Pillow Blog: Parental Advisory

In the tradition of the Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book, here's a Pillow Blog: an observational list on some subject or another. 

Movies I've Seen With My Parents That I Wish I Hadn't, and Why

1. Summer of Sam: Violence, sex, in particular an orgy featuring lesbian sex which made my mother stare at me hoping that at least this movie would force me to confirm or deny my homosexuality
2. Chinatown: Incest, despair
3. I Am Love: Despair, boredom
4. Take This Waltz: Boredom, Torontocest

Domestic Thursday: GLB's RoboHop

A mobile post today, since I'm at Tall Boys and my Internet is acting squirrelly at home anyway. Here's Great Lakes Brewery's RoboHop, a can which may have only existed in my dreams before today. I LOVE Robocop. It's part of my 80s movie trifecta, along with Bloodsport and Die Hard. I may have seen the new Trek just to see Peter Weller. I don't think I like this beer as much as its filmic namesake though. It's truly hoppy, a bitter mix of citrus and flower to start, and frankly a little metallic on the aftertaste. I will smuggle that can out of the bar though, and I will turn it into something crafty (tiny cactus holder?) though. I am weak, and Peter Weller's jawline is strong.

Domestic Sunday: Return to the Womb Edition

Back when I was choosing which university to go to, my two criteria were 1. it couldn't be on the West Coast, but 2. had to be far enough away that my Mom couldn't just casually drop in to see me. Don't worry I do love that woman (as my last minute purchase of grocery store flowers this Mother's Day proves!) but I really needed my space back then. And yet,  I now actually enjoy the occasional weekend in Guelph. Maybe it's my Mom's garden:

Or the dog:

Or maybe... THESE MUST BE MY HEINEKEN YEARS. Actually, these years I drink far better beer than Heineken:

This Sunday was brought to you by one of the last bottles from the Niagara College trip. My Dad and I went there a few weeks ago, so I could write a blog post about their brewmaster program for the Toronto Beer Week. To learn more about the program, you can read my finished post here. Or you can drink the results, as I did this afternoon. As expected for a strong ale, this one was very malty, to the point where it tasted of chocolate. Don't expect anything too bitter, and watch out for that 7.5% ABV. It will hit you eventually.

My Brilliant Semi-Career

Sometimes I worry that the only work I am fit for is running a secondhand bookstore. And the only business partner I could handle would be my cat.

This current state of work-related anxiety is brought to you by my recent career shift. I hinted before that I had handed in my notice at my old job, and found another. Now, I have some feelings about my old place of employment - good, so-so (SOMEBODY MUST BUY THE UNIVERSITY MAP SILK SCARVES, BUT WHO??), etc - and I probably won't write about it without the benefit of time, distance and alcohol. My new job doesn't look like it would give me any more raw material to write about, though it does at least have a window in the office. I'm moving on up. Right out of the basement.

The fact I'm excited about a daily dose of Vitamin D makes me reflect on how swiftly my career expectations changed after graduation, and how drastically. I wasn't joking before when I said that I entered McGill convinced I was four years away from becoming a Russian-speaking economist. I knew that dream died the moment I switch my major from economics to cultural studies, but by then I was equally convinced something grand and culturally significant lay in my path. I would have also settled for interning at a publishing house and making adorable dinners for my even more adorable boyfriend in the evening. And then I graduated, spent a year in the trenches of porn, and acquired an amusing career anecdote at a cost of nothing less than my soul. You think I kid, but no - hentai. Look it up.

It's the same story of exchanging dreams of cake for the reality of bread, a narrative my generation seems stuck in, one personal essay on Jezebel at a time. I'm trying to embrace it now, I suppose. Even if this is all there is, at least there's a window now.

Domestic Friday: Dogstalker April Bock

There was a time when I had the time to do something domestic every week, whether that meant knitting, sewing or cooking. Unsurprisingly that time also coincided with the time I was unemployed. Now my dinner was ramen noodles with a (slightly expired) egg thrown in. Then a handful of baby kale because I didn't want to eat a simple bowl of sadness. I wanted eat a bowl of sadness with carotenoids and Vitamin K as well.

