Posterchild's Blade Diary » Montreal

Je parle la porte

post — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 14:00:43 +0000

Here is one I got up on my recent visit to Montreal.

It’s beside a rather dogged native French-Canadian gate sticker.

Lockdown: SAFE

post — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 10:01:30 +0000

Last one, and some group shots!

So, Whatchoo think?

The previous shots were too close, I think. They are not really meant to be viewed in macro. They’re better viewed as a group, at this scale.

Hey, My fellow Canadians!

- Those in Montreal, check this out!

- Those in Winnipeg, keep watching out!

Tag Tuesday

post — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 05:00:00 +0000

TAG TUESDAY
A GOOD TIME TO TALK ABOUT VANDALIST!

“Toronto, we are told, is a world-class city. But Toronto is noticeably absent from the list of major urban centres famous for graffiti and street art: New York, Barcelona, San Francisco, Berlin, LA, Melbourne, and London. Even within Canada, smaller cities like Montreal and Vancouver hold a better reputation for graffiti than Toronto.

Vandalist seeks to change all that.
Toronto has some amazing stuff going on and up onto the walls––we just rarely hear about it. Perhaps it has something to do with that oft-lamented aspect of our national character: we all groan at Canadian content. We don’t make musicians famous here, we wait until others have approved of them before offering them our acceptance. Maybe a stencil really is cooler when it’s sprayed on the streets of NYC than on the streets of the GTA.
But Vandalist doesn’t think so. The work is there. It’s good. It’s getting better. And it’s not just downtown, but out in the farthest reaches of our city.
We want to expand its audience and increase its status. We want to give it an international showcase online. We hope this will enlarge and improve the scene––but we need your help, whether you’re an artist looking for a venue (other than the street) to show off your stuff, or a fan of the genre who likes discovering new work.
All you’ve gotta do to participate is send photos of the piece to vandalist@torontoist.com, along with the artist’s name (if you know it), its location, and––if it wasn’t yours and you want credit for the discovery––your name and website. Every week on Friday, we’ll feature the best stuff we get sent.”

If you are a GTAer, you should submit!

The comments have been predictably polar…
You know…
I drink,
but I certainly wouldn’t endorse all of drinking and drinking culture wholesale.
Nor would you be so ridiculous as to call me to task on the worst excesses of drinkers.
IE: “Oh, you drink, do you? So you think it’s OK to drive drunk? To brawl in bars? To date-rape and beat women?”
I do graff,
But…

If when you say graffiti you mean the devil’s scrawl, the urban scourge, the undying monster, that defiles the sterile, dethrones law, destroys the peace, costs untold millions of dollars, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally stains the community; if you mean the evil practice that topples virtuous youth from the pinnacle of righteous, leads them astray from gracious living into the bottomless pit of degradation, gangs and drugs, lawlessness and helplessness and hopelessness, then certainly I am against it.
But;
If when you say graffiti you mean the splendour of the everyman, the philosophic scrawl, the art and friendship that is created when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips, and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean urban cheer; if you mean the stimulating mark that puts the spring in the old gentleman’s step on a frosty, crispy morning; if you mean the images which enable a man to magnify his joy, and his happiness, and to forget, if only for a little while, life’s great tragedies, and heartaches, and sorrows; if you mean those magnificent calligraphic strokes, then certainly I am for it.

This tag also came from my nice night out amongst the storm.

Exposé Theme Week- Hogtown

post — Tue, 08 May 2007 05:00:00 +0000

Posterchild is pulling open the curtains of his costume and baring his soul.

Turns out there is a CN tower in there.

Huh.

When my closest encounters with Toronto were driving through it, I hated Toronto- along with the rest of Canada (Including Torontonians themselves, who were ranked 3rd in a recent survey of “Toronto Hating”- just after Montreal and Vancouver.)

But now that I’ve lived and worked here for some time, I’m finding, more and more, that I love the city!

