For the second time in two years, Cheri DiNovo has some tough words for members of her own political family. The NDPMPP for Parkdale-High Park says the federal New Democrats’ setback in the October election is a sign the party is losing its way. DiNovo thinks party officials aren’t owning up to their failures, so she’s breaking the silence herself, as she did after her own provincial New Democrats faltered in Ontario’s 2014 campaign.
If you hear someone still chirping about bombing Syria they are probably ignorant, an asshole, or both! “A 5-minute history of Syria’s war and the rise of ISIS” does a good job explaining just how fucked things are on the ground.
I bought a PS4. (One of the more decadent purchases I have made in a long time.) I wanted to play this crazy Star Wars game too much. I didn’t realize to play multiplayer Sony now charges you monthly, like Microsoft—break my heart! I suppose I should have seen that coming. For now I’ve been playing the various solo levels they included to basically train you for the online multiplayer game. It is crazy how far video games have come now. This game is unreal. It’s like the movies in video game form. I have died so many times crashing my speeder bike. Time do it some more.
I pity people who fucking practice in the court of public opinion. When people would interview me I didn’t give a fuck. And it wasn’t studied not-giving-a-fuck. [Mimsy voice] “Oh no, I don’t give a fuck.†I genuinely didn’t care what people thought and I still to this day don’t care what people think of me. There’s a bit of my brain that’s missing.
This is a great interview with the man behind Oasis.
Aziz Ansari’s new show on Netflix, Master of None, is fantastic. There are 10 half hour episodes in total, each focused on a particular topic: from relationships, to immigrant parents, to the portrayal of Indian people in TV and movies. Shima and I watched it over the weekend while Mythilli was asleep: it’s an easy show to binge watch.
The show is sitcom, and there is some amount of continuity from show to show, but really the show feels very much like a vehicle for him to make some very specific points about (his) life. While I found the show quite funny, it also deals with a lot of serious issues. One episode looks at sexism, and the sorts of things women deal with in their day to day lives. One is a look at the blatant racism of film industry in America. I particularly enjoyed the penultimate episode of the show, which was more or less a whirlwind tour through the ups and downs of a relationship. I find television usually does a poor job portraying relationships. (Perhaps Six Feet Under is the only other exception here?) It was weird to see a relationship done so well on a sitcom by Ansari, a pretty goofy comedian.
Ansari is South Indian—in real life and the show—so it was doubly awesome seeing people talking about papadum, mixture, and dropping dope-ass Tamil names like Dr. Ramaswami into conversation. (The fact his character’s name on the show is Dev seems a bit incongruous: that’s not really a Tamil name.) Aziz’s parents on the show are played by his actual parents and they are hilarious. It’s fun watching a show where you can relate to so many of the jokes and situations. (Not introducing girls to your parents! Hells yes. Shima and I were dating for half a year before I told my parents we were. And I would have held out longer, but they asked me straight up!) I guess this is what it’s like to be White and watch television all the time. Ha!
I just finished his show Master of None, which was fantastic, and has a whole episode about the portrayal of Indian people in Hollywood. (I’ll have to write more about the show later.)
I met Fathima to go see a 10:00 show on a Wednesday night. First off: no concert starts on time; second: I’m probably too old to go see late night concerts on a Wednesday night. Dinner at Banu, always a good start to an evening, and we were off to go see LAL and Zaki Ibrahim play.
I’m not sure how Fathima heard about this show. Twitter? It was in Tattoo on Queen. Busy, but not too busy. Normally when I go to a show I am the odd one out amongst a sea of White people. At this show I was so thoroughly pedestrian. It felt like Fathima knew every other person from political activism, social work, or some such thing. There were big posses intersectional people. A refreshing change of pace to the usual concert scene. Everyone seemed really cool, but that’s par for the course now that I’m firmly in my thirties.
LAL still perform together? The last time I saw them was for Wavelength 250 at Cinecycle.. That was over 10 years ago. And they had already been playing together for years by then. LAL have shed some members, down to the singer and the fellow who produces their beats and music. Maybe that was always their group? They performed brand new material. We were the first audience to hear this stuff. It was much more pounding techno than the older stuff I remember. Their set was solid: really good. I’m looking forward to their album.
Zaki Ibrahim was around midnight. She was apparently flying out to Cape Town that night, or in a few hours. The set was varied musically. A bit more R&B than her previous stuff. Also a fair bit more retro sounding. Her backing band were in white suits Don Johnson’d up, with bright white sun visors on. That also probably contributed to the retro vibe. She’s a great singer and performer. Her material was also brand new. It’s fun trying to guess what songs will become singles. I have some good hunches.
We were out by 1:00. The TTC was still running. The weather was nice. What a night.
Lester B. Pearson: Why would you fight Mike Pearson? What kind of person would see that bowtie and Nobel Peace Prize and want to fight? You’d win and you would feel horrible.
