How to be Entertained

Not too much to report with me. To be honest, I'm not sure where the past week or so has gone. I've watched a bunch of movies, drank a bunch of beers, applied for a bunch of jobs up north, and tried to organize a bunch of my stuff for my impending arctic adventure.

One of the highlights of the week was Tuesday, when I went to see the Gillian Welch & Bright Eyes show at Massey Hall. It was great. Gillian and her collaborator David Rawlings played an acoustic set with just their two guitars, with mostly songs off of Revelator. Bright Eyes, on the other hand, had a fairly ornate band in place, with a string section and two drummers (both girl drummers, who always rule way harder). They played mostly songs off their newest, but played them well, and threw in a few older favourites for good measure. The highlight of the night was towards the end when the Bright Eyes band accompanied Gillian as she played her song Look at Miss Ohio.

In regards to movies, I went to see Inland Empire, the new David Lynch film. If you can call it a film, since it doesn't have a plot, and I'm not sure it has characters either. I do know that it was three hours long, and Laura Dern is a really good actress (even though I'm not sure what role she was supposed to be playing, exactly). Ryan and I have taken to punctuating our conversations with the phrase, "well, at least we're not watching Inland Empire." Because it really does mess with you.

I've also been spending alot of time sitting in parks or on my porch, enjoying the weather and reading. I just finished reading How to be Idle by Tom Hodgkinson, editor of the magazine The Idler. It's a great read, and I highly recommend it. In addtion to giving some great, intelligent excuses for being lazy, it also makes an argument against our society's frenetic drive towards overwork and consumption. The book gave me an idea to start a political party, called the Idleness Party of Canada. Its main goal would be a 30 hour work week. Unfortunately, some people in BC beat me to the idea: www.worklessparty.org

Oh, and last, but certainly not least, I made a strawberry shortcake:

Fond Farewell (for now)

May has flown by so far. I've been trying to spend as much time as possible with Karen (aka Kate Nova), to stave off the inevitable, which catches up with me tomorrow when she flies off to the Arctic. I plan to follow her in a couple of months - wish me luck on my job search. The weekend before last, we went to Ithaca, New York, home of the famous vegetarian haunt the Moosewood Restaurant. as well as the Ithaca Bakery, which is solar powered and makes a mean breakfast sandwich. Basically, it was a little lefty haven in the Finger Lakes of New York State, where we camped among gorges and waterfalls. After eating at the Moosewood, we were especially excited:The last week has mostly involved making the most of Karen's last days in Toronto for a while. It's gone way too fast. We partied last weekend, where I developed a drink in her honour - The Arctic Urbanite:
- 2 parts vodka
- 1 part blue curacao
- 2 parts ginger ale
- twist of lime
Combine vodka, and blue curacao in cocktail shaker with ice. Shake. Pour into glass, add ginger ale and lime. Substitute club soda for all or part of ginger ale for a less sweet drink.

So, Toronto, you have 24 hours left with your most awesome resident. Enjoy it.

Video killed the radio star

In case you were wondering what I was doing with my time off this week...

From ilovenukes.ca: