Long Time No Blog

Oh my goodness, it's been forever since I've blogged! Sorry faithful reader(s)!! I wish I had a good excuse, but I really don't. I have been using twitter and yelp quite a bit, and I guess I just have too many websites to fuss over. Yes, I know, weak!

So, first things first....television! Tyler and I finally took the plunge, expense be damned, and subscribed to HBO Canada, which is actually really awesome, though questionably worth $20/month. We did this to facilitate my addiction to the series True Blood, or as I like to call it, "the best show on television". This season is even better than last season, and I almost went into shock when I found out that it wasn't on last night (4th of July holiday). If you haven't seen it yet, all of the episodes are available on demand if you get HBO Canada. I also watched the first episode of Hung, about a male escort living in Detroit. We also get the Movie Network and the Movie Network on Demand, so I have been able to catch up on some movies, including the amazing documentary "Roman Polanski, Wanted and Desired" about the great director. This is really worthwhile, and probably one of the best documentaries I have seen. Otherwise, I have been watching the new season of Weeds (still freaken hilarious) and as always, tons and tons of Law and Order.


I found an interesting Toronto blog the other day called Me and My Toronto . I haven't really had a chance to check it out thoroughly, but what I did see was pretty impressive.

I spent the weekend basically relaxing at home, including a Saturday night of (nearly excessive) wine drinking. Enjoying the summer, even if it doesn't really feel as if it's started yet, and looking forward to seeing Bruno next week!

parlour introduces suzzi raposo

parlour salon is proud to introduce the newest member to their team: colourist Suzzi Raposo!

book your appointment with Suzzi at www.parloursalon.com or by calling 647-345-6663, or stop in and say hi! parlour is located at 6 ossington, just north of queen.

parlour salon - store of the week in now magazine!

sergio @ parlour

Congratulations to my good friends at parlour salon for being named Store of the Week in Now Magazine! You can contact parlour via their website, or at 647-345-6663. parlour is located at 6 Ossington, downtown Toronto at Queen and Ossington.

I Am Yelping Now

Yes, I have joined a new site - yelp! Apparently I can be found at raggedyandrea.yelp.ca

Yelp is social networking for people reviewing businesses in their neighbourhoods. I sort of like it. I have reviewed Sweaty Betty's and parlour (of course!) so far.

ophelia - dog in the city - Toronto Waterfront May 4, 2009

Sweaty Betty's May 3, 2009

parlour salon - 6 ossington - may 3, 2009

parlour salon - earth day ad!

this week parlour salon celebrates earth day. parlour always donates their hair clippings to an organization called matter of trust. matter of trust recycles this hair to create mats for collecting and containing petroleum spills, and reducing the environmental impact of these spills.

parlour salon - 6 ossington avenue - toronto - 647-345-6663

Otto; or, up with Dead People - A new movie by Bruce LaBruce

Back in the late-1990s I used to read Bruce LaBruce's columns in Exclaim! and eye weekly with religious fervour. I think I have also read pretty much everything else that he has ever published that is available online. I never did see any of his films, though I always intended to. On Sunday my roommate and I went into Queen Video to rent some Bill Murray dvds, and discovered a new LaBruce film....a zombie film called Otto; or, up with Dead People! Now obviously both of us were attracted to the zombie, so we decided to pick it up. It is a zombie film, gay porn, and social commentary, all rolled into one funny and cute movie.

There is a good Interview Magazine article about the film here: http://www.interviewmagazine.com/blogs/film/2009-02-13/otto-bruce-labruce/

parlour salon - new ad in this week's now magazine!

parlour salon

6 ossington avenue, downtown toronto, phone 647-345-6663

Ossington Avenue, Toronto

I spent last night hanging out on Ossington Avenue, my new favourite street. I started at parlour drinking wine with Tyler, Franzis and friends, moved on to Watusi (Bovine Darryl's new bar/resto) for some drinks and delicious chick pea fries, and ended up at Baby Huey's.

