Ryan O’Connell is my new spirit animal. I relate. I relate to EVERYTHING he puts out. He’s basically the best (and I wish we could be BFFs). A Ryan video means I am instantly cheered up and energized. This is what Friday nights are all about people.
On a side note: I’ve had some lame depressing family shit going on for the past week and have been too preoccupied to even be on my computer. Don’t you hate when life happens? Serious Mac withdrawal has ensued and my attempt at blogging regularly has failed. But I’ll be back soon!
So I actually stepped into the ~great outdoors yesterday with my siblings and little cousins (who brought their mini baseball bats and glove). It was amazing to 1) not need a jacket, the weather was PERFECT, and 2) to just be outside having fun. We played an impromptu baseball game (I use the term baseball game loosely) and spent a surprising amount of time on the swings. SWINGS ARE THE BEST. Can I just say that? I don’t know anything that is better than swings. I also forgot how much I love baseball. Disclaimer: I suck at all athletics, gym was the class I always dreaded most and the thought of running for long periods of time horrify me. Minimal skill aside, baseball is so much fun.
Here are some photos to make up for the lack of blog yesterday (I know I didn’t say I’d do seven in a row, but in the back of my head, I was totally planning to!). Not bad for an iPhone 4, right?
One of the things that always astounds me is how artists with huge record companies backing them release the most horrendous album covers. Any number of talented designers would do a better job, or even most of the Tumblr users I follow. I imagine in my head that it comes down to the taste level of record execs, who say something like, “Uhhh… I don’t like that. It’s too abstract. Can we just get a close-up of his face and I want THIS FONT. Oh yeah, I don’t like the colours either, how about black and yellow?” So really, the designer has little to do with the end product and has to deal with Clients From Hell-type scenarios.
One album I’m really looking forward to is Adam Lambert’s Trespassing, HELLO POP HEAVEN. Here’s the album cover. REALLY? REALLY?! Are we still living in the ’90s? I mean, I know you want to get everyone’s attention at HMV, but this may not be the most elegant way to do it.
So I thought I’d go through my iTunes library and pick out some of the most creative/best designed covers. Sadly, a lot of my favourite albums are missing from this list because they have some of the most uninspiring designs. I was originally going to do a list of the worst covers, but who wants to look at that?
Yesterday was the John Irving taping at George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight that I was raving about way back when and wow, he did not disappoint. I wish the interview had been longer because I could have listened to him talk for hours. He touched on everything from sexual identity, his own experience being attracted to older boys at school (how refreshing is it when straight males can admit this?), writing about outsiders, how lame the Republican candidates in the States were this year and just all around had awesome insights to share about writing. To be a total fangirl, AHHH HE IS LIKE MY FAVOURITE PERSON. EVER.
Aside from that highlight to my day, I also realized yesterday how much I just cannot fucking stand the TTC. I live in Scarborough, so the trip downtown, back and forth, takes three hours in total, or more, I don’t know. Yesterday’s trip honestly FELT like it ate up my whole day. Maybe it’s not the whole TTC that I should call out but just the 54A bus and its permanent stench of urine and god knows what else. And then the people who get on that bus, whether or not they ever bathe is questionable. It’s just unfortunate. Oh wait, and then there’s the fact that when I finally get off the subway, I have to get on the RT just so that I can get to ANOTHER station where I have to wait half an hour just to get on said bus. It’s ridiculous. Getting on the RT at night, I always feel like I’ve stepped into Gotham City or something, everyone’s faces are covered in misery and it’s just BLEAK. Never mind the creepy men with blank faces who just can’t help but stare. /rant
I think that’s a fair summary of the highs and lows of my day. Although, I’d have sat on the TTC for another three hours for John Irving.
I leave you with a clip of him being awesome.
Here’s the excerpt he reads in the beginning, from his new novel, In One Person:
I’m going to begin by telling you about Miss Frost. While I say to everyone that I became a writer because I read a certain novel by Charles Dickens at the formative age of fifteen, the truth is I was younger than that when I first met Miss Frost and imagined having sex with her, and this moment of my sexual awakening also marked the fitful birth of my imagination. We are formed by what we desire. In less than a minute of excited, secretive longing, I desired to become a writer and to have sex with Miss Frost—not necessarily in that order.
