The Surprise In My Cereal Box

Quality, Not Quantity: It's That Time Again

noreply@blogger.com (Sugar Smacks) — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 15:54:00 +0000

Note: I just edited out some of the things I wrote yesterday in this post. I think I said alot more than I needed to. Too late for the feed readers, but...Jeezus, it really is a good time for me to take this break.

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To anyone who gives a flaming shit, I'm taking some time away from the blog.

Other commitments in my life and just going to work every day are factors in this little hiatus of mine; they do cut into blogging time.

I've discovered I can actually write, and derive a deep gratification from it. But lately I've been caught up in trying to manifest interesting things to post about every other day. I don't enjoy feeling like I'm forcing things. I've reminded myself that I am not writing a daily newspaper column here. I have forgotten my own promise of no promises.

I have to say, I am in awe of all the bloggers out there who can and do post consistently, with energy, and with quality.

Thanks, fellow bloggers who've been reading and commenting here. I am learning a lot from you all. I'll still lurk around, perhaps creepily even, and comment on your posts because I enjoy reading your work. And the minute something strikes me that needs to be shaped into letters and sentences I shall post away...I don't think it will be too long before that happens.

Definitely not months, like the last time.

Alrighty then.

Knock Knock. Who's There?

noreply@blogger.com (Sugar Smacks) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 03:26:00 +0000

Well, at the moment I am fresh out of posts, people. It's not that I have nothing to write - I got plenty to write about. I just don't have a post.

So much for "starting fresh in the morning!"

I feel like everything about everything is destined to be in a book, just by the stubborn interconnectedness of each aspect of my existence and because each aspect is too lengthy for a blog. I mean, I suppose I could post about how my day went.

I do have days.

I could talk about the mean old man who farted defiantly at me on the subway a couple of days ago. But I am afraid that is just too unsexy. I really don't wanna be associated with old fartfaces, right or wrong. However, if you really, really want to hear about fartman, just say the word and I'll post it quickly, but not without loudly announcing that it is at your request.

How's about strip club carryings-on? Eh, eh? Definitely sexier. Or there's the time I punched a guy out for his threatening me on the street. Now there's a good one, actually...hmm.

Ah, nevermind.

Not that you're not worth it, reader. You are worth it. Hell, I'm worth it. It's just that I have a hard time organizing my thoughts and condensing things sometimes, and it is definitely one of those times right now.

But before I sign off, allow me to leave you with the greatest l'il knock-knock joke ever. Know a better one? Pssh. I doubt it.

Knock knock.

Who's there?

Interrupting cow.

Interrupting cow wh-

Moooooo.

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The Manic Monster Sleeps.

noreply@blogger.com (Sugar Smacks) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 18:17:00 +0000

I was pretty happy about the review, though…obviously...alright,'nuff said…

Now that the drunken ranting has faded away and I'm left with that high-pitched tinnitis called regret, I can safely say that my insane gushing about my blog review should be one good indicator to all as to why I never made it in the acting biz, and perhaps why I shouldn't. In case anyone's wondering, yes, I am often socially stunned. A large, blind, manic idea will manifest from my deeps, something like that monster in Cloverfield.

It is called forth by mysterious forces: success, bedazzlement, or maybe environmental poisoning (I stopped writing thank-you letters to the omnipotent casting directors early on in my acting "career").

The monster is invariably pregnant with something, something that could destroy the natural world exponentially, of course. And it can't navigate to save its life or even the lives of its unborn – it obviously gets confused by the big city, and so enflames and crushes things for hours on end.

Bridges do burn...

I really should write more about the showbiz shit since I don't take pills.

Worst-Case Blog Scenario Survival Guide Tip #8: Post purdy pictures to distract. Start fresh in the morning.

I was going to cutely post about my recent trip to Halifax and the restaurants there, but I still haven't posted a post about my previous Halifax trip back in November. The train of pictures I took and scribbled things I tucked away is getting impacted beyond any hope of my ever weeding through it tonight.

So I found these Cuba pictures to try to distract y'all with instead. I took them the week of January 24 when I was there with le Kelle. Kelly.

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At the castle where I bought a cigar and a bottle of Caney rum.

My new friend.

A pit stop on the road in Mantanza province, at something-Del Frailes, where everyone drinks real cuban drinks and uses the washroom.

At some museum.

In old Havana, you'll see bitches sleep in the streets. It takes some getting used to.

Neptune!

This shot is less about Havana and much more about Kelly's magnificent healing mammaries.

Goodnight.

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The Last Mixed CD I Made

noreply@blogger.com (Sugar Smacks) — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 05:41:00 +0000

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Note: I'll be removing the links below in a couple of days, for "moral" reasons revolving around musicians' rights and all that other copyright stuff. Like as if removing them now will help at all, but I guess I have to do something.

Sorry I neglected to mention this when originally I posted it, I was a little out of it.

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It was about a week ago. The one before that was in December. I named myself Corstar The Compiler for these music compiling times. I guess it's my mixed-tape alter ego.

When you click on a song below, your default music player should open it and then the artist's name will be displayed for you.

My tastes are all over the place, but if my computer could manage the software, I could rearrange and then blend these songs seamlessly, maybe. It would be fun trying.

About six of the artists are Canadian, two of the songs are by Saul Williams (not Canadian), and "why'd ya do it" is painfully profane, whiskey-soaked, smoked dry, and as swaggering as Elizabeth Taylor in Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf, for anyone who may care.

the beat goes on - Saul Williams

devil's eyes - Buck 65

galang - M.I.A.

golden boys -Reese

la la la - Saul Williams

dry the rain - Beta Band

why'd ya do it - Marianne Faithfull

turn on your receiver Nazareth

no heaven - DJ Champion

love is the drug - Roxy Music

riffs and variations on a single note for jelly roll... - Sufjan Stevens

i'm deranged - David Bowie

melody day - Caribou

voodoo - Godsmack

feast here tonight - Foggy Hogtown Boys

evil - Howlin' Wolf

the greatest - Cat Power

chicago - Sufjan Stevens

vultan's theme (attack of the hawk men) - Queen

future love paradise - Seal

que pasa contigo (latin simone) - Ibrahim Ferraro & Gorillaz

carratero - Ibrahim Ferraro

p.s. give "future love paradise" a chance - it's time to bring it back.

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I Was Reviewed by Ask And Ye Shall Receive

noreply@blogger.com (Sugar Smacks) — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:35:00 +0000

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Holy sheee-it, I submitted my blog for a review I got a rare and coveted "I Fucking Love You" award!!

