Shootings unplugged

The gun pandemic in the GTA – with more than 40 shootings in public since the start of July – is supplied with perspective from blogger Sameer Vasta, who bluntly states "The terrorists have won". He drew that conclusion after attending the funerals of Aleem Rehmtulla and Fahim Talakshi, childhood friends shot last week while sitting at a red light at Martin Grove Rd. and Finch Ave. W. in one of five separate firearm incidents reported last Monday. "We have become victims to a culture of fear where the perpetrators have paralyzed us through simply making us feel insecure," writes Vasta. "Perhaps instead of battling the source of the gun trade, we should instead invest in propagating a culture of love, cliché as it may seem." Coincidentally, this streak of shootings began in the wake of the Toronto filming of rapper 50 Cent’s movie Get Rich or Die Tryin’, for which a 9-mm handgun figures prominently in the marketing. Paramount Pictures were pressured to remove billboards near schools in Los Angeles, while posters plastered in the New York City transit system are stumping culture jammers. 50 Cent’s flick opens November 9 – although it may leave most longing for when rap-related movies weren’t readily booked on Canadian screens. Then again, it’s tough to find comfort in The Star‘s Ideas section providing insights on What it feels like to take a bullet.

Oshawa awash

From Strippers to Students, reads a headline in the latest Oshawa This Week. Could the recruitment tactics of the Windsor club that offered to pay the tuition of cerebral lap dancers be spreading this way? No, it’s the Genosha Hotel, built in 1929 – and a former location of a Million Dollar Saloon – being sold to a Toronto firm who’ll convert the Chicago-style heritage site into a Durham College residence. The takeover of dilapidated peeler bars in the 905 has tended to result in their conversion to houses of worship – the Friction nightclub in northeast Markham was transformed into the Olive Branch Community Church, and the Newmarket Community Church overtook a joint called Lookers. Maybe exotic dancing isn’t the profit centre it used to be – prices for private dances soaring above the rate of inflation, competition from rub ‘n’ tugs, free online porn trickling down to the neanderthal market, etc. On the other hand, burlesque seems to be  languishing on the low end of the rotation when it comes to the accouterments of caddish behaviour: Cigars are coming back, poker is on the way out, styling products are so last year … so, another Lindy Hop revival must be right around the bend.

One night in Perez

Celebrity gossip used to be a cruel mistress, now it’s just a fast track for those trading in it to become D-listers in their own right, sucked into the very vortex they were initially feigning dislike for. A local blogger named "arasto" has targeted one "Perez Hilton", whose claim of having "Hollywood’s Most-Hated Website" – originally called PageSixSixSix.com before a cease and desist arrived from the New York Post‘s most popular property – has been negated in recent weeks due to his posting pics of his mugging with Paris Hilton and pals. Another blog that accrued lotsa hits for acerbic captions on paparazzi pics, Pink is the New Blog, has been reduced to a platform for its webmaster "Trent"’s goal to become the 21st century equivalent of a game show regular, as he’s befriended by the likes of Hilary Duff. Could the publicists be ahead of the curve of the current issue of Forbes, which outlines how big business can co-opt blog critics? Since he’s based in Toronto, not the easiest place for encountering famous folks 355 days of the year, "arasto" won’t have such problems, unless he goes down the Shinan Govani road of dishing on people who’ve barely heard of themselves.

Faded Youth ["arasto"]

World of the wars

No need to settle for recollections of being spooked by War of the Worlds on radio in 1938 when the internet provides infinite arguments of how the news cycle is steered by spine-chilling conspiracies. Rigorous Intuition has been the most thorough local contribution to that realm, the work of "cautiously pessimistic" writer (and longtime Frank contributor) Jeff Wells: "It shouldn’t need to be said, but it seems everything must be said these days: the existence of mysteries is not necessarily an evil. Mysteries themselves merely evidence things hidden, occulted from general sight, and suggest there are supra-mudane forces to the world that show their hand to us, the uninitiates, in riddles. The architects and heirs of America’s mysteries don’t always shy from claiming their credit." Lately, those mysteries may lurk amidst the White House indictments, the murder of Pamela Vitale, and Hurricane Rita. Wells recently posted his research on knife-wielding clowns who roamed across America, supposedly recruiting schoolchildren for purposes of Satanic Ritual Abuse. And, on the anniversary of the Bush 43 re-election, foreboding words from Wells (no relation to Orson or H.G.) about what lies beneath: "Those who know things that go deeper, weirder and darker than Scooter Libby know the cards haven’t tumbled yet. Those who don’t have yet to see the deck."

Rigorous Intuition [blog + forum + radio]

Pelts and pelting past

Maxi Boyd‘s living room art gallery in residential Riverdale (87 Sparkhall Ave.) has been in haute Halloween mode for the past few weekends but, naturally, an exhibition titled Pet Cemetery will be open tonight from 6 to 9:30 p.m. for trick and/or treat purposes. The mixed media tributes to deceased felines and canines (and budgies and ladybugs) can also be viewed in person Friday nights and Saturday and Sunday afternoons through November 13 – or glanced at on the Maxi Boyd blog gallery. The contributions from around the world include two envelopes, via France and Australia, saluting the mostly deceased Ramones, whose "Pet Sematary" song is the only thing remembered from the film version of Stephen King’s book. Meanwhile, the annual car-free cavalcade of costumes on Church St. allows ample room for rubbernecking. It was 25 years ago tonight that police kept an annual mob of folks ideologically opposed to drag queens from assembling outside the St. Charles Tavern: "Not a single egg was thrown", claims this timeline. While the Yonge St. bar shut in 1987, those ’70s hecklers can take pride in the fact that the former firehall has been a garish eyesore ever since.

