paved :: marc weisblott

Most thrilling about the hasty release of Neil Young’s new album-length outburst, Living With War – streaming online in its lo-fi entirety in the days leading up to its availability as a paid digital download – is the long-awaited embrace of the modern-day music distribution paradigm by a known major label artist. Friday morning, those who signed up for a mailing list were sent a guide to resources for spreading the virus, with the opportunity to use their own website to host an album stream (without the abiility to skip or pause), or interface via Neil’s page at MySpace (which makes it easier to re-listen to segments in the tradition of 8-track tapes). Coverage by Jon Pareles in The New York Times points out that while the “metal folk protest” message on Living With War isn’t terribly complex, “A song for the internet doesn’t have to be one for the ages.” And, in this case, the artist himself wholeheartedly agrees – Young was in fine form during a clip from Showbiz Tonight, viewed online by many more thousands via YouTube than ever watch CNN Headline News, refuting the hysterical inferences – taken from sites like NewsMax.com – that he’s an opportunistic washed-up Canuckistani bashing George W. Bush in order to score a quick hit record. But when was the last time that lyrics from a rock album were reported as news? Robert Everett-Green offered a full advance review in The Globe and Mail – facilitated by meeting Young’s brother “outside a bagel joint in north Toronto” and then taking notes in a Cadillac parked on a side street. An interview with The Guess Who dudes by the Toronto Sun provided the unsurprising revelation that while Randy Bachman admires the effort by his pal, Burton Cummings believes that someone not born in the U.S.A. shouldn’t be complaining about such issues, and both of them feel too old to write another “American Woman”. Most curious from an anthropological perspective is that Neil Young is just a few months older than the President he’s suggesting be impeached for lying – the generation gap between protesting rocker and political target has vanished. So, the likes of Don Henley, Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty unabashedly perform at the bat mitzvah at the daughter of a defense contractor, because where did that old hippie idealism ever get anyone, really? Well, it’s made Neil Young a new media superstar for one weekend in 2006 – sounding as if his 40 years of stateside residency was but a dress rehearsal for this 40 minutes of friction.

While the 10th anniversary CONTACT Festival of photography boasts the slogan “Imaging A Global Culture”, complete with a guidebook in the form of a passport, the result of a few rolls of film taken on a far-flung excursion rarely compares to the achievement of providing a genuinely different perspective on familiar space. Consider an exhibit like Welcome Home, on display at The Social (1100 Queen St. W.) starting Wednesday (May 3), which salutes rental apartment buildings around the city blessed with often cryptic names geared to providing a subliminal sense of belonging, rather than the marketing tool associated with modern condos. A collective called Twin Lens Reflex have devoted the last couple years to exploring abandoned buildings and vacant lots around Toronto, shedding light on the bleaker side of public space and the residents of these glamour-defying neighbourhoods – images collected on the TLR weblog get matted at Supermarket (268 Augusta Ave.) through the month of May. John Oswald, the multi-disciplinary artist best known for his pop music Plunderphonics, straddles both the public installation and feature exhibition components of CONTACT: After Always Before, currently showing at the Edward Day Gallery (952 Queen St. W.), features “a genre of stills which are not quite still, and movies which never move”; and his treatment of the surrounding transit shelters with trompe l’oeil human imagery (pictured) appears destined to confuse streetcar drivers who won’t notice there’s a real person waiting at the stop. Meanwhile, neighbouring Financial District subway stations are hosting installations that offer nation-defying commentary: St. Andrew hosts Pedestrian by Stephen Waddell transplants people from the Berlin subway into the TTC, and Lost by Stephen Gill depicts people being bewildered by maps on the streets of London; the St. Patrick station will feature portraits of Chinese Canadians in Gu Xiong’s I Am Who I Am, along with Ding Danwen’s pics of high-tech trash recycled by the workers of China’s Guangdong province in Disconnexion. And while The Airport Series by Michael Awad offers site-specific comment on Pearson International, on display throught May, the windows of The Drake Hotel (1150 Queen St. W.) are being devoted to Olivo Barbieri’s arial shots of the fake architecture of Las Vegas – hey, if CBGB’s can make threats to relocate there, how long before West Queen West becomes the inspiration for a Vegas casino?

