Dear neglected little blog, please forgive me. It has been a long and unforgiving month. Now I have escaped down under, my dear, and we may have more time together; or perhaps less, if weather permits and will reach above twenty degrees and will envelope us with the sweltering heat we expect yet can be surprisingly aloof in early summer here. This country is in a frenzy of anti-politics, having pledged to carbon trading, forsaken it, overthrown the very leader that was suppose to make these changes, and regresses appallingly under the leadership of a hard ex-lawyer who's tight-lips, as observable in humans, will always indicate a cold heart.  Always the follower under pretence of leadership; always an incompetent swimmer in deepwater, forsaking the deeper knowledge of his ability to float placidly but rather will struggle.  We can supply ourselves, we can be a leader of our own populace and we can be on our own.  Colonial ties bandage our eyes and blind us from our own powers as a state, and our own capabilities to direct our own path.
It is, however, the glorious country of memories with a happy populous full of pride and an infectious energized calm.  I can finally make sense of the strangers I come in contact with.  It may sound trite, but if you ever need to remember what living with hope was, or what it feels like to be truly warm, and truly at peace, this is the only place I have found, for myself, that reaches these goals.  That being said, my perception may be distorted as I only resign in Australia when in a period of repose, or in short, a holiday, but nevertheless I find the quality of life here to be quiet unique and perplexing. Its indefinitely reassuring to find oneself situated somewhere that is most likely off the map of nuclear catastrophe, incredibly temperate, and entirely agriculturally sustainable on an individual level.  I know, if the world is enveloped by a disaster of catastrophic proportions, where I would rather be located.
Now enough of this banter. Here are some lovely uplifting things to make you happy. There will be, of course, more banter in the new year.

you're a woman, i'm a machine

Wild at Heart, Kept in Cages

I curated my first ever exhibit in the second-floor Transit Space of OCAD, featuring the work of three talented young artists who are very dear to me. We are all extremely happy with the result, and it was a dream working with these girls for the first time.  Wild at Heart, Kept In Cages is a drawing and installation -based collaborative show, and the reception is tomorrow night at 7 for as long as I can hold out before fleeing back to the studio to resume my eternal enslavement in the bowls of the basement workshops at school, my current ball and chain.  The lovely artists can be found here:

Fox Xoft

Taya Cornett

Beth Kotierk

Photos to come from this...

Some much needed motivational words from a surprisingly positive future-state inner-city youth. Having Will Smith as a father has a lot of perks, including the option to get cryogenically frozen for a few hundred years until people are mass-evacuated to the moon to live in gravity monitored space domes. Phew! I'm ever so glad, because talent like this only comes once every few centuries nowadays. And what does the year 4010 look like? Weaves are entirely make of factory-farmed standard poodle hair and manicures are circuit based, allowing for various home utilities to be incorporated into the wave of a glossy finger. And better yet, thanks to inflation balancing, they are still affordable enough even for the allowance of the spawn of a ten-year-old millionaire!

Fiberoptic heels by Francesca Castagnacci

TOTAL REHAUL

AVAILABLE FOR YOU VIEWING LEISURE HERE...

reduce
reuse
recycle

This town...

Some select Detroit pictures and others from the vault up

Freaky Friday

This Wednesday-Sunday Toronto Underground Cinema is having a feast of glorious gore, from Zombies humping zombies to the original freak guy on earth, Nosferatu.  Check out their Friday showing, the golden age grindhouse spectacular Pieces.  Bloor Cinema has some good ones also, but I'd only recommend going if you're into hyped-up half-naked pre teens testing their wavering vocals out on Rocky Horror.  Also fun for Halloween dates is Screamers theme park, with five different houses to explore and games and arcades, AND a bar. What could be better?

A PERFECT (FOUR) DAYS

Thank you everyone, for such a lovely long weekend of birthdays. Two brilliant brunches, the best party of all time, great music, a wonderful studio/rooftop space, and three sneaky girls who bought me dinner and drinks last night. Thanks to you all, and my family who never forgets me despite the distance.  And with me on the celebration of this double-deuce birthday is the song my high school music teacher would sing, which went something like this:

Happy birthday (whooooooooo)

Happy Birthday (whooooooooo)

Pain and misery and despair,

People dying everywhere,

Happy birthday (whooooooooo)

ONE YEAR CLOSER TO DEATH....

