Instant Coffee Saturday Edition Issue 7, May 11, 2002 ISSN 1499-5085

Saturday Edition Feature Cartoon by Anonymous International Coffees Mr Brown Tasters Choice Ten Ten Sanka Past Issues

Saint Augustine was astonished when he happened on the Bishop Ambrose of Milan and saw him reading silently to himself. In those days (circa 380-430 C.E.), reading was performed aloud. Audible reading was the norm and it was a shocking breakthrough when people started to read to themselves in silence. We bring this up to give you an interesting fact and to request that you read this issue of Saturday Edition out loud. send submissions to saturday@instantcoffee.org

Saturday Edition Feature   1. Louise Bak Interview conducted By John Barlow You have quickly established yourself as a multidisciplinary artist and public presence: would you like to list the arts and forms? I have been working as a poet, performance artist, radio progammer, cultural organizer, scholar among other incarnations. Aside from my poetry, my performance work has appeared in numerous festivals, galleries and video collaborations. I am the co-host of a radio show called Sex City, Toronto's only radio show that engages continually with the intersections between sexuality and culture. I host a reading/performance series called The Box, which tries to mix artists, writers, filmmakers, scholars and others together in to unique cross-hatchings of communicative folk. I am currently working on co-writing a feature film, called "Ache," with Keith Lock. I am also currently a doctoral student at the University of Toronto in Cultural Studies and Women's Studies. I seem to also get drawn to many erotic insurgencies. Is poetry primary? I began writing poetry when I was a child, as a very intuitive, naïve process of expression. Poetry is a continually intriguing process that interlocks with many other aspects of my life. I feel there is an expressive magic about poetry, which discloses a sense of the uncanny. I am interested in how it can be a propelling and misdirecting force, a process over fixity and conventional orders to living. I've known lesbian and hetero feminists and single feminists and feminist mothers and read of divisions among them, but witnessed vastly more so profound interupport among them: would you like to contribute your linguistic ferocities to the meaning of feminism from your own existential status? I am committed to a sense of feminism, that is ever-shifting. My interest in feminism, is reposed firstly from an organic multicentricity, in my sense of being and difference. Multicentricity in the sense that allows one to espouse one's own perceptual/conceptual and communicative centricity as a woman, even as it obligates one to acknowledge the limits -both the center and the vivid circumference of what constitutes that centricity. It is a position that recognizes a logic of living that cuts across the everyday of different ideological forms -race, religion, patriarchy, technology, ecology, sexuality -it reveals and contests, the mechanisms by which self-images and self-identities are formed. It admits elements of the fantasmatic, the economic and body political, as well as a spatiality of social construction and contradiction that is interstitial; an insurgent intersubjectivity; an everyday that interrogates what I see are persistent divisions and inequalities between people, too often based on gender. How connected do you feel to the writing traditions of the 19th century and those before? I have felt a great connection to the writing traditions coming from China, from the 12th century, with writers such as Wang Wei, Li Ch'ing-Chao and others. There is an inter-sensorial sense, which I find in this work, which is permeated with intense feeling, a pathos that seems to embrace insistently the wider world. I think many people find they don't believe me, when I say I'm just a landscape poet. Contrarily, I have developed a recent interest in the 19th century novel as a form, which engages with conceptions of female infidelity. This relates to my participation with a documentary about infidelity, I may appear in. Otherwise, I have very wide interests in past and contemporary forms of writing, communicative practices, that roam the margins between anime, comic narrative, independent film/video, poetry and ethnography. If you are referring to literary and modernist formalisms from the 19th century on, I've always been concerned about Western-oriented literary pasts or presents, creating international criteria of judgment, acceptability and exceptionality. My eye seems drawn to writing from the past, which speaks of embodied margins. Among your trademark intellectual/artistic