WOTS Review #1

My first actual review is up now on the WOTS blog. Seriously the book was incredible! I read it so quickly. As soon as I was done my mother borrowed it and trumped my impressive two day reading by finishing it in an afternoon. Check out what I say about Alissa York’s Fauna HERE.

Quote Of The Day

"If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself."
— Albert Einstein

Ford's Funding Cuts

Will September 19th be the date of the death of The Arts in Toronto?
That is the date of the city’s executive committee meeting where a proposal suggesting massive arts funding cuts is planned to be presented.

The purpose was prepared in response to a request from Mayor Rob Ford’s office by city manager Joe Pennachetti. If passed by city council, the plan would eliminate more than $6 million of annual funding that goes directly to 10 of the city’s top arts organizations.

But there is hope -- There are other options under consideration. Ford agreed there would be no cuts to the arts in order to get his arts advisor Jeff Melanson to work for him. “I can’t imagine city council would approve drastic cuts,” says Melanson, who has been the mayor’s adviser since November 2010. “And if it did happen, I would feel betrayed.”City council also gave its blessing earlier this year to a long-term culture plan calling for the city to increase its arts funding.

But there this is less hope -- These days Melanson has little contact with the mayor; at the end of this month he will leave Toronto and his job as co-CEO of the National Ballet School to take a job at the Banff Centre.

The purposed funding to be cut is different from that of the Toronto Arts Council. The council hands out $10 million in arts grants from the city, but the $6 million in the proposal, for the top arts groups in the city, comes directly from city hall.

For example
Canadian Opera Company: $1,317,015
National Ballet of Canada: $1,148,600
Toronto Symphony Orchestra: $1,134,036
TIFF: $800,000
AGO: $540,000
Caribana: $494,190
Luminato: $200,000
National Ballet School: $137,332
Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art: $135,980
Pride Toronto: $123,807

I am interested to see how this story develops over the upcoming 10 days and am worried about the outcome of September 19th's meeting.

"my blog contradicts"

From Tube Sock Army by Kim Duff.
The following was originally published by LINEbooks, Burnaby, BC.
Copyright 2008 Kim Duff.

my cultural production

today:
processing produced culture.
                               purchase

my local politik
is in the digital massification of


this is also a love poem:
a romantic notion of
globality
mired in the move sequence
distance.

IM's and comments
posted on my pages
my profiles
locally produced
globally disseminated

            the mailer daemon sent me a message
             to tell me my message was undeliverable

I am writing this email
to tell you that today I became postmodern
in a postgeographical sense

because there are no maps
  for these territories

                        my blog contradicts what
                        my myspace profile
                        suggests.

dispersed identity
I am not to you what I am to them
                    identity
                    makeshift and posted
                    ephemerally temporal

                                            post-spatial?

I thieved these ideas
from the emissary of time.
a sickness called nostalgia

                           we logged in
                           and timed out
mediated
your cultural production
budged in line
and took the last moment:

wedged in at
the moment of blame
working out connections
at the crux of biography and production

                          the claustrophobia
                          of urban capitalists
                          pushes us further

                                    desires for need.


trappings trapped
in an architectural scale of time
we exist in the riffing off
of Banana Republic khakis and
coffee.

                     coffee and khakis.

the ceiling of online banks
pushes my banking needs
into a nighttime obsession
checking balances against
checks bouncing
a metronome of debts
we flow in
whisper

your password softly

WOTS Featuring Fauna

Looks like I'm posted more on the WOTS blog than here at the moment.
Check out the next one HERE.

Pros & Cons of Tims

I worked my first shift at Tim Horton's this morning. Yes, I have returned to the food-service industry after quite a few years away. It fits well with being a TA and finishing my MRP. Here is a quick Pro & Con list from my first day:

Cons
-Slip resistant shoes are really ugly
-Waking up at 4am for a 5am shift
-Sore feet from standing all day
-Carb temptations
-Doesn't pay particularly well
-Working weekends

Pros
-Fast paced, won't get bored too quickly
-Co-workers seem really great
-Location is very close to home
-I'm pretty good at it
-Canadian company
-Lots to learn

WOTS Again

Another post I did is up at The Word On The Street blog...

Check it out HERE

Here Again

I still need to work on my MRP so have to register for the Fall 2011 semester at Ryerson. I never finish degrees in time. 6 years to do my a 4 year undergrad and it looks like 4 semesters to do a 3 semester Masters. I doesn't quite feel like I'm starting a new year of school. It feels a bit like purgatory, not in a horrible way or anything though. I have no classes but am still going to be a TA. Things are starting to roll out though: TA orientation, lecture schedules, meetings with professors, new books, etc.