Ossington reminds me of how Toronto used to be, with lots of cool, independently owned businesses, bars and restaurants, and fun/non-pretentious people. Even "West Queen West" has turned into an outdoor shopping mall at this point, and it's refreshing to find interesting places to go without having to travel very far.

tyler & aaron @ baby huey

tyler @ parlour

Gretchen Ryan - Artist - Little Pretty

Earlier this week I started following Courtney Love on twitter, and man, is she prolific! We are talking 10+ posts per day. Anyways, it's entertaining if you like Courtney Love, which I do. Today she posted: i love this obtuse shit. however i love Oil Paintings of Pageant kids more and so am going w Lachapelle to Gretchen Ryans gallery ! hardon

This made me curious enough to google Gretchen Ryan, who I discovered is an American artist who has painted a collection of portraits of children's beauty pageant contestants. Her paintings are beautiful and inspire in me that same creepy feeling I get from seeing children in beauty pageants. She will be exhibiting her work in New York City this April, and someone has blogged about her in more detail here: http://girliegirlarmy.com/blog/20090313/little-pretty-the-art-of-gretchen-ryan/

In other news, I am excited about the upcoming Metric album. I think it has leaked on the internet, so will put some effort into finding it this weekend. Also, I heard that there will be a new Strokes album out sometime this year which is always a good thing!

Parlour Salon - 6 Ossington Avenue - Toronto

Opening very, very soon: parlour salon ! The brainchild of my wonderful roommate Tyler, his business partner/colourist extraordinaire Franz, and stylists Brionie, Charlotte and Sergio.

As the Now Magazine blurb below says, "parlour will offer a full range of salon services including cuts, colour, student rates, and more. Book now - doors open March 24th".

parlour is located at 6 Ossington, downtown Toronto at the corner of Queen and Ossington, phone 647-345-6663. You can find the parlour website at www.parloursalon.com

(click on the photo above for full size image)

The Norman Elder Museum

From about May of 1994 until the spring of 1998 I lived in what one of my roommates of the day described as "the worst apartment in the best neighbourhood of downtown Toronto"...or something like that. This was part of a complex of eight shabby apartments located at 128/130 Avenue Road above a flower store and an upscale kitchen gadgets store. The apartments were arranged in a sort of Montreal-esque way, with a "courtyard" dividing the two blocks of four apartments. The rent was only $750/month when we first moved in, and there were usually three of us living there at any given time. I met a lot of cool people living in that neighbourhood, and heard a million stories about our mainly off-the-charts rich neighbours. Let's face it, rich people are weird.

One of our neighbours was the eccentric Norman Elder who lived one block away at 140 Bedford Avenue in a large house known as the Norman Elder Museum. Being a semi-recovering goth at the time, I was attracted to his house because of the high wrought iron fence that surrounded the front yard (missing from the picture above), and the Addams Family feel to the place. Though I never did meet Norman Elder, I was told that he was a collector of odd objects, artifacts, stuffed (taxidermied) animals, live snakes, a live tortoise, and so on and so on. David Cronenberg filmed scenes from the movie Naked Lunch in the house. Most of these rumours that I heard also appear on the wiki page that I found recently.

One day when I was hanging out in a coffee shop down on Bloor Street, a cute young guy approached me and asked if i wanted to go with him to visit the place where he lived, the Norman Elder Museum. He described the oddness of the place to me, and told me that I might even be able to move in if I wanted. I was a grumpy and very shy girl at the time, and declined politely, a decision that I regret now. My friend Rene told me that she too was approached by someone and asked to visit the museum, and she actually ended up living there for a spell.

Somebody named Hamish (who lived in the house in the 90s) has a site dedicated to Norman Elder, with a very cool photo gallery: http://hame.ca/norm04/ (the photo above was taken from his site)

and someone else has blog about Norman Elder here: http://www.michaelmurray.ca/blog/?page=news&id=19

Online Dating Adventures

Most of my faithful readers probably do not yet know that I recently signed up at the online dating site Plenty of Fish. About two or three years ago I discovered that my social life, that consists almost entirely of hanging out with 22 year old gay boys, is not conducive to healthy/hetero relationships...as fun as the relationships have been. So, being the proactive individual that I am, I decided to enter into the online dating fray. FYI - I haven't actually been on any dates yet. How have things been going? I will excerpt an email that I sent my friend Daniel about the situation:

oh my god dan....there is so much comedy in online dating, i am practically crying here. today i got two messages in a row from a guy whose picture of himself is of ~a racecar~....~a racecar~!!! like, are girls supposed to think "wow, what a hot guy! looks flashy!" or make the association like "his picture is of a racecar, therefore he must be rich!"??? also, yesterday i got an email from a middle aged man and in his picture he is HOLDING A GUN!!! like yeah, i would feel really safe going to meet you. maybe we should meet in the wooded area next to the abandoned mental asylum.

the other thing is that i have already run into my ex-boyfriend on plenty of fish, and another guy i know who used to have a crush on me years ago! so much for anonymity!!

