This Is A Race

EVEN IN MY DREAMS I FAIL

Labels: DEATH AND DRAMA, I MADE THIS. ME. GRAYDON., MAYBE THE FUTURE WILL BE BETTER, NARCISSISM

THROW IT ON THE PILE

The MAC'S WTF campaign took a silver at the MARKETING AWARDS last week.

Still don't have a commercial rep...ahem...

Labels: MAYBE THE FUTURE WILL BE BETTER, NARCISSISM

THAT BITCH STOLE MY MOVES

I know La Pequeña is totally overplayed by now, but I love it when shit like this happens - YouTube videos of television shows of YouTube videos. It's meta-Pequeña.

Maybe we should TEAM UP.

Labels: I MADE THIS. ME. GRAYDON., NARCISSISM, REALLY FUCKING GAY, THINGS I WISH I'D DONE

THE DEATH OF MISSING

I haven't been posting much crap-garbage I find around cause I haven't found much crap-garbage that I care about at the moment. So I'm just gonna write some junk. And I'm gonna continue to do what I bitch about on other blogs...I'm gonna post more pictures of me...but they're from the trouble years so it's worth it.

I was on the subway today when I finally realized it's 2008. You know how sometimes things to do with dates and time changing take a while to sink in? Like after your birthday you'll say you're 7 when you're actually 8 and you win a colouring contest in the wrong age group and you go up to the front of the school to accept the award for best drawing in the 5-7 year old category and your classmates stand up and yell "He's not 7 he's 8!" and they strip you of your title of "Best Colourer of a Muskoka Winter Scene" in front of everyone? Grade 3 sucked.

Anyway, I realized it's been 10 years since I left to go on an exchange to Switzerland for a semester of school. It was the best thing that's ever happened to me. I worked and paid for my flight out of my two-horse title-stripping town, lived with a francophone Swiss family, went to a francophone school, saw Milan and Paris and Zurich, snowboarded amidst avalanches, ate breakfast and dinner every day with a view of Mont Blanc from the table, showered after gym class with a guy I nicknamed "horse-cock", and began to come out of the closet. It was terribly liberating, and the return to the misery of Gravenhurst was a prison sentence. I specifically remember standing in the hall a couple weeks after I got back, staring at the alternating brown, orange, and green lockers, paining for my European life, and thinking "In 10 years, I will not miss Switzerland at all." That devastated me.

At that point in my life my experiences overseas were the most important thing. There was nothing bigger or more important than those memories, and there was nothing better than those memories. And for some reason I recognized that one day they would not be the most important things in my life, and I dreaded not missing Switzerland. I anticipated THE DEATH OF MISSING.

And it faded, the missing. I went to school in a bigger town where they had photography classes, I found friends, a boyfriend, got my driver's license, and so on. Then other missings took over. Friends moved, boyfriends moved on, I moved to Toronto. A series of missings and renewals, all the while Switzerland became a sharp point in my mind. I wrote to my host family less frequently, I stopped looking through the album, I stopped watching the video, I just stopped missing it.

The most interesting thing to me in The Death of Missing is that by the time missing dies it doesn't hurt anymore. You fear losing those emotions, but in losing the emotions you lose the pain. There comes a time when thinking of something you used to love doesn't cause you to well up or get excited or swell in the heart (or another) region. When I break up with someone I have loved (okay...when I get dumped) I at first dread the day I won't long to feel him beside me. But it just fades...and in the end it doesn't hurt.

I know it's neurotic...to miss something is one thing, but to fear not missing something is entirely another, then to dramatize the fading of that feeling is beyond reason...but that's how my ticker tapes (what?).

I won't say I'm not nostalgic about things even when I don't miss them. I can't say that plowing through my packet of photos from Switzerland didn't swirl up some sludge in my black heart. But it just doesn't kill me like it used to.

I wonder what I'll miss in 10 years. Maybe if they stop making Twix bars I'll miss those.

Anyway, here are those pics:

^Me with my lesbian retiree haircut and exchange partner Maria at the Creux du Van.

^Standing on the balcony of my room at my friend Estelle's ski chalet.

^Eating chocolate on the boardwalk in Morges.

