Scenic!
Why? This is a picture of the waterfront as it now stands, between Sherbourne and Yonge. It’s brutal. The irony of the situation occurred to me on Sunday when Matt and I bundled ourselves in the car and drove down to The Beach for some sushi and an after-dinner walk. We used to live down there, so it’s always nice to go back. But the thing is, we live like two blocks from the waterfront now! We’re not even that much further away than we were before! But instead of a lovely boardwalk and lake views, we get construction sites, no sidewalks, drunken bums and lots of dirt. Sweet! “But they’re working on it!” you might say. I don’t call two new massive, lake-blocking buildings working on it. I call it a sell out and a great disappointment.
Barrie's waterfront: Not bad, eh??
In contrast, here’s a shot of Barrie’s waterfront
Steve Earle, 2007, Cambridge Folk Festival
Saw Steve Earle this weekend at Massey Hall in Toronto. I’d see pretty much anyone at Massey Hall (except Simple Plan. I think I’d have to pass on that), but seeing a great like Earle there is going to be exceptional experience. The sound is so good, and the performers like playing there, it’s always a great time. Earle definitely did not disappoint either, putting together a really nice acoustic set of his Townes Van Zandt covers and his own classics as well. And he wove much of it together with personal antecdotes set to strumming, giving it an almost spoken-word feel. It was really nice.
The thing that really stood out to my boyfriend and I at the end was just how good an overall show it was, in that it was truly a performance. We see a lot of shows, and the performance aspect of it can often be lost, whether it’s in shyness, arrogance, or plain old bad stage presence. But Earle was a consummate pro, even thanking the audience for coming out to a somewhat expensive show in the middle of a recession. It was nice, and refreshing. We really felt that we got our money’s worth at the end (especially when he played Copperhead Road, a song he’s probably played a billion times in his career. But it’s an awesome song, and I’m glad he played it).
Photo: Flickr CC
This leather jacket always makes me feel cooler than I actually am. Aviators never hurt either.
I recently started visiting The Sartorialist website to see what all the fuss was about and now find myself there every day, gawking at Parisian beauties and they’re ultra-expensive wardobes. It’s entered my mini repertoire of fashion media and I like seeing how people much more innately fashionable than myself deport themselves. I always like to think, when I’m on that site or reading British Vogue (trust me, it’s worth the $10.95. I hate American Vogue), that I’m somehow absorbing that innate stylishness and creativity that Agyness Dean or Kate Moss seem to ooze so effortlessly. (I realize it may not be effortless at all, but it certainly comes off that way.)
I have realized, though, that you can’t get style via osmosis. It doesn’t really seem to matter how much high fashion or street fashion I visually take in, or even buy, I never seem to be able to a) mimic it, b) re-appropriate it creatively or c) even come up with some sort of defined personal style. It is that style, you see, that makes all those Satorialist people so fashionable even when they’re in the grocery store. It’s a funny thing. I seem to be able to pick up all sorts of stuff via research (building science, ski resort management, muscle cars) but it doesn’t really make a difference here. I think I must be missing some sort of critical genome. Oh well… Stacey and Clinton haven’t come calling yet, so I guess it can’t be all bad 
Every time I get a credit card bill in the mail, I keep the one page with my details on it, then shred the rest. I cut up old cards into little tiny shards. I shield the PIN pad on the bank machine to prevent cameras from recording my finger movements. I don’t give my SIN to pretty much anyone. I check my bank account almost daily to make sure that no one else is accessing it, or my credit cards. I’d like to think I do almost everything possible to keep my info to myself. Except for one small detail: I am a member of three social networks, which I update daily.
I kind-of ignored all the FB privacy stories until just recently, thinking that I didn’t have enough on there to give myself away. But recently, the strangest people have been popping up in the “People you may know” box on my profile. They’re all sources of mine from stories in the past. But some of these people are old sources, from ancient email accounts and stories that were not published under my name. This kind of creeped me out. How the hell did they associate me with those people?
Alas, a little digging online revealed the rather pedestrian answer: Facebook is utilizing its “people you may know” networking capacity more than it used to, in order to tempt people into building bigger networks. They are doing this by going back to the permission you originally gave them to mine your email account for contacts who might also be on Facebook. So the story sources might not have been in my email account, but my email remains in their account, so voila! They appear on my profile page. Mystery solved.
This all goes back to the recent FB privacy stories about the new privacy settings recently unveiled to site users. FB says they simplify the privacy-settings process, but critics charge that really, FB is just trying to make people share more of their personal information in a bid to better compete with Twitter. Either way, I’m kind of glad it happened, in that I didn’t fully realize before the extent to which I’m constantly giving away my presence online. I’m not going to stop using the site, but I think I’ll be more careful about what I share, and how I share it, in the future.
Harold, basking in his moment in the spotlight. Next thing you know, he'll be asking for champagne and caviar.
As many of you may know — friends that is, or other fans of Harold — my turtle Harold was treated to an article in Toronto’s daily newspaper, The Toronto Star this weekend. It was very exciting.
