This is what I did a few weekends ago (try to understand media/go to Anime North).  

You have to take the subway to the end of the line then catch a bus that takes forever.  When it drops you off in the middle of nowhere, you'll be on the side of a six lane highway and reality will slowly become more more psychedelic.

You'll try to buy a coffee and it'll look like this.

Beth-ann Jones will brandish her sword at you an explain that anime can bring world peace.

Michael had a media pass - so we walked around interviewing people about their Anime North experiences.  If you go, I highly recommend you do the same, sans official media cred.

You will be in a place this is both radically accepting and very, very strange.

By the time you're on the bus home you will be habituated to the surreality.

I doubt you will be any closer to understanding media.

Also check out Michael's photos and article cause mine sucks in comparison.

May is replaced by June, still too much to do.

I'm pleased to announce SMALL TALK 01 is scheduled - I'll be releasing the full Summer programme as soon as possible!

❀ SMALL TALK 01 ❀ <<<<<< TREVOR MURPHY AND CASSANDRA WITTEMAN >>>>>>

YOUR FAVOURITE SUMMER LECTURE SERIES IS BACK FOR MORE!! WE'RE SUPER EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE OUR FIRST SMALL TALK! Gggggget ready.

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FEATURING:

 Trevor Murphy

Man That You Fear: Marilyn Manson’s Antichrist Superstar as Social Prophet

Trevor is coming all the way from Halifax to school you on your goth shit. Ok not really he's here for NXNE. He says: Deliberately evocative and visceral, the album was not only a reaction to America’s current social situation; it was also a subversive call to action. Combining an understanding of the historical Antichrist legend with an analysis of the album’s imagery, lyrics, and music, this presentation examines how Marilyn Manson uses the character of the Antichrist Superstar on this record as a vehicle for social prophecy.

SOUNDS AWESOME RITE?

AND

Cassandra Witteman

Addiction + Occult praXis

Cassandra is an amazing interdisciplinary artist who's gonna ferry us through some heavy water and we're gonna love it. She says: Everything we put in our bodies alters our mood, mental state and sense of our physical selves. So what is it that distinguishes an addiction from a healthful practice, or a habit? What is it about desire that allows us to engage in healthy behaviours that get us closer to what we want to achieve and those behaviours that start an downward spiral into infamy? Can an addiction be managed? Are there some people who are addicts or is addiction a property of being?

FIND OUT ALL THIS AND MORE

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THIS EVENT STARTS AT 7:00, The first talk starts whenever you lazy butts get here so don't be late! PWYC - ALL MONEY GOES TO OUR AWESOME SPEAKERS! WEATHER PERMITTING THIS WILL BE HAPPENING OUTSIDE IN THE BACKYARD. REFRESHMENTS WILL BE AVAILABLE maybe cookies! HOPEFULLY OUR NEIGHBOURS AREN'T DICKS!

OK SEE YOU

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FACEBOOK GROUP!! JOIN IT TO STAY UPDATED!!

http://www.facebook.com/groups/126191480856239/

This is a RANDOM SHIT blog post.  For one thing, I'm a pink again - which means NO SUN ON MA HEAD.  This is a strategy.

And these are some clear shoes I found in the window of an expensive store.  You may notice they're just like the black pointy ones I posted about a few weeks ago that I found at a vintage store in Oshawa, except not as good because they don't look as much like they belong to a witch-from-the-future.  

TAKE THAT, fancy store!

Back tomorrow with some shit that actually matters.  

Geometry in the studio

 

My pal Alex (Alexandra Mackenzie) came over and we made some tie dyeesssss.  These are her hands.  And this is the view from my front porch.

I'll be giving a lecture on tumblr as part of my pal (and last-year Small Talk participant) Michael Palumbo's lecture series, Objets Sonore!  It's in Montreal, if any of you happen to live there or are going there in July.

Site

Working abstract:

TUMBLR or the sea an image floats in

Many theorists have observed the increasing postmodern tendency for signifiers to float – aka to be divorced of an absolute or definitive signified.  This phenomena is representative of profound changes to the role of imagery in our culture and exemplified by tumblr, where images recircle into the feeds of manifold users and take on nearly infinite meanings-by-context. Drawing on Benjamin, McLuhan, and the curatorial prowess of several thousand teenage girls, this talk will give you the run-down on tumblr: visual literacy school of hard knocks, and on what these changes spell for artists, digital and otherwise.

  . . . after dropping out of grad school, I've talked a lot of shit about academia, and sometimes I feel like my conceptual practice is an unwanted third arm that I have no idea what to do with.  But that doesn't mean cutting it off would be easy or painless.  And sometimes I get to work it out by participating in stuff like this.

 . . . did I take that metaphor too far?