Queen West Art Crawl in pictures

Photographs complimentary of Claire

Learn to do the candycake corkscrew. Now doesnt that sound delicious?

So I visited a stripclub for the fist time and I have to admit I have acquired a fascination with the sacredly sexy art of pole dancing. Something about all that twisting, turning, undulating, dipping and spreading unleashes some animal instinct, you know? Well that’s how I reacted when I witnessed the art form live. Only the stripper I saw was named Destiny and her outfit left a lot less to the imagination. Pole dancing also looks like damn good exercise, so why not give it a try? Below is a brief instructional video that gives you an idea about some of the signature moves. You may not be as toned as the blonde manipulating the pole, but pole dancing should be more about how you feel, especially if you’re not interested in entertaining a room full of men for money. If you are, then power to you and these moves will surely help you get an extra bill or two in your g-string. As much as I admire the women on the pole I doubt I’ll ever be up on a mirror-lined stage, doing the spread eagle. For now I’m content just to watch. Enjoy!

foray into the eclectic TCB tattoo parlour

I feel like I’ve walked into someone’s personal sanctuary and the green plastic demon-like bunny creature is staring at me accusingly from across the room. He’s smoking a cigar and his eyes seem to say, “what the fuck are you doing in a tattoo parlour, you wanker?”

In truth I just wanted to witness a pin-pricking experience for the first time, and so I accompanied my friend Matti, to TCB Tattoo Parlour on 618 Queen St. West.

This was my first time in a tattoo shop, and I was struck by how each artist’s work station resembles an eccentric dorm room, with walls plastered in strange odds and ends. Each space seems to be as personal, eclectic and cluttered as the art that adorns each artist’s bodies. I happen to be seated across from a collection of dead mounted critters and antlers. By the time Matti’s tattoos are finished, I’ve become acquainted with the smoking demon-bunny and his owner, Wes Dix, who is willing to answer my stream of queries, including those involving his taxidermy trophies. It’s impressive that he can colour in purple clouds on Matti’s arm while simultaneously satisfying my curiosity.

Wes has worked at TCB for about a year and a half, but he’s tattooed at his fair share of parlours in Toronto (the random guy in this picture is not Wes). This is a real tattoo shop, he says, unlike the commercial shops he’s worked at in the past. Here he can be a dick, so to speak. At a commercial joint you have to be nice to everyone, he says, whether they deserve it or not. Somehow it’s hard for me to imagine the guy sharing his peanut M&M’s with us being churlish with customers, but apparently it happens. “Tattooing is not a glamorous job,” he explains. “You have to tattoo a lot of gross, unsavoury people.” He quickly adds, “Not you,” to my friend. We both crack up.

There is a yellow and black checkerboard floor underneath us, classic rock blasting on the speakers, and a bald artist with a client in the work station to the left of us who has taken a very revealing seat. Revealing because I am now have a very clear view of the green and blue talon design spread across his right ass cheek. What a pinch. His client is a wavy-haired blonde in a red skull emblazoned tank top. Today he is extending the already elaborate skeleton themed tattoo which winds around her upper arm. The process has already taken 6 months, and it’s obvious that she has developed a friendship with the artist piercing her skin. “I like to give him a hard time,” she says laughing. The atmosphere is relaxed, as Wes and his co-worker discuss their enjoyment of Project Runway, and the fight they witnessed on ecstasy. You can meet a lot of friends in this profession, says Wes, “I’ve been the best man at a couple of weddings.”

Maybe experiencing something that is both painful and transformational with someone inevitably leads to some kind of bond. There is also a certain intimacy that comes with the contact of tattooing, and the fact that you are altering someone in a significant way.

A few work stations away sit a set of rock’em sock’em robots, and a majestic sailing ship figurine atop a shelf. Matti is taking the pain like a champ, and proof of his battle wounds are visible as he turns over on the table, leaving blood stains on the paper sheet cover. He says that on a scale of 1-10, he’s experiencing a pain factor of about six. When I ask Wes what his experiences are like with female tattoo virgins he says it depends on how he reacts to the situation. “If you feed into the drama it can get fucking out of control. They start whining, stopping every second, crying and shit,” he explains.


TCB has two tattoo artists who are women, and I was able to witness one complete a particularly painful looking tattoo on the inside of a man’s lip. Aside from the advantage of gazing into a pretty face Wes feels that, “you get a lot more business if you got boobs, I tell you that. Boobs business. A lot of guys will get a tattoo just to get one from a girl.” Personally he would rather worry about the quality of the tattoo on his skin than the sex of the artist creating it, “If you’re a good tattooer then it doesn’t matter what kind of plumbing you got.”

By the end of the tattoo session Wes is used to my constant scribbling, and takes my interrogation with good humour. So when a co-worker offers to get coffee, and Wes places his order, he anticipates what I’ll jot down about him next. “Likes muffins.”

He wonders if the impression I got from watching shows like TLC’s Miami Ink has changed since visiting a real shop like TCB. I replied that even though famous tattoo artists may own night clubs and expensive watches, the common factor is that they are all just guys, underneath the big bank accounts. Even though Wes’s paycheque is smaller, he’s still doing what he loves, what he’s wanted to do since high school. Plus he has the freedom to be a dick, but if you bring a muffin he’s sure to go easy on you.

