Gallery Deluxe Gallery opening monday!

Team Willow and Gallery Deluxe Gallery are proud to present September's featured artist, Leah Brawley, a prolific San Francisco illustrator with a penchant for birds, sweaters and Japanese. The gallery will be littered with dozens of tiny drawings on post-its, envelopes and postcards. Some will be for sale.

Opening reception this Monday, August 29th, from 7 - 10pm.

There will be cookies probably.

( i just stole this post that i made from the gallery website.)

super gr8!!

last night i made my first film, thanks to becka barker and the almost-founded halifax super 8 society. my film takes place on the corner of agricola and cunard, and features seth smith, woofie, paul hammond, stephan macleod and markblack, as well as some random people on foot, on bikes, and in autos. it's 3 minutes of negative, high-contrast, blurry awesomeness. watch for super gr8 film festivals coming soon to a blank white wall near you.

sharp like shindig

i stole david's camera on saturday night.

memories, all alone in the moonlight.

when i was in elementary school and junior high, and part of highschool, i used to call the local freeform radiostation (r.i.p. KOTR 94.9 'the otter') in the middle of the night and request songs i already owned, just because i liked hearing them on the radio. i knew that the commercial station (r.i.p. KSLY 'sly' 96) wouldn't play anything from like, three imaginary boys. but the otter always played my requests. and then when i was in highschool, in the early/middish 90s the commerical stations (both sly 96 and KZOZ 93.3) started an 'alternative' night on sunday nights from 6-10, respectively the other side and the inner edge. both very, very alternative names for alternative shows. so they played things like my bloody valentine and dinosaur jr. of course, all this time the campus radio station (KCPR 91.3) would be playing awesome music all the time, but this was before my internet and their high-power, so being 12 miles out of town with a big volcanic mountain in between meant i couldn't get it. so anyway, i had to swear allegiance to the other side, because i used to call and win original tapes off that radio station like, all the time. that's how come i have styx, .38 special and bad company tapes. but i also got to pick my tapes sometimes, because the dj got to know me cuz i called so damn much, and so i got depeche mode, B52s, weezer and some other early 90s mainstreamish bands. so this was like, 1994 or 95, and i was listening to the inner edge one night (the one that i didn't have allegiance to, but the other side was playing like, early sarah mclachlan or something) and they decided to have a contest to win 7 cds, all you had to do was creatively make something that could be sent in the mail saying what your 7 favorite 'modern rock/college' bands were. i forget what i did and what i put, but i ended up being one of the winners. and my cds sucked. i didn't get to pick them. you didn't get the albums that you entered with. i don't even remember what i got but i think one of them was that same sarah mclachlan album that came out around that time...possession i think? in any case, those 2 alternative shows didn't last long, probably because the commerical stations realised that kcpr and the otter were so much better, 100% of the time and they were just ok one night a week for 4 hours. the moral of this story is that i sort of want to do an all-nighter, because then maybe some young kid would call and request things he or she already owns just because it's so fucking cool hearing it on the radio.

a violent existential dilemma.

michael doesn't really look like conor outberst, i was totally kidding!

anyway, it has been brought to our attention here at stripes-with-polkadots that some think that watching rockstar: inxs, for example, or any other reality television show, which i admit, doesn't make for heightened awareness about the world, but certainly makes for excellent conversation, makes us the intelligent equivalent (like that rhyme?) of like, an orang-utan. they feel, and we quote, that 'gullibility in the guise of irony' is existentially nauseating. we think they should stop quoting existentialism cliff's notes.

michael catano has an impersonator.

michael, what are you doing wearing sunglasses on stage?
and playing whiny fey music?

funny thing, that.

ever since i graduated university i've been under the distinct impression that i'm becoming stupider.

the gift box

since michael's birthday is coming up, everyone post here what you're getting him so i know so i don't get him the same thing. he never reads this so he'll never know.

the parent trip

my parents are here visiting from california. since i didn't necessarily refuse, but am reluctant, to go back, they decided to come here. if it were winter here right now you might think i'm crazy for not wanting to go back to california, and to be perfectly honest with you i think i'm crazy for that too, but the weather here in summer is nicer than the weather where i'm from so i can temporarily suspend my disbelief of snow. michael and i went to PEI to visit with them for a few days last week and it was so nice to drive around, it's really pretty there. we went to cheeselady's gouda and got some amazing gouda. gouda looks superawesome when it's all round and perfect. we also went to charlottetown and ate at formosa tea house which we've heard a lot about from our roommates, which was totally delish and my parents wanted everyone who recommended it to know that they loved it. so anyway, they're in halifax now so i think i might have to go on harbour hopper with them. ironically, of course.

everyone on rockstar:inxs reminds me of this guy:

story of my life.

circumlocution \sir-kuhm-loh-KYOO-shuhn\, noun:

The  use  of  many  words  to  express  an  idea that might be expressed by few; indirect or roundabout language.

alright alright.

ok i lied, i wasn't really drunk. but i did get elbowed and there were some awkward, but hilarious, moments. and i did do the running man. but i was serious.

via muchmoreretro, i'm reaquainting myself with some of my favorite songs from the 8Os. they all seem to have lots of handclaps, guitar-y sounding synthesizers, british accents (despite the fact they might be american), and are just generally totally awesome.

here are a couple highlights:

~general public - tenderness. sounds a bit like modern love by bowie, but i think is much, much radder.
~haircut 100 - love plus one. i used to get this one mixed up with love my way by psychedelic furs, but the furs song isn't quite as happy as this one. i don't think i recently saw the video but i was just thinking about it.

you can never go wrong with:

gary numan/tubeway army
devo
gang of four (whom i, when i was a kid, got confused with kool and the gang. remember that awesome song misled?)
dramarama and material issue, whose songs, respectively, anything anything and valerie loves me, sound similar but are independently awesome in their own right
the dead milkmen. big lizard in my backyard and taking retards to the zoo.

i really want to have a radio show of nothing but late 7Os, 8Os, and early 9Os songs. good ones though.