graham says:
this is awesome: 

http://con.ca/issues/10/8/1622?cid=4927#c4927
graham says:
did i tell you what i did last night? gary [my former professor] wanted to show me this shop in yorkville which apparently used to sell all kinds of esoteric books and stuff but it's now out of business... after we parted ways i hung around in yorkville and went in this bar where they had this dance floor upstairs 
graham says:
so i went upstairs and there were maybe 40 people up there, all middle-age white business class people, rocking out to ACDC and ABBA. i though i'd walked into a wedding by accident but, no, it was in fact a bar or club of sorts 
graham says:
so i stayed a while and looked around. 

40 year old white people look funny when they dance. actually, replace "funny" with "somehow very very sad in a way you can't quite place your finger on, like when you remember a budgie you had a child that you let out of your cage one day only to have your cat pouch on it and tear its head off" kind of sad. 
graham says:
you kind of feel guilty, uneasy and slightly nausiated by the whole thing at once. 
alec says:
holy shit. man, as ive grown up every year ive done things that i had no idea happened in this city, but that is just surreal. good reason never to get rich and disconnected i guess. becoming so attached to the past that you humiliate yourself for it...ouch
graham says:
yeah.. i don't know. it was weird. it was just like, can these people really, really be having fun here? or is this the trapping desperation of souls sold for executive positions at its zenith? 
graham says:
i wonder how many people really realize what that means, to sell their soul? i wonder too if it's possible to avoid it here 
graham says:

----
[quotes from more 'capital of nasty' articles]:

"the Pittsburgh board promises a failed orgy at least once a month, and you'll thrill to multiple postings of "April 1 gangbang -- who's in?" followed by what seems to be, to the author's ears anyway, the longest, saddest silence ever captured in text form."
graham says:
Eight Minute Dating, for example, promises that you'll spend no more or less than eight minutes with 8 different successful professionals. Or, to express that in a more efficient way that won't waste any more of your motherfuckin' time: 8 Great Dates - 1 Fun Night!
graham says:
If you're getting a weird little tinge at the back of your head, something along the lines of, "Eight minutes? I spend more than eight minutes test-driving a car...then again a car is a big investment, and this is just a night of fun dates and great fun and probably some fun booze, which helps kill the emptiness that sometimes wells up

graham says:
when I realize I'm unable to feel anything beyond the need to be constantly fucking entertained by the world around me, and should that entertainment fail I think I'd just totally die!" then in that, at least, you are not alone.

graham says:
man this is gold
graham says:
You also wouldn't be alone in thinking AFF looks a lot like eBay, or maybe Buy.com. You put in your search terms, click a button, and a bunch of matches pop up, be it for "antique Hummel figurines" or "Pittsburgh, PA + female +pulse -fatties." Then you may lean back. Put up your feet. Smoke a pipe, or pole, or pope.
graham says:
Realize that before you scrolls a near-infinite variety of consumer choice. The Internet is your shopping mall, for love, for Hummel, for meat and for sporting goods. Turn up your iPod, check the lock on your gated community, double-check that your Ford Armored Personnel Carrier is safe and comfortable within its garage. This is your castle; here before a crackling fire you are comfortably numb --
graham says:
you will find an Adult Friend, and it will be one of your choosing, tailor-made to your likes and pleasures.
alec says:
i dont think most people here really believe they even have a soul to lose. for all the talk about heaven and hell and christian values, i think very few people have any idea of the implications of having a soul, let alone of losing it

whoa, that's poisonous! where did that come from? 
graham says:
capital of nasty, a friend's zine... it's really quite amazing the work on it 
graham says:
http://con.ca/issues/10/8/1619/
graham says:
i respect him so much for keeping this together for as many years as he has. there's some seriously talented writers that contribute
graham says:
i just had an idea.. maybe i should run it by you... 

since coming back i've wanted to "do something" that puts things in a more concrete form. there's been a variety of ways i've conceived of doing this, but nothing has quite set yet. the prime running seems to be to combine design, "good" art (or at least, on-point art to whatever cause this thing reflects) and good writing. 
graham says:
now... i look at con.ca and i see tremendous potential, because there's a lot of voices here that say things i precisely agree with, like the above quoted. 

at present, at least in toronto, this point of view to my knowledge is underrepresented. everyone feels it but not everyone is doing something about it. 
graham says:
i have been toying with the idea of a PDF periodical, like Beast or a few other of the ones that have existed online. the nice part is there's a low overhead with a potential for a wide distribution, and even the potential to get it printed if it works out. 