A sexy killer indeed

Sexykiller is a lurid foray into gore, fashion and one woman’s agenda for reckless murder. Oftentimes over the top, director Miguel Marta has created a campy, irreverent world where death is delivered with style, in a senseless, yet calculated, manner.

The mood was festive at the Ryerson Theatre, where the Toronto International Film Festival’s Midnight Madness program attracted students and refined movie-goers alike to the promise of blood and comedy, on Friday, Sept. 12. Marta and his lethal leading lady, Macarena Gomez, were both present at the world premier of Sexykiller on Ryerson’s campus. Gomez looked classy and sleek, and less like a killer than her on-screen persona, until she pulled a mock gun on her director and asked with playful flair, “Shall I do it?”

Sexykiller follows the reckless rampage of Barbara (Gomez), a Barbie-inspired Latin beauty who gets off on hacking heads at a medical campus in Spain, and then harbours the remains in her refrigerator. Her desire for revenge is insatiable, spurred by anything from unsatisfactory sex with a partner whose cock barely penetrates, to the unlucky woman who purchases the red dress she has her eye on.

You have to hand it to her, Barbara knows what she wants, and she goes for it. Mixing death and pleasure is her forte, in a field of expertise where women aren’t expected to wield a knife. In fact, the disbelief is raised by some of her male victims. But Barbara has no time for sexist attitudes. She declares to the shaking young man she means to kill, “You know what the problem with the world of serial killers is? Too much male chauvinism.”
She kills her victims with as much skill and precision as she dedicates to her beauty regime and accessories, and with deadly results. Using sexuality as another foolproof weapon in her arsenal, she litters the university with corpses, and takes the time to describe her precise chilling techniques to the audience with cooking show finesse. During a particularly educational segment she explains to the viewer that the three basic tools of murder occupy every household kitchen: masking tape, a handkerchief and a plastic bag. Watching her next victim hop hysterically around her apartment, blindfolded and suffocating inside plastic, it’s easy to appreciate the humour of the stylish and inventive murders that dispatch those who piss her off. The slaying spree thrives until Barbara falls hard for Tomas (played by Cesar Camino), a student who cuts up cadavers and invents a method for witnessing the final moments of the dead. She mistakes his penchant for blood as akin to her own, and gets wet at the thought of a kindred spirit in crime. But when Tomas discovers that the campus killer the authorities have been hunting down is his lover, and Barbara discovers he’s not a murderer after all, their twisted tryst ends. For Barbara, being tied down to a man would terminate her opportunities to tie down and mutilate others. And that isn’t about to happen any time soon.

Barbara isn’t your stereotypical horror flick female evildoer. She isn’t possessed and tied to a bed, or some demon who devours children in the dark, or some cursed woman crawling in a crablike manner down the stairs making unnerving creaking noises. Barbara stirs shit up, and those who stand in her way, whether they deserve it or not, are punished. Whether it’s death by stiletto or a being strung up by your ribcage, the merciless mamacita of this gag-filled comedy turns murder into a fatal fashion statement.

*Featured in Mutedmag.com

Cosmo-tastic again

“Here are some of the signs that your guy is about to give you the axe.”

These are the kind of statements you will hear if you subject yourself to watching CosmoTV. That’s why I do it rarely, and only for educational purposes. Like a social experiment, to see how high my annoyance factor rises over the course of an episode.

Although relationship advice has become a kind of cult-like dogma these days, I think that pin pointed tips to a successful love life will never magically fix the problems a couple faces. And when Cosmo starts dishing out the five things a guy will do before he breaks up with you then a gaggle of girls absorbed in the doctrine will actually fly into a panic if their boyfriend sneezes twice after texting someone while looking slightly suspicious on the third Monday of the month. The power that we give to silly rules is insane. So as I promised, here are some more fun facts that I caught a glimpse of during the commercial breaks:

36% of women have had 2-5 sex partners in their lifetime

73% of online Cosmo readers say they feel hornier during the weekend than during the week

56% of women think a man doesn’t need to be married to have kids

47% of guys have made a sexy home video (puh-leaze!)

56% of guys love to watch you apply body lotion (oh lala)

37% of guys will forgive you for cheating

14% of married women admit to cheating compared to 22% of married men

So, after all this valuable learning I watched a bubbly woman interview girls about the types of sunglasses best for you. One of the titillating questions was, “Would you break up with a guy if you happened to wear the same shades?”

Then there was an eye-opening segment that discussed ways to lift your mood. My favorite suggestion was “copy the catwalk.” In other words, taking bigger strides boosts your attitude. Hmmmmm. The next time I'm feeling blue I'll put on some heels and strut...very helpful once again, Cosmo.

Strange and wonderful

Narrator: “This is a story about a man named Harold Crick and his wristwatch.”

When everything seems to fall apart, there is always hope. In Stranger than Fiction, a man whose life is a monotonous, robotic series of motions learns that living is more than vapid habits. It takes some drastic changes in order for him to start living the way he has always wanted to.