As a pleasant bonus, my reviewer gave big-ups to blogs from Toronto, Canada in general.

And to make things ever more overwhelming, I got quoted (in a good way) over at Ryan Lawson's blog. Then to top that all off with a big creamy dollop of "Good morning, sunshine" I find out Ryan is Scottish. And has strong arms. Help.

I'll try not to gloat.

About my review: I received the review and award from Bitter Mistress, that elegant taskmaster, that be-fishnetted femme fatale at Ask And Ye Shall Receive. Well, to be honest, I got two of the awards from Her…but I don't wanna ring my own bell too long about that...I am actually still shaking my head in awe and disbelief at the huge ego inflation I'm experiencing. The Mistress never gives two of these awards, and will rarely give even the usual one.

I've been in Halifax for a week, and while there I played more than six hundred rounds of battle in Soul Calibre, the Playstation fighting game. I kicked almost everyone's asses to the floor with my 4'8" fifteen-year-old fighter, Talim. But there was a British dominatrix fighter named Ivy who keeps popping into my mind today, back home in T.O., as I ponder my boon of self-actualization.

At the risk of sounding sappy, I respect the writing at AAYSR, and the notched riding crop by which they measure quality, and feel I've benefited a great deal by simply reading their work. This review I've gotten is really just such a wholehearted acknowledgement of something that feels really important to a writer. I don't want to hide my silly pleasure at all this.

Ask And Ye Shall Receive

Yes, I submitted my blog to Ask And Ye Shall Receive, that labour of love where righteous reviewers rate blogs under microscopic scrutiny - a fair, but no-nonsense, and stinging bottom-line. I've been avidly reading the posts and comments there since I discovered it about a month ago. Lurking. Spewing with mirth at some of the most colorful spittings of the scorned I've ever come across. To wit:

Let me give you a little tip: when I'm reading a blog that has multiple colors of text, I get completely distracted and have to start over. And frankly, no author is so fucking fascinating that I'd read a post 15 times, even if it was how you fucked 15 guys in 2 hours while snorting coke off your mother's ass before you picked up your daughter from preschool. It just pisses me off and makes me want to stab you in the fucking eye.
-Bitter Mistress

Yes, the blogosphere can be a beautiful thing.

I have gleaned lots of good advice on blog writing, just by reading what everyone has to say about it and by the way they express themselves over there. Despite my gleaning, I thought I might get two stars. I was even prepared for the "Meh" rating, or the somehow more biting poser rating:

Positive feedback from Bitter Mistress about my writing is kinda like getting a big slab of white-icing-with-orange-m&m's cake (real cake - the birthday kind) when you had your mouth open for the cod liver oil. Or a slow, feathery tickle when you were bent over for the paddle.

I know I'm in a huge learning curve.

People, y'all don't know how scary it can be submitting to these guys. Here's a hint - and beware ye who seeketh to ask for what thou wanteth to receiveth – the address to Ask And Ye Shall Receive is:

iwillfuckingtearyouapart.blogspot.com.

Did you get that? Not for the faint of heart.

But from what I have read there, the turning you out is worth the claw marks. You will learn.

You can read the review by Bitter Mistress here.

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I Will Be Kind To Scotsmen.

noreply@blogger.com (Sugar Smacks) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 14:20:00 +0000

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I was told by my friend 'S' (who is not Scottish) that she takes issue with a comment I made in the comment section of my Evil post. In the comments, I said "stay away from all Scottish men, period." She thinks it could be taken badly by one of my three readers or something - what are the odds of that, really? But now, I can't stop thinking about it, even though it's probably nothing to anyone but her.

Like Stephen Colbert, I don't "see color" or race. Being a heady mix of bloodlines and raised without racism in my home, I really am non-prejudiced. Admittedly, there is no Scottish in me (well...not permanently...) but the Irish and the English will do, won't it? As a side note, in case anyone's curious, the rest of me is African, Native Indian (Mohawk) and there is a rumour of Italian, a rumour which no one in my complex and secretive family will put to rest. My grandmother had 18 (that's eighteen) children, so anythings's possible on that front. The Italian is there, though, I am convinced, since I am one of the hairiest people I know - and bodily hair of any kind is not in the African or Aboriginal genetic composition, nor is it a major physical feature in the the UK or wherever; however, it is a major feature in the Italian genetic makeup. Plus I always talk with my hands and yearn for passionate vocal expression in kitchens. Okay, I'll stop while I'm ahead. Whatever.

I love men. What I meant in my comments, and what I meant by "hardly harmless" in my post, is that Scottish men are the sexiest men on this earth. Sometimes I don't come right out and say a thing, as it will lead to other thoughts about the thing, which will make make me want to keep writing about it right then and there, which will make my already wordy posts even longer. I try to be as compact as possible, y'know.

Please understand: when I turn and behold the sexual carnage I have wreaked upon my corner of the world, the flaccid bodies which lay steaming there are mostly of the Scottish male persuasion; and I know I must, for the love of all that is decent and good, be kind and cautious in my interactions with them, even at bus stops.

Well, this has been my best reasonable facsimile of a disclaimer, or something, I guess. I don't really care about all this in general, but I will say I regret any offense my lack of forthright communication may have caused, to whoever (mostly to 'S', I'm sure). And yes, I do understand that a human being can be a mix of many races and still be a racist (cuz humans are sooo complex), yadda yadda.

Alrighty then.

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Whatnot...

noreply@blogger.com (Sugar Smacks) — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 00:20:00 +0000

I want to tell people about me and the reasons why I'm blogging, and how writing's a way for me to find my life's story, and why I'm not doing other things I used to like to do, like singing professionally, or driving.

I mean that's what this is, isn't it? A blog is a revelation in different ways. I know it's not all corn flakes and cleverness and trying to entertain (which is a goal of mine, often). I read posts out there written by someone who is in pain, or someone who wants to help other people with pain, mental illness, tragedy or whatnot, and I have an idea of what I want to say. The fucker of it is...I would hate to slip into sappyness.

Sometimes I think this cereal themed blog is a not-so-conducive place for me to be serious. Sometimes I don't give a shit if it is or not.

As a side note, I think it's safe to say I'm not the only blogger who hates the word blog.

Well, my blog is nothing if not evasive.

So, umm....see if you can spot Jesus here.

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Evil

noreply@blogger.com (Sugar Smacks) — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 03:08:00 +0000

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A stranger at the bus stop gave me a CD of this heavy blues artist last week.