gamuts is a reshifting of dynamics around matters of stigmatic spark, power relationship, and convention with regards to sexuality and violence: would you begin to have a fathomable sense of the ideal in these areas of research? I think my poetry and work often engages with the limits of trust and connection between people. In that sense I am interested, in how the body, notions of engenderment, sexuality, power, metamorphoses, aesthetics and ethics are framed. My work always seems to be heavily layered, drawing embodied traces from many sources, in an attempt to build perhaps a sense of inter-human translingual relationship. I feel appalled by violence, on both a local and global level. I feel there is a need for intelligent and creative catalysts and habituations, that recognizes the value of relationship. Relationship conceived as necessitating communicative practices, which we can individually understand as a component of being that encumbers, obligates, yokes one to the specificities of living together. This poetical "doing" seems be composed of practices of writing, studying, teaching, sharing, resisting, translating, imaging, loving, all practices implicating one in communicative relationships with others. Did you care about the Olympics? Half-relatedly, what do you think of sports salaries? I watched some of the Olympics, and I found I enjoyed some of it, purely on the level of surface formation. I think the double-luge looks strangely perverse. I tried to understand the seemingly inertial qualities of the curling. I couldn't help but get somewhat caught up in the pairs ice-skating controversy for a moment. I couldn't help but feel a bit of joy, when I heard of the Canadian hockey teams double-wins, while I was in Chinatown. The immediacy of visual pleasure on the tv screens, with little old ladies in Chinatown uttering approvals over the hockey was highly amusing. There's a lot of potential grace, skill and beauty to the idea of athletics, but I feel disheartened that both the amateur and professional realms seem equally commercialized. I don't like the notion of heightened expectations placed on athletes, tied so entirely on commercial models of success. I recently saw a very good documentary called "Dogtown," which traces the development of a group of young skateboarders in L.A. -I found the interdisciplinarity of urban play and autonomy in this form, can create a form of celebratory athleticism, that can admit elements of parody and resistance. I am interested in a new group called the Radical Cheerleaders -they are changing this seemingly cute and ineffectual form of physical expression, by inventing cheers and exercises that challenge poverty, sexism and corporate-driven globalism. You were a citizen of the University of Toronto for a considerable duration, an institution associated with anglo wealth: did you have fun there? Do you have a sense of belonging? I'm still at U. of T. as a doctoral student in Cultural Studies and Women's Studies. I enjoyed some aspects of U. of T. in the sense that it provides a great deal of resources toward learning. But I managed to survive the conservative elements of it, by always living alternative lives outside of the academy. I don’t think I belong there, just as, I don't think I belong any where. Our segment of this city often seems like the one and only reprieve of multiculturalism actually blooming in Ontario, and other times seems likely to erupt more in a mad diversity of angers: how do you foresee the next twenty years unfolding? I feel a great deal of confusion about the future. There is a part of me that is continually alarmed at what seems to be an imperium of capitalist development, taking over the world. I feel anxious about our complicity in accepting a war pattern, to confronting any mode of conflict in the world. I try to feel a sense of hope about Toronto, and its emergent diversity. I'm really hoping that the mongrel-experiments in culture that can happen here, will result in a change toward more pluralist models of civility. I think that we may be the sort of city that begins to take on the genealogy of the idea of community as itself a "minority" discourse; as the making, or becoming "minor" of the idea of Society as we know it. Community as the necessary antagonist supplement of modernity. Poetry develops an auratic non-authority, where the focus shifts from the nominalism of imperialism to the emergence of another sign of agency and identity. This signifies the destiny of culture as site, not simply of transgression or subversion, but one that prefigures a kind of solidarity between ethnicities that meet in unknowable trysts. Bring on the global orgy!

