Hello my friends – here’s the latest episode of “Hard Truth and a Big Hug”. It’s a small part of a book that I haven’t yet got around to publishing – but I thought the big ideas and the final take-away were
As I mentioned in my first post about Guillermo’s remarkable show, he doesn’t just adore films, paintings and drawings, sculptures props and toys – like so many of us, he first fell in love with the horror genre (and was inspired to
I was a convert to the idea that popular art, particularly sequential art (comics) was true ‘real’ art (without requiring any qualifying subcategory) from roughly the age of ten. 1975 was a cool year for that. Comics wise, we could still read
Caught a wonderful show on the weekend at the AGO – “Living with monsters” which is a sampling from the private collection of the brilliant filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro, who began as an amateur illustrator, then worked in special-effects, before finally getting
Back in the mid-eighties, when I was still a bit of a waif, I had a weekly improvised-music session in my little basement flat, with the much older, brilliant, and incomparably determined free-improvising saxophonist, Maury Coles. We were often joined by one
I have yet to encounter any tradition with deep mysticism and insight at it’s core, which does not recommend a variation of the meditation of infinite-regression – that is, that (sometimes inspiring, and sometimes irritating) childhood state of asking why, where, how,
Some days you take hundreds of shots to get dozens of useful ones – and some days you shoot a couple dozen – and get a dozen good ones anyhow. Sweet deal. Of course, I’m always especially pleased when really extreme lighting
I am pretty sure that a certain part of me will always feel just a little bit guilty, for the fact that I now use auto-focus by-default, even though digital photography systems have made this feature fast reliable and excellent. Tactically-sublimating masochist
I am, as I have noted repeatedly, an atheist – but you will have noticed, no doubt, that I am not one of the cliche snarky sneering contemptuous variety. The way the whole thing presents to my mind is different from many,
Go as far back as you like in urban history – right to square-one if you want – there was always a square involved. I bet they even did temporary art installations at Sumer. Nuit blanche is an odd tradition in Toronto
Being an art-model is a strange gig – and there really is something very gig-like about it, because no two classes are ever anything like the same. Of course the subject makes a difference, and the personalities even more so – but
John Lennon said a lot of sweet and interesting things in his time, but one of my favourite clips had him talking about how strange it is to do creative work, because our friends often don’t believe that we’re working at all,
As a young avant-garde musician (think Mingus/Dolphy exuberant cacophony, only with infinitely less talent) who had nothing but a grade-two education on-paper, I had a heck of a time getting (or, to be fair, wanting) any sort of half-decent straight-job. Ended up
Went out for a grocery run on the weekend – and I noticed that the signs were up for the big annual five building garage-sale. Wasn’t late in the day, seemed reasonable to think that I could afford to swing-by on my
Here’s another especially lovely thing about Fan Expo – it always makes me think about how much the relationship of two figures can say in a picture-plane. Also, about our youthful friendships, from a writerly perspective – that is, their psychological and
There are a few different reasons I love this particular festival – one of them is the costumes one sees on proud display – ranging from the silly to the incredible – for nostalgia, hilarity and on-the-street cognitive dissonance, it’s among the
One of the biggest problems with politics nowadays, is that it is largely created using debates made out of words. At the best of times, individual perceptions of events, which words best described those perceptions, and the exact meanings of those words,
Visited the Ryerson Image Centre once again – again a wonderful (totally free) show. You’re going soon, right? As previously mentioned, there are four different display areas (sometimes five) all of which have been used well, every time we’ve gone. (And they’re
Funny thing about books about writing – it’s very hard to tell the good ones from the lousy ones until you’ve already learned the basics the hard way – as with most things, no solution ever really sinks-in, unless you’re working hard
A good friend of mine has recently taken an interest in the “Sparking weirdo” who lives at our place, and I fear I may have confused him just a bit with regard to the diminutive fellow’s extraction, motivations and family life. A
A couple of curious structures with funny clue-full history today. First up – a truly magnificent avian mansion, which was erected down by the waterfront a few years ago, as part of the un-development along the lakeshore. I’ve got to admit, I