I still find this macabre chant to be thrilling. I found this little story on my all-time favourite art blog, Who Killed Bambi? and thought it is too pure to not be shared:

The Twin Fawns, by Peregrine Honig, have a sweet story:

“I came upon twin fawns in the display case of a mom and pop toy and science store in Kansas City, Missouri. It took me two years to win the trust of the shop owner and save the money to buy them. A taxidermist spotted a dead deer by the side of the road. He stopped to properly dispose of the body and realized she was pregnant. He opened her and found near full-term twin fawns, he removed and preserved them.  Deer rarely have twins and the taxidermist retained the uterine gesture of their bodies. I built them a vitrine with a light blue base. Their prematurity exaggerates the delicacy of an incredibly sweet thing. The points of their hooves, the length of their lashes, the spots of their hides, nose to small in an ur-cartoonish realism … Viewers’ eyes trick them into believing the fawns are breathing. The tragedy of beauty is its transience.  The twins live forever in their own demise... They have been muses since I first saw them. We dress death in lilies and bronze the names of our dead sons on walls. We erect altars of toys and hold candlelight vigils to express hope. My twin fawns sleep endlessly on their baby blue block in my studio. The twins never opened their eyes yet their wondrous fatality evokes an acceptable alternative to death.”

DISCO BLOODBATH

I watched both Party Monster movies with Beth today and it was super surreal.  It almost feels like the characters in reality were more contrived than in the film, they were so unbelievably disassociated from the entirety of the situation but I suppose that's the lifesyle in a nutshell of the amply dubbed philosophy of "profound superficiality".  It also made me completely re-think New York.  I guess too many family visits and constant observance of a strict diet of grizzly Law and Order SVU episodes when I was a kid ruined the big apple fantasy for me for a period. I won't say I feel compelled to New York now either (often referred to as Never York) but it did make my skin prickle a little, and make me want to partake in costumed tomfoolery more often.  Also, I'm super duper jealous of Chloe Sevigny's crazy acting resume.  There will definitely be a replicated costume of her green PVC nurse outfit in my life very soon, so I can saunter by with a tray full of candy-coloured ketamine cocktails, amply doling them out to whoever is willing.

HARDERHARDERDARKERDARKER

HALLOWEEN CHRONICLES

It is unseasonably warm this year going flying through autumn as my favourite week of the year approaches- my birthday, followed by Halloween.  There may be a thematic deluge of Halloween related stuff on here for the next little while, and for that, I do not apologize.  Breaking from tradition, I bought my costume some time ago, to avoid the mishaps of years previous, such as shanking my leg with an xact-o knife whilst carving a pair of conical tits for my man-eating cyborg costume last year. Here's some inspiration from Los Angeles based everything artist Marnie Weber, if you haven't already thought of what you spooky or sexy thing you need to be yet.

Ticking al the right boxes, as far as I'm concerned... And here are some dedicated Australians, who don't even celebrate the commodified deluge which is Halloween in any official sense, just laying down the gore.  Check out Champagne Hangover, a blog by this guy Byron from my home town down under. I like to look at it as a pleasing testament to the bigger and better things we've both moved on to.

SUCCULENT...

Bismuth crystal, to give ya something to chew on for the coming day.

Marvellous.

DOCTOR'S ORDERS

DOCTOP P TONIGHT FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY AT WRONGBAR COME ONE COME ALL

BACK TO SCHOOL GEEK CHIQUE

To this day, every time I leave my house sans white blouse, forest green kilt, and black knee-highs, I feel oddly displaced. The comfort of forced high school visual conformity lingers, like Vietnam vet clinging to his 1969 surplus issued khaki jacket.  Gearing up for a great year this year, and as you well know, every good school year starts with pink hair.  That's my special contribution to ritual back-to-school personal alterations each year; staying up far past my bedtime getting real wired and crazy with a bottle of liquid something-or-other in one hand and the other ready to comb through, making plentifully frenzied alterations to the colour of my trembling tresses.  But it looks like I'm not the only one thinking too hard about this... Here is a list of more (gasp) memorable moments in back to school history someone has carefully compiled.

DECISIONS, DECISIONS

I LEFT MY HEART AND MISSED MY PLANE, AS USUAL

San Francisco! You're super. Thanks for all the good times life feels so much better, a feeling akin to a swift frontal lobotomy performed by the hands of Walter Freeman himself. Bliss.

And just one of the many zany things we found there....

NEW BABY NEICE

HANNAH
HANNAH
HANNAH
HANNAH
HANNAH
HANNAH
HANNAH
HANNAH
HANNAH
HANNAH
HANNAH
HANNAH
HANNAH
HANNAH
HANNAH
HANNAH
SAME
BACKWARDS
AS
FORWARDS
AND SHE SPEAKS IN TONGUES