International Coffees   1. Remote Lounge Please read the following from Sandra McLean, video curator, Remote Lounge (and MFACA faculty member). For those who don't know- the Remote Lounge is a new bar/art space owned & operated by Kevin Centanni and Bob Stratton, MFACA faculty & alumni. Check out their site: http://www.remotelounge.com/ for more info. Remote Lounge will be opening its doors to the public soon. One of the emphases of Remote will be to show and promote contemporary/experimental video artists and their work. We are going to be showing 3 different categories of work: The first category will be up-and-coming video artists. In this category I would put Graduate students or former grad's who are interested in showing their work in a public venue. Unless an artist has a particularly large body of good work, I will be grouping works together thematically or visually. These artists will be promoted on the Remote Lounge site, with the dates that they will be shown along with bio's if they are submitted and links to other work that they may have on the web. In this category, I would also take work that has been done in Flash and output to VHS. I will also look at animation tapes that are experimental in nature. In this first category, because of the nature of Remote, works that are primarily visual rather than relying on sound will be the most successful.If work is particularly notable, and the artist is featured, then we will have an opening for them and sound will be broadcast throughout Remote.(see category 2) The second category of artist that we will be showing will be the work of established artists who would like their work to be shown in a venue specifically designed to show video. For these artists, we will have an opening for them - openings will always be on Sunday's from 4 - 6. We will print cards, promote them on the site along with their bios and any links, send out press releases and allow them to sell work through Remote-with no commission. The work of these artists can emphasize audio along with video as sound will be projected throughout the space. Please send this to students within the department and to anyone who you think may be interested in showing their work at Remote. I will be continually be organizing shows. The third category of work will be for established artists who have not worked in video before and are interested in creating something for Remote. These artists should contact me directly via e-mail. For all who are interested in showing work, they need to send me a VHS tape along with a short bio and all contact info. To: Sandra McLean 897 Union Street Brooklyn, NY 11215 I can always be contacted with questions at sandra@sandramclean.com Thank you, Sandra McLean video curator Remote Lounge

Mr Brown   instant coffee coffee link instant coffee and reading out loud. http://www.angelfire.com/ca2/blackbutterflypress/page46.html selected links Tim selected this link of Jenifer's AA Bronson interview via Lola's archived articles. http://www.magomania.com/search/show_article.epl?id=114 Movie Enthusiasts' Pages: Sometimes the best link pages look really pathetic. http://www.cinema-sites.com/Cinema_Sites_ENTHU.html submitted links excerpt found on http://www.salon.com/ent/col/vowe/1999/12/01/collings/index.html "My favorite place to read criticism right now is the Focus on the Family web site www.family.org. It's a Christian fundamentalist site and they do movie reviews that are remarkable, because whoever the reviewer is watches movies actually believing that art can do something to people. Like that "Titanic" could mess with young girls minds about romance, or a hilarious litany of all the ways the "South Park" movie is devoid of redeeming social value." - by Sarah Vowell http://www.family.org Looking for Identity / Buscando Identidad Marjorie Richter y Achim Nazteck http://www.now-art-project.com ic supporter links http://www.1000kmdesignburo.com now with http://www.typotherapy.com http://www.thinoffice.com http://www.easydns.com http://www.techno.ca

Tasters Choice   Nescafe-- Although I have an aversion to instant coffee in general I have been forced to drink it Where? Ironically in Uganda where they grow coffee where I can drive by the coffee plantations... what is wrong with this equation? So I drank Nescafe--I prepared like some bastardized version of espresso. 2 tablespoons of Nescafe, 2 tablespoons of sugar medium size cup and of course, black. sickly sweet and strong. - Cynthia Jones

Ten Ten   1. AN Empty TALK BY the populist MATTHEW COLLINGS I get the feeling that Matthew Collings is smarter than he let on last night at his talk entitled POPULARITY AND EMPTINESS IN BRITISH ART. Partly because he was witty, charming and seemed to know his history, but also because he kept reassuring the audience that he had an in-depth and critical knowledge of contemporary art in Britain even if it wasn't surfacing now. But in the end, he offered little insight into the current success of contemporary art practice in Britain beyond a rise in celebrity obsession. He did however marginally point to Charles Staachi's influence and a slash in funding, which lead to the rise in artist initiatives, as attributing to British contemporary art's move from obscure to sexy. It is hard not to enjoy a good