Tagged: black
Blogged from under blankets
- by admin
Slept till nearly noon.
Ate soup, tea, bread from Stella's.
Which always makes me feel a bit fancy even when I'm not.
Usually I can't eat when I'm sick but today if I could I'd consume
everything
in this apartment.
If only I had the will to leave the couch.
her
- by admin
To beat the cold on the weekend Ty and I made thin crust pizzas and curled up under blankets and watched her which is the latest film from Spike Jonze that has audiences swooning.
I wish I could disagree (no I don't) but I don't.
I loved it.
The sets with stark backgrounds and pastel shades and high-waisted pants and hairstyles that hinted that this wasn't quite in the present.
The contrast between the too-happy workplace and Theodore's crumbling personal life.
Joaquin Phoenix's portrayal of Theodore, a man who seems to be fading out of his own life due to his inability to face his own mistakes.
ScarJo's voice, of course, perfect as the voice of the OS, Samantha.
As well as how compartmentalized the movie was. The film focused on Theodore's experience with the OS and only revealed small snippets of the effect that a sentient operating system was having on the larger society.
I liked it that way. The movie focusing on Theodore's life was complex enough and I feel it would have detracted from the overall feel and message if the plot had tried to tackle a broader range of issues and subjects in such a small time frame.
Because ultimately her is a movie about a lonely man who does what a lot of lonely people do: they fall for the wrong person. They try to fill that gap in their heart with something that they shouldn't.
In Theodore's case it was a charming, cute operating system, and the way the Jonze frames their developing relationship makes it seem so completely plausible. Watching the film I couldn't help but think
"Yeah, that makes sense".
It's to utterly, terribly human that it hurts, and it serves as a reminder of the complexity of our emotions.
How we can't help who (or what) we love, and our relationships are entirely our own interpretation.
But the biggest lesson that a viewer can take away from this heartbreaking, beautifully sad story is this:
Small phones win out in the end.
I know some brilliant people
- by admin
One of them is Skot Deeming aka mrghosty, who I met years ago through Tyrone and currently stalk via the interwebs since he moved away to Toronto and now to Montreal to earn his doctorate and become drghosty.
Today though he was in town to give an artist talk at Videopool about curating games and game-based networks as you can see in the above photo.
Because in addition to being a grad-and-now-phd student studying digital games (among other things) he's also interested in having conversations about games as art, the physicality of games, the ephemeral nature of pop-up arcades, and a multitude of other intellectual subjects pertaining to gaming that most of us don't think about day to day.
As an avid gamer myself I'm always interested in what Skot has to say, and it was wonderful to have the opportunity to hear him speak.
My Toronto peeps should make a point to check out Vector Gave + Art Convergence Festival which runs Feb 19-23 and everyone should make a point to keep up with Skot's work is through his twitter @mrghostyx.
As always Skot, it was a pleasure seeing you and getting to witness all your smarts.
xox yr Shaner
Little boy who fell down in the street
- by admin
I'm so glad we didn't hit you
As we drove along the super-icy
Frozen
Street to our destination.
I'm so thankful that your little
Four or five year old self
Bundled up in a black n red snowsuit
Got up quickly
And that our brakes worked like they should.
Your useless father should know better
Than to run across the street on a green light
(Especially in this weather)
And to run ahead of his little kids
Making them cross on their own.
Hopefully today taught him a lesson.
But somehow I doubt it.
Happy 2014 darlings
- by admin
2013 was a big year for yr girl and I spent NYE celebrating it in the best was possible -surrounded by amazing, lovely people. I drank too much sparkling wine, ate too many nachos, killed my feet dancing to great music, and managed to drag my tired self into the office today because (gasp) I missed being here while I was away on vacation.
Which was the biggest surprise of all.
Considering that I was unemployed for a good chunk of 2013, and the stress of getting a job that was only part-time, finding a new job, getting laid off from that job less than a month after starting with no explanation as to why and feeling so utterly hopeless -probably more so than I've ever felt- being able to roll into my work every day and spend my workday with really great people doing challenging and interesting things feels like such a stroke of luck that sometimes I wonder how I finagled my way to where I am.
Reading everyone else's posts it seems like 2013 was a bit tough for all of us.
Character building, if you will.
It's funny how a different number at the end of the calendar year gives us hope for something better. A chance to improve & get better.
We're kinda weird about time like that.
Either way, things are looking up for 2014 and I'm excited to get this party started.
Thanks, as always, for reading and hanging out on the internet with me. Happy 2014 to you!
xox yr girl Shaner
The Uniter Fiver
- by admin
Local university mag The Uniter is holding a competition called The Uniter Fiver where you can go n vote for your favourite artist ad they win stuff (I think?) and get some much-deserved local cred.I'm lucky enough to know not just one but two of the super-talented guys who submitted videos and even though you can only vote for one I'm gonna plug 'em both anyway, because they're both brilliant and they both deserve it:
"Crows" is a collaboration between Co-pilot, Mumbles and my friend Abstract Artform aka Shea M.
I met Shea through my friend Colin a few years back on a patio at Beachcomber's. In between charming all the waitresses and probably the waiters too he totally won us over as well.
After we'd had our fill of slushy drinks & beers he insisted that we go to karaoke at Saffron's on Corydon where we had one of the best, most random and entertaining nights ever.
In addition to being a sweet and unbelievably genuine person, Shae is also super-talented, and you should definitely vote for him.
