50 Ft Clerkie

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As miserable a day as it was to be outside here in Toronto (especially if the TTC strike forced you to walk to/from work through the smog), it could be worse: you could be in Indonesia. Earthquakes, bird flu, angry volcanoes…even breakway country East Timor’s suffering through some bloodshed right now. Makes some 42 degree heat and a transit strike seem pretty tame, no?

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Angels Twenty has posted Tracy Bonham‘s cover of the PJ Harvey song “50 Ft Queenie”. If you know the PJ song go have a listen; I heard Tracy play it live a few years back and I nearly wet myself. I think I was the only person in the crowd who knew what song it was, so it was a private euphoria.

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Today at The Movie Blog I find a phrase that I never expected to read: “Clerks 2 Gets 8 Minute Standing Ovation At Cannes.” Did not see that comin’.

Still on Cannes, I can’t wait to see The Wind That Shakes The Barley, the Ken Loach film that won the Palme D’or.

[tags]ttc strike, smog, tracy bonham, pj harvey, cannes, clerks 2, wind that shakes the barley, ken loach[/tags]

Realization

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I’ve listened to the song “Criticism As Insipration” by Pedro The Lion probably a hundred times, because I love it. But I’ve never really absorbed the lyrics until today. What Dave Bazan’s singing about, that could be me.

I know I do this to people. I feel bad, because I know some people don’t like it, but criticism (or the expectation of it) is one of the only ways I can get motivated, so I guess I externalize that.

Anyway. Little self-analysis there. Back to work now.

[tags]pedro the lion, criticism, self-analysis[/tags]

Steeeeeeee-rike!

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The sudden TTC strike this morning is really throwing the city into traffic chaos. My office is half empty, partially because regular TTC riders can’t get to work, and partially because the resulting car traffic has overloaded Toronto’s streets and highways — which are stretched paper thin on a good day — causing substantial delays in getting anywhere by car. It’s going to be a weird day.

[tags]ttc, strike, toronto transit commission[/tags]

In which I reach my meat limit

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That sounds dirty, but it isn’t.

CBGB had us over to their place for a barbecue; even though it was his birthday GB made us all a substantial feast: red pepper soup with jalapeno cream, a flatbread thingy with herbs and goat cheese and pine nuts, corn on the cob, vegetable & pasta salad, mustard/lemon shrimp and, of course, the giant beef ribs from Cumbrae’s. There was also dessert: creamsicle cake. They weren’t kidding about the name either; it actually tasted like a giant creamsicle. I liked that even more than I thought I would’ve.

GB’s food seemed to have a healing effect on Nellie too, since she felt 100% better after eating, leading us to think that he’s the Benny Hinn of the barbecue.

[tags]barbecue, cumbrae’s, benny hinn[/tags]

Sex, gambling and bullshit

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Kinsey (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was yet another “biopic”, that semi-dreaded genre which has been getting a lot of critical acclaim the past few years, but this one was a little better than most in that they focused on Kinsey’s passion — the questioning of convention and preconception through science — rather than on the intricate details of his life. Instead of swelling on childhood torment and drawing ham-handed parallels to later triumphs over adversity, the movie touched only briefly on Kinsey’s childhood sickness; his troubled relationship with his father actually became an important plot point as opposed to a clumsy emotional suckerpunch.

Given that slightly differentiated approach, the interesting subject matter (you’re tempted to think that we’ve come a long way in how we deal with human sexuality, but a quick glance through the news shows otherwise) and how well Liam Neeson, Laura Linney and Peter Saarsgard performed, I enjoyed it. Recommended.

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Last night T-Bone had us (and half a dozen other folks) over for a barbecue and some poker. Since neither Nellie or I had played before we got our asses handed to us, but it was all good fun. Perfect weather for a barbecue too…finally. In fact…we’re heading over to CBGB’s in a little while for some more! GB’s celebrating his birthday by, uh…cooking. Annd I say, all the power to him.

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The marketing textbook is dead. Long live the marketing textbook. Granted, I still have some additional readings to do, but I’m glad to be rid of that monstrosity. If I had to read one more time about what a “hip website” some company had created, I was gonna heave it into the construction site across the street.

[tags]kinsey, barbecue, poker, marketing[/tags]

Out of the frying pan, into the movie theatre

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Another week down. And very productive work-wise, I might add. I got so much stuff done that I didn’t feel bad leaving at 3:45 to go see a movie. X-Men 3 (imdb | rotten tomatoes) wasn’t bad; nothing special, and worse dialog than the first two, but good end-of-the-week entertainment.