The CD is Howlin' Wolf: His Best.

Next morning, I uploaded the CD and then put my entire iTunes library on shuffle mode, making it possible for me to hear any one of 300+ songs.

I was eating Snackimals on the couch, reading M. Scott Peck's People of the Lie: The Hope For Healing Human Evil, and being elegantly blown away by a theory of social evil therein. Snackimals tumbled, forgotten, from my parted lips. I was frozen in the soft breath of crystal dawning that breaks when a single sentence in a book washes clean ancient stains of confusion.

It was in that crystal dawn that I heard Evil for the first time. Track three of Howlin' Wolf: His Best had been chosen randomly in the shuffle. Spooky.

I've witnessed personal events of synchronicity involving the idea of evil in the past week or so. Not heaps of events, just enough of them to warrant my tiptoeing through sleety ice, bleak dirty snow-crust and fallen senior citizens to the internet cafe to write this post. I must say, the seniors are fascinating to study - silent and wiggling on their backs like upside-down beetles on the sidewalk, clawing at the air like that. If you can find one of their canes nearby, try gently prodding their midsections - the response is subtle but kinda wild. Well, I do digress. Back to the evil.

There is the recurring theme of selling one's soul to the devil, all around me. Too many instances to mention - you know I am really just too lazy. But I will say I found myself watching The Devil's Advocate with Heather a coupla weeks ago after having systematically, and successfully, avoided the film for a decade.

The Devil's Advocate

We were doing one of our favorite things - watching thoroughly unwatchable movies. Films so smarmy, negligent in production, deliriously over-acted - well, it doesn't matter what makes them awful, it only matters that these movies elicit simultaneous feelings of visceral repulsion and morbid enthrallment to the point of affection. To the point where we inhale in perverted masochistic delight, then exhale in awe at the time, equipment and producers on meth it must have required to make something so inadvertantly foul.

Heather was aiming to load up Dirty Dancing. I did not understand this. So I, carefully casual, reminded her that

a) it is actually rumored to be a great film, despite the way she tears it up like a post-coital mantis and

b) we are supposed to be watching bad movies that make you feel like your nipples are being tweaked and turned like radio knobs by an eager-to-please yet anatomically clueless hottie you had misgivings about in the first place, but gave a shot after, well, a few shots: hotly annoyed, but sensing alot of potential for pleasure and the opportunity to correct things. Not cute bad movies. Remember?

c) watching it will terminate my record of always being the only person I know since about 1991 who has never seen Dirty Dancing.

She slid The Devil's Advocate in the tray with a great weight of consequence.

(I was dubious. Remember, I had avoided it for ten years. I always thought the movie would be nauseating, but sorta watchable, which would then make it too good to be unwatchable, which would then be a waste of my precious time. But I never had to sweat it: The Devil's Advocate is torturous in its entertainment value. Bad, bad, bad. In fact I have to say, it almost ranks up there with Running Brave, maudlin Sweet November and even Gigli on my personal shite-o-meter.)

I Dunno

Peck's book, Wolf's music, The Devil's Advocate. - then there's my cousin finally returning my Crossroads, the Ralph Macchio blues movie he borrowed from me like forty-seven years ago. I don't know what the fuck I'm supposed to do with it now. The legend of Robert Johnson I won't even get into.

I may be seeing nonexistent connections to my current preoccupation with evil.

Maybe I have been a lifelong victim of evil on a massive scale. Maybe I just like the subject of evility. I dunno. I am tired of writing this now, I do know that. Besides, I'm thinking of going back outside. There are fun things to do with the seniors out there, despite the weather. No glumly staring out the window for this kid!

Howlin' Wolf knows something about evil.
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It was a charming, hardly harmless Scottish man who talked with me at the bus stop last week. He had a soundtrack for evil at hand, and just happens to own two copies. He gave me one, insisting I can take it. He certainly has a vast knowledge of the Chess blues collection. He says he loves black women, and that he's a real-life redheaded stepchild, he really is.

He's not evil, though. Just very naughty.
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Listen to "Evil"

Look at "People Of The Lie"

Eat Snackimals

(Really, just listen to an entire Howlin' Wolf album if you can get your hand on one. And don't get turned off by vegan Snackimals, folks - they are delicious)

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Your Heart-On Is Showing

noreply@blogger.com (Sugar Smacks) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 14:23:00 +0000

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Well, well. It's Valentine's Day, sometimes referred to by Antivalentinists as Singles Appreciation Day (SAD). Thousands of university students with bloody thorn-pricked fingers will be temping at the flower factories. The marketing machine that is Cupid has on his power suit and his arrows are sharpened. Little 2nd-graders are passing around pieces of red paper to their classmates, paper not perforated by love machines, paper a parent most likely chose with the individualistic flair of a plant turning towards a lightsource.

I know I sound jaded, but don't think I am. Not completely.

There is agape, which I do believe in.

There is deep intimacy - that thing where you love someone unconditionally, even after seeing them sleep with their mouth wide open and all that. I subscribe to that.

I just don't subscribe to the idea of romantic love and sentimentality, especially when it feels perfunctory. But I don't exactly knock other people for getting their card-ons. Or heart-ons. Or whatever greases their griddle.

Antivalentinists keep screeching about how society has lost the true meaning of this day. And I would probably agree with them if I didn't know this: nobody knows the true roots of Valentine's Day, other than its ancestor is a saint named Valentin. Some don't even know that basic fact. They are the ones who call it "Valentimes Day" (probably the same breed who say "supposebly." They are endearing.).

From what I gather on Wikipedia, the sentimental butterfly shit that informs V-Day can feasibly be traced back to Chaucer:

Though popular modern sources link unspecified Graeco-Roman February holidays alleged to be devoted to fertility and love to St Valentine's Day, Professor Jack Oruch of the University of Kansas argued[2] that prior to Chaucer, no links between the Saints named Valentinus and romantic love existed.

But, also according to Wikipedia, nobody really knows where the whole thing really started. Even "respected scholars" make references to romantic things that haven't been documented or proven as relating to Valentin the martyr.

A certain greeting card conglomerate has embraced these references wholeheartedly.

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Shaggy thongs

I think the Lupercalians had a good interpretation of VD:

In Ancient Rome, February 15 was Lupercalia, an archaic rite connected to fertility, without overtones of romance. Plutarch wrote:

...many write that it was anciently celebrated by shepherds, and has also some connection with the Arcadian Lycaea. At this time many of the noble youths and magistrates run up and down through the city naked, for sport and laughter, striking those they meet with shaggy thongs. And many women of rank also purposely get in their way, and like children at school, present their hands to be struck, believing that the pregnant will thus be helped in delivery, and the barren to pregnancy.[6]

Sport! Laughter! Shaggy thongs! Now that is some Valentine activity I could get into...I've never tried all three at once...

