in glorious comparison

"She told me I'm, like, the Diane Kruger character," the pale-eyed blonde one said, sitting on a picnic bench in Parkdale. Ankles crossed. "I think she said I'm supposed to be Brad Pitt, or whatever," he'll say. Ah, the 'or whatever". The audible shrug, as if to allude to some shame in accepting due compliment… all the while insisting that you know it was due.
If she's Kruger, and he's Pitt (like it, love it, or "not").... am I Roth?

"You're a lovely, erm, feminine Eli Roth," I'm told, once inside and dressed. Typecasted. Jew on Jew. Roth on Rothman. Which is oddly (albeit undoubtedly) a relief. Considering the artistic direction in the way of my hair, I could have been a stand in for someone else.
And Zaida would not have been pleased. Nine, nine, nine. He would not have been pleased.
So I take what I'm given, and I guess it's really not that bad.



"Dressd to Kill (Nazis)" EyeWeekly, August 20th, 2009

Styling: Duh, SNP

lothario

Remember when you actually had to WALK the dog to pick up chicks?
Lose the leash; get a camera phone. It's that easy.

canada in the (head)lines

While everyone gripes and moans about the dismal state of our poor, poor economy, a new study shows that our low, low dollar is actually higher than we thought. (Cheap puns are all I can afford right now.) This week, multiple Canadian news sources reported that 9 out of every 10 Canadian banknotes, analyzed by an American research firm, contained trace amounts of cocaine.

Bubbie sends you a twenty tucked into a greeting card, and tells you not to blow it all in one place. Bubbie obviously doesn’t see the irony in her counsel.

27 bills, in all denominations, taken mostly from the GTA, were swabbed and studied. A staggering 85% of the canuck bucks were laced with cocaine. According to reports, the amount of coke found on the banknotes ranged from 2.4 micrograms to upwards of 2,530 micrograms -- approximately 100 grains of sand. Not exactly a bender, but enough to sound the alarms.

Have we really become this wasteful, Canada? What happened to the good old days? Back when we knew the meaning of a dollar, and we spent three minutes scraping the sides desperately, while making hopeless conversation with the only other loser left in the afterhours bathroom at 4 AM, "eh"? What about the needy kids in Africa who don’t even have coke?

All insensitivities aside, this looks bad. Real bad. We already have a pot smoking reputation of Cheech and Chong proportions. We don’t need to add Tony Montana to the drug culture reference roster. So, to all you shady/trendy 20-somethings congregating in dimly lit shitters, rolling up your allowance and getting chatty and sticky-lipped, try to use some discretion. And by discretion, I mean your bike lock keys.

** DISCLAIMER: The author does not endorse or encourage the use of any drugs. Stay in school. (Hi Bubbie!)

we all scream

"It's summer in the city and it's so hot out that the air is getting wavy. You run with the rest of the kids down the block, chasing the ice cream truck, only to find some alien stand-in, some horrific usurper, offering you eco-carob with ginger artisan acai pommegranate, at only uhh... five dollars a scoop... Sprinkles, motherfucker, have you heard of them?
Shit, McDonald's has soft serve for a buck."

It's going to be a hot one. Finally.

anomaly:

a·nom·a·ly (-nm-l)
n. pl. a·nom·a·lies
1. Deviation or departure from the normal or common order, form, or rule.
2. One that is peculiar, irregular, abnormal, or difficult to classify: "Both men are anomalies: they have . . . likable personalities but each has made his reputation as a heavy" (David Pauly).
3. Astronomy The angular deviation, as observed from the sun, of a planet from its perihelion.
4. Lindsay Lohan; zero talent, zero credits, zero calories, "99.9%" perfect?

for pick up

My city has spent the last 36 days wading through rotting garbage, mouldy food rewarmed by what sun we ever get, putrid smelling, soaking wet copies of The Metro, and raccoon droppings left behind by the most wretched of God's scavengers.

Today, it's all over. Victorious we rise from heaps of steaming, reeking waste – and all in time to take on another pending challenge.

Two weeks ago, my mother phoned. I was walking to work, and remarked, just barely, about a garbage receptacle that had busted open, spewing remnants of the neighbouring Pizza Pizza onto the pavement, like a first year student.

"I swear, Carli, I will cancel my trip if that strike is not over by the time I'm supposed to come…" My mother can't stand a used kleenex left on the counter, let alone a month's worth of garbage decorating every city curb within a 10 block radius of my downtown front door.