Since many people have expressed their curiosity as to how Harold achieved such notoriety, it went down like this:
When I saw that the Star had started the Condo Pets column, I thought ‘hey, I live in a condo and I have a pet’ so I wrote in to the email address listed and pitched Harold as the topic of a future column. That was the PR part of it.
The column’s author, Janice Bradbeer, replied and said they would indeed like to feature Harold in the column, as they hadn’t done a turtle before. She sent me an e-interview to fill out, which I did joyously and wrote far too much. Hey, I always do the interviewing, not the interview-filling-out. Which brings me to another point: It was really interesting to be on the other side of the media equation.
It really is a bizarre experience reading your own quotes in a story. I now understand why people will often ask me ‘Did I say that?!?’. Because when your quotes are pulled from the greater point you may have been making, it just sounds weird, even though it’s perfectly correct. It makes you feel a little self-conscious.
So, Harold got his time in the spotlight, and I got to learn what it’s like to be interviewed and quoted in a story. All in all, a successful experiment in pet PR!
Larry will write for you for super cheap. In fact, he just needs a free lunch and some kind words.
So, we’re watching Almost Famous the other day and it gets to the part where, in 1973, Rolling Stone’s Ben Fong-Torres asks William if he wants to do a story for on Stillwater for the magazine. He offers him $700, then ups to $1000 when he mistakenly assumes William’s silence means he’s holding out for more. Funny, yes, but Matt (my boyfriend, also a writer) looked at each other and laughed for a different reason — his fee is not that different to what freelance writing rates are today. In fact, getting $1000 for a feature is still quite a good rate unless you’re dealing with the big boys. Of course, Rolling Stone is one of the biggest and I’m sure the pay their writers well, but that’s the exception, not the rule.
If you want to really see freelance writing rates in action, check out Craigslist’s jobs section. The posts almost always offer completely laughable rates, or offer it for “someone who wants to build their portfolio” aka, write for free. There’s someone on there who’s taken to chastising people for these low offers and I get a kick out of their crusade.
The thing is, writers don’t get much respect. And it kind of sucks. Aside from too much competition in the market and too many people willing to work for next-to-nothing, there’s a general lack of understanding in as to the value of good writing. People always want to cheap out on the writing. And unfortunately, it shines through and through in the work, whether it’s a brochure, a website, or an article.
What do you do, though? Well, it would be nice if other people stopped writing for free or shit pay, but that’s not going to happen. I just try to only write for people that compensate me accordingly — which they tend to once they realize that a crappy writer isn’t worth the battle. There are only so many hours in the day, and you need to make enough each hour to make ends meet. Tough gig, this freelance writing.
Life imitating art. Sort of. Photographer Harry Gils poses in front of a painting featuring his likeness, sleeping. Or passed out.
We had the opportunity to attend the Element Eden “Know by Heart” charity art show this weekend, held at Resistor Gallery on College St. It was a really nice event, beautiful space and art contributed by Element Eden artists and “advocates.” We bid on a beautiful painting, but I’m sure we were outbid as the night went on, as it certainly was lovely.
Congrats to Ryan Stutt of Kingshit and Chad Albert of Element for coming up with the idea, and to Element Eden for doing a great job of executing it.
Next stop on the Know by Heart tour is in Vancouver on Sept. 20.
Because it's his party and he can go to the polls if he wants to.
I’ve lived in Toronto for four years. This is the THIRD federal election I will have voted in since moving here. Third! I feel like that’s kinda crazy. And they wonder why no one votes. You’d have to be living under a rock, literally, to not know there’s an election on in the States. Here? People are like ‘There’s an election on? Didn’t we just have one?” Ah, the convenience of being Stephen Harper. Fixed election dates? Only when it suits him!
Anywho, care we must, so these are some of the things that are important to me for this election:
1. Cities: We, Ontario, handle more people’s needs than any other province. More specifically, we have more new people here and they need help. There was an article in the Star this morning about higher infant mortality rates among immigrant families here. That’s awful! Here, in a first world country. Transit and infrastructure are also huge priorities here.
2. The environment: How to make a real, significant, measurable difference without damaging the economy. An oxymoron? I don’t think so. We just have to mean it.
3. Child care: I’m still livid about the dismantling of the national child care plan. Now that many of my friends have small children, I see this need more acutely than ever. Simply handing families a taxable cheque for $1200 is a tragic replacement. Has anyone seen what it costs to keep a child in care in a major city??????
4. Foreign Policy: I think dropping out of the Kyoto protocol sent the wrong message at the wrong time about Canada’s commitment to the global community. And I think it was lame of Stephen Harper not to go to Beijing. But I do support the mission in Afghanistan. We can’t just leave and let that country devolve into warlord-and-fanatic land again. Those poor people have been through enough. If staying to 2011 will help get the country to where it needs to be, then I think it’s the right thing.
PHOTO: ItzaFineDay, Flickr Creative Commons.