There is some other Lupercalia stuff about sacrificing goats and dogs. I think we should leave that stuff where it belongs - the Christmas holiday.

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Chocolate Obligation: giri-choko

In Finland, Valentine's Day is called Ystävänpäivä which translates into "Friend's day".

In Denmark and Norway it is Valentinsdag.

And in Japan there is giri-choko, which almost literally translates to "chocolate obligation." All the women have to give chocolate to their male co-workers. Hmm. Sounds like oppression to me! Choko indeed! But then again Asia has adopted the western holiday through direct marketing; I think maybe it bypassed the whole Parlement of Foules historical references.

Scat

When it comes down to romantic appreciation on V-Day, I personally don't need all the store-bought fuzzy bear scat. I do like the idea of celebrating all loved ones on a chosen day, including friends and pets. Oh, and I do love chocolate - but furtively. I also love a long stoll on the beach at sunset - preferably to the beach bar.

And I adore flowers - in the dirt where they belong.

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Happy Valentimes Day!

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I'm Hair For You 2

noreply@blogger.com (Sugar Smacks) — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 20:24:00 +0000

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I thought is was time I updated anyone who cares on the status of my hair. This is one of my good hair days, folks. As you can see, it is basically the boss of me now.

It may seem vain, or silly, posting pictures of my locks for all the world, but I think that is only because I haven't yet let the world know just how deeply my hair has played a part in my lifelong identity in all its morphings.

I had a phrase snaking around in my skull today. It went "I don't care about your pleasures if I've never seen your pain." A rather unfeeling sentiment, I guess. But I am hoping the phrase was sent from alien thought-ships or thorugh a crack in the veil from dog-spelled-backwards, and that it means I have to bare my pain to the world before I can make the world care about how damn funny my pain is.

I'll get on that. Like a chihuahua mounting a bull.

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What Gets Me Out Of Bed In The Mornings

noreply@blogger.com (Sugar Smacks) — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 23:32:00 +0000

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According to something I looked up somewhere online, the centipede is the most "alarming" insect to humans, and the "most likely to be killed on sight". It doesn't have compound vision for the love of god, it can see you – remember that, the next time you wonder why it keeps dekeing your shoe-wielding ass like an olympian.

If it's one step ahead of you, then it's a hundred steps ahead of you.

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I'm lying in bed this morning within a warm nest, arms protruding out like tunas propped on ice in plastic lettuce leaves, like the tunas in the market's plastic leaves across the street.

The arms are a little chilly. Just give it a few more minutes, I assure them. Once we get up, we can turn the space heater on.

I lay, vaguely pining. I mentally weed through ideas and faces, for anything, anything that will light a fire under my cocoon - the imago to my pupal ennui, if you will. I pull at the window curtain to confirm the bleakness I suspect lay outside. Ugh. Definitely another day to pop a vitamin D, if there will be a popping of anything.

My subconscious simmers slowly, thick with last week's leftover impulses.

When I'm too impatient to analyze shit like my own consuming lethargy, reality sometimes just glazes over, whereupon my inner cinema flickers to life as if of its own accord. Today's matinee will be memories of centipedes, centipedes here in this very apartment. Don't ask me why.

Footage flashes across the screen inside. The clips are very short, but there is a lot of layering of images going on: long, light centipedes I've swept from behind shoe boxes; the lightning-fast one that snaked out of the vacuum cleaner crevice tool on Christmas Eve day; the teenage centy that has grown 25% lengthier since it first appeared from behind my bedroom dresser a few weeks ago.

*Sniffle* They grow so fast....

The little bastards really don't come out often. On the contrary - they stay in hiding exactly long enough for me to relax – at which point they promptly reappear with tophats on. I can't usually kill them because then I'll have to dispose of them afterwards, and I really can't stand the sight of those tiny, crushed, bloody tophats. There is no need for anyone to ask me why, or to point out that I am being irrational about this.

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A distant humming fridge draws me, but to-do lists have me stuffing more comforter between my knees. If the Matrix was a wake n' bake followed by six hours of the Sopranos viewed from under a Triscuit-crumb-laden duvet, I wouldn't wanna be the Chosen One.

Sinking motivation lunges weakly at the random dialogues floating down my stream of consciousness:

"Haha,"

"floppy feet like seals."

"did I finish all the Flax Plus?"

"schlumberfumuluk."

They are not good floaties.

But looky here! There's another film starting:

Moonlight on the pillow, I lay in gentle slumber. A long, dark centipede emerges from the crack where my blankets touch the wall. It will cross the bridge of my upper arm and traverse my ulna before I am even fully awakened by my own high, screeching horror.

CUT TO: For unknown and highly unlikely reasons, I am laying frozen in a trance. The hairy heathens, like living eyebrows, explore my arms, my torso; even my hair.

Uugh, they're beginning to weave around some woman's face now, god. Oh - that's my face…

I transport out of myself. My upper body has risen stiff and surprised from under fleecy layers, all very puppet-like. I cradle my vulnerable arms as my eyes roll oiled, like ballbearings, along the dubious wall crack. Hey, neat - I can hear my own heart, I'm so wholly suspended in the macabre.

I turn away from the wall and leverage my arms under me. I vault sluggishly up from there.

I stand and wistfully regard my warm nest, absently fluffing its folds, stirring the body heat still pooled in its center. My now wide-awake eyes scan the general floor area around me like antennae. Just in case, the willies whisper. A rising giggle loosens me as I am struck with the realization that maybe what gets one out of bed in the morning should be discussed with no one but one's therapist.

Sliding all these covers around, I cackle long, loud, and full of dry delight.

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Voodoo for Vector (the stare game on subways)

noreply@blogger.com (Sugar Smacks) — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 02:40:00 +0000

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Encountering more than one's share of run-ins on the streets and in subways, of course one learns to do all one can to minimize the run-ins. Of course.

But eventually, one discovers avoidance rarely works as the metropolitan population explodes and individuals thus become more desperate for basic human dignities - like six square inches of personal space (or 38.709 6 square centimeters here in the White North). Subway seats and their particular positionings, collectively known as "rocket real estate", are the meat of transit relief for urbanites who live to work. Politely keeping our pale elbows in and our dulling workday eyes to our own inner worlds, we are still all jackals and lions by turn at rush hour - or at any time of the day, really. I fear we may never evolve enough to be meerkats.

