you just believe the new barber is better, so instead of having that conversation with them, you ghost.” (266)

this is intense, because his barber died. what a cautionary tale that ultimately still brings you to put yourself (and your line up) first.

i enjoy the discussion of the intramural ball league-especially the rules of honour system fouls and it just seems really nice and civilized. i’m a bit concerned about bringing an infant and propping her up in the stands-what if she got a ball to the face?

12) the public-written and directed by emilio estevez wow. first of all, i knew that homie and paula abdul were dating, i didn’t know they were married for two years. i don’t know where he’s been since they divorced, but i love that he is such a fan of the public library-you have to be to create this amazing movie, and to wrangle such talent to stand behind it. i love that it’s a time capsule of the north york branch before it was renovated, and i love how nuanced “the public” is as a title, as it can really apply to the library, the people who frequent it (and all of their reasons), the voters, folks who need to be “protected”, and that mass of undefinable people that is often conjured in any of these contexts. i love this nuanced discussion of public space and i will see this movie more than once.

13) the last interview-j.d. salinger “He seems in many ways to have been a sweet man-touchy as hell, of course, but that’s not the worst sin in a writer, nor the most uncommon.” (xvii) i have never read catcher in the rye. but i know about it, of course, because of its alleged inspiration to mark david chapman. but this collection brought to light a seemingly common thread to the collection of folks who are famous recluses, and this one in particular brought up a lot of questions for me of what we expect out of a person-do we give people more of a pass on their privacy if they create a big enough body of work? because salinger refused to release his work and he didn’t want to talk to people either, did that make him stand out more than others? “Write your way out of it. Put everything down. Otherwise I have no answers for you.” (55) this advice hit me in the heart, right as i was finishing up my sample for the writing grant-if i get it i will put it all on blast. i love that someone tried to woo him into an interview by making him a mixtape based on his books-that’s genius, i might just take that idea someday. the most fascinating view was that of joanna smith rakoff‘s claim to have responded to his fanmail, but i suppose this is the draw of fanfic, or nikki killing every guest spot when she can’t carry a whole album, sometimes it’s easier to hop on a moving train than to build a locomotive from scratch.

14) fences-directed by denzel washington so, seeing an august wilson play has been on my list of things to do for some time, and film adaptations of plays can be hit and/or miss, but who better to trust with this first (i think) foray than denzel and miss viola davis? oh, the ever-continuing narrative of sons wanting their fathers’ approval. and cheating men expecting forgiveness and support from their wives (sucks teeth). and once again…legacy. don’t throw your junk in my backyard, my backyard’s full.

15) the unpublished city-anthology curated by dionne brand i don’t know if ian kamau is so comfortable with his pinxy folx that he would write “pilipino” on purpose, or if it is a typo. if so, it is the second one, on the first page. i’m not gonna lie-that’s a bit of a surprise. this collection is strong though, and i’m glad it exists. go ahead, poet laureate.

16) it’s always sunny in philadelphia-season three just when i thought that maybe i was over this show, they surprised me with more innovative levels of inappropriateness and i’m still here for it. i might take a bit of a break for a bit, but i’m not over it forever. fred savage directed episodes! so did jerry levine! (i was just saying that i definitely saw teen wolf) i suppose this show is “seinfeld on crack”.

17) the last interview-ursula k.le guin i haven’t actually read any of her books, but now i have one of her own recommendation. i recognize how important she is, but my feelings about sci-fi and fantasy are probably grounded in a will-full misinformation, but legit, i haven’t gotten around to it yet (like driving). i’m open now, and i may have a new fave, who knows. i do appreciate her taking up place in the genre and in the world. she was advocating for “they” pronouns in 1976, and challenged feminism in important ways. for sure, i’ve got some great pull quotes from this interview collection:

when asked about her favourites amongst her own work: “I love them all, the flawed little bastards.” (xii)

example of above: “This is going to look rather odd in print, but it really doesn’t matter to me very much what sex people are, and this is my main problem as a feminist. Every now and then I forget to be upset.” (71)

“And of course, we keep breeding.” (111)

“(Laughs) People will always take it literally, and they will quote it as the gospel truth, but what the hell-you just can’t write for stupid people.” (164)

“It’s a serious age, eighty-eight. If you turn the numbers on their side, it’s two infinities on top of each other.” (180)

and, i got a chill because she died shortly after that literal last interview, at the age of double-stacked forevers. damn.

18) the owls-written,produced and directed by cheryl dunye once again, i’m not sure how i made it this far without knowing cheryl dunye and/or her work. once again, i must express gratitude for the library, and specifically the sanderson branch. i’m glad this is the second one that i’m watching, as i’m seeing the comparisons to the watermelon woman in the way that the form of documentary is played with. this is later in her career, so i can see how she has gotten more comfortable with her craft, and how she’s kept innovating. this is another take on fences, in a way, and a meditation on what we build to keep folks in, and what we destroy to keep them out. “the older generation has transpanic that we’re losing all our good butches”. i hadn’t considered this to be about aging out of the queer community (or aging in) until the bonus material, but i suppose it is that, too.