Anyways, I will keep you posted about any more progress I make, or comedic scenarios I encounter. P.S. Erin - don't try to figure out which ex-boyfriend (though pretty obvious) and which ex-crush!!

Racialicious - The latest blog I discovered....

Not much time to post today but I wanted to highlight a blog that I just discovered called Racialicious

According to the blog: Racialicious is a blog about the intersection of race and pop culture. Check out our daily updates on the latest celebrity gaffes, our no-holds-barred critique of questionable media representations, and of course, the inevitable Keanu Reeves newsflashes. Latoya Peterson is Editor of Racialicious and Carmen Van Kerckhove is founder and Publisher.

I just started reading it today at lunch and it is great. They provide a really interesting analysis of pop culture, fashion, and the media. Oddly enough, I was turned on to this blog by a twitter post by Anderson Cooper, in some roundabout way or other.

Television!

For the past couple of weeks I have been watching even more television than normal....that's a whole lotta television, for those of you who don't know me. First of all, I have been going totally LOST crazy. To put this in perspective, I started watching Season One last Sunday (the 8th), and I am almost finished Season Three (today is the 18th). I'm pretty sure that I will be caught up by the end of the week. Sad, I know.
On Sunday afternoon I discovered some new and enjoyable reality dreck: Rupaul's Drag Race which is basically America's Next Top Model for drag queens, but with crappier prizes. I thought that I would get tired of it, but it was pretty funny, and I actually liked the contestants.
I watched most of Heroes on Monday, and I'm still lost. It doesn't help that they interrupt the show every 2 1/2 minutes for commercials but also, my commitment just isn't there anymore. I can't stand Claire, first of all, and have little interest in any of her story lines. I used to love her father's character, but he has been kind of blah this season. Finally, it's just too freaken complicated....I guess I'm just too stupid for it.
Ok, this is actually a busy day for me at work so I better get back to it.....

Waltz With Bashir

There is an interesting looking Israeli animated film called Waltz With Bashir that I've been reading about recently. According to the wiki page, the film documents the attempts of Ari Folman, a 1982 Lebanon War-veteran, to recover lost memories of the events revolving around the Sabra and Shatila massacre. The film has won many awards, including a Best Foreign Language Golden Globe. It has been nominated for an Academy Award. I love these kind of darker animated films, and also have an interest in the various Israeli-Arab conflicts, and look forward to seeing this film. I also read on The Nation today that a Waltz With Bashir graphic novel will soon be available.

CBC Radio 3 - Canada's Best Music Venue in Canada Search

I just heard Grant Lawrence on cbc radio, talking about radio 3's search for Canada's best live music venue. My two cents for best venue in Toronto is the Mod Club. It's in a great neighbourhood, is the perfect size for medium-sized acts (Amy Winehouse, Metric, CSS, etc. etc.), has great staff, a great bar, it's slick, and hell, it's owned by Mark Holmes, former singer of legendary 80s band Platinum Blonde! I have never had a bad time there. The next show I'm contemplating seeing there is the Alan McGee-championed Scottish band Glasvegas.

My two cents for most over-rated venue is Lee's Palace. I have never had a completely good time there. The staff is surly, the bar is always crowded, and don't even get me started about how horrible it used to be when they allowed smoking in there. Yarg. I even wrote a little article about their neanderthal bouncers once, years ago. It was published in eye magazine, but I have since lost my only copy, and it's not in their archives unfortunately.

If you haven't seen this site, check out daily dose of imagery. This guy's photos are awesome, and his more recent additions give you some idea of just how freaken cold it's been in Toronto this winter.