What I'm saying is, one can only cross and re-cross the streets and subway aisles so many goddam times to avoid leering, invasive idiots. And then one just becomes real rat-nasty. One wants to play with things a little. Yeah. And if one happens to be the unlucky combination of angry rodent and supernatural magnet to the deluded, one might get vengefully creative in their own reactions to the aforementioned leering idiots.

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Vector

I’m reading a worn magazine on the eastbound subway, in the most isolated seat I can possibly find - a find that is relatively easy at 2:30 in the afternoon. We city rats take the maximum amount of space around us when we have the chance, especially on public transit vehicles. I am a blissful rat in a half a car to myself. I am an unassuming bowl of cornflakes.

A clean cut man gets on at the opposite end of the car. Cereal type: Vector. I peripherally scan him scanning the car. Whistling a tad too merrily, he bypasses a large selection of empty seats along the metallic expanse. Scanning me, he's getting too close to my real estate. Hm. He approaches the seat directly across from mine. A new neighbour. Hm. We are pretty much alone over here, together.

Hmmm.

Vector settles in the seat and of course, immediately starts staring at me like a poor man's Charles Manson. Now, I admit I am looking too fiine today, but.

He bores into me. He does not blink.

A timeless game begun, Vector in the offense, I fake-read my magazine like I’m nearsighted and forgot my glasses. It is twenty more minutes to my stop, and I predict I must defend my 38.709 6 square centimetres the whole way.

In times past I have taken similar circumstances into my loudly confident hands. "Hello there. Do you MIND not staring me down anymore? Yeess, YOU. Get it?" I have frothed at Vectors across aisles, where they shrivel into themselves as curious passenger eyes land on their faces. But at the moment, this ogler and I are the last two checkers on the board. It appears there is not much else for me to do but move to another square.

Five minutes lurch by. I remain. I was here first.

Socially Stunned

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In glances I see Vector's face is scrubbed pink, shaved, and getting 2 o'clock shadow. His expression is a mix of smug knowing and simple tomfuckery. I really deserve to not know these details, I think.

With a rather knee-jerk and tragical assumption of humanity's basic decency, I question motives: is this guy just socially stunned and wanting to "connect" with another soul a la The Celestine Prophecy, or does he really just want me to squirm in discomfort? ...why? I shoot a furtive glance, obsessively, morbidly, re-assessing his intent.

My innocent assumptions withdraw back into their misty crevices. Vector does the exact opposite of what a school of proxemics might instruct one to do upon one 's receiving a stranger's shy glance in public urban environs. His eyes boldly challenge - then I imagine he's not just undressing me with those blinkless orbs, he's draping my clothes on legless mannequins who look like his drunken mother in a secret windowless underground playroom on a desolate farm, listening to Beethoven, mumbling something about the "tasties" in the freezer, with them.

Maybe My Fly's Undone

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I want to nip his bud. I want to show him that I am no longer in flake form - that I stay crunchy in milk - even the curdling milk of creepiness. I line my head square in his sights and take a hard look now, smack! down the barrels of his moony face.

I see he is quite sane. Perhaps too sane, lucidly bumping uglies with my own sanity. Muscling me.

My brain wrestles on a mat of civility, or, on a flaccid inner tube of denial, if you like. Is there some food on my face? I practically finger-painted my snack of hummous and toast before catching the transit. Or...maybe my fly’s undone again - people do stare at that sometimes, it's true. I run through a quick check of these possibilities on my person. Nothing. Vector's gaze drills on, and passengers are not getting on my car to act as my potential witnesses.

I give him a final benefit of doubt: maybe I'm a dead ringer for his last axe victim. I have one of those faces.

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A fat sooty rat crawls into our car between the stale cracks at Landsdowne station, winding between the feet of ethereal schoolchildren who are on a class trip downtown. They are from the Canadian National Institute for the Blind.

Spinning cleansing rites for ocular invasions in my lap, I draw out a long minute with a forefinger and two front teeth. I stretch it languidly on the rattle of the metal, bent against our snaking itinerary. It's chicken blood and skin drums from here on in.

Vector nods emptily, high above underground realities. He seems nonchalant to my curling, rising rhymes, the faint smoke of oil.

The worm of his gaze turns the dark earth of my being.

I hate that.

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Nutmeat: A Word

noreply@blogger.com (Sugar Smacks) — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 00:22:00 +0000

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Nutmeat

[nuht-meet]

-noun

the kernel of a nut, usually edible.

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Or is it nut meat?

Alongside the er, things that jangle in one’s skull at the mention of nutmeat, there is a possibly fascinating origin of the word to consider here, isn’t there? Here?

It’s weird. Not so long ago, around 1912, someone just made up their mind that the crumbly, kibbly centre of a walnut is akin to the bloody sinew beneath the skins of beast and man. Someone high on peyote, that’s who. Nuts just aren’t like meat. That’s nuts. They’re not even close.

I mean really.

Oh never mind.

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upped my standards...

noreply@blogger.com (Sugar Smacks) — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 03:09:00 +0000

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I was scouring the archives of The Village Voice, looking for an obscure piece about an unknown New Yorker who was running for Mayor in 2004. I really want to find this article, because this particular New Yorker had a platform that is dear to my heart - cafe tables that wiggle and rock. This man proclaimed that if he became mayor of New York, he would do away with all the wiggling, unstable cafe tables in the big apple! As you can imagine, the topic of Stupid Fucking Cafe Tables (SFCT) is not an easy one to find news about or even maintain with journal-type entries. I mean what do I write - "oh, today I sploshed more tea on myself at the coffee shop...d'oh!" ??

It would just be nice to add a juicy new SFCT post to my current collection of one (1) on this blog.

I CAN dream.

At any rate, I came across a little gem that I thought I'd share. It is a quote from a different and more well-known man (well, not well-known by me, but I gather he had his heyday). It is probably one of the cleanest, wittiest and most complete-feeling quotes I've ever enjoyed.

First, a bit about the genius:

Emmy-winning comedian Layton "Pat" Paulsen (1927-1997) first declared his intention to run for President in 1968 on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour ... and would "run" four more times under the Straight Talking American Government (STAG) Party. Paulsen would often try to make serious points all the while couching them in comedic barbs.

The quote:

"I've upped my standards..now up yours."

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My Life In Food Minutiae: Fertilizer

noreply@blogger.com (Sugar Smacks) — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 03:38:00 +0000

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9:40 a.m.