19) thirteen reasons why-season one i was first told about this series by tala, and i feel like she was probably too young for it, but maybe she’s the perfect demographic. i can’t help but feel like this is a cautionary tale against forgetting technology. or the glamour project that the cassette (or mixtape) never got. but i suppose that’s what podcasts are now. i don’t mean to be callous about the suicide at the centre of the plot, but it does seem a bit self-involved. why do i get the feeling that this is a show about netflix and the way people choose to binge-watch, or not? but it was a book first so that doesn’t quite hold up? i do appreciate the mention of the sexual violence that girls are expected to take lying down and the lack of accountability for boys and school administration. loneliness and friendship are important teenage themes that are tackled in an interesting (if not always successful) way here. wait. are they all dead like lost? the dollar valentine seems like a gross violation of peoples’ privacy….shoes! not only in the house, but on the bed! nooooooo! there are a lot of parallels here to dark archie-i know it goes a bit deeper, but there is definitely a teenage aesthetic right now. i actually can’t believe they showed the suicide-it is so much more impactful now that we’ve watched all of the 13 reasons why. what a bunch of cliffhangers, i guess i’ll have to wait for the library to catch up, or for frankie’s netflix, but i have the last episodes of star to watch. watching the bonus material, of course dylan minette‘s favourite book is the catcher in the rye, of course. and also hannah has an australian accent in real life. also, bigup selena gomez for her role in this project.

20) mr. know-it-all-audiobook read by john waters if ever there was a hero of staying true to yourself, this man is absolutely it. it seems like he’s got a new memoir out every year, and i’m here for it. disc one talks about how he’s appalled now that he’s accepted. but since he is, why not go along with the seventy-five iterations of hairspray. i also learned that he was asked to officiate winona ryder and johnny depp‘s wedding, and he declined because winona was so young. it’s also so charming that he geeks out that boy george has “cocksucker residence” as his voicemail message-this is all kinds of goals. i also appreciate the tip of the mutually exploitative relationship between makers and the media-for content and free advertising. i also like the callout of the chinese market for killing international film for anything other than action and special effect films. i’m loving the streetwalking down his movie memory lane-it’s really sweet (rosanne was in there! a liberal when i knew her!) “art is everywhere-you just have to notice it”. i also love the intel that he masturbated to elvis for the first time at ten years old, thinking he had discovered something(s) that nobody else had. it also explains his relationship to johnny depp. i also love his succinct way of summarizing that as soon as you stop listening to new music, you are old-no truer sentiment has ever been expressed. early on a saturday morning, after drinking an unholy trinity of bourbon punch, tequila, and rose, while making mark bittman‘s bacon leek carbonara, i exclaimed “YESSSS!” as i heard him say that his favourite restaurant in new york was prune (so on my list of things to do) and could see his vision of his own dream restaurant, “gristle”. (swoooon). “man-made oysters!” oh my gaaaaawd. i love the true stories of people who do nutty things at book signings, and am here for his new gay heterosexuality, or new hetero-homosexuality. (sigh) ever an innovator, ever our elder. i like his boasting of his 16-1 record for marriage as the pope of trash beating the pope in rome. i love that he’s an advocate for monkey art, he’s writing a letter to his “son”, a doll that he got made fourteen years ago, and giggled at the question “if you want a standup career, why the hell did you become a flight attendant?!”-he will probably never know just how close to home that reminder hit. “please come to my grave, but don’t fuck on it. leave me black licorice.” i loooooooove him. of course he spends a lot of time talking about his death, as well as the death of those poor people who crashed into the world trade center on 9/11 watching a knight’s tale and doctor doolitle 2-who thinks to research this?!

20) paris is burning-dir. jennie livingston this is a movie that i didn’t realize that i hadn’t seen until it started. like wild style, it is one that seems to be so deeply entrenched in “the culture” that it’s required reading. i hope it is for the film studies students that came after me. it was lovely to see it on the big screen, and also like wild style, i can now see how problematic it is, in terms of the exploitation of the subjects. there is a huge void in the discussion of black trans women, even now with our “post-everything” corporate prides, and here’s to the unsung heroes who give up their lives and their secrets for the entertainment of the masses. this is why drag race and the ease with which white cis women feel entitled to it makes me uncomfortable. (sigh). thank you, queens.

21) goodbye to all that-writers on loving and leaving new york-ed. sari botton i’m sure that i came to this through “what my mother and i don’t talk about”, and i’m pretty charmed by it because i also have a history of loving, hating, living, writing, and leaving new york (even though i never really signed on). i mean, i love that this was the cusp of roxane gay being the cover star that automatically moves books, and her essay is particularly amazing. i love that i opened it on the day that i got a surprise letter from my 40-year-old pen pal, because maggie estep has an essay in the collection, and my pen pal and i connected because i left my email in a pencil note in her book, diary of an emotional idiot, that i thought about stealing, but did not steal from the victoria public library. i love that this got attention as a #booklook on insta, and also that not even a year later, part two came as a seemingly immediate regret. so new york.

“There was nothing for me to say goodbye to in New York because I never truly said hello. I became a writer without all the glamorous or anti-glamorous trappings of New York life I thought I needed.” (18, Strange Lands, Roxane Gay)

(swooooooooooon). also, me too.