Prop 8 Google Map Mashup

So, yesterday on cbc radio Elvira Kurt was talking about a google map that someone has put together, mapping the donors to the Prop 8 campaign. These are the people who cared enough about opposing gay marriage that they donated money to the cause. You can find this map here: http://www.eightmaps.com/

I love maps, and find this totally fascinating, in spite of the privacy concerns that such a map presents. I am also fascinated by the sheer amount of money these people have. I have NEVER been in the position to donate $1000.00 to any cause, never mind $5000.00 or $25,000.00 for that matter. Also, I am amazed that people care about gay marriage so much that they would donate any money to oppose it. Finally, suprised that companies would want to attach their names to an anti-gay marriage bill - like "here is an affirmation that our company does not like gay people". Crazy.

Through Black Spruce by Jospeh Boyden

I just finished reading Through Black Spruce by Joseph Boyden. This novel was the winner of this year's Giller Prize, and I was fortunate enough to attend an informal question and answer with the author at the Paddock the night after the Gillers. The book was great, telling stories of the lives of an older Cree man and his two twenty-something nieces. The events take place in Moosonee, a small town in Northern Ontario near James Bay, as well as Toronto, Montreal, and Manhattan. There are great descriptions of life in the north that are going to stick with me.

In other First Nations thoughts, I think I am going to start lobbying the cbc to bring back a radio show (or at least bring back the host for a different show) they had on this summer called Revision Quest which was a darkly funny show debunking myths and misconceptions about Canadian Natives. You can listen to past episodes on the cbc site and I would totally recommend them!

The 10 Most Awesomely Bad Moments of the Bush Presidency

An excellent new article on Alternet today: The 10 Most Awesomely Bad Moments of the Bush Presidency by Brad Reed. They are:

10: Bush Gets Re-elected
9: Alberto Gonzales' Congressional Testimony
8: North Korea Conducts a Nuclear Test
7: Colin Powell's Bogus WMD Presentation at the U.N.
6: The Terri Schiavo Affair (why, oh why did I have to be reminded of this sordid affair?)
5: Bush and Condi's Excellent Gaza Adventure
4: "Brownie, You're Doing a Heckuva Job" (of course, that should be on Bush's gravestone)
3: Abu Ghraib
2: 9/11
1: "Mission Accomplished"

And his honourable mentions include: warrantless wiretapping; Valerie Plame; Scooter Libby's sentence commuted; Bush believes Rafael Palmeiro is innocent; soldiers face neglect at Walter Reed; signing statements; the Kyoto treaty ripped up; loyalty oaths; the fake turkey; a staged teleconference with troops, staged FEMA press conference, extraordinary rendition, support for junk science; endorsement of neo-creationist "intelligent design"; inaction against global warming; record oil prices; record budget deficits; record trade deficits; record number of Americans without health insurance; two recessions; no-bid contracts; bin Laden still at large; the Federal Marriage Amendment; stem cell research vetoed; waterboarding ban vetoed; "Last throes"; "Old Europe"; "It's hard work"; "Bring it on"; "Yo, Blair!"; "I'm the decider"; "I'm the commander guy"; "I'm a war president"; "This is the guy who tried to kill my dad"; "So?"; "Let the Eagle Soar"; John Bolton; Kenny Boy; Harriet Miers; John Roberts; Sam Alito; Blair talks Bush out of bombing al-Jazeera; Cheney shoots some guy in the face; the Military Commissions Act; Jose Padilla arrested and held without charge or access to counsel; endless tax cuts for the rich; let's waste a shitload of money by sending people to Mars and let's hire some Heritage Foundation staffers to rebuild Iraq.

I would love to hear a Bush supporter's response to this list, but so far there haven't been any takers in the comments section of the article.

Merry Christmas All! Also, I actually agree with someone at the National Post???

In what (hopefully) promises to be his final aggravating act of the year, Stephen Harper appointed 18 Senators yesterday, including none other than CTV journalist Mike Duffy (who aired the blundering Stephane Dion outtakes during this October's election, a move that most agreed was highly unorthodox by journalistic standards, if not downright dirty).

The National Post actually has a good article by Don Martin, Harper to Senate: IOU reform, that attacks Stephen Harper's appointments, who Martin calls "a trough-full of patronage payoffs for Conservative fundraisers, defeated candidates and party toadies". While I tend not to agree with this characterization of government employees, I do think that Harper should be called out for once again violating his own policies and stated goals (elected Senate?) and pursuing purely political ends. How are we supposed to take him seriously?

On that note, I will sign off. Merry Christmas to all!