Penned by Zach Helm, this story is the most original concept I have experienced in ages, with a brilliant cast of talented actors that bring it to life. Will Ferrel is our leading man, who plays Harold Crick, an IRS auditor who calculates and times every instant of his life, from the steps on his morning commute to the dots in his tie. I have to say that this is the most moving, heartfelt and powerful performance of Ferrel’s career thus far. He is so profoundly human, and fragile, in his search for a solution to the most alarming dilemma. Death.

When revered tragedy novelist Kay Eiffel starts narrating Harold Crick’s life it becomes a bit alarming. While brushing his teeth one morning, Harold believes he is losing it when a British female voice describes his habitual tendency to count the amount of brush strokes while he cleans his teeth.

Dr. Leffler: “I'm afraid what you're describing is schizophrenia.”Harold: “No, no. It's not schizophrenia. It's just a voice in my head. I mean, the voice isn't telling me to do anything. It's telling me what I've already done... accurately, and with a better vocabulary.”

It gets much worse when the voice announces that the seemingly insignificant act of changing the time on his watch will ultimately cause his imminent death.

That’s when Harold seeks out alternative wisdom and finds noteworthy aid in Dr. Jules Hilbert, played by the esteemed and always captivating Dustin Hoffman, a literature professor who endeavors to discover what kind of story Harold is in, and who the mysterious narrator is. He is the sole person who believes Harold’s narration isn’t a product of his insanity.

Simultaneously, Harold is sent to audit Ana Pascal, a feisty, anarchy-bent baker played superbly by Maggie Gyllenhaal, who really stands out in this role. She has a spunky, bold yet gentle demeanor and she eventually warms to Harold, despite the fact that she yells “TAX MAN!” at him angrily when they first meet. Even during their first encounter Harold’s attracting to Ana is revealed by Eiffel, and after a few awkward occasions their relationship becomes a sort of measurement device for whether his story is a comedy or a tragedy.

Harold: Miss Pascal, you can't just not pay your taxes. Ana : Yes, I can.
Harold: You can if you want to get audited.
Ana: Only if I recognize your right to audit me, Mr. Crick
Harold :Miss Pascal, I'm right here auditing you.

While Harold experiences his own trials and tribulations, Eiffel, his narrator, is preoccupied with how to kill him. Emma Thompson plays the sarcastic and extremely witty woman who is constantly occupying herself with ways to kill off the protagonists in every novel she writes. But this time she has writers block. That’s where her assistant, Penny Escher, played by Queen Latifah, comes in. She is hired by Eiffel’s publishers to ensure that the novel is finished by the allotted deadline. The cynical and ironic banter that shifts back and forth between the women is very entertaining, as Eiffel sits in the rain as part of her research, envisioning car crashes as Penny criticizes her very literal technique of observation.

Meanwhile Harold learns, through encouragement from Dr. Hilbert, that despite the possibility of his impending death, he no longer needs to live in a world regimented by numbers and rigid rules. He goes to a guitar store and buys one that says something about him, as Eiffel narrates. He stops counting his brushstrokes, his footsteps and starts to live. One night he decides to reveal his true feelings to Ana Pascal with the sentimental gesture of bringing her a box of flours. Harold: ‘Miss Pascal, I've been odd. I know I've been odd, and I know that there are many forces at work telling me that time is literally, that I should bring these down here to you. But I brought these for you because... I want you.’
Ana: ‘me? ‘Harold: ‘I want you.’Ana : ‘You want me?’Harold : ‘In no uncertain terms.’

Despite the fact that Ana shares feelings for Harold, and his story appears to be a comedy after all, he finally discovers that Eiffel is the narrator. He frantically undergoes the process of seeking her out to convince her to spare his life, because he is…real, after all. But when he reads the story planned out for him he realizes that story is not complete unless it ends with his demise, and decides to sacrifice himself for an amazing piece of literature.

But it is Harold’s selfless, kind nature that saves him from his fate, when Eiffel realizes at the last moment that she can’t kill Harold, who is no longer just a character, despite the poetic, tragic and poignant end that she has written.

Kay Eiffel: ‘Because it's a book about a man who doesn't know he's about to die. And then dies. But if a man does know he's about to die and dies anyway. Dies- dies willingly, knowing that he could stop it, then- I mean, isn't that the type of man who you want to keep alive?’

Aside from the touching story, acting, depth of characters, amazing writing, graphics and music, another amazing aspect of this film is the imagery used, like Ana’s face lighting up under the lamplight when Harold presents her with bags of flour. Or a bright green apple rolling along the pavement, as Eifeel receives her unexplainable inspiration for Harold’s death. Or one of the final scenes, when Ana is lying with Harold and places a Bavarian sugar cookie in the shape of a heart over his own. Covered in casts, and severely injured, as Ana puts it, Harold rests in a hospital bed, and Ana draws a watch with a smiley face on his arm. The same time device that used to rule his life has now ironically saved him. And this is how the story ends.

“And, so it was, a wristwatch saved Harold Crick.”