IFOA roundup

• Who attends the International Festival of Authors? Youngish couples who barrage fellow audience members with Julian Barnes trivia questions, and male pensioners worried they’ll be accused of shoplifting the uncracked books they brought from home. [jZepp]
• Zadie Smith overcomes a barrage of ridiculous questions to provide a fan with two flavours of her penmanship. [Something Slant]
• John Irving ruminates on the gothic nature of life while reading from a work-in-progress about a French-Canadian cook who serves meals to loggers in 1954, then excruciating interview triggers fast food-induced thirst among audience members. [Friends, Romans]
• David Rakoff twists occasionally awkward queries into deft answers, which doesn’t absolve Jonathan Safran Foer of scrutiny for not changing his loud stripey socks the next day. [Torontoist]
• Chip Kidd, the cover artist appearing on an illustrative IFOA panel on Saturday, speaks at the Designthinkers conference about applying his talents to famous gays Bret Easton Ellis, Augusten Burroughs and David Sedaris, plus Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne. [Fawny.org]

Live nude ghouls

Of all the Halloween weekend bashes geared to grown-ups, you can’t get more "adult" than Pornoween, a rock spectacle that’s evidently the first live event to ever pre-empt the decades-long XXX marathon in the main auditorium of the Metro Theatre (677 Bloor St. W.). Concerts have been held on the scary premises before, but always in the smaller secondary cinema, rather than amidst the pungent juice, nicotine and bleach aromas of Toronto’s last surviving porn palace. While the Metro has been up for sale for a few years, and its imminent closing was implied in last month’s Eye Weekly cover feature, all this renewed attention seems to anticipate its gentrification. Stranger things have happened – after all, the nearby Bloor Cinema hit its seediest nadir in the mid-’70s, when it was called the Eden, just before its repertory renaissance began in 1979, with a management change in 1999 inspiring a splendid restoration. The latest column from The Star‘s Martin Knelman condenses the century at the 506 Bloor St. W. bijou, being celebrated Sunday afternoon with free admission for a documentary about the place, and non-erotic cake.

Haunted louse

The public appearance of a three-year-old unsigned Snopes-worthy memo, Hallowe’en at Toronto District School Board Schools: Scarrrrrry Stuff!, indicating that Wiccan kids shouldn’t risk becoming traumatized by the festivities, is proof that the "holiday season" has finally nudged its way into October – just substitute "Samhain" with "Chanukah", and you’ve got two entire months of talk radio squawk about how "certain people" want to ruin traditions for the rest of us. Will educator fears of October 31′s "commercialization of death" in the classroom be followed by lessons decrying December 25′s commercialization of birth? Let the record show that the year’s first press release concerning Christmas shopping appeared yesterday at 19:27 ET – when Toys "R" Us Canada released their Hot Toy List for the Holiday Season, less than a week after Wal-Mart Canada issued their Halloween costume top 10. Possibly unpopular Star Wars merchandise factors conspicuously on both.

Still unsafe at any speech

Douglas Massey, the Princeton professor who co-wrote American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass, told a University of Toronto audience last night he figures Toronto is headed for a similar fate after looking at census data. "Now is the time to act," Massey offered via today’s Toronto Star, "to make sure that conditions we observe in a place like Detroit or Newark don’t happen in Toronto and other Canadian cities."  While the report notes U of T professor Eric Fong claiming this hellish handbasket is currently being woven in segregated "pockets", Massey – a pro-globalization liberal – has spoken out on how others in his field have been overcome by moralism and ideology that’s helped to keep sociology stuck in the ’60s. Dropping by tonight for a gripe is rumpled Ralph Nader (pictured), who’s at the Ryerson Theatre (43 Gerrard St. E.) speaking on "Innovative Solutions for our Survival: Connecting Climate Change with Social Justice" at 8 p.m., preceded by a more exclusive reception where the topic will be "Democratic Reforms are Key to Solving Every Problem in Society" – $185 cocktail parties in Hart House’s Debates Room maybe not so much.

Two man advantage

Not that they’re hard to find in this town, but why bother seeking out a pair of keeners swapping thoughts on hockey or movies to eavesdrop on when podcasts can be directly delivered to your ears each week? Mamo! is the expectorate of two aging GenXers, both named Matthew, picking apart the latest Hollywood schlock with the acuity of video store clerks – more Kevin Smith and Harry Knowles than Ebert & Roeper. A Foot in the Crease hosts Dave and Jeff are the sort of fellas who’d get cut off within 40 or 50 seconds on sports talk radio. But with their 40 or 50 minutes of MP3 file time, they can dissect a week in the NHL at home and away, grapple with big words and, unlike the prominent voices on the Toronto AM dial, aren’t going to argue the Leafs were a better team when they were in head office.

MAMO! [podcast]
A Foot in the Crease [podcast]