Postcards From The Edge

The Most Humbling (and probably the only) Rocket You Will Ever Ride

One of the most disheartening thing about the public transit system is the act of exchanging your hard-scrounged for monies for the measly ttc tokens. They look like humiliated toonies; turned inside out and freeze dried. If I'm going to shell out three bucks for something like that I'd like it to be a bit more impressive. Give it the collective surface area of the coins you insert in and put a pirate with a machine gun riding a giraffe on it. I want a big freakin' medallion that Flava Flave himself would trade in one of his clocks for to hang around his neck. What's that you say? A token that size is impractical? Here's another fun solution that doubles as being rather cathartic. Using the same technology as the metro pass swipe cards, exchange the tokens for little plastic daggers you can use to "stab" the turnstiles. Turnstiles will also be appropriately converted to resemble stab-able things such as morklocks, trolls, Nazis, mimes, etc... Sure you run the risk of confusing weapons for transit fare and vice versa (not to mention creating unwanted parallels between little people and hobbits), but what's one more element of danger to the public transit system, honestly? If anything, it should make waiting at one of the 24h bus stops late at night even more secure with the fear of knowing anyone could be packing.

Toronto Fun Fact # 1

To be fair, we have drugs and prostitution too, we're just less braggy about it...

We're still cool, right?

Still Clinging To Life - TAKE THAT, CITY!

Back in aught-eight I loaded the majority of my earthly possessions into my fathers trailer and, as some sort of ill formulated personal dare, moved to Toronto with some of my closest friends in pursuit of fame and fortune. Over the past year and three months I've met celebrities, gotten stitches, battled poverty and depression, begged on the street (on behalf of a registered charity) and rubbed elbows with big-shot producers. I've learned to make hobo-grade cuisine and attended fine dining establishments. In short, it's been an interesting year trying to make sense of the real world in an at times very unreal city. But I've survived, and you can too. In the months ahead I plan to revive my earlier objective in providing a place of solstice and reassurance to other disenfranchised small-towners set adrift in the big smog - somewhere other lost souls can learn from my experience...and laugh at my expense.

Extra! Extra! - Read all about it

Following a tip on /Film, I recently got to experience a day as an extra for the forthcoming sequel to the 1999 sleeper action hit Boondock Saints entitled - I kid you not - Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day. While I momentarily struggled with my conscious as a film buff (did I truly want to participate in something that could potential mare my, as well as scores of other fans', fond memories of the original?) I couldn't deny that the prospect of appearing in a feature film for even a fraction of a second was damn cool.

So, at 2pm I made my way to Toronto United Church on Queen Street and signed my release form. Production was running behind, so I wandered off for a bit to grab myself a coffee and a bagel (sadly I had to settle for "everything" versus onion and, as suspected, no self respecting coffee shop was offering "a twist of lemon" in their lattes). We started up just after 3pm once writer/director Troy Duffy had thanked all the fans for coming out. So, what did I do? I appeared in two major crowd scenes outside of the church. In the first I got to look disturbed/curious/grim as I and other concerned members of the fictional community jostled to get a glimpse of a crime scene following the murder of a priest. In the second scene I chanted passionately as I and "hundreds" (read: dozens) of others protested allegations made against the Saints. In the later scene one of my fellow protesters had a sign fall and bash him in the face. I chuckled on the inside to keep from breaking character. All in all it was a neat way to spend my day off.

Here are some of my personal favourite extras from television and film:

The Tall Storm Trooper - Star Wars Episode Four: A New Hope (aka the original/good Star Wars)



Ah, back in a simpler time before Lucas bled the franchise dry...I remember making this discovery while watching the movie on vhs with my brother when I was younger. It was as though God smiled on us and said "Nerdith and ye shall receive."

Woman in Headscarf at the end of the intro- "The Mary Tyler Moore Show"



Just why is she glaring like that? Is Mary's sense of joy and self-satisfaction that unheard of in Minneapolis? Probably. Apparently Entertainment Weekly named this moment (Mary tossing the hat, not the women glaring) the second greatest moment in television history. The only reason why I know about it is because Homer spoofs it in the Simpsons episode "And Maggie Makes Three."

Andy and Maggie - "Extras"



Okay, so this breaks with the theme slightly in that these are highly talented comedic actors playing struggling background performers, but come on, it's hysterical! Ricky Jervais and Ashey Jensen are brilliant in this series. This just goes to demonstrate that while the hook of the show may be its penchant for featuring and poking fun at a different celebrity in each episode the performances of its staple cast members are what make it truly worth while. Here's one more:



Haha. Awesome.