My mother is a demanding woman. That's putting it mildly. I've learned that she always gets what she wants. (Or maybe I've just learned to always give in.) Either way, Caron Rothman is a woman of her word. If the strike didn't end, her flight wouldn't land.

As I log on to my browser this morning to check her arrival time, the block lettered words flash across my homepage:

THE STRIKE IS OVER!

And her flight? Of course it's on time.

all that redbull

The last text reads: Let me know how it is, and the feasibility of me being able to buy a ticket if I come later…

The time is 11:38 PM. Later seems too late. But not tonight. Tonight, there's nothing but time, most literally, because Time Festival (too easy) is staying open until sun rise, for those who have the energy, or other means, to last.

Never in my life have I seen a venue this big, this full. I turn to a guy and say that back home, the only place this big is a Costco, and it's never open this late. He doesn't really laugh, but thinking back, it wasn't actually that funny.

You know you're at a super-cool Toronto party when:
Crystal Castles takes the stage, and we watch from a blocked off area, safe from a heaving crowd, but not at all from the pushing. Even very important people push. Her mic isn't on and I wonder if that's a mistake. Probably not. She flicks a lit cigarette into the crowd before drinking directly from a bottle of Jack Daniels, and beautifully tripping her step. I think we're supposed to be impressed. (Look, a rockstar.) Instead, I'm searching the audience for the poor sucker who certainly got burned. He won't feel it until tomorrow, when he's really feeling all of it. He probably won't even remember how he was burned, which is too bad, cause that might be a good story. Burned by a real rockstar. At Time Festival. Or it might not.

I'm told the music outlasted the darkness, and Sunday morning saw thousands of girls flag cabs with one hand, while holding their shoes in the other.

The first text reads: That was fun for one time. I don't think I'll do it again though. I'm going to eat some waffles now.

patience tastes better

Ever since New York, where I had these, I have been dying to do this.
For fear of fires, severe injury, grafting followed by insurance claims, I didn't.
Instead, I waited for:

Can you guess where I am?

the best things in life are ______

If I scratch your back, I'm told you'll scratch mine. Truth be told, this city is full of itchy people who all have a skill to share, a talent to showcase, a face to sell, and not a penny in their pocket. Everyone talks about 'these recessionary times' as if it were the end of days. For some, it might be. For most, who noticed? Like any period of (what we're told is) change, we can figure new ways to survive, adjust, amend. Like adaptation. Now, we're told that we're a nation, no, an entire civilization learning to live with less, forced to ditch the frills and snip along the dotted lines for super savings. But while the economy dips and dives, and slips below the leisure line, everyone I know (see: no portfolio, part-time workers, full-time dreamers) can't hardly feel a quake.

In crisis, everyone comes together, comes to rely on everyone else, and in turn be relied upon. No money, no problem. Near paucity makes people want to be nicer, or at least more helpful. Why? Because where there is someone who wants, there is also someone who needs.

Example: Designer friend knows writer/stylist friend. Writer/stylist friend is on a deadline. Designer friend wants exposure, writer/stylist needs per-word paycheck. A match made in haggling heaven. Throw a beautiful ginger girlfriend into the mix, and what do you get?

A happy designer, a compensated writer/stylist, a stunning photo, a spread in Eye Weekly, and proof that although the best things in life might not be free, some pretty great stuff can happen when everyone you know is habitually down and out.

carli m.i.a.

It's been so long since I have written anything (that I'd proudly or freely share), or blogged, or composed anything more than an e-mail or restaurant listing or a "10 Hot New Ways to (who the fuck cares)", or so it seems, at least. Abandoning a blog is like going a while without calling an old friend. The longer you go, the more there is to tell and ask, but having to rehash life over the absent days, weeks, or months will take time in itself. Time that I don't always have. So another day, or week, or sometimes (so horribly) a month will go past until I have the time. But by then, there is even more to tell and ask. It's exhausting, and off-putting, and probably makes me sound like a lousy friend. And by using the intended parallel, a lousy blogger.

I'm so bad at playing catch-up so lets skip the pretence, and move on. Let's act like it never happened, while everything was happening, and wake up tomorrow like yesterday didn't come. And I'll try to be a better friend. I promise. I'll blog about you everyday.

From now on. Starting tomorrow.