It’s got allot to offer, I think it can offer as much as Montreal or Vancouver, but unlike Montreal (which knows it is the sexiest, most artistic city in Canada) or Vancouver (which knows itself to be the greenest, hippest city in Canada.) Toronto offers what it’s got in an insecure and unpretentious way. Almost apologetically, even. How can it not be, when everyone has been telling us that we’re shit for so long that we’ve come to embrace the idea ourselves? “Sorry this isn’t Montreal, but maybe check out our music scene anyway?” “Sorry this isn’t Vancouver, but we actually are the center of theater and film in Canada?” Toronto is famous for negatively comparing itself to other cities- “TORONTO- Not as good as New York, but… Not Bad?”

Toronto the Good, Toronto the Ugly. The T.O.

Hogtown.

My Town. For now anyway.

Ugly or pretty, it’s still my city.

Make up your mind and get in or get out.

Ugly or pretty, it’s still my city.

Say what you will, but get in or get out.

Anyway, It’s interesting. Maybe the Bay Street power moguls are the ones giving us a bad name? Or maybe It’s something deeper.

Filmmaker Albert Nerenberg explores this ubiquitous loathing in a new documentary that just screened here at HOT DOCS: Let’s All Hate Toronto.

I wish I had a chance to see it.

From the Calgary Herald:

“Canadians are always searching for that one thing that unites the country,” says Toronto filmmaker Albert Nerenberg. “And it seems the one thing they can all agree on is that they hate Toronto.”

“I think I probably picked up the idea in Montreal, where Toronto-hating is practically a religion,” says Nerenberg … But I was surprised by how universal that sentiment is. And I think the word ‘hate’ is a bit exaggerated, people mostly resent, envy, and are bothered by Toronto. And shockingly, one of the centres of that feeling is in Toronto itself, where Torontonians hate Toronto. It’s a new thing, a sort of self-loathing, a resentment of the fact that they have to live and work there.”

Nerenberg has discovered that Albertans sure do hate Toronto, but not as much as Quebecers do. And francophone Quebecers sure hate Toronto, but not as much as the English-speaking ones do.

“Anglo-Quebecers, Montrealers specifically, are the traditional Toronto-haters,” he says. “Children there are breast-fed on such an idea. Meanwhile, Albertans have come by it more recently.”

Lieutenant Audie Murphy

post — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 05:00:00 +0000

Bam-Kapow!

It’s a full-figure Friday!

Audie Murphy was Americas most decorated soldier to emerge out of World War 2 with his Texan, boyishly handsome good looks intact. He was, (is?) in fact, the most decorated soldier in the history of the US army. He is credited with killing more than 240 Germans.

After the war, he parlayed his fame and good looks into a movie career, where he pretend to kill Indians and bad cowboys. Unlike Rambo, He had actually killed hundreds of people. This seems surreal to me.

You may not of heard of him, but his 1955 magnum opus, To Hell and Back (based on his bestselling autobiography of the same name) “grossed almost ten million dollars during its initial theatrical release, and at the time became Universal’s biggest hit of the studio’s entire 43-year history. This movie held the record as the company’s highest-grossing motion picture until 1975, when it was finally surpassed by Steven Spielberg’s Jaws. ”

Interestingly; “Murphy eventually broke the taboo about publicly discussing war-related mental conditions.”

I wonder if that broke the fantasy for people.

Speaking of killing and fantasy;

You probably heard about the terrible Dawson College shooting, in Montreal.

The bastard who did it keep a presence on the internets. It turns out that he is a perfect (pardon the expression) posterchild for the folks who think video games make people shoot people in real life. One headline yesterday read “Video Game Killer!”.

I think I better understand now how moderate Muslims must feel.

I can’t help but feel that the media and their sensationalization of these school attacks have helped, perhaps more than anything else to create and popularize this “identity”. Looking at the Jerks website, he certainly seemed to relish in playing the part and playing on peoples fears.

anyway, I hope you have a nice weekend!

PEACE!