The photo at the top is from the window of my host family's dining room. Mont Blanc is between the V the mountains on the right make. The mountains on the right are where Evian water comes from. Oooooooooooo!

Labels: DEATH AND DRAMA, DESPERATE AND SAD, I MADE THIS. ME. GRAYDON., MAYBE THE FUTURE WILL BE BETTER, NARCISSISM, NOBODY LIKES A NERD

ONLY BORES TELL PEOPLE THEIR DREAMS

It's true. I remember a friend of mine used to tell me her dreams every day at school and it was the most boring thing I could imagine. I mean, it didn't even happen...it's of no consequence...and I can't/won't decipher it, so why are you telling me?

Anyway, the title of this post was my favourite line from THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY (that's a truly hideous and misleading schmaltzy website by the way). I went with my dearie Johanna (who just applied to Yale among other schools to do her MFA...let's wish her luckies!) after a gorgeous dinner at the A&W in the food court under The Bay.

Sooooooo...I expected to be manipulated to death as the film is about Jean-Dominique Bauby, the former editor of Elle France who suffers a stroke. The stroke causes "Locked-In Syndrome," meaning that he is completely paralyzed (save for his left eye) but can see, hear, and think as usual. He is literally a prisoner inside his body. It's pretty heavy. But, as I was saying, it wasn't depressing. In fact, the film was quite uplifting through its pained lens.

It's shot very cleverly, making you feel the panic and claustrophobia of being trapped in paralysis as well as feeling nostalgia and hope through the lens that mimics Jean-Dominique's good eye as well as his mind's eye.

Johanna turned to me after the credits and said "That was sad." My response was "Yet, I'm jealous of him." HA! How terrible. But it's true...at this point I'd rather be the editor of Elle with 3 kids, an ex-wife, a hot lover, a wicked car, who then strokes out in France and gets a cool rare condition and then writes a best-seller turned posthumous bio-pic than a lonely, bitter, head-shaving, pancake eating, Oprah watching, Canadian. Oh well.

Labels: BOOKS MOVIES AND OTHER CULTURALISTICALITIES, DESPERATE AND SAD, MAYBE THE FUTURE WILL BE BETTER, NARCISSISM

QUIT BOTHERING ME

I'm back after holidays and the flu.

I had a dream last week that my teeth were falling out. According to online dream dictionaries either something great is going to happen, or something terrible is going to happen. So I'm going to continue spending my time alternating my mindset between "excited" and "terrified".

Labels: DEATH AND DRAMA, DESPERATE AND SAD, EW, MAYBE THE FUTURE WILL BE BETTER, NARCISSISM

KISS BACK

Thanks to LYNN & HORST for blogging about meeeeeeeeee!

L&H have a fashion blog with some real good finds. For instance, today I learned about BLESS from THIS POST (as pictured above).

Labels: NARCISSISM

THIS IS GONNA BE A LONG ONE

Skip to the end if you want to see a funny picture.

Otherwise, read on if you dare. I warn you, it's gonna get a bit "free-flowy."

You know how sometimes a theme pops up in your life? A bunch of coincidental things happen in a row and it feels too unlikely that it's just a coincidence? I love that. Even though it probably just is a coincidence or you're thinking about something so you're more atune to other happenings of the same nature.

Anyway, my most recent theme is the relation between consciousness and physicality - mind and body (sort of).

If you've ever been high, whatever your drug choice is, you know that physical reactions cause mental changes. Drinking makes you drunk, smoking pot makes you paranoid or giggly or lightheaded, taking ecstasy makes you euphoric, heroin makes every pain melt away. Even smoking a cigarette causes a mental change.

I'm reading "Theatre of the Mind" by Jay Ingram right now. He used to host "Daily Planet" on the Discovery Channel and "Quirks and Quarks" on CBC. I saw the book at my friend Claire and Jaron's apartment a while ago and decided to buy it recently. It seemed a more plausible read than my perpetually half-finished "Godel Escher Bach" endeavour (that was an inside joke for GEB-readers) that started 4 years ago.

