The Greatest of All Time?

I can only hope the video is real, because tagging Air Force One should get you some kind of medal.

ETA: Not real. Duh. But dammit, I wanted to believe!

The legal disclaimer is actually pretty funny, once I took the time to actually explore and read it:

"You, the viewer of the preceeding are hereby advised that the video does not depict a real event. It is intended for the sole, limited and express purpose of entertainment and to induce you, the viewer of the video, to think critically about freedom of expression and speech and the government's responses to the same. Therefore, and by reason of the foregoing, the producers, creators and distributors of this video hereby verily certify that the foregoing fictionalization and dramatization was not real."

But the Wooster Collective hurt my feelings when they said "We didn't post that it was a fake because we has [sic] no idea that anyone would think that it was real." Guess I'm just an idiot (but getting insert that [sic] makes me a bit happier.)

Mileage

I've decided this running crap is actually a really bad idea. I know that it must have seemed like something I had to do, signing up for a half marathon, but I really can't remember why.

Oh, who am I trying to fool? I want to run a half marathon, but I have a hard time believing I can do it. Today's run was 9K and I was exhausted at the end. The farthest I've run in the past couple years is 10K...yet somehow I'm going to be covering twice that distance? 20 kilometres and then another 1.1 - just for fun. In six weeks, we'll be up to 10 miles. I've only run 10 miles once in my life and it took a really, really long time.

What I really want to do isn't the half, there are two 10-mile trail runs. One runs from Canmore to Banff, between the mountains. The other is Moose Mountain - five miles up the mountain and then five more back down again. Why does that appeal to me?

Desk Job

"I found myself wondering - what will the Richard Scarry book of the future look like? based on my experience, I think it's going to be about eighty lavishly illustrated pages of a cartoon mouse sitting at a desk, typing, with headphones on"

The most brilliant thing I've heard this week. (from the 43 folders podcast The Richard Scarry Book of the Future)

Pretty much describes me and everyone within a twenty foot radius of me.

This Just In...

Metric @ Neumos - Seattle, Wa
Originally uploaded by Crickontour.

Metric is big with the kids. I had no idea how popular they were until I saw the insane line-up for their show at Mac Hall last night.

Also popular: mini mini-skirts and footless tights.

Last night around 6:30, I stopped by the student centre to grab a coffee before my writing class. Apparently the doors to the hall didn't even open until 7, but there were already hundreds of all-ages kids crowded on the stairs, and spilling out down the entire length of the food court. Every time a sound came from the hall, the line buzzed with excitement, imagining their heroes inside-so close!

Lining up an hour before the doors even open? I can't remember the last time I was so excited about a show. Christ, I can't remember the last time I was so excited about anything.

happy birthday to me

happy birthday to me
happy birthday dear meee-eeee
happy birthday to me.

My friend Sean at work brought me cupcakes.

Just wanted to share the joy.

House of Ill-Repute

My friend Chanelle manages the ultra-fabulous Good For Her in Toronto. Right now she's organizing an event called Vixens and Visionaries, celebrating women who are revolutionizing and creating feminist porn. Among many others, the event will feature Tristan Taormino, who will be promoting her new video, House of Ass. Which is easily the best title ever. In fact, this entire post is merely an excuse to type House of Ass. House of Ass. HOUSE OF ASS. heh.

Which, of course, leads me to wonder - what is the proper typographical treatment of this brilliant title?

I think a western theme could work, bringing up all sorts of wild west connotations (and bonus Brokeback tie-in!)


Or a classy retro feel, like a hair salon from the 60s where all the stylists wore gogo boots. But instead of the House of Beauty it's the


Or something a bit more reserved and proper, all the better to cause a nice bit of cognitive dissonance


Hee. Man, I could this all night. No, really, this is prime humor to me.

Okay, I'll stop.

Sing it!

I've always insisted that no amount of alcohol could make me sing karaoke, and over the years I've held firm to this belief. I am a non-karaoker. In fact, I think these things might be decided on the genetic level. How, then, to explain last night's stirring rendition of The Final Countdown?

Obviously, Lisa is to blame. Rather than merely tolerating the odd karaoke outing, my dear friend Lisa lives for them. So when her husband planned a surprise birthday party for her, there was no question of the theme. He booked a private room at a club on the edge of downtown, where all she and all her friends could wail away to our heart's content.

At first, just about everyone claimed to be an avowed non-singer. Luckily, one of Dan's friends was willing to take one for the team and climbed up on a table to perform Sweet Caroline. (Sometimes I think the sole reason karaoke even exists is to allow people to sing along with the horns on Sweet Caroline's chorus - Bom-Bom-BOM. It's impossible to resist. Just try it some time.) Anyway, soon guests who had been karaoke virgins were collaborating on heart-wrenching renditions of MacArthur Park.

I guess it was a desire not to yet again be the boring, non-singing one that led me to try the Final Countdown. It didn't turn out so well. Apparently there's more to that song than periodically shouting out THE FINAL COUNTDOWN! Who knew? I did much better with my performance of Paranoid, although it drew some shockingly blank looks. How can there be people that don't know that song inside and out? Yanni-listening commie bastards.