Econo-Cooking Episode 1 - Peanut Butter Cookies

Now that the trees have begun shedding their leaves and another Canadian winter is drawing ominously closer many of us are harding it harder and harder to ignore our primal instincts to fatten up for winter. While both celebrities and modern medicine (but mostly celebrities) have convinced us that, say, eating Nutella straight from the tub is a "bad thing" sometimes sweet cravings just need to be sated. But hark! What are those cries? "I don't live with my mom any more and this city has beaten me out of the money I'd usually spend on junk food!" Fear not fellow impoverished citizens. I have for you a cheap and simple favourite made potentially cheaper*

Peanut Butter Cookies
1/2 peanut butter
1/4 margarine
2/3 cups OR 64 packets* each white and brown sugar †
1 chicken's egg (please, do not forage unless you want to piss off some birds and possibly end up with a nasty embryonic surprise. Not that it's nesting season anyway...)
1 cup all-purpose white flour (you are too poor to buy organic and there is no place for whole wheat in this recipe)

Preheat oven to 350F. Cream together margarine, peanut butter and sugars. Add egg. Mix in flour. Form into round balls, flatten with a fork, and bake on greased ‡ cookie sheets for 8- 10 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Makes 2-3 dozen.

* Yes, friends, this is where we get especially cheap. But think about it, North America is one of the most prosperous areas in the world; a society rife with excess, a society in which it is considered normal to pay upwards of $3 for coffee! When was it decided that this was necessary? Who made cafe lattes status quo while so many of us are trying to scrape by on McJobs and so many others are on the street? If it just so happens that a byproduct of java fueled Western decadence is free sugar packets, who's to say Joe Nescafe can't take advantage? This isn't just thrift, it's social protest! ...okay, it's just thrift, but waste not, want not, right?

† Admittedly brown sugar packets aren't always that common. You may find a lot of what is called "raw sugar" instead, which isn't exactly the same thing. Raw sugar is processed differently and is generally courser than both white and brown sugar, but does contain some molasses like brown sugar (the dark rich syrup that has been re-added to brown sugar to make it brown). If you don't care if you're cookies are super smooth, feel free to supplement with raw sugar, but try to get some of the good old brown stuff in there too to keep the flavour properly balanced.

‡ To cut down on grease you can place a silpat or parchment paper over your cookie sheets instead of greasing, but seeing as we need to save our pennies for rent and cheap wine, don't bother unless you already have these things as reminders of a past life of disposable income.

Attack of the Renegade Hipsters! - Canzine 2008

I recently attended the Canzine 2008, "Canada's Largest Zine Fair and Festival of Alternative Culture." This was my first real foray in to the depths of Queen Street West and the experience was kind of overwhelming. Organized by Broken Pencil, a legitimately cool compendium of underground culture in North America based in TO, Canzine surely broke some sort of record for the most hipsters under one roof.

Don't get me wrong, the whole reason for me going is because I usually like this kind of stuff and, admittedly, I was hoping to make some creative contacts, but this...it was like the Valhalla of high school literary magazines past. You couldn't turn a corner without being sodomized by wit and irony and kitch. Despite the sheer bombardment of vainglorious creativity at work, I am glad I went and I did see a few truly interesting exhibitors that managed to stand out from the white-noise (oops, "white" noise probably has too much of a derisive Westernized homogenous subtext. Clear-noise? Prisma-noise?) Should I recover any links to their work after sifting through my bag of collected buttons, fliers, stickers and bookmarks I shall post them.

A few memorable sights from Canzine: The "Artsy Games Arcade Room" specializing in very cool, very off-beat indie flash games; the "Work 'n Play Room" which a) wasn't overcrowded and b) let me play with an old typewriter; a booth with the gall to sell a book on "Freeganism" for $6 (I think I can figure out how to root through the garbage by myself, thanks!); a pornographic colouring book.

While initially the concentrated dose of counterculture I received had the adverse effect of compelling me to hyperventilate into a happy meal and drape myself in a Gap sweater, it also gave me hope. Hope that I too could be a geek-chic DIY artist. So, without additional adieu, here is my Canzine starter kit:

• Buttons! You should really have buttons, but for want of that I guess you could offer patches. For want of patches offer to draw on people in exchange for a shiny nickel.
• Any shirt from Threadless.com
  
• An entourage or group of friendly contemporaries with uncommon names to chitchat with while people are trying to squeeze past your booth. ie. Darius, Fernando, Hostel, Tea Cozy, etc..
• A knitting project to fiddle with as people politely smile at you and then try to avoid eye contact (or at the very least a crochet project)
• Some form of self-published literature
  

Tips for naming your publication:
These are the two major schools of thought I observed at Canzine:
1. The non sequitur statement/sentence fragment route:
Ex. How are Oranges so...? (Keep them wondering!)
My Blood Hurts (Bonus points for being dark and gritty)

2. The Asian Character/illegible type-face route ( the same content as above, but even more obscure)
Ex. ろばの陰嚢!
YellowM
U S T ARD

See you at the next Canzine! (I'll be the one with the ironic t-shirt and Buddy Holly glasses)
-Mal