I'm not that far into "Theatre of the Mind," but it's about trying to understand what consciousness is, if it is tied to a specific physical part of our bodies, and why we are conscious of ourselves. (The book talks about animals being alive and thinking about getting food or escaping harm, but that animals don't stop and ponder themselves. Their feelings are direct responses to the present.) Ingram often talks about how our conscious thoughts seem to appear behind our eyes. When you recall a memory or think of what an apple looks like, the image seems to present itself one or two inches back from the centre of your eyes (AKA, the "Theatre of the Mind," the stage on which your consciousness plays out). Why don't these visions materialize at the back of the head, or a couple inches outside of the skull? Is it possible to have out of body experiences by moving your conscious

Apparently, ancient cultures believed the heart to be the centre of consciousness because it is where the physical response to conscious thought most obviously appears. I have always struggled to understand why thoughts I have can cause physical pains or aches in my body. I also am trying to understand why drugs and alcohol can make those pains disappear.

This brings up when I first thought about separating my consciousness from my physical self. After a mind-bending (read inebriated) summer, I had a thought about the idea of Heaven. I have always thought that Heaven would be pretty damn boring. I mean, if you have to do boring things and follow The Bible or whatever doctrine you choose to follow in order to get into Heaven or Nirvana then chances are you have to keep doing those things once you're in. SNORE. I always find the best things in life are the opposite of religious ideals. Namely sex, drugs, and all those other deadly sins. My idea of Heaven is a bareback massage orgy in chocolate sauce followed by cancer-free cigarettes and champagne with HENRY CAVILL (shut up he's hot) on the couch watching endless all new episodes of The Sarah Silverman Program and throwing my best actor/director/screenwriter Oscars at the screen when we don't like a joke one of the ugly gays makes (I have a LOT of Oscars in Heaven). At least that's one version.

So, if being free of all those wonderful sinful things on Earth is what gets you into Heaven, then you must have to do those things in Heaven. And if that's all you do in Heaven, then shouldn't the people who do those things on Earth be in Heaven already? Heaven on Earth? Shouldn't they be so blissed out by being good Christians that they have no pain in their lives? If not, what's going to make them be blissed out in Heaven? What's going to be different? That's when it came to me. Heaven, if it does exist, is a place where no matter what you're doing you're enjoying it. That's exactly what drugs are. Why else would it be so much fun to be pure?

So then, if Heaven is the same thing as drugs, then why not just do drugs all the time? Why not just alienate yourself from everyone and chase the dragon off the cliff? Get higher and higher till you die. You'd be in Heaven on Earth, and since I don't actually believe in any afterlife, why not experience it now? It's a complete separation of your mind from your body - or at least an alteration of your body by your mind.

This is the idea of Tantra and Tantric sex as well - using your mind to create bliss in your body.

Same with trying to attain Nirvana - you're attempting to free your mind from the constraints of the body. My friend Ariel just went to a retreat and meditated in silence for 10 hours a day for 10 days straight. She wrote to me:

"Back from meditating. I'm enlightened, wheee!
But really, I am changed. Life changed. Clear. Inspired. I have learned how
to release and free myself from misery."

Thank God it worked cause I didn't do the website changes she asked me to do while she was gone.

My friend David was looking at himself in a reflection on the streetcar. He said he feels better knowing he can see himself. He said it would be great to be able to get past the idea of the reflection as only a narcissistic object. I told him that I remembered looking into the mirror as a kid, really looking. I was only 6, and it was the first time I thought "Why am I in this body?" It's funny how shit you figure out or think about as a kid comes back up in university, and you think "Oh, I really was touching on some deep crap when I was 6." Anyway, I remember it really freaking me out that my conscious mind seemed to be this alien peeking through my eyes and analyzing the physical form of me that I could see in the mirror. In that last sentance "I" becomes a manifestation of two beings - the physical "I" and the conscious "I". This is something I recognized when I was 6.

So then I just watched PAPRIKA, an Anime film about a machine that allows you to share your dreams - the actual experience of your dreams - with other people. People are able to visit other conscious minds. The dreams meld into each other and soon the physical world and dream world meld and switch. People act out their dreams in real life and die, people get killed in the real world from dream-wounds, and dream-objects enter the real world. It touches where Nightmare on Elm Street and The Cell could not.