poke at tired art discourses that simultaneously simplify and obfuscate art work, but his bashing banter just turned into an unproductive cynicism that made all contemporary art seem trite, self-centered and stupid. For him y.b.a.is pure decadence intended to shock and post-y.b.a. is just posing criticality in reaction to the earlier generation's lack of it. There is some truth in his dialogue, but it seems that that is all he is seeing. I'm left wondering what he thinks is good art or if he believes that there is such a thing. I also wonder why I should listen to someone who is bored by art talk about art. He does mention that he thinks there is a lack of the visual in contemporary art and would like to see a return to formal concerns. It reminded of an article in the New York Times on this year's Whitney Biennial, where the critic was disappointed in the lack of colour in the exhibition. I'm not sure what either of them are talking about. Does art have to be devoid of content before aesthetic concerns can surface? What Collings would say is that there has been a shift in what is defined as content. In pre-modern and modern art substance was about things like intensity and in the last thirty years it has shifted to notions. So if Collings was positing a new model (and I'm digging here) does he really expect us to jump back thirty years? Ultimatley, I don't think Collings said much more than contemporary art sucks big time. - JP The talk was co-organized by The Canadian Art Foundation and the Art Gallery of Ontario on Friday, May 10, 2002. Rating: 4 out of ten 2. Art criticism as entertainment: POPULARITY AND EMPTINESS IN BRITISH ART A TALK BY MATTHEW COLLINGS Friday, May 10, 2002, 7pm Jackman Hall, Art Gallery of Ontario We have a literary artist neighbour who we filter a lot of our reading materials, so when we heard that Matt Collings was giving a lecture in Toronto, we asked for Robert’s opinion. Robert immediately said he liked Collings regular columns, which appears in Modern Painter. To be honest last time I picked up a copy of Modern Painter was some years ago and I certainly never cared for their bland brand of design and content. Collings’ writing was characterized to me as chatty, gossipy, funny, and irreverent. Matthew Collings presented no slides nor any other visual material but he read from his books, “blimy” “Art Crazy Nation” and “This is Modern Art” droning on comically about various details about his life and his involvement in the art scene in London. He was clever and funny, even entertaining. He would bringing up thoughtful notions like irony, depth, ideas, what is now(history?), meaning and sentimentality and so forth, without ever connecting to a cohesive criticism. It seems clear though he resents anything touted as the Art of the moment. He is popular for good reasons; he understands that his subject matters and his irreverent slashings please both high minded art crowd and middle class art audiences alike. - JK Rating: 9 out of ten 3. CBC Radio One I work at home so I often listen to cbc during the day. Almost everyday I reach a point of over saturation or is it aggravation bordering on total irritation and subtle embarrassment. I run to the radio turn it off and sign with relief. - JP Rating: 4 out of ten 4. Interview Review A month ago, the Inuit production, Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner) opened at select big city theaters. Having read excellent reviews, but still having not seen it, Timothy Comeau asked Jon Sasaki and Sasha Havlik (who both work at Mercer Union) some questions. Does it have subtitles? S: Yes it has subtitles with great translation and you don't feel like you're missing the visuals and expressions to read. Is it the greatest movie ever made? S: No, but the best Canadian action film. J: You think? Doesn't beat "Goin' down the road." If the Fast Runner had a bowling pin-jockey scene, we'd talk. Is it the Inuit Citizen Kane? S: Considering there's never been a three hour epic film with an all Inuit cast - I guess your question has merit. J: Yeah.. it was like the whole film took place inside that little snowglobe. Lots of sled references too. Is that what you mean? Is the cinematography supercalafraglisticexpialadoscious? J: Dogma and dogsleds are a good match. Lars Von Trier would be proud. Does looking at all that white hurt your eyes? S: I was more concerned about the so-called three-hour running scene. But that was all hype. The landscape scenes through the seasons did get a lot of ooo's and ahh's from the audience. The production company, Igloolik Isuma Productions, is going to be part of this summer's Documenta XI. Does this make sense? J: no comment here. One of the producers, Norman Cohn, began his film making career as a video artist. If this movie played in Mercer's back gallery, instead of theaters across the world, would that enhance or diminish it? J: The film is, like, three hours long. If Mercer screened it, we'd have to offer snacks and stuff. S: I think the gallery would be a great location for an all-night movie screening. Would you be available to sit the gallery Timothy? Is the story good or boring? S: Even though it's based on a traditional fable, it's filmed a contemporary way without special effects. Do you feel myths are important