I am eating breakfast.

The grocery store was out of my usual flax cereal, so I am trying a different, less cane-sweetened brand called Ezekiel 4:9. It just happens to be bibically-themed.

It tastes like something swept from the floor of a certain ark on day 39 of a certain Great Flood.

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10:05 a.m.

Speaking of great floods, I found something while sitting at the computer with my bowl of Ark droppings. Something I want to share with you - you being anyone who might cheerfully give a rat's ass.

It is an excerpt from the rough draft of a breakup letter to my ex, from about seven years ago. I found it while clearing out some of my old Word files from my hard drive. Why I didn't include this particular portion of the letter at the time of the split, I have now forgotten.

I've made a few half-assed attempts to find a blog that includes Dear John letters. My own writings to past flames are pretty tame, I think. What I would really like to see are some truly spiteful spittings of the scorned..something along the lines of Alec Baldwin's tirade against Ireland, only with lover-lover instead of father-daughter. Anyone?

I'm telling you, I have really changed since my letter was written. I suppose I've progressed (it's amazing what a little S&M can do for one's perspective on relationships in general).

Here is the excerpt:

"No matter how many piles of shit lay steaming in my life, I am willing to use it for fertilizer in order to make love grow. EVEN when you shovel more shit at me out of your own ignorance, M., it still applies.

But how long would you like YOUR shit to turn into MY flowers?? Don't you want some kind of garden too? I know you do!

Well, keep shovelling then, and keep the crap on your own side!!"

Oh, lordy.

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The Cobra Story: Gastronomical Snuff

noreply@blogger.com (Sugar Smacks) — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 17:03:00 +0000

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One evening, I was in a fix-it kind of mood, so I spent some quiet time at home repairing a guitar and a favorite videotape, whose casing had melted in a friend's overheated car.

Though I'm not a big TV watcher, I had received a free cable trial that week, so I tried some channel surfing before settling in with my tools and, er, bandaids. I clicked away and landed on a food and cooking show. Looked interesting. The theme: a tall skinny man, Anthony, travels to exotic locales and samples food you and I would probably never seek out willingly. He really gets obscure on your gastronomical ass, and is proud of it. He isn’t afraid to get dirty; he’ll try anything once, I gather. I innocently settle into a half hour of his culinary adventures in and around Asia.

I should tell you here, reader, I hadn't yet heard of the concept of "food porn." Have you? I mean, c'mon. That said, since I now know food porn indeed exists, I believe that on this night I stumbled upon a whole 'nother level of it: food snuff porn.

Foreplay?
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Anthony begins his conquest with a search for the perfect Vietnamese meat soups of the land. I suppose since I'm on the porn/snuff analogy, I should call this leg of his journey the foreplay. Mnnm, the soups do look delicious...and I know they are, from my own meat-eating Pho-slurping days of the past. Anthony ogles. Oh, the silky broths; the sweet succulents floating erect in a nest of languishing noodles...slurp, already. Anthony likes.

Then things begin to take a seedy turn. Our leading man is now bucking for some “special” little duck eggs (Balut) that you can get at steamy Filipino street spots. He eventually finds them after being directed by anonymous men on shadowy corners. He seats himself at a busy stand, where mature women present an array of young beaked flesh for sale, like madames in Nevada brothels at high noon. Anthony chooses a small cup that looks like a fucked-up western hard boiled egg at first glance. There is a half-grown fetus still curled up in there, feathers and all. He scoops 'em out and seems in a rapture as he masticates slowly.

Well. I am not impressed; I am not tantalized. Consuming half-cooked zygotes - there is something sociopathic about that. Eating them is not borne of necessity nor the joys of the palate, I think.

I re-absorb myself into my fix-it projects, twanging a G string here, mounting a delicate ribbon-wheel there.

But what this lanky motherfucker did next blew my mind and just froze my arts-and-crafts vibe.

Morbid Curiosity Wins
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I had zoned out for a few minutes while hot-gluing a guitar nut. Now, I was drawn back to the TV. Anthony had taken on the intimate vocal tone that nature show hosts get upon the births of rare wild creatures. But there wasn’t a birth. No. It was time to visit a restaurant that specializes in an ancient Vietnam delicacy known to keep men virile.

Something bad was gonna happen. I just knew it. Morbid curiosity got the better of me, yes. The inevitability of mortal danger tore me away from my zen-like absorption in hot glue, I admit.

Anthony arrives at the restaurant and is greeted by two shy and humble Vietnamese hosts. They seat him in an airy patio with white tablecloths. He orders a crisp beverage and his meal. He then approves his live cobra.

Yes, that’s right, his cobra. Live.

The cobra handlers - formerly two shy and humble Vietnamese hosts - proceed to prepare sophisticated Anthony's entree while he watches. First they taunt, grapple with, and slam the cobra onto a nearby ledge. They then brutally slice open its center, cut out its heart and plop the heart onto a pure white plate. It is immediately served to voyeur Anthony, still beating, in a pool of thin blood with a sprig of something green.

Anthony claps tenderly at this climax, saying “Bravo" as the once-again shy and humble hosts carry off the rubbery, twitching cobra carcass, the flaccid tube that an instant ago held raging life. And he eats the still-beating heart. He comments that he certainly feels virile. "It kind of pumps on the way down," he says.

Graciously, he doesn’t lick the plate.

I look down suddenly. There is a guitar nut glued to my thigh. I firmly close my jaws, which have been slackened in horror. I mean, like, I was traumatized. There wasn't even a warning to sensitive viewers at the opening credits of this psycho program.

I am not against violence as entertainment. Opponents of equal power (human ones, that is) in a bloody showdown is my cup of tea. I have found, however, that I disapprove of programs making it possible for me to stumble upon the gleeful vivisection of weaker things as a form of entertainment - nutritional as they may be - during primetime.

All I'm really saying today is this: one day, you may think you're gonna watch a TV cooking adventure, but you may instead, without warning, find yourself witnessing a man of entitlement eat a tortured cobra’s beating heart from a white plate.

And it's like being frozen in the headlights of an oncoming moral debate, I think. No?

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I'm Gonna Get Shitfaced And Write From The Blackness Of My Soul With A Fountain Pen Dipped In My Aorta*

noreply@blogger.com (Sugar Smacks) — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 07:39:00 +0000

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No, not really. That is just the title of my newest project, a sculpture I'm making out of the blackness of my soul, Grand Marnier lids, and grey caulking.