However, I managed to find time this week to drink some more Ontario beer. Yes, spring's here, along with crocuses, guides to restaurant patios, and bocks in beer fridges across the land. The Dogstalker April Bock from Grand River Brewing seems particularly sweet, even for a style that's normally so. I did like that it was low on the carbonation though. And as a sweeter, stronger beer (6%) beer, it seemed like the perfect drink for spring, before the hoppy ales and sometimes sour wheat beers of summer crowd my table.

From April to May

Oh, what a month. I handed in my notice at one job, found another... got rid of some problems and found some others. Generally, the balance has been on the side of good, so expect more from me in the future.

Until then - don't waste your money on The Great Gatsby, and stay classy.

Pillow Blog: My Top 10 Criterion Collection Films

The Criterion Collection hosts a series of Top 10 lists on its site, so notables can tell you all about their favourite films in the collection. I'm not famous. I'm not even ambitious. But here are mine anyway:

• The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
• Mystery Train
• Beauty and the Beast
• Amarcord
• The Third Man
• The Last Days of Disco
• Crumb
• Ivan the Terrible Pt. I and II (cheating? perhaps.)
• My Man Godfrey
• Ran

Feel free to clip and save for the next time you're lost at the video store!

Book Covers I Have Loved: Algoma, Dani Couture

I have a mad crush on Invisible Publishing and their covers. It's a smaller Canadian publishing house, but I think their design work can easily stand with anything the big guys are putting out these days. For example, this lovely, stark cover for Dani Couture's Algoma. In spite of the unity of its colour palette, there's something unsettling about the whole. Maybe it's the shakiness of the font. All I know is that I want to order this. And Jonah Campbell's Food and Trembling. Actually, why not throw in this sinister cover for kevin mcpherson eckhoff's Forge and make it a triad? Judging from this Chronicle Herald story (worth reading just to have Invisible's founder, Robbie MacGregor, make you feel really lazy), design credit should go to Megan Fildes.

3D Printing and Winning

Greetings from bed, dear readers. One of the many ways I fail as a woman (blow dryers? how do they work?) is that I cannot handle one day - one fully day - of wearing heels without having to take a recovery day the next. This is how I imagine you better-disciplined folks feel after a spin class or a half-marathon. I feel your pain in pursuit or outfit consistency. In spite of my aching limbs, I did manage to make it to Autodesk this morning (a Saturday morning, for Christ's sake) for 10 am to take part in the Ladies Learning Code 3D Printing Workshop.

I had unfinished business with 3D printers. Back when I lived in Victoria, I went to the Makerspace's 3D printing workshop. I was the only girl. I tried to print a cube. And I somehow managed to break the Makerbot printing a cube in such a way that a piece of it went flying across the room, to punctuate my incompetence. I had to make things up to myself and my gender.

Success! An important step in equality has been made. It's hard to see - and I really should have held out for a printer loaded up with coloured plastic - but that's an octopus on a pendant. No machines were harmed in its production. The people at the workshop, particularly Matt Compeau and Bi-Ying Miao of Hot Pop Factory, were great and I couldn't have successfully made this without them. So sign up for a workshop and learn something new. Or even just to get even with the past.

Book Pile for April 4 (And Introducing the Best Book Club)

1. Trying to Fall Back in Love With Toronto Text: uTOpia: Towards a New Toronto, Edited by Jason McBride and Alanna Wilcox
2. Silly Little Thriller Book: Bulldog Drummond, Sapper
3. Serious Business NonFiction: Lenin's Tomb, David Remnick
4. Up With Science Tract: Bad Pharma, Ben Goldacre

This will be the last exciting book pile I'll post for at least a month and a half, because from now on I'll be reading one book. At least it's a book that's about as thick as all four of these put together. I'm finally tackling David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest. I had a brief wave of genius pass over me, when I realized that the Best Book Club would, first, be flexible on how much of the month's book you had actually read, and second, feature booze. So I chose a book that would be almost impossible for anyone to finish. And I'm telling anyone who cares to join to bring two bottles of beer to my house next May. The bottles will go into a mystery bucket, and then the readers will blindly pick from the bucket, getting to try two new beers before we all babble about the book. I am, however, making Girl Guide-style badges for anyone who actually completes Infinite Jest, because that kind of accomplishment should not go unrecognized.