CONTACT Toronto Photography Festival [May 1-31, 2006]

The passing of Jane Jacobs has provided bittersweet evidence that obituary writing needn’t be a morbid task delegated to dreary journalism school recruits, even if the craft risks becoming a casualty of newspapers being reduced to a series of blog blurbs. Then again, few intellectuals have played a role that is so literally public, or continue to be active iconoclasts until the cusp of age 90. Waiting to be discovered by the American press, it seems, is how the author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities interacted for nearly four profound decades with her adopted home, even if the local media tributes are able to swirl around the world. By contrast, the newspaper in her birthplace of Scranton, PA, The Times-Tribune, didn’t have a story about Jacobs the day after she died, while the Philadelphia Inquirer’s architecture critic offers an appreciation that fails to detail anything beyond her apparently hostile research visit to that city in 1962: “It didn’t help that she was a woman commenting on a largely male profession, or that she wore her hair in a childish page-boy with self-cut bangs and owlish glasses.” A diary post from Daily Kos contributor SoCal Liberal heaps praise upon Jacobs in light of the “increasing pollution, mind numbing traffic, continued inner city decay, new inner suburb decay, and increased poor health and obesity” although the Toronto Star’s obit points out she was wrongly perceived as left-wing, given how her views “embraced the marketplace, supported privatization of utilities, frowned on subsidies, and detested the intrusions of government, big or small”. Yet, her name was often evoked during the debate after Starbucks snatched the lease of Dooney’s Café in The Annex, a conflict resolved once they settled on a less contentious alternative just down the block from her house on Albany Ave. Coincidentally, the Jane Jacobs vs. Starbucks discussion was posthumously revived in feedback to a memorial post on NYC real estate blog Curbed, where the current intrusion of its trademark into the West Village is debated relative to her theories: “Starbucks may be depressing in its sameness,” a reader argues, “but at least it does not have a parking lot, and it encourages people to meet and linger.” Curbed is also holding a contest to proclaim The Most Jane Jacobs Block in New York City – whereas, in downtown Toronto, her legacy remains most signified by what isn’t there. (And, with that in mind, Dan Bryk’s elegiac song “Spadina Expressway” can be heard here.)

Bob Rae’s formal launch of his bid to become next federal Leader of the Opposition was accompanied by The Globe and Mail publishing his campaign manifesto Coming out of the Liberal closet behind the subscriber wall, and the Canadian Federation of Students were quick on the protest march with recollections of the “elitist vision for higher education” practiced by the then-NDP Premier of Ontario. However, failing to have his own website ready to coincide with his announcement certainly doesn’t help transmit the idea that Rae’s message has transformed from his brutal recession-era reign at Queen’s Park, and the sections that could be hacked for pre-launch viewing behind the curtain don’t seem too inspired anyhow. Blue Blogging Soapbox blogger Paul Synnott made the effort to plough across the web presences of the starting lineup of Liberal contenders, wondering what became of their confab last month with Joe Trippi – architect of Howard Dean’s seminal MoveOn.org campaign – who offered his insights into playing open source politics: “I think most of the candidates must have been sleeping.” Given the overall dreariness conveyed by this Liberal field of ten candidates or more, perhaps they’d have been better served by a consistently awful template a la MySpace, if not being forced to compress their entire message to a single page, rather than expecting passive visitors to point and click through several different sections that are rarely distinguishable. The more dynamic website from leadership hopeful Carolyn Bennett involves plenty of navigation through sections paying homage to those earthier communication methods like newspapers, dayplanners and postcards, while the policy platform gets depicted via a photo of a laptop computer screening PowerPoint, and “blog” entries are scrolled on the screen of a Blackberry – a device Bennett relied upon for rebuttal points relayed by her campaign manager during a January debate – reflecting the personality a politician who’s been successful at connecting to women whose most intimate mass media consumption occurs with a waiting room copy of Chatelaine. Not like Rae is doing himself much of a favour, as observed by blogger CalgaryGrit, by attaching himself to a slogan like “Call me Bob” – there’s just something about those three words reminiscent of a goofy c. 1990 disposition, suggesting that Rae oughta put his big round spectacles back on. Gerard Kennedy, who hasn’t forsaken the eyewear yet, could quite handily assert his potential to be Prime Minister by giving the impression that he’s got a modem at home.