in our cynical, technocratic age, or is that a question "pre-Sept 11"? J: I dig films that "update" familiar stories. i.e.. Steppenwolf became Rob Schneider's "the Animal", Faust was remade with a devilish Mr. Miyagi in the Karate Kid, and Billy Madison was a thinly veiled Hamlet. Myths are comforting. Would you be willing to watch another movie filmed completely in the Inuit language if it were a Hollywood blow-em-up? Is their a liberal minded PC thing going on it's favor? S: This film has enough family saga to be a daily soap but why ruin a good thing by making a Hollywood version? J: What would they blow up, an ice floe? Rating: 8 out of ten 5. The Definition of Experimental Film: A movie review of “Spider-Man” (Sam Raimi) 121 min. Opened May 3, Everywhere. Though, Spider-Man the motion picture opened last weekend, we waited till yesterday to see it, thinking that waiting will make the picture seem better. To my surprise, what was even better than the Hollywood touted super hero action comic turned feature film was little bits of titles meant to introduce the film and production companies. Like little bits of pure design manifested to 35mm full glory with swooshing sound and whole bit just before the logo finally rolls up. Sort of round about way of getting to the moments of pure cinema, not surprisingly everything else was just as expected. - JK Rating: 9 out of ten 6. Cremaster 1 & 4 directed by Matthew Barney at The Bloor Cinema, April 19 as part of the Images Festival by Timothy Comeau There was a time, almost ten years ago, when Cremaster, like MS Windows 3.2, was cutting edge. Yet, by now, mainstream video media as caught up with it. For example, the checkerboard dream sequence in the Big Liebowski, which came out two years later. It is slick and straightforward, easy to recognize as a dream sequence vignette, and in the use of chorus line girls, reminding me of Cremaster 1. But Barney's work remains famously ambiguous, rather lushly endowed with production values that make his narcissistic narrative intriguing. While these films seemed a little Windows 3.2, they still benefit from its non-linear artiness. Cremaster 1 (1995) This one seemed like an apocryphal segment of a the 1986 James Bond film, "A view to a Kill". The Sexually Suggestive Named Female Lead (SSNFL), is an Aryan goddess, part of a world wide conspiratorial elitist Nazi movement, who despise the more conventional white supremacist punk skin heads as being too proletariat. Trapped aboard one of Zoran's blimps, one of two which hovers over the football field in Boise Idaho where Barney played college football (while he studied pre-med with ambitions to be a plastic surgeon) SSNFL considers escape, and stretches to keep her muscles from seizing up. In typical James Bond fashion, she's absurdly trapped under a fruit laden table. Evil stewardess' smoke and look out the windows, mindlessly obedient to Christopher Walken's character, who is busy with Grace Jones and the planned flooding of Silicon Valley. SSNFL remembers radio grapes that are planted amongst the cornucopia, and gets a hold of them while the stewardess' aren't looking. Activating them by passing them through her shoes, they fall to the floor, and she begins arranging them, signaling choreography to the elite Nazi chorus line below. I think the plan must have been to entertain the world to death, or put everyone to sleep with the waltz music. This was certainly evident in the theatre, for when intermission came, everyone awoke from their daze, yawning and stretching. As she communicates with the chorus line, she daydreams of taming Roger Moore's cheatin' ways. She imagines herself as the ultimate controller of his testicles, which are symbolized by the blimps. They are helium filled balloons to her, and she holds them by the leash. Cremaster 4 (1994) This was the first Cremaster film, made way back when OJ Simpson went from being and ex NFL player to becoming the scandal of the decade. Filmed on the Isle of Man, which is famous for its motorcycle racing, this one featured Barney as a tap dancing satyr dressed in white. He lives out on a pier. He tap dances around a white plastic tile. He wears a hole in the tile and falls through to the ocean below. Meanwhile, two motorcycles equipped with sidecars, race around the island. Having fallen through to the ocean, he makes it back to the shore, boroughs under the beach, until he reaches the rocky cliff. He finds a tunnel through which he can make it up to the cliff top. This tunnel is shaped like the contour of a daisy. Squirming up the tunnel, he encounters vast amounts of Vaseline, which Barney has stated is a metaphor, a way of lubricating between concepts and scenes. He considers his films to be sculpture, something which must be viewed in many directions, and which moves slowly. I kept thinking of how long it would have taken to wash all of it off, yet Jon Sasaki, whom I saw the film with, more astutely summarized it as, "Matthew Barney as a giant sperm". In the meantime, the racing motorcycles converge as a ram. Their testicles, which had moved away from their bodies, and become characters of emotion and thought (like Sesame Street’s orange and black striped Wormy), remind us adults of spending our early lives watching and empathizing with