Aband*nthecar is a one-man synthpop band aka my very dear friend John L. I don't know much about his music so here's his description of his setup for this video: I use a Boss RC-300 looping pedal with a single drum sample, the Little Phatty mainly for the arpeggiator, and the MicroKorg for the vocoder and leads.
I first met John several years ago when he was dating Kat, who is my best ladybro.
We were all at Wine Fest and ran into each other about 2/3's of the way through the night and even though everyone else decided to go off in search of more, differenter wines, John and our friend Teri and I decided to stand around the port table for close to an hour and drink there.
This move has basically become a staple of every Wine Fest since, and with good reason (port is great).
In addition to being one of my best friends and one of the cleverest and most outrageous people you could hope to meet, John writes some of the most charming and catchy tunes I know and you should definitely vote for him.
I don't actually know anyone from Bear Clones but they get a special spot in this post because of this cover of Faust from the epic 80's rock opera that almost nobody knows about Phantom of the Paradise.
I can't in good conscience tell you to vote for them since I'm plugging my friends, but I highly recommend you check out their stuff and definitely recommend that you watch Phantom of the Paradise.
Happy voting, and good luck boys!
xox yr Shaner
The web pages I frequent summed up by the general types of posts I see:
- by admin
Facebook: “All the people on my friends list are going to pile on to 1. Defend your point or 2. Go on at length about how wrong you are.”
Twitter: “You made a valid point! Let’s discuss like adults and have a productive conversation.”
Online newspaper publications: “I like commenting anonymously because I can say all the ignorant things I want about issues I know nothing about.”
Reddit: “Your statement makes me feel bad about myself. Time to take it personally and out of context and fight with you about it for a day and a half!”
4chan: “DICKS. EVERYWHERE.”
Sometimes I feel like I can't express myself
- by admin
but then I see stuff like this and think
"yeah, I'm still doing pretty okay."
Drunk girl in the Exchange
- by admin
I first saw you on Albert and McDermotwhile Tyrone was taking photos of the storefronts of Rhymes with Orange and Tiny Feast
and I was standing by holding his papers and humming a song by The Weakerthans.
You were walking up the street in a tiny dress and a blazer
holding your phone in one hand
and a glass full of some sort of drink in the other
my hunch is a long island tea, but it's anyone's guess.
You walked by and kept stumbling on the cobblestone streets
and I felt compelled to say something to you
but I didn't because mostly we're taught to keep to ourselves
lest we bring trouble or interfere.
However
as I watched you stumble away down the block
and then across McDermot
almost falling twice
I thought "fuck convention" and started to run after you.
By the time I reached you, you were already a block away
by King and Notre Dame
and I sprinted around the corner and shouted EXCUSE ME at you.
I think I scared you but you stopped.
I asked if you were okay and you drunkenly said you were
even though your dress was half-tucked up and you'd lost that glass somewhere and I could smell the booze on you
and I thought to myself
that you would have looked really professional if your dress wasn't so short & your little boots were so high.
But that's besides the point.
I asked if you wanted me to call you a cab and you said no
so you said you would call your boyfriend and I said I'd wait with you and you said I didn't have to
but I did
and when he didn't pick up you got up and straightened out your skirt and said
I AM TOTALLY OKAY
and sprinted across the intersection and through an empty parking lot before I knew what was happening.
I yelled after you
where are you going?
and you said
HOME.
I hope you made it back okay
to wherever your home is
because I'm still worried about you
dashing around by yourself in your high heels in the cold.
So if you read this, please let me know you're all right.
What I learned at my graduation
- by admin
Which actually happened last Friday as I'm sure most of you know but I didn't want to write about it until I'd had some time to sit back and reflect on what happened and what it actually means to me, if anything at all.Here goes:
It's not about you, the graduand, at all.
Which seems like an obvious statement but when you spend a bunch of time preparing for what is supposed to be one of the most important moments of your adult life, your transition from being a lowly student to being a lowly intern or administrative assistant or whatever, you kind of expect it to focus a little more on you which it really doesn't. Or mine didn't, at least.
The UW sent out this "what to expect when you graduate" form a few weeks before which, in addition to providing me with my place in line and gown rental info also said that Convocation lasts around 2 1/2 hours which I assumed meant that there would be a speech or two and then a bunch of us graduating because that's why we were there.
This was an incorrect assumption on my part.
Instead I sat with my graduating class in an auditorium while a bunch of people awarded degrees and titles to each other and gave flowery speeches about how great they, the person giving them the award, and the university in general was.
It also happened to be the 100th Convocation which meant that they felt the need to give awards to dead people as well as people who could be there to accept them.
The whole ceremony was so long that it had an intermission for people to get up and stretch their legs and during which my poor Nan and Granddad had to leave because they actually had other stuff to go and do and hadn't expected to be there that long. Luckily for the time that they were there I was seated close enough to them that we could make faces and eyerolls at one another to indicate how bored we were, so that was nice.
All in all the whole ceremony was nearly three hours, two and a half of which the University of Winnipeg staff and alumni spent patting itself on the back instead of recognizing the students they were supposedly there to honour. The actual process of everyone going up, walking across the stage to shake the necessary hands and get their diplomas, and sitting back down took about twenty minutes.
I was too hot, stiff, bored, tired and absolutely starving by the end of it.
But that weird feeling of pride, that swelling in my chest when I moved that silly tassel from the right side to the left of my mortarboard was something I'm so, so glad that I experienced.
Even if it still doesn't feel quite real just yet.