It takes a special kind of prostitute to be rewarded with 2,000 autobiographical words in the local weekend supplement of the National Post, but considering how the story is called My $150,000 body, it would take Nina Arsenault several decades of freelance writing alone to accrue such earnings. After providing fodder for gossip blogs earlier this year after practically charming the pants off enthusiastic tattooed stickman Tommy Lee, the proper pronoun to describe Ms. Arsenault’s gender was the subject of vigorous debate at Torontoist, but this article provided clarity for Post readers flipping between a profile of Jennifer Dale and list of the latest happenings at Holt Renfrew – reflecting her upwardly mobile ambitions. Nina claims to have previously resembled renaissance lunatic Crispin Glover, and was only inspired to follow through on gender reassignment after a quickie $100 cyst removal in South Africa provided insights into the wonders of plastic surgery. But after the obligatory nose job, lip lift, cheek implants, and hair removal, a round of facial feminization surgery in San Francisco was followed by a visit to “Dr. Sonny” in Guadalajara, Mexico for 450cc silicone implants, a rib cutting ceremony, and more: “It felt like someone was kicking me in the groin over and over.” Supplementary insight into how Arsenault paid for these surgeries can be found in her regular column for fab: The current installment features a lurid tale of an accountant, newly separated from his wife, who took Nina on a trip to Walt Disney World – where she recoiled at his scatalogical suggestions in the hotel room, and snuck away with $16,000 in cash. Meanwhile, the latest cover story of fab concerns another Torontonian waist-deep in the debauchery business, deported nightclub kingpin Peter Gatien, illustrating his plans for Circa. Due to dominate the club district starting next month, the venue will feature a “Bathhouse Bar” that boasts well-worn-in tiles and projections of people showering, a main room initially adorned with 15-foot white fibreglass hippos with strobe lights inside, and a sauna room decorated with fake lava rocks featuring a video projection of a man pouring water onto real sauna rocks. But unlike Nina Arsenault’s encounter with Tommy Lee – who flipped out when one of his flunkies informed him that he was lusting after someone whose female endowments were bought and paid for – it’d seem straight guys likely to hang out at Circa aren’t the type to recoil at discovering that the hot chick over there was born without a vagina.

The prefab banality built around Mel Lastman Square once felt a world apart from the perversions illustrated by Chester Brown in his 1980s comic Yummy Fur – followed by his more autobiographical stories about growing up as an introverted outsider. But after the publication of Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography in 2003, his position this spring as writer-in-residence at the North York Central Library either reflects the validation of Brown’s endeavors, or the idea that the shoulder pad landscape north of Yonge and Sheppard can finally facilitate traces of a downtown aesthetic, or maybe it’s a little bit of both. The artist’s primary task is reviewing graphic novel manuscripts from anyone over age 16, followed by a personal consultation, with submissions accepted until April 30 – and for those who miss the deadline or don’t know where to begin, a hands-on workshop on “The Art of the Graphic Novel” takes place on Saturday, June 3. Hopefully there’s a few young cartoonists whose first-person tales of 21st century local suburbia will be encouraged by the interaction; besides, everything that could be drawn about GenX nostalgia, followed by the neurotic 1990s experience of being overeducated and underemployed, seems to have been preserved in comic book form. Brown’s fellow travelers in this medium followed divergent paths – Palookaville creator Gregory “Seth” Gallant settling into a pastoral pursuit of his pre-rock ‘n’ roll aesthetic, recently reflected in the book Wimbledon Green: The Greatest Comic Book Collector in the World, in addition to designing the archives of Peanuts; Joe Matt, the creator of Peepshow, took off for Hollywood to adapt his first-person tales of poor, broke and lonely Toronto life, The Poor Bastard. Did the sensibilities that fueled the earlier work of this trio grow up and grow out of this city, though? (Comments welcome below.) Nowadays, the flamboyant whimsy of Toronto Islands resident Maurice Vellekoop is positioned to make him the illustrator of the so-called cultural renaissance – his latest book, A Nut at the Opera, gets launched at The Gladstone Hotel (1214 Queen St. W.) with the taping of a CBC Radio quiz show on Tuesday (April 25). But the greatest progenitor of illustrated self-loathing, retired hospital file clerk Harvey Pekar, spreads the love at Innis Town Hall (2 Sussex Ave.) on Wednesday (April 26), promoting Ego & Hubris: The Michael Malice Story, in which Pekar scripts the life of someone more abrasive than himself.