Then while listening to Anna Karenina (I bought the audiobook to listen to during the drudgery of housework - thanks to CORRIBLE for the reco) yesterday a few characters discussed whether or not "a line should be drawn between the physiological and psychological experience in man. And if so, where?" They go on to talk about how if they can't even understand the psychological experience (consciousness) then how could they denounce religion/spirituality? That freaked me out. Anna fucking Karenina was preaching to me about consciousness and Heaven.

Finally, tonight, I went to see a movie. I'm completely ashamed of myself for wanting to see it, and for actually going to see it in a theatre. If it makes you feel better I didn't have to pay for it. I went to see..........ENCHANTED! Heaven help me for admitting that on my blog, but if you've come this far I expect that you might be open to hearing what I have to say about it.

I went to see it with a friend, who shall remain nameless in order to protect his or her identity, because I needed something light and stupid and funny and kind of wanted to see Enchanted. So did my friend. Plus Amy Adams is such a fuckin great actress. We laughed at ourselves as we skooched past little girls and their fathers to find our seats. In the movie, a Disney princess is cast into our world by a wicked witch so that she can't marry the wicked witch's stepson, the prince, and become queen. I knew the premise before I went, but I didn't realize until we were in the theatre why I was drawn to see it (other than the fact that I've seen The Little Mermaid about 50 times). It hit me that it was all about physical and dream states. Also, a fairytale Disney romance is many-a-person's idea of heaven. This movie was a very simplistic take on reality versus dream, physical versus dream/spirit/consciousness.

So this theme of separating reality, mind from body, physical from conscious keeps presenting itself. It keeps challenging me to take it on. But what will be my weapon? Booze? Drugs? Meditation? Tantra? Books? Films? Love?

Fucked if I know. Look at the kitties!

Labels: BOOKS MOVIES AND OTHER CULTURALISTICALITIES, DEATH AND DRAMA, DESPERATE AND SAD, MAYBE THE FUTURE WILL BE BETTER, NARCISSISM, NOBODY LIKES A NERD, REALLY FUCKING GAY, SEX

OMG It's ME!

I'll be guest-blogging for !! OMG BLOG !! starting tomorrow (Thursday) while dear Frank is taking a vacation for American Thanksgiving. So if you feel I'm lacking here go check out my posts on !! OMG BLOG !! til Tuesday.

Labels: NARCISSISM

I HAVE A NEW GOAL

I've had a VIVIENNE WESTWOOD day. I happened to come across her and her work about 4 or 5 times by chance. I'm so fucking inspired that I'm going to grow my hair, dye it orange, and wear it in a messy circle braid or glorious curls to family functions, and I'm gonna be god damned proud of it. I can't wait!

Labels: BOOKS MOVIES AND OTHER CULTURALISTICALITIES, BUY ME THIS, MAYBE THE FUTURE WILL BE BETTER, NARCISSISM, REALLY FUCKING GAY, THINGS I WISH I'D DONE

REAL BARROW

Yesterday I went to see the experimental shorts at the RENDEZVOUS WITH MADNESS film festival at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto.

One that stood out for me was DANIEL BARROW'S film Artist Statement. He used an old computer painting/animation program to great visual effect while candidly narrating about how he was feeling about his art and why he creates.

I wrote to him when I got home, partly to gush and partly to ask if I could use his images.

Here's an excerpt:

I was really moved by ARTIST STATEMENT. I was also envious that you so eloquently expressed so many of the feelings I'm having about where I'm at in my career right now. Shame, honesty, and fear are themes that I really want to bring out in my work and I really loved how succinctly you addressed those points in the voiceover while illustrating them so damn brilliantly on the screen. That paint program is amazing and how you used it was inspiring.

The pressure to create is also such a counter-intuitive part of the package so it was nice to see that an artist I respected was willing to divulge his self-perceived (because I would not have known that you were struggling) shortcomings.

So if you can, see the film. At least check out HIS SITE (especially the Snow Globe section and the Trading Cards which you can buy for me if you want to....)

Oh and there was a great score for the short by THE BALLET.

Labels: BOOKS MOVIES AND OTHER CULTURALISTICALITIES, BUY ME THIS, NARCISSISM, REALLY FUCKING GAY, THINGS I WISH I'D DONE

OKAY LET'S JUST END THIS RIGHT NOW

I wrote the rant following the video below after reading my friend Claire's post about Lynch and commercialism vs. artistic merit over at ENCHANT AND DOOM.