*FYI, the aorta is a big fat vein that pumps your blood directly from your heart to your entire body, lungs excluded. Poor, excluded lungs...

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Unguent: A Word

noreply@blogger.com (Sugar Smacks) — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 03:34:00 +0000

I like the word unguent.

Unguent. People hardly ever use the word unguent, but how can they, really? Everyone thinks nobody knows what it means. I mean, why say unguent when there are so many easy words of equal meaning: like cream. Or even "salve" is used occasionally by homeopaths and geezers. Then there is the always-ugly "ointment" but...

never unguent. Why not unguent?

I challenge everybody, not just bloggers - EVERYBODY - to utilize this noun in their everyday conversations or writings on anything to do with human skin. And that includes those whose first language is not English.

Try it as an adjective! Unguenty

Try it as a verb: Unguenate!

Let's kick ointment's ass!!!
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This post is the first in my new series: "Save the Words." Language is going the way of the bonfire, people - only used for mindless human gatherings (i.e. camp singalongs) or for destructive purposes (book burning). We have to DO something!!

No promises!

noreply@blogger.com (Sugar Smacks) — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 01:48:00 +0000

To myself, that is.

I will not promise to stick to a regular schedule-type thingy where I post X amount of times per week. It doesn't work for me, I have found.

I will not promise to surf the blogsmos X number of times per day…even when I am jonesing for some wit from my favorite bloggers.

I am just here, today, clacking away on my new keyboard to the soothing rythms of Rage Against The Machine.

Don't let my choice of soundtrack fool you, as it has fooled me in the past. I am not raging. I am really uncommitted…

Damned Insomnia: A Story In Varying Tenses (and Points Of View)

noreply@blogger.com (Sugar Smacks) — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 05:55:00 +0000

Ah. Ughhh. Insomnia.

How I hate the humbling of everyday weaknesses; the reminder of my mortalness through the catching of common public ills, like colds, a "back problem" or...

Insomnia.

Normally I enjoy the gift of sleep like others enjoy the gift of gab (which I don't enjoy, as I hate live interactions with more than my limit of three or four select humans). Yess, sleepy time is a wonderful time, and my dreams are magical...lucid even. But they never came last night, and I must admit the ol' REM phase has been elusive in the past couple of weeks.

Insomnia goes:

1)...creeping into your consciousness about 1:45 a.m., when you have a premonition that you'll be seeing the daylight break today against your will. You nonetheless cram your eyelids together for hours, sometimes so stubbornly that they quiver a little, and maybe even water a bit. 2)...on and on while your eyes remain valiantly sealed, burning. You yearn for the velvety blackness so elusive behind them, to roll yourself up like a mummy in the cool cocoon therein, yet...yet, you can suddenly see your bedroom through your eyelids at 3:12. What the fucuck...? How can this be.

You peer closely around for confirmation of this fact that would be miraculous, if only you cared enough. "Okay...my eyes are closed but I am looking around at, or dreaming I am looking around at, my bedroom, through my eyelids. Yes, that is what is happening: there's my stained-glass nightlight glowing in the corner, there's Emma snoring on the satiny hardwood floor, the air is ghostly and blowing through the fanned sheer curtains, etc., etc., it's all there, it's all real.

I have transparent eyelids. Shit."

You soundly ignore the miracle, and lay on in soothing denial that your mind is just trying to dream. 3)...on until 4:54 a.m., when you realize those aren't busy dreams you've been having for over two hours but thoughts being thunk, and 4)...relentlessly until you start getting really bored at being horizontal in general, around 5:45.

Now the hunger comes, because you have been awake for almost twenty four hours and the body is programmed to need fuel after all, so the hope of catching even ninety minutes of drooling respite before work is something to be negotiated.

I Am The Food

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I accidentally left a ripening banana on the counter before a two-day absence, in the middle of a Toronto heat wave, and on my return today found a fruit fly disco in my kitchen. Which really means the disco was my whole bachelorette, because that's how small my place is. I tossed the blackened, sock-like fruit into the landlord's garden below (it's okay, he encourages that).

I tell you this banana detail because, in my negotiating of sleep vs. insomniatic hunger at 5:45 a.m. in bed, I suddenly began feeling tickling sensations on my neck and face.

The fruit flies were dancing in my bedroom. Specifically, around my head.

5:52 a.m. I don't like killing things, even useless, annoying, insignificant, circling things that can't dance. If I did, I would hang out at humans' nightclubs. So I, zen-like, brushed aside my floating patrons, wishing they were sleep-fairies, wondering why they were swarming my head.

I thought I could see them through my eyelids.

Then I realized a couple were under my blanket. God, no.

In the pale light of humid dawn, I swatted, I crushed, I jerked abruptly around. The words "Dancing At Dawn" snaked crazily through my skull during this frenzy of mine that was the opposite of Zen. Then I remembered that my air conditioner was turned off; the sultry morning was coming on hard on this, day two, of the heatwave. Damn those propagandist energy conservationists for guilting me into "doing my part" for mankind's greed! Somebody make The Gap lay off on their goddam aircon!!

It finally hit me: no wonder the fruit flies were so tribal - I was the only thing left for them to eat! After lying around sweating for hours I was as ripe as the blackened banana. I was their beckoning home.

Fine. But I won't be their mirror ball.

I lay awake scribbling this story down, as I feel I have nothing better to blog about. I decide nothing is negotiable now. I sit straight up in bed. Press the aircon ON. A few tiny disco-dots of squashed frutiflies mark my neck, forehead, and possibly my shin.

I lurch from the damp covers, limiting my dreams to cereal and soymilk.

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Keeping ON It

noreply@blogger.com (Sugar Smacks) — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 05:02:00 +0000

Or not.

An unforeseen and unwanted hiatus, but now I'm back to write a couple of entries a week.

Thanks to my few readers, bloggy friends, and cyber-neighbors who left comments on my cold (but not dead!) blog in the last few weeks, I appreciate it. I shall visit you shortly...yes, you...to catch up on a month's worth of your posts I've missed.

Self-shot in unlikely combo of blankness and anticipation.
*Mwah* _________________________________________

The Shining, Mary Poppins And A Cop Dying From A Marijuana Overdose: Three Video Clips

noreply@blogger.com (Sugar Smacks) — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 04:20:00 +0000

I'm not a big youtubey person (although the third video is not from Youtube, it's actually from LiveLeak. The name LiveLeak means the people who post videos there are taking a leak, live on the web), but I couldn't resist sharing these treasures with you, dear reader.