but more to the point, i would like to see something that connects people together a little more than i'm currently aware of. 
graham says:
i think there's a lot of solid creative being produced out there, but what it lacks (i think) is a clear editorial vision --> lots of people are willing to say stuff in many ways, but for some reason, little of it seems to get said as anything close to what i'd call "poignant" 
graham says:
all the time these days, i see little elements here and there that really REALLY say something so clear to me, it's like a loudhorn wake-up call... yet no one else around seems to be paying much attention. i don't know why -- maybe they've seen it 100 times already on the commute they do every day, maybe they're too busy, maybe they don't care 
graham says:
point is, they are asleep to it and even if it could impact them, they miss it. 

now, out of everything i've gone through, for better or worse, the one thing i can say i've gotten out of it is a change in my perspective. whatever it amounts to now, i have a certain kind of eye in my head at the moment.

graham says:
 it's largely causing me a lot of problems currently because i have no where to offload the information that's coming in through it... most of it is very toxic and it's sticking around inside me, with no outlet, and for the last month, it's rapidly been making me sick and unstable 
graham says:
so i figure, there's three options: run away (where to or what i don't know), stay and succum to it (which is what will happen if i stay and do nothing) or stay and cope with it

though i don't necessarily like toronto, i have the feeling that perhaps for now, i may be stuck here. so... figuring out a way to cope with it would be a good idea. 
graham says:
the idea here would be to try and become like a magnet for this material, these ideas and this creative.... to seek it out and draw it into one place, to give it a platform and a voice. i don't care where it comes from -- i'm not actually that interested in disseminating my own point of view even though at times i think it seems like that because from where i stand, no one else is much saying anyt
graham says:
anything about it! 
graham says:
i recognize that there are tons of people with more knowledge, experience and articulation than me in all walks of life -- it's not necessary or even desirable for me to try and surpass any of them with my own individual effort ---- all that i ask for is that whatever the form and whoever the originator, it be aligned to the same unified voice saying the same thing 
graham says:
namely, a) there's a problem here and b)  here's some things we can do about it. 
graham says:
i think adbusters is probably the closest thing to what i'd have in mind but unfortunately, adbusters (through design or just a self-limiting approach) has sort of pigenholed itself into being a platform for out of work cultural studies TAs expounding save-the-whales crap with a lot of bad art and/or design concepts to drive up the pretention levels. 
graham says:
somehow, it's the right idea but the wrong approach... i think people do "get" that bush and gap are "bad".... adbusters seems to stop there. it has to go further than that. 

for one, it has to be entertaining and engaging, not just single weepy tear articles on oil spills and corporate corruption. 

graham says:
when i read those quoted lines above, that's what i hear..... a voice that knows what's going on, but says it with a flair.. it doesn't feel like being hit over the head with a sludgehammer. even my own attempts at writing have suffered from that.. i know it's hard to avoid. 

which i why, i think, i'd rather take the approach of picking out the good when i see it, rather than attempt to 
graham says:
generate it all by way of miracle inspiration and flawless execution that's well received and accepted. 
graham says:

heh sorry for the long-winded messages there. 
alec says:
that is a good idea. you see the voices all the time, and i know a lot of people are starting to have a gut level feeling that they are losing control. i dont know if you ever read them, but you should take a look at magazines like the walrus or the atlantic monthly
alec says:
they are both polished news magazine type things
alec says:
with a clear sense of the danger from the far right of the political spectrum
alec says:
they focus pretty  much exclusively on that
alec says:
though
alec says:
the rest of the problems with the world they are oblivious to
graham says:
ah see i don't, but i know it's got to be there. "a sense of danger" 

YES. 

that's it. 

it's not about "oh boo hoo, poor little whales, come on you heartless fuckers, SAVE THEM WITH ME! let's go guys! RAH RAH RAH!" christian camp crap. 
"temporarily in the box" says:
there you go. 
graham says:
even THEY get it, even if it's just limited to them. 
graham says:
what i'm saying is, something needs to bridge the gap and bring it together in a way that doesn't turn people OFF with its heavy handedness. 
graham says:
that's such a hard thing to do, i'm probably going to need help keeping that in check and not getting too preacy. 
graham says:
but yes... that would be the idea. "sense of danger" 
graham says:
this "losing a soul" business is part of it. like i said, most people have no applicable concept of what that means because they don't believe in a soul to begin with! how can you lose something you don't think exists? 

the thing is, YOU CAN. 

because of your disbelief, you just won't be aware of it consciously when you do
graham says:
it's like saying you don't believe in tumours. 

ok. 

great. 

but whether or not you notice the lump in your tits and bother researching the words to describe it, your ass is still going to die because of it. 
graham says:
this is analogus to what we're facing now... we've lost our souls and the cosmic goof is we don't even know what that means.