puppets. The racers converge on and are replaced by the figure of a ram. The satyr emerges unto the grass of the cliff top, greeted by his smiling attendants. At the end, the satyr is enthroned triumphant at the pier, his attendants are as happy as always, and bag pipe music swells to a painful level as the credits roll. I feel that Barney's films benefit from their exclusivity, by the fact that we've all read about them, but not all had the chance to see them. Like the dream sequence in the Big Liebowski, they would become trivial rather quickly if Barney exposed their ambiguous symbolism and made them available at Blockbuster. Movies with line-ups rule, cause at that point they're an event. These two had quite a lineup, and participating in this must see aspect I found more enjoyable than the films, which were mediocre. Rating: 6 out of ten

Sanka   1. Artempresa Is pleased to announce the 2002 Art Competition HORSES FOR RAOUL TITLE: HORSES FOR RAOUL MEDIUM: All Media THEME: Horses DEADLINE: 15 July 2002 RESTRICTIONS: Regional Restriction: International Artists Age Restriction: 18 years and older Size Restriction: 2D work not to exceed 100cm in any direction including frame. No heavier than 30lbs (13.5kg). Other Restriction: No photography,audio, video or performance pieces. Work must be completed in the last year. Slides must be 35mm, 2-D works must be suitably framed with wire and ready for hanging. Only Plexiglas may be used, no glass. 3-D works may be wall hanging or free-standing. COUNTRY: Argentina TYPE OF EVENT: Open Juried Exhibition PRIZES: The best of the show will receive Cash Awards of Excellence, and will bwe considered for a solo show in 2003. All entrant works will participate in the group exhibition HORSES FOR RAOUL in November 2002at Artempresa Gallery, Cordoba-Argentina. SELECTION PROCEDURE: Entry Deadline: 15 July 2002 Artists Notification 15 August 2002 Accepted Entries: 30 September 2002 Exhibition Open: 31 October 2002 Exhibition Close: 26 November 2002 Pick Up Unsold Entries: 27 November 2002 Return of Shipped Entries: 27 November 2002 ENTRY FEE: US$30 for three slides. US$5 for each additional slide. Will be no limit on the number of entries per artist. APPLICATIONS TO: Artempresa Gallery HORSES FOR RAOUL Street, PO Box: Chacabuco 526 Piso 11º City: Cordoba Code: 5000 Country: Argentina Hand entries: San Jeronimo 448 - Cordoba LANGUAGE: English, French, Spanish CONTACT PERSON: Maria Elena Kravetz PHONE: (54) 351 156 767 760 (4pm to 8 pm) EMAIL: artempresa@arnet.com.ar http://www.artempresagallery.com we think they are making fun of us 2. THE RETURN OF SITESTREET-CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS SiteStreet is an on-line journal committed to providing a forum for the presentation of innovative writing and web-based projects that foster a critical dialogue on art and culture. The editors welcome thinkers from across disciplines to challenge existing models of cultural production. We are interested in adventurous takes on popular subjects or conventional takes on obscure subjects - as well as anything in between. We strive to support a broad range of participants and perspectives. In addition to presenting critical theory, creative writing and contemporary art within a cultural context, SiteStreet will serve to facilitate research by creating an on-line database and provide contributors with an opportunity to preserve their work in the public domain. SiteStreet will be published quarterly. We are accepting proposals for future issues. However, the deadline for our Spring 2002 issue is April 15. We have a few slots available, and are specifically looking for works that address: sex sex in the cinema the body cleanliness and dirt dualities Attached to this email are the SUBMISSION GUIDELINES for SiteStreet. Please read carefully before submitting. We thank you in advance for your support. Sincerely, Arthur Aghajanian & Eric Beltz Co-Editors, SiteStreet Jon Lapointe & Otono Lujan Co-Directors, Side Street Projects Side Street Projects @ The Armory 965 North Fair Oaks Ave Pasadena, CA 91103-3010 626 296 2510 626 296 2530 (fax) sidest@ix.netcom.com http://www.sidestreet.org we never knew they left 3. Kate's week in review sat: Not really sure. oh ya. went to Tupper & Emma's wedding reception at St. Lawrence Hall. Yummy food, decent tunes, free drinks, swanky clothes -a nd Andrew wore his kilt. I wore black satin pants and a sparkly tank top. We drank at the Cameron later on... sun: Did nothing much but read and watch tv and eat. maybe a bit of work at the computer, answering and sending ic emails and stuff. mon: Worked. it was slow at work which I find distracting. I like having things to do, not things I to dream up to do. ho Hum. I spoke to Sara on the phone and got teary upon hearing she and Matt will probably almost for sure be leaving Toronto to go to New York to start a new life. I exaggerate. but not really. Anyway it depressed me. Yes, of course I'm happy for them. After work I went to Workplace to meet with a producer from FTV about an instant coffee interview/event. Later I probably read myself to sleep. tues: Another slow day at work. At lunch I saw Sara who just got back from her group honeymoon in France the Sunday before. I have to remember to ask her to give me my