My first animated gif.

Making a list and checking it twice.

Ideas

I have an art book from Japan with a picture of a piece by Makoto Aida. The piece is a video where he stands in front of a wall on which are written the Japanese syllables I de a with his back to the audience and masturbates. This man in Shanghaii had a similar idea. He's his own kind of artist.

I was listening to one of my favourite podcasts this weekend, and stumbled upon one by Leonore Tieffer. In it she discussed the hypersexualization of our lives, the desire to compare and compete with others that this is resulting in, the destructive trends encouraged by the introduction of viagra, and the narrowing of our sexual imagination.
She believed that many of the problems in sexual relationships were things that could be solved through discussion and increasing connection and intimacy between people, and that the modern approach of medicating and focusing on the erection as the most important aspect of sexual function/dysfunction was a reflection of our society's phallocentrism. Except, when she said it the first time, she accidentally said fellowcentrism. Or perhaps it was fallowcentrism.
I guess they all work just as well, and I like them all.
The podcast has been taken down as of this morning,(Good work as usual, cbc.ca!)otherwise I would link to it here

Everything is Bork Bork Borked.

Bork is the name of my friend Debbie's adorable cat.
Bork is the sound in the song that the Swedish Chef sings. Borked the state of every computer at the Archive right now because of repeated hackings in the past week.
My boss first introduced me to the term, which we now all use when some piece of technology is not working properly.
The submissions at Urban Dictionary generally agree with this definition, although one user claims that Borked means:


Being molested anally, as in raped up the ass.

"Jimmy got borked when he dropped the soap in the prison shower."

I am not overly fond of this definition.

So nothing is working properly, most of the employees can barely do their jobs, and some goon somewhere is having a big wank over using the computers at a Nonprofit to play warcraft or whatever the hell he's doing.
Lucky for me, since I learned both of the other meanings first, when things start to go terribly wrong at work I usually end up thinking of a cat while whistling a jolly 'Swedish' tune.

The Beer Station/Japanese Catfight

Where do you go for a drink on a Friday night in the Annex, when all of the bars with a remotely tolerable atmosphere are filled up with students?
The Beer Station. The cheapest dive bar in the neighborhood. It looks as though it has been transplanted from 1990's Brampton right onto Bloor street. The interior is painted light blue, and makes you feel as though you're stuck in an empty swimming pool. All of the signs are poorly handwritten, and there are at least ten television screens showing different sports.
We were sitting next to a group of men who were talking about STI's. One of them claimed that gonorrhea was no big deal, and told the others that it could be treated with VINEGAR. Then he got up and mimicked riding a horse for a moment, telling his friends how much he loved 'bare-backing'
The televisions above our seats were tuned to FightTV, and after midnight it plays fight entertainment. First there was women's boxing, with misty images of sexy ladies wearing pink and blue gloves, shot through a vaselined camera lens. We were still able to keep up our own conversation until the show changed into something called 'Real Catfight' from Japan.
On a mat on the floor, in a small room full of what looked like homeless men and blue collar workers, two women fought bare-handed in the silliest way.
One of the contenders was named Ichigo (Strawberry) Milk, and wore a kimono style dress with strawberries on it.
The women writhed, slapped each other, and rolled around on the floor tangled together. There were moves that looked like positions from the Kama Sutra, and there were plenty of crotch and cleavage shots.
After the first two matches (during which we were so mesmerized that we barely said a word) the ice match began. A plastic tarp was laid down with several buckets of ice on it, and a fox-masked ref started the match. The women filled their mouths with ice and spat them at each other, they stuffed ice down each other's tiny panties and by the end of it one of them had lost her shirt.
Here's a promo:

It was ridiculous, but entertaining. I ended the evening in typical creepy style by trying to encourage my friends to go home and do a photo shoot in costume in wrestling poses, inspired by the show. I did it because I was alone, and they were together (one person does not an amusing wrestling photo shoot make)and I thought it would be fun and hilarious. Then I walked home, feeling a bit dirty.

Somebody died just outside

I just found out that someone died just outside my apartment in a construction accident. It must have happened shortly after I left for work.
I can't help but think of strange things because of this. My roommate told me that there was police tape outside when she went home at 4. What if I had been working the late shift? I'd likely have been in the kitchen cooking something at the time. I might have seen the man outside and waved. I might have heard a noise and gone out to see what was going on.
After having a lovely morning walk through my neighborhood, hearing this news is shocking to me. I wonder how many other people have died in my vicinity since I've been living here...I wonder if the accident could have been prevented.
I sat in my kitchen the other day, looking at the ancient drawers and cupboards and gigantic door frame and wished that I could meet everyone who's ever lived there. The place is probably at least a hundred years old and has had seven different people living in it during only the last 3 or 4 years.
I'd love it if I could get all of the renters and owners from the past and present together for a potluck.

Life, Death and Mourning

This week, maybe because it's autumn, death seems to be coming up with more than the usual frequency. Cbc's 'The Sunday Edition' dedicated the whole three hour program to discussing dying, death traditions and mediums. This week's episode of 'This American Life' is called Rest In Peace. I finally learned what happened in Jonestown. I've watched two films this week dealing with death, revenge and grief, especially the grief of parents for their dead children.
One of the films, The Host was almost entirely driven by the main characters' family's blind grief and anger at the abduction of their beloved schoolgirl-child. From the tenderness of a father lifting his daughter's backpack to ease her burden, to the rawness of a father wrenching his daughter's lifeless body from the belly of a beast, the film was most interesting to me because of its depiction of the intensity of the familial bond.
This morning I learned about mourning rings. Sir George Simpson wore a mourning ring for a child of his that died several months after it was born. The ring was a diamond, and it was covered with black enamel so that it wouldn't sparkle. Here is an example of a mourning ring belonging to Jeremy Bentham. Not quite as dramatic.