A bizarre moment came when Dan decided to sing Living Next Door to Alice - a deservedly obscure semi-hit from the 70s. Apparently it's gained cult status as a big sing-along song in bars. Specifically, after the line Now I've got to get used to not living next door to Alice... everyone is supposed to chant ALICE! ALICE! WHO THE FUCK IS ALICE! I had no idea. But everyone but me knew it, so I guess I've been missing out all these years. Anyway, after a few rousing repetitions of ALICE! ALICE! etc., one of the waiters came to the door and asked if we could keep it down, as there was a children's party outside. We were embarrassed, but also suspicious. There couldn't really be kids in a bar, could there? Dan went out to investigate and turns out there was a whole table full of children just around the corner. So... a children's party, in a downtown asian bar, at 10 pm on a Saturday night. I have no explanation for this.

So, I think I've made great progress on the karaoke front. I can now say that I'm not always the designated pain-in-the-ass who refuses to sing. However, I feel perfectly content to rest on my laurels and go back to being a non-karaoker. Trust me, it's better for everyone that way...

LACMA Parking Garage

LACMA Parking Garage
Originally uploaded by sketchypad.annex.

Today on Flickr I came across a really amazing series of photographs of the LACMA parking garage. I had never heard of it before, but apparently in 2000, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art commissioned Margaret Kilgallen and Barry McGee to decorate their parkade in conjunction with an exhibit.

The space is fascinating, it looks like you could wander around there for days, viewing the paintings from new perspectives and finding new pieces hidden in corners. Even better, their pieces brought in more artists that added more work, so the whole thing was covered with paintings and paste-ups and tags.

The crazy part is...it's gone. The entire parkade was demolished a few months ago to make way for a new museum wing. Almost none of the artwork was saved. I can't really wrap my head around that. Every gallery and museum I've ever worked at always had an impossible reverence for everything in it's collection. No matter how insignificant an object seemed, I always had to handle it with the same care as one that famous or precious. LACMA had some strange reasoning, that street art is meant to be ephemeral and thus shouldn't be saved from the demolition. Which is true, but also totally ridiculous when you look at how valuable and collectable this stuff has become. It's long since transcended throw-away status and become a respected art form (and whether this is good or bad could be debated forever)

So, does that mean that LACMA thought of the whole thing as decorative rather than legitimately artistic? As in, rather than commissioning artists to create a site-specific work, they had simply hired a couple people to brighten the place up? Like when banks hire someone to paint their windows for major holidays. Holiday ends, paint gets scraped off, nobody thinks twice. I guess if that was their opinion, then they really wouldn't have seen the point of spending thousands of dollars to slice the concrete and transport the painted slabs. To me it looks like the inexplicable destruction of irreplacable art which reflected a specific time, place and culture...

But hey, what do I know? It's too late now.

Sugar Rush

I tend to spend the year careening from one candy-related holiday to another. Christmas is always nice, since gorging becomes not just acceptable, but practically mandatory. Halloween is good for sheer quantity, and the built-in excuse of "leftovers." For the past ten years I've lived either in apartment buildings or in houses that were so rundown and unsavory-looking that kids wouldn't come near them, but I've still bought halloween candy anyway. What can I say? If kids are going to be all wimpy about rotting steps, then they don't deserve candy.

But Easter is definitely the worst. It's ground zero for the all godawful sugar-and-food colouring garbage I crave. I mean, you can get jellybeans year round, but only around Easter can you get the pastel 'spring' jellybeans that seem to be twice as sweet the regular kind. You know, the good kind. But of the full array of sugary junk, marshmallow eggs are definitely my favourite. It must be a genetic abnormality - the only other person I've ever met who can even tolerate them is my sister. Every Easter, after we had finished our own allotment of marshmallow eggs, we would raid our younger brother's basket for more. The sugar gene must have skipped him, since he can't stand them.

I've noticed that every year it gets harder and harder to find the right kind of marshmallow eggs. Gummy-type eggs aren't acceptable. Neither are the soft, puffy marshmallow candies shaped like distorted bunnies. It has to be the kind with a stiff (but not crunchy) outer shell, brightly coloured with artificial sheen. The inside is soft but slightly granular, like there's too much sugar in the recipe for it all to properly dissolve. The outer shell is essential, since the proper method for eating marshmallow eggs involves putting one on your tongue and letting the outer layer of sugar and color melt off. After this, the surface will be rough and granular, but still solid. Only once the shell has melted sufficiently and started to collapse are you allowed to actually bite. The inexperienced should be prepared for a coma-inducing wave of sugar and maybe even a bit of subsequent nausea.

Those lucky enough to possess the marshmallow egg gene, however, can start in on the rest of the bag and relax knowing that the happiest time of the year has finally arrived.

Dread

I just read that Xavier Rudd is playing here in May, and bought some tickets right away. I saw him at the folk festival last summer and loved his set. I'll admit that it sounds bad - an Australian surfer dude who plays didgeridoo, but I swear, he's actually really good.

Oh crap, I just realized - this show is going to be totally overrun with hippies. Crap! I hope security will be confiscating bongos at the door. I'm willing to indulge what little inner-hippie I have by going to this show, but I draw the line at indoor drum circles...