Stricter rules for tobacco companies have resulted in jazz festivals, fireworks displays, fashion shows, car races and award-winning journalism being deprived of essential support funds, which flamed out entirely after every effort to find loopholes in the legislation. But the backhanded efforts to pitch cigarettes to young people – from the acid-washed Tempo brand of the mid-’80s to Benson and Hedges furnishing indie rock combos with fancy tour buses a in exchange for hoisting a banner on stage – represent some of the most bizarre marketing artifacts of the past couple decades, making the legendary spectacle of The Flintstones cast savouring a pack of Winstons seem much less sinister in retrospect. The emotional protest at Queen’s Park by representatives of perhaps half of all Korean convenience store proprietors in the province, urging Dalton McGuinty to refrain from putting those last nails in the coffin of coffin nails, just gave the premier a platform to defend the decision to raise tobacco taxes and force stores to conceal cigarette displays behind a curtain, cutting off their income from manufacturers who’d pay to have their colours flown. The pinch is already being felt from a rash of robberies and escalating insurance costs, as the Ontario Korean Businessmen’s Association suggests that one-third of these stores will be forced to close soon – even sooner if there’s no effort made by the province to increase the retail cut of lottery tickets, let alone permit the sale of beer and wine. Regulation of cigarette sales has been the main agenda of the Ontario Convenience Stores Association for a while – conferences to chew over trends in beef jerky and energy drinks are overshadowed by impending doom that finds monolithic Mac’s proclaiming solidarity with the struggle of their independent counterparts. The despair should inspire wistful feelings amongst any kid who remembers the corner store as a friendly neighbourhood den of iniquity – or were hockey cards, junk food and adult magazines really just a gateway to a lifelong bad habit? (Your homages to unheralded GTA convenience stores are welcome via comments.)

BookCrossing originally sounded like one of those wacky dot-com social networking ideas destined to make a novelty media splash, then fade away, but a Toronto convention this weekend (April 21-23), attended by about 50 people who ritualistically release books into the wild frontier, comes a full five years after the concept was hatched by Ron Hornbaker, a software developer in Kansas City, Missouri. So, that’s what happens when a website is entirely predicated on people finding free books with a message inside, then going online to confirm their discovery, and perhaps getting hooked into the cycle themselves. The agenda for the BX gathering includes a Reverse Scavenger Hunt, where armies of book liberators will be divided into teams and dispersed to various neighbourhoods where they will have the opportunity to cast adrift even more paperbacks by John Grisham – whose name graces the cover of 11 of the top 25 all-time most registered BookCrossing titles, just because Dan Brown has been slow to publish a follow-up to The Da Vinci Code. But even if the consensus catch-and-release list resembles an unappealing pile of discards from an apartment building’s laundry room, individual tastes of the most devoted members are bound to be more eclectic. Local convention organizer Stephanie Spencer admits to harnessing much spiritual energy through this hobby, as explained in a feature story in the Toronto Star – her most traveled title so far was a garage sale-purchased copy of Not Many People Know That! Michael Caine’s Almanac of Amazing Information, which went from a bench in Nathan Phillips Square to Nanjing, China, along with the vow that Michael Caine trivia would eventually bewilder somebody in Beijing and beyond. Those looking to play the BookCrossing game appear to have the best luck focusing their efforts on specific zones – the Starbucks at 765 Yonge St., converted in 1999 from the Albert Britnell Bookshop situated there since 1928, has found its remaining shelves transformed into a favourite spot for stealth exchanges. While that’s sweet revenge on the gargantuan Chapters that trampled other wordy retailers in the Yonge and Bloor neighbourhood before being unceremoniously closed itself, it also reflects how the benevolence of BookCrossing will endure, even if bookstores offering plush chairs for cheapskates to read cover-to-cover was a premise that couldn’t last.