house keys back. She's had them since I got married in February. But maybe I'll tell her to keep them until after the long weekend if she can cat sit Jane while we're in Montreal visiting my 95 year old great uncle Martin. wed: I had a problem to solve at work, which made me feel better, but it was still kind of slow. Had Mexican and conversation at lunch with my nice work mate Shawn. After work I went to se Spiderman with Andrew, Kuni and Deanna, and Jin and Jen were going to come (but the tickets were such a rip off they decided to go to a matinee since they didn't actually expect it to be a great film or anything). We were all hoping for some decent entertainment and I guess it delivered for a while. Deanna looked at me with a mixture of disdain and surprise as she relished the moment in which she loudly accused me, in the Paramount lobby, of being a "movie talker". I only talk in movies when they bore me. thurs: Got up and sent IC email then went shopping for a mother's day present for Kendra, a birthday present for her son Timothy and also a card for Kendra's upcoming birthday. She just had a baby in November and it's spring so Andrew and I are going to give her a full spa day : I came out of Toys R Us and it was pouring, and I got soaked. Finally a cab stopped and took me to the train station... By noon I was in line for the Train to Woodstock where Kendra lives. I've known Kendra since I was 4. We lived next to each other in Montreal until I was 11, when I moved to Toronto. We were best friends until age 13. Then we got other best friends I guess. We're still good friends. I don't see her much, and by the time we die we will have been lifelong bosom friends - or we are already. I arrived in Woodstock at 1:30 and we got gorceries, hung out, had dinner, played with Timothy, then he went to bed and Kendra and I talked and watched TV while her baby Mathilda nursed herself to sleep. We went to bed ourselves by midnight. fri: Woke up early to the cries of Mathilda wanting breast milk. She sounds like she's nauseous. Amazed by the tempo of the day on Mathilda's terms: breast fed at 7:30, laying down beside me (I just stare and gurgle at her for another half hour while Kendra showers. We all go downstairs. I make Timothy breakfast while Kendra gives Mathilda a second feeding at 8:30, by 9 she requires cereal but Tim has to be at school so Kendra takes him and Mathilda (who gets a bit of sleep in the car). I take a shower. When Kendra and Mathilda return she feeds her cereal, then another breast feeding because now she's thirsty after eating. Pretty soon it's 10:40 and we have to go to Tim's school for Mother's day Tea. The kindergarten class of 5 and 6 year olds serves us English muffin pizzas, lemon squares and tea. Mathilda ogets breast fed in the middle of this. Now it's almost noon and we head back to Kendra's to get the diaper bag - then we onto London to buy a pinata and various supplies for Tim's birthday party the next day. We get the pinata at Bulk Barn: a frog, since it goes with the Harry Potter potions and castle theme. We eat a bit at the food fair and Kendra changes and feeds Mathilda before we head back. We get into Woodstock just in time to pick Timothy up from school at 3:30. We have had to stop to change Mathilda on the way because she filled her diaper and started to cry from the discomfort: it was not feasible to drive another half hour in that state, or she'd need to breast feed again to calm down. We get home and I give Tim his birthday present since I'll miss the party the next day. I got him too much stuff: a Harry Potter quiditch team figure, window markers, a rotating H.P. lollipop - and the main event: Hagrid's Hut lego. Kendra makes brownies to be used for building Tim's birthday cake. I spend the time before dinner putting the hut together (Kendra really wants to do it too but you guessed it, she has to breast feed Mathilda). Tim eats. Kendra then feeds Mathilda some cereal, and subsequently breast feeds her. Tim's father comes to pick him up for the night, after which Kendy and I get busy with party prep : fill 10 glass vases and jars with different coloured water for the "potions" shelf, draw a dragon for the "pin the tail on the dragon" poster, blow up 36 balloons, hang up play armour pieces on the walls for decoration. We put sirloin steaks and garlic bread on the BBQ, then eat, then Kendra breast feeds Mathilda while watching tv and finally she goes to sleep at 10:30 pm. Kendra and I work on the Hogwarts birthday cake for the next couple of hours before going to bed. It's an amazing cake. I'm so tired. I can't believe how much babies need to eat. Instant Coffee Saturday Edition is an extension of Instant Coffee's email list service, which has been promoting local, national and international events to a targeted audience for over a year. Saturday Edition is a monthly email and online zine. Instant Coffee Saturday Edition takes submissions. We're interested in graphics, articles reviews and links about music, video/film, art exhibitions, architecture and design for the sections as above ... and self indulgences for the Sanka section. Send submissions to Saturday@instantcoffee.org instant coffee wants to film it's life and laugh at it later

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