“I had moved to New York to be near lots of people without actually having to interact with them.” (85, Think of This as a Window, Maggie Estep)

ibid. i also had a chance to gchat with this woman before she passed away in 2014 so she knew of my fangirldom.

“I want strangers to love New York, as long as they’re not walking slowly in front of me.” (107, Someday, Some Morning, Sometime, Emma Straub)

this was the perfect book to read as summer is kicking in and my resolve is tested on the daily in this humid parkdale apartment.

22) steven universe-season one i understand now why chrissle says all these gems are lesbians. i’m also super here for a crystal-based superhero that activates by eating ice cream, if even for a moment. ok, three episodes in, i’m thinking that this is really a show about how women must do the work mothering men regardless of their choices to be biological mothers or not. it could also be a callout of the trope of how a dopey dood is at the centre of a universe of amazing women, get top billing, and be lovable but incompetent. blah blah blah. but it’s like he’s piper and i’m here for the stories of the supporting cast, so i will keep watching this 55-episode season-at least the theme song is (mostly) amazing. BRO. THEY DID A TRIBUTE TO THE WENDY’S HOT DRINKS TRAINING VIDEO!!!! I LOVE THIS SHOW NOW! ugh. there are now 4 stevens in this episode-i don’t like this show anymore. oh no, what if this show is like how i thought i didn’t like evan, but really it’s because we recognized the self-absorbed ego-maniac in each other and just didn’t like that? (sigh). oh well, at least we’re great friends now, and i never have to watch another season of this show ever again.

23) bad moms-written and directed by jon lucas & scott moore what a fitting movie to watch on the “boxing day of pride”. i was a total bad mom last night. i wouldn’t say that i’m hungover, but i’m totally content to watch this, steven universe, and catch up on duolingo. i made a totally balanced breakfast of blackbird pastries, sausage and mushroom soup, jackfruit, black tea, and iced rosehip tea. i’ve wanted to see this since i took myself to the sequel two christmases ago, and i’m so glad that these women are a) still working, b) still hot and c) contributing to hilarious celluloid legacy of women. lilly singh talking about “foreign” women-i’m dead! i think using mascara to dye greys is low-key genius, and i can’t wait to try it. “mom’s don’t quit, that’s for dads!” i love it. even though i had a mom that quit-that’s a whole other winning choice, and i still respect her for it. but the interviews with the cast and their moms still crumbled me. to tiny bits of pistachio cake.

24) not becoming my mother-ruth reichl i didn’t know about the books that ruth reichl wrote about her mother because in 2009, i was just learning about her career as a food writer. i saw her live during the junket for my kitchen year, which was the inspiration for my now-abandoned dream of moving to mexico city in my 40th year (which is now). it was the first home book i finished in my emancipation year, and i recently saw that she has a new book, one day when i dipped into indigo to look for sticker books.

“All of those smart, competent women sat at home, twiddling their thumbs and telling their daughters how much they had enjoyed working during the war.” (52)

oh, the never-ending story of women who are not content to only be defined as mothers….

25) stranger inside-written and directed by cheryl dunye daaaamn. i feel like i’ve seen at least a trailer of this, or maybe i’m still puzzled as to how i haven’t at least been familiar with cheryl dunye-daaaamn. the writing, the acting, the jumpoff that this was for the cast-wow. and it’s interesting that i’m seeing this after oitnb , because they obviously should have referenced it for research purposes, because it’s so much more well done. i understand the restraints of one movie vs. a eleventeen-season series, but still.

26) kidding-season one i first heard of this show during tiff last year, at the first ever conference for canadian content producers. i had to leave before it was screened, but i put it on my list of things to do. wow. what an amazing cast and a great show. what a beauty-full place where non-wayans‘ in living color cast to reunite, if only for a heartbeat. great writing, creative puppetry, and such a complete exploration of the life of a mister rogers‘ type character and the machinations of the showrunner/puppetmaster behind it all. i feel like the title is a take on “adulting”, and once again, carrey is in a role where he feels trapped in his own life, like the truman show. oh faaaack this show is good. the writing and acting is sooo strong. dangit. maybe this explains that weird red carpet interview? maybe it doesn’t?

27) portlandia-season eight this is the end. and they went out with a bang! “bruno mars is not in this band!” and the podcasters on the case in the cop shop, i just can’t. i have missed these two special gems, and am glad they are closing strong. all the best guest stars are back and amazing! traceee! i want her outfit and makeup!!!! they did NOT pay homage to both the bound video and the olsen twins pizza party video-aaaaahhhh. a corgi AND an elderly pug?! what a legacy.

28) the bronze-dir. bryan buckley i was at runnymede, and decided to only get this if i was getting other dvds. (of course i got more dvds). a minute into the opening sequence, i’m in love. she’s a horrible brat, but she gives her stolen money to folks to get their wheelchairs fixed. “what’s camel toe?” “just a pro term for sticking a landing” who is melissa rauch and why have i not seen her until now? oh, probably because i haven’t seen the big bang theory. well shit if this isn’t an ohio parable about lebron, i don’t know what is.