BookCrossing.com [+ convention site here]

The official program for the 19th annual Images Festival seems to be packed with details of the sort of affair that makes the city a stimulating place, alluding to lots of subversive layers of artistic inspiration dedicated to the elusive quest for some kind of comfort amid the hopeless state of humankind etc. etc. etc. Yet, beyond the introductory statements – from local, provincial and federal arts councils, the NFB, Telefilm Canada and a message from the mayor – it really does seem like the effort of an elitist cabal relishing the fact that there’s no clear indication to outsiders of what this 10-day gallery and screen festival is for. The lack of thematic focus was addressed by Peter Goddard in the Toronto Star, who took a stab at grouping together a few exhibits dealing with the topic of masculinity. Then again, a program of animated films Friday night (April 21) at the Workman Theatre (1001 Queen St. W.) dubbed Drawn Toward Danger are exclusively concerned with violence – from the 1918 production Sinking of the Lusitania and a 1939 MGM Christmas short “featuring adorable woodland creatures living in the fallen helmets of murdered soldiers in a post-apocalyptic landscape” called Peace on Earth, to shorts depicting children being held captive and/or killing themselves, to obligatory spoofs of the current White House mess. But beyond the assorted gallery installations, a few online works curated under the Images Festival banner offer some insight into web-based art trends: Utopia Suite is a five-year multi-platform project by local intermedia artist Clive Holden – plans include the development of a storytelling model using Google Earth’s satellite shots to illustrate personal memories from around the globe. That mapping trend is also covered by the online exhibition called Transposing Geographies, including recent efforts to illuminate looking at ruins in How I Love the Broken Things of Rome, and the search for immigrant-age serenity amidst the increasingly gentrified Lower East Side in Folk Songs For the Five Points. Which leaves one to wonder when Toronto will be ready to be subject of such elaborate forays into virtual tourism – or at least earn sufficient amounts of arts council funding evidently required for that to happen.

Images Festival [official site]

The headline at Editor & Publisher identifies him as Son of Famed Reporter – a lineage just recently discovered by the American publication – as Neil Young’s penchant for punditry gets him thrust back into the headlines via a new concept album, Living With War. There was a similar wave of enthusiasm preceding his tune “Let’s Roll”, which made Young the first major artist to address the casualties of 9/11, although the meandering result wouldn’t have won any converts to the Patriot Act cause. Now, with 10 new protest ditties recorded in 72 hours, it’d seem like former Ronald Reagan booster Young has marked which side of the political fence he’d prefer to be buried on – seeds planted back at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2003, during a press conference for the multi-media project Greendale, where he expressed appreciation for Canada standing apart from the foreign policies of our neighbour. It’s no wonder that Young tried to keep his three-day outburst of sedition a secret, yet by having weblogs squeal on his behalf, anyone who’d be potentially interested in hearing a song called “Impeach the President” will be worn out by the surrounding rhetoric before it’s even released. Details were leaked by ecstatic singer Alicia Morgan, part of a 100-person choir “chanting ‘flip/flop’ and the like” beneath a rap of George W. Bush soundbites, a session subsequently confirmed by Heart of Gold director Jonathan Demme who dubbed it “truly mind blowing”; followed by a claim by the blog Down With Tyranny of having heard the final results: “Will this go down as Neil’s greatest album ever? It will be a contender musically. And the impact lyrically could be profound.” Fortunately, advance criticism of Young has been even more tepid: Left unimpressed by news of new rantings from an exiled Canadian was Wonkette (”Sure, ‘Pass of Motion of No Confidence, Necessitating a General Election That Will Hopefully Result In the Appointment of a New Prime Minister’ isn’t as catchy a title, but if you’re releasing three-day albums now, you can’t be too picky.”); Conservative Party blog vivant Stephen Taylor (scattered observations culminating in quotes from MP Tony Clement); and GOP mouthpiece NewsMax.com (”Some say Young, who hasn’t had a major hit since his 1972 chart-topper, ‘Heart of Gold,’ is looking to revive his career by bashing Bush.”). Neil’s statements are limited to glib scrolling at the bottom of his website – underscoring the notion that, since protest songs will never have Nixon-era potency in this information age, Young might as well bask in his complex contrarian legacy by bashing out a few oversimplified partisan anthems that vindicate his radical past. Meanwhile, news that hometown electro provocateur Peaches would be naming her next album Impeach My Bush now comes off more like performance artist self-parody than the intended attempt to make her tacky exhibitionism look cerebral.