The weekend’s shaping up to be an entertaining one; movie tonight, bbq and poker w/ T-Bone et al tomorrow and dinner with CBGB Sunday. Somewhere in there I have to shoehorn in a bunch of marketing.

Giddyup.

[tags]x-men 3, poker, bbq, weekend shenanigans[/tags]

Short & plasticene

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This morning I saw Martin Short in the lobby of a hotel on my way to a presentation. The interviewer — Larysa Harapyn — was there too; she’s stunning, but she looks like she was put together in a plastic mold.

.:.

I finished watching Riding Giants (imdb | rotten tomatoes) this evening. While I have no interest at all in surfing, it was a pretty amazing film. Visually stunning, obviously, and I liked the way it was shot. It’s not deep or meaningful, but it’ll teach you things about surfing you didn’t know, and never thought you’d find interesting. It’s not gripping…just entertaining. Highly recommended.

Hooray for bullshit

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Two good bits of news from Spacing today: the City of Toronto finally plans to go ahead with the Bloor Street revitalization they’ve been talking about for years (while we’ll have moved downtown by the time it’s completed, I still work up here), and they’re also (finally) going ahead with the Union Station overhaul. Hopefully this means no more being crushed when you take the escalator down to the platform at rush hour. Actually, being 6’2″ / 220 I’m less concerned with being crushed than I am with crushing some tiny Korean lady.

Regarding the Bloor Street sidewalk work, I echo what Torontoist is saying: hopefully the lack of a bike lane is just an oversight. Take Make The Tooker.

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And now, two bits of news from the Toronto Star: the (c)Raptors lucked out and won the #1 pick in the NBA draft lottery last night (though there’s no clear #1 this year), and Alexa Ray Joel lucked out and got her mother’s looks. Actually, on second look, she does kind of look like her father…but I guess there’s enough Christie Brinkley in there to make it work. Thank god. Not a big fan of the music, but at least it doesn’t sound like the usual American Idol excretions.

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I’d love to see the Freakonomics guys take a run at bullshit claims like this:

“Smokers’ rights advocates say 1,000 businesses will go bankrupt and thousands of people will lose their jobs as a result of Ontario’s new anti-smoking legislation, set to take effect in a week. ‘At least 4,000 businesses will be impacted,’ Edgar Mitchell, of the Pub and Bar Coalition of Canada, said at a news conference in Toronto Wednesday. ‘Possibly 2,000 will have severe difficulties and as many as 1,000 will be forced out of business. Yes, some pubs and bars can adapt, but it’s a damned hard road.'” [via CTV]

Setting aside for a second that — on the very day that Heather Crowe died of lung cancer from the second-hand smoke she inhaled working in a bar — this asshat wants us to put the business interests of 1,000 bars (a venture with a high failure rate under any circumstances) ahead of the health of the tens of thousands of citizens who’d pass through them…where the hell did he get that nice, round number? What’s he basing the figures on? What research shows this? Has he found another market that underwent these changes and matches Ontario’s? Has he extrapolated it from the earlier municipal bans and restrictions imposed in Ontario? And if so, I’d love to see his numbers; there’ve been considerable research findings to the contrary.

Paging Steven Levitt…

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I find this little doodad fascinating, addictive and frustrating all at once. Blame boing boing.

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I got a 90% on my marketing assignment. I was convinced that an entire paper of bullshit didn’t merit anything better than a C-, but I guess this mark makes sense. Talking out of one’s ass never get anyone fired from a marketing job.

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I worked through some of my music “inbox” today, checking off the new Concretes (yech…except for “You Can’t Hurry Love”), the new Magneta Lane (killer, as expected) and the new Final Fantasy (only two good songs: “This Lamb Sells Condos”, which is a Toronto in-joke, and “Many Lives -> 49mp”, which he played last year the Arcade Fire concert and freaked us all out, what with the shouting into the violin and all). I started into the new Pilate disc, which seems ok, if a little bland.

[tags]bloor street, union station, tooker, raptors, alexa ray joel, american idol, freakonomics, ontario smoking ban, marketing, concretes, magneta lane, final fantasy, pilate[/tags]

Neutralize every man in sight

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Time for a High Fidelity moment: I’d say that if I were to put together my top five side one, track ones (I dare not start, as I could easily waste an entire day doing so), “Angel” by Massive Attack would be on it.

Off the top of my head I can think of another song that would definitely make the list, and I suspect it’d be high on TimmyD‘s list as well: “Break On Through” by The Doors.

How about y’all?

[tags]top five, massive attack, doors, high fidelity[/tags]