The above video is of some commercials by ROY ANDERSSON.

Here's my rant-comment from E&D:

Nothing makes me angrier than the "ARTIST or SELLOUT" debate.

When I first started doing ads after getting a degree in Fine Art, I lost some friends because of it. I got so paranoid of being a sellout that I thought people were against me that weren't.

Because of this I did a ton of research on commercial artists versus "pure" artists. There are very few who have been able to live without producing commercial work (especially those in Canada who are under a conservative regime at the moment).

Kenneth Anger is someone who has remained a "pure" artist, and even he has said that he regrets being such a renegade because now people just rip him off and he gets no credit or money for what he created.

TONS of people who are very successful filmmakers and photographers and artists have done commercial work. Wes Anderson (of course), Nan Goldin, even Roy Andersson (who directed SONGS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR) have done lots of commercial work (Andersson directed at least 300 commercials between his first film (which flopped) and SONGS).

Look at the old UNITED COLORS OF BENETTON ads, or a million other ads that so-called "pure" artists have produced.

Anyway, point is, the people I had lost now think I'm crazy for even taking a break from advertising. Turns out I took too much stock in the opinions of those people. Turns out it doesn't matter what the people think, you just have to do what you want or need to do and you have to separate your passion from your practical needs (such as food and shelter). Turns out I lost those friends because they judged my career choices instead of supporting me, not because I chose to do commercials or because I felt I was disapopinting them. I even thought my boyfriend at the time was dead against me doing anything commercial and that I was letting him down.

The idea of a "sellout" comes from the hoi polloi's own insecurities OR your own insecurities. I considered myself a sellout for a long time. Then when I thought I would just be an artist wasn't able to eat for days at a time and decided that that really sucked and I would rather be a "sellout" than dead. Even artists sell their work.

So good for Lynch. He has his priorities straight. He does commercials for products and does a damn fine job (I'd rather watch a Lynch or Andersson or Anderson directed commercial than 99.99% of the shit commercials that are on TV anyway) and he directs amazing films with NO PRODUCT PLACEMENT!

Sorry for the rant. Maybe it's cause I just drank a whole bottle of champagne and ate a batch of cookies instead of having dinner.

Apparently Ingmar Bergman says Roy Andersson's commercials (posted above) "are the best in the world".

Accept it.

Labels: BAD DOG, BOOKS MOVIES AND OTHER CULTURALISTICALITIES, DESPERATE AND SAD, MAYBE THE FUTURE WILL BE BETTER, NARCISSISM

WHINEY JUNKIE

Yesterday I finished reading DEAR DIARY by Lesley Arfin. I don't know why I read it. It was a vapid, self-indulgent tell-all written for teenaged girls that was not at all shocking, self-deprecating, or interesting even. I thought it might get somewhere interesting (maybe like GO ASK ALICE, which is also written for teenaged girls but is much more forthright), but it was just a rich girl from Jersey whining about how hard it was to spend all her parents' money on heroin while partying in New York for a few years.

And the worst part is that now she's profiting from it. She got published through her junkie douchebag connections at Vice and has her face plastered on the cover.

Then Chloe Sevigny writes the intro. Chloe Sevigny who got famous because she hung out with Harmony Korine at Washington Square Park doing drugs and skateboarding. WHAT THE HELL?!

I guess I'll just stop trying, go on welfare, smoke crack, get real skinny, sell drugs, steal, lie, and hang out in New York til I get rich and famous.

Actually that sounds like fun.

Labels: BAD DOG, BOOKS MOVIES AND OTHER CULTURALISTICALITIES, MAYBE THE FUTURE WILL BE BETTER, NARCISSISM

KALIMOTXO

My good friends came over and helped me celebrate my birthday by drinking KALIMOTXOS and posing in THESE PHOTOS. Aren't we fucking pretentious?

Watch the video to see how you make Kalimotxos and what they do to you.

I think that's what Britney puts in her babies' bottles. I WANT MY BABA!

Labels: I MADE THIS. ME. GRAYDON., NARCISSISM, REALLY FUCKING GAY