A literature instructor at my school uses the first two videos as part of his popular literature course, as they are examples of postmodern "genre-twisting."

Whatever, I just think they're da shit!

Trailer for The Shining, re-made into a happy romp for the whole family:

A trailer turning Mary Poppins creepy.

Just a fascinating 911 call from a stoned police occifer:

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My Life in Food Minutiae

noreply@blogger.com (Sugar Smacks) — Sun, 27 May 2007 22:51:00 +0000

Some random food trivia about me, which may, or may not be revealing.

1. I think it is both reasonable and clever to heat your bowl of ice cream in the microwave for eight seconds before consuming. It makes it taste better, quickly.

2. I bought a Cadbury's Fruit and Nut bar the other day, and there were three, three raisins in it. Coveyor belt mishap I can only imagine, or possibly somebody distressed on raisin detail at the factory.

3. In the case of #2, I should have called up Cadbury with my constructive, just-letting-you-know criticism that gets me free stuff all the time (or really, it just gets me what I fuckin' paid for - and sometimes, as in the following instance, even more).

The conversation would go (with a past call to Frito-Lay as example):

F-L: Frito-Lay customer service, my name is so-and-so, how can I help you?

Me: Hi, thanks, I wanted to know who to speak to about a faulty product I purchased today; would that be you by any chance?

F-L: Yes, I think it would, or I can direct your call to the proper extension. What is the problem and which product?

Me: I just bought the large size bag of Smartfood, which I eat all the time, and there was nothing in it except two massive balls of powdered cheese.

F-L: Oh...pardon?

Me: Two huge clumps of cheese? Y'know what I mean? In the bag. Like massive. I guess there's some popcorn in there somewhere, but I don't want to touch this. Anyway...

F-L: Oh that sounds strange...

Me: Ha ha! I know, imagine opening the bag! Just huge clumps...hehe. (long pause) I luuuve my Smartfood, sooo...you can imagine my disappointment.

F-L: Well Miss, it is our policy to send vouchers for a replacement product from our line when there is a "faulty product," as you said. Now, what city are you in?

A few days later I would receive three coupons, two of them for any large Frito-Lay product, and one for a bag of Smartfood.

4. No other food can bring out the kid in me like the combination of mashed potatoes and corn with butter. I make things with them; you can create a whole contryside scene or a face that tastes delicious.

5. Only a grammar lesson here. Singular: potato Plural: potatoes. Yeeess, people, that's where the 'e' comes in. Look it up, if you don't believe me.

Same with tomatoes.
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A Question For Transit Operators

noreply@blogger.com (Sugar Smacks) — Thu, 24 May 2007 04:11:00 +0000

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I finally asked a bus driver a question that's been tickling my back-brain for about a month.

I was pleased at the reaction I got and at the fact that I made his evening. I know how evil and jaded transit drivers can become; I have been on the receiving, though wholly undeserving, end of their bitter barrels of blame and resentment, like a poor shivering doe with a rifle pointed in its little unassuming face, cold tokens crumbling from scrawny fingers, or...hooves, I guess...

So I was satisfied with myself of course, and feeling safe from any misplaced wrath, when I made him smile.

The question is this: do you or your colleagues, after a long shift of humanity-toting, find yourselves in your cars on your way home, pulling over at bus stops out of sheer habit? Alone on the darkened boulevards in your Chryslers, how do you feel about that? Do you laugh at yourself and shake your head? Are you afraid at your own state of post-workday zombification?

He said yes, and how the hell did I know about all this.

We had a gentle laugh about overworking and my sympathetic insight into the transit-operator mind (or mindlessnesses), then he generously dropped me off between stops, practically in front of my door, and it wasn't even after ten o'clock.
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Don't mean to be mean about transit operators. Imagine dealing with the masses of humanity every day in a metropolitan city. The drivers here in T.O. are mainly fine...mainly.

Good Eats

noreply@blogger.com (Sugar Smacks) — Mon, 21 May 2007 02:02:00 +0000

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This is from a series of restaurant reviews I wrote* for Wilko News:

Milestone’s -Toronto
The staff are required to be hotties. Maybe that’s why it’s the only chain restaurant I really like. Milestone’s invented the Bellini, a frosty drink "often copied but never equaled." There are really high ceilings, but there’s no “cafeteria” vibe and the decor is interesting. The menu is varied and adventurous, with fish and vegetarian choices for no-meaters. All the patrons here are gorgeous, and on first dates. Wear your black shiny shoes and stare at others unabashedly.
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Noah’s Natural Foods -Toronto
Unlike the Milestone’s crowd, most people here are pale, unattractive and smell of barley, but it’s my pick for everyday, on-the-run organic healthiness (oh, shut up!). It’s a natural foods market but there’s a tiny café in the back – a hot and cold buffet, breathlessly clean, where you pay for your meal by weight (not your weight; the weight of the food). This ensures good value and less wastefulness.
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Joso’s -Toronto
The best. The sexiest, most original restaurant I’ve seen anywhere. And I have been around just enough to compare.

My friends and I often stayed till closing, when Joso Spralja would lock the door. He’d bring out two bottles of red wine for the six of us, light a big joint, and strum his guitar. We’d wind down a great night in an intimate, pagan afterglow of sensual delights. I will never forget those days.

Click onto the awesome website: http://www.josos.com/

Joso had an obsession with women’s breasts and has collected mammarian artifacts form his world travels, which are on display. There is a bronzed vagina pinned to a plaque on a wall; it may surprise you how well received this is.

The Spralja family is from Dalmatia; Joso and his wife were a famous folk duo there in the 60’s. It’s a family of artists and musicians; Joso displays his dramatic, almost biblical portraits of the family in various settings such as underwater worlds, and the clouds of Valhalla.

Joso’s son Leo continues the unique and salty legacy of his father.

The seafood is the best in Toronto, and you can choose it from a fresh platter presented to you. I’ve never had the octopus ink (eww) but the risotto, smoked trout and prawns are heaven.
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More gastro-licious wonders:

Fressen, Queen St. West in Toronto

Some fish and chip place in Brampton; I always forget the name.

Any sushi place in Vancouver

Joe’s Stone Crab, Ocean Drive, Miami Beach

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*Obviously this post was not really a review article. It's a meme; I was tagged by EBEZP at Wilko News.*

The word: List your top 5 favorite places to eat at your location.

I tagged:
Mark & Sally Salmons, California
Christine, a chef in Arizona
Minijonb, not sure where, but Michigan is a good guess